Mid-year 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the creation of Unix and I've
been quietly agitating for something to be done to celebrate this. Up to
now, there's been little response.
The original Unix user's group, Usenix, will hold its Annual Technical
Conference on the west coast of the US at this time, so it would make sense
to do something in conjunction with this conference. Some suggestions:
- a terminal room with a bunch of period terminals: ASR-33s, -37s, VT100s,
VT102s, VT220s
- these connected to real/emulated Unix systems either locally or via a
terminal server and telnet to remotely emulated systems
- some graphical terminals: Sun pizza boxes, a Blit would be great
- if possible, some actual real PDP-11s, VAXen
- emulated systems: V1 to V7 Unix, 32V, the BSDs etc. In fact there are
plenty of Unix versions that we could run in emulated mode.
- Unix of course was one of the systems used to implement the Arpanet
protcols, so it would be interesting to get some of the real/emulated
systems networked together
- how about an emulated UUCP network with Usenet on top of it, and
some mail/news clients on the emulated systems.
- retro workshops/tutorials: how to edit with ed, using nroff, posting
a Usenet article, dealing with bang paths.
I'm proposing to gather a bunch of people to start the ball rolling on the
technical/demonstration side. We'd need people:
- with terminals, portable PDP-11s and VAXen, Sun boxen
- prepared to set up emulated systems
- who can help bring the networking (UUCP, Usenet, Arpanet) back to life
- willing to write and run workshops that show off this old technology
- to help set up terminal servers and all the RS-232 to telnet stuff
Some of this we can start doing now, e.g. rebuild an emulated Arpanet, UUCP,
Usenet, get emulated systems up, build front-end telnet interfaces.
Is there anybody willing to sign up for this? I think once we have some
momentum, we can tell the Usenix people and get some buy-in from them.
Post back and/or e-mail me if you can help. Thanks, Warren
It's not really Unix history, but Dartmouth's "communication files"
have so often been cited as pipes before Unix, that you may like
to know what this fascinating facility actually was. See
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/DTSS/commfiles.pdf
On 6 Mar 2017, at 12:37 , Warren Toomey wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 06, 2017 at 12:16:48PM +0100, Paul Ruizendaal wrote:
>> Hopefully I will have some time later this year to add 'direct run' emulations to the TUHS site based on this code (assuming Warren agrees). The idea would be that next to Archive and the Tree there would be emulation. A visitor would go to e.g. the V5 page of the Tree and also find a link to run V5 in emulation. From the SIMH and Nankervis sites images for:
>
> Yes please. And an 11/20 for 1st Edition Unix too :-) (my wishlist).
>
> Thanks! Warren
From a quick glance at "u0.s" it would seem that V1 has support for a RK11 disk. Also, I would assume that when the MMU is disabled, that a 11/45 would boot up from a disk image with 11/20 code - at least it is worth a try. Do you have a RK11 disk image with V1 installed handy?
> From: Warner Losh
> On Wed, Mar 1, 2017 at 12:49 PM, Random832 <random832(a)fastmail.com> wrote:
>>> My understanding is that System V source of any sort is not legal to
>>> distribute.
>> surely there are big chunks of the opensolaris code that are not *very
>> much* changed from the original System V code they're based on. Under
>> what theory, then, was Sun the copyright holder and therefore able to
>> release it under the CDDL?
> Their paid-up perpetual license that granted them the right to do that?
I wonder, if they do indeed have such a license, if they have the rights to
distribute original SysV source under the CDDL? Or does that license only
apply to SysV code that they have modified? And if so, _how much_ does it have
to be modified, to qualify?
Maybe we can get them to distribute SysV under the CDDL... :-)
Noel
All, I've been running the TUHS list since 1994 and it's always been an
open list. People can say what they want, and I rely on sense and courtesy
to ensure good behaviour. I think only once before I've had to hold and vet
an individual's postings.
However, I've seen undesirable behaviour recently on the list and I've had
a substantial amount of private correspondance about it. Therefore, I've
decided to hold and vet the postings of a few list members (i.e. >1).
I don't take this step lightly; in fact, I've dithered for a while on this.
But the new policy is: if you don't show respect to other members on the
TUHS list, I will hold and vet your postings. If your postings are respectful
then there will be no hold and vet.
I will e-mail the people involved. I feel disappointed to have taken this
step, but that's the way it is.
Cheers, Warren
> From: Wesley Parish
> I think the best thing for all would be the release of the Unix SysV
> source trees under a suitable open source license.
You may think that; I may think that, we _all_ may think that.
But in the legal world, that, and $2 (or whatever the going rate is these
days) will get you a cup of coffee.
Unless someone is prepared to chivvy a rights-holder into actually _doing_
something, any talk is ... just that.
Any volunteers to make something actually happen?
Noel
Hi there,
in case of someone is in need of data recovery, we managed
to do some nice work :)
http://hackaday.com/2017/03/03/raiders-of-the-lost-os-reclaiming-a-piece-of…
love all
--
[ ::::::::: 73 de IW9HGS : http://museum.freaknet.org :::::::::::: ]
[ Freaknet Medialab :: Poetry Hacklab : Dyne.Org :: Radio Cybernet ]
[ NON SCRIVERMI USANDO LETTERE ACCENTATE - NON MANDARMI ALLEGATI ]
[ *I DELETE* EMAIL > 100K, ATTACHMENTS, HTML, M$-WORD DOC and SPAM ]
The 'oldest' I have is a set of SCO UNIX 3.2V4.0 and V4.2
Mail me if you're interested
Cheers,
rudi
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 25 Feb 2017 16:55:25 -0800
> From: Cory Smelosky <b4(a)gewt.net>
> To: tuhs(a)minnie.tuhs.org
> Subject: [TUHS] SCO OpenDesktop 386 2.0.0
> Message-ID:
> <1488070525.154368.892915216.18B7F7A4(a)webmail.messagingengine.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Hey,
>
> Does anyone have any of the floppies for OpenDesktop 2.0.0? Mine got
> damaged in a dehumidifier failure before they got to California. The
> only survivor was of all things...the QIC-24 tape (which I have read
> fine)
>
> sco-tape> tar tf file0 | more
> ./tmp/_lbl/prd=odtps/typ=u386/rel=2.0.0a/vol=1
>
> Anyone know a good starting point for attempting to install it in to a
> VM? ;)
> --
> Cory Smelosky
> b4(a)gewt.net
Yes. And I just want to point out the systems vendor's worst nightmare:
Competition from an earlier version of their own product. History is
littered with examples where something was deliberately left to wither and
die for this reason.
Apple II and IIgs: We all know that the IIgs was deliberately crippled, and
then discontinued in favour of the IIc+, as it presented a viable
alternative to the 68000-based Macs.
680x0 Macs: Apparently some licensees had 68060 Macs and accelerators in
the works, but Apple refused access to the ROMs to add the 68060 support
code, because it would have been a viable alternative to the PowerPC 603.
IBM OS/2: Was heavily DOS based (I believe it used the INT 21h API with
modifications for protected mode), but in fact was eclipsed by later
versions of DOS/Windows that were retrofitted with things like DPMI
support, hacky but effective in providing a viable alternative to OS/2.
BSD and SysIII: For a while it looked like the 32V-derived BSDs were going
provide a viable alternative to AT&T's official developments of the same,
and it took some heavy handed legal and political manouevring and backroom
deals to make sure that did not happen in the end.
AMD64 and Itanium: Enough said, a very expensive egg on face episode for
Intel. 8086/8088 and iAPX432: Same thing except it was actually Intel's own
product that provided a viable alternative to the "official" new version
rather than a competitor's development of it. Of course a similar story can
be told about 8080/Z80/8085/8086, Intel faced stiff competition from an
enhanced version of their own product before wresting back control with the
much improved 8086. A nightmare for them.
That's the real reason vendors won't open source.
Nick
On Mar 4, 2017 12:02 PM, "Henry Bent" <henry.r.bent(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 3 March 2017 at 18:56, Wesley Parish <wes.parish(a)paradise.net.nz> wrote:
>
> And since the central Unix source trees have been static - I don't think
> Novell was much more than a
> caretaker, correct me if I'm wrong - and the last SysVR4 release of any
> consequence was Solaris - has
> Oracle done anything with it? - I think the best thing for all would be
> the release of the Unix SysV
> source trees under a suitable open source license.
There was an SVR5, even if it was not nearly the popular product that its
predecessors were. While development certainly slowed, it contained some
amount of technological progression. Obviously at this point development
has stopped completely and it probably does make sense to open source that
code base.
> (I've made a similar argument for the IBM/MS OS/2,
> DEC VAX VMS, and MS Windows and WinNT 3.x and 4.x source trees on various
> other Internet forums:
> the horse has bolted, it's a bit pointless welding shut the barn door now.
> Better to get the credit for
> being friendly and open, and clear up some residual bugs while you're at
> it ... )
Equating VMS, old versions of Windows, etc. isn't quite the same. Even old
versions of those products may well include source that contains, or is
believed by its owners to contain, novel ideas or novel implementations of
existing ideas that may have survived relatively unchanged in newer
versions. And because there is at least a reasonably sized user base for
all of the products you mentioned, corporate customers have an interest in
protecting their investment, and the software creators have an interest in
responding to the desires (or perceived desires) of their customers.
Don't get me wrong - I'd love to see a legal release of the VMS 5 source,
or Windows 3 source, or classic Macintosh source. I'm just not holding my
breath. I think the community's time would be better spend advocating for
source releases of products that are truly dead or all but dead.
-Henry
