[TUHS] Any UNIX With No C In Userland?

[Dan Cross]

On Mon, Mar 3, 2025 at 6:01 PM Rob Gingell <gingell at computer.org> wrote:
> [snip]
> The UNIX-related part of this was that among the things we used BLISS
> for was a package called PAUNIX that attempted to implement the V7 UNIX
> interfaces using the mechanisms/form used to implement TOPS-10
> compatibility (PA1050). Like the TOPS-10 compatibility it was a run-time
> veneer over TOPS-20 that mapped the UNIX functionality onto it and
> buffered the differences. I describe it as "attempted to" as it was
> successful as far as it got but it was a hobby project that got to about
> 80% done (meaning about 80% of the total effort remained) before life
> and other assignments preempted it.
>
> (Although, with my PiDP-10 running TOPS-20, a fun exercise in nostalgic
> futility might be to haul PAUNIX out of the closet and try to finish it.)

As an aside, Ken Harrenstein wrote a C compiler for the PDP-10 and a
support library that was "good enough" to port a number of GNU tools
to TOPS-20, including bash:

@i vers
 Indra, PANDA TOPS-20 Monitor 7.1(21733)-4
 PANDA TOPS-20 Command processor 7.1(4453)-4
@sh
bash$ echo $BASH_VERSION
1.12.1
bash$
bash$ exit
exit
@@
@

Kind of impressive, really.

        - Dan C.