[TUHS] Setting Up UNIX—Sixth Edition: An OpenSIMH Laboratory for Reading Lions

[Will Senn via TUHS]

Hi all,

I support the proposed IEEE Milestone recognizing John Lions' UNIX 
Operating System Source Code Level Six and A Commentary on the UNIX 
Operating System. Few works have had a comparable influence on operating 
systems education, and it is fitting to see them considered for formal 
recognition.

With that discussion underway, I thought I would mention a companion 
resource I have just completed.

For the past several years, I have been working with V6 under OpenSIMH 
for a variety of purposes, and I have written up the general 
installation and customization process before. This is not another of 
those notes. Setting Up UNIX—Sixth Edition: An OpenSIMH Laboratory for 
Reading Lions is written in the genre of Thompson and Ritchie's original 
memo: a procedure, in their register, addressed to someone assembling a 
specific machine and environment. Its scope is both narrower than theirs 
and broader. It constructs a modern virtual counterpart to the 
laboratory in which Lions' students worked. An installation guide ends 
at a login prompt, but this guide goes further: to a correspondence 
among the running kernel, the source tree from which it was built, and 
the listing Lions annotates, all resolvable against one another.

The original laboratory required a PDP-11/40, controllers, several RK05 
drives, magnetic tape, terminals, a printer, removable media, and the 
accompanying source and documentation. In the reconstructed laboratory, 
those components take different forms. OpenSIMH supplies the processor, 
memory, controllers, and peripheral devices. The distribution tape and 
removable disk packs are represented by image files, while a modern 
terminal program provides access to the running system. The cabinets, 
motors, reels, and 14-inch platters have disappeared, but the interfaces 
presented to V6 remain those of the original machine. V6 does not know 
the difference.

The guide leads readers who want to study Lions in a working laboratory 
environment through restoring the original V6 distribution from tape, 
rebuilding the kernel, installing the complete source and documentation 
filesystems, creating the required device files, verifying the 
installation, and producing a restorable baseline archive. The completed 
laboratory is configured to match the presumed model system described by 
Lions on page 1-2 of the Commentary. It allows readers to boot the 
system, examine the installed source, rebuild the kernel, and move 
directly among the running system, the source deployed from the original 
distribution tape, and the edited listing published as UNIX Operating 
System Source Code Level Six.

The guide is intended to be used together with my updated and expanded 
edition of UNIX Operating System Source Code Level Six, which preserves 
Lions' original sheet numbering while adding file locations, procedure 
listings, indexes, cross references, and configured-kernel symbol tables 
keyed to the delivered source code. Together, the two resources make it 
possible to read Lions not only as a historical text, but against a 
living V6 system assembled from the original distribution materials.

Guide:
https://decuser.github.io/posts/setting-up-unix-sixth-edition-opensimh-laboratory-for-reading-lions/

Companion source edition:
https://decuser.github.io/posts/updated-lions-v6-source-w-appendices-and-helps-v1.4/

The guide takes me about 15 minutes to work through now, but I expect a 
careful first reading and installation will take a couple of hours.

I would be glad to hear from anyone who takes a look, even if only to 
let me know you had a chance to read it. Corrections, questions, and 
suggestions are especially welcome.

Regards,
Will