August 2020 - COFF - www.tuhs.org

by Dan Cross

He announced it on Twitter. I'm sure we all wish him well and a speedy recovery. Note, his tweet says that he is recovering. https://twitter.com/vgcerf/status/1244636584508604417?s=20

2 years, 11 months

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On the rise and fall of Gopher

by Michael Kjörling

The EFF just published an article on the rise and fall of Gopher on their Deeplinks blog. "Gopher: When Adversarial Interoperability Burrowed Under the Gatekeepers' Fortresses" https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperabil… I thought it might be of interest to people here. -- Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

2 years, 11 months

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three performance modeling books available again

by Charles H Sauer

In the early 1970s, when computing capabilities were tiny, tiny, tiny compared to even a cell phone today, and those resources were typically time-shared across multiple users, queueing network models became a primary tool to analyze and improve system performance. Queueing models had been studied for years before regarding communication systems and other systems, but networks of queues seemed especially apropos for understanding time-sharing systems. Computer Systems Performance Modeling, which Professor K.M. Chandy and I wrote in 1978-9, previously published by Pearson Education, Inc. is now out of print. We are making PDF copies of lightly edited versions available under a Creative Commons license. https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2020/08/25/computer-systems-performan… Ed MacNair and I published two books based on The Research Queueing Package, RESQ: Simulation of Computer Communication Systems and Elements of Practical Performance Modeling. Those books, previously published by Pearson Education, Inc. are now out of print. We are making PDF copies of lightly edited versions available under a Creative Commons license. Though we have written two prior articles about RESQ history, those did not cover subsequent development, so another recap seems appropriate now. https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2020/08/25/remembering-resq/ (Mainstream Videoconferencing: A Developer’s Guide to Distance Multimedia, which Joe Duran and I wrote from 1994-96, became available again in 2008: https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2008/02/14/mainstream-videoconferenci…) -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer

3 years, 8 months

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Re: [COFF] [TUHS] Monitoring by loudspeaker (was: BTL pranks)

by Michael Kjörling

(This should probably be on COFF because I don't think this has much to do with UNIX.) On 11 Jul 2020 22:22 -0400, from doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy): > a loudspeaker hooked to the low-order bit of the accumulator played > gentle white noise in the background. The noise would turn into a > shriek when the computer got into a tight loop, How did that work? I can see how tying the low-order bit of the accumulator to a loudspeaker would generate white noise as the computer is doing work; but I fail to see how doing so would even somewhat reliably generate a shrieking sound when the computer is in a tight loop. Please, enlighten me. :-) -- Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

3 years, 8 months

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Translating Schopenhauer (was: Style command source available?)

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

On Friday, 21 August 2020 at 17:23:11 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote: > > It was Schopenhauer who definetely said > > Neminem laede, imo omnes, quantum potes, juva! How about that, I even understood that. But for the fun of it I put it through Google Translate, and the result is worth showing: Truth injures no one, nay more, all, as much as you are able to: strengthen the faint! Of course, if you drop the !, it changes to: Truth injures no one, nay more, all, as much as you can, help the How I love syntax-independent translation! Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA

3 years, 8 months

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Re: [COFF] [TUHS] Memory management in Dennis Ritchie's C Compiler

by Lars Brinkhoff

Noel Chiappa writes: > > From: Larry > > It's possible the concept existed in some other OS but I'm not > > aware of it. > > It's pretty old. Both TENEX and ITS had the ability to map file pages > into a process' address space. I have a date for when this feature was announced for ITS. The previous .CBLK UUO could not access files. RMS 09/30/73 10:13:28 JOBS! BE FIRST IN YOUR TREE TO INSERT A DISK FILE PAGE! SEE .INFO.;CORBLK ORDER FOR DETAILS. (This is now redirected to COFF.) In related news: A rather complete full dump of the MIT-AI PDP-10 from 1971 has been found. It includes full source code and documentation for the system, including ITS version 671, DDT, TECO, MIDAS, (MAC)LISP, CHESS (MacHack), MUDDLE, LOGO, MACSYMA, etc.

3 years, 8 months

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Re: [COFF] [TUHS] Memory management in Dennis Ritchie's C Compiler

by Tony Finch

--> COFF Paul Winalski <paul.winalski(a)gmail.com> wrote: mmap() / $CRETVA > The VMS image activator (runtime loader in Unix-speak) used these > primitives to load program images into virtual memory. More than one > process can map the same region of a file. This is how sharing of > read-only program segments such as .text is implemented. > > I think Burroughs OSes had this concept even before VMS. Did MULTICS work the same way? The Manchester / Ferranti Atlas had virtual memory in 1962 but I don't know how much they used it for multiprogramming (and by implication shared text segments) - it didn't do timesharing until later, but AIUI virtual memory helped it to have an exceptionally good job throughput for the time. Perhaps their motivation was more to do with having a good shared implementation of overlays and paged IO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-level_store Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch <dot(a)dotat.at> http://dotat.at/ reject all prejudice and discrimination based upon race, colour, religion, age, disability, gender, or sexual orientation

3 years, 8 months

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Re: [COFF] [TUHS] A/UX [was Linux is on-topic]

by Tony Finch

moving to COFF ... Thomas Paulsen <thomas.paulsen(a)firemail.de> wrote: > >I'm sure everyone here knows this, but the Cray 1 (I think, the one > that had what looked like a circular bench seat around the bottom) was > designed like that because the clock was at the center and the clock > signal went to all the boards and was right because all the clock lines > to the boards were the same length.< > > you mean that? https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Cray-1-deutsches-museum… I found the Cray 1M site planning reference manual very interesting - here's a summary with links to the actual documents http://www.howtospotapsychopath.com/2012/06/15/they-called-it-big-iron-for-… Tony. -- f.anthony.n.finch <dot(a)dotat.at> http://dotat.at/ Ardnamurchan Point to Cape Wrath: North or northeast 3 to 5, becoming variable 2 at times. Slight or moderate, becoming smooth or slight between Barra and Canna. Fog patches. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor.

3 years, 8 months

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Re: [COFF] [TUHS] 2bsd tarball -> pdtar, with a side of uuslave

by Nemo

(Sent to COFF as too far afield for a subthread) On 29/07/2020, John Gilmore <gnu(a)toad.com> wrote (in part): [...] > There was another chapter to the "tar wars" after UNIX and after POSIX. First, thank you for the chapter. #6-) > I put the pdtar code into the public domain, so it could be widely used. > This produced a variety of support headaches. [...] This eventually led me to > understand more of the value in using the GNU General Public License. As everyone knows, a lot of Usenet source was released into the public domain. I have been told, time and again, by IP lawyers never to release s/w unencumbered. Without an appropriate encumbrance, the author may be liable for any damage caused by said s/w -- as insane as that sounds. (I was told that there is even case law but I cannot remember what.) So your support woes could have been worse. N.

3 years, 8 months

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Cheby[cs]hev (was: Regular Expressions)

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

[Moved to COFF] On Monday, 10 August 2020 at 9:53:14 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote: > Interesting; I was taught it was "Chebychev", which as second ranking > doesn't even come close to "Chebyshev"... > > Possibly a cultural thing; I went to an Australian university (UNSW). I don't think so, more like coincidence. I first came across the name as "Chebyshev" at the CSIRO in Melbourne. But the difference in spelling could be attributed to the person doing the transliteration: "ch" in French corresponds in sound to "sh" in English. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA

3 years, 8 months

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COFF August 2020