Andrew - can't speak for the original, but the BTL version was red and orange and was perfect bound.  But, I was not on 11x17 - it must have been printed on A3 paper, as copying was always a little funny (maybe it was on traditional 'green bar' size 14 7/8 x 11 - I don't remember - but my copy of the original was on US 11x17). 

Ordering it originally was difficult.   I remember that we tried to order a copy for Tektronix in the summer/fall of 1979 because I had my n-th generation xerographic copy that I had brought from CMU and Tek wanted to legitimate copy.  IIRC, I wrote the PO request and it bounced back from Tek purchasing because it had been denied by somebody at AT&T.  We had to call the right person (Al Arms if memory serves me), and then I had the restart on the Tek side, but we did eventually get an official version - which as on my desk for a few years [Of course, we immediately made more copies -- I think I made them for Steve Glaser, Mike Zuhl, Ward Cunningham and possibly Jon if he did not yet have a copy from his BTL days].

When I left Tek I gave the original Tektronix copy of the two books to Terry Laskodi.  I have wondered what happened to that copy after he tragically died in the early 1980s.  I fear it was tossed by someone that had no idea what its value was.

Clem

On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 2:44 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote:
i was a TA for the course which used this as a textbook.
my memory is little faded on this (it was on the other side of my stroke),
but i believe they were perfect bound (cloth strip and glue) and had
two different colors for the covers (i want to say orange and red).
they might have been just stapled but they were thick enough that staples
might have been insufficient.

i certainly remember john printing them off on the DEC printer.

as for the permissions, i can’t recall anything at the time (this was about 45 years ago),
but do remember the fuss at the Labs when Bell Labs started printing their own
high security copies just a couple of years later.

        andrew hume

> On Nov 1, 2020, at 9:07 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
>
> Warner Losh and I have been discussing the early history of John
> Lions' "A commentary on the Sixth Edition UNIX Operating System".
> I've been hosting Warren Toomey's version (with some correction of
> scan errors) at http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/ for
> some years now, and my understanding had been that the book hadn't
> been published, just photocopied, until Warren posted it on
> alt.folklore.computers in 1994.  But now it seems that the "book" had
> been published by UNSW when Lions held the course, and only later was
> the license revoked.  Does anybody have any insights?  What
> restrictions were there on its distribution?  What was the format?
> Was it a real book, or just bound notes?
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
> reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA