All, Heinz Lycklama has shared a binder full of old technical memos
with Clem Cole, who has scanned them in. Thanks to both of them for
preserving these documents. I've just put them at:
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/TechReports/Heinz_Tech_Memos/
Here's a list of the documents:
A_Minicomputer_Satellite_Processor_System.pdf
A_Virtual_Memory_Mini-Computer_System_516-TSS.pdf
MM-71-1383-3_Performance_Simulation_and_Measurement_of_a_Virtual_Memory_Multi-progamming_System_for_a_Small_Computer_19710120.pdf
MM-72-1353-16_Bus_Interface_in_a_Single_Bus_Multi-processor_Environment_19720920.pdf
Office_Communication_Research_in_Lab_135_19770208.pdf
TM-74-1352-1_Implementstion_of_Large_Contiguous_Files_and_Asynchronous_IO_in_UNIX_19740104.pdf
TM-74-1352-7_Plotting_Facilities_for_Mini-Computer_Systems_19740614.pdf
TM-75-1352-2_Emulation_of_UNIX_on_Peripheral_Processors_19750109.pdf
TM-75-1352-3_GLANCE_Terminals_on_UNIX_Time-Sharing_19750303.pdf
TM-75-1352-4_A_Structured_Operating_System_for_a_PDP-11.45_19750506.pdf
TM-75-1352-7_MERT_A_Multi-Environment_Real-Time_Operating_System_19751118.pdf
TM-77-1352-1_The_MINI-UNIX_19770103.pdf
TM-78-3114-1_UNIX_on_a_Microprocessor_19780322.pdf
TM-78-3114-2_A_Minicomputer_Satellite_Processor_System_19780322.pdf
TM-78-3114-3_The_MERT_Operating_System_19780422.pdf
TM-78-3114-4_The_MERT-UNIX_Supervisor_19780420.pdf
TM-78-3114-5_File_System_Structures_for_Real-Time_Applications_19780420.pdf
The_MERT_Operating_System.pdf
UNIX_on_a_Microprocessor_19780322.pdf
Cheers, Warren
> one of the things I wanted to do in my retirement was convert
> all the stuff that is in debian back from info to man(7)
*all* the stuff? Please don't do that literally. The garrulity
quotient of info pages dwarfs even that of the most excessive
modern man pages. But I appplaud the intent to assure man
pages are complete.
Doug
I was more interested in the "Mach" kernel itself as I've only recently been able to get it to boot up from sources for the i386.
I hadn't looked into the other aos/vrm stuff. But that is interesting, a 4.3 with the vfs.
In hind sight maybe Mach wasn't so bad with its messaging and threads, along with multiprocessor support.. Its what we all were eventually desiring anyway.
One thing is for sure, multiple GHz machines sure make it a lot easier to use, these days.
I'd gotten lucky with Mach as the platform code is really modular and even a monkey like me banging on a keyboard of an existing Mach 386 machine was able to get the latter source running under the older platform code. Shame Mach 3 seems to have broken all the fun stuff or requires real effort and understanding... Things I lack.
But I was really surprised about the coprocessor cards.. I wonder what other interesting things are in there. Or how hard it is to hammer 386 BSD into aos "sort of a 4.3 Tahoe ++"
From: Kevin Bowling <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 9:02 p.m.
To: Jason Stevens
Cc: Charles H Sauer; TUHS
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
Thanks for clarifying. I will reassert that the three pieces of systems software I mentioned (VRM, AIX2, AOS) are not Mach in any way I know about. AOS may have some generic cross pollination, it’d be whatever was going on at CSRG also for non-RT (4.2-4.3?) BSD platforms at the time of checkout. Kirk or Warner may be able to elucidate if provided the date and some reference material from AOS or I can do some original research.
