Hi,
last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One can see Unix as a
castrated successor of Multics. Hmmm, I am interested in Unix history
for several years now, but I haven't heard about that before. It is
really a tale I guess. Any clear words about this topic?
Michael
--
biff4emacsen - A biff-like tool for (X)Emacs
http://www.c0t0d0s0.de/biff4emacsen/biff4emacsen.html
Hi,
"Bill Cunningham" <billcu1(a)verizon.net> writes:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Welle" <m.welle(a)gmx.net>
> To: <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 9:57 AM
> Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
>> name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
>> homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One can see Unix as a
>> castrated successor of Multics. Hmmm, I am interested in Unix history
>> for several years now, but I haven't heard about that before. It is
>> really a tale I guess. Any clear words about this topic?
>>
>> Michael
>>
>
> I know Dennis have said pretty clearly that Unix is a pun on Multics
> that the team really never got to start on because Bell changed there minds.
> Ken continued with Unix which must've been his idea. In assembly first then
> B. Dennis came up with C and its lasted down through the years.
that sounds familiar to me. The same story is told in 'A quarter
century of Unix' and other sources.
VG
hmw
--
biff4emacsen - A biff-like tool for (X)Emacs
http://www.c0t0d0s0.de/biff4emacsen/biff4emacsen.html
> There's a reason Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson have been awarded
> the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1998) and are fellows of the
> Computer History Museum Online. Dave Cutler hasn't and isn't.
> "You are not expected to understand this."
And while I think this is a little unfair to Dave that's a great .sig
It goes well with the recent post about Unix vs NT that concluded about
NT "there is no there there". I live on both platforms and I couldn't
agree more.
Some day I'll post my view on this but here is the really short summary.
There are two classes of people: those who derive answers and those who
memorize them. As Mark Twain said, the latter group is much larger than
the former. My claim is that Unix appeals to the first group - you can
guess what it is going to do and you'll be right most of the time.
Windows appeals to the other group. They don't have the ability to derive
any answer and they are comfortable with a system that mostly works but
has "no there there". They can't tell the difference.
The sad part (and the good part!) is that all of us on this list are
in the former group which is smaller. I think we (well, many of us)
wish that more people thought like we do and figured stuff out for
themselves but the reality is that most people aren't inclined to do that.
So the good and bad part is that we're a small select group. Personally,
I've come to accept that and like it. I've gotten to the point where I
realize that people who can derive the answer are special, they are gift,
and I consider myself lucky when I run into a concentrated group of them.
Cough, cough, that would be you. :)
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.comhttp://www.bitkeeper.com
A great read Greg and so true too. Thanks for posting that.
I particularly liked the bit about the overheard conversation in Palo Alto
"there used to be a shrimp-and-pasta plate here under ten bucks. Let me
see...cat menu | grep shrimp | test -lt $10..." though not syntactically
correct (and less-than-scintillating conversation), a diner from an NT shop
probably couldn't have expressed himself as casually.
This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in Starbucks in
Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a heated
debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It seemed
to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to the other
party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their conversation.
Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all ushered out of
Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.
Cheers,
Berny
A somewhat different view on the Starbucks story:
A friend of mine moved here from New Mexico (which is a fantastic place to
live, amazing, I used to live there) and she said "It's unbelievable - you
can watch people and realize that they are actually thinking before they
are talking".
Indeed. I'd rather be in the midst of rude people thinking than any sort
of people not thinking.
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.comhttp://www.bitkeeper.com
Berny:
This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in Starbucks in
Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a heated
debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It seemed
to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to the other
party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their conversation.
Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all ushered out of
Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.
=======
The Linux crowd is indeed ruder and more argumentative than the
hackers of my youth.
Maybe it's because they hang out in Starbucks, rather than in
all-night terminal rooms with Coke machines down the hall.
Or maybe it's just my memory.
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
Somewhat more than 30 years into the disease
Hi,
I know that this mail is going to hit moderation.
May work email address has changed from
P.A.Osborne(a)ukc.ac.uk
to
P.A.Osborne(a)kent.ac.uk
Consequently my posts are getting moderated.
Can you update the list please?
Many thanks
Paul
>
> 1. Re: Unix, eunuchs? (dmr(a)plan9.bell-labs.com)
> 2. Unix V6 man pages (Wolfgang Helbig)
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 22:32:46 -0400
> From: dmr(a)plan9.bell-labs.com
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
> To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> Message-ID:
>
<49d52b2057749338fb3bb8d01ec2ca7d(a)plan9.bell-labs.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> Andrzey wrote:
>
> >I have taken my info about unics from
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics .
> >
> >Perhaps You could comment on this, because Your
> person is mentioned there.
> >
>
> Don't believe everything in a (or the) wiki.
>
> >BTW One cound abbreviate "Uniplexed Information and
> Computer System" as
> >UNIACS .
>
> One could, but wouldn't.
>
> Dennis
>
>
Thanks for clearing it up Dennis.
John
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On Jun 8 2006, 17:15, asbesto wrote:
>
> 1) we lack the power supply of the 11/23 cpu. From the
> schematics, we see that only +5V, +12V and -12V are required,
> so we will try to use a normal PC power supply for the QBUS
> backplane; does somebody know about problems in doing this?
Is it missing or just not working? It's hard to imagine a BA11-N box
like the one in your picture without the PSU, since the screws that
hold the front panel onto the backplane go through the PSU cover. If
it's simply not working, it's not usually hard to repair.
You will need to ensure that the BDCOK H (Bus DC OK, active high)
signal is held high, also the BPOK H (Bus Power OK, active high, from
the AC input) signal or the CPU won't run -- the normal PSU does this.
"High" means tied to no less than 3.5V DC. The PSU also provides a
mains-frequency square-wave at about 3.5V-4V which drives the BEVENT L
line for a real-time clock interrupt, which Unix needs. One of the
switches on the front panel can be configured to control this (there
are times when you might want to switch it off). Note that devices
that turn off BEVENT, including the switch on the front panel, or the
DIP switch on the CPU card, do it by shorting that line to ground! The
same switch that can be configured to stop the BEVENT signal, is also
often used to control the rack's power controller via a 3-wire cable
with a 3-pin AMP Mate-N-Lok connector on each end.
The front panel with the three switches also has a flip-flop controlled
by one of the switches, connected to the BHALT L line, and another
connected by a flip-flop to BINIT L. The first halts the CPU when
enabled (active low), the other provides a pulse to start it.
The RUN light on the panel is driven by the SRUN L signal on the first
slot in the backplane.
Most of the signals I've mentioned are carried between the backplane
and the panel by a narrow ribbon cable. The backplane pinout is shown
in a PostScript file called QBusConnsBig.ps on my web page at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/
QBusConns.ps is the same file, but actual size, if you want to hold it
up against the backplane.
> 2) what kind of UNIX can be run on an 11/23 using a RL02 disk
> drive? (just one, unfortunately :!)
Nothing later than about 7th Edition, because BSD needs separate I&D
space, which an 11/23 doesn't have (2.9 BSD might work, I can't
remember). BSD (any version) is much too big for a single RL02 anyway.
7th Edition works; my original PDP-11 Unix system is my second 11/23,
still in its original condition, which looks rather like yours, except
it has two RL02s and a slightly earlier front panel. Be aware that the
RL11/RLV11/RLV12 driver was not a standard feature of 7th Edition,
though.
You ought to do an inventory of the cards. 7th Edition wants at least
256K of memory. You might also want to see what version of the CPU you
have.
--
Pete Peter Turnbull
Network Manager
University of York
