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

[durtal via TUHS]

Thanks for this update...I found your earlier work very helpful in getting 
things up and running. I haven't had the time to look at the v7 info.
Your Apple II assembly work has been much appreciated as well. However,
I'm still trying to get my head around it % ).

BTW, nine years ago a Texas boy whisked away our Aussie daughter. They
live in Cedar Hill with two of our grandchildren.

Rick


On Fri, 24 Jul 2026, Will Senn via TUHS wrote:

> Date: Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:23:57 -0500
> From: Will Senn via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> Reply-To: Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com>
> To: "tuhs at tuhs.org" <tuhs at tuhs.org>
> Subject: [TUHS] Setting Up UNIX?Sixth Edition: An OpenSIMH Laboratory for
>     Reading Lions
> 
> 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
>
>

durtal at sdf.org
SDF Public Access UNIX System - https://sdf.org