8 Jan
2020
8 Jan
'20
1:39 p.m.
What's funny is that in doing the work to get
'se' running on Georgia
Tech's Vax, I had to learn vi. By the time I was done, vi had become
my main editor and had burned itself into my finger's ROMs.
I do ed/se
occasionally for simple tasks, vim frequently , because it loads fast, and emacs for all
bigger projects, beside liteide for golang.
8 Jan
8 Jan
9:58 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Thomas Paulsen wrote:
For what it's worth, I use nano. (Yeah, I know, not very unixy.)
I think the first fullscreen text editor I used was FrEdWriter (by Paul
Lutus and Al Rogers) for the Apple ][. After that it was IBM's E. I
haven't really used vi *or* emacs much.
-uso.
What's
funny is that in doing the work to get 'se' running on Georgia
Tech's Vax, I had to learn vi. By the time I was done, vi had become
my main editor and had burned itself into my finger's ROMs.
I do ed/se
occasionally for simple tasks, vim frequently , because it
loads fast, and emacs for all bigger projects, beside liteide for
golang. 
9 Jan
9 Jan
5:41 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
I think the first fullscreen text editor I used was
FrEdWriter (by Paul
Lutus and Al Rogers) for the Apple ][. After that it was IBM's E. I
haven't really used vi *or* emacs much.
First I used was DEC's "EDT" and could never get used to the
"gold" key...
Fortunately I was not required to use RSX (or was it VMS?) as I was
strictly a PDP Unix bod at the time; I was just curious.
-- Dave
7:43 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On 01/08/20 18:41, Dave Horsfall wrote:
[...]
First I used was DEC's "EDT" and could never get used to the
"gold"
key...
Fortunately I was not required to use RSX (or was it VMS?) as I was
strictly a PDP Unix bod at the time; I was just curious.
-- Dave
It was VMS and I had forgotten all about the Gold Key until now.
N.
3:49 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Thomas Paulsen wrote:
I do ed/se occasionally for simple tasks, vim
frequently , because it loads fast, and emacs for all bigger projects, beside liteide for
golang.
I had a boss once who insisted that all his staff learn "ed", because one
day it might be the only editor available; he was right...
-- Dave
4:01 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Wed, Jan 8, 2020 at 4:50 PM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
I had a boss once who insisted that all his staff
learn "ed", because one
day it might be the only editor available; he was right...
I always suggest it. It means you can use sed and lot of other tools
pretty quick.
And if you know ed, you can use almost anything close to it. I hated
DOS's edlin but if I was stuck it was close enough.
Although the famous ? error from the original version was annoying.
Truly, I still suggest that any modern user, take Rob and Brian's book and
until you can do the exercises without think about it, you really are not
yet comfortable with UNIX. I even recommend at least read and looking at
the chapter on nroff.
Clem
18 Jan
18 Jan
5:38 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
Although the famous ? error from the original version
was annoying.
Was it Ken or Dennis who thought of a car with but a single alarm
indicator; "the experienced driver will know what it means".
-- Dave
6:07 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Fri, Jan 17, 2020, at 3:38 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
I actually just started using ed for the first time last week (based on one of your
earlier comments, Clem) and I couldn't disagree more.
? is refreshing in its simplicity. Anyway, back to being a fly on the wall. :)
Although the famous ? error from the original
version was annoying.
Was it Ken or Dennis who thought of a car with but a single alarm
indicator; "the experienced driver will know what it means".
-- Dave
19 Jan
19 Jan
5:02 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
'Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most
automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the
other numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the
driver makes a mistake, a giant “?” lights up in the center of the
dashboard. “The experienced driver,” says Thompson, “will usually know
what’s wrong.”'
On Fri, Jan 17, 2020 at 6:39 PM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Clem Cole wrote:
Although the famous ? error from the original
version was annoying.
Was it Ken or Dennis who thought of a car with but a single alarm
indicator; "the experienced driver will know what it means".
-- Dave
10 Jan
10 Jan
2:13 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
Hoi.
[2020-01-09 08:49] Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
On Wed, 8 Jan 2020, Thomas Paulsen wrote:
On a modern Linux system, ed isn't even installed ... 8-O
I was quite shocked when I first realized that I had to do
`apt-get install ed' to have it available ... on a Unix-like
system. But on the other hand, who of today's users is even
capable of exiting it?!
On my own systems I like to install Heirlomm ed, which I have
outfactored from the Heirloom tools package. If you want to
actually use it every now and then, Gunnar's ed is much more
usable than GNU ed ... which seems to be more a demonstration
object than actually a programmer's editor.
Anyways, I'm having a great pleasure reading those historic
spotlights on editors these days. :-)
meillo
I do ed/se occasionally for simple tasks, vim
frequently ,
because it loads fast, and emacs for all bigger projects,
beside liteide for golang.
I had a boss once who insisted that all his staff learn "ed",
because one day it might be the only editor available; he was
right... 
2:17 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On 10/01/2020 08:13, markus schnalke wrote:
GNU ed [...] seems to be more a demonstration
object than actually a programmer's editor.
Hi Markus, in what way is GNU ed a "demonstration object"?
Andrew
--
OpenPGP key: EB28 0338 28B7 19DA DAB0 B193 D21D 996E 883B E5B9
12 Jan
12 Jan
1:58 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
Hoi.
[2020-01-10 08:17] U'll Be King of the Stars <ullbeking(a)andrewnesbit.org>
On 10/01/2020 08:13, markus schnalke wrote:
Thanks for questioning this statement! It seems as if I might have
mixed different memories up. A quick look at GNU ed showed nothing
to support my statement. Sorry for pretending stuff without fact
checking.
My look was at version 1.4, which is the newest one I could look
into. I'm pretty sure I examined GNU ed 1.6 back then, because
that version is in the Pkgfile of my system, but unfortunately I
am unable to find it anywhere. The GNU release mirrors lack all
version 1.5 through 1.10 -- why that? They must have been
released, at least 1.6, because that is used on my system.
Unfortunately I also was unable to access the Changelog of a
newer version to check for changes, because these are lzip
compressed (tar.lz) ... whatever that is, I cannot uncompress it
on my system. Furthermore I neither could find an online
browsable web repo view for checking out version 1.6 or at least
viewing the files within the browser. There's only a cvs repo
access (no cvs on my machine) and it talks about the web page
repo not the ed source repo. Not sure what to think of that.
That's not how things should be. Actually, I'm a bit depressed
now ...
meillo
P.S.
Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do? To me (a
native German speaker) it naturally was ``ed'' (like ``sam'').
As reference some Computerphile video is given, which is now
deleted. Is there a better source?
And what about the pronounciations of `ex' and `qed'?
What about `od'? (That I pronouce ``oh-dee''.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_(text_editor)
GNU ed [...] seems to be more a demonstration
object than actually a programmer's editor.
Hi Markus, in what way is GNU ed a "demonstration object"? 
2:54 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 08:58:53PM +0100, markus schnalke wrote:
Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do? To me (a
native German speaker) it naturally was ``ed'' (like ``sam'').
As a native english speaker...
'ed', as in the man's name. I pronounce 'vi' as you have it
above,
but others at work pronounce it as 'vye' (as in 'vying'), so no
consistency there.
We also have local inconsistencies for how JIRA is pronounced,
so don't expect a canonical answer.
And what about the pronounciations of `ex' and
`qed'?
I can't say I've pronounced them before, but I think of
former as 'ee-x', I'd be inclined to pronounce the latter
as 'queue-ed'. Since Q-E-D has its own meaning.
What about `od'? (That I pronouce
``oh-dee''.)
agreed; otherwise confusing with 'odd'.
But who knows how the authors pronounced them.
DF
3:27 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Sat, 11 Jan 2020 at 14:59, markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
Hoi.
[2020-01-10 08:17] U'll Be King of the Stars <ullbeking(a)andrewnesbit.org>
GNU ed appears to be written entirely by one person (as in, no changelog
entries by anyone else since 1994), who perhaps not coincidentally is also
the author of the lzip compression program. As you noted, ed source is
distributed only as lzip-compressed tarballs, so you have to be able to
compile and run lzip to compile and run ed. lzip is written in C++, so to
have access to GNU ed you need a C++ compiler. Which is very strange, as
GNU ed is a very simple C program, much as one would expect.
