February 2023 - COFF - www.tuhs.org

Re: [TUHS] Re: Unix game origins - stories similar to Crowther's Adventure

by Dan Cross

[TUHS to Bcc] On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 3:23 PM Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy(a)dartmouth.edu> wrote: > > In the annals of UNIX gaming, have there ever been notable games that have operated as multiple processes, perhaps using formal IPC or even just pipes or shared files for communication between separate processes > > I don't know any Unix examples, but DTSS (Dartmouth Time Sharing > System) "communication files" were used for the purpose. For a fuller > story see https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/DTSS/commfiles.pdf Interesting. This is now being discussed on the Multicians list (which had a DTSS emulator! Done for use by SIPB). Warren Montgomery discussed communication files under DTSS for precisely this kind of thing; apparently he had a chess program he may have run under them. Barry Margolin responded that he wrote a multiuser chat program using them on the DTSS system at Grumman. Margolin suggests a modern Unix-ish analogue may be pseudo-ttys, which came up here earlier (I responded pointing to your wonderful note linked above). > > This is probably a bit more Plan 9-ish than UNIX-ish > > So it was with communication files, which allowed IO system calls to > be handled in userland. Unfortunately, communication files were > complicated and turned out to be an evolutionary dead end. They had > had no ancestral connection to successors like pipes and Plan 9. > Equally unfortunately, 9P, the very foundation of Plan 9, seems to > have met the same fate. I wonder if there was an analogy to multiplexed files, which I admit to knowing very little about. A cursory glance at mpx(2) on 7th Edition at least suggests some surface similarities. - Dan C.

1 month, 3 weeks

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Re: [TUHS] Re: Generational development [was Re: Re: Early GUI on Linux]

by Dan Cross

[COFF] On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 4:16 PM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey(a)case.edu> wrote: > On 2/27/23 4:01 PM, segaloco wrote: > > The official Rust book lists a blind script grab from a website piped into a shell as their "official" install mechanism. > > Well, I suppose if it's from a trustworthy source... > > (Sorry, my eyes rolled so hard they're bouncing on the floor right now.) I find this a little odd. If I go back to O'Reilly books from the early 90s, there was advice to do all sorts of suspect things in them, such as fetching random bits of pieces from random FTP servers (or even using email fetch tarballs [!!]). Or downloading shell archives from USENET. And of course you _can_ download the script and read through it if you want. And no one forces anyone to use `rustup`. Most vendors ship some version of Rust through their package management system these days. - Dan C.

6 months, 4 weeks

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Re: [TUHS] Re: Generational development [was Re: Re: Early GUI on Linux]

by Dan Cross

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 5:06 PM KenUnix <ken.unix.guy(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Have they not heard of common sense? Whenever I get something from git I look through it to > check for something suspicious before using it and then and only then do I do make install. Up to what size? What about the dependencies? How about the compiler that compiles it all? I have a copy of the Linux kernel I checked out on my machine; it's many millions of lines of code; sorry, I haven't read all of that. I often install things using the operating system's package manager; I haven't read through all that code, either. Life's too short as it is! > And today's cookie cutter approach to writing software means they are not learning anything > but copy paste. Where's the innovation? I imagine that when people made the switch from programming in machine code to symbolic assemblers, and then again from assembler to higher-level languages (FORTRAN! COBOL! PL/I!). And so on. Consider that, perhaps, the innovation is in how those things are all combined to do something useful for users. My ability to search, read documents, listen to music, watch real-time video, etc, is way beyond anything I could do on the machines of the early 90s. Not everything that the kids do these days is for the better, but not everything is terrible, either. This list, and TUHS, bluntly, too often makes the mistake of assuming that it is. Innovation didn't stop in 1989. - Dan C. > On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 4:22 PM Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> [COFF] >> >> On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 4:16 PM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey(a)case.edu> wrote: >> > On 2/27/23 4:01 PM, segaloco wrote: >> > > The official Rust book lists a blind script grab from a website piped into a shell as their "official" install mechanism. >> > >> > Well, I suppose if it's from a trustworthy source... >> > >> > (Sorry, my eyes rolled so hard they're bouncing on the floor right now.) >> >> I find this a little odd. If I go back to O'Reilly books from the >> early 90s, there was advice to do all sorts of suspect things in them, >> such as fetching random bits of pieces from random FTP servers (or >> even using email fetch tarballs [!!]). Or downloading shell archives >> from USENET. >> >> And of course you _can_ download the script and read through it if you want. >> >> And no one forces anyone to use `rustup`. Most vendors ship some >> version of Rust through their package management system these days. >> >> - Dan C. > > > > -- > End of line > JOB TERMINATED > >

