[TUHS] Origins and life of the pg pager

[Rob Pike]

I had forgotten about that tool, along with many others. "Comp" sounds
plausible but as I said, I forget. (Not a sign of age; my memory for
details is no match for Clem's; to me stage actors are superheroes).

I do remember the tool existing, though, and now see it as related to a
long list of similar things, including "go generate". I wonder if my
subconscious held on to it.

This history stuff is fun because of the reminder of a time when tools were
simple and you could create a whole new one in an afternoon.

-rob


On Tue, Jun 16, 2020 at 6:26 AM Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

> Rob Pike:
>
>   Yeah, p is all we need. I think it originated with td at UofT. I might
> have
>   brought it with me to Bell Labs, or recreated it. Probably the former.
>
> ====
>
> The former, I think.  The source code in V10 is very similar
> to that you left behind at Caltech (where I first encountered
> p).  Most differences have to do with using opendir and readdir
> rather than reading raw directories in the SPname code.
>
> A further clue is that, even in V10, p.c begins
>
> /*%cc p.c pad.o spname.o
>  */
>
> The tool that looked for such lines to tell it how to compile
> things (I forget its name; was it comp?) doesn't seem to have
> survived in the archival backup I have from Caltech HEP, but
> I'm quite sure it came from U of T as well.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>
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