I've assembled some notes from old manuals and other sources
on the formats used for on-disk file systems through the
Seventh Edition:
http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~norman/old-unix/old-fs.html
Additional notes, comments on style, and whatnot are welcome.
(It may be sensible to send anything in the last two categories
directly to me, rather than to the whole list.)
To clean up some of the questions:
We (in our group) owned successively two photographic
typesetters:
The original Graphics Systems
C/A/T, which was used to render the camera-
ready copy for several editions of the manual,
also the first edition of K&R as well as
other books. This exposed characters
by flashing a Xenon lamp through a spinning
cylinder with the character images arranged
around the axis; the character was imaged
onto a fiber-optic bundle, which moved
horizontally with respect to the paper. The paper
was moved vertically.
The Linotron 202; it had a CRT on which lines
of characters were drawn, with an unmoving,
line-wide fiber bundle. Rollers moved the paper
vertically.
Both of these were managed by us (including
the hardware connection, via DR11-C; it stood
in for the paper tape that the manufacturers
had intended).
These used chemical processing to develop
the paper. This was messy and (especially
for the C/A/T version) smelly, so we were
glad when the local Comp Center began offering
service on an Autologic APS-5, a machine similar
in design to the 202, but better engineered,
and the comp center managed the chemistry.
This was used for the second edition of K&R,
for example. I think what we sent was troff output
which the CC converted to Postscript.
Later this service was outsourced, then dropped.
In recent years laser printers have become
good enough that decent camera-ready copy
can be generated using them (e.g. for
Kernighan and Pike, The Practice of Programming).
As for the system aspects: K&R 1 (1978) was done on
what would soon be 7th edition Unix, on 11/70;
K&R 2 (1988) using 9th edition on VAX 8550.
Kernighan and Pike's Unix Programming
Evironment (1984) used 8th edition
on VAX 11/750.
About the releases (or pseudo releases) that
Norman mentions: actually 8th edition was
somewhat real, in that a consistent tape
and captured, probably corresponds fairly
well with its manual, and was educationally
licensed for real, though not in large quantity.
9th and 10th were indeed more conceptual in that
we sent stuff to people (e.g. Norman) who asked,
but they weren't collected in complete and
coherent form.
Dennis
Fear not, Gregg; no twists intended or assumed. It could well be
that there was an earlier print run of The UNIX Programming Environment
that got it wrong and claimed to be done with V7 on an 11/750. But
I've never seen it (which is why I specified the exact edition and
printing I was quoting); and if it said that it was an error or a fib.
So far as I know nobody ever did a port of straight V7 to a VAX.
TUPE was written just before I arrived at the Labs; it's possible
that the 11/70 was still around during the writing, though it was
gone before I came. I don't know whether the name V8 was coined
before the 11/70 was retired. Maybe Dennis remembers more.
The original edition of The C Programming Language was certainly
done on an 11/70; it may have been published before the VAX hardware
existed in the field, and certainly before that part of Bell Labs
had one. My beat-up paperback copy (copyright 1978, third printing)
credits Graphic Systems for the typesetter, the 11/70 for the system
hardware, but just says UNIX--no version stated--for the OS.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
Look again. The colophon in my copy of The UNIX Programming Environment
(first paperback printing of the first edition) says
This book was typeset in Times Roman and Courier by the
authors, using a Mergenthaler Linotron 202 typesetter driven
by a VAX-11/750 running the 8th Edition of the UNIX operating
system.
I don't have a copy of the latter-day (now contains ISO) C book, but
if I recall correctly when it was written, it was probably typed in
on a VAX 8550 running the 9th edition system. Probably it was the
latter-day 9th, which had crept along quite a bit beyond the hasty
9/e manual. After I made some radical changes to the way device
drivers plugged into the kernel, I changed it to print `9Vr2' when
it booted, partly to distinguish the old system from the newer one
and partly to annoy enough people to reach critical energy to produce
a 10/e manual. The tactic took a while but was ultimately successful.
For those who don't know the historic chain, the systems loosely
called V8, V9, and V10 were never real releases in any sense; they
were just names hung on the continuously-evolving system we ran in
the 1980s in the Computing Science Research Center at Bell Labs.
