From billcu1 at verizon.net  Mon Jun 12 12:26:01 2006
From: billcu1 at verizon.net (Bill Cunningham)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:26:01 -0400
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
Message-ID: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>

    Did these old minis use a teletype or a monitor as stdout? The pictures
I've seen of them looks like they used a printout as stdout.

Bill




From kelli217 at gmail.com  Mon Jun 12 12:43:21 2006
From: kelli217 at gmail.com (Kelli Halliburton)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 21:43:21 -0500
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
In-Reply-To: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
References: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
Message-ID: <200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com>

On Sunday 11 June 2006 09:26 pm, Bill Cunningham wrote:
>     Did these old minis use a teletype or a monitor as stdout? The pictures
> I've seen of them looks like they used a printout as stdout.

V7 assumes a teletype and has little or no provision for anything else. There 
are retrofits for termcap and ncurses out there, though.


From frank at wortner.com  Mon Jun 12 13:17:15 2006
From: frank at wortner.com (Frank Wortner)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:17:15 -0400
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
In-Reply-To: <200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com>
References: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
	<200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <448CDCBB.1050503@wortner.com>

Kelli Halliburton wrote
> V7 assumes a teletype and has little or no provision for anything else. 
>   
Having used it in "the good old days," I can only assure you that this 
was totally true.  I thought we were truly in heaven when we upgraded 
from 110 baud Teletypes to 1200 baud Decwriters!  My goodness, I feel 
really old just now.  :-)

Frank



From iking at killthewabbit.org  Mon Jun 12 13:29:34 2006
From: iking at killthewabbit.org (Ian King)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 20:29:34 -0700
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
In-Reply-To: <448CDCBB.1050503@wortner.com>
References: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>	<200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com>
	<448CDCBB.1050503@wortner.com>
Message-ID: <448CDF9E.1030509@killthewabbit.org>

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From frank at wortner.com  Mon Jun 12 14:01:17 2006
From: frank at wortner.com (Frank Wortner)
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:01:17 -0400
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
In-Reply-To: <448CDF9E.1030509@killthewabbit.org>
References: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
	<200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com> <448CDCBB.1050503@wortner.com>
	<448CDF9E.1030509@killthewabbit.org>
Message-ID: <448CE70D.5010100@wortner.com>

Ian King wrote:
> I remember reworking the serial card on a PDP-8/e to talk to a 2400 
> baud "glass teletype," f
Thanks for all the nostalgic comments.  Now I feel (a few months) 
younger.  :-)

Frank



From carl.lowenstein at gmail.com  Mon Jun 12 15:11:07 2006
From: carl.lowenstein at gmail.com (Carl Lowenstein)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 22:11:07 -0700
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
In-Reply-To: <448CE70D.5010100@wortner.com>
References: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
	<200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com> <448CDCBB.1050503@wortner.com>
	<448CDF9E.1030509@killthewabbit.org> <448CE70D.5010100@wortner.com>
Message-ID: <5904d5730606112211m1e9af86anadcbc90f3216a112@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/11/06, Frank Wortner <frank at wortner.com> wrote:
> Ian King wrote:
> > I remember reworking the serial card on a PDP-8/e to talk to a 2400
> > baud "glass teletype," f
> Thanks for all the nostalgic comments.  Now I feel (a few months)
> younger.  :-)
>

If you had ever attached a DEC VT05 (glass teletype) to your Sixth
Edition or Seventh Edition Unix system you would understand why the
Usenix monthly magazine is named ";login:".   The user prompt contains
escape sequences to control a model 37 Teletype, but the VT05 doesn't
respond to them, and in fact ignores the <esc> character and just
displays the semicolon and colon part of the escape sequences.

    carl
-- 
    carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
                                                 clowenst at ucsd.edu


From dfevans at bbcr.uwaterloo.ca  Mon Jun 12 17:21:58 2006
From: dfevans at bbcr.uwaterloo.ca (David Evans)
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 03:21:58 -0400
Subject: [pups] PDP-11
In-Reply-To: <5904d5730606112211m1e9af86anadcbc90f3216a112@mail.gmail.com>
References: <000001c68dc7$98c39280$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
	<200606112143.21997.kelli217@gmail.com>
	<448CDCBB.1050503@wortner.com> <448CDF9E.1030509@killthewabbit.org>
	<448CE70D.5010100@wortner.com>
	<5904d5730606112211m1e9af86anadcbc90f3216a112@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060612072158.GA2159@bcr10.uwaterloo.ca>

On Sun, Jun 11, 2006 at 10:11:07PM -0700, Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> If you had ever attached a DEC VT05 (glass teletype) to your Sixth
> Edition or Seventh Edition Unix system you would understand why the
> Usenix monthly magazine is named ";login:".   The user prompt contains
> escape sequences to control a model 37 Teletype, but the VT05 doesn't
> respond to them, and in fact ignores the <esc> character and just
> displays the semicolon and colon part of the escape sequences.
> 

  ISTR that 2.9BSD on the Pro 350 does this too.

-- 
David Evans                                     dfevans at bbcr.uwaterloo.ca
Research Associate                     http://bbcr.uwaterloo.ca/~dfevans/
Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge


From martin_lovick at yahoo.com  Thu Jun 15 09:24:29 2006
From: martin_lovick at yahoo.com (Martin Lovick)
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:24:29 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [pups] bitsavers document
Message-ID: <20060614232429.78414.qmail@web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

whilst looking around the bitsavers.org pdf archive, I
found a document called
PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf.
Having had a quick scan through, it contains a source
code listing and some commentary (lions i hear you
say). The strange thing is that all of the source code
appears to be in assembler...

whats this about?

is it a comentary of PDP-7 unix?

regards

Martin

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com  Thu Jun 15 13:33:22 2006
From: dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com (dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com)
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:33:22 -0400
Subject: [pups] bitsavers document
Message-ID: <937c6608a0e872a0993a2b439ec8ad16@plan9.bell-labs.com>

Martin Lovick remarked,

 > whilst looking around the bitsavers.org pdf archive, I
 > found a document called
 > PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf.
 > Having had a quick scan through, it contains a source
 > code listing and some commentary (lions i hear you
 > say). The strange thing is that all of the source code
 > appears to be in assembler...

 > whats this about?

 > is it a comentary of PDP-7 unix?

It is a fairly early version, with commentary, of PDP-11 Unix (the kernel),
indeed still in assembler.  It is an interesting find, probably
the earliest version yet unearthed.  Kossow told me about
it when he did (or got) the scan of the document.

I can't remember receiving it at the time.

It is clearly different from what we in the research
group were running at the time--it has devices we didn't have,
and I think by then we were on the 11/45.

	Dennis


From milov at uwlax.edu  Thu Jun 15 23:35:36 2006
From: milov at uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 08:35:36 -0500
Subject: [pups] bitsavers document
In-Reply-To: <mailman.5.1150336800.85819.pups@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.5.1150336800.85819.pups@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <9EF0B27C-44E4-41D4-91B0-D58090D393D7@uwlax.edu>

> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:24:29 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Martin Lovick <martin_lovick at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [pups] bitsavers document
> To: pups at minnie.tuhs.org
> Message-ID: <20060614232429.78414.qmail at web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
>
> whilst looking around the bitsavers.org pdf archive, I
> found a document called
> PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf.
> Having had a quick scan through, it contains a source
> code listing and some commentary (lions i hear you
> say).

No, not Lions. The author is listed on the first page as one T. R.  
Bashkow.

> The strange thing is that all of the source code
> appears to be in assembler...

yup. This would be an early pdp11 UNIX from the period before the  
rewrite in C.

>
> whats this about?

It appears to be a listing of an assembly language version of an  
early UNIX kernel for the pdp11 in the pages labelled E*-*; the pages  
F*-* are a commentary; G*-* is a glossary of terms used; H*-*  
contains a description of each function in the kernel with complete  
details of each function.

>
> is it a comentary of PDP-7 unix?
It's (Bell Labs flavor) pdp11 assembly language.
>
> regards
>
> Martin

--
Milo Velimirović                            <milov at uwlax.edu>
Unix Computer Network Administrator            608-785-6618 Office
ITS Network Services                        608-386-2817 Cell
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA                43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W
--
Unix: Where /etc/init is job #1.




From grog at lemis.com  Fri Jun 16 10:33:37 2006
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2006 10:03:37 +0930
Subject: [pups] bitsavers document
In-Reply-To: <20060614232429.78414.qmail@web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20060614232429.78414.qmail@web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20060616003337.GW59694@wantadilla.lemis.com>

On Wednesday, 14 June 2006 at 16:24:29 -0700, Martin Lovick wrote:
> whilst looking around the bitsavers.org pdf archive, I found a
> document called PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf.

Can you give a full URL for this document?  I've taken a brief look at
the list in http://bitsavers.org/pdf/, but nothing jumped out at me.

Greg
--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
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From carl.lowenstein at gmail.com  Fri Jun 16 11:13:39 2006
From: carl.lowenstein at gmail.com (Carl Lowenstein)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:13:39 -0700
Subject: [pups]  bitsavers document
In-Reply-To: <5904d5730606151811v74671bbfy2091f7e78fdf270e@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20060614232429.78414.qmail@web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<20060616003337.GW59694@wantadilla.lemis.com>
	<5904d5730606151811v74671bbfy2091f7e78fdf270e@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5904d5730606151813t2b6b334cm2ef16b0adebcd97b@mail.gmail.com>

On 6/15/06, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, 14 June 2006 at 16:24:29 -0700, Martin Lovick wrote:
> > whilst looking around the bitsavers.org pdf archive, I found a
> > document called PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf.
>
> Can you give a full URL for this document?  I've taken a brief look at
> the list in http://bitsavers.org/pdf/, but nothing jumped out at me.

< http://bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf
>

    carl
--
    carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
                                                 clowenst at ucsd.edu


From martin_lovick at yahoo.com  Fri Jun 16 16:52:11 2006
From: martin_lovick at yahoo.com (Martin Lovick)
Date: Thu, 15 Jun 2006 23:52:11 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [pups] bitsavers document
In-Reply-To: <20060616003337.GW59694@wantadilla.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20060616065211.50242.qmail@web36905.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf

a few people have responded indicating that this is
the first verion of unix ported to the pdp11 because
the assembler is pdp11.

--- Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 14 June 2006 at 16:24:29 -0700, Martin
> Lovick wrote:
> > whilst looking around the bitsavers.org pdf
> archive, I found a
> > document called
> PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf.
> 
> Can you give a full URL for this document?  I've
> taken a brief look at
> the list in http://bitsavers.org/pdf/, but nothing
> jumped out at me.
> 
> Greg
> --
> Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
> See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
> 


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From bob at jfcl.com  Mon Jun 19 13:15:52 2006
From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong)
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 20:15:52 -0700
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP drives?
Message-ID: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>

  Probably this is documented somewhere, but I really need a pointer or a
brief tutorial on the major/minor device numbers for mknod() and the device
names for MSCP drives in 2.11bsd.
 
  If I have a really simple PDP with an RQDXn and one RDxx disk, then the
device name is conventionally /dev/ra0x and the first partition, ra0a is
(5,0), the second, ra0b, is (5,1), etc.  Pretty easy.
 
  If I have two drives on my single RQDXn, then the second hard disk is
/dev/ra1 and ra1a is (5,8), ra1b is (5,9), etc.  I guess the offset of 8
must be the maximum number of partitions on a drive - OK, I'm still with
you.
 