Most distinctly and important: VRM is not in any way Mach, it was its own bespoke microkernel. The microkernel would have been the most “Mach” part of Mach research, so this makes the VRM concept even more unique and enjoyable to me being so different and ambitious. Therefore I don’t think it is particularly correct to say any of VRM, AIX, AOS software is Mach without its ukernel.
What you linked is a very late port (late 1990s) of a hybrid of 4.3 and 4.4 BSD (late meaning in the time when Net, Free, and Open had long taken over from CSRG BSD). I will quote a Twitter communication I had with Miod Vallat in the past:“Also it's not really 4.4. It's a mix of 4.3BSD-Reno plus the 4.4 VFS layer and new system calls. It still uses the 4.3, pre-Mach, VM system, hence no mmap(2).”
What Miod means by “pre-Mach” above: 4.4 BSD adopted the kernel memory subsystem of Mach into the existing BSD monolithic kernel. Not any of the ukernel or things like Mach IPC.
Not trying to be overly pedantic with you just trying to keep the records straight since these machines are one of my keen interests and I welcome new information on them.
Regards,Kevin
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 5:30 AM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
Oh sure!
I'm having to use my phone...
It's the combined sources here:http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/IBM/RT/rt_bsd44/
doc mk
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4$ pwd
/home/jsteve/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk/conf$ cat vers*6951X
So 5.1x edit 69
jsteve@localhost:~/rt_bsd4/src/sys/.local/mach2.4/mk$ more CHANGELOGHISTORY 17-May-88 David Golub (dbg) at Carnegie-Mellon University XM21: David Black completely rewrote the accurate timing code (which is now implemented on all machines) and the priority and scheduling algorithms. The system now correctly reports cpu_usage per thread.
The all file has this before i386 was added.
So it's an older v2 than what is on the CSRG CD, but not as old as the VAX '86 stuff.
It seems to be March 11 1989, although that could be when this was either archived or ported.. I guess they didn't exactly sync to a public kernel tree all that often.
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 4:05 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling" <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
I’m asking exactly where the Mach is in the linked archive. VRM, AIX or AOS? Can you support this with a reference for my own documentation
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 1:02 AM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
It's the CMU micro kernel. The hybrid "2.6" lived on in NeXTSTEP, and OPENSTEP, with various upgrades to bring it up to OS X.
The RT as I understand it was a research machine, hence the BSD ports, and Mach port.
What is interesting the more I dig around is that there was ROMP coprocoessor cards, and an OS/2 and DOS monitor program to let you boot BSD on the card. Peripheral IO was done on the x86 side.
If RT's are rare, I can't imagine how impossible it would be to get one of those cards!
The BSD assembler and linker source is in the archives too, no doubt it'll help someone make a RT emulator.
Get Outlook for Android
On Tue, Feb 18, 2020 at 12:54 PM +0800, "Kevin Bowling" <kevin.bowling(a)kev009.com> wrote:
Can you clarify what is Mach in this archive if I have a gap in my knowledge? I didn’t know the VRM had any direct relationship to Mach
Regards,Kevin
On Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 9:43 PM Jason Stevens <jsteve(a)superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote:
Interesting stuff! And another version of Mach is buried in there.
So the 4 csrg cd set may have updates to the romp support as it's an older version of the 5.1 kernel from 89... Not that think there is any Mach romp users.
Get Outlook for Android
From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Charles H Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 5:51 a.m.
To: TUHS
Subject: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
The Bitsavers' RSS feed
(http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml) seemed
to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in the
last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a few
things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at IBM.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
I've noticed that some guy named Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai is all over
Twitter, claiming that he is the inventor of email. He doesn't look
like he's nearly old enough. I thought it was Ray Tomlinson. Looks
like he's trying to create some press for his Senate run.
Anyone older that me here that can either confirm or deny? Thanks!
Interesting stuff! And another version of Mach is buried in there.
So the 4 csrg cd set may have updates to the romp support as it's an older version of the 5.1 kernel from 89... Not that think there is any Mach romp users.
Get Outlook for Android
From: TUHS <tuhs-bounces(a)minnie.tuhs.org> on behalf of Charles H Sauer <sauer(a)technologists.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 18, 2020, 5:51 a.m.
To: TUHS
Subject: [TUHS] Bitsavers' RT/PC, AIX, AOS, etc. recent additions
The Bitsavers' RSS feed
(http://user.xmission.com/~legalize/vintage/bitsavers-bits.xml) seemed
to me to be dominated by RT, AIX, AOS (BSD for RT), etc. stuff in the
last week or so. I've only sampled a few items, but discovered a few
things that I should have known (or knew and forgot?) while I was at IBM.
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/pc/rt/
--
voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer(a)technologists.com
fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/
Facebook/Google/Skype/Twitter: CharlesHSauer
With Doug’s permission, I’d like to bring the group’s attention to a recent oral history with him by the Computer History Museum.
You can find the records for the two interviews here, and in them the links to the PDF transcripts:
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/oralhistories/?s=mcilroy
As I am sure you can imagine, it was a great pleasure to interview Doug. I learned a tremendous amount.
Best wishes,
David
..............
David C. Brock
Director and Curator
Software History Center
Computer History Museum
computerhistory.org/softwarehistory<http://computerhistory.org/softwarehistory>
Email: dbrock(a)computerhistory.org
Twitter: @dcbrock
Skype: dcbrock
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA 94943
(650) 810-1010 main
(650) 810-1886 direct
Pronouns: he, him, his
Apropos of Knuth and me, may I immodestly point to
https://comic.browserling.com/tag/knuth
The second likeness of Don is quite good. And
the screen almost justifies posting to tuhs.
Doug
Arnold wrote:
> Well said. The markup language was clearly inspired by Scribe, which
> was quite popular in Academia (at least) at the time.
>
> As a *markup language*, I personally find it superior to anything
> else currently in use, but that's a whole different discussion that
> on TUHS inevitably degenerates into the current spate of ranting,
> so I won't start on it.
So in other words, you mean:
@Flame(Off)
-Don
While messing around with the '87 release of GCC, I was going through the steps of setting up TME, and I stumbled across this derived emulator that is incredibly simple to setup and run, unlike TME:
https://github.com/lisper/emulator-sun-2
Additional patches adding a BPF backend Ethernet adapter is here:
https://github.com/sigurbjornl
The program itself is only slightly C++ with a few variables being declared inline which was trivial to move to section starting to get it to compile with a picky C compiler (Microsoft C). The IO is SDL based, so making an x86/ARM win32 was really trivial.
Anyway for all the SunOS enthusiasts I figured that you would love to give this one a shot!
For Windows users, or anyone wanting to just run it on some unsuspecting normies I put Win32 x86 binaries here:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/bsd42/files/4BSD%20under%20Windows/v0.4/SU…
I have to wonder how impossible it would be to integrate it into SIMH...
> From: Jon Steinhart
> When you're looking for the documentation for pdf2svg, for example, and
> there is no man page, how long does it take to figure out that there is
> no documentation at all?
I am _sooo_ tempted to say 'What do you think source is for?' :-)
Noel
> maybe if interest, i have a copy of an article by sandy fraser, “early experiments with time division networks” from ieee networks, jan 1993, pp12-26.
>
> this is a high level paper and describes spider, datakit, incon.
>
> it may have little new but i felt it had a lot of good background and a useful references list.
>
> i am wary of scanning it as its the ieee...
>
> -Steve
Many thanks for the suggestion! Just the other day I bought another Fraser paper on IEEE, "Towards a Universal Data Transport System” from 1983, which is also a high level descriptive overview.
A few people have responded off list and will be looking through their archives for relevant papers.
https://fosdem.org/2020/schedule/event/early_unix/
The video of Warner Losh's FOSDEM presentation "The Hidden Early History of Unix" is now available.
Cheers, Warren
--
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
maybe if interest, i have a copy of an article by sandy fraser, “early experiments with time division networks” from ieee networks, jan 1993, pp12-26.
this is a high level paper and describes spider, datakit, incon.
it may have little new but i felt it had a lot of good background and a useful references list.
i am wary of scanning it as its the ieee...
-Steve
> On 15 Feb 2020, at 2:00 am, tuhs-request(a)minnie.tuhs.org wrote:
>
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> Today's Topics:
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> 1. Datakit early end-to-end protocol(s) (Paul Ruizendaal)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2020 17:22:37 +0100
> From: Paul Ruizendaal <pnr(a)planet.nl>
> To: TUHS main list <tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org>
> Subject: [TUHS] Datakit early end-to-end protocol(s)
> Message-ID: <7128AB08-C99E-490E-BD81-7D62503FF676(a)planet.nl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
>
> I’m looking for the end-to-end datakit network protocol as it existed in 7th Edition.
>
> Context is as follows:
>
> - The Spider network guaranteed reliable, in-order delivery of packets at the TIU interface. There does not seem to have been a standard host end-to-end protocol, although applications did of course contain sanity checks (see for instance the ‘nfs’ source here: http://chiselapp.com/user/pnr/repository/Spider/tree?ci=tip)
>
> - Datakit dropped the reliable delivery part (although it did retain the in-order guarantee) and moved this responsibility to the host. It is the (early) evolution of the related protocol that I’m trying to dig up.
>
> - 7th Edition appears to have had a (serial line based) Datakit connection. Datakit drivers are not in the distributed files, but its tty.h file has defines for several Datakit related constants. Also, as the first Datakit switches became operational at Murray Hill in ’78 or ’79, it seems a reasonable assumption that the Research code base included drivers & protocols for it around that time.
>
> - After that the trail continues with the 8th edition which has a stream filter (dkp.c) for the “New Datakit Protocol”: http://chiselapp.com/user/pnr/repository/v8unix/artifact/01b4f6f05733aba5 This suggests that there was an “Old Datakit Protocol” as well - if so, this may have been the protocol in use at the time of 7th Edition.
>
> The “New Datakit Protocol” appears to be (more or less) the same as what was later called URP (Universal Receiver Protocol). At the time of Plan9 its IL/IP protocol appears to have been designed as an equivalent for URP/Datakit. The early protocols where apparently (co-)designed by Greg Chesson and maybe also stood at the base of his later XTP protocol work.
>
> Any recollections about the early history and evolution of this Datakit protocol are much appreciated. Also, if the source to the 7th Edition Datakit network stack survived I’d love to hear.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
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> End of TUHS Digest, Vol 51, Issue 18
> ************************************
I’m looking for the end-to-end datakit network protocol as it existed in 7th Edition.
Context is as follows:
- The Spider network guaranteed reliable, in-order delivery of packets at the TIU interface. There does not seem to have been a standard host end-to-end protocol, although applications did of course contain sanity checks (see for instance the ‘nfs’ source here: http://chiselapp.com/user/pnr/repository/Spider/tree?ci=tip)
- Datakit dropped the reliable delivery part (although it did retain the in-order guarantee) and moved this responsibility to the host. It is the (early) evolution of the related protocol that I’m trying to dig up.
- 7th Edition appears to have had a (serial line based) Datakit connection. Datakit drivers are not in the distributed files, but its tty.h file has defines for several Datakit related constants. Also, as the first Datakit switches became operational at Murray Hill in ’78 or ’79, it seems a reasonable assumption that the Research code base included drivers & protocols for it around that time.
- After that the trail continues with the 8th edition which has a stream filter (dkp.c) for the “New Datakit Protocol”: http://chiselapp.com/user/pnr/repository/v8unix/artifact/01b4f6f05733aba5 This suggests that there was an “Old Datakit Protocol” as well - if so, this may have been the protocol in use at the time of 7th Edition.
The “New Datakit Protocol” appears to be (more or less) the same as what was later called URP (Universal Receiver Protocol). At the time of Plan9 its IL/IP protocol appears to have been designed as an equivalent for URP/Datakit. The early protocols where apparently (co-)designed by Greg Chesson and maybe also stood at the base of his later XTP protocol work.
Any recollections about the early history and evolution of this Datakit protocol are much appreciated. Also, if the source to the 7th Edition Datakit network stack survived I’d love to hear.
Paul
All, I've also set this up to try out for the video chats:
https://meet.tuhs.org/COFF
Password to join is "unix" at the moment.
I just want to test it to confirm that it works; I'll be heading
out the door to go to the shops soon.
Cheers, Warren
I rather enjoyed having the “unix50.org” website around: very handy to test out bits and pieces of Unix history.
It seems to have been taken down. Would it make sense to have this resource available permanently?
> What i like is the autocorrect feature in v8:
>
> $ cd /usr/blot
> /usr/blit
> $ pwd
> /usr/blit
Here I am, editor of the v8 manual and unaware of the feature.
We now know that silent correction is a terrible idea.
Postel's principle: "be conservative in what you do, be liberal
in what you accept from others" was doctrine in early HTML
specs, and led to disastrous disagreement among browsers'
interpretation of web pages. Sadly, the "principle" lives on
despite its having been expunged from the HTML spec.
Today's "langsec" movement grew out of bitter experience
with malicious inputs exploiting "liberal" interpretation of
nonconforming data.
Today's NYT has an article about fake knockoffs of George Orwell
for sale on Amazon. It cites an edition of "Animal Farm"
apparently pirated by lowgrade OCR autocorrected and never
proofread. One of the many gaffes is that every instance of
"iv" beame ChapterIV, as in "prChapterIVacy".
I didn't like some Lisp systems' DWIM (do what I mean) when I
first heard about the feature, and I like it even less 40-some
years on. I would probably have remonstrated with Rob had I
realized the shell was doing it.
Doug
>What's funny is that in doing the work to get 'se' running on Georgia
>Tech's Vax, I had to learn vi. By the time I was done, vi had become
>my main editor and had burned itself into my finger's ROMs.
I do ed/se occasionally for simple tasks, vim frequently , because it loads fast, and emacs for all bigger projects, beside liteide for golang.
I have always suspected that the brevity of the Unix command names was strongly
influenced by the clunky keyboards on the teletypes that were being used. Can
anyone confirm, deny, and/or comment on this?
-r
On 1/17/20, Brantley Coile <brantley(a)coraid.com> wrote:
> what he said.
>
>> On Jan 17, 2020, at 6:20 PM, Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Plan 9 is not a "single-system-image cluster".
>>
>> -rob
>>
>
>
I guess SSI isn't the right term for Plan 9 clustering since not
everything is shared, although I would still say it has some aspects
of SSI. I was talking about systems that try to make a cluster look
like a single machine in some way even if they don't share everything
(I'm not sure if there's a better term for such systems besides the
rather vague "distributed" which could mean anything from full SSI to
systems that allow transparent access to services/devices on other
machines without trying to make a cluster look like a single system).
[x-posting to COFF]
Idea: anybody interested in a regular video chat? I was thinking of
one that progresses(*) through three different timezones (Asia/Aus/NZ,
then the Americas, then Europe/Africa) so that everybody should be
able to get to two of the three timezones.
(* like a progressive dinner)
30-60 minutes each one, general old computing. Perhaps a guest speaker
now and then with a short presentation. Perhaps a theme now and then.
Perhaps just chew the fat, shoot the breeze as well.
Platform: Zoom or I'd be happy to set up a private Jitsi instance.
Something else?
How often: perhaps weekly or fortnightly through the three timezones,
so it would cycle back every three or six weeks.
Comments, suggestions?!
Cheers, Warren