Hello fellow lovers of old UNIX,
Would anyone happen to have a raster scan (not OCR) of the original
printing of UNIX Programmer's Manual, 7th edition? Does such a thing
exist? Given that Brian S. Walden produced and published a PDF reprint
of this manual (presumably done with some "modern" version of troff)
back in 1998, I reason that there probably wasn't much interest in
preserving the original print by painstaking scanning (and the files
from such a scan would have been ginormous by 1998 standards), hence I
am not certain if such a scanned version exists - but I thought I
would ask nonetheless.
I was however very pleased to discover that some very kind soul named
Erica Fischer did scan and upload the complete set of Usenix printed
books for 4.2BSD and 4.3BSD - here is the 4.2BSD version:
https://archive.org/details/uum-ref-4.2bsdhttps://archive.org/details/uum-supplement-4.2bsdhttps://archive.org/details/upm-ref-4.2bsdhttps://archive.org/details/upm-supplement-4.2bsdhttps://archive.org/details/smm-4.2bsd
and here is 4.3BSD:
https://archive.org/details/uum-ref-4.3bsdhttps://archive.org/details/uum-supplement-4.3bsdhttps://archive.org/details/upm-ref-4.3bsdhttps://archive.org/details/upm-sup1-4.3bsdhttps://archive.org/details/upm-sup2-4.3bsdhttps://archive.org/details/smm-4.3bsdhttps://archive.org/details/uum-index-4.3bsd
It is my understanding that all supplementary docs (the papers that
were originally in volumes 2a and 2b in the V7 manual) were retroffed
by UCB/Usenix for 4.3BSD edition, but the earlier 4.2BSD Usenix print
seems to be different - it looks like for 4.2BSD they only did a new
troff run for all man pages and for new (Berkeley-added) supplementary
docs, but in the case of docs which originally appeared in V7 vol 2,
it appears that Usenix did some kind of analogue mass reproduction
from a historical V7 master, *without* doing a new troff run on those
docs. *If* this hypothesis is correct, then Erica's uploaded scan of
4.2BSD manuals can serve as a practical substitute for the presumably-
missing scan of the original printing of V7 manual - but I would like
to double-check my hypothesis with others who are presumably more
knowledgeable about this ancient history (some of you actually lived
through that history, unlike me!), hence the reason for this post.
I would appreciate either confirmation or correction of the guesses
and conjectures I expressed above.
M~
> From: Paul Ruizendaal
>> the ambiguous phrase "had the first implementation of FTP", which
>> has been flagged as needing clarification
> From RFC 354 ... and from RFC 414
Those are NCP FTP, a slightly different protocol, and implementation, from TCP
FTP. (The code from the NCP one was sometimes recycled into the TCP one; see
e.g.:
https://github.com/PDP-10/its-vault/blob/master/files/sysnet/ftpu.161
which has both in one program.)
These RFC's you listed are obviously pre-TCP; the first TCP RFC is
RFC-675. (The first RFC that even mentions TCP seems to be RFC-661.) RFC's
are all NCP-related until around #700 or so, when the mix starts to change.
Maybe the "needing clarification" refers to these two different FTP's? Without
an explicit classifier, does that text refer to NCP FTP or TCP FTP?
Noel
> From: Bakul Shah
> He was part of NSFNet, so could have got first FTP on NSFnet or a
> later version of FTP.
You all are talking about _two separate FTP's_ (as I pointed out
previously). If you all would stop confusing yourselves, you'd be able to sort
out the bogons.
In this particular case, the NSFnet appeared at a _much_ later stage of the
growth of the Internet (yes, it is spelled with a capital 'I'; the morons at
the AP were not aware that 'internet' was a pre-existing word with a
_different meaning_) than when Dave was working with the Fuzzball, and by that
point there were _many_ TCP FTP's (e.g. the ITS one I previously sent the URL
to the source for), so the 'first FTP on NSFnet' is a non-concept.
The best bet for accurate data is to look at the TCP meeting minutes from the
IEN series:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien-index.html
Looking quickly, the first one that Dave appears in might be IEN-160,
"Internet Meeting Notes -- 7-8-9 October 1980". (He wasn't in the "Attendees"
lists of any of the earlier ones I looked at.) Look in the "Status Reports"
sections to see if he says anything about where he's at. The one for this one
says:
"Dave described the configuration of equipment at COMSAT which consists of a
number of small hosts, mainly LSI-11s. ... COMSAT has also used NIFTP to
transmit files between their hosts and ISIE. The NIFTP software was provided
by UCL. ... COMSAT plans to .. arrange a permanent connection to the ARPANET."
I have no idea what a "NIFTP" might be. Also, there is a reason that serious
historians prefer contemporary written records, not people's memories.
Noel
> I see that the wording on his Wikipedia page has the ambiguous phrase "had
> the first implementation of FTP", which has been flagged as needing
> clarification, so I intend to provide it.
>
> In both this interview:
>
> https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/113899/oh403dlm.pdf
>
> ... and this video recording of Mills himself giving a lecture at UDel:
>
> https://youtu.be/08jBmCvxkv4?t=428
>
> ... it's quite clear that it's literally true - he authored, compiled,
> installed, implemented, and tested the very first (and apparently second)
> FTP server.
