TUHS May 2015

tuhs@tuhs.org

33 participants
17 discussions

by norman＠nose.cita.utoronto.ca

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.)

2 years, 6 months

32V, 3BSD and 4.0BSD on VAX-11/780

by nao

Hi, I successfully made SIMH VAX-11/780 emulator run 32V, 3BSD and 4.0BSD. Details are on my web site (thogh rather tarse): http://zazie.tom-yam.or.jp/starunix/ Enjoy! Naoki Hamada nao(a)tom-yam.or.jp

8 years, 9 months

Re: [TUHS] Questions about the history of cut(1)

by Doug McIlroy

I believe cut/paste originated in PWB Unix, but I can't recall who wrote it. Doug

9 years, 5 months

So I'm looking through some old SVR3.1 source

by David Barto

Just cuz of this list and recent comments about SVRx and I see this comment in ftrap.s fpreent: # this is the point we return to # when we are executing the n+1th # floating point instruction in a # contiguous sequence of floating # point instructions (floating # pointlessly forever?) Makes me wonder how many other humorous comments are buried in the code. David Oh, if no one out there has a SVR3.1 distribution (apparently for the 3b2), I’ve got one to send out….

9 years, 5 months

A repository with 44 years of Unix evolution gets the MSR '15 Best Data Showcase Award

by Diomidis Spinellis

Since early 2013 I've occasionally asked this list for help, and shared the progress regarding the creation of a Unix Git repository containing Unix releases from the 1970s until today [1]. On Saturday I presented this work [2, 3] at MSR '15: The 12th Working Conference on Mining Software Repositories, and on Sunday I discussed the work with the participants over a poster [4] (complete with commits shown in a teletype (lcase) and a VT-220 font). Amazingly, the work received the conference's "Best Data Showcase Award", for which I'm obviously very happy. I'd like to thank again the many individuals who contributed to the effort. Brian W. Kernighan, Doug McIlroy, and Arnold D. Robbins helped with Bell Labs login identifiers. Clem Cole, Era Eriksson, Mary Ann Horton, Kirk McKusick, Jeremy C. Reed, Ingo Schwarze, and Anatole Shaw helped with BSD login identifiers. The BSD SCCS import code is based on work by H. Merijn Brand and Jonathan Gray. A lot of work remains to be done. Given that the build process is shared as open source code, it is easy to contribute additions and fixes through GitHub pull requests on the build software repository [5], but if you feel uncomfortable with that, just send me email. The most useful community contribution would be to increase the coverage of imported snapshot files that are attributed to a specific author. Currently, about 90 thousand files (out of a total of 160 thousand) are getting assigned an author through a default rule. Similarly, there are about 250 authors (primarily early FreeBSD ones) for which only the identifier is known. Both are listed in the build repository's unmatched directory [6], and contributions are welcomed (start with early editions; I can propagate from there). Most importantly, more branches of open source systems can be added, such as NetBSD OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, and illumos. Ideally, current right holders of other important historical Unix releases, such as System III, System V, NeXTSTEP, and SunOS, will release their systems under a license that would allow their incorporation into this repository. If you know people who can help in this, please nudge them. --Diomidis [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo [2] http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/conf/2015-MSR-Unix-History/html/Spi15c.html (HTML) [3] http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/conf/2015-MSR-Unix-History/html/Spi15c.pdf (PDF) [4] http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/conf/2015-MSR-Unix-History/html/poster.pdf (105MB) [5] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make [6] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make/tree/master/src/unmatched

9 years, 5 months

unix-jun72 now on Github

by Warren Toomey

All, I finally remembered to export the unix-jun72 project over to Github: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/unix-jun72 This was our effort to bring the 1st Edition Unix kernel back to life along with the early C compilers and the 2nd Edition userland binaries. Cheers, Warren

9 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] A repository with 44 years of Unix evolution gets the MSR '15 Best Data Showcase Award

by Berny Goodheart

> > On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 11:49 AM, Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com <mailto:clemc@ccc.com> > <mailto:clemc@ccc.com <mailto:clemc@ccc.com>>> wrote: > > ? HP/UX is an SVR3 & OSF/1 ancester. Solaris is SVR4. In fact > it was the SVR4 license and deal between Sun and AT&T)? that > forced the whole OSF creation. One of the "principles" of the > OSF was "Fair and Stable" license terms. > > Which begs a question - since Solaris was SVR4 based and was > made freely available via OpenSolaris et al, does that not > make SVR4 open? I'm not a lawyer (nor play one on TV), but > it does seem like that sets some sort of precedent. This is indeed an interesting question. During the IBM vs SCO debacle, IBM requested the use of TMGE to be used as an example for proof of how the SVR4 kernel algorithms were already out in the public domain and thus set the precedent. And this was also (eventually) approved by AT&T for publication.

9 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] A repository with 44 years of Unix evolution gets the MSR '15 Best Data Showcase Award

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Mary Ann Horton > I have 5 AT&T SVR4 tapes among them .. Is it worth recovering them? I would say that unless they are _known_ to be in a repository somewhere, yes (unless it's going to cost a fortune - SVR4 isn't _that_ key a step in the evolution, I don't think [but I stand to be corrected :-]). Noel

9 years, 5 months

reading 9 track tapes?

by Aharon Robbins

Hi. Can anyone still read 9 track tapes? We just uncovered two that date from my wife's time in grad school, circa 1989 - 1990. They would be tar tapes. Thanks! Arnold

9 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] A repository with 44 years of Unix evolution gets the MSR '15 Best Data Showcase Award

by Doug McIlroy

A fantastic curatorial exploit! > Deadly quote "and nobody cares about that early code history any more > --so this is all water under the bridge." This particular metaphor always reminds me of the Farberism: "That's water over the bridge." Dave, a major presence at Bell Labs, master malaprop, friend of many and collaborator with several of the early Unix team, may be counted as an honorary Unixian. Doug

9 years, 5 months

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TUHS May 2015