I'm finally back to my scan pile and have a few to share:
https://archive.org/details/unix-system-document-processing-guide
First is the UNIX System Document Processing Guide. This is the version of the TROFF et.
al. documentation distributed for Release 5.0 as well as the initial release of System V.
This contains the expected papers on NROFF/TROFF, MM, Eqn, Tbl, and other bits and pieces
like viewgraph macros. These documents appear to be revisions of the various technical
memoranda distributed as UNIX papers over time. I think this just leaves the Support
Tools Guide as far as unscanned initial System V documents. I have this so just need to
get it on my scanner and then the initial System V documentation run should be completely
preserved out there on the net.
https://archive.org/details/we-november-december-1981
Second is a copy of WE Magazine from November-December 1981. Distributed to Western
Electric employees, this issue of the magazine has a cover story on the installation of
the very first central office 5ESS in Seneca, Illinois on July 1st, 1981. The piece goes
into some local reactions to installation day, some technical details of 5ESS, and has
some nice pictures of the unit being unloaded and moved into place. There are additional
articles concerning Nassau Metals, ISSMs, and some goings on around the company.
https://archive.org/details/attached-processor-interface-3b-1a
Finally is the "Attached Processor Interface", a small Western Electric pamphlet
detailing an interface for incorporating 3B processors into existing 1A offices such as
4ESS and 1AESS. As with other applications of the 3B to telephony, DMERT features as the
operating system, although the pamphlet is mostly concerned with the installation and
diagnostic aspects of working with the interface. By the way, the original text is all
green, but I scanned all but the covers in B/W.
The last one is interesting in that it's an integration of the 3B into a telephone
central office that isn't a 5ESS, rather, you wind up with something more like a
4.5ESS, a 4ESS with a 3B up in it somewhere. However, given the date of November 1981,
this postdates the installation of that first 5ESS, making it less likely that this was
some embryonic step before the 5ESS and more likely a retrofit designed to get more 3Bs
into service in older offices. That this was 1A general was interesting too, that is why
a 1AESS could absorb it, meaning there very well could've been frankenstein central
offices out there with a 1ESS that got retrofitted with a 1A and then got retrofitted
further with an API and a 3B, making one of the monstrosities this pamphlet suggests
installing. It's too bad there's a snowball's chance in hell of one of
these "API" units popping up out there, much less still mated to its 1A and
3B...but a guy can dream.
Anywho, going to start a slow trickle of scans again now that I've got my office all
settled. I'm foraying further and further into telephones so my document hunting
these days lands closer to ESS and 1A2 KTS than UNIX, but I'm still keeping an eye
out for whatever I can manage to preserve. That all said, that also means my
"accepted for scan" circle has gotten larger, as I'm now seeking other
70s-early 80s Bell System stuff generally, not strictly UNIX things, so if you've got
some obscure Dimension PBX manual collecting dust I'll happily scan it for ya!
- Matt G.