[TUHS] README

[Clem Cole via TUHS]

Below

Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual


On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM Al Kossow via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> On 12/22/25 6:14 PM, Marc Donner via TUHS wrote:
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/README#History
>
> isn't this a reference to Alice in Wonderland?

Certainly that was my experience.  But as I said, I think it was an idea
that was created a few times.  I also remember files called “READ THIS 1ST”
and similar names.  Another thing that was sometimes done was put a few
zeros In name so the file was the sorted to be the first file you would see
when a directory was listed.

BTW way the reference to Berkeley SPICE for the PDP-10 is telling.  We
never had a PDP-10 in the UCB CAD group.  We had CDC6600 originally and an
IBM 360.  Ellis Cohen was the original author.  And yes certainly he had
README files in the  basic distribution (FORTRAN 80 column card images)
from the Industrial Liaison Office (ILO) in the early 1970s  explaining how
to compile and build it [FWIW: the ILO a few years later would be how Bill
Joy distributed the Berkeley (UNIX) Software Distribution.