TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

60 participants
6509 discussions

by Warren Toomey

All, would anybody have an e-mail address for Dick Haight? I am still trying to narrow done the date when pipes were added to Unix, so far between June 72 and January 73. I have this quote from Dick: "I happened to have been visiting the research crew the day they implemented pipes. It was clear to everyone practically minutes after the system came up with pipes working that it was a wonderful thing. Nobody would ever go back and give that up if they could help it." so he might be able to provide a smaller date range than what I have at present. Cheers, Warren

13 years, 5 months

Re: [TUHS] Strange Birth of Unix

by John Cowan

Dave Horsfall scripsit: > Great atricle :-) Great ventricle, too. -- But you, Wormtongue, you have done what you could for your true master. Some reward you have earned at least. Yet Saruman is apt to overlook his bargains. I should advise you to go quickly and remind him, lest he forget your faithful service. --Gandalf John Cowan <cowan(a)ccil.org>

13 years, 5 months

Field Circus

by Warren Toomey

All, not terribly Unix specific, but here's a good read for those who have suffered at the hands of field circus engineers :) http://nemesis.lonestar.org/stories/stages.html Have a good Xmas everyone. Warren

13 years, 5 months

Downloadable Usenet groups?

by Warren Toomey

Also, is there a place where I can download archives of Usenet groups in a plain text format? I think I've got v6.bugs and v7.bugs and some of comp.sources.unix. I just came across net.unix on Google Groups, but I'd rather not have to wget all that HTML! Thanks, Warren

13 years, 5 months

Strange Birth of Unix

by Warren Toomey

All, My IEEE Spectrum article finally got published and you can read it on-line here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-strange-birth-and-long-life… I've had a few e-mails about it. This one has a few more snippets about early Unix history (from Rey Bonachea): It was with great pleasure and a bit of nostalgia that I read your IEEE article below. Thank you very much for writing it. One aspect that did not get mention, and that perhaps you may or may not be aware of, was the pseudo real time applications of Unix. In 1972 I joined Bell Labs in Holmdel NJ working on a project by the name of Switching Control Center System. At the beginning I was just a brand new member of the technical staff working on circuit design for interfaces to the PDP11/20. This project was meant to centralize the data streams from the maintenance channel of switching machine. Then, in a multi-user environment , would analyze the incoming data streams and raise alarms as appropriate. It also provided a whole suite of analysis tools to allow switch maintenance personnel to trouble shoot the electronic switches. Because the switches could not buffer messages or be slowed by flow control, the Unix system had to catch messages in real time and put it away on disk for later analysis. Due to the near real time requirements, a number of features were added to Unix such as semaphores. The Unix based Switching Control Center System (SCCS) software was trialed in New Brunswick NJ in 1973 and later that year was released as the first commercial application of the Unix OS. I learned to program on that PDP 11/20 computer running Unix and eventually wrote many applications for the SCCS, initially in assembly language and then in C as we were also the first project to use C commercially. Cheers, Warren

13 years, 5 months

b remnants?

by A. P. Garcia

Hi, In memoriam, I read The Development of the C Language: http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/chist.html It talks a bit about how B was originally implemented somewhat like ETH Pascal (p-code). Are there any B interpreters or programs in the archive? Thank you, A. P. Garcia

13 years, 6 months

RIP Dennis

by Berny G

Thank you Dennis. None of us would be here without you. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. Berny

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] b remnants?

