[TUHS] off-topic list

Clem Cole clemc at ccc.com
Tue Jun 26 01:44:19 AEST 2018


Noel, I did a quick look at that code.   That is some of it for sure -
looks like the parts in /usr/bin and maybe some of /usr/lib (MH was scatter
all of the file system in traditional UNIX manner -- lots of small programs
- each to do one job only - each fit in a small address PDP-11 just fine).
The docs are missing and the MTA part is not there (which I think I
remember was called 'submit' - but I could be very wrong on that).   It's
the second version because that code is using stdio, the first version used
a Rand IO library, if I remember right (not the portable C library).

Clem

PS For all you younger readers to this list, you need to remember that for
early C, I/O was specifically not defined as part of the language (in some
sense it is still not), so many early programs had their own libraries and
its a good way to date things.   If the code is using stdio, it actually
more 'modern' in the life of the PDP-11 [post 'typesetter C'].     BTW: I
can say, in the mid 1970s, I personally found the lack of defined I/O
confusing when I was learning the language and (remember Dennis has not yet
written the 'White Book' which was really part of V7).   It was one of my
bitches about C compared to BLISS, which was what I was coming and was a
very rich system at CMU - while I/O in C was really a pain because ever
program did it different - everybody wrote their own routines - which I
thought was silly.   Soon there after the 'portable C library' appeared and
then with typesetter C, stdio.

ᐧ

On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 10:44 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > From: Clem Cole
>
>     > I may have the the original Rand MH release somewhere.
>
> There's this:
>
>   https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SRI-NOSC/mh
>
> Not sure how modified from the formal release this is, it may be pretty
> much
> the original (it's certainly quite old - pre-TCP/IP).
>
>     Noel
>
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