I asked a friend who was around at the time (I think he and
Rob worked together at times). Here's what he recalls:
I'll keep it going. rc was a description that it was the worst movie
ever. And was for many years listed as the worst system ever (except
for all the others) in a mish-mash of creative naming... I have no clue
if this is true, and I'm honestly having trouble recalling his name.
It wasn't my intention.
There was a description that it was a startup script from very early
times in Unix, shortened, as Ken was wont to do, from runcom, the nearest
thing CTSS had to a shell--it could run up to six prespecified commands
in background. It wasn't a 'big name' like Evi, but I don't know if I buy
it, that plan 9 from outer space poster hanging. Plan 9 from Bell Labs
as all these themes flowed together in a mish-mash of creative naming...
With a different name, it could be the lack of information, those who
guess at reasons for naming generate volumes of apocrypha.
The real reason is usually, ``because''.* Trust me, there are even
worse movies... Someone posted some pictures of the names tell you
anything helpful. Despite the lack of televised sports getting to me
in these shelter-in-place days, but, I mean, sure, I guess I'll throw
in some bucks for a pay-per-view of a Pike/Thompson cage match. FIGHT!
Followups set.
Things are named usually because the name is "Plan 9 from outer space
poster hanging. None of the office area at Murray Hill to this list.
Plan 9 is the worst system ever (except for all the others) in a
knod to Churchill (supposedly based on his comment about Democracy).
And from there it was 25 years ago and beer was involved). It makes
a great story, but I don't think there's much doubt about it. And was
for many years listed as the worst movie ever, including the formative
years of plan 9. Yes, but is there anything besides the name? There is
a widespred anecdote that "Plan 9" name comes from the movie until the
end (what a pain!).
_-_-_-_-Mark
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
> why the single fd approach was abandoned? To its credit, it appears to allow for limited 2-way communication.
My understanding is that the single file descriptor broke the open-file
model, which had a single read/write pointer. Two-way communication via
Doug
Was looking into pipes.
For the 3rd Edition TUHS does not have source, but is does have a man page. In V3, pipe returns a single file descriptor that echoes whatever is written back upon reading. The pipe buffer capacity is 504 bytes.
The surviving ‘nsys’ source for V4 does not yet include the source for pipes, but the man page for 4th edition pipes has - more or less - the well known semantics, including the 4096 byte buffer capacity.
Does anyone remember:
- why the single fd approach was abandoned? To its credit, it appears to allow for limited 2-way communication. Maybe the reason was that it becomes harder to detect broken pipes?
- whether the V3 implementation was based on an in-memory approach and not the later 'anonymous backing file’? The 504 byte buffer capacity suggests a single buffer page minus some header info.
Greetings,
So this happened: https://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2020/04/finding-kermit-4x.html
tl;dr: while obsessing over 4C(052) kermit that's in Rainbow Venix, I found
a lot of cool "lost" source code versions of Kermit... All except the one I
was looking for.
Warner
Whilst spelunking in the V8 source code I came across this dozen lines:
http://chiselapp.com/user/pnr/repository/v8unix/artifact/2782d26fa2930724?l…
It implements the /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout and /dev/stderr devices (the variable ‘file_no’ in above code snippet is the constant 40, which is the major number of these devices). It would seem that this handful of lines could have been in Unix as early as 4th Edition — but they weren’t. Maybe it was not seen as useful.
As far as I can tell this bit of code originates in 8th Edition, with no earlier precursors. It does not seem to be in its man pages.
Who added this neat little innovation?
So in the archives we have tapes from 1977, 1980-83 and 1987-89.
So I thought I'd ask if there's other tapes that aren't in the archive...
google can't even find the tapes we have in our archive, let alone others...
Warner
I'll keep it going. rc was a startup script from very early
times in Unix, shortened, as Ken was wont to do, from runcom,
the nearest thing CTSS had to a shell--it could run up to
six prespecified commands in background. The name runcom
came to be applied to the scripts as well as to their
interpreter.
Doug
-------------------------------------
It wasn't my intention.
-rob
On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 11:12 AM Ken Thompson <ken(a)google.com> wrote:
>
> rob,
> you shouldn't have shut down this discussion.
It wasn't my intention.
-rob
On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 11:12 AM Ken Thompson <ken(a)google.com> wrote:
>
> rob,
> you shouldn't have shut down this discussion.
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 3:27 PM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> As it says there,
>>
>> The hermeneutics of naming yields few insights. Things are named usually because the name is nice (sam), or there is some private reference hard to decode (8½), or in honour (perhaps backhanded) of another system (mothra), or an indication of expectation (Plan 9, acme), or just because (acid). None of the names tell you anything helpful.
>>
>> Despite the lack of information, those who guess at reasons for naming generate volumes of apocrypha. The real reason is usually, ``because''.
>>
>> -rob
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 3:50 AM Royce Williams <royce(a)techsolvency.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 9:45 AM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 11:24 AM Pierre DAVID <pdagog(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Apr 18, 2020 at 06:20:18PM +0100, Richard Tobin wrote:
>>>>> >> There is a widespred anecdote that "Plan 9" name comes from the
>>>>> >> movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space".
>>>>> >
>>>>> >Given that the full name is "Plan 9 from Bell Labs" I don't think
>>>>> >there's much doubt about it.
>>>>> >
>>>>>
>>>>> Yes, but is there anything besides the name?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Plan 9 is the worst movie ever. And was for many years listed as the worst movie ever, including the formative years of plan 9.
>>>>
>>>> A professor(?) at CU once told me, though I don't know if I buy it, that plan 9 was Unix Plan B at first. There was a description that it was the worst system ever (except for all the others) in a knod to Churchill (supposedly based on his comment about Democracy). And from there it was a quick jump to Plan 9 from Bell Labs as all these themes flowed together in a mish-mash of creative naming... With a different name, it could break with Unix in interesting ways...
>>>>
>>>> I have no clue if this is true, and I'm no longer in contact with the professor that told me this since it was mid to late 90s, and I'm honestly having trouble recalling his name. It wasn't a 'big name' like Evi, but I think it was someone at CU I had a beer with (which means it could have been a grad student to post-doc as well, it was 25 years ago and beer was involved). It makes a great story, but I don't know if it's anything more than that. I put it out there because I know Rob or Ken is likely to correct something that's this detailed and specific if it's really wrong :)
>>>
>>>
>>> See also:
>>>
>>> http://9p.io/wiki/plan9/lfaq/index.html#GENERAL_INFORMATION
>>>
>>> Royce
> There is a widespred anecdote that "Plan 9" name comes from the
> movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space".
Given that the full name is "Plan 9 from Bell Labs" I don't think
there's much doubt about it.
-- Richard
--
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
There is a widespred anecdote that "Plan 9" name comes from the
movie "Plan 9 From Outer Space".
Since I didn't find anything more than a reference to this
anecdote (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_9_from_Bell_Labs
for example), I forced myself to watch the movie until the end
(what a pain!).
Guess what? I couldn't find the link between the film and the
beloved OS.
I'm sure there are people here who know more. Thanks in advance
for sharing your knowledge with us.
Pierre