by Jason Stevens

Yep, dungeon runs great on RT-11 ... I've docuemnted the experence here... http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=169 Building the fortran compiler was... an adventure onto its own, but luckily I found some documentation @ bitsavers, and could ask on the PDP11 lists for help... I'm amazed it compiled and runs! .. Oh and TripOS is the BCPL based OS that ran on all kinds of machines, it was very portable, the best known port would be AmigaDOS for the Commodore Amiga. I wonder if it was licensing fees and BCPL/TripOS being based in the UK what seperated them from C/Unix... I guess we'd be living in the B++, B# and ObjectiveB world if it wasn't for DMR's wonderful world of C .. :) -----Original Message----- From: Gregg Levine [mailto:gregg.drwho8@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2011 12:37 AM To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org Cc: Jason Stevens Subject: Re: [TUHS] b remnants? On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 12:20 AM, Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: > Wasn't the other 'advantage' of threaded/pcode that it'd be smaller than a > native executable? > > I know it's out of left field, but building Dungeon on RT-11, you have to > use the treaded compiler, and I assume it was a space thing.. Just as on > MS-DOS (Yeah I know...) a save for fitting stuff in 64kb for the later > compilers was to compile to p-code.. > > Wikipedia gives p-code for Pascal a timeframe of the 'early 70's and > attribes the whole interpeted code as O-Code for BCPL .... > > I wonder if anyone ever did save any TripOS tapes for the PDP-11..... > > -----Original Message----- > From: A. P. Garcia [mailto:a.phillip.garcia@gmail.com] > Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 11:58 PM > To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org > Subject: Re: [TUHS] b remnants? > > > On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:52 AM, A. P. Garcia > <a.phillip.garcia(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >> In memoriam, I read The Development of the C Language: >> http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/chist.html >> >> It talks a bit about how B was originally implemented somewhat like >> ETH Pascal (p-code). Are there any B interpreters or programs in the >> archive? > > What intrigued me about this is that it's such an early example of an > abstract machine running as an interpreter. BCPL, roughly > contemporaneous, used ocode as an intermediate language, but it seems > this was intended to be further translated into assembly. While it's > possible to interpret ocode, in practice it seems this was rare, if it > was done at all. Almost everything I've read about abstract/vitual > machines traces its roots back to the following source: > > James R. Bell. 1973. Threaded code. Commun. ACM 16, 6 (June 1973), > 370-372. DOI=10.1145/362248.362270 > http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/362248.362270 > > Here's where dmr mentions implementing B using this technique: > > The B compiler on the PDP-7 did not generate machine instructions, but > instead `threaded code' [Bell 72], an interpretive scheme in which the > compiler's output consists of a sequence of addresses of code > fragments that perform the elementary operations. The operations > typically-in particular for B-act on a simple stack machine. > > Note he says it was published in 1972, when it actually appeared in > print in 1973 (same page numbers). Two paragraphs later he writes: > > By 1970, the Unix project had shown enough promise that we were able > to acquire the new DEC PDP-11. The processor was among the first of > its line delivered by DEC, and three months passed before its disk > arrived. Making B programs run on it using the threaded technique > required only writing the code fragments for the operators, and a > simple assembler which I coded in B; ; soon, dc became the first > interesting program to be tested, before any operating system, on our > PDP-11. Almost as rapidly, still waiting for the disk, Thompson > recoded the Unix kernel and some basic commands in PDP-11 assembly > language. Of the 24K bytes of memory on the machine, the earliest > PDP-11 Unix system used 12K bytes for the operating system, a tiny > space for user programs, and the remainder as a RAM disk. This version > was only for testing, not for real work; the machine marked time by > enumerating closed knight's tours on chess boards of various sizes. > Once its disk appeared, we quickly migrated to it after > transliterating assembly-language commands to the PDP-11 dialect, and > porting those already in B. > > The abstract machine is also mentioned in Thompson's "Users' Reference > to B", dated January 7, 1972. If the 1970 date is correct, they were > using this technique some three years before most of the computing > world knew about it!? Hello! This discussion is beginning to strike a heck of a lot of chords. Jason what is this TripOS you are describing here about? And did you actually get Dungeon to work? ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] b remnants?