The configure program is extremely basic, which is great - why have more
than you need? - but when it detected that my $(CC) was not gcc, it
hard-coded $(CC) to cc and $(CFLAGS) to -O2, ignoring what I had passed to
the script. A strange choice, but one that can easily be edited later in
the Makefile. The basic C source compiled with no warnings whatsoever,
always a good sign. At the linking stage I noticed that I needed a library
for some functions it wanted. Okay, easy enough, just add a library to the
Makefile's LDFLAGS. But the Makefile had this braindamage:
$(progname) : $(objs)
$(CC) $(LDFLAGS) $(CFLAGS) -o $@ $(objs)
so on any platform that needs libraries linked after objects, it will fail.
At that point, I gave up. This is clearly one person's pet project and has
"but it works on my Linux box!" written all over it. That, coupled with
the fact that the GNU folks are willing to endorse something that is solely
distributed in what can only be described as an extremely obscure
compression format, was just too much for me to handle.
-Henry
On 10/01/2020 08:13, markus schnalke wrote:
Thanks for questioning this statement! It seems as if I might have
mixed different memories up. A quick look at GNU ed showed nothing
to support my statement. Sorry for pretending stuff without fact
checking.
My look was at version 1.4, which is the newest one I could look
into. I'm pretty sure I examined GNU ed 1.6 back then, because
that version is in the Pkgfile of my system, but unfortunately I
am unable to find it anywhere. The GNU release mirrors lack all
version 1.5 through 1.10 -- why that? They must have been
released, at least 1.6, because that is used on my system.
Unfortunately I also was unable to access the Changelog of a
newer version to check for changes, because these are lzip
compressed (tar.lz) ... whatever that is, I cannot uncompress it
on my system. Furthermore I neither could find an online
browsable web repo view for checking out version 1.6 or at least
viewing the files within the browser. There's only a cvs repo
access (no cvs on my machine) and it talks about the web page
repo not the ed source repo. Not sure what to think of that.
That's not how things should be. Actually, I'm a bit depressed
now ...
GNU ed [...] seems to be more a demonstration
object than actually a programmer's editor.
Hi Markus, in what way is GNU ed a "demonstration object"? 
4 Feb
4 Feb
2:40 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced
``ee-dee'' (like
``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do? To me (a
native German speaker) it naturally was ``ed'' (like ``sam'').
As reference some Computerphile video is given, which is now
deleted. Is there a better source?
Dutch speaker.
ed: Hi Ed
vi: C'est la vie
Bonus:
chroot: shroot
These may not be the proper pronunciations but I like the names best
this way.
Sijmen
5 Feb
5 Feb
2:14 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder wrote:
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially.
Naming your Unix command "mike" and expecting people to pronounce it
"em-eye-kay-ee" is hopeless.
Dutch speaker.
ed: Hi Ed
vi: C'est la vie
In English, thanks to the Great Vowel Shift and other developments that
differentiated vowel pronunciation from the continent a few hundred
years ago, trailing "I"s tend to be pronounced long (as in
"eye")--but
they also tend to be rare. They occur in proper names like Lodi,
California and Bondi, Australia (which Americans sometimes mis-pronounce
anyway, perhaps influenced by Spanish). A word that looks borrowed from
Latin, Greek, or Spanish will often get back its "-ee" sound for a
trailing "i", but the two-letter command names beloved of the Unix
pioneers offer no etymological hints.
Bonus:
chroot: shroot
These may not be the proper pronunciations but I like the names best
this way.
I had to teach myself Unix in the early days and so I wound up with some
idiolectal variants that people consider amusing or objectionable:
chroot: cheroot (like the cigar)
chown: rhymes with "clown"
chmod: rhymes with "god" or "scrod" (a kind of fish), and resists the
introduction of a vowel into the leading consonant cluster as
much as possible--it's an ugly one!
creat: Crete (hic Rhodus, hic salta!)
fuser: fuser (like the component of a laser printer--not "eff-user"; eff
that)
groff: Groff (like the surname, not "jee-roff")
troff: trough (but nroff I pronounce the accepted way)
(And did people really say "dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
There are a couple of others that I started out pronouncing in a
nonstandard way, but once I started attending conferences, I
assimilated:
Linux: originally "lye-nucks", now "linn-ucks"
Debian: originally "Dee-bee-un", now "Deb-ee-un"
I've heard many other newcomers make the same inferences I did in these
last two cases.
I would editorialize on the fetishization of terseness in textual
interface design[1], but I have to locate my APL typeball.
Regards,
Branden
[1] A terseness that is hurled away with great enthusiasm by the
maintainers of many libraries written in C, who, facing an unanticipated
need, pile yet another damn parameter onto their hapless function calls.
Six, seven parameters? Keep 'em coming. Consistency of ordering
between commonly-used arguments in the same library? Hell no! Structs
and pointers to structs are only for getting yourself into trouble with.
Remember: always mistrust your compiler and copy a struct element by
element, and only use structure pointers for dangling reference
mischief, never to simplify your function calls. Always prematurely
optimize except when spilling registers between stack frames on IA-32.
But be sure and -fomit-frame-pointer so your mess is even harder to
clean up! Every register is precious except the ones you wasted on your
yard-long parameter list.
Guess I got an editorial in after all.
3:05 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
Being British/Australian, I say "ee-dee" and "vee-eye", as they are
not really English words. Similarly, I say "ee-max" etc.
> Wikipedia
writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially. Naming your Unix command "mike" and
expecting people to pronounce it
"em-eye-kay-ee" is hopeless.
In that case I would pronounce it as "myke".
In English, thanks to the Great Vowel Shift and other
developments that
differentiated vowel pronunciation from the continent a few hundred
years ago, trailing "I"s tend to be pronounced long (as in
"eye")--but
they also tend to be rare. They occur in proper names like Lodi,
California and Bondi, Australia (which Americans sometimes mis-pronounce
anyway, perhaps influenced by Spanish). A word that looks borrowed from
Latin, Greek, or Spanish will often get back its "-ee" sound for a
trailing "i", but the two-letter command names beloved of the Unix
pioneers offer no etymological hints.
You should hear Americans pronounce the Australian cities of Brisbane
and Melbourne. Also, Wagga Wagga totally throws them (it's pronounced
simly as "Wogguh" here).
I had to teach myself Unix in the early days and so I
wound up with some
idiolectal variants that people consider amusing or objectionable:
OK...
chroot: cheroot (like the cigar)
chown: rhymes with "clown"
chmod: rhymes with "god" or "scrod" (a kind of fish), and resists
the
introduction of a vowel into the leading consonant cluster as
much as possible--it's an ugly one!
OK so far...
creat: Crete (hic Rhodus, hic salta!)
cree-AT.
fuser: fuser (like the component of a laser
printer--not "eff-user"; eff
that)
eff-user, so take that :-)
groff: Groff (like the surname, not
"jee-roff")
jee-roff.
troff: trough (but nroff I pronounce the accepted way)
tee-roff. And, err, how would you pronounce "nroff"?
(And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
Likely "dee-eye-troff".
There are a couple of others that I started out
pronouncing in a
nonstandard way, but once I started attending conferences, I
assimilated:
Linux: originally "lye-nucks", now "linn-ucks"
Lee-nux.
Debian: originally "Dee-bee-un", now
"Deb-ee-un"
du-BEE-un.
-- Dave
3:52 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 08:05:55AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
tee-roff, en-roff, dit-roff
DF
troff: trough
(but nroff I pronounce the accepted way)
tee-roff. And, err, how would you pronounce "nroff"?
(And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
Likely "dee-eye-troff". 
5:27 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Unix room pronunciation:
ed: Ed or E.D.; both were common
chroot: cheroot
chgrp: ch-group
chown: rhymes with "clone"
chmod: rhymes with "god"
creat: cree-at
nroff: enn-roff (because it was the descendant of roff)
troff: tee-roff
vi: (for those few who used it) V.I. I pronounced it V.I. but often thought
of Roman numerals.
Also a side note about vi: Plan 9 had another program with that name.
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/vi. The 'v' meant mips for obscure but
consistent reasons. Yet another reason the command was pronounced V.I.
regardless of its function.
-rob
9:34 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Tue, Feb 4, 2020, 4:28 PM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Unix room pronunciation:
ed: Ed or E.D.; both were common
chroot: cheroot
chgrp: ch-group
chown: rhymes with "clone"
chmod: rhymes with "god"
creat: cree-at
nroff: enn-roff (because it was the descendant of roff)
troff: tee-roff
vi: (for those few who used it) V.I. I pronounced it V.I. but often
thought of Roman numerals.
Those match the way I heard them at school in the 80s...
Warner
Also a side note about vi: Plan 9 had another program with that name.
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/vi. The 'v'
meant mips for obscure but
consistent reasons. Yet another reason the command was pronounced V.I.
regardless of its function.
-rob
3:49 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On 05/02/20, Rob Pike wrote:
Also a side note about vi: Plan 9 had another program
with that name.
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/vi. The 'v' meant mips for obscure but
consistent reasons. Yet another reason the command was pronounced V.I.
regardless of its function.
Actually now i wonder, was there a system behind those characters?
These are all i could find (roughly in order of appearance):
2 68020
8 i386
v mips
k sparc
z hobbit
6 i960
x AT&T 3210
1 68000
9 AMD 29000
q ppc
7 alpha
5 ARM (7500)
6 amd64
9 ppc64
0 mips little endian
There's a '2' in '68020' and an '8' in '386'
and maybe i can understand
'k' as sparK, but why is v mips or q powerpc?
aap
5:40 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Pretty sure q came first and was resurrected later. The system, applied
rigorously, was to pick something that worked without conflict each time.
Ken usually picked.
-rob
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 8:50 PM Angelo Papenhoff <aap(a)papnet.eu> wrote:
On 05/02/20, Rob Pike wrote:
Also a side note about vi: Plan 9 had another
program with that name.
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/vi. The 'v' meant mips for obscure but
consistent reasons. Yet another reason the command was pronounced V.I.
regardless of its function.
Actually now i wonder, was there a system behind those characters?
These are all i could find (roughly in order of appearance):
2 68020
8 i386
v mips
k sparc
z hobbit
6 i960
x AT&T 3210
1 68000
9 AMD 29000
q ppc
7 alpha
5 ARM (7500)
6 amd64
9 ppc64
0 mips little endian
There's a '2' in '68020' and an '8' in '386'
and maybe i can understand
'k' as sparK, but why is v mips or q powerpc?
aap
5:43 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Did the NS32032 have a character? If so, what was it?
Brantley
On Feb 5, 2020, at 6:40 AM, Rob Pike
<robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Pretty sure q came first and was resurrected later. The system, applied rigorously, was
to pick something that worked without conflict each time. Ken usually picked.
-rob
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 8:50 PM Angelo Papenhoff <aap(a)papnet.eu> wrote:
On 05/02/20, Rob Pike wrote:
Also a side note about vi: Plan 9 had another
program with that name.
http://man.cat-v.org/plan_9/1/vi. The 'v' meant mips for obscure but
consistent reasons. Yet another reason the command was pronounced V.I.
regardless of its function.
Actually now i wonder, was there a system behind those characters?
These are all i could find (roughly in order of appearance):
2 68020
8 i386
v mips
k sparc
z hobbit
6 i960
x AT&T 3210
1 68000
9 AMD 29000
q ppc
7 alpha
5 ARM (7500)
6 amd64
9 ppc64
0 mips little endian
There's a '2' in '68020' and an '8' in '386'
and maybe i can understand
'k' as sparK, but why is v mips or q powerpc?
aap 
4:58 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Hi Rob,
nroff: enn-roff (because it was the descendant of
roff)
troff: tee-roff
One I've wondered about for a long time is ditroff.
What was that?
1. die-tee-roff
2. dee-eye-tee-roff
3. ditt-roff
4. die-troff
5. Something else...
--
Cheers, Ralph.
5:45 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
I think we called it troff, because that's what it was. Brian might
remember if it was ever used widely with the prefix. I don't think it was,
within 1127. That spelling doesn't appear anywhere in the Research Unix
manuals for v8, v9, or v10.
-rob
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 10:06 PM Ralph Corderoy <ralph(a)inputplus.co.uk>
wrote:
Hi Rob,
nroff: enn-roff (because it was the descendant of
roff)
troff: tee-roff
One I've wondered about for a long time is ditroff.
What was that?
1. die-tee-roff
2. dee-eye-tee-roff
3. ditt-roff
4. die-troff
5. Something else...
--
Cheers, Ralph.
2:45 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder wrote:
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially. (And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold
7:35 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced it as “fisk” (rhymes with “disk”),
but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit I smiled one time when I heard
some one call it “f-sick” but that was not considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially. (And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold 
10:11 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
Bunch of guys at Computer Graphics Lab (at New York Institute of
Technology) back in the 80's used to call it "f-suck".
On 2/5/2020 8:35 AM, Clem cole wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced
it as “fisk” (rhymes with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I
admit I smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not considered
the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with
r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not.
When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially. (And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's
"groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold
10:16 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
definitely a diminutive term.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 11:11 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat(a)kilonet.net> wrote:
Bunch of guys at Computer Graphics Lab (at New York
Institute of
Technology) back in the 80's used to call it "f-suck".
On 2/5/2020 8:35 AM, Clem cole wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used
pronounced it as “fisk”
(rhymes with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable
to my ears. I
admit I smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was
not considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
> markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially.
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with
r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
(And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's
"groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold 
11:05 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
Clem Cole writes:
definitely a diminutive term.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 11:11 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat(a)kilonet.net> wrote:
Bunch of guys at Computer Graphics Lab (at New York Institute of
Technology) back in the 80's used to call it "f-suck".
On 2/5/2020 8:35 AM, Clem cole wrote:
I always pronounced it "fisk" and am happy that newer
filesystems have minimized the need for a stop-and-fisk policy.
Jon
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used
pronounced it as “fisk” (rhymes
with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always
acceptable to my ears. I admit I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
11:09 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
indeed.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 12:06 PM Jon Steinhart <jon(a)fourwinds.com> wrote:
Clem Cole writes:
definitely a diminutive term.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 11:11 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat(a)kilonet.net>
wrote:
Bunch of guys at Computer Graphics Lab (at New York Institute of
Technology) back in the 80's used to call it "f-suck".
On 2/5/2020 8:35 AM, Clem cole wrote:
> FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced it as “fisk”
(rhymes
with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always
acceptable to my ears. I
admit I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it
“f-sick” but that was
not
considered the proper pronunciation.
I always pronounced it "fisk" and am happy that newer
filesystems have minimized the need for a stop-and-fisk policy.
Jon
8 Feb
8 Feb
9:31 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
It has been F-Suck since we first got a copy.
My favorite UNIX quote was Ken Thompson (I hope I’m getting this right Ken), when asked if
he could do it over again, if he’d change anything.
He said he’d put an “e” on the end of creat.
I’ve always pronounced it CREE-AT.
10:19 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
Not quite. It was a question I asked him, while Brian Kernighan and I were
writing the Unix Programming Environment. His actual response was pithier
(as one would expect): "I'd spell creat with an 'e'".
-rob
On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 2:33 PM Ronald Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
It has been F-Suck since we first got a copy.
My favorite UNIX quote was Ken Thompson (I hope I’m getting this right
Ken), when asked if he could do it over again, if he’d change anything.
He said he’d put an “e” on the end of creat.
I’ve always pronounced it CREE-AT.
11 Feb
11 Feb
7:16 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
I thought this was a Denis story not a Ken story. Its still a good
story. Since you're one of the two people in the conversation, I
think I can take it I'm wrong btw.
(it used to get repeated at UUG, it was always good for a laugh)
-G
On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 2:19 PM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Not quite. It was a question I asked him, while Brian Kernighan and I were writing the
Unix Programming Environment. His actual response was pithier (as one would expect):
"I'd spell creat with an 'e'".
-rob
On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 2:33 PM Ronald Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>
> It has been F-Suck since we first got a copy.
>
>
> My favorite UNIX quote was Ken Thompson (I hope I’m getting this right Ken), when
asked if he could do it over again, if he’d change anything.
> He said he’d put an “e” on the end of creat.
>
> I’ve always pronounced it CREE-AT.
>
>
>
12:38 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
See the bottom of page 204 of UPE.
-rob
On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 12:17 PM George Michaelson <ggm(a)algebras.org> wrote:
I thought this was a Denis story not a Ken story. Its
still a good
story. Since you're one of the two people in the conversation, I
think I can take it I'm wrong btw.
(it used to get repeated at UUG, it was always good for a laugh)
-G
On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 2:19 PM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Not quite. It was a question I asked him, while Brian Kernighan and I
were writing
the Unix Programming Environment. His actual response was
pithier (as one would expect): "I'd spell creat with an 'e'".
-rob
On Sat, Feb 8, 2020 at 2:33 PM Ronald Natalie <ron(a)ronnatalie.com>
wrote:
>
> It has been F-Suck since we first got a copy.
>
>
> My favorite UNIX quote was Ken Thompson (I hope I’m getting this right
Ken),
when asked if he could do it over again, if he’d change anything.
