19 Nov
2020
19 Nov
'20
4:25 a.m.
A couple of my friends from UC Berkeley were musing on another email
thread. The question from one of them came up: *"I'm teaching the
undergrad OS course this semester ... Mention where ~ comes."*
This comment begets a discussion among the 4 of us at where it showed up in
the UNIX heritage and it if was taken from somewhere else.
Using the tilde character as a short cut for $HOME was purely a userspace
convention and not part of the nami() kernel routine when it came into
being. We know that it was supported by Mike Lesk in UUCP and by Bill Joy
in cshell. The former was first widely released as part of Seventh Edition
but was working on V6 before that inside of BTL. Joy's cshell came out as
part of 2BSD (which was V7 based), but he had released "ashell" before that
and included it in the original BSD (*a.k.a.* 1BSD) which was for V6 [what
I don't remember is if it supported the convention and I can not easily un-
ar(1) the cont.a files in the 1BSD tar image in Warren's archives.
In our exchange, someone observed suggested that Joy might have picked it
up because the HOME key was part of the tilde key on the ADM3A, which were
popular at UCB [*i.e.* the reason hjkl are the movement keys on vi is the
were embossed on the top of those keys on the ADM3A]. It also was noted
that the ASR-33 lacks a ~ key on its keyboard. But Lesk definitely needed
something to represent a remote user's home directory because each system
was different, so he was forced to use something.
It was also noted that there was plenty of cross-pollination going on as
students and researchers moved from site to site, so it could have been BTL
to UCB, vice-versa, or some other path altogether.
So two questions for this august body are:
1. Where did the ~ as $HOME convention come to UNIX?
2. Did UNIX create the idiom, or was there an earlier system such as
CTSS, TENEX, ITS, MTS, TSS, or the like supported it?
19 Nov
19 Nov
4:41 a.m.
On Wed, 18 Nov 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
In our exchange, someone observed suggested that Joy
might have picked
it up because the HOME key was part of the tilde key on the ADM3A, which
were popular at UCB [i.e. the reason hjkl are the movement keys on vi is
the were embossed on the top of those keys on the ADM3A]. It also was
noted that the ASR-33 lacks a ~ key on its keyboard. But Lesk
definitely needed something to represent a remote user's home directory
because each system was different, so he was forced to use something.
The ADM-3A was one of the best terminals ever made.
It was also noted that there was plenty of
cross-pollination going on as
students and researchers moved from site to site, so it could have been BTL
to UCB, vice-versa, or some other path altogether.
So two questions for this august body are:
1. Where did the ~ as $HOME convention come to UNIX?
Gawd... I think I saw it in PWB, but I'm likely wrong.
2. Did UNIX create the idiom, or was there an earlier
system such as CTSS,
TENEX, ITS, MTS, TSS, or the like supported it?
No idea. but given that Unix inherited a lot of stuff....
-- Dave
6:44 a.m.
A related but different "thing" is when the cd activity became a
pushdown stack of 2 (is it more? I never bothered checking)
somebody realised going "there and back again" was innately useful.
(I will never forget working on systems which had cd-moral-equivalent
<down> and no cd-moral-equivalent <up> but having cd-moral-equivalent
$HOME making all directory traversals downward, or back to your
personal root)
sorry for thread hijack.
-G
On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 8:42 AM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Wed, 18 Nov 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
In our exchange, someone observed suggested that
Joy might have picked
it up because the HOME key was part of the tilde key on the ADM3A, which
were popular at UCB [i.e. the reason hjkl are the movement keys on vi is
the were embossed on the top of those keys on the ADM3A]. It also was
noted that the ASR-33 lacks a ~ key on its keyboard. But Lesk
definitely needed something to represent a remote user's home directory
because each system was different, so he was forced to use something.
The ADM-3A was one of the best terminals ever made.
It was also noted that there was plenty of
cross-pollination going on as
students and researchers moved from site to site, so it could have been BTL
to UCB, vice-versa, or some other path altogether.
So two questions for this august body are:
1. Where did the ~ as $HOME convention come to UNIX?
Gawd... I think I saw it in PWB, but I'm likely wrong.
2. Did UNIX create the idiom, or was there an
earlier system such as CTSS,
TENEX, ITS, MTS, TSS, or the like supported it?
No idea. but given that Unix inherited a lot of stuff....
-- Dave 
7:45 p.m.
Not only were they embossed on the keys but I believe those control keys moved the cursor
in those directions. The Adm 1 and 3 were some of my first terminals.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 18, 2020, at 19:46, George Michaelson
<ggm(a)algebras.org> wrote:
A related but different "thing" is when the cd activity became a
pushdown stack of 2 (is it more? I never bothered checking)
somebody realised going "there and back again" was innately useful.
