16 Oct
2017
16 Oct
'17
5:41 p.m.
On 16 Oct 2017, at 13:58, Doug McIlroy
<doug(a)cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
I love the OpenFirmware “L1-A Forth” built into SparcStations. It has the “SEE” word, that
decompiles FORTH words and disassembles FORTH primitives. You can start with “SEE SEE”,
and then recursively climb down and see each of the words and primitives that defines it,
or anything else!
-Don
How realistic would the experience be to actually
running the system
described in the Unix Programming Environment [v8] if it's actually
running
> BSD 4.1... Thanks for any insights y'all might have on this.
This question bears on a recent thread about favorite flavors of Unix. My
favorite flavor is Universal Unix, namely the stuff that just works
everywhere. That's essentially what K&P is about.
That's also what allowed me to use a giant Cray with no instruction
whatsoever. And to do everyday "programmering" on the previously
inscrutable Macintosh, thanks to OS X.
The advent of non-typewriter input put a damper on Universal Unix. One has
to learn something to get started with a novel device. I am impressed,
though, by the breadth of Universal Unix that survives behind those
disparate facades.