TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

43 participants
6501 discussions

by Kevin Bowling

Cameron Kaiser has written up a nice survey on some windowing systems that can run under OS/MP or SunOS https://oldvcr.blogspot.com/2022/10/if-one-guis-not-enough-for-your-sparc.h…

2 years, 6 months

Re: vi in cooked mode?

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Diomidis Spinellis > I remember being told back in the 1980s that vi would set the terminal > to "cooked mode" when vi was in "insert mode", so as to reduce expensive > context switching for each character typed. > ... > However, I can't find such evidence even as far back as BSD 1. Maybe you're thinking of Multics Emacs, which had such a capability: https://multicians.org/mepap.html Noel

2 years, 6 months

[OT] Usenix Conference in Sydney - anybody else?

by Warren Toomey

Hi all, I'll be attending the Usenix SREcon22 Asia/Pacific Conference which is being held in Sydney, Australia on the 7-9 December. Is anybody else attending? If so, it'd be nice to catch up with some other TUHSers :-) https://www.usenix.org/conference/srecon22apac/program Cheers, Warren

2 years, 6 months

Re: Early Unix and Keyboard Skills

by Douglas McIlroy

> Touch typists can spot an illtyperate programmer from a mile away. > They don't even have to be in the same room. I once thought of touch typing as employment of all fingers. Then I met Fred Grampp. Using only four fingers, he typed as fast as most good programmers. He knew where to hit, with a kinesthetic sense that had progressed beyond dependence on "home keys". It was an athletic performance, astonishing to watch. Doug

2 years, 6 months

early Unix papers, from Jim Joyce

by Rich Morin

Some of you may recall my friend Jim Joyce, who was an early proponent of Unix. IIRC, he taught the first course on Unix at UCB. Later on, he started and ran mail-order bookstores and seminars specializing in Unix-related topics, helped to found Unix Review, etc. In any event, I have about a cubic foot of early Unix papers, saved from Jim's files after his death. It's quite likely that all of these papers are already available in collections, but I'd like to make sure that any exceptions don't get lost. Also, the printed copies may have some independent historical merit. Suggestions? -r

2 years, 6 months

Re: Four windowing systems on SunOS

by Nelson H. F. Beebe

Larry McVoy reports today: >> People like Sunview's api enough that there was an Xview toolkit which >> was Sunview ported to X10/X11. The interface was nicely documented in three editions of a book (I have no entry for the second edition): @String{pub-ORA = "O'Reilly \& {Associates, Inc.}"} @String{pub-ORA:adr = "981 Chestnut Street, Newton, MA 02164, USA"} @Book{Heller:1990:XPM, author = "Dan Heller", title = "{XView} Programming Manual", volume = "7", publisher = pub-ORA, address = pub-ORA:adr, pages = "xxviii + 557", year = "1990", ISBN = "0-937175-38-2", ISBN-13 = "978-0-937175-38-5", LCCN = "QA76.76.W56 D44 v.7 1990", bibdate = "Tue Dec 14 22:55:18 1993", bibsource = "http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.bib", acknowledgement = ack-nhfb, } @Book{Heller:1991:XPM, author = "Dan Heller", title = "{XView} Programming Manual", volume = "7A", publisher = pub-ORA, address = pub-ORA:adr, edition = "Third", pages = "xxxvii + 729", month = sep, year = "1991", ISBN = "0-937175-87-0", ISBN-13 = "978-0-937175-87-3", LCCN = "QA76.76.W56 H447 1990", bibdate = "Mon Jan 3 17:55:53 1994", bibsource = "http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/tex/bib/master.bib", series = "The Definitive guides to the X Window System", acknowledgement = ack-nhfb, } I have the first edition on a shelf near my campus office chair, and continue to use olvwm as my window manager on multiple O/Ses, for 30+ years. Every window manager designed since seems to fail to understand the importance of user customizable, and pinnable, menus, which I exploit to the hilt. The menu customization goes into a single, easy to edit, text file, $HOME/.openwin-menu. Compare that to the Gnome desktop, with hundreds of files, many of them binary, stored in hidden directories under $HOME, and for which any corruption breaks the window system, and prevents login (except via a GUI console). Also. olvwm does not litter a default desktop with icons for applications that many of use would never use: just a simple blank desktop, with menu popups bound to mouse buttons. With olvwm, you can have any number of virtual desktops, not just the 2 or 4 offered by more modern window manaugers, and unlike some of those, windows can be dragged between desktops. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe(a)math.utah.edu - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe(a)acm.org beebe(a)computer.org - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2 years, 6 months

