TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

43 participants
6501 discussions

by Paul Ruizendaal

Wholeheartedly agree with the observations on forgotten versions, lack of source and a smaller pool of people back in the day. It is not just the Research versions, also the internal AT&T versions and the base System V versions get little attention. Same reasons I think. Luckily, these days the sources are available (although in the case of SysV of unclear legal status). Part of the problem I think is that it is not well known what innovations are in each version. About 2 years ago I did a lot of spelunking through the V8 source and with the help of this list could come up with a list of highlights for V8 (text is now on the TUHS V8 source web page). Never had the time to do that for V9. I think it was mentioned that it had a new filesystem with a bitmap free list. Also, it seems to have a lot of cleaned-up implementations of things that were new and rough in V8. No clue what was new in V10. Similar with Unix 3, Unix 4 and Unix 5. I’m thrilled that the docs for Unix 4 showed up recently. In these doc’s there is no material on IPC. From this I think that the IPC primitives from CB-Unix did not get merged in Unix 4, but only in Unix 5 (in a reworked form). Personally, I’m still working (off and on) on recreating the Reiser demand paging system. To keep it interesting I’ve now got Sys III running on a small RISC-V board, and when I find another time slot I’ll try to add Reiser paging to it. So the forgotten versions are only mostly forgotten, not totally forgotten :^)

2 years, 11 months

Re: Documentation for Unix 4.0

by Norman Wilson

Maybe make www.tuhs.org a CNAME for tuhs.org? Surely a site devoted to the history of UNIX should use a real link, not a symbolic one. Norman `Old Fart' Wilson Toronto ON

2 years, 11 months

Re: Source code for SCCS

by Paul Ruizendaal

It would seem that a Spinellis-like exercise for SCCS is possible: PWB1.0 (1978): https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=PWB1/sys/source/sccs4 SysIII (1980): https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=SysIII/usr/src/cmd/sccs SysVr1 (1983): https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=pdp11v/usr/src/cmd/sccs SysVr2 (1984): https://github.com/ryanwoodsmall/oldsysv/tree/master/sysvr2-vax/src/cmd/sccs SysVr3 (1987): https://github.com/ryanwoodsmall/oldsysv/tree/master/sysvr3/301/usr/src/cmd… SysVr4 (1988): https://github.com/ryanwoodsmall/oldsysv/tree/master/sysvr4/svr4/cmd/sccs Ultrix3.1 (1988): https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=Ultrix-3.1/src/cmd/sccs I did not find SCCS sources included with the BSD sources on TUHS, but there is a front-end “sccs” command. For sure, SCCS was used for BSD development. Kirk McKusick’s DVD has a directory "CSRG/historic1/sccscmds”, but I did not look into this further. From here the trail probably continues with Solaris, GNU and Bitmover -- all very much outside my timeframe of research. Paul > The original Marc Rochchild/John Mashey and team code from PWB 1.0 can be > found: http://tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/spencer_pwb.tar.gz > In the directory: sys/source/sccs4 > The man pages are in the same archive but mixed with the rest of the > commands in usr/man/man* > > That said, there is Gnu version of same written C++ if IIRC: > https://www.gnu.org/software/cssc/ > > And there's more ... but I'll Larry offer details here other than point out > his: http://www.bitmover.com/bitsccs/ [which is of BitKeeper] is a > more modern implementation still]

2 years, 11 months

Documentation for Unix 4.0

by Warren Toomey

Hi all, we have a new addition to the Unix Archive at: https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Manuals/Unix_4.0/ This is the documentation for Unix 4.0 which preceded System V. The documents were provided by Arnold Robbins and scanned in by Matt Gilmore. Cheers, Warren

2 years, 11 months

blast from the past

by Andrew Hume

this is an old video, new to me, but i’m sure others on this list have seen it. its a little long, but has al aho, jon bentley, bjarne, ken&denis, plan 9 amongst others. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFfdnFOiXUU&t=2s <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFfdnFOiXUU&t=2s>

