30 Mar
2020
30 Mar
'20
12:12 a.m.
On 29 Mar 2020, at 16:04, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
Paul Ruizendaal <pnr(a)planet.nl> wrote:
I have that paper (“The Unix 8th Edition Network File System”), it was presented at a
March 1985 ACM conference. However, there are indications that the roots of the file
system switch existed earlier, possibly much earlier.
I think Doug McIlroy once described 1973 as a pivotal year for Unix, with many concepts
devised that would blossom in the following 3-5 years. I’m increasingly tempted to think
that Summer ’81 - Summer ’82 was a similarly pivotal year.
Related is the question when the "file
system switch" was added. It must
have been later than 1981 and before 1985, but I have not been able to
pinpoint it further.
IIRC there was a "paper" (only an abstract) on the file system
switch published in a USENIX conference proceedings. That woud help
trace it down. Peter Weinberger, who did it, is at Google; you could
ask him
directly, as well.
That is a good idea. If someone has the email address I’d appreciate an off list message.
Paul