Memoir Marks the 25th Anniversary of First Transgender Employment Policy

by Mary Ann Horton

This may be a bit off-topic, so please forgive me. Lucent is central to the book. I want to let you know I had a memoir published today, on the 25th anniversary of Lucent's historic policy. Here's the main part of the press release. > Before 1997, transgender workers were routinely fired when their > employers found out they were changing their sex. That changed on Oct. > 28, 1997, when Lucent Technologies became the first Fortune 500 > company to formally commit that it would not discriminate based on > "gender identity, characteristics, or expression". Dr. Mary Ann > Horton, who instigated the change, has written a memoir, Trailblazer: > Lighting the Path for Transgender Inclusion in Corporate America. > "When I led transgender-101 workshops, my personal story was people's > favorite part. They wanted more, and Trailblazer is the result," said > Horton. "It will be released on the 25th anniversary, Oct. 28." > > Horton was a software technology worker at Lucent in Columbus, Ohio, > when Lucent added the language. It allowed Mary Ann, then known as > Mark, to come out in the workplace without fear of reprisal. When she > didn't need to spend energy hiding part of herself, her productivity > soared, and she was promoted. Three years later, she persuaded Lucent > to cover gender-confirming medical care in their health insurance. She > blazed the trail for Apple, Avaya, Xerox, IBM, Chase, and other > companies to follow. Nokia blogged about it today. https://www.nokia.com/about-us/careers/life-at-nokia/employee-blogs/25th-an… You can find the book at https://www.amazon.com/Trailblazer-Lighting-Transgender-Equality-Corporate-… If you read it, please post a review to Amazon. -- Thanks, /Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am) maryannhorton.com <https://maryannhorton.com> "This is a great book" - Monica Helms "Brave and Important" - Laura L. Engel Available on Amazon and bn.com! <https://www.amazon.com/Trailblazer-Lighting-Transgender-Equality-Corporate-…>

2 years, 6 months

SunOS4.1.3, etc., on GitHub

by Rich Salz

Sorry if this is a repost. No idea of the legality, and therefore no idea how long it will stay: https://twitter.com/nixcraft/status/1586276475614818305 is the tweet and https://github.com/Arquivotheca/SunOS-4.1.3 is the repository with this README, below. Many other OS's there too. README <https://github.com/Arquivotheca/SunOS-4.1.3#readme> This is the SunOS 4.1.3 SUNSRC CD-ROM. It contains the source in 3 forms. 1. plain text source, as a ufs tree, rooted at the top level of this filesystem. Symlinks to the SCCS hierarchy are in place. 2. SCCS hierarchy, rooted at SCCS_DIRECTORIES. 3. a tar image of the SCCS hierarchy, in a file named 4.1.3_SUNSRC.tar. This is rooted at ./SCCS_DIRECTORIES. Please see the SunOS 4.1.3 Source Installation Guide for further details.

2 years, 6 months

Version 3.1 of Installing and Using Research Unix Version 7 note is up the blog

by Will Senn

Following up on my v6 udpate a couple of weeks ago, I've updated my v7 note to use OpenSIMH and bring it up to date. In addition, I've switched the multi-session notes over to DZ-11 from DC-11 cuz it supports 9600 over telnet. Here's the link: http://decuser.blogspot.com/2022/10/installing-and-using-research-unix_29.h… Changes since revision 2.1 (2/3/2022) Revision 3.1 (10/29/2022) - minor revision: Changed over to DZ-11 vs DC-11 for serial connections which allows for 9600 baud connections. Revision 3.0 (10/28/2022) - major revision: Started using OpenSIMH Restored the learn notes which went missing between 2.0 and 2.1 Updated host notes for Macos Monterey Cleaned up a number of lingering issues This note covers building a working v7 instance from tape files that will run in the OpenSImH emulator. First, the reader is led through the restoration of a pristine v7 instance from tape to disk. Next, the reader is led through adding a regular user and making the system multi-user capable. Then, the reader is shown how to make the system multi-session cable to allow multiple simultaneous sessions. Finally, the system is put to use with hello world, DMR style, and the learn system is enabled. The note explains each step of the process in detail.

2 years, 6 months

who invented the link register

by ron minnich

I know branch and link was in the 360; was it earlier? And ... anybody know who invented it? This came up in a risc-v meeting just now :-) My claim is that if anybody knows, they will be in this group.

2 years, 6 months

Re: who invented the link register

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: ron minnich > I know branch and link was in the 360; was it earlier? Well, as I understand it, branch and link (BAL and BALR) did a couple of different things (if I have this wrong, I hope someone will correct me). It was a subroutine call, but it also loaded a base register. (Those were used to deal with the /360's bizarro memory management, which was not 'base and bounds, with a user's virtual address space starting at zero', like a lot of contemporary machines. Rather, a process saw its actual physical memory location, so depending on where in memoty a process was loaded, it would be executing at different addresses visible to it; the base registers were used to deal with that. This made swapping complicated, since it had to be swapped back in to the same location.) Which function of BALR are you enquiring about? The subroutine call part? > From: Angelo Papenhoff > The Whirlwind used the A register for this purpose. ... > Might be earlier than this, I just happen to know the Whirlwind > somewhat well. It's late 40s machine, so you probably won't find > anything *much* older. The only machines older than Whirlwind I know of are the ACE (design; not implemented until later) and EDVAC. I have ACE stuff, but i) the documentation is really wierd, and hard to read, and ii) it's really bizarre (it didn't have opcodes; different registers did different things). There were subroutines written for it, but it's not clear how they were called. The EDVAC, the only thing I have on it is von Neumann's draft, and it's even harder to read than Turing's ACE Report! Noel

2 years, 6 months

Revised v6 Instructions Posted

by Will Senn

All, I have revised my Research Unix Version 6 instructions for 2022, in part to support the change to OpenSSH and also to bring it along into the modern era (I did it on my Monterey instance). I updated the links, cleaned up some lingering issues, and confirmed it working. Please take a look and let me know if you find any issues, misrepresentations, missing pieces, etc. I haven't touch v6 in a while, but it was fun to reminisce. http://decuser.blogspot.com/2022/10/installing-and-using-research-unix.html Regards, Will

2 years, 7 months

Re: Attempting To Build NOSC and BBN UNIXs + ARPANET code

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

>> Looking at net_vdh.h, it seems to be a "VDH-11C" >> ... >> I wasn't able to find anything out about it at all. (I have some >> hardcopy manuals for other ACC IMP interface products, and I was going >> to look in them to see if any of them listed its manual in a 'see >> also', but I can't find them.) > From: Lars Brinkhoff > Noel Chiappa wrote: >> Did VDH PDP-11's have a special VDH interface > Sorry, no idea. That was a semi-rhetorical question; after I typed it, I did some looking, and came up with the answer above, the ACC VDH-11. I did eventually find the hardcopy manuals for other ACC IMP interface products, but none of them mention the VDH11. On a hunch, I looked to see if there was a VDH11 driver for ELF, and sure enough, there was: https://github.com/pdp11/elf-operating-system/blob/master/files/kdvdh.m11%5… (If anyone wants to look at it, ktbl.sml hold the register definitions.) With no manual for the device, and no museum catalog hits to show that someone has one which hasn't been scanned in yet, that's probably a dead end, although with the two drivers, one could probably mock up a rudimentary programmming manual. I'm not sure there's any point, though; using an LH/DH interface is going to work as well, and those device are already supported. > From: Paul Ruizendaal > impio.c: available here: Thanks for chasing those all down; I knew the BBN system was based on the NCP Unix (called in this discussion the 'NOSC' system), so I figured it would have the missing files, in some form. Looking at a diff between the damaged impio.c in the NOSC tree, and the impio.c in the BBN tree, there are some changes (in the section where we have both versions) between the NOSC one and the BBN one, but it will probably be possible to take the missing piece off the bank end of the BBN one and tack it on to the NOSC one. Somewhere in the document scans available online from DOD, there used to be a long thing from the UIUC people who did the original NCP Unix. I don't know if it included source; it might have. Noel

2 years, 7 months

Re: Attempting To Build NOSC and BBN UNIXs + ARPANET code

by Paul Ruizendaal

Maybe I’m dim, but I’ve lost track in this discussion of what is missing / corrupted. sys4.c: I think this is available in BBN V6: https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/ken <https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/ken> In this file the only real network addition is Jack Haverty’s user timer variable, I think. What else is missing? imp11a.c: available in two versions here: https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/dmr <https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/dmr> impio.c: available here: https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/ncpkernel/impio.c <https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/ncpkernel/impio.c> Maybe the compiler has a different opinion, but they don’t look obviously corrupted [??] Also, the BBN-VAX files may be a solution. BBN sent four tapes with snap shots to CSRG in 1981. The TUHS website has the newest version, but there are 3 older ones (all 4 come from Kirk McKusick’s DVD set). They all have a slightly different set of files. These tapes also have IMP and ACC drivers in them, along with a token ring driver that was apparently based on Noel’s work back in the day. These files may also help filling in blank spots in PDP11 files. Paul

2 years, 7 months

John Lions: 3 sabbaticals at Bell Labs. 1978 and which other years? 1989?

by steve jenkin

Berkeley Tague says he invited John to work with the USG in 1978 [ AUUG, below. Also by Ronda Hauben in multiple places ] [ In two ‘recollections’ / history docs sourced from UNSW, ] [ the first visit was misremembered as 1976 or 1977. ] I was wondering when John's two other sabbaticals to Bells Labs were. The Peter Ivanov interview with John in “Unix Review”, 1985, notes two sabbaticals by then. After writing the celebrated Commentary on the UNIX Operating System in 1976, Lions was asked to spend two sabbaticals at the Labs. This comment in 2000 on “9fans” from Rob Pike says John also visited in 1989, but sadly his work by then had been affected. <https://marc.info/?l=9fans&m=144372955601968&w=2> Anyone know when the other visit was? Presumably 1983 or 1984 if John took a semester off every 5 years. ======== In AUUGN Oct 1995, V16 #5, there’s a collection of emails, an ‘interview’ with John PDF pages 17 & 24 <https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V16.5.pdf> Berkeley Tague says in 1978 he invited John to work with the USG. then He wanted to come to Murray Hill for his sabbatical so it was a win/win situation. He spent two or three summers at Bell Labs over the years and supplied us with many of his graduate students for sabbaticals and permanent employment. Later: AUUGN: What have been the professional highlights of your career? JL: For myself, three sabbaticals at Bell Laboratories have been highlights. For my students, opportunities arose for employment at the Laboratories. ======== -- Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin

2 years, 7 months

Re: Attempting To Build NOSC and BBN UNIXs + ARPANET code

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Michael Casadevall > sys4.c is entirely corrupted, and part of impio.c is cut off The copy on MIT-CSR (the origin of the copy at TUHS) has the same issues. I doubt it's possible to recover them from that system; you'll have to find some other way to recover them (perhaps through a dump of the BBN system), or re-code them (as you did with sys4.c). > I do need to do a readthrough for the VDH driver ... I think that might > be for the radio links to Hawaii and the UK? No. Read BBN 1822. The LH and DH bit-serial physical interfaces only work up to about 1000 feet or so. (Less for LH; DH is logically idential to LH, but uses differential pairs - the LH is single-sided). VDH is, in the bottom layer, simply a synchronous serial link, allowing the host to be up to hunreds of miles from the IMP. > From: Lars Brinkhoff > Another it adding emulators for various IMP interfaces. I.e. you will > not get anywhere without adding one of IMP11A, ACC, or VDH to SIMH. Did VDH PDP-11's have a special VDH interface, or did they simply use an off-the-rack DEC synchronous serial interface like a DU11? (More of them here: http://gunkies.org/wiki/Category:DEC_Synchronous_Serial_Interfaces if anyone wants.) Looking at net_vdh.h, it seems to be a "VDH-11C" Looking online, the VDH-11 seems to be an ACC prodict, but I wasn't able to find anything out about it at all. (I have some hardcopy manuals for other ACC IMP interface products, and I was going to look in them to see if any of them listed its manual in a 'see also', but I can't find them.) I'm not sure why people did just use an off-the-rack DEC synchronous serial interface; maybe the VDH11 did a BBN specific CRC, or something (in addition to using DMA; mostr DEC sync interfaces didn't, IIRC)? Anyway, you don't want to use VDH. Noel

2 years, 7 months

Re: Attempting To Build NOSC and BBN UNIXs + ARPANET code

by Lars Brinkhoff

Tom Perrine wrote: > A specific example of the VDH interface was the IMP at NOSC. > > IIRC it had 4 ports? Normally yes (depending on the hardware configuration). > One was a local connection to the machine at NOSC in the same room/building. > One was a VDH to UCSD > One was a VDH to LOGICON - the connection at the LOGICON end was a "56K > wideband modem", which was a little larger than a 2-drawer file cabinet. I > also seem to recall that the power supply had tubes. > Not sure where the 4th port went - I only saw the UCSD and LOGICON ends in > person. Maybe this information for IMP 3 and 35 from 1979 can jog your memory. HOST NOSC-SECURE2, 0/35,USER,TENEX,PDP10,[USC-ISIR1,ISIR1] HOST LOGICON, 1/35,USER,UNIX,PDP11 HOST ACCAT-TIP, 2/35,USER,TIP,H316,[NELC-TIP] HOST NOSC-SECURE3, 3/35,USER,UNIX,PDP11 HOST NOSC-CC, 0/3,SERVER,,UNIVAC-1110,[NUC-CC,NOSC-ELF] HOST NOSC-SECURE1, 1/3,SERVER,UNIX,PDP11,[NUC-SECURE] HOST NOSC-SDL, 2/3,SERVER,UNIX,PDP11,[NELC-ELF,NELC] HOST NWC, 3/3,SERVER,EXEC-8,UNIVAC-1110 HOST NPRDC-11, 4/3,SERVER,UNIX,PDP11

2 years, 7 months

Re: Attempting To Build NOSC and BBN UNIXs + ARPANET code

by Paul Ruizendaal

>> The BBN with TCP stack is a bit mislabeled: it still appears to >> support NCP, but none of the client apps are there, but its directly >> built off the NOSC stack. > > That's very good. I hope the NCP support there is in good shape. > >> it's probably a fork from earlier in development. 79-80 timespawn >> would have been *very* early in TCP's life > > TCP had been underway since 1973. Experiments called "TCP bakeoffs" > started around 1979. That is what the “V6 with TCP” on TUHS is: Following the success of NCP Unix, it became a base for various TCP experiments in the ’77-’79 era. The first was an implementation by Jack Haverty, that wrapped an existing TCPv2 stack that was written in PDP-11 assembler into a Unix application. It ran in user mode and depended on Rand ports and several extensions that Jack added to the kernel (await/capac and a user mode timing variable, where the clock routine incremented a variable in user space). He used a PDP-11 with little core and the pipes (ports) did not stay in the file buffers, but flushed onto disk. This killed performance: Jack recalls that a bad run would average a few characters per second. Next Mike Wingfield wrote a TCPv4 stack in C, more or less using the architecture of the above. It was the “winner" of the December 1979 bake-off. I think it is the first TCPv4 implementation for Unix and maybe the oldest surviving source for TCPv4 overall. I wanted to try if it would still interoperate with modern TCP/IP, but I never got around to that. An actual printout survives in the SRI archives and I painstakingly retyped that source, just weeks before Noel found the right tapes :^). Later still, Craig Partridge found a full report and listing in the BBN archives (report no. 3724). This NCP Unix with the Wingfield library is the version that is labeled “BBN V6 with TCP” on TUHS. Some of the code in the Wingfield stack is to test the protocol. Arpanet essentially offers circuit switching, and some of the code is there to simulate dropped packets, out-of-order packets, etc. It also tested security features that were under consideration, but subsequently dropped as interest shifted to end-to-end encryption. Again, user mode TCP was not found to be practical, the 16-bit era was ending and that is when Rob Gurwitz was assigned to write a new stack for the VAX (1980). By that time Jack Haverty was his boss. Some parts of the BBN VAX-TCP design still echo the user space origins and experiences of the BBN team in the immediate years before. This stack I got working and it still interoperates with modern TCP/IP (at least it did some 5 years ago). Jack Haverty can easily be reached via the internet-history mailing list. I’ve summarised the history here: http://chiselapp.com/user/pnr/repository/TUHS_wiki/wiki?name=early_networki… I should transfer it to the TUHS wiki or to Gunkies one of these days. === I am not sure I understood which files are missing or corrupted and in which NCP Unix trees. Noel retrieved the files from old (mouldy even) tapes so some corruption is quite possible. Pulling together material from various sources can hopefully lead to a working source tree. Glad to help. Further note that NCP Unix was initially developed on 5th Edition, but soon migrated to 6th edition. I am sure that the various installations tracked new developments and installed extra bits and pieces. The surviving images are from 1979 and for sure would have picked up bits from newer releases and other sources (such as the Uni of Calgary buffer extensions). Paul