7 months

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Re: [TUHS] Generational development [was Re: Re: Early GUI on Linux]

by Dan Cross

On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 4:52 PM Michael Stiller <mstiller(a)me.com> wrote: > > I find this a little odd. If I go back to O'Reilly books from the > > early 90s, there was advice to do all sorts of suspect things in them, > > such as fetching random bits of pieces from random FTP servers (or > > even using email fetch tarballs [!!]). Or downloading shell archives > > from USENET. > > > > And of course you _can_ download the script and read through it if you want. > > This does not help, you can detect that on the server and send something else. What? You've already downloaded the script. Once it's on your local machine, why would you download it again? > https://www.idontplaydarts.com/2016/04/detecting-curl-pipe-bash-server-side/ If I really wanted to see whether it had been tampered with, perhaps spin up a sacrificial machine and run, curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | tee the.script | sh and compare to the output of, curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs > the.script.nopipeshell - Dan C.

7 months

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Re: [TUHS] Re: Generational development [was Re: Re: Early GUI on Linux]

by Dan Cross

[Redirecting to COFF; TUHS to Bcc:] On Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 3:46 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote: > I see the wisdom in your last line there, I've typed and deleted a response to this email 4 times, each one more convoluted than the last. > > The short of my stance though is, as a younger programmer (29), I am certainly not a fan of these trends that are all too common in my generation. That said, I've set foot in one single softare-related class in my life (highschool Java class) and so I don't really know what is being taught to folks going the traditional routes. All I know from my one abortive semester of college is that I didn't see a whole lot of reliance on individual exploration of concepts in classes, just everyone working to a one-size-fits-all understanding of how to be a good employee in a given subject area. Of course, this is also influenced by my philosophy and biases and such, and only represents 4-5 months of observation, but if my minimal experience with college is to be believed, I have little faith that educational programs are producing much more than meat filters between StackOverflow and <insert code editor here>. No offense to said meat filters, people gotta work, but there is something lost when the constant march of production torpedoes individual creativity. Then again, do big firms want sophisticated engineers or are we too far gone into assembly line programming with no personal connection to any of the products? I'm glad I'm as personally involved in the stuff I work with, I could see myself slipping into the same patterns of apathy if I was a nameless face in a sea of coders on some project I don't even know the legal name of any given day. This is an extraordinarily complicated subject, and it's really full of nuance. In general, I think your categorization is unfair. It sounds like you had a bad experience in your first semester of college. I can sympathize; I did too. But a thing to bear in mind is that in the first year, universities are taking kids (and yes, they are kids...sorry young folks, I don't mean that as a pejorative, but consider the context! For most young people this is their first experience living on their own, their first _real_ taste of freedom, and the first where they're about to be subject to rigorous academic expectations without a lot of systemic support) with wildly uneven academic and social backgrounds and preparing them for advanced study in a particular field...one that most haven't even identified for themselves yet. For the precocious student, this will feel stifling; for many others it will be a struggle. What, perhaps, you see as lack of intellectual curiosity may have in fact been the outward manifestations of that struggle. That said...Things are, legitimately, very different today than they were when Unix was young. The level of complexity has skyrocketed in every dimension, and things have gotten to the point where hack upon hack has congealed into a system that's nearly bursting at the seams. It's honestly amazing that anything works at all. That said, good things have been invented since 1985, and the way many of us "grew up" thinking about problems doesn't always apply anymore. The world changes; c'est la vie. - Dan C. > ------- Original Message ------- > On Monday, February 27th, 2023 at 12:22 PM, arnold(a)skeeve.com <arnold(a)skeeve.com> wrote: > > > > Chet Ramey chet.ramey(a)case.edu wrote: > > > > > On 2/27/23 3:04 PM, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote: > > > > > > > IMHO the dependence upon IDEs is crippling; they cut & paste to the > > > > almost total exclusion of the keyboard, including when shell completion > > > > would be faster. > > > > > > Don't forget cargo-culting by pasting shell commands they got from the web > > > and barely understand, if at all. > > > > > > Yeah, really. > > > > I do what I can, but it's a very steep uphill battle, as most > > don't even understand that they're missing something, or that > > they could learn it if they wanted to. > > > > I think I'll stop ranting before I really get going. :-) > > > > Arnold