(I will never forget working on systems which had cd-moral-equivalent
<down> and no cd-moral-equivalent <up> but having cd-moral-equivalent
$HOME making all directory traversals downward, or back to your
personal root)
sorry for thread hijack.
-G
> On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 8:42 AM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 18 Nov 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
>>
>> In our exchange, someone observed suggested that Joy might have picked
>> it up because the HOME key was part of the tilde key on the ADM3A, which
>> were popular at UCB [i.e. the reason hjkl are the movement keys on vi is
>> the were embossed on the top of those keys on the ADM3A]. It also was
>> noted that the ASR-33 lacks a ~ key on its keyboard. But Lesk
>> definitely needed something to represent a remote user's home directory
>> because each system was different, so he was forced to use something.
>
> The ADM-3A was one of the best terminals ever made.
>
>> It was also noted that there was plenty of cross-pollination going on as
>> students and researchers moved from site to site, so it could have been BTL
>> to UCB, vice-versa, or some other path altogether.
>>
>> So two questions for this august body are:
>> 1. Where did the ~ as $HOME convention come to UNIX?
>
> Gawd... I think I saw it in PWB, but I'm likely wrong.
>
>> 2. Did UNIX create the idiom, or was there an earlier system such as CTSS,
>> TENEX, ITS, MTS, TSS, or the like supported it?
>
> No idea. but given that Unix inherited a lot of stuff....
>
> -- Dave
10:16 p.m.
On 11/18/20 7:44 PM, George Michaelson wrote:
A related but different "thing" is when the
cd activity became a
pushdown stack of 2 (is it more? I never bothered checking)
somebody realised going "there and back again" was innately useful.
It was definitely in ksh by 1986. It never made it into any of the Bourne
shells, but POSIX adopted it because it was in ksh88. I don't know
whether it was in the 1983 ksh version.
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU chet(a)case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
9:50 p.m.
On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 3:27 PM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Joy's cshell came out as part of 2BSD (which was
V7 based), but he had
released "ashell" before that and included it in the original BSD (
*a.k.a.* 1BSD) which was for V6 [what I don't remember is if it supported
the convention and I can not easily un-ar(1) the cont.a files in the 1BSD
tar image in Warren's archives.
Looking at the ashell sources on the 1BSD tuhs utree viewer suggests that ~
wasn't there yet, but that it was planned:
sh.c:
...
Features remaining to be fixed up and/or implemented
======== ========= == == ===== == === == ===========
...
* Changes to glob to allow ~, prevent too long path, and prevent
* perhaps running out of directories.
...
Looking at glob.c, there's no ~ nor 126/176/7e in the sources. Editing
the cont.a archive directly confirms no ~ or similar constant is
present.
By 2BSD, it was in sh.glob.c in the 'expand' function. Later versions
define TILDE as '~' and used that. V7 had no ~ in the shell, but as
you point out uucp there supported ~ for user home directories. V6
didn't have any of this included that I can find.
Warner
11:22 p.m.
I first saw ~ as part of csh. Bill had an adm3a at home (which is why
HJKL in vi) but there was a variety of terminals at Berkeley. I assumed
~ was Bill's idea.
Mary Ann
On 11/18/20 2:25 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
A couple of my friends from UC Berkeley were musing on
another email
thread. The question from one of them came up: /"I'm teaching the
undergrad OS course this semester ... Mention where ~ comes."/
This comment begets a discussion among the 4 of us at where it showed
up in the UNIX heritage and it if was taken from somewhere else.
Using the tilde character as a short cut for $HOME was purely a
userspace convention and not part of the nami() kernel routine when it
came into being. We know that it was supported by Mike Lesk in UUCP
and by Bill Joy in cshell. The former was first widely released as
part of Seventh Edition but was working on V6 before that inside of
BTL. Joy's cshell came out as part of 2BSD (which was V7 based), but
he had released "ashell" before that and included it in the original
BSD (/a.k.a./ 1BSD) which was for V6 [what I don't remember is if it
supported the convention and I can not easily un-ar(1) the
cont.a files in the 1BSD tar image in Warren's archives.
In our exchange, someone observed suggested that Joy might have picked
it up because the HOME key was part of the tilde key on the ADM3A,
which were popular at UCB [/i.e./ the reason hjkl are the movement
keys on vi is the were embossed on the top of those keys on the
ADM3A]. It also was noted that the ASR-33 lacks a ~ key on its
keyboard. But Lesk definitely needed something to represent a remote
user's home directory because each system was different, so he was
forced to use something.
It was also noted that there was plenty of cross-pollination going on
as students and researchers moved from site to site, so it could have
been BTL to UCB, vice-versa, or some other path altogether.
So two questions for this august body are:
1. Where did the ~ as $HOME convention come to UNIX?
2. Did UNIX create the idiom, or was there an earlier system such as
CTSS, TENEX, ITS, MTS, TSS, or the like supported it?