2 years, 7 months

Attempting To Build NOSC and BBN UNIXs + ARPANET code

by Michael Casadevall

Hey all, I've been recently working on researching ARPANET and the like for use in an upcoming video. As a starting point, I've been looking at the early UNIX networking code in archives, specifically, the NOSC tarball, and I've spent quite a few hours trying to get building on livestreams. What I've found is that there's corruption issues in code; which is noted in JOHNS-NOTE, although it's more severe than I realized. For example sys4.c is entirely corrupted, and part of impio.c is cut off. However, this isn’t quite as bad as it sounds. For example, by kitbashing both the original v6 source code, and the later BBN TCP code, I was able to create a sys4.c that builds and links which should be close to the original. Furthermore, it is possible to use the “vdh” target instead of the imp target to at least try and get the code building. I did successfully get a kernel to build, and it even prints out a mem message before deadlocking. My guess is it's either deadlocked waiting for the IMP, or there’s something wrong with the build. There’s some indication that it might need a split kernel, although I’ve not had any success with that thus far. I have uploaded my current build tree to git, as well as tarball with simh images if anyone wants to try and figure out what has gone wrong. I admit, my knowledge of PDP-11 assembly and debugging platforms is a bit wanting :) There’s some indication that this, and the later BBN TCP (which is from around the same time period) code were built on top of the Programmer’s Workbench vs. stock v6; especially because some code patches were needed to get it to build. I did look at the TUHS PWB archives, I see a bunch of binaries, but absolutely no idea how to install them. I’ve heard that none of these archives are actually complete, but I'm hoping someone might have some idea of how to go forward, since, if nothing else, I’d like to end this with a success story, although I’m happy with as far as I got. Furthermore, I do know that I can run some of the ARPA level utilities in MIT ITS on CHAOSNET, which will be an upcoming project, although that is going to be a dive in and of itself. In short, I’m hoping someone might be able to provide some insight into where things have gone wrong: * Is the netunix kernel I built hanging because of corrupted code, or is it waiting for non-existent hardware. * NOTE: The DC-11 driver was not included, but I don’t think I need that for a single console? * Is there any versions of PWB that is “easily” installable, since its very clear the later BBN code requires it (it refers to ncc explicitly)? * I know IMPs have been emulated, and even have successfully routed packets, so I’m also trying to figure out how much would still be necessary to actually recreate a minimal ARPA network? I did try to build some of the NCP applications regardless; it does appear that some parts are simply missing. Mailer.cc seems to want a hnconv.o but no source file exists. The FTP daemon on the other hand wants a library simply called “j”. My guess is that even if the NCP code was buildable, the applications might not be. However, this did make me take a closer look at the BBN code, and it does have an ifdef for NCP, suggesting that it was still usable/supported? It makes sense, it seems to have been written before the TCP/IP flag day. I’m just not sure where to approach compiling it. I’ve uploaded the code with patches to build with the v6 compiler to github here: https://github.com/NCommander/network-unix-v6/tree/attempted-repair NOTE: v6's cc needs a seperate patch to increase the symbol table size; that's done in the disk image. Files, with SIMH configuration available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QS0B3RU_mwXSGtl2En-d0WI3PJ1-udEs/view?usp=… My livestreams (12 hours or so) are on my YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/c/NCommander Feel free to forward this to other lists that may have PDP-11 or ARPANET experts! ~ NCommander

2 years, 7 months

Princeton's "Unix: An Oral History": who was in the team in "The Attic"?

