TUHS

tuhs@tuhs.org

43 participants
6501 discussions

by norman＠oclsc.org

Perhaps the best irrefutable source for Lorinda's contribution to dc is that cited by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorinda_Cherry? It is, by the way, Doug's A Research UNIX Reader. Those who subscribe to this list and haven't read it ought to do so; it's full of tidbits of history. Norman Wilson Toronto ON

3 years, 3 months

7th Edition C Reference Manual and UNIX Programming - First Edition

by Will Senn

All, 1. I have a physical copy of the V7 UPM published by Holt, Rinehart and Winston (HRW) from 1983 (2 volume phone book). In it, there is a C Reference Manual (pp. 247-277, reprinted with minor changes from the first C book by K&R and including a Recent Changes to C addendum). I also have a PDF that was supposedly created from sources that has a C Reference Manual in it, but, in /usr/doc/cman, there's an inscription that reads, "Sorry, but for copyright reasons, the source for the C Reference Manual is not distributed." and the one in the pdf appears to be identical to the one in the V6 UPM (which I have a print-on-demand version of). Are the *roff sources (or a clean PDF) available for the reprint? I have located a PDF copy of the HRW edition, but it's got the usual deficiencies of being a scanned copy. 2. In same manual, there is an article entitled, UNIX Programming -- Second Edition by K&R. Where is the first edition located? It isn't in the V6 UPM. Regards, Will

3 years, 3 months

Lions' commentary on PCC pass1?

by hveit01＠web.de

3 years, 3 months

Lorinda Cherry

by John P. Linderman

I got his from a friend today (15 February): =========== I'm sorry to report that Lorinda passed away a few days ago. I got a call from her sister today. Apparently the dog walker hadn't seen her for a few days and called the police. The police entered the house and found her there. Her sister says they are assuming either a heart attack or a stroke.

3 years, 3 months

unexported software for local use for v7

by Will Senn

A week or so after spending an entire day meticulously mapping manpages from version 0 to version 7, I came across Doug's combined table of contents. I love recreating the wheel <<shakes head, ruefully>>, only saving grace is that the geniuses who came before, in this case Doug, had the same idea :). In it, he mentions an addendum for v7 that has pages for unexported software for local use: apl, cflow, cpio, cref, and a slew of other usefull commands get mentioned. By unexported, I'm gathering this means not included on the distro tapes -- I certainly don't see them in my installed system. Were they distributed at all, or just used internally at Bell, or what? Are there extant copies around? To be clear, I'm talking about the unexported versions, not later versions that might be fitted onto v7. Oh, and a bonus question, why weren't they exported. Will

3 years, 3 months

ratfor vibe

by Will Senn

All, I have been doing some language exploration in v7/4.3bsd and came across Software Tools (not the pascal version). It's written using ratfor, which I had seen in the v7 UPM. I fired up v7 and tried my hand at the first example: # copy - copy input characters to output integer getc integer c while(getc(c) != EOF) call putc(c) stop end The first thing I noticed was that it read more like C than Fortran (I know C quite well, Fortran just a smidge)... awesome, right? So I ran the preprocessor on it and got the following f77 code: c copy - copy input characters to output integer getc integer c c while 23000 if(.not.(getc(c) .ne. eof))goto 23001 call putc(c) goto 23000 c endwhile 23001 continue stop end Cool. The way it translated the EOF test is weird, but ok. Trying to compile it results in complaints about missing getc and putc: $ f77 copy.f copy.f: MAIN: Undefined: _getc_ _putc_ _end Ah well, no worries. I know that they're in the c lib, but don't about fortran libs... Meanwhile, over on 4.3BSD, it compiles without issue. But running it is no joy: $ ./a.out This is a test $ I remembered that the authors mentioned something about EOF, so I tweaked the code (changed EOF to -1) and rebuilt/reran: $ ./a.out This is a test This is a test $ Fascinating. Dunno why no complaints from F77 about the undefined EOF (or maybe mis-defined), but hey, it works and it's fun. I'm curious how much ratfor was used in bell labs and other locations running v6, v7, and the BSD's. When I first came across it, I was under the impression that it was a wrapper to make f66 bearable, but the manpage says it's best used with f77, so that's not quite right. As someone coming from c, I totally appreciate what it does to make the control structures I know and love available, but that wasn't the case back then, was it? C was pretty new... Was it just a temporary fix to a problem that just went away, or is there tons of ratfor out there in the wild that I just haven't seen? I found ratfor77 and it runs just fine on my mac with a few tweaks, so it's not dead: ratfor77 -C copy.r | tee copy.f C Output from Public domain Ratfor, version 1.0 C copy - copy input characters to output integer getc integer c 23000 if(getc(c) .ne. eof)then call putc(c) goto 23000 endif 23001 continue stop end What's the story? Oh, and in v6 it looks like it was rc - ratfor compiler, which is not present in v7 or 4.3BSD - is there a backstory there, too? Will

3 years, 3 months

Looking back to 1981 - what pascal was popular on what unix?

by Will Senn

I'm reading in, Kernighan & Plauger's 1981 edition of Software Tools in Pascal and in the book, the author's mention Bill Joy's Pascal and Andy Tanenbaum's as being rock solid. So, a few related questions: 1. What edition of UNIX were they likely to be using? 2. What versions of "Standard Pascal" were in vogue on UNIX at the time (1981)? 3. What combinations of UNIX/Pascal were popular? Thanks, Will

3 years, 3 months

BSD 4.1, 4.1x, Quasijarus, and 4.3x

by Will Senn

All, I did my research on this, but it's still a bit fuzzy (why is it that people's memories from 40 years ago are so malleable?). 1. What are y'all's recollections regarding BSD 4.1's releases, vis a vis the VAX. In McKusick's piece, Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix, I get one perspective, and from Sokolov's Quasijarus project, I get quite another. In terms of popularity and in terms of stable performance, what say you? Was 4.1 that much better than 4BSD? Was 4.1as obsolete immediately as McKusick says? 4.1b sounds good with FFS, was it? 4.1c's the last pre 4.2 release, but it sounds like it was nearly a beta version of 4.2... 2. Sokolov implies that the CSRG mission started going off the rails with the 4.3/4.3BSD-Tahoe and it all went pear shaped with the 4.3-Reno release, and that Quasijarus puts the mission back on track, is that so? 3. I've gotten BSD 4.2 and BSD 4.3 releases built from tape and working very well. I just can't decide whether to go back to one of the 4.x releases (hence question 1), or go get Quasijarus0c - thoughts on why one might be more interesting than another? 4. Is Quasijarus0c end of the line for VAX 4.xBSD? Why does tuhs only have Quasijarus0 and 0a, was there something wrong with 0b and 0c? 5. Has anyone unearthed an original 4.1 tape, or is Haertel's reconstruction of the 1981 tape 1 release as close as it gets? Later, Will

3 years, 3 months

1994 One-minute Video for the UNIX 25th Birthday Party

by Brantley Coile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmcSpzpYnRk

3 years, 3 months

Got kicked off list due to DNS Issues

by Justin Andrusk

Back in September I was having serious DNS issues with my MX records. Finally was able to move to a new DNS provider. Could someone add me (jra(a)andrusk.com) back to the mailing list? Thanks, Justin Sent from ProtonMail mobile

3 years, 3 months

calendar events

by norman＠oclsc.org

Whose birthday is it, Ken? Norman Wilson Toronto ON

3 years, 3 months

CSRG at berkeley

by ron minnich

the discussion of why the CSRG disbanded in 1995 has come up elsewhere. My memory is that the reason was pretty simple: DARPA ended their funding at that time. Hoping for corrections to my memory :-)

3 years, 3 months

Re: [TUHS] ratfor vibe

by jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu

> From: Clem Cole > So by the late 70s/early 80s, [except for MIT where LISP/Scheme reigned] Not quite. The picture is complicated, because outside the EECS department, they all did their own thing - e.g. in the mid-70's I took a programming intro couse in the Civil Engineering department which used Fortran. But in EECS, in the mid-70's, their intro programming course used assembler (PDP-11), Algol, and LISP - very roughly, a third of the time in each. Later on, I think it used CLU (hey, that was MIT-grown :-). I think Scheme was used later. In both of these cases, I have no idea if it was _only_ CLU/Scheme, or if they did part of it in other languages. Noel