> He said he’d put an “e” on the end of creat.
>
> I’ve always pronounced it CREE-AT.
>
>
>
6 Feb
6 Feb
2:26 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
The group I Unix with pronounce it fiss-ick, falling back to f-s-c-k if that provokes a
blank stare.
d
On 6 Feb 2020, at 04:07, Jon Steinhart
<jon(a)fourwinds.com> wrote:
Clem Cole writes:
definitely a diminutive term.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 11:11 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat(a)kilonet.net> wrote:
Bunch of guys at Computer Graphics Lab (at New York Institute of
Technology) back in the 80's used to call it "f-suck".
I always pronounced it "fisk" and am happy that newer
filesystems have minimized the need for a stop-and-fisk policy.
Jon On 2/5/2020 8:35 AM, Clem cole wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced it as “fisk” (rhymes
with
“disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
1:37 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Clem cole wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced
it as “fisk”
(rhymes with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears.
I admit I smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but
that was not considered the proper pronunciation.
I've heard it pronounced as "fuzz-chuck" (!). Me, it's
eff-ess-see-kay.
-- Dave
1:57 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 2:38 PM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Clem cole wrote:
sigh...
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used
pronounced it as “fisk”
(rhymes with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears.
I admit I smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but
that was not considered the proper pronunciation.
I've heard it pronounced as "fuzz-chuck" (!). Me, it's eff-ess-see-kay.
Yeah, that's one's acceptable and as I said above, doesn't bother me.
However, fisk is the 'one true' way ;-) I can see where people came from
often by what they call things.
That said, the program long left the barn and has its own history.
2:50 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally spelled, and pronounced,
fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
-rob
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced
it as “fisk” (rhymes
with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially. (And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold
3:43 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Yup.
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 12:51 PM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally
spelled, and pronounced,
fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
-rob
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used
pronounced it as “fisk” (rhymes
with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
quite.
-- On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
> markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially.
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
(And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold
3:59 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Rob Pike wrote:
Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally
spelled, and pronounced,
fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
And now in some circles it's a euphemism for "fuck" ;)
-uso.
4:22 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
Sex the UNIX way
# unzip
# strip
# touch
# finger
# mount
# fsck
# more
# yes
# umount
# sleep
On 2/5/20, Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally
spelled, and pronounced,
fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
-rob
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used
pronounced it as “fisk” (rhymes
with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit
I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
> markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially.
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
(And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold 
8:43 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 5:23 PM Ed Carp <erc(a)pobox.com> wrote:
Sex the UNIX way
[...]
# finger
[...]
Perhaps I've sent this story to TUHS before, but I can't resist. "finger:
the most inappropriately named command in computerdom" (no, that's not a
challenge...).
When I was in high school I was stealing, er, I mean, borrowing computer
time from the local university. It wasn't quite as criminal as I make it
sound; I was decently well known around campus, folks tolerated my presence
admirably and as informal payment for the computer time, I did a lot of
unpaid sysadmin work.
Anyway, this was the early 90s and the university was starting to give
email accounts to pretty much everyone. What this meant was that there was
a server somewhere running sendmail that accepted incoming mail, and a POP3
server that you could connect to to download that mail. There were
self-service computer labs around campus connected to the university
network, and the `finger` service on the main campus machine was backed by
a database that responded to a crude, limited query syntax. Notably, you
could finger your own first and last name (in quotes) and get some data
about your account, including your login name (most of which were of the
form abc123 because ... university bureaucracy). However, the university
wasn't all that great about telling people any of this stuff...word had
gotten out that everyone had an email account, but not how to go about
getting your login information, etc. They certainly never mentioned the
"finger" command.
Of course, among the computer types, using 'finger' was par for the course.
"Hey, you going to be online later?" "Yeah, just finger me over at the
math
department." Etc.
One day I was hanging around near the helpdesk when a young woman, a
graduate student, came in to ask about her account details. The student on
duty at the time, in a very helpful, cheerful voice said, "oh, that's easy!
Just finger yourself!" (Oh context, you are everything...).
Jaws dropped. Stunned silence ensued. The student working the helpdesk,
suddenly looking approximately like he might die, managed to awkwardly
stammer out something about "the the the finger command" and "I mean, uh,
I'm not saying that YOU should, like, you know... I mean, I don't mean
THAT...and, uh...I'm just making it worse, aren't I? Here, this will all
make so much more sense if I just show you what I mean. On the computer! I
mean...just let me type this thing...er, what's your name?"
The graduate student left a few minutes later with her login details. So
far as I know, no one got fired. In the end I think everyone had a good
laugh, grad student included.
- Dan C.
On 2/5/20, Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Frodo (Ted
Kowalski) told me it was originally spelled, and pronounced,
fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
-rob
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced it as “fisk”
(rhymes
with
“disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit
I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder wrote:
>> markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
>>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee''
(like
>>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
>
> Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
> frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
> select that preferentially.
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
> (And did people really say "dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold
9 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
That's awesome. And finger, back in the days of innocence before scammers
and viruses and black hat hackers, was super useful. I hacked my finger
server to do all sorts of stuff, it was sort of ftp/ps/who and who knows
what else in one.
I miss the days when finger was a thing. Perhaps poorly named (perhaps
not), whatever, it was simpler time.
On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 09:43:33PM -0500, Dan Cross wrote:
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 5:23 PM Ed Carp
<erc(a)pobox.com> wrote:
--
---
Larry McVoy lm at mcvoy.com http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
Sex the UNIX way
[...]
# finger
[...]
Perhaps I've sent this story to TUHS before, but I can't resist.
"finger:
the most inappropriately named command in computerdom" (no, that's not a
challenge...).
When I was in high school I was stealing, er, I mean, borrowing computer
time from the local university. It wasn't quite as criminal as I make it
sound; I was decently well known around campus, folks tolerated my presence
admirably and as informal payment for the computer time, I did a lot of
unpaid sysadmin work.
Anyway, this was the early 90s and the university was starting to give
email accounts to pretty much everyone. What this meant was that there was
a server somewhere running sendmail that accepted incoming mail, and a POP3
server that you could connect to to download that mail. There were
self-service computer labs around campus connected to the university
network, and the `finger` service on the main campus machine was backed by
a database that responded to a crude, limited query syntax. Notably, you
could finger your own first and last name (in quotes) and get some data
about your account, including your login name (most of which were of the
form abc123 because ... university bureaucracy). However, the university
wasn't all that great about telling people any of this stuff...word had
gotten out that everyone had an email account, but not how to go about
getting your login information, etc. They certainly never mentioned the
"finger" command.
Of course, among the computer types, using 'finger' was par for the course.
"Hey, you going to be online later?" "Yeah, just finger me over at the
math
department." Etc.
One day I was hanging around near the helpdesk when a young woman, a
graduate student, came in to ask about her account details. The student on
duty at the time, in a very helpful, cheerful voice said, "oh, that's easy!
Just finger yourself!" (Oh context, you are everything...).
Jaws dropped. Stunned silence ensued. The student working the helpdesk,
suddenly looking approximately like he might die, managed to awkwardly
stammer out something about "the the the finger command" and "I mean, uh,
I'm not saying that YOU should, like, you know... I mean, I don't mean
THAT...and, uh...I'm just making it worse, aren't I? Here, this will all
make so much more sense if I just show you what I mean. On the computer! I
mean...just let me type this thing...er, what's your name?"
The graduate student left a few minutes later with her login details. So
far as I know, no one got fired. In the end I think everyone had a good
laugh, grad student included.
- Dan C.
On 2/5/20, Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> > Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally spelled, and pronounced,
> > fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
> > others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
> >
> > -rob
> >
> >
> > On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
> >
> >> FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used pronounced it as ???fisk???
> (rhymes
> >> with ???disk???), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I
admit
> >> I
> >> smiled one time when I heard some one call it ???f-sick??? but that was
not
> >> considered the proper pronunciation.
> >>
> >> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
> >> quite.
> >>
> >> > On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com wrote:
> >> >
> >> > "G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder wrote:
> >> >>> markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
> >> >>>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced
``ee-dee'' (like
> >> >>>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers
do?
> >> >>
> >> >> Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
> >> >> frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going
to
> >> >> select that preferentially.
> >> >
> >> > ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
> >> > the other two-letter commands.
> >> >
> >> >> (And did people really say "dee-eye-tee-roff" for
"ditroff"?)