by steve jenkin

Has this been covered before? I’ve searched but not found an obvious answer, which would be a timeline, not a table. Has anyone roughly calculated “man years” spent developing Unix to 1973 or 1974? Under 25 "man-years”? (person years now) It compares favourably to the quoted “5,000 man years over 4 years” invested by IBM for the 1st million lines of OS/360 - which by 1978 was estimated a 10M LOC. In my reading on Multics, I’d not noticed a ‘man years’ estimate, thought the project ran from 1965 to 1985 when Honeywell ‘capped’ development and span off a commercial entity [ Bell Labs leaving April 1969 ]. There were many releases of Multics beginning with "MR 1.0” in 1974 to “MR 11.0” in 1984, with some others later. <https://www.multicians.org/chrono.html> Cobato in 1977 wrote that by 1969, when it moved out of ‘development only’, 150 man-years were spent on software. <https://rcs.uwaterloo.ca/~ali/cs854-f17/papers/multics.pdf> The original Unix group working with the PDP-11 on the 6th floor should be well known, but I can’t recall seeing a list. Would the first 1973 conferenceor 1974 CACM paper be the natural cut-off date for an ‘original' group? There’s a list of "Former members of 1127” maintained on-line. As an outsider who doesn’t know ppl & dates, can’t extract what I was interested in. <https://www.spinroot.com/gerard/1127_alumni.html> There was a constraint on active users / concurrent logins in the “Attic": the number of connected terminals & desks there. Assuming it took time to get terminals installed elsewhere, then later dedicated phone lines and 300 baud modems outside. The typesetter used by the patent dept isn’t mentioned. I’ve a recollection it was fed by mag tape, but unsure of that source. Infer at least the people named in the piece, which looks very sparse: Ken & Dennis :) Morris Cherry Kernighan Plus Joe Osanna working on roff / troff? [ do I have that wrong ] The 1971 “1st Edition” Manual Intro lists 4 names. No others appear in Sections 1, 3, 6, 7 [ commands & libraries ] <https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v1/1stEdman.html> ken K. Thompson dmr D. M. Ritchie jfo J. F. Ossanna rhm R. Morris In June 1974, Dennis wrote in the preface to the Version 5 manual, with he and Ken named as authors. <https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5man.pdf> The authors are grateful to L. L. Cherry, L. A. Dimino, R. C. Haight, S. C. Johnson, B. W. Kernighan, M. E. Lesk, and E. N. Pinson for their contributions to the system software, and to L. E. McMahon for software and for his contributions to this manual. We are particularly appreciative of the invaluable technical, editorial, and administrative efforts of J. F. Ossanna, M. D. Mcllroy, and R. Morris ======== An Oral History of Unix <https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/> Assembling the History of Unix [ Report of FRS121 course ] <https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/finalhis.htm#attic> The center of Unix activity was a sixth-floor room at Murray Hill which contained the PDP-11 that ran Unix. "Don't think of a fancy laboratory, but it was a room up in the attic," as Morris describes it. In addition to the programmers, four secretaries from the patent department worked in the attic, performing the text-processing tasks for which Unix was ostensibly developed. Robert Morris: We all worked in the same room. We worked all up in an attic room on the sixth floor, in Murray Hill. In space that maybe was one and a half times the size of this hotel room. We were sitting at adjacent terminals, and adjacent, and we knew each other and we always in fact ate lunch together. Shared a coffeepot. So, it was a very close relationship and most of us were both users and contributors and there was a significant initiative for research contribution at all points. ======== -- Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin

2 years, 7 months

Documentation Call Numbers and Meanings?