It may be impossible to provide hard evidence. From RFC 354 it seems to me that the protocol took on a recognisable shape around July 1972 and from RFC 414 it seems to me that there were a number of implementations by November 1972, and unfortunately Dave Mills is not mentioned. His recollection may well be correct, but finding proof he was the first in a 4 months time slot 50+ years ago may be too ambitious.
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc354.txthttps://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc414.txt
Maybe the internet history list can shed some more light on the matter:
https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history
Dave Mills, of fuzzball and ntp fame, one time U Delaware died on the 17th
of January.
He was an interesting, entertaining, prolific and rather idosyncratic
emailer. Witty and informative.
G
What is the best public, unambiguous, non-YouTube reference I can cite for
the late David Mills' initial FTP work?
I see that the wording on his Wikipedia page has the ambiguous phrase "had
the first implementation of FTP", which has been flagged as needing
clarification, so I intend to provide it.
In both this interview:
https://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/113899/oh403dlm.pdf
... and this video recording of Mills himself giving a lecture at UDel:
https://youtu.be/08jBmCvxkv4?t=428
... it's quite clear that it's literally true - he authored, compiled,
installed, implemented, and tested the very first (and apparently second)
FTP server. But Wikipedia's guidelines discourage YouTube-only citations,
and the text in the interview seems insufficiently detailed to have
citation value.
What is the best reference I can cite?
Thanks!
--
Royce
Hi Lennart,
At 2024-01-18T15:45:55+0000, Lennart Jablonka wrote:
> Quoth John Gardner:
> > Thanks for reminding me, Branden. :) I've yet to get V7 Unix working with
> > the latest release of SimH, so that's kind of stalled my ability to develop
> > something in K&R-friendly C.
>
> I went ahead and write a little C/A/T-to-later-troff-output converter in
> v7-friendly and C89-conforming C:
>
> https://git.sr.ht/~humm/catdit
This is an exciting prospect but I can't actually see anything there.
I get an error.
"401 Unauthorized
You don't have the necessary permissions to access this page. Index"
> I’m not confident in having got the details of spacing right (Is that
> 55-unit offset when switching font sizes correct?)
I've never heard of this C/A/T feature/wart before. Huh.
> and the character codes emitted are still those of the C/A/T,
> resulting in the wrong glyphs being used.
The codes should probably be remapped by default, with a command-line
option to restore the original ones. I would of course recommend
writing out 'C' commands with groff special character names.
> I created the attached document like this:
>
> v7$ troff -t /usr/man/man0/title >title.cat
> host$ catdit <title.cat | dpost -F. -Tcat >title.ps
>
> (Where do the two blank pages at the end come from?)
Good question; we may need to rouse a C/A/T expert.
> PS: Branden, for rougher results, if you happen to have a Tektronix
> 4014 at hand (like the one emulated by XTerm), you can use that to
> look at v7 troff’s output. Tell your SIMH to pass control bytes
> through and run troff -t | tc.
I'd love to, just please make your repo available to the public. :)
Regards,
Branden
John Gardner wrote:
> I'm a professional graphic designer with access to commercial typeface
> authoring software. Send me the highest-quality and most comprehensive
> scans of a C/A/T-printed document, and I'll get to work.
Are you offering to donate your labor in terms of typeface design, or
will it be a type of deal where the community will need to collectively
pitch in money to cover the cost of you doing it professionally?
In either case, the "C/A/T-printed document" of most value to this
project would be the same one G. Branden Robinson is referring to:
> If you don't have my scan of CSTR #54 (1976), which helpfully dumps all
> of the glyphs in the faces used by the Bell Labs CSRC C/A/T-4, let me
> know and I'll send it along. I won't vouch for its high quality but it
> should be comprehensive with respect to coverage.
The paper in question is Nroff/Troff User's Manual by Joseph F. Ossanna,
dated 1976-10-11, which was indeed also CSTR #54. The document is 33
pages long in its original form, and page 31 out of the 33 is the most
interesting one for the purpose of font recreation: it is the page that
exhibits all 4 fonts of 102 characters each. Here are the few published
scans I am aware of:
1) Page 245 of:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seven…
2) Page 235 of:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/UNIX_Programmers_Manual_Seven…
3) Page 239 of:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/att/unix/7th_Edition/VA-004A_UNIX_Programmers_Manu…
4) Page 499 of:
https://archive.org/details/uum-supplement-4.2bsd
Question to Branden: the scan you are referring to as "my scan", how
does it compare to the 4 I just linked above? If your scan has better
quality than all 4 versions I linked above, can you please make it
public?
M~
> All, I got this e-mail from Holger a while back. Somehow it went into
> a folder and has lurked unseen for way too long.
>
> Does anybody know any more about PCS Unix and, if so, where should
> I place the code that Holger has donated into the Unix Archive?
I don’t know much about PCS Unix, but I did come across many references to Newcastle Connection (and Unix United) when researching early networking and the various approaches to giving early Unix a networking API. I think there is no other set of surviving sources for this. Maybe Holger disagrees, but I would say that PCS Unix is best placed in the “Early networking” section.
By the way, for those interested, here is a start to read up on Unix United: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newcastle_Connection
To some extent, it is similar to the “RIDE” software developed at Bell Labs Naperville by Priscilla Lu and to S/F Unix developed by GWR Luderer at Murray Hill. As far as I know the sources for both of those have been lost to time, afaik.