  But what if I have a second MSCP controller?  Assuming that I've built the
kernel to handle it and modified dtab to autoconfigure it, that is.  What
are the usual names and mknod() numbers for the drives on the second
controller?
 
  Worse, what if the MSCP controller isn't a RQDX but is a real UDA/QDA ?
Now the drives have their own MSCP unit numbers that can be anything from 0
to 250 - where does this figure in?
 
  Same question for TMSCP - what if I have more than one tape controller?
This case is easier, though, since TMSCP controllers normally have only one
drive associated with them.
 
Thanks,
Bob Armstrong
 
 
  
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From jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de  Mon Jun 19 16:57:33 2006
From: jkunz at unixag-kl.fh-kl.de (Jochen Kunz)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 08:57:33 +0200
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP
 drives?
In-Reply-To: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
References: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
Message-ID: <20060619085733.60529d8d@SirToby.dinner41.de>

On Sun, 18 Jun 2006 20:15:52 -0700
"Robert Armstrong" <bob at jfcl.com> wrote:

>  But what if I have a second MSCP controller?
/dev/ra1a is still (5,8). The disks are numbered in the same order as
they are found. (Modulo devices that are "nailed down" in the kernel
config file.) This is independent of the controler they are connected
to. Some years ago I used a MSCP ESDI disk controller and in addition a
MSCP SMD disk controller to connect two disks to my PDP-11/73 and IIRC
the SMD disk showd up as /dev/ra1[a-h].

At least this is "the generic BSD way". 2.11BSD may be a bit different
due to its age.
-- 


tschüß,
       Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/



From bob at jfcl.com  Tue Jun 20 00:51:56 2006
From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 07:51:56 -0700
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP
	drives?
In-Reply-To: <20060619085733.60529d8d@SirToby.dinner41.de>
Message-ID: <00b301c693af$ef11d140$0401010a@GIZMO>


>Jochen Kunz wrote:
>The disks are numbered in the same order as they are found.

  Is it safe to assume that drives are always discovered in ascending unit
number order, starting with the first controller and continuing with the
second ?

  Is there any utility that will examine the running system and tell you
which drives and units were actually discovered?

  init will say something like "ra 0 at ...." and "ra 1 at ...", but that's
talking about controllers.  AFAIK it says nothing about the drives
discovered.

  Sorry to complain, but it seems like it can be a little bit ambiguous as
to whether BSD actually discovered the drives you think it should have.
This is especially true if you have something like a SCSI controller where
it may not be immediately obviously which drives are online or what their
MSCP unit numbers are.

  And it's important to know which actual disk drive you're writing on :-)

Bob




From chd_1 at nktelco.net  Tue Jun 20 07:43:33 2006
From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C. H. Dickman)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:43:33 -0400
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP
	drives?
In-Reply-To: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
References: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
Message-ID: <44971A85.8060406@nktelco.net>

Robert Armstrong wrote:
>   Probably this is documented somewhere, but I really need a pointer 
> or a brief tutorial on the major/minor device numbers for mknod() and 
> the device names for MSCP drives in 2.11bsd.
This is what I remember about it all when I struggled with it a couple 
of years ago.

The 8 bit minor number has 3 parts: the upper two bits are the 
controller (4 controllers max), the middle 3 bits are unit number (8 
drives per controller) and the lower 3 bits are the partition (a-h).

The assignment of device names is static (or nearly static). The 
discovery code for the controllers checks them in the order listed in 
/dev/dtab and assigns a controller number to each that is discovered and 
in that order (the nearly static part). Note also that DEC has a 
standard order for controller addresses too (which might be different). 
After that, drives are accessed using the 3 bit unit number which MUST 
correspond to the MSCP unit number (a catch follows because of this). 
Partitions are accessed with the 3 bit partition number.

The catch is that MSCP unit numbers are supposed to be global cross all 
controllers and the microPDP-11/83 boot code assumes this. The boot code 
can only see the first unit n that is encountered and 2.11BSD can only 
see the drives with MSCP unit numbers less than 8.

If you only have one controller there is no problem. When you add 
multiple controllers, things get more complex because you can only boot 
the first 8 MSCP units if you want to be able to access them from 2.11BSD.

-chuck






 


From chd_1 at nktelco.net  Tue Jun 20 07:53:37 2006
From: chd_1 at nktelco.net (C. H. Dickman)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:53:37 -0400
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP
	drives?
In-Reply-To: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
References: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
Message-ID: <44971CE1.105@nktelco.net>

Robert Armstrong wrote:
>   Probably this is documented somewhere, but I really need a pointer 
> or a brief tutorial on the major/minor device numbers for mknod() and 
> the device names for MSCP drives in 2.11bsd.
>  
>   If I have a really simple PDP with an RQDXn and one RDxx disk, then 
> the device name is conventionally /dev/ra0x and the first partition, 
> ra0a is (5,0), the second, ra0b, is (5,1), etc.  Pretty easy.
>  
>   If I have two drives on my single RQDXn, then the second hard disk 
> is /dev/ra1 and ra1a is (5,8), ra1b is (5,9), etc.  I guess the offset 
> of 8 must be the maximum number of partitions on a drive - OK, I'm 
> still with you.
>  
>   But what if I have a second MSCP controller?  Assuming that I've 
> built the kernel to handle it and modified dtab to autoconfigure it, 
> that is.  What are the usual names and mknod() numbers for the drives 
> on the second controller?
The second controller starts at ra8a (5, 8), and ra8a must be MSCP unit 0.
>   Worse, what if the MSCP controller isn't a RQDX but is a real 
> UDA/QDA ?  Now the drives have their own MSCP unit numbers that can be 
> anything from 0 to 250 - where does this figure in?
An MSCP unit number greater than 8 cannot be accessed from 2.11BSD.
>   Same question for TMSCP - what if I have more than one tape 
> controller?  This case is easier, though, since TMSCP controllers 
> normally have only one drive associated with them.
Don't know a think about it...
> Thanks,
> Bob Armstrong
>
-chuck



From bqt at GW.SoftJAR.SE  Tue Jun 20 01:08:59 2006
From: bqt at GW.SoftJAR.SE (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:08:59 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP
 drives?
In-Reply-To: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
References: <00a601c6934e$b1e90b50$0401010a@GIZMO>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.64.0606191703070.12961@GW.SoftJAR.SE>

On Sun, 18 Jun 2006, Robert Armstrong wrote:

>  Worse, what if the MSCP controller isn't a RQDX but is a real UDA/QDA ?
> Now the drives have their own MSCP unit numbers that can be anything from 0
> to 250 - where does this figure in?

Note that this isn't really anything special.
You can both have a RQDX with an extender card which allows you to set 
other unit numbers on RD disks, and if you have two UDA controllers, they 
could both have disks starting from number 0.

The other response about automatic numbering of disks is true of NetBSD, 
as well as Ultrix. However, I'm not sure that BSD2 do this.
Unfortunately I can't remember for sure.
But don't you actually tell the unit numbers in the configuration file, 
along with the controller? Or do BSD2 also do a full autodetect and 
connect of MSCP disks?

If not, it could work in several ways, but I would suspect that disks on 
the second controller would start with minor # 64 (8 disks * 8 partitions 
per disk is I believe the default). But that assumes that the first disk 
found will be "0", no matter what the physical unit number is set to. 
Unless of course, this also is set in the configuration file. :-)

>  Same question for TMSCP - what if I have more than one tape controller?
> This case is easier, though, since TMSCP controllers normally have only one
> drive associated with them.

Well, DEC only have TMSCP controllers with a single unit for the PDP-11. 
Third party controllers can have several units...

 	Johnny


From bob at jfcl.com  Wed Jun 21 01:45:07 2006
From: bob at jfcl.com (Robert Armstrong)
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 08:45:07 -0700
Subject: [pups] Major/minor device numbers and device names for MSCP
	drives?
In-Reply-To: <44971A85.8060406@nktelco.net>
Message-ID: <000a01c69480$8c0d1470$1424fa48@GIZMO>

> C. H. Dickman writes:
>The 8 bit minor number has 3 parts: ...

  Thanks, Chuck - this is exactly what I wanted to know.  Now I've got to
try it out and see if I can get my SCSI ZIP drive talking to BSD.

Thanks again,
Bob





From m.welle at gmx.net  Sat Jun  3 23:57:09 2006
From: m.welle at gmx.net (Michael Welle)
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 15:57:09 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
Message-ID: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de>

Hi,

last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One can see Unix as a
castrated successor of Multics. Hmmm, I am interested in Unix history
for several years now, but I haven't heard about that before. It is
really a tale I guess. Any clear words about this topic?

Michael

-- 
biff4emacsen - A biff-like tool for (X)Emacs
http://www.c0t0d0s0.de/biff4emacsen/biff4emacsen.html



From vasco at icpnet.pl  Mon Jun  5 06:44:57 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:44:57 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de>
Message-ID: <44834649.2020108@icpnet.pl>

Michael Welle napisał(a):

> Hi,
>
> last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
> name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
> homophone of (to?) unix in english language).

In Oxford American Dictionary
eunuch (spelled yoo-nuk) . Is it the source of this tale ?

In Webster 3 edition (Koenemann, about 2000 pages)) unix is not mentioned
eunuch (spelled yu-nik,yu-nek)

> One can see Unix as a
> castrated successor of Multics.
>
Unix was Unics at the beginning(uniplexed information computer system)
as opposed to Multics (multiplexed information computer system),
last was working even in 1980.Even name suggests, that Unics was a 
simplified concept, of course at that time.
As You know most modern Unix boxes are multiCPU systems etc ,etc.

> Hmmm, I am interested in Unix history
> for several years now, but I haven't heard about that before. It is
> really a tale I guess. Any clear words about this topic?
>
> Michael
>
>
>
You will find tones of information in Internet.


Andrzej


From vasco at icpnet.pl  Mon Jun  5 20:41:19 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:41:19 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de>
Message-ID: <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>

Michael Welle napisał(a):

>Hi,
>
>last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
>name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
>homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One can see Unix as a
>  
>
Now, that You know where the name unix comes from(see my previous post),
there still is a *funny* coincidence in pronounciation of both words.

In Oxford American Dictionary

eunuch is pronounced as "yoo-nuk" (not all symbols reproduced)
unit is "yoo-nit"
unique is "yoo-neek"

In Webster English Language Dictionary

eunuch is "'yunek"
unit is "'yunet"
unique is "yu'nek,yu'nik"

You can notice, that unix , more similar to unit or unique will be 
pronounced differently(?).

It suggests , that although for us foreigners the difference is hard to 
be distinguished, but perhaps Americans and Englishmen can hear the 
subtle difference above shown in the pronounciation(or perhaps not all). 
I suspect , that if the pronounciation were be same many people would 
have noticed it before.

It is clear , that opinion of American/English linguistic/language 
specialist would be neccesarry.

Andrzej


From tfb at tfeb.org  Mon Jun  5 21:20:25 2006
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 12:20:25 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <22829.80.75.66.29.1149506425.squirrel@www.gradwell.com>

On Mon, June 5, 2006 11:41 am, Andrzej Popielewicz wrote:

>
> eunuch is pronounced as "yoo-nuk" (not all symbols reproduced) unit is
> "yoo-nit"
> unique is "yoo-neek"
>
> In Webster English Language Dictionary
>
>
> eunuch is "'yunek" unit is "'yunet" unique is "yu'nek,yu'nik"
>
> You can notice, that unix , more similar to unit or unique will be
> pronounced differently(?).
>

I think the position of the stress is important.  `Unix', the way I
pronounce it (and I think the way everyone does) is stressed on the 1st
syllable, as is `eunuch' and `Multics'.  To a large extent the distinction
in the sound of the 2nd syllable then doesn't matter because in typical
English dialects they all end up the same null sound (schwar? I forget the
name).

`unique' for instance has stress on second syllable, so really is very
different.

--tim



From cowan at ccil.org  Mon Jun  5 23:49:06 2006
From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 09:49:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org>

Andrzej Popielewicz scripsit:

> eunuch is "'yunek"
> unit is "'yunet"
> unique is "yu'nek,yu'nik"
> 
> You can notice, that unix , more similar to unit or unique will be 
> pronounced differently(?).

English is a vowel-reduction language, like Russian or Portuguese;
vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be reduced either to schwa or to
lax short i.  Because the anglophone countries broke up politically before
language standardization could take effect, there is no single standard
pronunciation worldwide, nor any fixed hierarchy of standards.

Therefore, one must consider both dialects in which the unstressed short
i and the unstressed schwa both become schwa, and ones where they do not.
In the former dialects, "Unix" and "eunuchs" sound exactly alike; in
the latter dialects, there is a small difference.

(As Tim Bradshaw notes, "unique" is stressed on the second syllable,
so there is no vowel reduction on that syllable.)

> I suspect , that if the pronounciation were be same many people would 
> have noticed it before.

I am quite certain that many people have.  It was perfectly obvious to me
the first time I saw the word "Unix" written, and that was in 1976 or so.

> It is clear , that opinion of American/English linguistic/language 
> specialist would be neccesarry.

I am not a specialist, but I am a generalist with a good understanding
of the domain.

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan
Female celebrity stalker, on a hot morning in Cairo:
"Imagine, Colonel Lawrence, ninety-two already!"
El Auruns's reply:  "Many happy returns of the day!"


From vasco at icpnet.pl  Tue Jun  6 00:14:02 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:14:02 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
	<20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org>
Message-ID: <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl>

John Cowan napisał(a):

>Andrzej Popielewicz scripsit:
>
>  
>
>>eunuch is "'yunek"
>>unit is "'yunet"
>>unique is "yu'nek,yu'nik"
>>
>>You can notice, that unix , more similar to unit or unique will be 
>>pronounced differently(?).
>>    
>>
>
>English is a vowel-reduction language, like Russian or Portuguese;
>vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be reduced either to schwa or to
>lax short i.  Because the anglophone countries broke up politically before
>language standardization could take effect, there is no single standard
>pronunciation worldwide, nor any fixed hierarchy of standards.
>
>Therefore, one must consider both dialects in which the unstressed short
>i and the unstressed schwa both become schwa, and ones where they do not.
>In the former dialects, "Unix" and "eunuchs" sound exactly alike; in
>the latter dialects, there is a small difference.
>  
>
OK, so I have learned something about English.

>(As Tim Bradshaw notes, "unique" is stressed on the second syllable,
>so there is no vowel reduction on that syllable.)
>
>  
>
It is and it was quite obvious for me before, I agree with You both,I 
found only words with similar pronounciation(neglecting stress).

>>I suspect , that if the pronounciation were be same many people would 
>>have noticed it before.
>>    
>>
>
>I am quite certain that many people have.  It was perfectly obvious to me
>the first time I saw the word "Unix" written, and that was in 1976 or so.
>
>  
>
Well, I cannot "reproduce it" in my mind this funny feeling I suspect, 
as not natively Enlish speaking.
Hopefully it helped the Unix .Does it cause the smile every time You 
hear it ?
Even now knowing it I will probably ,hearing or reading the word "Unix", 
not associate it with "eunuch".Probably because I have coded Polish 
pronounciation in my mind, or in other words I mostly think in Polish.

>>It is clear , that opinion of American/English linguistic/language 
>>specialist would be neccesarry.
>>    
>>
>
>I am not a specialist, but I am a generalist with a good understanding
>of the domain.
>
>  
>
Your opinion is sufficient.I appreciate.

Andrzej


From wb at freebie.xs4all.nl  Tue Jun  6 00:26:43 2006
From: wb at freebie.xs4all.nl (Wilko Bulte)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:26:43 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
	<20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org> <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <20060605142643.GB11731@freebie.xs4all.nl>

On Mon, Jun 05, 2006 at 04:14:02PM +0200, Andrzej Popielewicz wrote..
> John Cowan napisa??(a):
> 
> >Andrzej Popielewicz scripsit:
> >
> >  
> >
> >>eunuch is "'yunek"
> >>unit is "'yunet"
> >>unique is "yu'nek,yu'nik"
> >>
> >>You can notice, that unix , more similar to unit or unique will be 
> >>pronounced differently(?).
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >English is a vowel-reduction language, like Russian or Portuguese;
> >vowels in unstressed syllables tend to be reduced either to schwa or to
> >lax short i.  Because the anglophone countries broke up politically before
> >language standardization could take effect, there is no single standard
> >pronunciation worldwide, nor any fixed hierarchy of standards.
> >
> >Therefore, one must consider both dialects in which the unstressed short
> >i and the unstressed schwa both become schwa, and ones where they do not.
> >In the former dialects, "Unix" and "eunuchs" sound exactly alike; in
> >the latter dialects, there is a small difference.
> >  
> >
> OK, so I have learned something about English.
> 
> >(As Tim Bradshaw notes, "unique" is stressed on the second syllable,
> >so there is no vowel reduction on that syllable.)
> >
> >  
> >
> It is and it was quite obvious for me before, I agree with You both,I 
> found only words with similar pronounciation(neglecting stress).
> 
> >>I suspect , that if the pronounciation were be same many people would 
> >>have noticed it before.
> >>    
> >>
> >
> >I am quite certain that many people have.  It was perfectly obvious to me
> >the first time I saw the word "Unix" written, and that was in 1976 or so.
> >
> >  
> >
> Well, I cannot "reproduce it" in my mind this funny feeling I suspect, 
> as not natively Enlish speaking.
> Hopefully it helped the Unix .Does it cause the smile every time You 
> hear it ?
> Even now knowing it I will probably ,hearing or reading the word "Unix", 
> not associate it with "eunuch".Probably because I have coded Polish 
> pronounciation in my mind, or in other words I mostly think in Polish.

FWIW and to clutter the discussion:

in Dutch Unix is pronounced like "Uniks", eunuch as "Eu-neug".  So the funny
implications were completely lost on me until now.

Wilko

-- 
Wilko Bulte  	wilko at FreeBSD.org 	


From cowan at ccil.org  Tue Jun  6 01:02:26 2006
From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 11:02:26 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
	<20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org> <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <20060605150225.GB10437@ccil.org>

Andrzej Popielewicz scripsit:

> Well, I cannot "reproduce it" in my mind this funny feeling I suspect, 
> as not natively Enlish speaking.

Not surprising.  Puns in other languages are often hard to appreciate.

> Hopefully it helped the Unix .Does it cause the smile every time You 
> hear it ?

Well, the joke is rather less funny after 30 years than when I first
saw it.  Also not surprising.

English is full of unrelated words pronounced exactly alike, at least
partly because of its habit of borrowing words from foreign languages as
they are written and then changing the pronunciation to suit itself,
which accounts for the strange English pronunciation of "eunuch"
(of Classical Greek origin).

English has always had an appetite for borrowed words, ever since we
replaced huge amounts of our native vocabulary with borrowed French,
Latin, and Greek words.  (From Polish, not so much, except for the
names of specifically Polish things such as "babka", "ogonek", "pierogi"
(more usually "pierogies", with an English plural ending added), "Sejm",
and "zloty".)

(There is, however, just to get *completely* off-topic, the curious
case of the English word "spruce", which means any of various coniferous
evergreen trees of the genus _Picea_.  Most of this word is unquestionably
from "Pruce", the older English name for Prussia, now obsolete.
But Wikipedia suggests, perhaps rightly, that the initial s- comes
from a misinterpretation of the Polish phrase _z Prus_ 'from Prussia'.
English dictionaries are not conclusive.)

A question for any francophones on the list:  is the final -x in "Unix"
normally pronounced in French, or is it silent?

-- 
John Cowan  cowan at ccil.org    http://ccil.org/~cowan
Big as a house, much bigger than a house, it looked to [Sam], a grey-clad
moving hill.  Fear and wonder, maybe, enlarged him in the hobbit's eyes,
but the Mumak of Harad was indeed a beast of vast bulk, and the like of him
does not walk now in Middle-earth; his kin that live still in latter days are
but memories of his girth and his majesty.  --"Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit"


From iking at killthewabbit.org  Tue Jun  6 01:13:07 2006
From: iking at killthewabbit.org (Ian King)
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 08:13:07 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org>
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
	<20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org>
Message-ID: <44844A03.9000204@killthewabbit.org>

An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20060605/235bbf16/attachment.html>

From jpetts at operamail.com  Tue Jun  6 01:57:58 2006
From: jpetts at operamail.com (James Petts)
Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 07:57:58 -0800
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
Message-ID: <20060605155758.BAD863AA552@ws5-8.us4.outblaze.com>


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "John Cowan" <cowan at ccil.org>
> To: "Andrzej Popielewicz" <vasco at icpnet.pl>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
> Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 11:02:26 -0400

> English has always had an appetite for borrowed words, ever since we
> replaced huge amounts of our native vocabulary with borrowed French,
> Latin, and Greek words.

I would rather say "augmented" than "replaced", and of course one should
not neglect the other languages from which there have been significant
borrowings, such as Hindi, which are not, of course, as extensive as from
the languages you mention.

> (There is, however, just to get *completely* off-topic, the curious
> case of the English word "spruce", which means any of various coniferous
> evergreen trees of the genus _Picea_.  Most of this word is unquestionably
> from "Pruce", the older English name for Prussia, now obsolete.
> But Wikipedia suggests, perhaps rightly, that the initial s- comes
> from a misinterpretation of the Polish phrase _z Prus_ 'from Prussia'.
> English dictionaries are not conclusive.)

Well, the definition of Spruce in the OED has several quotations from
the 17th century and before, which seem to indicate that one of the
names for Prussia was in fact "Spruce", which suggests that the
Wikipedia article may not be in fact accurate. The "z Prus" etymology,
without any supporting evidence, is tenuous...

1378 Durh. Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 47 In xxiiij piscibus de sprws empt.,
ijs. 14.. Chaucer's Dethe Blaunche 1025 (MS. Bodl. 638), She wolde
not..send men yn-to Walakye, To Sprewse & yn-to Tartarye. 1521 in
Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. II. I. 292 The expedition of the Gentlemen
of Spruce. c1550 BALE K. Johan (Camden) 9 In Sycell, in Naples, in
Venys and Ytalye, In Pole, Spruse and Berne. 1639 FULLER Holy War
V. iii. 233 They busied themselves in defending of Christendome,..as
the Teutonick order defended Spruce-land against the Tartarian.
1656 G. ABBOT Descr. World 69 On the east and north corner of Germany
lyeth a country called Prussia, in English Pruthen or Spruce.



From cowan at ccil.org  Tue Jun  6 02:28:54 2006
From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 12:28:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <20060605155758.BAD863AA552@ws5-8.us4.outblaze.com>
References: <20060605155758.BAD863AA552@ws5-8.us4.outblaze.com>
Message-ID: <20060605162854.GE10437@ccil.org>

James Petts scripsit:

> I would rather say "augmented" than "replaced", 

Only about 15 to 30 in every 100 of the words that Old English speakers
knew, and that were written down before 1066 in books that haven't been
lost or burned, are still being spoken and written in 2006.  You can,
if you work at it, write English today with only those words, but it
isn't so straightforward -- and it couldn't be done at all if the words
kept from Old English times were not also the most often seen words in
today's English.  All of the other Old English words have been dropped and
French, Latin, or Greek words taken instead.  You're right that many new
words for new things were also put into English over the years as well.

(I had to work on that a great deal to weed all the old French words out
of it.)

> and of course one should not neglect the other languages from which
> there have been significant borrowings, such as Hindi, which are not,
> of course, as extensive as from the languages you mention.

Indeed.

> Well, the definition of Spruce in the OED has several quotations from
> the 17th century and before, which seem to indicate that one of the
> names for Prussia was in fact "Spruce", which suggests that the
> Wikipedia article may not be in fact accurate. The "z Prus" etymology,
> without any supporting evidence, is tenuous...

As you say.  But where did the S- at the beginning of the name "Spruce"
come from, then?  No book of words tells us.

> 1378 Durh. Acc. Rolls (Surtees) 47 In xxiiij piscibus de sprws empt.,
> ijs. 14.. Chaucer's Dethe Blaunche 1025 (MS. Bodl. 638), She wolde
> not..send men yn-to Walakye, To Sprewse & yn-to Tartarye. 1521 in
> Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. II. I. 292 The expedition of the Gentlemen
> of Spruce. c1550 BALE K. Johan (Camden) 9 In Sycell, in Naples, in
> Venys and Ytalye, In Pole, Spruse and Berne. 1639 FULLER Holy War
> V. iii. 233 They busied themselves in defending of Christendome,..as
> the Teutonick order defended Spruce-land against the Tartarian.
> 1656 G. ABBOT Descr. World 69 On the east and north corner of Germany
> lyeth a country called Prussia, in English Pruthen or Spruce.

Thanks for this helpful piece of the OED.

-- 
Do what you will,                       John Cowan
   this Life's a Fiction                cowan at ccil.org
And is made up of                       http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
   Contradiction.  --William Blake


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Jun  6 07:14:19 2006
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A P Garcia)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 16:14:19 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 3
In-Reply-To: <mailman.188.1149524940.1130.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.188.1149524940.1130.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <d2bba1970606051414o5f641b00m7f3546d3a6b6c5db@mail.gmail.com>

Interesting thread. The Jargon file only says:
 [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on Multics"; very early on it was "UNICS"]
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/U/Unix.html

It never occurred to me that the pun might not be recognized, even to
people whose first language is not English. Americans sometimes forget
that not everyone is American.


From dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com  Tue Jun  6 13:41:06 2006
From: dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com (dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com)
Date: Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:41:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
Message-ID: <2c7513b6f888c65a2cdd19adee40d215@plan9.bell-labs.com>

Michael Welle originally asked,

 > last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
 > name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
 > homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One can see Unix as a
 > castrated successor of Multics.

The pun may have been at the back of Kernighan's mind,
but the original explanation was "one of whatever
Multics was many of."  I think the quip about
"castrated Multics" came from MIT.

Incidentally, I don't think the Unics spelling ever occurred
in print, though I could be proved wrong.

	Dennis


From txomsy at yahoo.es  Tue Jun  6 17:18:46 2006
From: txomsy at yahoo.es (Jose R Valverde)
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 09:18:46 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
Message-ID: <20060606071846.11102.qmail@web26108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

First, my apologies if this message looks awful.

The pun might have stemmed from another variant. Like
EUNICE.

The original poster was certainly not much aware of
UNIX history, so
it might as well come to him from an also less
knowledgeable user who
got it from a vendor of a EUNI* variant.

>From memory, I seem to remember at least a company
named EUNICE involved
with UNIX, and a UNIX-like environment for the VAX
(under VMS).

So, may be one of these later was actually named with
the 'eunuchs' pun
intended (perhaps as a castrated down UNIX system on
top of VMS)
and the pun circulated among some customers. For a
newcomer buying it,
it would be easy to assimilate *his* variant with
standard UNIX and extend
the pun. We just saw a similar confussion of LINUX
with UNIX from a poster
asking for LINUX v5, 6 o 7.

It makes sense as well to have a similar pun
circulated later, when other
operating systems which were arguably better (and I DO
NOT want to start
that discussion) or more extensive had to deploy
support for POSIX/UNIX
due to market needs.

To me it certainly has no sense having such an
association in a time like
the early 70s when it would have had a much stronger
emotional charge and
at a time when UNIX was still in its early
development.

				j

On Mon, 5 Jun 2006 23:41:06 -0400
dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com wrote:
> Michael Welle originally asked,
> 
>  > last week a work mate told us a tale about how
Unix came to its
>  > name. He believes that Unix is named after the
term eunuch (a
>  > homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One
can see Unix as a
>  > castrated successor of Multics.
> 
> The pun may have been at the back of Kernighan's
mind,
> but the original explanation was "one of whatever
> Multics was many of."  I think the quip about
> "castrated Multics" came from MIT.
> 
> Incidentally, I don't think the Unics spelling ever
occurred
> in print, though I could be proved wrong.
> 
> 	Dennis


__________________________________________________
Correo Yahoo!
Espacio para todos tus mensajes, antivirus y antispam ¡gratis! 
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From vasco at icpnet.pl  Tue Jun  6 18:21:16 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:21:16 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <2c7513b6f888c65a2cdd19adee40d215@plan9.bell-labs.com>
References: <2c7513b6f888c65a2cdd19adee40d215@plan9.bell-labs.com>
Message-ID: <44853AFC.4060608@icpnet.pl>

dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com napisał(a):

>
>Incidentally, I don't think the Unics spelling ever occurred
>in print, though I could be proved wrong.
>
>	Dennis
>
>  
>
Hi,
I have taken my info about unics from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics.

Perhaps You could comment on this, because Your person is mentioned there.

BTW One cound abbreviate "Uniplexed Information and Computer System" as 
UNIACS .

Andrzej

PS. Last Multics was runing in 2000 , and not in 1980 as I claimed before


From vasco at icpnet.pl  Tue Jun  6 18:24:03 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:24:03 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44853AFC.4060608@icpnet.pl>
References: <2c7513b6f888c65a2cdd19adee40d215@plan9.bell-labs.com>
	<44853AFC.4060608@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <44853BA3.3030904@icpnet.pl>

Andrzej Popielewicz napisał(a):

>dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com napisał(a):
>
>  
>
>>Incidentally, I don't think the Unics spelling ever occurred
>>in print, though I could be proved wrong.
>>
>>	Dennis
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>Hi,
>I have taken my info about unics from
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics.
>
>Perhaps You could comment on this, because Your person is mentioned there.
>
>BTW One cound abbreviate "Uniplexed Information and Computer System" as 
>UNIACS .
>
>Andrzej
>
>PS. Last Multics was runing in 2000 , and not in 1980 as I claimed before
>_______________________________________________
>TUHS mailing list
>TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
>  
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics

and

http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics





From vasco at icpnet.pl  Tue Jun  6 18:26:31 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 10:26:31 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44853BA3.3030904@icpnet.pl>
References: <2c7513b6f888c65a2cdd19adee40d215@plan9.bell-labs.com>
	<44853AFC.4060608@icpnet.pl> <44853BA3.3030904@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <44853C37.3040804@icpnet.pl>

Andrzej Popielewicz napisał(a):

> Andrzej Popielewicz napisał(a):
>
>> dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com napisał(a):
>>
>>  
>>
>>> Incidentally, I don't think the Unics spelling ever occurred
>>> in print, though I could be proved wrong.
>>>
>>>     Dennis
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>
>> Hi,
>> I have taken my info about unics from
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics.
>>
>> Perhaps You could comment on this, because Your person is mentioned 
>> there.
>>
>> BTW One cound abbreviate "Uniplexed Information and Computer System" 
>> as UNIACS .
>>
>> Andrzej
>>
>> PS. Last Multics was runing in 2000 , and not in 1980 as I claimed 
>> before
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>>
>>  
>>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics
>
> and
>
> http://en/wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics
>
>
>
Sorry,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics


From vasco at icpnet.pl  Tue Jun  6 20:56:20 2006
From: vasco at icpnet.pl (Andrzej Popielewicz)
Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 12:56:20 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44853C37.3040804@icpnet.pl>
References: <2c7513b6f888c65a2cdd19adee40d215@plan9.bell-labs.com>
	<44853AFC.4060608@icpnet.pl> <44853BA3.3030904@icpnet.pl>
	<44853C37.3040804@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <44855F54.8020108@icpnet.pl>

Andrzej Popielewicz napisał(a):

> Andrzej Popielewicz napisał(a):


Two more interesting links concerning our discussion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Unix

http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/history_timeline.html

Andrzej


From cowan at ccil.org  Tue Jun  6 23:58:13 2006
From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 09:58:13 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <20060606071846.11102.qmail@web26108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
References: <20060606071846.11102.qmail@web26108.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20060606135812.GK14868@ccil.org>

Jose R Valverde scripsit:

> The pun might have stemmed from another variant. Like
> EUNICE.

I think that's unlikely: the Unix/eunuchs pun is much closer
than anything involving "Eunice".

I remember Eunice quite fondly: it was the first thing I
installed on the first Microvax II I got my hands on back
in the mid-80s.

-- 
Andrew Watt on Microsoft:                       John Cowan
Never in the field of human computing           cowan at ccil.org
has so much been paid by so many                http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
to so few! (pace Winston Churchill)


From dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com  Wed Jun  7 12:32:46 2006
From: dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com (dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com)
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 22:32:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
Message-ID: <49d52b2057749338fb3bb8d01ec2ca7d@plan9.bell-labs.com>

Andrzey wrote:

>I have taken my info about unics from
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics .
>
>Perhaps You could comment on this, because Your person is mentioned there.
>

Don't believe everything in a (or the) wiki.

>BTW One cound abbreviate "Uniplexed Information and Computer System" as
>UNIACS .

One could, but wouldn't.

	Dennis


From helbig at Lehre.BA-Stuttgart.DE  Wed Jun  7 15:59:29 2006
From: helbig at Lehre.BA-Stuttgart.DE (Wolfgang Helbig)
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 07:59:29 +0200 (MEST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix V6 man pages
Message-ID: <200606070608.k5768mo00240@bsd.korb>

Warren,

please consider linking the Unix-V6 man pages at

	http://www.ba-stuttgart.de/~helbig/os/v6/doc/index.html
	
from your site at 

	http://www.tuhs.org/manpages.html
	
Regards,
Wolfgang
--
Weniger, aber besser.




From grog at lemis.com  Thu Jun  8 13:11:39 2006
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 12:41:39 +0930
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <20060603195531.3c634eca@hydrocodone.org>
References: <447E9540.2020003@io.dk> <200606011357.11990.aren.tyr@gawab.com>
	<447F0062.8060302@daleco.biz> <447F4E7C.8050404@bitfreak.org>
	<20060603195531.3c634eca@hydrocodone.org>
Message-ID: <20060608031139.GR81573@wantadilla.lemis.com>

This recently went round the FreeBSD-chat mailing list.  I rather like
it, and tend to agree with the opinions.  Unfortunately, the URL
appears mutilated, and the site itself is "under maintenance", but
Google points me at what appears to be the same article at
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/staff/tres/elements.html

I haven't resisted the temptation to re-wrap the paragraphs :-)

Greg

Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2006 19:55:31 -0400
From: Allen <slackwarewolf at comcast.net>

this is somewhat long... But some of you may have already read it, and
probably liked it:

[ From http://www.performancecomputing.com...s/9809of1.shtml ]

The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature

If there's nothing different about UNIX people, how come
so many were liberal-arts majors? It's the love of words
that makes UNIX stand out.

Thomas Scoville

In the late 1980s, I worked in the advanced R&D arm of the Silicon
Valley's regional telephone company. My lab was populated mostly by
Ph.D.s and gifted hackers. It was, as you might expect, an all-UNIX
shop.

The manager of the group was an exception: no advanced degree, no
technical credentials. He seemed pointedly self-conscious about it. We
suspected he felt (wrongly, we agreed) underconfident of his education
and intellect.

One day, a story circulated through the group that confirmed our
suspicions: the manager had confided he was indeed intimidated by the
intelligence of the group, and was taking steps to remedy the
situation.

His prescription, though, was unanticipated: "I need to become more of
an intellectual," he said. "I'm going to learn UNIX."

Needless to say, we made more than a little fun out of this. I mean,
come on: as if UNIX could transform him into a mastermind, like the
supplicating scarecrow in "The Wizard of Oz." I uncharitably imagined
a variation on the old Charles Atlas ads: "Those senior engineers will
never kick sand in my face again."

But part of me was sympathetic: "The boss isn't entirely wrong, is he?
There is something different about UNIX people, isn't there?" In the
years since, I've come to recognize what my old manager was getting
at.

I still think he was misguided, but in retrospect I think his belief
was more accurate than I recognized at the time.

To be sure, the UNIX community has its own measure of technical
parochialism and nerdy tunnel vision, but in my experience there
seemed to be a suspicious overrepresentation of polyglots and
liberal-arts folks in UNIX shops.

I'll admit my evidence is sketchy and anecdotal. For instance, while
banging out a line of shell, with a fellow engineer peering over my
shoulder, I might make an intentionally obscure literary reference:

if test -z `ps -fe | grep whom`
then
echo ^G
fi
# Let's see for whom the bell tolls.

UNIX colleagues were much more likely to recognize and play in a way
I'd never expect in the VMS shops, IBM's big-iron data centers, or DOS
ghettos on my consulting beat.

Being a liberal-arts type myself (though I cleverly concealed this in
my resume), I wondered why this should be true.

My original explanation--UNIX's historical association with university
computing environments, like UC Berkeley's--didn't hold up over the
years; many of the UNIX-philiacs I met came from schools with small or
absent computer science departments.

There had to be a connection, but I had no plausible hypothesis.

It wasn't until I started regularly asking UNIX refuseniks what they
didn't like about UNIX that better explanations emerged.

Some of the prevailing dislike had a distinctly populist
flavor--people caught a whiff of snobbery about UNIX and regarded it
with the same proletarian resentment usually reserved for highbrow
institutions like opera or ballet.

They had a point: until recently, UNIX was the lingua franca of
computing's upper crust. The more harried, practical, and
underprivileged of the computing world seemed to object to this aura
of privilege.

UNIX adepts historically have been a coddled bunch, and tend to be
proud of their hard-won knowledge. But these class differences are
fading fast in modern computing environments.

Now UNIX engineers are more common, and low- or no-cost UNIX
variations run on inexpensive hardware. Certainly UNIX folks aren't as
coddled in the age of NT.

There was a standard litany of more specific criticisms: UNIX is
difficult and time-consuming to learn. There are too many things to
remember. It's arcane and needlessly complex.

But the most recurrent complaint was that it was too
text-oriented. People really hated the command line, with all the
utilities, obscure flags, and arguments they had to memorize. They
hated all the typing.

One mislaid character and you had to start over. Interestingly, this
complaint came most often from users of the GUI-laden Macintosh or
Windows platforms.  People who had slaved away on DOS batch scripts or
spent their days on character-based terminals of multiuser non-UNIX
machines were less likely to express the same grievance.

Though I understood how people might be put off by having to remember
such willfully obscure utility names like cat and grep, I continued to
be puzzled at why they resented typing.

Then I realized I could connect the complaint with the scores of
"intellectual elite" (as my manager described them) in UNIX shops. The
common thread was wordsmithing; a suspiciously high proportion of my
UNIX colleagues had already developed, in some prior career, a comfort
and fluency with text and printed words.

They were adept readers and writers, and UNIX played handily to those
strengths. UNIX was, in some sense, literature to them. Suddenly the
overrepresentation of polyglots, liberal-arts types, and voracious
readers in the UNIX community didn't seem so mysterious, and pointed
the way to a deeper issue: in a world increasingly dominated by image
culture (TV, movies, .jpg files), UNIX remains rooted in the culture
of the word.

UNIX programmers express themselves in a rich vocabulary of system
utilities and command-line arguments, along with a flexible, varied
grammar and syntax.

For UNIX enthusiasts, the language becomes second nature.

Once, I overheard a conversation in a Palo Alto restaurant:

"there used to be a shrimp-and-pasta plate here under ten bucks. Let
me see...cat menu | grep shrimp | test -lt $10..." though not
syntactically correct (and less-than-scintillating conversation), a
diner from an NT shop probably couldn't have expressed himself as
casually.

With UNIX, text--on the command line, STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR--is the
primary interface mechanism: UNIX system utilities are a sort of Lego
construction set for word-smiths.

Pipes and filters connect one utility to the next, text flows
invisibly between. Working with a shell, awk/lex derivatives, or the
utility set is literally a word dance.

Working on the command line, hands poised over the keys uninterrupted
by frequent reaches for the mouse, is a posture familiar to wordsmiths
(especially the really old guys who once worked on teletypes or
electric typewriters).

It makes some of the same demands as writing an essay. Both require
composition skills. Both demand a thorough knowledge of grammar and
syntax. Both reward mastery with powerful, compact expression.

At the risk of alienating both techies and writers alike, I also
suggest that UNIX offers something else prized in literature: a
coherence, a consistent style, something writers call a voice.

It doesn't take much exposure to UNIX before you realize that the UNIX
core was the creation of a very few well-synchronized minds.

I've never met Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, or Ken Thompson, but
after a decade and a half on UNIX I imagine I might greet them as
friends, knowing something of the shape of their thoughts.

You might argue that UNIX is as visually oriented as other OSs. Modern
UNIX offerings certainly have their fair share of GUI-based OS
interfaces.

In practice though, the UNIX core subverts them; they end up serving
UNIX's tradition of word culture, not replacing it.

Take a look at the console of most UNIX workstations: half the windows
you see are terminal emulators with command-line prompts or vi jobs
running within.

Nowhere is this word/image culture tension better represented than in
the contrast between UNIX and NT. When the much-vaunted UNIX-killer
arrived a few years ago, backed by the full faith and credit of the
Redmond juggernaut, I approached it with an open mind.

But NT left me cold. There was something deeply unsatisfying about
it. I had that ineffable feeling (apologies to Gertrude Stein) there
was no there there.

Granted, I already knew the major themes of system and network
administration from my UNIX days, and I will admit that registry
hacking did vex me for a few days, but after my short scramble up the
learning curve I looked back at UNIX with the feeling I'd been demoted
from a backhoe to a leaf-blower.

NT just didn't offer room to move. The one-size-fits-all,
point-and-click, we've-already-anticipated-all-your-needs world of NT
had me yearning for those obscure command-line flags and man -k.

I wanted to craft my own solutions from my own toolbox, not have my
ideas slammed into the visually homogenous, prepackaged, Soviet world
of Microsoft Foundation Classes.

NT was definitely much too close to image culture for my comfort:
endless point-and-click graphical dialog boxes, hunting around the
screen with the mouse, pop-up after pop-up demanding my attention.

The experience was almost exclusively reactive. Every task demanded a
GUI-based utility front-end loaded with insidious assumptions about
how to visualize (and thus conceptualize) the operation.

I couldn't think "outside the box" because everything literally was a
box. There was no opportunity for ad hoc consideration of how a task
might alternately be performed.

I will admit NT made my life easier in some respects. I found myself
doing less remembering (names of utilities, command arguments, syntax)
and more recognizing (solution components associated with check boxes,
radio buttons, and pull-downs).

I spent much less time typing. Certainly my right hand spent much more
time herding the mouse around the desktop.

But after a few months I started to get a tired, desolate feeling,
akin to the fatigue I feel after too much channel surfing or
videogaming: too much time spent reacting, not enough spent in active
analysis and expression. In short, image-culture burnout.

The one ray of light that illuminated my tenure in NT environments was
the burgeoning popularity of Perl. Perl seemed to find its way into NT
shops as a CGI solution for Web development, but people quickly
recognized its power and adopted it for uses far outside the scope of
Web development: system administration, revision control, remote file
distribution, network administration.

The irony is that Perl itself is a subset of UNIX features condensed
into a quick-and-dirty scripting language. In a literary light, if
UNIX is the Great Novel, Perl is the Cliffs Notes.

Mastery of UNIX, like mastery of language, offers real freedom. The
price of freedom is always dear, but there's no substitute.

Personally, I'd rather pay for my freedom than live in a bitmapped,
pop-up-happy dungeon like NT. I'm hoping that as IT folks become more
seasoned and less impressed by superficial convenience at the expense
of real freedom, they will yearn for the kind of freedom and
responsibility UNIX allows. When they do, UNIX will be there to fill
the need.

Thomas Scoville has been wrestling with UNIX since 1983. He currently
works at Expert Support Inc. in Mountain View, CA.

--
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
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From johnzulu at yahoo.com  Thu Jun  8 15:22:44 2006
From: johnzulu at yahoo.com (John Chung)
Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 22:22:44 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.5.1149732001.42765.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20060608052244.2395.qmail@web36815.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

> 
>    1. Re: Unix, eunuchs? (dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com)
>    2. Unix V6 man pages (Wolfgang Helbig)
> 
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 22:32:46 -0400
> From: dmr at plan9.bell-labs.com
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
> To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> Message-ID:
>
<49d52b2057749338fb3bb8d01ec2ca7d at plan9.bell-labs.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
> 
> Andrzey wrote:
> 
> >I have taken my info about unics from
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unics .
> >
> >Perhaps You could comment on this, because Your
> person is mentioned there.
> >
> 
> Don't believe everything in a (or the) wiki.
> 
> >BTW One cound abbreviate "Uniplexed Information and
> Computer System" as
> >UNIACS .
> 
> One could, but wouldn't.
> 
> 	Dennis
> 
> 
Thanks for clearing it up Dennis.

John

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 


From helbig at Lehre.BA-Stuttgart.DE  Thu Jun  8 16:06:50 2006
From: helbig at Lehre.BA-Stuttgart.DE (Wolfgang Helbig)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 08:06:50 +0200 (MEST)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
Message-ID: <200606080616.k586GDR00257@bsd.korb>

Greg,

After I read all of it consulting my dictionary a lot one question remains:
What are "Cliffs Notes"?

Regards,
Wolfgang

--
Weniger, aber besser.



From lyricalnanoha at dosius.ath.cx  Thu Jun  8 16:20:59 2006
From: lyricalnanoha at dosius.ath.cx (Lyrical Nanoha)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 02:20:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <200606080616.k586GDR00257@bsd.korb>
References: <200606080616.k586GDR00257@bsd.korb>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606080220170.2236@dosius.ath.cx>

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Wolfgang Helbig wrote:

> Greg,
>
> After I read all of it consulting my dictionary a lot one question remains:
> What are "Cliffs Notes"?
>
> Regards,
> Wolfgang

A brief summary and some rough notes on a work of literature, often used 
by high school students who wish to avoid reading the book.

-uso.


From hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net  Fri Jun  9 03:08:03 2006
From: hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net (Gregg C Levine)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 13:08:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606080220170.2236@dosius.ath.cx>
Message-ID: <007701c68b1e$23138780$6501a8c0@who7>

Hello!
Not anymore. The last I had heard was that Cliff Notes had ceased
publishing around the beginning of this century. All of the ones that
roost in the public library here in Queens happen to be dated 1999 at
the latest. Someone asked what happened to the newer ones and was told
that.
--
Gregg C Levine hansolofalcon at worldnet.att.net
---
"Remember the Force will be with you. Always." Obi-Wan Kenobi 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org
[mailto:tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] On
> Behalf Of Lyrical Nanoha
> Sent: Thursday, June 08, 2006 2:21 AM
> To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
> 
> On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Wolfgang Helbig wrote:
> 
> > Greg,
> >
> > After I read all of it consulting my dictionary a lot one question
remains:
> > What are "Cliffs Notes"?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Wolfgang
> 
> A brief summary and some rough notes on a work of literature, often
used
> by high school students who wish to avoid reading the book.
> 
> -uso.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs



From mparson at bl.org  Fri Jun  9 05:41:26 2006
From: mparson at bl.org (Michael Parson)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 14:41:26 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <007701c68b1e$23138780$6501a8c0@who7>
References: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606080220170.2236@dosius.ath.cx>
	<007701c68b1e$23138780$6501a8c0@who7>
Message-ID: <20060608194126.GA21994@bl.org>

On Thu, Jun 08, 2006 at 01:08:03PM -0400, Gregg C Levine wrote:
> Hello!
> Not anymore. The last I had heard was that Cliff Notes had ceased
> publishing around the beginning of this century. All of the ones that
> roost in the public library here in Queens happen to be dated 1999 at
> the latest. Someone asked what happened to the newer ones and was told
> that.

They've still got a website up:

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/

And have links for buying stuff.

-- 
Michael Parson
mparson at bl.org



From asbesto at freaknet.org  Fri Jun  9 03:15:57 2006
From: asbesto at freaknet.org (asbesto)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:15:57 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-11/23 questions ...
Message-ID: <20060608171557.GA16159@freaknet.org>


Hi dudes,

We recovered an almost working pdp-11/23 and some other stuff
for our computer museum. Some images are online at
http://dyne.org/museum :)

well, 2 questions:

1) we lack the power supply of the 11/23 cpu. From the
   schematics, we see that only +5V, +12V and -12V are required,
   so we will try to use a normal PC power supply for the QBUS
   backplane; does somebody know about problems in doing this?

2) what kind of UNIX can be run on an 11/23 using a RL02 disk
   drive? (just one, unfortunately :!)


that's all folks! *:)

-- 
[ asbesto : IW9HGS : freaknet medialab : radiocybernet : poetry ]
[ http://freaknet.org/asbesto http://papuasia.org/radiocybernet ]
[ NON SCRIVERMI USANDO LETTERE ACCENTATE, NON MANDARMI ALLEGATI ]
[ *I DELETE* EMAIL > 100K, ATTACHMENTS, HTML, M$-WORD DOC, SPAM ]



From pete at dunnington.plus.com  Fri Jun  9 08:44:15 2006
From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (Pete Turnbull)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 23:44:15 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-11/23 questions ...
In-Reply-To: asbesto <asbesto@freaknet.org>
	"[TUHS] PDP-11/23 questions ..." (Jun  8, 17:15)
References: <20060608171557.GA16159@freaknet.org>
Message-ID: <10606082344.ZM8534@mindy.dunnington.plus.com>

On Jun 8 2006, 17:15, asbesto wrote:
>
> 1) we lack the power supply of the 11/23 cpu. From the
>    schematics, we see that only +5V, +12V and -12V are required,
>    so we will try to use a normal PC power supply for the QBUS
>    backplane; does somebody know about problems in doing this?

Is it missing or just not working?  It's hard to imagine a BA11-N box
like the one in your picture without the PSU, since the screws that
hold the front panel onto the backplane go through the PSU cover.  If
it's simply not working, it's not usually hard to repair.

You will need to ensure that the BDCOK H (Bus DC OK, active high)
signal is held high, also the BPOK H (Bus Power OK, active high, from
the AC input) signal or the CPU won't run -- the normal PSU does this.
 "High" means tied to no less than 3.5V DC.  The PSU also provides a
mains-frequency square-wave at about 3.5V-4V which drives the BEVENT L
line for a real-time clock interrupt, which Unix needs.  One of the
switches on the front panel can be configured to control this (there
are times when you might want to switch it off).  Note that devices
that turn off BEVENT, including the switch on the front panel, or the
DIP switch on the CPU card, do it by shorting that line to ground!  The
same switch that can be configured to stop the BEVENT signal, is also
often used to control the rack's power controller via a 3-wire cable
with a 3-pin AMP Mate-N-Lok connector on each end.

The front panel with the three switches also has a flip-flop controlled
by one of the switches, connected to the BHALT L line, and another
connected by a flip-flop to BINIT L.  The first halts the CPU when
enabled (active low), the other provides a pulse to start it.

The RUN light on the panel is driven by the SRUN L signal on the first
slot in the backplane.

Most of the signals I've mentioned are carried between the backplane
and the panel by a narrow ribbon cable.  The backplane pinout is shown
in a PostScript file called QBusConnsBig.ps on my web page at
http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/PDP-11/
QBusConns.ps is the same file, but actual size, if you want to hold it
up against the backplane.

> 2) what kind of UNIX can be run on an 11/23 using a RL02 disk
>    drive? (just one, unfortunately :!)

Nothing later than about 7th Edition, because BSD needs separate I&D
space, which an 11/23 doesn't have (2.9 BSD might work, I can't
remember).  BSD (any version) is much too big for a single RL02 anyway.
 7th Edition works; my original PDP-11 Unix system is my second 11/23,
still in its original condition, which looks rather like yours, except
it has two RL02s and a slightly earlier front panel.  Be aware that the
RL11/RLV11/RLV12 driver was not a standard feature of 7th Edition,
though.

You ought to do an inventory of the cards.  7th Edition wants at least
256K of memory.  You might also want to see what version of the CPU you
have.

-- 
Pete						Peter Turnbull
						Network Manager
						University of York


From msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG  Fri Jun  9 05:56:00 2006
From: msokolov at ivan.Harhan.ORG (Michael Sokolov)
Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:56:00 GMT
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-11/23 questions ...
Message-ID: <0606081956.AA02969@ivan.Harhan.ORG>

asbesto <asbesto at freaknet.org> wrote:

> 1) we lack the power supply of the 11/23 cpu. From the
>    schematics, we see that only +5V, +12V and -12V are required,
>    so we will try to use a normal PC power supply for the QBUS
>    backplane; does somebody know about problems in doing this?

Off the top of my head, two thoughts:

1. You need the DCOK and POK signals.

2. Do the math and make sure that your power supply provides enough
   amps -- a real computer needs quite a bit more juice than a sleazy
   PeeCee.

MS


From P.A.Osborne at kent.ac.uk  Fri Jun  9 18:30:49 2006
From: P.A.Osborne at kent.ac.uk (Paul Osborne)
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 09:30:49 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <20060608052244.2395.qmail@web36815.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <20060608052244.2395.qmail@web36815.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <448931B9.8010304@kent.ac.uk>

I just took a quick look in the OED - which for those of us in the UK is
the definitive reference dictionary anyway here is the entry:

Unix, n.

Computing.

(ju:niks)  Also UNIX. [f. as a play on the earlier *MULTICS n., with
uni- one for multi- many (after the relative compactness of the newer
system) and with phonetic respelling of -ics as -ix.]

    A proprietary name for a multi-user operating system orig. designed
for use with minicomputers.


1973 Bell Lab. Rec. LI. 200 Some of the concepts, especially for
file-handling, appeared in a time-shared operating system called UNIX,
which was designed and implemented at Bell Labs. 1978 Bell Syst. Techn.
Jrnl. LVII. 1991 C..is sufficiently expressive and efficient to have
completely displaced assembly language programming on UNIX. 1983
Austral. Personal Computer Aug. 66/2 Xenix, the Microsoft implementation
of Unix disk operating systems for microcomputers. 1985 Official Gaz.
(U.S. Patent Office) 29 Oct. TM63/1 UNIX...For computer programs...
First use 12-14-1972. 1986 Trade Marks Jrnl. 5 Mar. 522/2 Unix..Computer
programmes, computing apparatus; [etc.] 1989 N.Y. Times 25 Oct. D1/4 A
wider industry agreement on a single Unix standard would also increase
the possibility that Unix will be widely adopted in the business
computer market.


NOTE: I had to tweak the pronunciation a tad to work in plain text. :-)

I guess if Ken/Dennis think that it needs correcting in any way they
will need to contact the OED...

--Paul
--yays for academic access to the OED


From P.A.Osborne at kent.ac.uk  Fri Jun  9 19:38:55 2006
From: P.A.Osborne at kent.ac.uk (Paul Osborne)
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 10:38:55 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] address change
Message-ID: <448941AF.6040700@kent.ac.uk>


Hi,

I know that this mail is going to hit moderation.

May work email address has changed from
P.A.Osborne at ukc.ac.uk
to
P.A.Osborne at kent.ac.uk

Consequently my posts are getting moderated.

Can you update the list please?

Many thanks

Paul


From bgoodheart at wasabisystems.com  Fri Jun  9 21:42:07 2006
From: bgoodheart at wasabisystems.com (bgoodheart)
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 12:42:07 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <mailman.364.1149808191.1130.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <00c101c68bb9$bd7f6050$4205a6c0@FERRARI>


A great read Greg and so true too. Thanks for posting that.

I particularly liked the bit about the overheard conversation in Palo Alto

"there used to be a shrimp-and-pasta plate here under ten bucks. Let me
see...cat menu | grep shrimp | test -lt $10..." though not syntactically
correct (and less-than-scintillating conversation), a diner from an NT shop
probably couldn't have expressed himself as casually.

This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in Starbucks in
Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a heated
debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It seemed
to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to the other
party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their conversation.
Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all ushered out of
Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.

Cheers,
Berny




From norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca  Fri Jun  9 22:41:36 2006
From: norman at nose.cs.utoronto.ca (Norman Wilson)
Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:41:36 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
Message-ID: <20060609124329.2C4B66B@minnie.tuhs.org>

Berny:

  This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in Starbucks in
  Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a heated
  debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It seemed
  to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to the other
  party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their conversation.
  Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all ushered out of
  Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.

=======

The Linux crowd is indeed ruder and more argumentative than the
hackers of my youth.

Maybe it's because they hang out in Starbucks, rather than in
all-night terminal rooms with Coke machines down the hall.

Or maybe it's just my memory.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
Somewhat more than 30 years into the disease


From milov at uwlax.edu  Fri Jun  9 22:42:08 2006
From: milov at uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 07:42:08 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <00c101c68bb9$bd7f6050$4205a6c0@FERRARI>
References: <00c101c68bb9$bd7f6050$4205a6c0@FERRARI>
Message-ID: <E7BA7AFF-0EA8-4843-A0C0-525D616FBB2E@uwlax.edu>


On Jun 9, 2006, at 6:42 AM, bgoodheart wrote:

[snip]
> This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in  
> Starbucks in
> Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a  
> heated
> debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It  
> seemed
> to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to  
> the other
> party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their  
> conversation.
> Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all  
> ushered out of
> Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.

  a 'c | n > k' moment...



--
Milo Velimirović
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA
43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W
--
There's a reason Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson have been awarded  
the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1998) and are fellows of the  
Computer History Museum Online. Dave Cutler hasn't and isn't.
"You are not expected to understand this."




From lm at bitmover.com  Sat Jun 10 13:46:17 2006
From: lm at bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:46:17 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8
In-Reply-To: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20060610034617.GC24315@bitmover.com>

A somewhat different view on the Starbucks story:

A friend of mine moved here from New Mexico (which is a fantastic place to
live, amazing, I used to live there) and she said "It's unbelievable - you
can watch people and realize that they are actually thinking before they
are talking".

Indeed.  I'd rather be in the midst of rude people thinking than any sort
of people not thinking.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com


From lm at bitmover.com  Sat Jun 10 13:58:04 2006
From: lm at bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:58:04 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8
In-Reply-To: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>

> There's a reason Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson have been awarded  
> the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1998) and are fellows of the  
> Computer History Museum Online. Dave Cutler hasn't and isn't.
> "You are not expected to understand this."

And while I think this is a little unfair to Dave that's a great .sig

It goes well with the recent post about Unix vs NT that concluded about 
NT "there is no there there".  I live on both platforms and I couldn't
agree more.

Some day I'll post my view on this but here is the really short summary.
There are two classes of people: those who derive answers and those who
memorize them.  As Mark Twain said, the latter group is much larger than
the former.  My claim is that Unix appeals to the first group - you can 
guess what it is going to do and you'll be right most of the time.
Windows appeals to the other group.  They don't have the ability to derive
any answer and they are comfortable with a system that mostly works but
has "no there there".  They can't tell the difference.

The sad part (and the good part!) is that all of us on this list are
in the former group which is smaller.  I think we (well, many of us)
wish that more people thought like we do and figured stuff out for
themselves but the reality is that most people aren't inclined to do that.
So the good and bad part is that we're a small select group.  Personally,
I've come to accept that and like it.  I've gotten to the point where I
realize that people who can derive the answer are special, they are gift,
and I consider myself lucky when I run into a concentrated group of them.
Cough, cough, that would be you.  :)
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com


From cowan at ccil.org  Sat Jun 10 14:40:56 2006
From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 00:40:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8
In-Reply-To: <20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>
References: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
	<20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>
Message-ID: <20060610044055.GA4461@ccil.org>

Larry McVoy scripsit:

> There are two classes of people: those who derive answers and those who
> memorize them.  As Mark Twain said, the latter group is much larger than
> the former.  My claim is that Unix appeals to the first group - you can 
> guess what it is going to do and you'll be right most of the time.
> Windows appeals to the other group.  They don't have the ability to derive
> any answer and they are comfortable with a system that mostly works but
> has "no there there".  They can't tell the difference.

'Sfunny, but it seems just the other way about to me.  Unix, especially
Olde Worlde Unix, is all about memorizing stuff.  Creat(2) has no final e.
The option to set the field delimiter is -t, except in cut(1) where it's
-d and in awk(1) where it's -F.  You dump a file to standard output with
cat(1); yeah, you can remember the name if you learn the word "catenate",
but most of us don't know that word, and it's no easier to memorize
"catenate" than "cat" (more fun, but no easier).  We all find all this
very natural, it ripples off our fingers because we've been doing it
for 10 or 20 or 30 or nearly 40 years, and none of the inconsistencies
can be fixed because if they were it would break all of our muscle
memory and then it wouldn't be so easy at all.

Windows folks can't deal with all that memorization.  They want it
laid out for them: menus dialogs wizards with tabs that make all the
options visible, or if not all visible at once, at least easy to see
how you can make them visible.  And all consistent, or reasonably
so.  With Windows programs you really can guess what they re going
to do, and you will be right most of the time.  Unix utilities aren't
like that.  Even X programs aren't -- indeed, less so than the utilities,
unless they use a Windows-mimicking toolkit, which most of them do
nowadays.

No, what makes Unixicians sont droit et Windowsites sont tort
is that Unix lets you make up your own stuff out of existing pieces,
and Windows does not.  The Windows utilities just do what they do, and
if it's not what you want, it's back to the drawing board, so people
create TMA-1 monoliths.  This tendency is infecting Unix too nowadays,
as lots of people have discovered how much easier it is to create
TMA-1s on Unix than on Windows, and so they do, and the native tradition
of coarse-grained dataflow gets almost lost against the background
surviving only in the memories of the Old Farts here gathered.

Our tradition's dying unless we do something to keep it alive.
What's that going to be?

-- 
I don't know half of you half as well           John Cowan
as I should like, and I like less than half     cowan at ccil.org
of you half as well as you deserve.             http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
        --Bilbo


From menace3society at gnu-darwin.org  Sat Jun 10 16:04:49 2006
From: menace3society at gnu-darwin.org (Evan de Riel)
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:04:49 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8
In-Reply-To: <20060610044055.GA4461@ccil.org>
References: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
	<20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>
	<20060610044055.GA4461@ccil.org>
Message-ID: <8980E2E3-2E56-4F5B-91C4-80046885E631@gnu-darwin.org>


On 10 Jun, 2006, at 00:40, John Cowan wrote:

> ...
>
> No, what makes Unixicians sont droit et Windowsites sont tort
> is that Unix lets you make up your own stuff out of existing pieces,
> and Windows does not.  The Windows utilities just do what they do, and
> if it's not what you want, it's back to the drawing board, so people
> create TMA-1 monoliths.  This tendency is infecting Unix too nowadays,
> as lots of people have discovered how much easier it is to create
> TMA-1s on Unix than on Windows, and so they do, and the native  
> tradition
> of coarse-grained dataflow gets almost lost against the background
> surviving only in the memories of the Old Farts here gathered.
>
> Our tradition's dying unless we do something to keep it alive.
> What's that going to be?

As ashamed as I am to admit it, I do read slashdot on occasion, and  
on one such occasion I saw that there was an interview with Rob Pike 
[1]; Mr Pike's comments weren't one and all insightful, but his  
answer the to question about whether "Unix style" was still a valid  
development aesthetic started me thinking (I've haven't stopped yet,  
so I don't yet know if I agree):

Q:  ... do you think the idea of "one tool doing one job" has been  
abandoned? ...
A:  Those days are dead and gone and the eulogy was delivered by Perl.

I think his point is that what Perl and its friends--the other high- 
level, interpreter languages like Python, Ruby, and maybe (ick) PHP-- 
have gotten to the point where they can be used as a single framework  
for writing short, ad-hoc programs in these languages that replace  
combinations of the whole mess of Unix utilities like grep, cat, sed,  
awk, uniq, sort, column, rs, head, tail, and maybe even more complex  
tools like wget or hexdumps.

It's certainly more typing to write a perl function that can do the  
work of one of these utilities, but on the other hand one has to  
worry substantially less about syntax options for dozens different  
commands, remembering enough escape sequences for nested for loops,  
etc.  Instead of making many programs that each do one thing well, we  
have a language and a framework designed to do *anything*, and handle  
it well (or at least satisfactorily).  And isn't being able to do  
anything you tell it to do with equal facility one of the great  
things about computers?

[1]: http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/18/1153211

Yours,

Evan


From cowan at ccil.org  Sat Jun 10 16:28:33 2006
From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 02:28:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8
In-Reply-To: <8980E2E3-2E56-4F5B-91C4-80046885E631@gnu-darwin.org>
References: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
	<20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>
	<20060610044055.GA4461@ccil.org>
	<8980E2E3-2E56-4F5B-91C4-80046885E631@gnu-darwin.org>
Message-ID: <20060610062833.GB4461@ccil.org>

Evan de Riel scripsit:

> Q:  ... do you think the idea of "one tool doing one job" has been  
> abandoned? ...
> A:  Those days are dead and gone and the eulogy was delivered by Perl.
> 
> I think his point is that what Perl and its friends--the other high- 
> level, interpreter languages like Python, Ruby, and maybe (ick) PHP-- 
> have gotten to the point where they can be used as a single framework  
> for writing short, ad-hoc programs in these languages that replace  
> combinations of the whole mess of Unix utilities like grep, cat, sed,  
> awk, uniq, sort, column, rs, head, tail, and maybe even more complex  
> tools like wget or hexdumps.

Well, I don't have a problem with replacing the shell-and-utilities
framework with a more consistent one.  The trouble is that the essential
idea of that framework, what I called "coarse-grained dataflow"
in the last posting, and which has been called "plumbing" since the
earliest days, gets lost in the process.  Perl-level programming is only
incrementally better than C-level (admittedly the increments are good
ones, like garbage collection and simple strings and dynamic typing).

The only consistent framework I know of that preserves plumbing as a
functional programming approach is scsh <http://www.scsh.net/>, and much
as I love Scheme personally, it's just too alien to mainstream ways of
thinking to have a real chance of survival as anything but a niche of
a niche.

What I'd really like to see is something that merges Lua and rc(1), a
lightweight but powerful language with a lightweight but powerful shell,
in a clean way.  I even messed around with constructing a unified Yacc
grammar to use them jointly, with the notion that a top-end parser could
compile the hybrid into pure Lua using a Posix library.  But I got bogged
down and never went back there.

Lua might be *too* lightweight, though:  Python comes with a big library
of useful stuff, is a fair approximation to Lisp (as Lua is also), and
could perhaps be transmogrified into a shell somehow, given how dynamic
everything in Python is (even the variable and function declarations
are really executable statements).  I'll think on it further.

-- 
Barry gules and argent of seven and six,        John Cowan
on a canton azure fifty molets of the second.   cowan at ccil.org
        --blazoning the U.S. flag               http://www.ccil.org/~cowan


From newsham at lava.net  Mon Jun 12 02:18:36 2006
From: newsham at lava.net (Tim Newsham)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 06:18:36 -1000 (HST)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <00c101c68bb9$bd7f6050$4205a6c0@FERRARI>
References: <00c101c68bb9$bd7f6050$4205a6c0@FERRARI>
Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.61.0606110615550.20225@malasada.lava.net>

> This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in Starbucks in
> Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a heated
> debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It seemed
> to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to the other
> party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their conversation.
> Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all ushered out of
> Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.

The bandwidth of a mouse and menus is not very high.  The bandwidth of a 
keyboard is a lot higher.  Going the other way, though, the bandwidth of 
graphical data is much higher than textual data (perhaps as high
as a thousand words per picture).

> Berny

Tim Newsham
http://www.lava.net/~newsham/


From wes.parish at paradise.net.nz  Mon Jun 12 11:22:48 2006
From: wes.parish at paradise.net.nz (Wesley Parish)
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 13:22:48 +1200 (NZST)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX as literature
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.4.61.0606110615550.20225@malasada.lava.net>
References: <00c101c68bb9$bd7f6050$4205a6c0@FERRARI>
	<Pine.BSI.4.61.0606110615550.20225@malasada.lava.net>
Message-ID: <1150075368.448cc1e81847f@www.paradise.net.nz>

Quoting Tim Newsham <newsham at lava.net>:

> > This reminded me of a time not so long ago when I was seated in
> Starbucks in
> > Menlo Park enjoying my Caramel Macchiato Venti and overhearing a
> heated
> > debate between 6 or 7 guys about the GUI vs. command line issue. It
> seemed
> > to start when a couple of guys in one party, seemingly unknown to the
> other
> > party, who were talking about kde, rudely butted in to their
> conversation.
> > Anyway the debate got so verbal that in the end they were all ushered
> out of
> > Starbucks in an effort to keep the peace. How funny it was.
> 
> The bandwidth of a mouse and menus is not very high. The bandwidth of a
> 
> keyboard is a lot higher. Going the other way, though, the bandwidth of
> 
> graphical data is much higher than textual data (perhaps as high
> as a thousand words per picture).

AKA, "If a face could sink/launch a thousand ships, then why can't I paint you?\
 The words will never show, the you I've come to know ..." ;)

Graphical displays of data excel in showing relationships and patterns. 
Discovering patterns in text can be much, much harder.  Hence the blink
comparator in astronomy.  And Fred Hoyle's feeble attempt to describe such a
form of data transfer in "The Black Cloud".

But a lot depends on one's familiarity with the idioms of the graphical data -
anyone can see a desolate outback, but it took an Albert Namatjira to make us
see it as beautiful.

Wesley Parish
> 
> > Berny
> 
> Tim Newsham
> http://www.lava.net/~newsham/
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuh s
>  



"Sharpened hands are happy hands.
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands" 
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

"I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!" 
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the 
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press


From lm at bitmover.com  Mon Jun 12 12:09:40 2006
From: lm at bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sun, 11 Jun 2006 19:09:40 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 10
In-Reply-To: <mailman.3.1150077601.54412.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.3.1150077601.54412.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20060612020940.GA9031@bitmover.com>

> The bandwidth of a mouse and menus is not very high.  The bandwidth of a 
> keyboard is a lot higher.  

I've long thought that what we needed was control panel which operated on
revision controlled flat files in /etc.  So you could write scripts to
do the automated stuff but you could point and click to do the stuff that
you forgot how to do.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com


From jrvalverde at cnb.uam.es  Mon Jun 12 23:02:56 2006
From: jrvalverde at cnb.uam.es (Jose R. Valverde)
Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 15:02:56 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 8
In-Reply-To: <20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>
References: <mailman.5.1149904800.38519.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
	<20060610035804.GD24315@bitmover.com>
Message-ID: <20060612150256.79c1bee7.jrvalverde@cnb.uam.es>

That is a bit self-complacent.

I for one would *love* to believe it. The truth is it isn't true. See,
what happens is that besides the odd Leonardo or Erasmus, most of us
have a limited brain with a limited ability to cope with the Real World.

As a result we all must take decisions about what we do, learn, master
or relay to others to do for us. Everyday more so. This implies we
learn something well and just the basics (if anything) of all the rest,
relying on others to do the work for us.

Most Windows users started as people who needed an easy way to do an odd
job efficiently. For the odd job, it is by far orders of magnitude more
efficient to point and click than learning a new language.

A professional user needs to learn the tools and language of the trade
and abhors the Windows way. That's why if you look around, you'll discover
windows power users programming spreadhseets, wirting macros, etc...

So, why Windows? Because computers are a recent addition to our home
life (see, UNIX and UNIX-like systems where unattainable till mid-90s)
and Microsoft is very successfult at equating OS with Windows (see,
they have a quasi-monopoly), and all of us are frightened in front of
change and novelties (since we were slime molds).

The average user starts on Windows because it is easier to point and
click once a month than learning a new language. When they become pro's
they see the shortcoming but it's easier to use VisualBASIC than jumping
ships.

When the average user starts on *X with CDE/KDE/Gnome/whatever and then
needs to become pro and learn the language, they find a friendlier system
underneath. If only they could share their work with the 90% of their
colleagues who use windows instead of UNIX/Linux/Mac... But then MS
wouldn't keep a monopoly, would they? Guess where all their PR is going
to be invested ;-)

Don't blame the users, they are doing as best they can with whatever it
is they have at hand (even if it is Windows) and we should be really
astonished at their tenacious efforts to get things done.

				j


On Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:58:04 -0700
lm at bitmover.com (Larry McVoy) wrote:
> > There's a reason Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson have been awarded  
> > the U.S. National Medal of Technology (1998) and are fellows of the  
> > Computer History Museum Online. Dave Cutler hasn't and isn't.
> > "You are not expected to understand this."
> 
> And while I think this is a little unfair to Dave that's a great .sig
> 
> It goes well with the recent post about Unix vs NT that concluded about 
> NT "there is no there there".  I live on both platforms and I couldn't
> agree more.
> 
> Some day I'll post my view on this but here is the really short summary.
> There are two classes of people: those who derive answers and those who
> memorize them.  As Mark Twain said, the latter group is much larger than
> the former.  My claim is that Unix appeals to the first group - you can 
> guess what it is going to do and you'll be right most of the time.
> Windows appeals to the other group.  They don't have the ability to derive
> any answer and they are comfortable with a system that mostly works but
> has "no there there".  They can't tell the difference.
> 
> The sad part (and the good part!) is that all of us on this list are
> in the former group which is smaller.  I think we (well, many of us)
> wish that more people thought like we do and figured stuff out for
> themselves but the reality is that most people aren't inclined to do that.
> So the good and bad part is that we're a small select group.  Personally,
> I've come to accept that and like it.  I've gotten to the point where I
> realize that people who can derive the answer are special, they are gift,
> and I consider myself lucky when I run into a concentrated group of them.
> Cough, cough, that would be you.  :)
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
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From m.welle at gmx.net  Tue Jun 13 17:19:56 2006
From: m.welle at gmx.net (Michael Welle)
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:19:56 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl> (Andrzej Popielewicz's message of
	"Mon, 05 Jun 2006 16:14:02 +0200")
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
	<20060605134905.GA10437@ccil.org> <44843C2A.1010207@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <8764j5bjz7.fsf@hqltmwe01.nwc-services.de>

Hi,

Andrzej Popielewicz <vasco at icpnet.pl> writes:
[...]
> Well, I cannot "reproduce it" in my mind this funny feeling I suspect, 
> as not natively Enlish speaking.
> Hopefully it helped the Unix .Does it cause the smile every time You 
> hear it ?
> Even now knowing it I will probably ,hearing or reading the word "Unix", 
> not associate it with "eunuch".Probably because I have coded Polish 
> pronounciation in my mind, or in other words I mostly think in
> Polish.
same here. Except the starting syllable the terms sound totally
different for me. The form of my mouth is different if I speak the
words. That makes the whole story incredible for me.


>>>It is clear , that opinion of American/English linguistic/language 
>>>specialist would be neccesarry.
>>>    
>>>
>>
>>I am not a specialist, but I am a generalist with a good understanding
>>of the domain.
>>
>>  
>>
> Your opinion is sufficient.I appreciate.
FACK.

Michael

-- 
biff4emacsen - A biff-like tool for (X)Emacs
http://www.c0t0d0s0.de/biff4emacsen/biff4emacsen.html



From m.welle at gmx.net  Tue Jun 13 17:20:40 2006
From: m.welle at gmx.net (Michael Welle)
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:20:40 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <001001c6875d$69b02e60$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com> (Bill
	Cunningham's message of "Sat, 03 Jun 2006 18:31:09 -0400")
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de>
	<001001c6875d$69b02e60$2f01a8c0@myhome.westell.com>
Message-ID: <871wttbjxz.fsf@hqltmwe01.nwc-services.de>

Hi,

"Bill Cunningham" <billcu1 at verizon.net> writes:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Michael Welle" <m.welle at gmx.net>
> To: <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
> Sent: Saturday, June 03, 2006 9:57 AM
> Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> last week a work mate told us a tale about how Unix came to its
>> name. He believes that Unix is named after the term eunuch (a
>> homophone of (to?) unix in english language). One can see Unix as a
>> castrated successor of Multics. Hmmm, I am interested in Unix history
>> for several years now, but I haven't heard about that before. It is
>> really a tale I guess. Any clear words about this topic?
>>
>> Michael
>>
>
>     I know Dennis have said pretty clearly that Unix is a pun on Multics
> that the team really never got to start on because Bell changed there minds.
> Ken continued with Unix which must've been his idea. In assembly first then
> B. Dennis came up with C and its lasted down through the years.
that sounds familiar to me. The same story is told in 'A quarter
century of Unix' and other sources.

VG
hmw

-- 
biff4emacsen - A biff-like tool for (X)Emacs
http://www.c0t0d0s0.de/biff4emacsen/biff4emacsen.html



From m.welle at gmx.net  Tue Jun 13 17:40:37 2006
From: m.welle at gmx.net (Michael Welle)
Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2006 09:40:37 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, eunuchs?
In-Reply-To: <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl> (Andrzej Popielewicz's message of
	"Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:41:19 +0200")
References: <874pz21gwa.fsf@stella.c0t0d0s0.de> <44840A4F.1060005@icpnet.pl>
Message-ID: <871wtta4ga.fsf@hqltmwe01.nwc-services.de>

Hi,

Andrzej Popielewicz <vasco at icpnet.pl> writes:
[...]
> In Oxford American Dictionary
>
> eunuch is pronounced as "yoo-nuk" (not all symbols reproduced)
> unit is "yoo-nit"
> unique is "yoo-neek"
>
> In Webster English Language Dictionary
>
> eunuch is "'yunek"
> unit is "'yunet"
> unique is "yu'nek,yu'nik"
>
> You can notice, that unix , more similar to unit or unique will be 
> pronounced differently(?).
interesting. I tend to use a more british english style, but I
pronounce the terms like in OAD.

Michael

-- 
biff4emacsen - A biff-like tool for (X)Emacs
http://www.c0t0d0s0.de/biff4emacsen/biff4emacsen.html



From jpeek at jpeek.com  Thu Jun 15 09:46:52 2006
From: jpeek at jpeek.com (Jerry Peek)
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 16:46:52 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] NY Times article on Bell Labs Holmdel closure
Message-ID: <29100.1150328812@pyry.gw.com>

This is a long New York Times article with a lot of detail.
They say there'll be at least one public open house before it's
demolished.  I think you can now read a limited number of NY Times
articles without subscribing (they seem to count how many you read
-- maybe with a cookie).  Here's the URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/realestate/commercial/14bell.html

Jerry
-- 
Jerry Peek, jpeek at jpeek.com, http://www.jpeek.com/


From jwb at paravolve.net  Thu Jun 15 10:32:13 2006
From: jwb at paravolve.net (James W. Brinkerhoff)
Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 20:32:13 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] NY Times article on Bell Labs Holmdel closure
In-Reply-To: <29100.1150328812@pyry.gw.com>
References: <29100.1150328812@pyry.gw.com>
Message-ID: <D60B5454-0A0E-47A1-B14B-6B35A46CF0C5@paravolve.net>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hrm, any idea when the tour might be?   It didn't say, although it  
mentioned a public meeting on development to be held later this month..

- -jwb

James W. