11 Nov
2017
11 Nov
'17
12:06 a.m.
On Fri, Nov 10, 2017 at 12:00:15PM -0600, Will Senn wrote:
My question for you citizens of that long-ago era :),
is this - what was it
like to sit down and learn unix V7 on a PDP? Not from a hardware or
ergonomics perspective, but from a human information processing perspective.
What resources did you consult in your early days and what did the workflow
look like in practical terms.
I learned on the VAX, did some PDP-11 assembly but I dunno if I ever
ran on one. Definitely spent a lot of time on 11/750, 11/780 and the 8600.
The hardest part, for me, was learning command names. Where is dir?
Oh, it's ls. Etc.
I believe the 4BSD manuals (those ones with red/yellow/green plastic
binders) had listings of the commands with the synopsis, either they
did or someone gave such a thing. That was a big jump start.
The next thing was someone gave me an account on ..!uwvax!slovax which
was an 11/750 that had the 4.2BSD source on it. Many, many hours reading
the source and having my eyes opened.
--lm