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

[Will Senn]

Learn's great and it's "easy" to get working in SimH. I included it in 
my tutorial:

https://decuser.github.io/unix/research-unix/v7/2024/05/23/research-unix-v7-3.2.html

Will



On 7/16/25 16:59, Noel Hunt wrote:
> Seventh Edition Unix came with a program 'learn', written by
> Brian Kernighan, which was a front-end to a group of tutorials
> on 'ed', 'tbl', 'troff' etc.
>
> The 'ed' tutorial was a wonderful introduction to the editor,
> and a model of clarity, as indeed they all were, but that was
> typical of everything written by researchers who were at 1127.
>
> On Wed, 16 Jul 2025 at 22:53, Brantley Coile <brantley at coraid.com> wrote:
>
>     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.
>     >>>
>     >>
>
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