Brian and Dennis and Rob (and, for six years, I) used that system
for everyday work as well as as a sandbox for systems work; hence
the credit in the books. There were tapes called V8 and V9 issued
to a few specific places under special on-off letter agreement, but
they correspond only approximately to the like-numbered manuals.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
(which feels a lot like New Jersey this evening)
Sorry this message was intented to be sent to the list.
(sorry gregg)
> -----Mensaje original-----
> De: Natalia Portillo [mailto:iosglpgc@teleline.es]
> Enviado el: viernes, 27 de junio de 2003 1:51
> Para: 'Gregg C Levine'
> Asunto: RE: [TUHS] Unix Derivatives and Variants
>
>
> I think that you can always compare with ice creams.
>
> UNIX is an ice cream brand.
> It have many flavours: Bell/AT&T, BSD, Xenix, AIX, A/UX,
> Coherent, etc.
> There are other brands.
> MINIX which have only a flavour.
> Linux, with many flavours as RedHat, YDL, Debian, etc
>
> > -----Mensaje original-----
> > De: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] En nombre de Gregg C Levine
> > Enviado el: martes, 24 de junio de 2003 23:29
> > Para: 'Warren Toomey'; 'The Unix Heritage Society'
> > Asunto: RE: [TUHS] Unix Derivatives and Variants
> >
> >
> > Hello from Gregg C Levine
> > Go ahead and laugh, but your server could be having a bad day today.
> > That being said, I am curious myself, as to the differences. Can
> > someone come up with the definite explanation regarding which is
> > which?
> > -------------------
> > Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon(a)worldnet.att.net
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > "The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
> > "Use the Force, Luke." Obi-Wan Kenobi
> > (This company dedicates this E-Mail to General Obi-Wan Kenobi )
> > (This company dedicates this E-Mail to Master Yoda )
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] On
> > > Behalf Of Warren Toomey
> > > Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 6:22 PM
> > > To: The Unix Heritage Society
> > > Subject: [TUHS] Unix Derivatives and Variants
> > >
> > > I'm not sure why mailman rejected this e-mail. Anyway, here it is.
> > > Warren
> > >
> > > Subject: RE: [TUHS] Getting UNIXs for 16-bit 8086
> > > Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 14:39:11 -0700
> > > Thread-Topic: [TUHS] Getting UNIXs for 16-bit 8086
> > > From: "Ian King" <iking(a)windows.microsoft.com>
> > > To: "Natalia Portillo" <iosglpgc(a)teleline.es>,
> > <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
> > >
> > > I'm trying to discern the difference between a variant and a
> > derivative.
> > > :-) Yes, we can trace back to the One True UNIX, but after things
> > > started branching it gets pretty confusing. It's possibly an
> > > indefensible taxonomy to distinguish a 'variant'
> (Coherent? XINU?)
> > from
> > > a derivative (which would encompass any BSD forms, I guess).
> > >
> > > FWIW, a while back someone was selling XINU ported to
> 8086 (I recall
> > > buying a set of 5-1/4" source disks a thousand or so
> years ago). Is
> > > that more the sort of thing you're looking for? The current
> > version(s)
> > > of XINU are available at
> > http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/xsoft.html,
> > > according to Google. -- Ian
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > TUHS mailing list
> > > TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > > http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> >
>
Hello from Gregg C Levine
Okay. That's almost how I describe the state of the art to my friends,
and co-workers, and even customers. But shouldn't you have sent this
to the list as well as to me?
-------------------
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon(a)worldnet.att.net
------------------------------------------------------------
"The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
"Use the Force, Luke." Obi-Wan Kenobi
(This company dedicates this E-Mail to General Obi-Wan Kenobi )
(This company dedicates this E-Mail to Master Yoda )
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Natalia Portillo [mailto:iosglpgc@teleline.es]
> Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2003 8:51 PM
> To: 'Gregg C Levine'
> Subject: RE: [TUHS] Unix Derivatives and Variants
>
> I think that you can always compare with ice creams.
>
> UNIX is an ice cream brand.
> It have many flavours: Bell/AT&T, BSD, Xenix, AIX, A/UX, Coherent,
etc.
> There are other brands.
> MINIX which have only a flavour.
> Linux, with many flavours as RedHat, YDL, Debian, etc
>
> > -----Mensaje original-----
> > De: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] En nombre de Gregg C Levine
> > Enviado el: martes, 24 de junio de 2003 23:29
> > Para: 'Warren Toomey'; 'The Unix Heritage Society'
> > Asunto: RE: [TUHS] Unix Derivatives and Variants
> >
> >
> > Hello from Gregg C Levine
> > Go ahead and laugh, but your server could be having a bad day
today.
> > That being said, I am curious myself, as to the differences. Can
> > someone come up with the definite explanation regarding which is
> > which?
> > -------------------
> > Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon(a)worldnet.att.net
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > "The Force will be with you...Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi
> > "Use the Force, Luke." Obi-Wan Kenobi
> > (This company dedicates this E-Mail to General Obi-Wan Kenobi )
> > (This company dedicates this E-Mail to Master Yoda )
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > [mailto:tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org] On
> > > Behalf Of Warren Toomey
> > > Sent: Tuesday, June 24, 2003 6:22 PM
> > > To: The Unix Heritage Society
> > > Subject: [TUHS] Unix Derivatives and Variants
> > >
> > > I'm not sure why mailman rejected this e-mail. Anyway, here it
is.
> > > Warren
> > >
> > > Subject: RE: [TUHS] Getting UNIXs for 16-bit 8086
> > > Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 14:39:11 -0700
> > > Thread-Topic: [TUHS] Getting UNIXs for 16-bit 8086
> > > From: "Ian King" <iking(a)windows.microsoft.com>
> > > To: "Natalia Portillo" <iosglpgc(a)teleline.es>,
> > <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
> > >
> > > I'm trying to discern the difference between a variant and a
> > derivative.
> > > :-) Yes, we can trace back to the One True UNIX, but after
things
> > > started branching it gets pretty confusing. It's possibly an
> > > indefensible taxonomy to distinguish a 'variant' (Coherent?
XINU?)
> > from
> > > a derivative (which would encompass any BSD forms, I guess).
> > >
> > > FWIW, a while back someone was selling XINU ported to 8086 (I
recall
> > > buying a set of 5-1/4" source disks a thousand or so years ago).
Is
> > > that more the sort of thing you're looking for? The current
> > version(s)
> > > of XINU are available at
> > http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/xsoft.html,
> > > according to Google. -- Ian
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > TUHS mailing list
> > > TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > > http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > TUHS mailing list
> > TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> > http://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> >
Just guessing,
Any of these antique VAX and other machines running UNIXes arrived my
islands?
Does anybody know?
Is there a possibility for a museum (my computer museum) to get one of
these machines?
Thanks to all ;)
Just noticed in the publication data for "The UNIX Programming Environment"
that
it was created on a VAX 11/750 running V7 UNIX. How is this possible? I have
an 11/750 and V7 is my favorite UNIX... if I could do this, it would be
awesome.
Anyone have any insights?
I'm not sure why mailman rejected this e-mail. Anyway, here it is.
Warren
Subject: RE: [TUHS] Getting UNIXs for 16-bit 8086
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 14:39:11 -0700
Thread-Topic: [TUHS] Getting UNIXs for 16-bit 8086
From: "Ian King" <iking(a)windows.microsoft.com>
To: "Natalia Portillo" <iosglpgc(a)teleline.es>, <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
I'm trying to discern the difference between a variant and a derivative.
:-) Yes, we can trace back to the One True UNIX, but after things
started branching it gets pretty confusing. It's possibly an
indefensible taxonomy to distinguish a 'variant' (Coherent? XINU?) from
a derivative (which would encompass any BSD forms, I guess).
FWIW, a while back someone was selling XINU ported to 8086 (I recall
buying a set of 5-1/4" source disks a thousand or so years ago). Is
that more the sort of thing you're looking for? The current version(s)
of XINU are available at http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/dec/xsoft.html,
according to Google. -- Ian