20 Nov
20 Nov
12:43 a.m.
I had always thought that also until Pressotto pointed out the Lesk had
used it for UUCP which was running around Bell before Seventh Edition. But
... given Bill talked about it for shell in his comments, as Warner points
out, that would have been before UUCP arrived at UCB -- so I don't think it
was from Lesk unless someone like Ken had mentioned it, or he knew about it
from another source (such as MTS from which Joy had learned/used as an
undergrad before UNIX).
As you said, Bill had an ADM3A at home (I had an H19 in those days), but as
you knew too well, there were a ton of different terminals at UCB --
whichever was cheapest usually had a run of popularity :-) So the thought
HOME keycap = home directory also is quite possible.
Of course, Mike and Bill certainly could have come up with it
independently but to me, it seems like the chance of both using the same
char is really unlikely. IIRC a tilde keycap was on the ASR-37 keyboard
but frankly, I don't remember, and can't find a pic of the keyboard detail,
plus the LCM+L is closed right now for CV-19 reasons so it's hard to check.
On Thu, Nov 19, 2020 at 12:23 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
I first saw ~ as part of csh. Bill had an adm3a at
home (which is why HJKL
in vi) but there was a variety of terminals at Berkeley. I assumed ~ was
Bill's idea.
Mary Ann
On 11/18/20 2:25 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
A couple of my friends from UC Berkeley were musing on another email
thread. The question from one of them came up: *"I'm teaching the
undergrad OS course this semester ... Mention where ~ comes."*
This comment begets a discussion among the 4 of us at where it showed up
in the UNIX heritage and it if was taken from somewhere else.
Using the tilde character as a short cut for $HOME was purely a userspace
convention and not part of the nami() kernel routine when it came into
being. We know that it was supported by Mike Lesk in UUCP and by Bill Joy
in cshell. The former was first widely released as part of Seventh Edition
but was working on V6 before that inside of BTL. Joy's cshell came out as
part of 2BSD (which was V7 based), but he had released "ashell" before that
and included it in the original BSD (*a.k.a.* 1BSD) which was for V6
[what I don't remember is if it supported the convention and I can not
easily un-ar(1) the cont.a files in the 1BSD tar image in Warren's
archives.
In our exchange, someone observed suggested that Joy might have picked it
up because the HOME key was part of the tilde key on the ADM3A, which were
popular at UCB [*i.e.* the reason hjkl are the movement keys on vi is the
were embossed on the top of those keys on the ADM3A]. It also was noted
that the ASR-33 lacks a ~ key on its keyboard. But Lesk definitely needed
something to represent a remote user's home directory because each system
was different, so he was forced to use something.
It was also noted that there was plenty of cross-pollination going on as
students and researchers moved from site to site, so it could have been BTL
to UCB, vice-versa, or some other path altogether.
So two questions for this august body are:
1. Where did the ~ as $HOME convention come to UNIX?
2. Did UNIX create the idiom, or was there an earlier system such as
CTSS, TENEX, ITS, MTS, TSS, or the like supported it?
2:02 a.m.
On 19 Nov 2020 13:43 -0500, from clemc(a)ccc.com (Clem Cole):
IIRC a tilde keycap was on the ASR-37 keyboard
but frankly, I don't remember, and can't find a pic of the keyboard detail,
plus the LCM+L is closed right now for CV-19 reasons so it's hard to check.
http://www.navy-radio.com/manuals-ttycorp.htm#m37 has a copy of "37
KEYBOARD SEND-RECEIVE (KSR) TELETYPEWRITER SET AND 37 AUTOMATIC
SEND-RECEIVE (ASR) TELETYPEWRITER SET FOR "DATA-PHONE®" SERVICE
GENERAL DESCRIPTION AND OPERATION", issue 1, dated June 1971
<http://www.navy-radio.com/manuals/tty/m37/574-301-100-iss1-7106.pdf>
which on page 7 has a keyboard layout diagram. It looks to me like the
second right, topmost key, at least on the illustrated layout, came
with ^ ~ RS.
Also 574-321-800TC, "37 Keyboard (YK) and Base (YB) Parts" (issue 1,
December 1967, linked from that same page), page 9 indicates that for
this you'd want key cap part number 314843, which is listed as ~ RS ^.
Judging by that same page, it looks like P/N 313040 might also apply.
This isn't as good as an in-person look at an actual unit, of course,
but it definitely looks like you at least could have a key cap with a
tilde on the 37.
--
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael(a)kjorling.se
“Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
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8 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
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Chet Ramey -
Clem Cole -
Dave Horsfall -
George Michaelson -
Mary Ann Horton -
Michael Kjörling -
Ron Natalie -
Warner Losh