by segaloco

Good afternoon folks, linked is a list of all of the call numbers of UNIX-relevant documentation that I've been able to catalogue lately: https://pastebin.com/DbDAhX3W This isn't exhaustive, I skipped many documents under dept (assuming dept) 305, 306, and 308, focusing mainly on 700, 301, 307, and 320. I was wondering if anyone that has some knowledge of the numbering system used for these documents in Bell might be able to comment on this in any way. What I've been able to make some determination on is: 700-prefixed call numbers appear to be general Western Electric stuff, most of these manuals being related to switching, power, hardware, etc. However, the UNIX 3.0 manual and 4.0 reference guide are both under this series too. I imagine this was simply because the computer systems group hadn't been formally spun off or otherwise received directive to manage UNIX documentation at this point? In any case, I'd be curious what all else may have gotten 700-series call numbers before the 300-series took over UNIX docs. As for the 300 series, as far as I can tell 300 is the umbrella for AT&T Computer Systems, with several sub departments handling slightly different (although overlapping in circumstances) concerns. What I have managed to determine is that 301 series encompasses the original System V version documentation, a few "Level II COBOL" documents, as well as some M68000 and Z8000-specific versions of docs (I didn't know UNIX System V ever hit the Z8000, that's cool). After System V gold, the wealth of UNIX documentation appears to come from code 307-X instead, I'm assuming 307 is whatever permutation of USG/USL happened to exist at the time. However, there are a few other codes that seem to sporadically be involved in UNIX docs as well as other computing docs: 302 - Just a smattering of Writers Workbench docs, very high call number suffixes (950-958). 303 - Bunch of 3B20D (Real-Time-Reliable) docs as well as other 3B20 stuff, mainly hardware manuals but a few SVR2.1-related docs as well for 3B20A, S, and D 304 - Another smattering of 3B20 docs, this time mostly A and S, mix of hardware and UNIX docs 305 - This one is hard to pin down, they've got the basic 3B2 docs, some other guidance docs for non-20 3B computers, and a mishmash of language tools like assemblers, a BASIC interpreter, compilers, and a few odd technical bulletins for products covered in other groups 306 - There wasn't much direct UNIX documentation here, just stuff about 3BNet (3B computer networking?) and the 5620 DOT Mapped terminal 308 - Documentation on a whole mess of software utilities with some odd Sys V manuals sprinkled in. You've got stuff like the "Office Telesystem", Instructional Workbench, more docs on BASIC, Pascal, and COBOL, some Fortran stuff as well, and a few other reference documents 310 - Seems to be entirely related to Documenter's and Writer's Workbenches. Whats odd is there is also a pretty even split of DWB and WWB documents in the 302 and 307 groups, so hard to say why the split, maybe a secondary department producing supplementary literature? Very low call number suffixes, so possibly 302 transitioned into 310 for DWB/WWB support 311 - Might be a "trade book" publishing arm, seems to only contain a few books, including "The C Programming Language" 320 - Might be the "standard systems" trade books arm as opposed to the version/system specific documentation gotten from USL directly. This list contains books like the SVID, Bach's Design of the UNIX Operating System book, some programming guidance books, and the UNIX Programmer's Manual 5 volume series with the metallic alphabet blocks on the cover (echoing the V7 trade release). What's interesting is call number 320-X comes back around with SVR4 as the call code that a number of 386-specific manuals were published under. 341 - This one is very odd, a higher call number than any of the others, but the only docs I could find under this are the System V gold Document, Graphics, Programming, and Support Tools guides, which curiously weren't published under 301 like the rest of the documentation for that version. Finally, some digestion from this research: This gives some compelling version-support information in early SysV I wasn't aware of previously: - System V Gold: - PDP-11 - VAX-11 - 3B - M68000 - Z8000 - System V R2: - VAX-11 - 3B - M68000 - NS32000 - iAPX 286 It appears Bell also opted to have different documentation sets for different processors in SVR2. We kinda see this later on with i386 variants of the SVR3 and SVR4 documents, but I don't think we ever quite see this wide of a spread of docs straight from AT&T after this. Also, among the many documents (one I didn't add to the list yet) is one referring specifically to UNIX Release 5.3, not System V R3 or anything like that, but a Release 5.3. I know I've seen "Release 5.2" listed in a few places, which had me curious, is there a well established record of what happened with internal (non research) UNIX after System V was branched? Whether the development stream simply became System V development, or if there was still a totally separate UNIX 5.x branch for a while that, while borrowed into System V at necessary times, did still constitute a distinct branch of development after the initial System V release. I know there is at least evidence of aspects of System V being put into CB UNIX 2.3, meaning CB 2.3 was post-System V, that would make a compelling argument for there being some more development work between CB and USG folks before they put the final bow on the UNIX/TS project and formally routed all efforts to System V. I'm sure there are other little nuggets of information hiding in there, but that's my digest from this thus far. If anyone knows of any other such efforts to produce a listing of all known UNIX documentation call numbers from AT&T, I'll happily contribute this to their efforts. - Matt G. P.S. SysV Gold scans are still inbound, just likely will be a winter project once the rains start and I can't go play outside.

2 years, 7 months

Strange Reference on Usenix_77 tape

by Warner Losh

Greetings, I was looking at the various Usenix tapes we have in the TUHS archive, trying to sort them all out. In looking at ug091377.tar.gz in Applications/Usenix_77, I found this paragraph at the end of its read_me " Finally, if we have an executed Harvard License on file and if there is room on your tape, the directory "h" contains the newest (July 1977) release of the HRSTS system. We have also in- cluded the old Toronto release in the directory "t" if it was re- quested from a Toronto licensee." This tape had the 'h' directory, so I'll be playing around with the HRSTS system to see if I can get it booting in TUHS (I didn't know we had this til now)... This tape did not have the 't' directory, however. What is 'the old Toronoto release'? I've not seen references to it so far in the other histories of this early period I've encountered. And does anybody have a copy of it? Warner

2 years, 8 months

Early BSD license thread

by Warner Losh

I hate myself a little bit, but I posted an answer to the 'BSD license origin' in this twitter thread https://twitter.com/bsdimp/status/1572521676268802049 that people might find interesting. Please note the caveats at the end of the thread: This is a bare outline hitting the high points taking only data from release files with no behind the scenes confirmation about why things changed, nor in-depth exploration of variations that I know are present, nor do I got into examples from various USENET postings from the time that stole the license for people's own different uses. Nonetheless, I hope it's useful... Warner

2 years, 8 months

The USL Toolchest from the 80s and 90s

by Clem Cole

Mike Haertel's quest for the 5620 tools got me thinking. Does anyone know of an archive of the USL Toolchest at large? It would be cool if someone had the whole thing on a single tape. But, I suspect many of us have pieces of it. I'm not sure I know all the pieces that made it up. But I would like to see the USDL section of Warren's Archive include a sub directory Toolchest with the collected parts - from Korn shell, the final version of Writer workbench, to DMD tools and the like. IIRC the final edition of PCC2 was released as part of it. thoughts? Clem