> >> >
> >> > I did ... Although it's "groff" and not
"g-roff". :-)
> >> >
> >> > FWIW,
> >> >
> >> > Arnold
> >>
> >
> 
11:20 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, Feb 05, 2020 at 07:00:44PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote:
That's awesome. And finger, back in the days of
innocence before scammers
and viruses and black hat hackers, was super useful. I hacked my finger
server to do all sorts of stuff, it was sort of ftp/ps/who and who knows
what else in one.
I miss the days when finger was a thing. Perhaps poorly named (perhaps
not), whatever, it was simpler time.
Just to mention that finger is *still* a thing in many modern pubnix
systems, such as circumlunar.space or tildeverse.
My2Cents
8:54 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
The name comes from ITS.
9:10 p.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
Richard Salz wrote:
The name comes from ITS.
It was first invented by Les Earnest at SAIL.
https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/les/
"1972 Social networking and blogging service (FINGER) was initially just
for SAIL but became a network service in 1975, "
2:20 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:14 PM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
Finger would tell you what people had just done, and what they planned to
do... So in a sense that's true, but it's a big stretch based on today's
meaning...
Warner
"1972 Social networking and blogging service
(FINGER) was initially just
for SAIL but became a network service in 1975, "
Blogs were in use in 1972?
1:55 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Dan Cross wrote:
Perhaps I've sent this story to TUHS before, but
I can't resist.
"finger: the most inappropriately named command in computerdom" (no,
that's not a challenge...).
[ Hilarious story ]
Back in ye olde Usenet days, someone had an animated .plan which was all
about the "Andalusian snail" (the "@" character was the snail). It
used
ANSI escape sequences, showing it in the 25th line (the "status" line),
and was quite funny.
Of course, you had to have the right speed; too fast, and it just zipped
past, and too slow, well, it, just crawled along :-) ISTR that 9600 was
about right.
Anyone remember that?
Oh, my .plan in those days said "To rid the world of Intel chips" (sorry
Clem, but this was back in the days of Intel vs. Moto). It now reads "To
rid the world of M$ software" but these days the finger service is
generally blocked.
-- Dave
3:48 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Dave Horsfall wrote:
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Dan Cross wrote:
I loved ascii animations back the day, collected a bunch of them,
including the one about the Andalusion Video Snail @/
http://bl.org/~mparson/ascii-anim/
There's a perl script in there for 'slowcat' to print them out slower.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
Perhaps I've sent this story to TUHS before,
but I can't resist.
"finger: the most inappropriately named command in computerdom" (no,
that's not a challenge...).
[ Hilarious story ]
Back in ye olde Usenet days, someone had an animated .plan which was
all about the "Andalusian snail" (the "@" character was the snail).
It used ANSI escape sequences, showing it in the 25th line (the
"status" line), and was quite funny.
Of course, you had to have the right speed; too fast, and it just
zipped past, and too slow, well, it, just crawled along :-) ISTR that
9600 was about right.
Anyone remember that?
5:56 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Michael Parson wrote:
<snip>
I loved ascii animations back the day, collected a
bunch of them,
including the one about the Andalusion Video Snail @/
http://bl.org/~mparson/ascii-anim/
There's a perl script in there for 'slowcat' to print them out slower.
I've fixed the perms. Sorry 'bout that.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
4:17 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
No worries Dave. I was a die hard moto fan. And I’m the first to tell you
the Intel ISA is wretched. But what I have learned is that it does not
matter. They are all dataflow systems internally at this point.
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 11:56 AM Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Dan Cross wrote:
--
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
Perhaps I've sent this story to TUHS before,
but I can't resist.
"finger: the most inappropriately named command in computerdom" (no,
that's not a challenge...).
[ Hilarious story ]
Back in ye olde Usenet days, someone had an animated .plan which was all
about the "Andalusian snail" (the "@" character was the snail). It
used
ANSI escape sequences, showing it in the 25th line (the "status" line),
and was quite funny.
Of course, you had to have the right speed; too fast, and it just zipped
past, and too slow, well, it, just crawled along :-) ISTR that 9600 was
about right.
Anyone remember that?
Oh, my .plan in those days said "To rid the world of Intel chips" (sorry
Clem, but this was back in the days of Intel vs. Moto). It now reads "To
rid the world of M$ software" but these days the finger service is
generally blocked.
-- Dave 
6:21 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Friday, 7 February 2020 at 6:55:28 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
Oh, my .plan in those days said "To rid the world of Intel chips"
(sorry Clem, but this was back in the days of Intel vs. Moto). It
now reads "To rid the world of M$ software" but these days the
finger service is generally blocked.
It is? My .sig (not modified for this answer) includes a finger
reference, and "it works for me". Do some services block incoming
fingers?
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
6:27 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
On Friday, 7 February 2020 at 6:55:28 +1100, Dave
Horsfall wrote:
I have Debian installed in the Linux emulation environment on my main
computer (as well as on my other desktop), so I decided to try running the
finger command from your .sig ;p
Works fine on my end. (It's supposed to end in "20Segmentation fault
(core dumped)", right?)
I have never tried to install a finger daemon on any of my boxen so as to
permit being able to receive incoming finger requests. Just hasn't been
important enough to me.
-uso.
Oh, my .plan in those days said "To rid the world of Intel chips"
(sorry Clem, but this was back in the days of Intel vs. Moto). It
now reads "To rid the world of M$ software" but these days the
finger service is generally blocked.
It is? My .sig (not modified for this answer) includes a finger
reference, and "it works for me". Do some services block incoming
fingers?
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
6:54 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas
On 2/6/2020 7:27 PM, Steve Nickolas wrote:
I have Debian installed in the Linux emulation environment on my main
computer (as well as on my other desktop), so I decided to try running
the finger command from your .sig ;p
Works fine on my end. (It's supposed to end in "20Segmentation fault
(core dumped)", right?)
I have never tried to install a finger daemon on any of my boxen so as
to permit being able to receive incoming finger requests. Just hasn't
been important enough to me.
Same here, using Solaris 11.3
medusa<@:1>% finger grog(a)lemis.com
[lemis.com]
Login: grog Name: Greg 'groggy' Lehey
Directory: /home/grog Shell: /usr/local/bin/bash
Office: Dereel VIC, +61-3-5346-1370
Mail last read Sat Nov 9 05:06 2019 (UTC)
Project:
Home page: http://www.lemis.com/grog/
PGP public key:
-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
<SNIP>
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Plan:
2020: Dereel
2021: Goldfields
2022: Victoria
2023: Australia
2024: The world
20Segmentation fault (core dumped)
medusa<@:1>% uname -a
SunOS medusa 5.11 11.3 i86pc i386 i86pc
medusa<@:1>% pkg info entire
Name: entire
Summary: entire incorporation including Support Repository
Update (Oracle Solaris 11.3.9.4.0).
Description: This package constrains system package versions to
the same
build. WARNING: Proper system update and correct
package
selection depend on the presence of this incorporation.
Removing this package will result in an unsupported
system.
For more information see:
https://support.oracle.com/rs?type=doc&id=2045311.1
Category: Meta Packages/Incorporations
State: Installed
Publisher: solaris
Version: 0.5.11 (Oracle Solaris 11.3.9.4.0)
Build Release: 5.11
Branch: 0.175.3.9.0.4.0
Packaging Date: June 10, 2016 12:51:48 AM
Size: 5.46 kB
FMRI:
pkg://solaris/entire@0.5.11,5.11-0.175.3.9.0.4.0:20160610T005148Z
7 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas
Almost anyone behind a corporate firewall will not allow incoming port 29
(finger) connections.
11:26 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas
On 2020-Feb-06 19:54:13 -0500, Arthur Krewat <krewat(a)kilonet.net> wrote:
medusa<@:1>% finger grog(a)lemis.com
...
PGP public key:
My mutt fed the section marked as being a public key (which actually just
contained <SNIP> into gpg, which got rather confused. A danger of hand-
edited data inside "magic" headers that flag it as a type of content.
--
Peter Jeremy
10:31 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
Works fine on my end. (It's supposed to end in
"20Segmentation fault
(core dumped)", right?)
I suspect that Greg is having a little fun :-) Did you get a core dump?
Now I'm wondering what timebomb is in the year 2025...
-- Dave
11:07 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Friday, 7 February 2020 at 15:31:28 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> Works fine on my end. (It's supposed to end in "20Segmentation fault
> (core dumped)", right?)
Funny, I didn't get Steve's message.
Clearly the obvious check is
$ echo $?
But over the years I've been surprised how many people have been fooled.
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
11:39 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
On Friday, 7 February 2020 at 15:31:28 +1100, Dave
Horsfall wrote:
Remangled the header so it only goes to the list, so the list should
handle passing it on. ;p
Your mailserver rejected the message from my server (frieza.hoshinet.org)
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> Works fine on my end. (It's supposed to end in "20Segmentation fault
> (core dumped)", right?)
Funny, I didn't get Steve's message. Clearly the obvious check is
$ echo $?
I did "ls -tr" to check for a coredump. ;p
But over the years I've been surprised how many
people have been fooled.
Greg
-uso.
8 Feb
8 Feb
3:39 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
I did "ls -tr" to check for a coredump. ;p
Core files aren't always found in the current directory. In fact, they've
been evolving over the years; first, it was "core", then "core.PID"
(and I
think I saw "PID.core" once, or was that process.core"?), and now they
seem to be in /cores. Of course, YMMV...
-- Dave
7 Feb
7 Feb
10:14 p.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
Sorry, I forgot to add a ;) to the end of that ;)
On 2/7/2020 12:07 AM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
On Friday, 7 February 2020 at 15:31:28 +1100, Dave
Horsfall wrote:
On Thu, 6 Feb 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> Works fine on my end. (It's supposed to end in "20Segmentation fault
> (core dumped)", right?)
Funny, I didn't get Steve's message.
Clearly the obvious check is
$ echo $?
But over the years I've been surprised how many people have been fooled.
Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog(a)lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
8 Feb
8 Feb
4:37 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
But over the years I've been surprised how many
people have been fooled.
I'm sure that we've all pulled pranks like that. My favourite was piping
the output of "man" (a shell script on that system) through "Valley
Girl"
(where each "!" was followed e.g. by "Gag me with a spoon!" etc).
Well, $BOSS came into the office after a "heavy" night, and did something
like "man uucp", not quite figuring out what was wrong; I was summoned
shortly afterwards, as I was the only possible culprit...
-- Dave
7 Feb
7 Feb
10:23 a.m.
New subject: finger usage (was: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors))
On Fri, 7 Feb 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
Depends on the firewall, of course; I block it here (or rather, I don't
allow it). You'll find my PGP stuff in the headers, for example.
-- Dave
Oh, my .plan
in those days said "To rid the world of Intel chips"
(sorry Clem, but this was back in the days of Intel vs. Moto). It
now reads "To rid the world of M$ software" but these days the
finger service is generally blocked.
It is? My .sig (not modified for this answer) includes a finger
reference, and "it works for me". Do some services block incoming
fingers?
6 Feb
6 Feb
8:23 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, Feb 5, 2020 at 3:52 PM Rob Pike <robpike(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Frodo (Ted Kowalski) told me it was originally
spelled, and pronounced,
fuck, for good reason, but he soon realized it was going to be used by
others and changed one letter. It was just letters after that.
Very often the novice Unix users learns how `rm -rf` works the hard way.
I've always preferred the spelling, `rm -fr` where I tell people that the
`fr` bit means, "fuck recursively."
- Dan C.
On Thu, Feb 6, 2020 at 1:34 AM Clem cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
FWIW. When it was written, Ted and I used
pronounced it as “fisk” (rhymes
with “disk”), but F. S. C. K. was always acceptable to my ears. I admit I
smiled one time when I heard some one call it “f-sick” but that was not
considered the proper pronunciation.
Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
quite.
On Feb 5, 2020, at 3:45 AM, arnold(a)skeeve.com
wrote:
"G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
At 2020-02-04T09:40:18+0100, Sijmen J. Mulder
wrote:
> markus schnalke <meillo(a)marmaro.de> wrote:
>> Wikipedia writes that `ed' would be pronounced ``ee-dee'' (like
>> ``vee-eye''), is that what you english speakers do?
Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
select that preferentially.
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
(And did people really say
"dee-eye-tee-roff" for "ditroff"?)
I did ... Although it's "groff" and not "g-roff". :-)
FWIW,
Arnold
8:31 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Dan Cross wrote:
Very often the novice Unix users learns how `rm -rf`
works the hard way.
I've always preferred the spelling, `rm -fr` where I tell people that
the `fr` bit means, "fuck recursively."
Yep, that's the thing everyone has to do once; just like:
% rm * .o
rm: .o: No such file or directory
% ls
%
-- Dave
1:08 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
[ Did not see the OP's post ]
"G. Branden Robinson"
<g.branden.robinson(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Certainly not. When one sees a command name that duplicates a
> frequently-used diminituve of a common name, the brain is going to
> select that preferentially.
Yours might but mine doesn't so please don't generalise. At my age
(67) and computer experience (nearly 50 years) I take things like
context into account and don't anthropomorphise things.
[ Arnold ]
ISTR thinking of it and calling it e-d, along with
r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
Which is what I call them.
-- Dave
3:01 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On 05/02/2020, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote (in part):
Well, I am clearly the odd-ball here. I spoke them "long-hand" (as in
remove, link, move, change-mode, ...). Others copied but only once
did a young 'un start typing c-h-a-n ...
N.
ISTR thinking
of it and calling it e-d, along with r-m, l-n, m-v and
the other two-letter commands.
Which is what I call them.
4:06 a.m.
New subject: pronouncing *nix formulas (was: screen editors)
On Wed, 5 Feb 2020, Nemo wrote:
Well, I am clearly the odd-ball here. I spoke them
"long-hand" (as in
remove, link, move, change-mode, ...). Others copied but only once did
a young 'un start typing c-h-a-n ...
Hey, this is Unix; we're all odd-balls here :-)
-- Dave
10 Jan
10 Jan
7:41 p.m.
New subject: screen editors / machine load
[2020-01-09 08:49] Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org>
I first used Unix on a pdp-11/70 in 1981, first year at university. My
professor stopped by the computing center to see how his students were
doing - super nice of him and a perk to pre-PC times! - and was showing me
something or other regarding Unix. I had only used ed to that point and
seeing him fire up vi was practically sci-fi to me. He showed me a few
commands and vowed me to secrecy for fear if all students started using it,
it would bring the 11/70 to its knees. Were multiple vi sessions really
such a potential burden to the machine? I wouldn't think so with the slow
nature of human i/o, yet there certainly were times when the pdp-11/70
crashed as project due dates loomed closer and closer!
Also, I very much enjoy this list. As an EE I use Unix-like OSes as a tool
rather being a builder of the tool like many here. So I don't have the
deep background to contribute to the collective history, but I'm on the
sidelines enjoying the show. As a brief tie-in to the editor comparisons,
I do a lot of DSP work for RF systems these days. Python makes it quick
and easy to try new math, but has a maddening requirement that indentation
be strictly tabs or strictly spaces. Text window pasting into a tab
indented python file wreaks havoc. vim yank/put between split windows
retains the type of white space and lets me use my vi muscle memory.
Happy 2020,
Mike Markowski
I had a boss
once who insisted that all his staff learn "ed",
because one day it might be the only editor available; he was
right...
7:56 p.m.
New subject: screen editors / machine load
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 08:41:53AM -0500, Mike Markowski wrote:
[2020-01-09 08:49] Dave Horsfall
<dave(a)horsfall.org>
I first used Unix on a pdp-11/70 in 1981, first year at university. My
professor stopped by the computing center to see how his students were
doing - super nice of him and a perk to pre-PC times! - and was showing me
something or other regarding Unix. I had only used ed to that point and
seeing him fire up vi was practically sci-fi to me. He showed me a few
commands and vowed me to secrecy for fear if all students started using it,
it would bring the 11/70 to its knees. Were multiple vi sessions really
such a potential burden to the machine? I wouldn't think so with the slow
nature of human i/o, yet there certainly were times when the pdp-11/70
crashed as project due dates loomed closer and closer!
Also, I very much enjoy this list. As an EE I use Unix-like OSes as a tool
rather being a builder of the tool like many here. So I don't have the
deep background to contribute to the collective history, but I'm on the
sidelines enjoying the show. As a brief tie-in to the editor comparisons,
I do a lot of DSP work for RF systems these days. Python makes it quick
and easy to try new math, but has a maddening requirement that indentation
be strictly tabs or strictly spaces. Text window pasting into a tab
indented python file wreaks havoc. vim yank/put between split windows
retains the type of white space and lets me use my vi muscle memory.
Happy 2020,
Mike Markowski
In my first year at university (1984) we had a VAX-11/750 running
4.1BSD with too many students. We had to switch to ex once in a while
to get any editing done. I believe it was not only vi itself that was
causing the load, it was also running many terminals in raw mode that
killed performance.
-Otto
I had a
boss once who insisted that all his staff learn "ed",
because one day it might be the only editor available; he was
right...
9 p.m.
New subject: screen editors / machine load
Yes, it was a real concern. Physical memory on the shared PDP-11 was
limited, and if everyone had a separate copy of vi running the machine
would swap itself silly.
This only mattered if everyone had their own separate copy of vi
installed. The fix was to put vi in a single system directory, such as
/usr/ucb or /exptools. The instruction part of its memory would be
shared among all the users, resulting in much less swapping.
In the early days, people tended to have their own personal copy because
the Berkeley tools did not come standard with UNIX, especially at Bell
Labs. That was one of the main motivations for Exptools (the
"experimental tools"), which were basically 2BSD's applications and some
other tools like Warren Montgomery's emacs. Disk space and people's time
spend installing were also good reasons.
Mary Ann
On 1/10/20 5:41 AM, Mike Markowski wrote:
seeing him fire up vi was practically sci-fi to me.
He showed me a
few commands and vowed me to secrecy for fear if all students started
using it, it would bring the 11/70 to its knees. Were multiple vi
sessions really such a potential burden to the machine? I wouldn't
think so with the slow nature of human i/o, yet there certainly were
times when the pdp-11/70 crashed as project due dates loomed closer
and closer!
9:48 p.m.
New subject: screen editors / machine load
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:00 AM Mary Ann Horton <mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
Yes, it was a real concern. Physical memory on the
shared PDP-11 was
limited, and if everyone had a separate copy of vi running the machine
would swap itself silly.
This only mattered if everyone had their own separate copy of vi
installed. The fix was to put vi in a single system directory, such as
/usr/ucb or /exptools. The instruction part of its memory would be
shared among all the users, resulting in much less swapping.
Actually it was much worse than that...
What Mary Ann points out was mostly true of your PDP-11 had DH11's
installed; which had deeper hardware buffering and 16 character DMA on
output. But these were expensive from DEC and also took up a 'full system
unit' in the CPU for 16 lines. Until Able (much later) released the
DMAX-11 (*a.k.a.* DH/DM) product of a DH11 clone on a single board, many
university sites did not use them; but used multiple DL-11/KL-11's instead.
If your system was configured with DL/KL11s or similar (CMU had it's own
called 'ASLIs' - a synchronous line interfaces) each character took one
interrupt for each either input or output. Moreover, the UARTS that DEC
used which were made by Western Digital had 2 >>or less<< characters of
input buffering, so they could drop chars[1]. The ASLI's used a later chip
with a slightly better buffer IIRC but I admit I've forgotten the details
(Jim Tetter probably remembers them).
So if you had a single line, the interrupt load was huge on a PDP-11. For
this reason, a lot of sites limited glass TTYs to speeds like 2400 or 4800
baud, not the full 9600.
DEC later released the DZ-11 which worked on units of 8 ports per board.
Unfortunately, it was not DMA and the buffering was still pretty shallow.
Joy did a lot of work on 4.1BSD in the DZ driver to cut down the
interrupts because 9600 baud DZ lines could swamp a vax and when running
the BerkNet between systems (before UCB had ethernet), 9600 baud serial
lines were standard.
[1] Two things
A) The original WD UART chip had very limited buffering. The timing was
such that as high rates it could not empty accept a second character
without the first being overwritten. This was a long-standing issue for
many UARTs long in the 1990s. The original chip NS built and IBM used on
the PC (the NS8250) was notorious for the same problem. By the time of
Motorola's 6881, it had 8 characters of buffering IIRC.
B) As I understand the history, Gordon developed the original idea of the
UART at DEC for the PDP-1. But I'm not sure of the patent details. He does
not list the UART patent on his web site although he does mention inventing
it. I have been under the impression CMU was somehow mixed up in the
patent and licensing of it, *i.e.* WD got the license from CMU to make them
not DEC; which was part of why we had the ASLI's. Again, IIRC, we got the
UART chips from WD at cost and could make the ALSI's locally much cheaper
than DL-11s. >>I think<< the story was that one of Gordon's
student's
designed a chip, which WD fabbed and licensed. Before that DEC had built
UARTs on boards from transistors and later logic gates.
11 Jan
11 Jan
4:18 a.m.
New subject: screen editors / machine load
A) The original WD UART chip had very limited buffering. The timing was
such that as high rates it could not empty accept a second character
without the first being overwritten. This was a long-standing issue for
many UARTs long in the 1990s. The original chip NS built and IBM used on
the PC (the NS8250) was notorious for the same problem. By the time of
Motorola's 6881, it had 8 characters of buffering IIRC.
Great, now I'm having flashbacks to upgrading my 4-port serial card with
16450s and then 16550s in the early 90s.
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 8:49 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:00 AM Mary Ann Horton <mah(a)mhorton.net> wrote:
Yes, it was a real concern. Physical memory on
the shared PDP-11 was
limited, and if everyone had a separate copy of vi running the machine
would swap itself silly.
This only mattered if everyone had their own separate copy of vi
installed. The fix was to put vi in a single system directory, such as
/usr/ucb or /exptools. The instruction part of its memory would be
shared among all the users, resulting in much less swapping.
Actually it was much worse than that...
What Mary Ann points out was mostly true of your PDP-11 had DH11's
installed; which had deeper hardware buffering and 16 character DMA on
output. But these were expensive from DEC and also took up a 'full system
unit' in the CPU for 16 lines. Until Able (much later) released the
DMAX-11 (*a.k.a.* DH/DM) product of a DH11 clone on a single board, many
university sites did not use them; but used multiple DL-11/KL-11's instead.
If your system was configured with DL/KL11s or similar (CMU had it's own
called 'ASLIs' - a synchronous line interfaces) each character took one
interrupt for each either input or output. Moreover, the UARTS that DEC
used which were made by Western Digital had 2 >>or less<< characters of
input buffering, so they could drop chars[1]. The ASLI's used a later chip
with a slightly better buffer IIRC but I admit I've forgotten the details
(Jim Tetter probably remembers them).
So if you had a single line, the interrupt load was huge on a PDP-11. For
this reason, a lot of sites limited glass TTYs to speeds like 2400 or 4800
baud, not the full 9600.
DEC later released the DZ-11 which worked on units of 8 ports per board.
Unfortunately, it was not DMA and the buffering was still pretty shallow.
Joy did a lot of work on 4.1BSD in the DZ driver to cut down the
interrupts because 9600 baud DZ lines could swamp a vax and when running
the BerkNet between systems (before UCB had ethernet), 9600 baud serial
lines were standard.
[1] Two things
A) The original WD UART chip had very limited buffering. The timing was
such that as high rates it could not empty accept a second character
without the first being overwritten. This was a long-standing issue for
many UARTs long in the 1990s. The original chip NS built and IBM used on
the PC (the NS8250) was notorious for the same problem. By the time of
Motorola's 6881, it had 8 characters of buffering IIRC.
B) As I understand the history, Gordon developed the original idea of the
UART at DEC for the PDP-1. But I'm not sure of the patent details. He does
not list the UART patent on his web site although he does mention inventing
it. I have been under the impression CMU was somehow mixed up in the
patent and licensing of it, *i.e.* WD got the license from CMU to make
them not DEC; which was part of why we had the ASLI's. Again, IIRC, we got
the UART chips from WD at cost and could make the ALSI's locally much
cheaper than DL-11s. >>I think<< the story was that one of Gordon's
student's designed a chip, which WD fabbed and licensed. Before that DEC
had built UARTs on boards from transistors and later logic gates.
6:30 a.m.
New subject: screen editors / machine load
On Fri, 10 Jan 2020 at 17:19, Adam Thornton <athornton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
A) The original WD UART chip had very limited
buffering. The timing was
such that as high rates it could not empty accept a second character
without the first being overwritten. This was a long-standing issue for
many UARTs long in the 1990s. The original chip NS built and IBM used on
the PC (the NS8250) was notorious for the same problem. By the time of
Motorola's 6881, it had 8 characters of buffering IIRC.
Great, now I'm having flashbacks to upgrading my 4-port serial card with
16450s and then 16550s in the early 90s.
Yep, same sorts of memories here. I recall the 16450 upgrade being a big
deal for Internet connectivity in that a PC lacking the extra bytes of
buffering in the UART would find that the 80386 was having clock cycles
eaten nearly completely by PPP connections.
It was amazing to realize how a few bytes of memory lurking in a crucial
system interface could affect performance in such dramatic ways.
Tagged command queueing on SCSI controllers had a slightly less dramatic
effect on I/O performance, but again, a few hundred bytes of memory in the
right spot could nevertheless have dramatic effects.
10 Jan
10 Jan
9:31 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On 01/10/20 03:13, markus schnalke wrote (in part):
Hoi.
[...]
Anyways, I'm having a great pleasure reading
those historic
spotlights on editors these days. :-)
In earlier days, my wife was given email by
telnetting to an SGI system
and using elm. One day, I visited her office as she was composing a
message. Intrigued, I asked her what the editor was. She did not know
and pointed to her cheat-sheet listing editor commands. One was ^X^C to
exit-and-send. She is not a programmer and I was a bit surprised at
their choice.
N.
meillo
10:04 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:39 AM Nemo Nusquam <cym224(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Intrigued, I asked her what the editor was. She did
not know
and pointed to her cheat-sheet listing editor commands. One was ^X^C to
exit-and-send. She is not a programmer and I was a bit surprised at
their choice.
Similar fun Unix/ITS emacs story.
In the mid/later 1970s, my least techie sister Cynthia was/is a concert
harpist with a degree from Oberlin's conservatory. She can type extremely
fast as she has super manual dexterity. But playing the harp is not
something that paid a great deal or offered her 'regular' gigs, so to make
the monthly rent she got a job working at MIT as Ron Rivest's admin . She
typed all the RSA papers in emacs and tex on one of the MIT systems. She
did not know any better, that's what they gave her/taught her. When she
later would look for a job at other places and they would ask her, 'do you
know how to use a Wang System' and she would say: "No, I know emacs" [for
the younger set, longer before MS-Word, "Wang" was synonymous with "word
processor" and many/most commercial offices had a 'Wang unit" for the
folks
doing the typing.].
[As a side note when she found out the elevators were hacked and
controlled by the student's different computers, she stopped using them and
would take the stairs in Tech Sq].
11:10 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:39 AM Nemo Nusquam <cym224(a)gmail.com> wrote:
In earlier days, my wife was given email by telnetting
to an SGI system
and using elm. One day, I visited her office as she was composing a
message. Intrigued, I asked her what the editor was. She did not know
and pointed to her cheat-sheet listing editor commands. One was ^X^C to
exit-and-send. She is not a programmer and I was a bit surprised at
their choice.
Hmm, I'm actually kind of not. Starting users off with a modal editor (that
starts in command mode, no less!) can be surprising for novices; with
emacs, at least you can start typing text and, well, see text.
I think that one of the smartest things Marc Crispin ever did was write
`pico` to go with `pine`. A simple editor targeted at the novice was really
useful for casual and/or new users, particularly as the Internet spread and
an account on a Unix system was the default introduction to email etc for
so many.
- Dan C.
11:18 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Fri, 10 Jan 2020, Dan Cross wrote:
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:39 AM Nemo Nusquam
<cym224(a)gmail.com> wrote:
This is one of the reasons I liked E when I first used it: it was modal,
but it started in edit mode. (Also you KNEW what mode you were in, which
I understand isn't always the case with vi, although it usually is in the
clones iirc?)
In earlier days, my wife was given email by
telnetting to an SGI system
and using elm. One day, I visited her office as she was composing a
message. Intrigued, I asked her what the editor was. She did not know
and pointed to her cheat-sheet listing editor commands. One was ^X^C to
exit-and-send. She is not a programmer and I was a bit surprised at
their choice.
Hmm, I'm actually kind of not. Starting users off with a modal editor (that
starts in command mode, no less!) can be surprising for novices; with
emacs, at least you can start typing text and, well, see text. I think that one of the smartest things Marc Crispin
ever did was write
`pico` to go with `pine`. A simple editor targeted at the novice was really
useful for casual and/or new users, particularly as the Internet spread and
an account on a Unix system was the default introduction to email etc for
so many.
And I still use nano - which is a rewrite of pico.
pico Just Works(R)(TM)(C), and it's not enormous. nano adds a few things
I like, but the UI is the same. Heck...I still use PINE and am sending
this message from it ;)
-uso.
18 Jan
18 Jan
7:55 a.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Fri, 10 Jan 2020, Steve Nickolas wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jan 2020, Dan Cross wrote:
The 'gnu' version (or maybe just gnu licensed) of pico, cuz there has to
be a 'gnu' licensed of everything :-/
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 10:39 AM Nemo Nusquam
<cym224(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
This is one of the reasons I liked E when I first used it: it was
modal, but it started in edit mode. (Also you KNEW what mode you were
in, which I understand isn't always the case with vi, although it
usually is in the clones iirc?)
In earlier days, my wife was given email by
telnetting to an SGI
system and using elm. One day, I visited her office as she was
composing a message. Intrigued, I asked her what the editor
was. She did not know and pointed to her cheat-sheet listing editor
commands. One was ^X^C to exit-and-send. She is not a programmer
and I was a bit surprised at their choice.
Hmm, I'm actually kind of not. Starting users off with a modal
editor (that starts in command mode, no less!) can be surprising for
novices; with emacs, at least you can start typing text and, well,
see text. I think that one of the smartest things Marc
Crispin ever did was
write `pico` to go with `pine`. A simple editor targeted at the
novice was really useful for casual and/or new users, particularly as
the Internet spread and an account on a Unix system was the default
introduction to email etc for so many.
And I still use nano - which is a rewrite of pico. pico Just Works(R)(TM)(C), and it's not enormous.
nano adds a few things I
like, but the UI is the same. Heck...I still use PINE and am sending this
message from it ;)
I used pine for years, now alpine, fingers are as hard wired for moving
around in it as they are for doing things in vi(m). However, I also
have (al)pine use vi for the message editing. :)
I learned ed a long time ago because I once had some box that would boot
into single-user mode, but not far enough to get any termcap/info stuff
loaded, vi didn't work, ex didn't work, but ed did. Not too long ago, I
used ed to fix a hosed up passwd file via salt... did something like:
sudo salt some-box cmd.run 'printf "1\n/mparson\ns/foo/bar/\nw\nq\n" | ed
/etc/passwd'
I don't remember what exactly was wrong, but it prevented someone from
being able to log in and it wasn't fixable with the 'users' state.
Maybe it was a bad path to root's shell and we couldn't log in on the
console or something. I've slept since then, lost the details.
The guy watching over my shoulder didn't even know what 'ed' was.
--
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ
10 Jan
10 Jan
9:58 p.m.
New subject: screen editors
On Fri, Jan 10, 2020 at 09:13:04AM +0100, markus schnalke wrote:
I was quite shocked when I first realized that I had to do
`apt-get install ed' to have it available ... on a Unix-like
system. But on the other hand, who of today's users is even
capable of exiting it?!
For what it's worth, I regularly edit configuration files and shell
scripts using /bin/ed in environments where I can't use (due to
terminal limitations) or can't fit a more sophisticated editors.
These days this is typically in small appliance VM's.
I've also been known to do things like this in shell scripts[1]:
ed /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf <<EOF
/^server.document-root/s/^/#/p
/^index-file.names/s/^/#/p
/^include_shell.*create-mime/s/^/#/p
w
q
EOF
[1]
https://github.com/tytso/xfstests-bld/blob/master/kvm-xfstests/test-applian…
And for years, I knew how to exit ed and emacs, but had trouble
exiting vi. :-)
- Ted
On my own systems I like to install Heirlomm ed, which I have
outfactored from the Heirloom tools package. If you want to
actually use it every now and then, Gunnar's ed is much more
usable than GNU ed ... which seems to be more a demonstration
object than actually a programmer's editor.
Anyways, I'm having a great pleasure reading those historic
spotlights on editors these days. :-)
meillo
1775
days inactive
1809
days old
81 comments
41 participants
participants (41)
-
Adam Thornton -
Angelo Papenhoff -
arnold＠skeeve.com -
Arthur Krewat -
Brantley Coile -
Christopher Browne -
Clem Cole -
Clem cole
-
Dan Cross -
Dave Horsfall -
David Arnold -
Derek Fawcus -
Ed Carp -
G. Branden Robinson -
George Michaelson -
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
greg travis -
Henry Bent -
Jon Steinhart -
Larry McVoy -
Lars Brinkhoff -
markus schnalke -
Mary Ann Horton -
Michael Parson -
Mike Markowski -
Nemo -
Nemo Nusquam
-
Otto Moerbeek -
Peter Jeremy -
Ralph Corderoy -
Richard Salz -
Rob Pike -
Ronald Natalie -
Ryan Casalino -
Sijmen J. Mulder -
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U'll Be King of the Stars -
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Warner Losh