7 months

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Re: [TUHS] Re: Origins of the SGS (System Generation Software) and COFF (Common Object File Format)

by Lars Brinkhoff

Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> writes: > @scj - any enlightenment -- your team in USG must have been part of all > that. SMTP supports @-mention now? ;-)

7 months

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Re: Help needed with some old VAX Machines (moved from TUHS)

by segaloco

COFF transfer, TUHS Bcc'd to know where this thread went. Between the two if you're not doing UNIX-specific things but just trying to resurrect/restore these, COFF will probably be the better place for further discussion. @OP if you're not a member of COFF already, you should be able to reach out to Warren Toomey regarding subscription. If you're feeling particularly adventurous, NetBSD still supports VAX in some manner: http://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/vax/ YMMV, but I've had some success with NetBSD on some pretty oddball stuff. As the old saying goes, "Of course it runs NetBSD". You might be able to find some old VMS stuff for them as well, but I wouldn't know where to point you other than bitsavers. There's some other archival site out there with a bunch of old DEC stuff but I can never seem to find it when I search for it, only by accident. Best of luck! - Matt G. ------- Original Message ------- On Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023 at 10:08 AM, jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu <jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote: > > From: Maciej Jan Broniarz > > > > Our local Hackroom acquired some VAX Station machines. > > > Exactly what sort of VAXstations? There are several different kinds; one: > > http://gunkies.org/wiki/VAXstation_100 > > doesn't even include a VAX; it's just a branding deal from DEC Marketing. > Start with finding out exactly which kind(s) of VAXstation you have. > > Noel

7 months

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Music!

by Mike Markowski

This is far afield even for COFF, so apologies up front. Machines and OSes we fondly remember get older day by day. But many labs I worked in during undergrad & grad years and then in the workforce always had a radio going, and music never seems to age. When I hear Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" or Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes," it's RSTS/E on a PDP11/70 as a teen, my first exposure to computers. Kraftwerk and Big Audio Dynamite mean Unix with Mike Muuss at Ballistic Research Lab in the early 90s. I had PX (military Post Exchange) privileges which Mike used to the fullest to buy fantastic lab speakers. The old ENIAC room, our work space, had thick walls. :-) I wonder if particular music transports any others back to computing days of old. The current lab I'm in receives exactly 1 radio station from a local high school and streaming is blocked. Not sure that any new musical memories will be formed for my ever nearer days of retirement! Musically yours, Mike Markowski

7 months, 2 weeks

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Re: [TUHS] Re: project athena (was Re: Setting up an X Development Environment for Mac OS)

by Lars Brinkhoff

Jonathan Gray wrote: >> Any chance this DOS supdup software is still around? > > https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1985.pdf > http://www.bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/ Great, thanks! It's a bit sad to read in supdup.mss "Unfortunately, very few machines have TCP/Supdup servers. The only servers known to us are on Mit-MC and Su-AI, and 4.2 Unix machines running a server we distribute." At this point, three old ITS machines had recently fallen over, one after the other, and MC was the only one left standing. But not long after, four new ones would appear. One of which is still up and running!

7 months, 2 weeks

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Re: [TUHS] Re: project athena (was Re: Setting up an X Development Environment for Mac OS)

by Lars Brinkhoff

s/TUHS/COFF/ Theodore Ts'o wrote: > The only I saw were PC/AT's (that is, the ones with the '286 CPU) that > ran DOS and which were essentially used only to telnet to the Vax > 750's (or supdup to the MIT AI / LCS lab machines, but most > undergraduates didn't have access to those computers Any chance this DOS supdup software is still around? Was it part of PC/TCP? I searched around and found this: https://windowsbulletin.com/files/exe/ftp-software-inc/pc-tcp

7 months, 2 weeks

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COFF February 2023