2 years, 8 months

Unix timelines

by steve jenkin

In 2007 I started entering the contents of Eric Levenez’s “Unix History” diagram into “dot” format to use with Graphviz. It stalled when I was unable to create a diagram I really liked. My recollection is that I talked with Warren about encoding this data and creating diagrams. He compiled the TUHS “Unix Tree”, presumably now the definitive resource, but I haven’t see a diagram linked from there. There’s the github “Unix History” project by TUHS list folk <https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo> I didn’t research producing timelines & relationships automatically from git: this would be a solid solution, if the Repo was considered as permanent as the TUHS site. The “Linux Distribution Timeline” is based on a tool, gnuclad, that takes CSV files and 'computes a cladogram’ in SVG. conversion to PNG is via ImageMagick’s “convert”. By default, timelines are produced ‘left to right’, with claimed ‘right to left’, ’top to bottom’ and ‘bottom to top’ formats - which I haven’t tested. The CSV file can include links which are built into clickable points in the final image, at least for SVG, unsure of PNG. A concern that I have is the creation of the CSV file from Distrowatch is opaque. Possibly built by hand. New diagrams are uploaded 2-3 times a year. The Levenez "fishbone" diagram doesn’t seem to be updated with Warner Losh’s 2020 “Hidden Early History”. Clem Cole’s Big Block diagram shows “low-res” diagrams are also very useful, eliminating distracting detail when appropriate. Groklaw from 2004-2009 tried to collect information about the Unix/Linux Timelines, but the site is gone now & Wayback machine hasn’t picked up many of the detail / comments page. I’ve no contact with PJ & whoever runs Groklaw now. Would that data collection contain anything more than TUHS, as it does try to include both Linux and Unix? Any suggestions? Something extra in the Linux Distro Tree is a notation for people moving between projects and tracking forks. Unsure how that’s accomplished, and not sure how important that is for Unixes. TUHS is “Early Unix”, not about Linux. However, some degree of compatibility between Unix & Linux Timeline diagrams might be useful for others if they ever try to join multiple trees. If a timeline / relationship table is constructed, designing it to be somewhat compatible will help future people. I’m not sure about tracking the many descendants of BSD. Wikipedia has a list without a timeline . <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSD_operating_systems> Someone may already be being doing this somewhere, I didn’t look. Don’t think modern descendants of BSD should be tracked by a Unix Heritage Society, has to be a boundary somewhere. regards steve jenkin ============ Some Questions: 1. Is there any benefit in developing a canonical “Unix Timeline” dataset containing the relationships, allowing programatic conversion to diagrams? There might be better tools in the future. I’d favour tab-separated text files, because they can be read / written by Spreadsheets and converted to CSV. Warren’s solution of tables & pages is good: there’s simply too much information & complexity to capture in simple file formats The gnuclad solution of providing “Clickable Links” is useful, if like TUHS, the pages are well maintained. 2. How to cater for: - adding extra-fine detail for segments of the timeline (Warner Losh) - ‘zooming out’ and providing an overview (Clem Cole) - some sort of compatibility with known tables, like Linux Distro Timeline 3. No simple representation can, or should try, to be “all things to all people”, there’s too much detail and too many events occurred. Is there a useful subset of detail that can be captured in a simple table? There may be useful subsets of the Unix Timeline that show more or less detail, To support programatic zoom In/Out, an indent or level descriptor is required in the table. Does anyone have a good data model for that? ============ Warner Losh, "Hidden Early History of Unix”, Fosdem 2020 -> "Standard History of Unix, in 3 slides” graphviz, coloured names, landscape format [small] “Simplified family tree” 4th Edition Family Tree 6th Edition Family Tree 7th Edition Family Tree Clem Cole, UNIX, Linux and BSD, USENIX 2009, reexamining "A Short UNIX History”, 2000 talk -> "A UNIX Family History 1st 25 Yrs” [69-93] graphviz ?, landscape, coloured, triangle symbols, thin lines & arrows -> Simplified Linux Family Tree, circa ’09 graphviz ?, landscape, coloured, blocks + text, short thick lines & arrows ============ TUHS, The Unix Tree No diagrams, tarball with all content <https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl> Éric Lévénez’s, "UNIX History” landscape format [very wide], lines & arrows, hand drawn, no source <https://www.levenez.com/unix/> David du Colombier, Unix Diagram portrait format, graphviz, source <http://www.unix-diagram.org> Linux Timeline, Fabio Loli et al landscape format, gnuclad, source (CSV + links to <https://distroware.gitlab.io/>) uses ‘curved’ lines, can be changed <https://github.com/FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline> Images: SVG, PNG <https://github.com/FabioLolix/LinuxTimeline/releases/tag/v21.10> Grokline, UNIX TIMELINE, 2004-2009 [dead site] Lists by Date, Vendor, Product detail pages not archived <https://web.archive.org/web/20091217070631/http://www.grokline.net/time_ind…> ============ -- Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin

2 years, 8 months

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