OK. I'm confused. Maybe people here can help me understand.
Looking at the V7 sources, it looks for all the world like they were
released Jan 10, 1979. This release was PDP-11 only. So far, so good.
32V, a port to the VAX, is listed as 'early 1979'. Dates in the files in
the archive suggest March 26th, 1979 (though there are dates as late as May
3rd and April 30th on two files that are trivial). The tape we have in the
archive has a date Feb 22, 1980 written on it. Given the dates, that's only
3 months after V7 was released. This seems very fast, but maybe it's OK
since it's a swapping release....
3BSD, The Berkeley 32V has file dates as late as Mar 22, 1980... This seems
reasonable for turning V7 from swapping into paging... about a year is fast
but not crazy fast.
My question is: did these three events really happen in this quick
succession? Did USDL folks get started with a preliminary V7 for V32 or was
the port really done in 2 and a half months? Likewise with UCB and 3bsd:
did they start early?
Warner
> Venix/86 and Venix/86R might be interesting... I have impure versions of
> both...
+1
Venix/86 is the first Unix to run on PC hardware that I’m aware of. It could
go together with Idris and Minix as examples of early PC Unix.
For more on Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, by one who knew her well, see
Jean Sammet's remembrance:
Farewell to Grace Hopper: end of an era!
https://doi.org/10.1145/129852.214846
A Ph.D. thesis about her:
The Contributions of Grace Murray Hopper to Computer Science and Computer Education
https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc278692/m2/1/high_res_d/100…
Books:
Grace Hopper: Admiral of the Cyber Sea
1-59114-978-9
Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age
ISBN 0-262-51726-4
Grace Hopper: Computer Whiz
ISBN 0-7660-2273-0 [juvenile literature]
I've always found it amusing that she was a strong proponent of the
work ethic: "Act first, get permission later", which is in direct
opposition to the military chain of command, despite her rank as Rear
Admiral of the US Navy.
See also
ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award
https://awards.acm.org/hopperhttps://awards.acm.org/hopper/award-winners
[Awarded to the outstanding young computer professional of the
year, selected on the basis of a single recent major technical
or service contribution. This award is accompanied by a prize
of $35,000. The candidate must have been 35 years of age or
less at the time the qualifying contribution was
made. Financial support of the Grace Murray Hopper Award is
provided by Microsoft.]
Don Knuth of Stanford was the first GMHA winner, in 1971; other
well-known people include Steve Wozniak (1971), Bob Metcalf (1980),
Dan Bricklin (1981), Brian Reid (1982), Bill Joy (1986), John
Ousterhout (1987), Guy Steele (1988), Richard Stallman (1990), Bjarne
Stroustrup (1993), Vern Paxson (2007), Craig Gentry (2010), ...
There is also a 1983 interview on a popular US news broadcast that
celebrates its 50th anniversary this year:
The 60 Minutes interview with Grace Murray Hopper
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-60-minutes-interview-with-grace-murray-hop…
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- University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 -
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> I've never seen a detailed description of UNIX/TS, although I have seen
> the "Unix Program Description" (January 1976) which documents the USG
> version, and of course PWB is described in the BSTJ issue, and UNIX/TS
> is supposedly a merge of those two.
> ...
> Did the later USG versions takeup some of the PWB work, does anyone
> know? (My thinking is 'if I find traces of PWB [in the MIT system],
> would that be from /TS, or could it be a later USG version' - I think
> there were 1-3, from something I saw online.)
So I seem to have stumbled on something interesting here (or maybe it's not,
and the history is just unclear - well, unclear to me at least, I'm sure
someone knows).
Looking at "Unix Program Description" (January 1976), it's clearly marked as
"Published by the UNIX Support Group". (I have an actual hardcopy, which I
don't recall how I came by, but for those who wish to follow along this
document is available in the TUHS archive, at:
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/unix_program_description_jan…
and in other TUHS mirrors).
So, given the credit, I _assume_ that it documents some version of the USG
system. So I started looking at that, and the PWB version that's in the
archive:
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/spencer_pwb.tar.gz
to see how they compare, and it turns out (somewhat to my surprise) that the
USG document describes what seems to be an older version of the system.
For example, in text.c, it doesn't cover xlock()/xunlock()/xexpand(), all in
the PWB system - just xalloc()/xccdec()/xfree()/xswap().
Even more telling, in sys1.c, the USG document describes the older version of
exec(), where arguments are collected in a disk buffer, not (as in the PWB
system) in swap space. (I had thought that this change was mentioned in the
PWB paper in the BSTJ issue, but on checking, it appears my memory was
incorrect. Many of the PWB changes appear to be to things like the shell, not
the OS.)
So it seems the USG document describes a system very close to the 'classic'
V6 - not what I had expected. This may also make it hard to recognize USG
source (at least, the early versions).
More generally, it would be good to try and elucidate the relationship among
all these early Bell/AT+T versions: Research, USG, PWB, etc. Clearly the two
latter (from what we know now) are descended from V6 - but was there any
interchange between USG and PWB?
And did either of them feed back into V7? Or, perhaps more likely, were the
improvements to text.c, exec() etc _Research_ improvements that got fed into
PWB?
More questions than answers, sadly... I'm not at all familiar with V7, I'll
have to go read it at some point, and compare it to PWB. Not that I expect it
will answer many (any?) of these questions, but maybe we'll get lucky and
there will e.g. be stuff in this PWB which isn't in V7.
Speaking of which, I seem to recall there's more than one PWB version. I
wonder which one we have (above). Although there's another 'PWB' tape in the
archive:
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/bostic_pwb.tar.gz
(much larger than the other one), when I poked around a bit through that,
seeing what's there, and comparing it to the other one, the system sources I
looked at there all seemed to be the same as the one on the Spencer tape.
> I should look at the MIT kernel and see how much of it is USG, and see
> if I can find any traces of the changes described as done for PWB. I
> know the MIT version has provisions for longer exec() arguments, and
> text.c is considerably more complex than the one in V6 (and IIRC matches
> the description in the USG document)
So, my memory was in error here; the text.c matches the one from the PWB tape,
_not_ the USG document. In general, the parts of the MIT system seem to be a
close match to what's on the PWB tape, with the exception that the MIT one
seems to be slightly earlier (no 'register' argument types).
> Perhaps the MIT system really was /TS
Without a better understanding of what was really in /TS, this is totally
opaque.
> I've always described it as a hacked PWB1, but I might be wrong there.
And for once, I think I was right. The MIT system _does_ closely match the
one on the 'PWB' tapes - whatever that was!
Noel
So, I'm getting the impression, from the reactions about civility, etc, that
people aren't disagreeing with the characterization of "rudeness" (which can
only be meaning my posts). Can someone please point to text in my messages
which they consider "rude"? Thanks.
Noel
The ARPAnet reached four nodes on this day in 1969 (anyone know which?);
at least one "history" site reckoned the third node was connected in 1977
(and I'm still waiting for a reply to my correction). Well, I can believe
that perhaps there were only three left by then...
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
A long time ago, dmr wrote about something that IIRC BSD had done he did
not like: unlimited length identifiers in C, maybe? His argument was that
being too general was not a good thing.
Can't quite find the quote, anyone remember it? Would have been ca. 1980.
ron
> From: Clem Cole
> it's direct predecessor (UNIX/TS) which was not officially released made
> its way to number of places ... heavily hacked systems that were combo's
> of V6, PWB [1.0], UNIX/TS plus local additions. UNIX/TS had a newer
> kernel, updated FS and the compiler that was released with troff -
> a.k.a. 'Typesetter C'
I'm not sure quite what the MIT system was.
I've never seen a detailed description of UNIX/TS, although I have seen the
"Unix Program Description" (January 1976) which documents the USG version,
and of course PWB is described in the BSTJ issue, and UNIX/TS is supposedly a
merge of those two. (If we ever do find V6+ USG source, it should be easy to
verify - that document is pretty detailed.)
I should look at the MIT kernel and see how much of it is USG, and see if I
can find any traces of the changes described as done for PWB. I know the MIT
version has provisions for longer exec() arguments, and text.c is
considerably more complex than the one in V6 (and IIRC matches the
description in the USG document); but I don't recall withough careful
checking, what was done where. Perhaps the MIT system really was /TS, and I
didn't know that - I've always described it as a hacked PWB1, but I might be
wrong there.
Did the later USG versions takeup some of the PWB work, does anyone know? (My
thinking is 'if I find traces of PWB, would that be from /TS, or could it be a
later USG version' - I think there were 1-3, from something I saw online.)
I initially got /TS mixed up with /RT, which is the system I'd _really_ like
to find - well, MERT, actually. I think that's a really early micro-kernel
system (although I haven't done any research to confirm that), a direction I
think is important. (I think the 'THE Multiprogramming System' may be the
earliest work in that direction, although I'd be interested to hear of
anything else.)
I actually got contact info for some of the original MERT people, and was
going to contact them to see if they still retained anything, but I never
got a 'round tuit'... too many other projects. :-(
Noel
