[TUHS] Early supported UNIX manual

Phil Budne phil at ultimate.com
Fri Dec 23 04:52:22 AEST 2022


Rather than increase subject drift on a thread I started
"UNIX on (not quite bare) System/370", here's a new thread.

Since the TUHS archive seems to now include documentation,
I decided to take a look and see if the earliest UNIX manual I have
is in the archive:

It was given to me by a friend at Stevens Tech in Hoboken NJ (c. 1980)
who had graduated, and worked for AT&T.

It's hole punched for a four ring binder
(I found an unused Bell System Project Telstar binder to put it in).

The cover page has:

Upper left corner:
Bell Telephone Laboratories Incorperated
PROGRAM APPLICATION INSTRUCTION

Upper right corner:
PA-1C300-01
Section 1
Issue 1, January 1976
AT&TCo SPCS

Center:
UNIX PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL
Program Generic PG-1C300 Issue 2
Published by the UNIX Support Group
January, 1976

The preface starts with:

This document is published as part of the UNIX Operating System Program Generic,
PG-1C300 Issue 2.  The development of the Program Generic is the result of the
efforts of the members of the UNIX Support Group, supervised by J.F. Maranzano
and composed of: R. B. Brant, J. Feder, C. D. Perez. T. M. Raleigh, R. E. Swift,
G. C. Vogel and I. A. Winheim.

and ends with

For corrections and comments please contact C. D. Perez, MH 2C-423, Extension
6041.

Not knowing who else I could ask, I brought it to a Boston Usenix (in
the 90's or oughts), and asked DMR if he could identify it.  He said
it was an early supported UNIX, and he signed the preface page for me.

The manual has sections I through VIII; all manual pages start with page -1-

I found https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/unix_program_description_jan_1976.pdf

with cover page:
	UNIX PROGRAM DESCRIPTION
	Program Generic PG-1C300 Issue 2
	Published by the UNIX Support Group
	January 1976

contents:
	NUMBER		ISSUE	TITLE
	PD-1C301-01	1	Operating System
	PD-1C302-01	1	Device Drivers Section 1
	PD-1C303-01	1	Device Drivers Section 2

And consists of descriptions of kernel functions.

So it seems likely that my manual is a companion to that.

I have a Brother printer/scanner, but the paper is fragile, so unless
it's of immediate and burning value to someone, it's unlikely to rise
to the top of my ever-static list of documents to scan....

But if someone has specific questions I can look up, let me know....


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