2 years, 11 months

Fwd: [simh] Announcing the Open SIMH project

by Clem Cole

Announcing the Open SIMH project SIMH is a framework and family of computer simulators, initiated by Bob Supnik and continued with contributions (large and small) from many others, with the primary goal of enabling the preservation of knowledge contained in, and providing the ability to execute/experience, old/historic software via simulation of the hardware on which it ran. This goal has been successfully achieved and has for these years created a diverse community of users and developers. This has mapped to some core operational principles: First, preserve the ability to run old/historically significant software. This means functionally accurate, sometimes bug-compatible, but not cycle-accurate, simulation. Second, make it reasonably easy to add new simulators for other hardware while leveraging common functions between the simulators. Third, exploit the software nature of simulation and make SIMH convenient for debugging a simulated system, by adding non-historical features to the environment. Fourth, make it convenient for users to explore old system environments, with as close to historical interfaces, by mapping them to new features that modern host operating systems provide. Fifth, be inclusive of people and new technology. It's serious work, but it should be fun. Previously, we unfortunately never spent the time to codify how we would deliver on these concepts. Rather, we have relied on an informal use of traditional free and open-source principles. Recently a situation has arisen that compromises some of these principles and thus the entire status of the project, creating consternation among many users and contributors. For this reason, a number of us have stepped up to create a new organizational structure, which we call "The Open SIMH Project", to be the keeper and provide formal governance for the SIMH ecosystem going forward. While details of the structure and how it operates are likely to be refined over time, what will not change is our commitment to maintaining SIMH as a free and open-source project, licensed under an MIT-style license as shown on the "simh" repository page. It is our desire that all of the past users and contributors will come to recognize that the new organizational structure is in the best interests of the community at large and that they will join us in it. However, this iproject as defined, is where we intend to contribute our expertise and time going forward. At this point, we have in place the following, although we foresee other resources being added in the future as we identify the need and execute against them: A Github "organization" for the project at https://github.com/open-simh A Git repository for the simulators themselves at https://github.com/open-simh/simh The license for the SIMH simulator code base, found in LICENSE.txt in the top level of the "simh" repository. The "SIMH related tools" in https://github.com/open-simh/simtools. This is also licensed under MIT style or BSD style open source licenses (which are comparable apart from some minor wording differences). A "SIMH Steering Group" -- project maintainers and guides. The conventional git style process is used for code contributions, via pull request to the project repository. The Steering Group members have approval authority; this list is likely to change and grow over time. By formalizing the underlying structure, our operational principles and guidance can best benefit the community. These are being developed and formalized, with a plan to publish them soon. We have used our best judgment in setting up this structure but are open to discussion and consideration of other ideas, and to making improvements. Many of us have been part of different projects and understand that past mistakes are real. We have tried to learn from these experiences and apply the collected wisdom appropriately. We desire to hear from the community as we update and refine the operating structure for the Open SIMH project. We hope for your patience and look forward to your support as we work to refine the organization and be able to provide this wonderful resource for anyone to use as we continue to evolve the technology provided by the SIMH system. The SIMH Steering Group Clem Cole Richard Cornwell Paul Koning Timothe Litt Seth Morabito Bob Supnik ᐧ ᐧ ᐧ

2 years, 11 months

Please move the SIMH discussion to COFF

by Warren Toomey

Hi all, I think it's time to move the (no longer) SIMH discussion over to the COFF mailing list. The S/N ratio is dropping and we are straying too far away from the Unix side of things. Many thanks! Warren

2 years, 11 months

Re: [TUHS, groff] 1981 edition of AT&T Nroff/Troff User's Manual

by Douglas McIlroy

> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Manuals/Unix_4.0/Volume_1/C.1.2_… Since PDF didn't exist in 1981, the document is either a scan or the result of a recent *roff run on ancient source. If it was made from source, it's an impressive testimonial to the longevity and stability of troff. Most probably it's a scan, in which case we owe many thanks to the public-spirited person who digitized this trove. Was it you, Arnold? Doug

2 years, 11 months

Re: Fwd: [simh] Announcing the Open SIMH project

by Bakul Shah

On Jun 3, 2022, at 4:48 PM, Larry McVoy <lm(a)mcvoy.com> wrote: > Um, so there were 3: 386, Net and Free. That's already 2 too many. My recollection matches what Warner is saying. NetBSD & FreeBSD got going *because* 386BSD was effectively frozen. It wasn't dead dead but patches were not being upstreamed (as we say now), and so on. I do agree with you that even two variants were 1 too many. But even one would probably not have mattered as the AT&T lawsuit was a huge cloud on *BSD's popularity. As well as there were other factors. Linus and Linux had a much better story, its development was more nimble, with many younger and much more enthusiastic developers/users etc. Not that anyone really cares at this point except some graybeards! The Open SIMH project sounds great!

2 years, 11 months

Historical application software

by Paul Ruizendaal

I came across a website that discusses reviving an old binary for Lotus 1-2-3 for SysV Unix (386 COFF), on the way to making it run on Linux: https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/linux123.html The audience here may enjoy the read, and maybe it is of use when reviving other old application software for 1980’s and 1990’s Unix. The key part I think is this: Quote: "Yikes - it’s an original unstripped object file from 1-2-3. There are nearly 20,000 symbols including private symbols and debug information. Why would Lotus ship this? It’s so big it must have required them to phyiscally ship an extra disk to every customer? Could it have been a mistake, accidentally left on the final release image? I had so many questions, but I’m not old enough to have any experience with SysV, so I asked the greybeards on alt.folklore.computers if they had seen this before and why this might have happened. The answer was that this is probably deliberate - dlopen() was not widely available on UNIX in the early 90s, so there was no easy way to load native plugins or extensions. To solve this, vendors would ship a bunch of partially linked object files with a script to relink them with your extensions – Clever!"

