[TUHS] dmr streams & networking [was: Re: If not Linux, then what?]
Angelo Papenhoff
aap at papnet.eu
Wed Aug 28 20:44:59 AEST 2019
On 28/08/19, Paul Ruizendaal wrote:
>
> There is some contemporary material that gives a bit of context. The quotes are a bit contradictory and perhaps reflect evolving views.
>
> [1]
>
> The original dmr paper (1984) on streams (http://cm.bell-labs.co/who/dmr/st.html) seems to support the no networking view, focussing on terminal handling in its discussion. Also, near the end it says: "Streams are linear connections; by themselves, they support no notion of multiplexing, fan-in or fan-out. [...] It seems likely that a general multiplexing mechanism could help in both cases, but again, I do not yet know how to design it.” This seems to exclude usage for networking, which is typically multiplexed.
>
> [2]
>
> However, now that the V8 sources are available it is clear that the streams mechanism was used (by dmr?) to implement TCP/IP networking. He explains how that tallies with the above quote on multiplexing in a 1985 usenet post: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topicsearchin/net.unix-wizards/subject$3Astreams/net.unix-wizards/b7W_j_0qASU
> The config files in the surviving TUHS V8 source tree actually match with the setup that dmr described in the penultimate paragraph.
>
Something else I found interesting is in v8's blit/Road.map:
"Next, operating systems. We run under Berkeley 4.1bsd or Dennis Ritchie's
stacked line-discipline system."
That sounds to me like an early v8. If not, what was it? I'm really
interested in the timeline here. How long was research running on a
PDP-11 and when did they move to a VAX?
aap
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