> From: Will Senn
> So, where's a good place to pester folks for help in 211BSD, v6, v7 when
> it's less along the historical interest line and more along the help I
> can't get this or that working line?
> ...
> The question may be 211bsd, but the same type of questions often
> arise for the research unixes as well. Any suggestions about where to
> throw these kinds of vintage unix tech support questions?
I'd just say TUHS. Your questions would me more on-topic than 1/3 of the posts.
Noel
So, where's a good place to pester folks for help in 211BSD, v6, v7 when
it's less along the historical interest line and more along the help I
can't get this or that working line?
As an example, I'm having some challenges with the networking in 211,
right now. I finally (after on again off again attempts over 2 years)
gotten both a vanilla 211BSD p195 system to be accessible via telnet on
my local lan and am able to ping out to the internet, if I so choose,
and Andru Luvisi's 211BSD p495 doing networking as well. Thanks to
Andru's notes and Warner Losh's blog. In both cases, everything just
"works"... well most things work :). In the 195 system, I don't seem to
be able to get hostname set correctly:
Assuming NETWORKING system ...
sparks: bad value
add net default: gateway 192.168.2.1
Whereas on the 495 system, it sets fine...
Assuming NETWORKING system ...
add host sparks: gateway localhost
add net default: gateway 192.168.2.1
and on the 195 system, name resolution doesn't seem to function, whereas
it does on the 495 system.
On neither of the systems do I know how to display the routes (no
netstat and route doesn't seem to have a display mode).
Anyhow, I'm not really asking the question here (feel free to answer it
though, if you feel so inclined), but it's the kind of question that I
sit on not knowing where to ask it. I know that I often tread the
knife's edge between interesting and annoying on some of my questions in
TUHS and SIMH because of my lack of knowledge around these systems, but
I really enjoy working in them when they work and have found that
everything I learn interacting with these ancient systems significantly
enhances my skills in the modern realm at least with regards to
FreeBSD/Linux and Mac. Whereas, on the other hand, most of what I know
about the modern systems doesn't really have an easily accessible analog
in ancient unix. Take the question above, to view the route table in
freebsd - it's just netstat -r, easypeasy, what the heck it might be in
211bsd is a complete mystery. Grepping the manual turns up nothing that
I recognize, which is more often the case than I'd like to admit.
The question may be 211bsd, but the same type of questions often arise
for the research unixes as well. Any suggestions about where to throw
these kinds of vintage unix tech support questions?
Regards,
Will
--
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This topic is still primarily UNIX but is getting near the edge of COFF, so
I'll CC there if people want to follow up.
As I mentioned to Will, during the time Research was doing the work/put out
their 'editions', the 'releases' were a bit more ephemeral - really a set
of bits (binary and hopefully matching source, but maybe not always)
that become a point in time. With 4th (and I think 5th) Editions it was a
state of disk pack when the bits were copies, but by 6th edition, as Noel
points out, there was a 'master tape' that the first site at an
institution received upon executing of a signed license, so the people at
each institution (MIT, Purdue, CMU, Harvard) passed those bits around
inside.
But what is more, is what Noel pointed out, we all passed source code and
binaries between each other, so DNA was fairly mixed up [sorry Larry - it
really was 'Open Source' between the licensees]. Sadly, it means some
things that actually were sourced at one location and one system, is
credited sometimes credited from some other place the >>wide<< release was
in USG or BSD [think Jim Kulp's Job control, which ended up in the kernel
and csh(1) as part in 4BSD, our recent discussions on the list about
more/pg/less, the different networking changes from all of MIT/UofI/Rand,
Goble's FS fixes to make the thing more crash resilient, the early Harvard
ar changes - *a.k.a.* newar(1) which became ar(1), CMU fsck, e*tc*.].
Eventually, the AT&T Unix Support Group (USG) was stood up in Summit, as I
understand it, originally for the Operating Companies as they wanted to use
UNIX (but not for the licenses, originally). Steve Johnson moved from
Research over there and can tell you many more of the specifics.