2 years, 11 months

Re: Anyone have an interest in really old analog multimeters and a vacuum tube tested circa 1960s or 1950s?

by Kenneth Goodwin

The party also has a vintage AUTOMOBILE tester If anyone knows of a car collector with a passion for such things interested in a display piece Or if you still have the first car you ever bought sitting in the garage Link to posting attached. https://cnj.craigslist.org/zip/d/hightstown-for-scrap-vintage-eico-888/7489… I am in direct contact with the party offering these items. They are all coming out of basement storage On Sun, May 29, 2022, 8:53 AM Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote: > No worries. > > On Sun, May 29, 2022, 12:04 AM John Sambrook <john(a)common-sense.com> > wrote: > >> Hi Kenneth - >> >> Thank you for the pics. >> >> The tube tester appears to be just the meter from a whole tester. >> Usually, a tube tester is about the size of a small suitcase and has a >> number of different sockets on its front panel for testing different types >> of tubes. >> >> One of the meters seems worthwhile, but at this time, I am going to >> decline and hope that at least some of the gear can be salvaged. >> >> Thank you for the consideration. >> >> John >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >> On May 28, 2022, at 7:18 PM, Kenneth Goodwin <kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> >> wrote: >> >> >> One thing >> >> Sort of looks like the tube checker might be missing a whole lot of the >> rest of it. >> Like an entire cabinet of stuff >> >> See photos >> >> On Sat, May 28, 2022, 10:11 PM Kenneth Goodwin < >> kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Everyone feel free to inquire around. >>> If it all goes to one private party. Then at least they will know who to >>> passing along to. >>> >>> On Sat, May 28, 2022, 7:45 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote: >>> >>>> What about the rescue mailing list? >>>> >>>> On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 7:31 PM Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> wrote: >>>> >>>>> If you don't get a response here, I wouldn't mind asking on the >>>>> Heinbach subreddit. Just let me know. >>>>> >>>>> Heinbach is a musician who creates live and recorded music using lab >>>>> equipment. He has a large following of inspired creators who would >>>>> probably love to use this equipment. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Sat, May 28, 2022 at 6:09 PM Kenneth Goodwin < >>>>> kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>>>> >>>>>> Details >>>>>> >>>>>> 1) Knight Allied Radio volt meter 446-06235 >>>>>> 2) Precision Apparatus series 85 volt meter >>>>>> 3) Weston Model 676 Tube checker >>>>>> >>>>>> Useful as display pieces >>>>>> >>>>>> Presumed to all be functional. >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sat, May 28, 2022, 6:06 PM Kenneth Goodwin < >>>>>> kennethgoodwin56(a)gmail.com> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I have a party in Hightstown NJ >>>>>>> Looking to donate them. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Will follow up with specs. >>>>>>> >>>>>>> They already contacted the radio museum in Wall NJ >>>>>>> >>>>>>> I told them to try VCF since they should be a separate organization. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Ed Cashin <ecashin(a)noserose.net> >>>>> >>>> -- >>>> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual >>>> >>>

2 years, 11 months

Why is it always "fast boot" in 2.11BSD?

by Matthias Bruestle

Hi, I have noticed, that 2.11BSD is in all cases where I looked set to "fast boot", which AFAIK means no fsck of at least /. I found nobody talking about this or providing information about how to change it to "slow boot" with a proper check, which is now normal. Is there a reason why it is not possible to deactivate fast boot? Or is it just that nobody bothered to do it? Thanks Matthias -- When You Find Out Your Normal Daily Lifestyle Is Called Quarantine

2 years, 11 months

ACM opens up much of its archives

by Douglas McIlroy

>> If you’re a *current* member of these societies then you should have good access to journal content. >I believe this is true for ACM, but for IEEE not so much. You have to pay for a digital library membership _in addition to_ your standard membership ACM is the same. At $99/year membership is a bargain by ordinary professional society standards. But they charge an additional $99 for access to 21st-century Digital Library.content. Doug

2 years, 12 months

ACM opens up much of its archives

by arnold＠skeeve.com

https://associationsnow.com/2022/05/the-way-things-were-why-open-access-to-… cm-digital-library-matters/

