[TUHS] End of an era: the last ATC (USENIX Annual Technical Conference)

[Brantley Coile]

Behind the glass wall in the basement of the University of Georgia graduate studies building, was the wide floor of the computer center and behind that was the office of one of my mentors, Bob Stearms. As he typed PL/1 into his 3278 terminal--channel connected no less--I spied a plain white book sitting on a shelf in his book case with an orange title "SOFTWARE TOOLS." I picked it up and flipped through it. It was 1980, the first year of my marriage. 

"What's this?", I asked as I pick up the volume and started flipping through it. 

"It's from the Unix guys. They wrote a pre-processor for FORTRAN and called it Ratfor. Then they wrote a bunch of the Unix programs in it."

"Can I borrow it?"

"Sure."

I changed my life. I still use what I learned from it forty-five years later. And still very happily married to the bride of my youth. 

After Bob passed away, Frieda gave me that volume. It's one of my prized possessions.

Forget Unix and C. The biggest research achievement to come out of 1127 was a clear understanding of how to program.

Brantley

> On Jul 16, 2025, at 8:09 AM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> 
> IMHO, the best tutorials on ed are the chapters in "Software Tools"
> and "Software Tools in Pascal" where Kernighan and Plauger write
> a basic version of it.  I recommend both books highly, despite
> their age.
> 
> "Software Tools" literally changed my life. :-)
> 
> Arnold
> 
> Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
>> Ah, rabbit holes. Dangerous things. I went down the ed rabbit hole around
>> a month ago and no sign of me finding my way back out any time soon.
>> 
>> I got obsessed with getting ed running on every device I have including my
>> phones and then the big rabbit hole off that first one was learning how to
>> use it properly and to the fullest of its abilities. That'll take a while.
>> 
>> My library of ed related publications is getting so big its likely
>> what's blocking the exit to the rabbit hole. On the plus side it has
>> sharpened my typing skills, improved my patience and I I've learned to
>> work out for myself what I've done to cause ed to say ?, instead of just
>> typing h+Enter.
>> 
>> As rabbit holes go, it's been stimulating so far and I could be stuck
>> in worse places.
>> 
>> Have a safe one!
>> 
>> Cameron
>> 
>> 
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> On 16/07/2025 01:01, Luther Johnson <luther.johnson at makerlisp.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> I just noticed that algorithm and logarithm just have a couple of
>>> letters transposed from each other. So that's the kind of rabbit hole I
>>> get lost in most days.
>>> 
>>