TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

28 participants
6556 discussions

by Charles H Sauer

I've refrained from jumping into AIX & RT/PC discussions on TUHS. It seems more appropriate to summarize AIX history than try to correct or clarify specifics out of context. I wrote about 5 pages, got feedback, revised accordingly, and posted at https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2017/03/08/lets-start-at-the-very-beg…. Charlie

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by Warren Toomey

On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 01:57:05PM +0100, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > Is it ok to do experimental testing with that host? I've never set up > uucp, so I do not yet know quit what I'm doing. Neither have I! But yes, feel free. In yur SimH .ini file, put (or change) this line to say: attach dz line=0,Connect=simh.tuhs.org:5000 which will connect /dev/tty00 to simh.tuhs.org port 5000. Then set up your L.sys file with a line that says: seismo Any;9 DIR 9600 tty00 "" "" ogin:--ogin:--ogin: uucp ssword: uucp so that the uucp site seismo can be contacted via /dev/tty00. Then you can try doing: # echo hello there | mail seismo\!root <wait a few seconds> # /usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 -sseismo -x7 and you should see the debug information with parts of the uucp conversation. Cheers, Warren

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by Cory Smelosky

On Thu, Mar 9, 2017, at 18:02, Warren Toomey wrote: > On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 05:57:00PM -0800, Cory Smelosky wrote: > > # grep -i "tty00" /etc/ttys > > #tty00 "/etc/getty std.9600" unknown on secure > > > > # tip dialer > > /dev/tty00: Permission denied > > You need to chown uucp /dev/tty00 I think! > > Cheers, Warren > Email had 1 attachment: > + signature.asc > 1k (application/pgp-signature) That did it. -- Cory Smelosky b4(a)gewt.net

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by Warren Toomey

On Thu, Mar 09, 2017 at 04:01:09PM -0700, John Floren wrote: > Well, I'm trying to set up lanl-a, it's at 199.180.255.235:6666 > (theoretically). I've set it up to point at seismo but uucico hangs > waiting for the login prompt. OK, try this: Edit your /etc/remote file to say this for dialer: dialer:dv=/dev/tty00:br#9600: Now try: # tip dialer which should connect out over /dev/tty00 to seismo via the TCP connection. Hit Return a few times to see if there is any response. On your host system, do netstat -a | grep ESTAB and see if there is a TCP connection to simh.tuhs.org:5000. I also forgot. To be able to send e-mail, you need to add seismo to the list of known remote sites in /usr/lib/sendmail.cf: CWseismo Cheers, Warren

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Harasing whistlers (Was: UUCP mis-history?)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: "Steve Johnson" > This reminds me of a story from that era. One of the mainframe computers > had the ability to place phone calls and a program was run every night > to collect data from far-flung teletypes [which had been pre-loaded with > data tapes]. ... On day the operators realized that there were two > phone numbers in Nebraska that were getting called every weekday night, > and the numbers were very similar. They suspected one was a wrong > number, so they listened in on the calls to see which one was real. The > phone rang in Nebraska at 2am and was answered by a sleepy man .. The > man was heard to say "It's all right, Bertha. It's just that nut with a > whistle again!" Interesting: I've heard this same story, but told about TIPs and the ARPANET. A computer at BBN was set up to regularly dial all the TIP modem lines, to check that they were working. One line was always down, so they listened in, and heard some human say "it's just that pevert with the whistle again". I wonder which one was the original: anyone know for sure? Noel

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] UUCP: working systems, come and get them

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warren Toomey > attach dz line=0,Connect=simh.tuhs.org:5000 > > which will connect /dev/tty00 Provided that /dev/tty00 exists, and the major device type is set to the cdevsw index for the DZ in whatever Unix you are using, and the minor device is set to the correct value to DZ #0, line #0.... :-) Noel

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Historical uucp maps?