Eventually (*i.e.* post-Judge Green), distribution to the world moved from
MH's Research and the Patent Licensing teams to USG and AT&T North Carolina
business folks.
That said, when the distribution of UNIX moved to USG in Summit, things started
to a bit more formal. But there were still differences inside, as we have
tried to unravel. PWB/TS and eventually System x. FWIW, BSD went
through the same thing. The first BSD's are really the binary state of the
world on the Cory 11/70, later 'Ernie.' By the time CSRG gets stood
up because their official job (like USG) is to support Unix for DARPA, Sam
and company are acting a bit more like traditional SW firms with alpha/beta
releases and a more formal build process. Note that 2.X never really
went through that, so we are all witnessing the wonderful efforts to try to
rebuild early 2.X BSD, and see that the ephemeral nature of the bits has
become more obvious.
As a side story ... the fact is that even for professional SW houses, it
was not as pure as it should be. To be honest, knowing the players and
processes involved, I highly doubt DEC could rebuild early editions of VMS,
particularly since the 'source control' system was a physical flag in
Cutler's office.
The fact is that the problem of which bits were used to make what other
bits was widespread enough throughout the industry that in the mid-late 80s
when Masscomp won the bid to build the system that Nasa used to control the
space shuttle post-Challenger, a clause of the contract was that we have
put an archive of the bits running on the build machine ('Yeti'), a copy of
the prints and even microcode/PAL versions so that Ford Aerospace (the
prime contractor) could rebuild the exact system we used to build the
binaries for them if we went bankrupt. I actually, had a duplicate of that
Yeti as my home system ('Xorn') in my basement when I made some money for a
couple of years as a contract/on-call person for them every time the
shuttle flew.
Anyway - the point is that documentation and actual bits being 100% in sync
is nothing new. Companies work hard to try to keep it together, but
different projects work at different speeds. In fact, the 'train release'
model is what is usually what people fall into. You schedule a release of
some piece of SW and anything that goes with it, has to be on the train or
it must wait for the next one. So developers and marketing people in firms
argue what gets to be the 'engine' [hint often its HW releases which are a
terrible idea, but that's a topic for COFF].
On 8/1/20 9:13 AM, Larry McVoy wrote:
> My dad wasn't famous, but he had a PhD in physics. He never asked people
> to call him Dr McVoy. As we grew up and realized he could be called that
> we asked him why not. He said it sounds fancy, the only time he used it
> was when he wanted a table at a crowded restaurant (which was very rare,
> Madison didn't pay him very well).
>
> Somehow that stuck with me and I've always been sort of wary of people
> who use their title. The people I admire never did.
>
> Someone on the list said that they thought Dennis wouldn't appreciate
> it if we got his PhD official. I couldn't put my finger on it at the
> time, but I agreed. And I think it is because the people who are really
> great don't need or want the fancy title. I may be over thinking it,
> but Dennis does not need the title, it does nothing to make his legacy
> better, his legacy is way way more than that title.
>
> Which is a long ramble to say I agree with Markus.
I agree with your dad, completely, it's fancy. I too am uncomfortable
with the title. I think it's because I was a street kid and as the
saying goes, you can take the kid out of the street, but you can't take
the street out of the kid. I work in the academy, so it's prevalent, but
I find it pretentious to insist on people calling you doctor. I ask
people to just call me Will. It's interesting to watch the reactions.
Some folks are glad to, some are fearful to (mostly students), and some
outright reject the proposition (mostly those pretentious types).
With regards to Dennis and his view on things, I haven't the slightest
clue, but if someone were to present him with an honorary degree, it
would be their attempt to recognize his exemplary contributions and
would not be meant as anything other than highest praise. As someone who
loves programming in C, I'm a direct beneficiary of his legacy and would
gladly support his being recognized in this manner. I know several
people who have been granted honorary doctorates, at least one of who
had no prior degree. They accepted and enjoyed telling their close
friends about their now having to call them doctor, but otherwise taking
it as a compliment and honor and not bothering about the title.
Will
--
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