3 years, 3 months

FYI: Internet Old Farts Club

by Rich Morin

Some of the folks here might like this FB group... Internet Old Farts Club https://www.facebook.com/groups/internetoldfarts/ > This group is for self-declared Internet Old Farts, who want to discuss any aspect of the the Internet or its history. People in this group had their bits walk up hill both ways. > Welcome to the Internet Old Farts group. The purpose of this group is both social and technical. Feel free to revisit the past, explore the future, grouse about technical problems that you or others created. Feel free to self-aggrandize, complain about your least favorite standards organization or its politics, and how those young whippersnappers are running the show today. By participating in this group you are admitting or proclaiming that you are indeed an Internet Old Fart. Perhaps we should give a prize for the youngest and oldest Old Fart. -r

3 years, 3 months

Ritchie/Thompson Unix Time-Sharing System in Classic Papers

by Nelson H. F. Beebe

There is a new book from MIT Press, edited by Harry Lewis, with a collection of classic papers in computer science, among them 37: The Unix Time-Sharing System (1974) Dennis Ritchie, Kenneth Thompson DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12274.003.0039 The book Web site is at https://direct.mit.edu/books/book/5003/Ideas-That-Created-the-FutureClassic… ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - 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, 3 months

Ratfor s

by Will Senn

Has anyone seen Fraser's original ratfor source for the s editor for unix on the PDP-11. It was a screen editor front-end built on top of Software Tools's edit. I've seen a c version, but I'm interested in the 375 line version :). Will Sent from my iPhone

3 years, 3 months

Compilation "vs" byte-code interpretation, was Re: Looking back to 1981 - what pascal was popular on what unix?

by silas poulson

Resending this as realised accidentally replied off list Silas On 30 Jan 2022, at 18:39, silas poulson <silas8642(a)hotmail.co.uk<mailto:silas8642@hotmail.co.uk>> wrote: On 30 Jan 2022, at 18:07, Dan Stromberg <drsalists(a)gmail.com<mailto:drsalists@gmail.com>> wrote: And is Java? They both have a byte code interpreter. My understanding is Java is both a compiled and interpreted language - with javac compiling java code to byte code and then JVM interpreting and executing the byte code. And then there's the CPython implementation of Python. <snip> Granted, it has an implicit, cached compilation step, but is it less compiled for that? I would so no - in my mind compiling analyses the entire source and then translates it whilst interpreters only explore a single line or expression. Simply because the compilation happens only Just In Time, doesn’t make it any less of a compilation step. Hope that helps, Silas

3 years, 3 months

One more arch 4.4BSD binary set, luna68k on nono OMRON LUNA emulator

by MOCHIDA Shuji

One of architechture supported by 4.4BSD, luna68k's compiled binary is now available. http://www.netside.co.jp/~mochid/comp/bsd44-build/ luna68k is OMRON LUNA, m68k cpu workstation. This binary set works on "nono" emulator software. http://www.pastel-flower.jp/~isaki/nono/ It's author, Isaki-san have done some minor modification for 4.4BSD, binary set for luna68k run rather well. OMRON, already dropped thier workstation products. LUNA-I, LUNA-II equipped with m68k, same CPU as CSRG's main target arch hp300. So userland programs may binary compatible. -mochid

3 years, 3 months

4.3 BSD network name resolution

by Will Senn

I'm working through 4.3BSD setup and configuration and came across this: "There is no equivalent service for network names yet. The full host and network name databases are normally derived from a file retrieved from Internet Network Information Center at SRI... use gettable to retrieve the NIC host database and htable to convert it to the format used by the libraries." Does this mean I should expect functionality like resolv.conf and ping yahoo.com not to work in 4.3, or by some miracle is gettable still a functional system? Will Sent from my iPhone

3 years, 3 months

Re: [TUHS] FYI: Internet Old Farts Club

by norman＠oclsc.org

I'm too much of an old fart to use FaceBook. a Norman Wilson Toronto ON @oclsc on twitter