by Jason Stevens

Wasn't the other 'advantage' of threaded/pcode that it'd be smaller than a native executable? I know it's out of left field, but building Dungeon on RT-11, you have to use the treaded compiler, and I assume it was a space thing.. Just as on MS-DOS (Yeah I know...) a save for fitting stuff in 64kb for the later compilers was to compile to p-code.. Wikipedia gives p-code for Pascal a timeframe of the 'early 70's and attribes the whole interpeted code as O-Code for BCPL .... I wonder if anyone ever did save any TripOS tapes for the PDP-11..... -----Original Message----- From: A. P. Garcia [mailto:a.phillip.garcia@gmail.com] Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 11:58 PM To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org Subject: Re: [TUHS] b remnants? On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 9:52 AM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > In memoriam, I read The Development of the C Language: > http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/chist.html > > It talks a bit about how B was originally implemented somewhat like > ETH Pascal (p-code). Are there any B interpreters or programs in the > archive? What intrigued me about this is that it's such an early example of an abstract machine running as an interpreter. BCPL, roughly contemporaneous, used ocode as an intermediate language, but it seems this was intended to be further translated into assembly. While it's possible to interpret ocode, in practice it seems this was rare, if it was done at all. Almost everything I've read about abstract/vitual machines traces its roots back to the following source: James R. Bell. 1973. Threaded code. Commun. ACM 16, 6 (June 1973), 370-372. DOI=10.1145/362248.362270 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/362248.362270 Here's where dmr mentions implementing B using this technique: The B compiler on the PDP-7 did not generate machine instructions, but instead `threaded code' [Bell 72], an interpretive scheme in which the compiler's output consists of a sequence of addresses of code fragments that perform the elementary operations. The operations typically-in particular for B-act on a simple stack machine. Note he says it was published in 1972, when it actually appeared in print in 1973 (same page numbers). Two paragraphs later he writes: By 1970, the Unix project had shown enough promise that we were able to acquire the new DEC PDP-11. The processor was among the first of its line delivered by DEC, and three months passed before its disk arrived. Making B programs run on it using the threaded technique required only writing the code fragments for the operators, and a simple assembler which I coded in B; ; soon, dc became the first interesting program to be tested, before any operating system, on our PDP-11. Almost as rapidly, still waiting for the disk, Thompson recoded the Unix kernel and some basic commands in PDP-11 assembly language. Of the 24K bytes of memory on the machine, the earliest PDP-11 Unix system used 12K bytes for the operating system, a tiny space for user programs, and the remainder as a RAM disk. This version was only for testing, not for real work; the machine marked time by enumerating closed knight's tours on chess boards of various sizes. Once its disk appeared, we quickly migrated to it after transliterating assembly-language commands to the PDP-11 dialect, and porting those already in B. The abstract machine is also mentioned in Thompson's "Users' Reference to B", dated January 7, 1972. If the 1970 date is correct, they were using this technique some three years before most of the computing world knew about it!? _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] b remnants?

by Jason Stevens

I didn't see it as immeditaly obvious on slackware 1.0 ... or SLS .. it very well may have been some addon or something somehwere.... If anyone knew it's filename that'd go a long long way! :) -----Original Message----- From: Derrik Walker [mailto:lorddoomicus@mac.com] Sent: Friday, October 14, 2011 12:36 PM To: Gregg Levine Cc: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org Subject: Re: [TUHS] b remnants? On Oct 14, 2011, at 11:53 AM, Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Derrik Walker <lorddoomicus(a)mac.com> wrote: > > Many, many eons ago, in the early '90's, there was an implementation of B > > for Linux ( I believe it was written in C, ironically enough ). I think it > > was part of a bigger collection of "ancient" software for Linux that use to > > be around in the early Slackware days. > > > > Alas, I have searched for it in the recent past, as I was thinking about > > porting it to OS X for kicks, but it seems to have vanished. > > > > Having an B, implemented in a modern language for a modern OS would be cool. > > > > > Hello! > How early a time period for the Slackware Linux group? (Which is what > I run.) There's a repository of older distributions on the Ibib site, > and a more comprehensive one situated on a mirror in the UK. It would have been around '92 or '93, back when Slackware really only provided a very basic boot system, gcc, some fancy scripts, and a crap load of tarballs to compile everything. I'm not even sure it was part of the Slackware collection, it might have been something someone added to the server - I didn't build that computer. It was an experimental system at CSU, where I was going to school at the time - and the first actually Linux computer I ever had an account on. One of the older professors had a bunch of B code he got from someplace and put the compiler on there to see if he could get it to build. I remember he also put f2c on there too as he had a tape full of Fortran code he wanted to compile. But, for all I know, he may have written the B compiler himself, but I seem to remember him telling me about this collection of ancient software for Linux that someone else had written, and he had gotten it up and running on the experimental Linux system. Just not sure how faulty my memory is. I just remember looking at B, and asking why he just doesn't covert it to C? Funny thing was, some of the younger professors were complaining saying the preferred their "REAL UNIX". Unfortunately, he as long since retired. And that Computer was retired when they moved the main Student system from HPUX to Redhat in the late '90's. - Derrik

13 years, 7 months

Mirror with link

by Jose R. Valverde

Just for the record. The correct way to mirror a site with links corrected is wget -c -m -k -np -e robots=off URL Seems most people have problem remembering this incantation. -- EMBnet/CNB Scientific Computing Service Solving all your computer needs for Scientific Research. http://bioportal.cnb.csic.es http://www.es.embnet.org

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] RIP Dennis

by Jose R. Valverde

We could set up a web site inmemoriamdmr.org maybe initially as a wiki and ask people to add their contribution and then maybe we could try to collect there his works or add a blog with articles about him that could be commented... Just an idea, I am in the middle of a Congress, seated in the front row and trying to listen to speakers through my consternation, and can do very little now. j -- EMBnet/CNB Scientific Computing Service Solving all your computer needs for Scientific Research. http://bioportal.cnb.csic.es http://www.es.embnet.org

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] dmr has passed away

by Jose R. Valverde

Truly a great loss. I just saw this (I have traveling to some international meetings). I wonder if we could come up with a way to pay hommage to him all together to acknowledge his legacy. Don't know what could be best, but I am sure there are people here who knew him and through their consternation can give us an idea of what would be the best way to publicly honor him. Can we all get together to do something jointly for him? I guess a global collaborative initiative would be most in his spirit and philosophy of life. Dunno, maybe create web site to celebrate him. Where everybody can leave a testimony of how his work has affected our lives. j -- EMBnet/CNB Scientific Computing Service Solving all your computer needs for Scientific Research. http://bioportal.cnb.csic.es http://www.es.embnet.org

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] Mirror for http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/

by Warren Toomey

True. I had to mirror via ftp as the robots.txt stopped the http mirroring. It should be possible to fix the mirror in the tarball. I'll see what I can do. Thanks, Warren -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. Hans Ottevanger <hansot(a)gmail.com> wrote: On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 6:57 AM, Warren Toomey <wkt(a)tuhs.org> wrote: > All, I've taken a mirror of http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/ > and placed it at http://minnie.tuhs.org/dmr/ > > Feel free to mirror from minnie, in case the Labs' server gets overloaded. > It's 112 Megs. > Warren, Thanks for this excellent action, but your links are still absolute, i.e. point to the original content on the Bell Labs website. If that content disappears for whatever reason you will have a lot of links to convert. Kind regards, Hans Ottevanger

13 years, 7 months

Re: [TUHS] Mirror for http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/

by Warren Toomey

On Wed, Oct 12, 2011 at 10:02:08PM -0700, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote: > >Feel free to mirror from minnie, in case the Labs' server gets overloaded. > >It's 112 Megs. > > A tarball, perhaps? Of course. ftp://minnie.tuhs.org/misc/dmr_cm.bell-labs_mirror.tar.gz 90M Cheers, Warren

13 years, 7 months

Death of dmr

by Greg 'groggy' Lehey

For those of you who haven't heard yet, dmr died on Sunday. Rob Pike announced it at https://plus.google.com/101960720994009339267/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP I don't know what to say. A *real* giant is dead. And almost the saddest thing is that nobody has paid any attention. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer Finger grog(a)FreeBSD.org for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft MUA reports problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua

13 years, 7 months

Mirror for http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/

by Warren Toomey

All, I've taken a mirror of http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/ and placed it at http://minnie.tuhs.org/dmr/ Feel free to mirror from minnie, in case the Labs' server gets overloaded. It's 112 Megs. Cheers, Warren

13 years, 7 months

dmr has passed away

by Warren Toomey

https://plus.google.com/101960720994009339267/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP?hl=en I just heard that, after a long illness, Dennis Ritchie (dmr) died at home this weekend. I have no more information. I trust there are people here who will appreciate the reach of his contributions and mourn his passing appropriately. He was a quiet and mostly private man, but he was also my friend, colleague, and collaborator, and the world has lost a truly great mind. - Pob Pike With great thanks and appreciation to him, Warren

13 years, 7 months

Dennis Ritchie...rip?

by Jason Stevens

wikipedia is listing that Dennis Ritchie just passed.. If that is so, then it really is a sad week to lose such a visionary. I wish I had some real details, but Rob Pike has it mentioned on his google+ account.... https://plus.google.com/u/0/101960720994009339267/posts/ENuEDDYfvKP?hl=en

13 years, 7 months

System V Interface Definition?

by Larry McVoy

Does anyone know where I might be get a bunch of copies of the 3 volume SVID 2nd edition (the 1986 release)?

13 years, 8 months

Re: [TUHS] UNIX V 6.9999999 ?

by Jason Stevens

That is kind of what I'd imagine... In 1983 I thought 160kb was infinate storage.. lol > -----Original Message----- > From: Lyndon Nerenberg (VE6BBM/VE7TFX) [SMTP:lyndon@orthanc.ca] > Sent: Friday, September 09, 2011 6:23 PM > To: jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com; dave(a)horsfall.org; tuhs(a)tuhs.org > Subject: Re: [TUHS] UNIX V 6.9999999 ? > > > It is insteresting reading about people haveing > > 600MB of storage back in 1981 > > You mean both of them?

13 years, 8 months

Re: [TUHS] UNIX V 6.9999999 ?

by Jason Stevens

Ah that makes sense, I could totally see that happening.. Esp with the cost of hardware back then! It is insteresting reading about people haveing 600MB of storage back in 1981.. I can only imagine how much it'd have cost! Thanks again! Jason -----Original Message----- From: Dave Horsfall [mailto:dave@horsfall.org] Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2011 11:36 PM To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Subject: Re: [TUHS] UNIX V 6.9999999 ? On Wed, 7 Sep 2011, Jason Stevens wrote: > What is UNIX V 6.9999999?? I suspect it's v6 with a bunch of patches, > but not quite v7? I've seen from some Russian stuff that they prefered > v6 on pdp-11's as it "ran faster" than v7 and needed far less ram/disk > space... I know it's 30 years too late to ask them what it is but I > figure someone may have actually ran/used 6.9999999... Back in the V6 days, I was known as Mr Unix 6-and-a-half, because I'd spliced all sorts of V7 features into V6 - notably XON/XOFF, and there was no way that V7 would run on the 11/40, I rewrote the Calcommp and Versatec plotter drivers to use the block interface, and they went like a bat out of hell. Sigh... We had fun in those days. -- Dave _______________________________________________ TUHS mailing list TUHS(a)minnie.tuhs.org https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

13 years, 8 months

Re: [TUHS] 4.0 BSD confusion....

by Keith Bostic

> > Interesting. I've taken a look at the sources from the CD set and > found that the text there (in /usr/src/sys/sys/machdep.c) is the same > > as above. Looking further, the entire directory has the same files in > > 4.0 and 4.1, with the same modification dates. So it looks as the 4.0 > > sources accidentally got replaced by the 4.1 sources. > Hmmm, no, I don't have anything useful to add. I suspect you could check the modification dates on the files, and the file SCCS IDs, against the source-code revision logs to figure this out for sure. --keith =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Keith Bostic keith(a)bostic.com

13 years, 8 months

UNIX V 6.9999999 ?

by Jason Stevens

While cruising olduse.net I came across this puzzling entry in net.general Department of Computer Engineering and Science Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio We would like to announce our connection to Usenet. We are a private university located in Cleveland, vacation spot of the midwest. The department's primary facilities consist of: VAX 11/780: hardware: RM05's, TU77, DZ-11, DH-11 (able), 2.5 Mbytes. software: 4.1 BSD PDP 11/45: hardware: RM02, DS330 (RP04), RK05, RX02, RS04(solid state) cache45 (able), DH-11 software: UNIX V 6.9999999 What is UNIX V 6.9999999?? I suspect it's v6 with a bunch of patches, but not quite v7? I've seen from some Russian stuff that they prefered v6 on pdp-11's as it "ran faster" than v7 and needed far less ram/disk space... I know it's 30 years too late to ask them what it is but I figure someone may have actually ran/used 6.9999999... Thanks Jason Stevens

13 years, 8 months

Ideas for a Unix paper I'm writing

by Warren Toomey

All, IEEE Spectrum have asked me to write a paper on Unix to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the release of 1st Edition in November 1971. I'm after ideas & suggestions! I think my general thrust is that Unix is an elegant design, and the design elements are still relevant today. The implementation is mostly irrelevant (consider how much the code has changed from assembly -> C, from the simple data structures in V7 through to current BSD), but the original API is classic. Note that about 28 of the 1st Ed syscalls are retained in current BSDs and Linux, and with the same syscall numbers. I'm having some trouble thinking of the right way to explain what is an elegant design at the OS/syscall level, so any inspirations/ideas would be most welcome. I might highlight a couple of syscall groups: open/close/read/write, and fork/exec/exit/wait. If you have any references/URLs you think I should look at, please pass them on to me. I'm also trying to chase down some quotes; my memory seems to be failing me but I'm sure I've seen these somewhere: - in a paper, I think by Thompson & Ritchie, where they assert that the kernel should provide no more than the most minimal services to the userland programs. I thought this was the CACM paper, but I can't spot this bit. Maybe it's in Thompson's preface to the Lions Commentary, of which my copy is elsewere at present. - I'm sure I remember someome (Kernighan?) say that Ritchie encouraged them to espouse the use of processes as context switching was cheap, but later measurements showed that in fact it wasn't that cheap in the early versions of Unix. Anyway, if you can think of good ideas/references about the elegance of Unix, especially from the design perspective, I would much appreciate them. Cheers, Warren

13 years, 8 months

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TUHS