by norman＠oclsc.org

Warning Toomey: In ASCII at http://www.redace.org/html/logical_usenet_map_1984.html === That's no UUCP map. It's a USENET map: a map of netnews propagation. No, they're not the same at all: many places that used UUCP to exchange mail didn't participate in netnews. In particular I see a site I used to run with none of its important mail links like ihnp4, and only a link to a system I don't remember at all. I had left that site a few weeks before that map was published, but I stayed in touch with the folks there; had all the mail links been torn down I'd have known. Had someone decided it was worth while dipping a toe into netnews, though (something I never bothered with) I might not. In fact I suspect it would be difficult to find believable maps for UUCP except amongst major forwarders. At its peak it was an extremely informal network, with lots of links that weren't published anywhere because people at site A wanted to keep in touch with those at sites B and C but didn't want to pay the bills to forward mail between B and C, let alone between those sites and places twelve time zones away. Norman Wilson Toronto ON

8 years, 5 months

Historical uucp maps?

by Warren Toomey

We are going to need some historical uucp maps so that we can construct our simulated uucp network which bears some resemblance to the past. There is a 1984 map on pages 7 to 14 of http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V05.4.pdf As Dave mentioned, we need some key sites like ihnp4, cbosgd etc. What other key sites? Any volunteers to run some of them? Warren

8 years, 5 months

observations on Unix v6's mount command

by Mark Longridge

I was trying to look at mini-unix so I mounted the disk image inside unix v6 via: /etc/mount /dev/rk4 /usr/mini-unix and I noticed that if I ran the mount command as a user and not root that /etc/mtab would not be updated (but it was updated as expected as root). Of course /etc/mtab is owned by root :) Then I noticed something else when I did an ls in the /usr directory: drwxrwxrwx 20 31 368 Sep 3 1976 mini-unix Normally I would see things like: drwxrwxr-x 2 bin 48 May 13 1975 adm What does the 31 mean? Mark

8 years, 5 months

UUCP mis-history?

by Dave Horsfall

http://www.thefullwiki.org/UUCP ``UUCP was originally written at AT&T Bell Laboratories, by Mike Lesk, and early versions of UUCP are sometimes referred to as System V UUCP.'' Err, it was V7, wasn't it? That considerably predates SysV... -- Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

8 years, 5 months

UUCP Recreation Network

by Cory Smelosky

Okay - let's make this an easy-to-dredge-through thread so I can easily search for stuff later. What means of interconnection are we going to use? I should be able to provide: 1). Actual dial-in (probably not anything above 1200 baud...if I am lucky) 2). SIMH "virtual leased line" dial-in 3). Network mail A map/list of interconnections would be nice. Need a central database somewhere. -- Cory Smelosky b4(a)gewt.net

8 years, 5 months

C News: help!

by Warren Toomey

OK, C News is a bit more complicated than I expected :) The latest version is at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/c-news/ AFAIKT and a printable install guide at http://ftp.cc.uoc.gr/infosystems/news/transport/cnews/doc/guide.ps.gz Are there any C News experts out there who might be able to help? Can we encourage Henry or Geoff to help at all? Cheers, Warren

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Source code abundance?

by Doug McIlroy

> [a] case where AT&T attempted to see whether its Unix code had been stolen > Coherent? I doubt it. The only access to Coherent that I am aware of was Dennis's site visit (recounted in Wikipedia, no less). Steve's Yacc adventure probably concerned another company. Besides the affairs of Coherent and Yacc, there was a guy in Massachusetts who sold Unix-tool lookalikes; I don't remember his name. We were suspicious and checked his binaries against our source--bingo! At the same time, our patent lawyer happened to be negotiating cross-licenses with DEC. DEC had engaged the very plagiarist as an expert to support their claim that AT&T's pile of patents didn't measure up to theirs. After a day of bargaining, our lawyer somehow managed to bring casual conversation around to the topic of stolen code and eventually offered the suspect a peek at a real example. He readily agreed that the disassembled binary on the one hand must have been compiled from the source code on the other. In a Perry Mason moment, the lawyer pounced: "Would it surprise you if I told you that this is ours and that is yours?" The discredited expert didn't appear at next day's meeting. The lawyer returned to Murray Hill aglow about his coup. The product soon disappeared from the market. Doug

8 years, 5 months

UUCP History [was Re: Help request: uucp, mail on 4.2BSD]

by Dan Cross

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 5:04 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote: > On Tue, 7 Mar 2017, Dan Cross wrote: > > > One or more microcomputer BBS (Bulletin Board System) platforms had UUCP > > support to bridge their store-and-forward messaging networks to USENET > > and send email, etc. The implementation I remember off the top of my > > head was Waffle, written by Tom Dell. [...] > > Was this the UUCP that was available for CP/M? I found it on the old > Walnut Creek CD, moved it over to my CP/M box via SneakerNet (I ran CP/M > for years, carefully avoiding DOS/WinDoze) and it worked; it was overlaid > to hell and back hence really slow, but it worked. > Maybe? Though I tend to doubt it. It looks like Waffle originally ran on the Apple II, but was fairly quickly ported to DOS and then Unix/Xenix. I believe it was written in C, but the source code is not generally available. More information on it is here: http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/IBM/DOS/WAFFLE/ As I mentioned before, the BBS thing was kind of interesting. What strikes me, however, is how closely the timing lines up with developments in the Unix world. As Jacob mentions earlier, UUCP was "published" in February 1978 and an improved version distributed with 7th Edition in October of that year. The first BBS was announced via an article in the November 1978 edition of Byte magazine (available online, with some information here: https://www.wired.com/2010/02/0216cbbs-first-bbs-bulletin-board/) For those that don't know, the whole idea behind a BBS was that a person with a computer (usually a microcomputer), a modem, and a POTS phone line (usually into the person's house) would run software on the machine that answered the phone when called (assumed the remote caller was using a modem, of course) and presented the remote user with an interface for interacting with the local machine: most often, this was menu based. Most often, the BBS only had one phone line and the functionality was limited: sending and receiving simple messages, uploading and downloading files using protocols like x- y- and zmodem (or kermit!) and maybe playing specially written games. However, some BBSs became quite sophisticated supporting multiple lines, interactive chat, multiplayer games and so forth. Early software was mostly homebrew (the Byte article talks about software *and* hardware), but eventually packaged systems emerged. There was even a commercial marketplace for BBS software. Around 1984, they developed a messaging "network" called Fidonet for routing email and sending files around; the goal was to minimize long-distance telephone charges by relaying things through nodes in the network that were geographically "close" to the next calling region and transmitting things in batch. Think USENET (which predated it by several years) but much smaller in scope. The Internet killed it for the most part, of course, but these things developed quite the following; some are even still running, though most are now accessible via telnet/ssh. Somewhat confusingly, some of the operators seem to think they are some kind of alternative to the "Internet" instead of just another application of the net. It's sort of an odd viewpoint, but I think it comes from not being altogether all that savvy: it was mostly a hobbyist thing. But in the BBS heyday, there was something like 100,000 of them in North America alone. Sorry for the wall of text, but I think the parity between the rise of BBSs and UUCP/USENET is interesting. - Dan C.

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Help request: uucp, mail on 4.2BSD

by Warren Toomey

Warren wrote: > > I might call for participation > > in a uucp/Usenet reconstruction with people running simulated nodes on > > the Internet. On Wed, Mar 08, 2017 at 07:47:30AM +0100, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > Are modern systems welcome? I always wanted a bang path address! I can't see why not, as long as you can simulate a serial connection with a TCP connection, and can speak uucp. Cheers, Warren

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Early Unix manuals (Was: fortran compiler, in assembly, for pdp-11)

by Paul McJones

This scanned version includes all the cited manuals: A Research UNIX Reader Annotated Excepts from the Programmer's Manual, 1971-1986 M. Douglas McIlroy https://archive.org/details/a_research_unix_reader > From: jnc(a)mercury.lcs.mit.edu <mailto:jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> (Noel Chiappa) > >> From: Paul Ruizendaal > >> The "Research Unix Reader" > > Thanks for mentioning that; I'd never heard of it. Very interesting. > > > A query: it seems to have been written with access to a set of manuals for the > various early versions of Research Unix. The Unix Tree: > > http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl <http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl> > > has the manual pages for V3 and V4, and V6 and later, but not the other > ones. Do the manuals used for the preparatio of that note still exist; and, if > so, is there any chance of getting them scanned?

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Early Unix manuals (Was: fortran compiler, in assembly, for pdp-11)

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Paul Ruizendaal > The "Research Unix Reader" Thanks for mentioning that; I'd never heard of it. Very interesting. A query: it seems to have been written with access to a set of manuals for the various early versions of Research Unix. The Unix Tree: http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl has the manual pages for V3 and V4, and V6 and later, but not the other ones. Do the manuals used for the preparatio of that note still exist; and, if so, is there any chance of getting them scanned? (I have a auto-page-feed scanner, and volunteer to do said scanning. Someone else is going to have to do the OCR, and back-conversion to NROFF source, though... :-) Noel

8 years, 5 months

fortran compiler, in assembly, for pdp-11

by ron minnich

I spent a year or so working on this in 1977. I was wondering who wrote it. Funny but: I once had a compile fail on Motorola's MPL compiler, which was written in fortran. It had so many continued comment lines that the 16-bit column number went negative, and I got a fairly obscure error. Anyone remember who wrote it?

8 years, 5 months

Source code abundance?

by Arthur Krewat

Anyone ever looked at vetusware.com ? Google it with: site:vetusware.com unix source Is all of this stuff archived somewhere else?

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] communication files: interprocess IO before pipes

by Rudi Blom

On SCO UNIX 3.2V4 pipes where simulated as follows int fd[2] struct strfdinsert ins; /* * First open the stream clone device "/dev/spx" twice, * obtaining the two file descriptors. */ if ( (fd[0] = open(SPX_DEVICE, O_RDWR)) < 0) { gen_trace(gtr_flag, "-gen_pipe(): -open(fd[0]): %s\n", strerror(errno)); break; } if ( (fd[1] = open(SPX_DEVICE, O_RDWR)) < 0) { gen_trace(gtr_flag, ">gen_pipe(): -open(fd[1]): %s\n", strerror(errno)); close(fd[0]); break; } /* * Now link these two streams together with an * I_FDINSERT ioctl. */ ins.ctlbuf.buf = (char *) &pointer; /* no ctl info, just the ptr */ ins.ctlbuf.maxlen = sizeof(queue_t *); ins.ctlbuf.len = sizeof(queue_t *); ins.databuf.buf = (char *) 0; /* no data to send */ ins.databuf.len = -1; /* magic: must be -1, not 0, for stream pipe */ ins.databuf.maxlen = 0; ins.fildes = fd[1]; /* the fd to connect with fd[0] */ ins.flags = 0; /* nonpriority message */ ins.offset = 0; /* offset of pointer in control buffer */ if (ioctl(fd[0], I_FDINSERT, (char * ) &ins) < 0) { gen_trace(gtr_flag, ">gen_pipe(): -ioctl(I_FDINSERT): %s\n", strerror(errno)); close(fd[0]); close(fd[1]); break; } /* * reset close_on_exec flag */ gen_trace(gtr_flag, ">gen_pipe(): +fcntl()\n"); if ((rc = fcntl(fd[0], F_SETFD, 0)) == -1) gen_trace(gtr_flag, ">gen_pipe(): -fcntl(fd0, close_on_exec): %s\n", strerror(errno)); if ((rc = fcntl(fd[1], F_SETFD, 0)) == -1) gen_trace(gtr_flag, ">gen_pipe(): -fcntl(fd1, close_on_exec): %s\n", strerror(errno)); rc = 0; break;

