[TUHS] the first busybox

[Dan Cross via TUHS]

On Thu, Oct 22, 2026 at 1:46 AM ron minnich via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:
> The first busybox I recall using was on Sun systems (SuntTools?) where many
> window applications were linked into one binary.
>
> I may have got the various names wrong; it's been 35 years. But I'm
> wondering: did something predate that?
>
> What was the "first busybox"?

I remember seeing something like that with "miniroots", that were
meant to be written to a swap partition from a standalone loader, and
then you'd boot from swap.  I think the IBM RT used that to do
installation, or possibly very low-level repair of a busted
filesystem.  I doubt that predates the Sun window system, though: IBM
was late getting thus underpowered boat anchors to market, so I'd
imagine the technique was pretty well-known by then.

        - Dan C.