2 years, 12 months

Fwd: ACM Digital Library now open access

by Richard Salz

From an internal $WORK chat: The ACM Digital Library now offers access to ~50 years of papers/records without paywall or registration: https://associationsnow.com/2022/05/the-way-things-were-why-open-access-to-… This includes Dennis Ritchie & Ken Thompson's seminal 1974 "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" (https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/357980.358014) an interview with one Steve Jobs from 1989 ( https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/63334.63336) where he discusses basing NeXTSTEP on "Berkeley UNIX" (aka BSD) + Mach and how the (previous year's) Morris Worm "isn't a really serious problem", and goes all the way back to 1951's paper on the UNIVAC ( https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1434770.1434772)

3 years

First test e-mail

by Warren Toomey

If I'm lucky, this will be the first e-mail to the TUHS list using the mailman3 software on the new minnie server. Cheers, Warren

3 years

Re: Pronunciation

by Norman Wilson

It's spelled TUHS but it's pronounced values of beeta may give rise to dom!

3 years

Archives of the TUHS mailing list

by Warren Toomey

All, now that the TUHS list has migrated over to the new mailman3 system, I should point out where the list archives are now available. They are: https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs@tuhs.org/ - new mailman3 format https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/ - old mailman2 format https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/TUHS/Mail_list/ - same as above, but in a format that makes it easier to download All mail to the TUHS list should, eventually, end up in all three places. Cheers, Warren

3 years

Old UNIX file system formats

by norman＠nose.cita.utoronto.ca

I've assembled some notes from old manuals and other sources on the formats used for on-disk file systems through the Seventh Edition: http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~norman/old-unix/old-fs.html Additional notes, comments on style, and whatnot are welcome. (It may be sensible to send anything in the last two categories directly to me, rather than to the whole list.)

3 years

tuhs.org e-mail cutover

by Warren Toomey

Hi all, I'm hoping to cut the tuhs.org e-mail from the old server over to the new server tomorrow, at around 0400 UTC May 18 2002. I'll stop accepting e-mails on the old server first, then cut over and start accepting e-mails on the new server. If something goes pear shaped, you'll be able to contact me on my Gmail address warren.toomey@.... and on my DoctorWkt twitter account. Cheers & fingers crossed :-) Warren

3 years

Unix-haters handbook on Kindle for $3

by Richard Salz

Humor is kind of screed-like and may be dated, but some here might find it a fun read. (Disclaimer: I wrote the chapter on Usenet.)

3 years

[tuhs] Go programming language

by Nelson H. F. Beebe

List readers may enjoy a new article about the history of the Go programming language published today: Russ Cox, Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike, Ian Lance Taylor, and Ken Thompson The Go programming language and environment Comm. ACM 65(5) 70--78 May 2022 https://doi.org/10.1145/3488716 https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3488716 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 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/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 years

First Unix-like OSes not derived from AT&T code?

by Andrew Warkentin

What was the first "clone" functional Unix (i.e. an OS not derived from genetic Unix code but highly compatible with genetic Unix)? Idris is the earliest such OS of which I am aware (at least AFAIK it's not a genetic Unix), but was it actually the first? Similarly, which was the first "outer Unix-like" system (i.e. one with strong Unix influence but significantly incompatible with functional Unix)? Off the top of my head the earliest such system I can think of is Thoth (which predates Idris by almost 2 years), but again I'm not sure if it was actually the first.

3 years

Document management in Unix, back in the day?

by Will Senn

Today I bit the bullet and dropped my many articles and electronic documents related to my technical explorations into Zotero. I was tired of constantly having to remember where the documents were located and I wanted to be able to curate them better (I tried git for a while, back when, but I'm not a fan of non-text data in my repos, and it wasn't really much better than the base file system approach). I've been using Zotero for years now, for academic works, but not for technical works unrelated to my research. I realized the man-years of effort to clean up the entries that I had created in about 30-40 seconds of exciting drag and drop, just about the time I deleted them from their original locations. I think the work will pay off in due time, but we'll see. Then I thought, surely, I'm not the first person to have had this problem... it occurred to me that y'all must have faced this very problem, a few years in, back in the late 70's, early 80's. That is, document management. What did you do, variously, considering both text and non-text? Will

3 years

FTP service is not happy

by Gregg Levine

Hello! As this service is being phased out, I am trying to download the relevant (well relevant to me) bits from it. And as it happens I found that the clients I use are triggering an interesting problem. This is from ncftp on Linux ncftp> open minnie.tuhs.org Server hungup immediately after connect. Stop connecting frequently Sleeping 20 seconds... And I first saw it using FileZilla, I promptly scaled it back from multiple connections for downloads, to one and only one, but it repeated. To put it simply, what am I doing wrong here? ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

3 years

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