Matt - this is wonderful work. Thank you.
Clem
ᐧ
On Sat, Dec 9, 2023 at 10:34 PM segaloco via TUHS <tuhs(a)tuhs.org> wrote:
After much saying I would and never getting around to
it, I've finally
started filling out a bit of documentation on the various UNIX manuals I've
been tracking down, fleshing out history around, tracing bibliographic
references though, etc etc.
https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=publications:manuals
Thus far I've got the research and CB pages filled out from available
information, and PWB/commercial up through about '85-'86, give or take some
things. I apologize in advance if I've omitted your favorite piece of
trivia or got something wrong, please suggest corrections in any areas
needing them, or even better, a Wiki is a communal resource so with
Warren's OK, I'm sure you can also make contributions.
Most of the pictures are from my own library, although I've added a few
others from thing around the net. There are links to various documents
covered, TUHS content where most appropriate, a few
archive.org and
bitsavers links here and there. I don't intend to include links to any
documents after System V's initial 1983 run, just pictures of covers for
ease of identification.
I've already mentioned a few times but I highly encourage contributions.
I intend to do another round at this sometime soon and round out at least
the BSD stuff and later System V. If anyone else has photographs or
documents they think should be in these articles and you don't want to do
the Wiki part yourself, feel free to send me stuff and I'll make sure it
gets put up there.
Finally, some reflection on the path here. "What was UNIX System IV" was
one of those questions that plagued my mind for a long time, much before I
knew much else about the history of UNIX. Not a crucial question by any
means, but it was one of those little mysteries I always wanted to know
more about, which is what then lead me to trying to find Release 4.0
documents and all that. Of course, that then lead to the rabbit hole of
continuing to turn stuff up, I never imagined I'd actually be successful in
trying to turn up more info on that version, let alone then continuing to
find little pieces of history and slot in missing parts of stories. Along
the way I've learned more about this darn operating system than I ever
intended on learning and now feel net gain in several areas of my study.
Plus, all this Bell System proximity is largely responsible for my
interests in telephony as of late, and may come full circle in the gear I
got for telephone experiments helping me resurrect this poor UNIX PC I've
got sitting on the floor right now. I don't know what I would've been
doing with so much of my free time the past few years otherwise, especially
these colder months.
Hope folks enjoy the commentary!
- Matt G.
P.S. Combing over things for this, I've found a few more pieces of the
UNIX/TS puzzle. The details are in the Release 3.0 section of the
PWB/Commerial page linked above. Short of it is there are some interesting
"leaks" of the name "UNIX/TS" into Release 3.0 documentation,
inconsistently between the sources on the UNIX tree and the physical
document I recently obtained.