Sven Mascheck:
With "original implementation (post 7th ed", I meant the undistributed
BellLabs-internal further development of 7th, the first system ever
to implement #!, leading to 8th ed, etc. (4BSD just incorporated this).
Not System V or other relatives, though.
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Can you cite a reference?
I'm quite familiar with what went on inside the system that was
later called 8th Edition, having been on the inside at Bell Labs
starting in mid-1984. But that was after the original research
group's general move to VAXes--they had no PDP-11s left by then,
except a few LSI-11s running special-purpose systems rather than
UNIX. In fact the VAX kernel they had adopted, I think sometime
earlier that year, was derived from that of 4.1 BSD. (It diverged
quite a bit from that start later, for which I am appreciably
to blame, but that has nothing to do with #!).
So if #! was implemented in an earlier kernel I don't know just
what was done. I'd assumed it was no different; if I'm
mistaken I'd love to see just how it really was.
Alas, the person I know was on the spot and was likely to
remember just what happened in what order can no longer answer
questions ...
Norman Wilson
Toronto ON