3 years, 3 months

Latest release of retro-fuse

by Jay Logue

Hi all, I've been hard at work on my retro-fuse project over the past few months, and so I thought I'd update the list with my progress. I have just released version 7 of retro-fuse on github (https://github.com/jaylogue/retro-fuse) This version adds support for initializing and mounting 2.9 and 2.11BSD filesystems on modern systems. It also includes fixes for a number of bugs in v6 and v7 support. Beyond the work on 2.11 support, I also spent a significant amount of time building an automated test framework. I'm a pretty big fan of automated testing. So I'm happy to say that the project now includes a series of tests verifying basic file I/O functionality as seen from the modern system. While not exhaustive (because filesystem testing is /hard/) the new tests give me reasonable confidence that things are behaving as they should. Additionally (in what was perhaps the most fun part of the project to date) I have also created tests to verify the integrity of the generated filesystems as seen from the historical systems. In particular, for each of the supported Unix versions I've built tests that: launch the os under simulation (simh), mount the generated filesystems, verify the filesystems using the original integrity check tools (icheck/fsck), and enumerate and compare the filesystem contents to that generated on the modern system. As you might imagine, this involved a lot of learning--from how to build size-reduced system images from the original distribution tapes, to how to implement a modern POSIX cksum command with old dev tools. All thoroughly enjoyable. With this under my belt, I'll probably take a break from retro-fuse to concentrate on other things. If anyone has any problems (or successes!) using it, please drop me a line. --Jay

3 years, 3 months

Doug McIlroy and Brian Kernighan talk

by arnold＠skeeve.com

Found this yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe5ffO6Ouwg Not quite an hour long. Arnold

3 years, 3 months

Fwd: A bit of BTL Explorer Post Ephemera

by aaron cohen

Wow. Brings back memories On Mon, Jan 24, 2022 at 1:32 PM Robert Diamond <rob(a)robdiamond.com> wrote: > Just found this program from 1979 of an Explorer Club (aka “The Scouts”) > Family Night, which included a talk from Ken Thompson on Computer Chess. > There’s a few notable names in there. > > See PDF at > https://drive.google.com/file/d/15fXhkk9KlmJNrhGlFnWuH23XQ09vLG4o/view?usp=… -- Aaron Cohen 908-759-9069

3 years, 3 months

A bit of BTL Explorer Post Ephemera

by Robert Diamond

Just found this program from 1979 of an Explorer Club (aka “The Scouts”) Family Night, which included a talk from Ken Thompson on Computer Chess. There’s a few notable names in there. See PDF at https://drive.google.com/file/d/15fXhkk9KlmJNrhGlFnWuH23XQ09vLG4o/view?usp=…

3 years, 3 months

Re: [TUHS] roff(7)

by Douglas McIlroy

> Did roff do all of what troff and nroff did? No way. Ossanna deserves all the praise you give him. Roff extended runoff in various ways: relative numeric operators, e.g. .in +8 tabbing (left, right and centered) underlining tripartite headers and footers arabic and roman page numbering adjustable head and foot margins automatic hyphenation, thanks to Molly Wagner footnotes merge patterns for change marks, column separators, etc. various special requests: .ne, .ti, .tr, .po, .op (odd page) But roff did NOT have conditionals, traps, special characters, environments, or arbitrary motion control. Crucially (and ironically, because I was Mr. Macro), it did not have anything like macros, strings and diversions until after Joe pioneered them in nroff. So there was a gaping disparity: nroff was Turing complete, roff wasn't. Roff merely added features to runoff; nroff leapt into a different universe. ----------------------- The features listed above are in the January 1971 manual for BCPL roff, which is probably the anonymous reference cited in the November 1971 v1 manual. The v1 manual lists Osanna, Ken and Dennis as authors of the Unix implementation. I believe Ossanna is named because he added line-numbering--and maybe more--to entice the patent department to switch to roff. BCPL roff allowed all four arithmetic operators in contexts like .ls *3. Only + and - were allowed in nroff. Eventually both BCPL roff and nroff got number registers (defined by different commands); I don't recall which came first. BCPL roff also got a weak macro facility, definitely after nroff. Doug

3 years, 3 months

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TUHS