[TUHS] UNIX v4 Source Code Commentary - complete book now available

Briam Rodriguez via TUHS tuhs at tuhs.org
Tue Jan 13 07:37:29 AEST 2026


Hello,

Following the incredible recovery of the UNIX v4 tape from the University
of Utah last month, I've written a comprehensive line-by-line commentary
on the entire UNIX Fourth Edition source code.

The book covers:
- The kernel (boot, processes, memory management, scheduling)
- The file system (inodes, buffer cache, namei)
- Device drivers (TTY, RK05 disk, character devices)
- User space (shell, utilities, C compiler, assembler)
- Plus appendices with system call reference, file formats, and PDP-11 guide

It's open source (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) and available on GitHub:

https://github.com/unix-v4-commentary/unix-v4-source-commentary

The PDF is included in the repo for those who just want to read.

It is my sincerest hope that this book can help someone, and I'd 
appreciate any feedback (and changes!).

Many thanks to Robert Ricci, and Al Kossow, and everyone involved in 
recovering this historic code.

Without that work, this book wouldn't have been possible. Also thanks to 
Mr. Warren for letting me in to the mailing list!

Please don't beat me up too bad!

Humbly yours,

Briam Rodriguez



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