8 years, 5 months

Need your help for 2019

by Warren Toomey

Mid-year 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the creation of Unix and I've been quietly agitating for something to be done to celebrate this. Up to now, there's been little response. The original Unix user's group, Usenix, will hold its Annual Technical Conference on the west coast of the US at this time, so it would make sense to do something in conjunction with this conference. Some suggestions: - a terminal room with a bunch of period terminals: ASR-33s, -37s, VT100s, VT102s, VT220s - these connected to real/emulated Unix systems either locally or via a terminal server and telnet to remotely emulated systems - some graphical terminals: Sun pizza boxes, a Blit would be great - if possible, some actual real PDP-11s, VAXen - emulated systems: V1 to V7 Unix, 32V, the BSDs etc. In fact there are plenty of Unix versions that we could run in emulated mode. - Unix of course was one of the systems used to implement the Arpanet protcols, so it would be interesting to get some of the real/emulated systems networked together - how about an emulated UUCP network with Usenet on top of it, and some mail/news clients on the emulated systems. - retro workshops/tutorials: how to edit with ed, using nroff, posting a Usenet article, dealing with bang paths. I'm proposing to gather a bunch of people to start the ball rolling on the technical/demonstration side. We'd need people: - with terminals, portable PDP-11s and VAXen, Sun boxen - prepared to set up emulated systems - who can help bring the networking (UUCP, Usenet, Arpanet) back to life - willing to write and run workshops that show off this old technology - to help set up terminal servers and all the RS-232 to telnet stuff Some of this we can start doing now, e.g. rebuild an emulated Arpanet, UUCP, Usenet, get emulated systems up, build front-end telnet interfaces. Is there anybody willing to sign up for this? I think once we have some momentum, we can tell the Usenix people and get some buy-in from them. Post back and/or e-mail me if you can help. Thanks, Warren

8 years, 5 months

[TUHS} communication files: interprocess IO before pipes

by Doug McIlroy

It's not really Unix history, but Dartmouth's "communication files" have so often been cited as pipes before Unix, that you may like to know what this fascinating facility actually was. See http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/DTSS/commfiles.pdf

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Need your help for 2019

by Paul Ruizendaal

On 6 Mar 2017, at 12:37 , Warren Toomey wrote: > On Mon, Mar 06, 2017 at 12:16:48PM +0100, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: >> Hopefully I will have some time later this year to add 'direct run' emulations to the TUHS site based on this code (assuming Warren agrees). The idea would be that next to Archive and the Tree there would be emulation. A visitor would go to e.g. the V5 page of the Tree and also find a link to run V5 in emulation. From the SIMH and Nankervis sites images for: > > Yes please. And an 11/20 for 1st Edition Unix too :-) (my wishlist). > > Thanks! Warren From a quick glance at "u0.s" it would seem that V1 has support for a RK11 disk. Also, I would assume that when the MMU is disabled, that a 11/45 would boot up from a disk image with 11/20 code - at least it is worth a try. Do you have a RK11 disk image with V1 installed handy?

8 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Source code abundance?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Warner Losh > On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:49 PM, Random832 <random832(a)fastmail.com> wrote: >>> My understanding is that System V source of any sort is not legal to >>> distribute. >> surely there are big chunks of the opensolaris code that are not *very >> much* changed from the original System V code they're based on. Under >> what theory, then, was Sun the copyright holder and therefore able to >> release it under the CDDL? > Their paid-up perpetual license that granted them the right to do that? I wonder, if they do indeed have such a license, if they have the rights to distribute original SysV source under the CDDL? Or does that license only apply to SysV code that they have modified? And if so, _how much_ does it have to be modified, to qualify? Maybe we can get them to distribute SysV under the CDDL... :-) Noel

8 years, 5 months

Unfortunately, time to limit things

by Warren Toomey

All, I've been running the TUHS list since 1994 and it's always been an open list. People can say what they want, and I rely on sense and courtesy to ensure good behaviour. I think only once before I've had to hold and vet an individual's postings. However, I've seen undesirable behaviour recently on the list and I've had a substantial amount of private correspondance about it. Therefore, I've decided to hold and vet the postings of a few list members (i.e. >1). I don't take this step lightly; in fact, I've dithered for a while on this. But the new policy is: if you don't show respect to other members on the TUHS list, I will hold and vet your postings. If your postings are respectful then there will be no hold and vet. I will e-mail the people involved. I feel disappointed to have taken this step, but that's the way it is. Cheers, Warren

8 years, 5 months

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