[TUHS] a book (was Re: PWB vs Unix/TS)

Adam Thornton athornton at gmail.com
Sun Sep 15 10:58:21 AEST 2019


I...have never been all that impressed with Salus's work.  It's not _bad_
but it's also not terribly insightful.

I'm not volunteering to do better, though.  At least not until after I find
out whose job it is to be the NOAO/NCOA archivist, shout and scream until
that answer is at least "someone," and get people poking and prodding the
first-generation LSST crowd for memoirs and interviews in that golden
period after they retire and no longer have careers to worry about, and
before they die.

Maybe for the seventy-fifth anniversary.

On Sat, Sep 14, 2019 at 3:47 PM Clem cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Peter Salus’s book is pretty good and what he has actuate.
>
> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
> quite.
>
> > On Sep 13, 2019, at 8:44 PM, reed at reedmedia.net wrote:
> >
> > There needs to be a book with stuff like this. There is no Unix history
> > book that I have ever seen with the depth of information in threads like
> > this and others on TUHS.  It would be a huge project and hard to tell if
> > there would me more than just recognition and intrinsic rewards for the
> > effort -- but maybe that is enough.
> >
> > (As an example, I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours
> > researching a small subset: Berkeley Unix history. Attempted to contact
> > hundreds of historical participants. Interviewed near 100 people; most
> > by email, but some in person or by phone -- even postal mail! Building a
> > massive collection of historical data. Read over 30 physical books
> > covering very small parts of the story. Watched many videos (and notes).
> > Getting documents scanned and sent to me. It is a very detailed effort
> > -- such as a single long chapter on the Virtual Vax/UNIX / London/Reiser
> > / Babaoglu story with 168 citations or the single chapters on the
> > official unofficial patchkits, lawsuit, etc. -- and there is nothing in
> > this field to compare it too. I have over 243 bibtex entries already and
> > 215 citations left to add to my .bib file. During that time, I have
> > published six other books, some written from scratch. Some have
> > suggested I use Kickstarter or similar as a financial incentive to
> > finish it off.)
> >
> > Since the Unix story is so huge, a first volume could be up through
> > System III, for example, but maybe that is too much.
> >
> > Anyone know of anyone writing a thorough Unix history book?
> >
> > Does it make sense to use a kickstarter?
> >
> > I may bring up in a different thread, but I am presenting about Unix
> > history at Dallas Ft. Worth UNIX Users Group soon. They are planning to
> > have two meetings (different months) dedicated to the history (50th
> > anniversary).
> >
> > Jeremy C. Reed
> >
> > p.s. Sorry to mention this, but time is running out:
> >
> > $ grep -i decease /home/reed/book/bsd-history/PEOPLE | wc -l
> >      17
> >
> > pps. My other chapters:
> >
> > beginning.tex:\chapter{In the beginning ...}
> >
> > 2bsd.tex:\chapter{Second Berkeley Software Tape}
> >
> > 3bsd.tex:\chapter{Welcome to Virtual Vax/UNIX}
> >
> > 2bsd-part2.tex:\chapter{2BSD becomes an operating system}
> >
> > 4bsd.tex:\chapter{4BSD}
> >
> > 43bsd.tex:\chapter{4.3BSD -- The Internet Server}
> >
> > 2bsd-part3.tex:\chapter{The 16-bit 2BSD continues}
> >
> > 43bsd-part2.tex:\chapter{To open source BSD}
> >
> > commercial.tex:\chapter{Commercial Unixes using BSD}
> >
> > 44bsd.tex:\chapter{4.4BSD}
> >
> > bsdi.tex:\chapter{BSDI}
> >
> > 386bsd.tex:\chapter{386BSD Part 1}
> >
> > lawsuit.tex:\chapter{Lawsuit}
> >
> > patchkit.tex:\chapter{The official unofficial patchkits}
> >
> > netbsd.tex:\chapter{NetBSD}
> >
> > freebsd.tex:\chapter{FreeBSD}
> >
> > 386bsd-part3.tex:\chapter{386BSD Part 2}
> >
> > bsdi-part2.tex:\chapter{BSDI part 2}
> >
> > openbsd.tex:\chapter{OpenBSD}
> >
> > netbsd-part2.tex:\chapter{NetBSD -- Part 2}
> >
> > dragonfly.tex:\chapter{DragonFly BSD}
> >
> > 3bsd-license.tex:\chapter{3BSD Software Agreement (1979)}
> >
> > 4bsd-license.tex:\chapter{4BSD Software Agreement (1980)}
> >
> >
> >
> > -----------------------
> >
> > echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
> > tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"
>
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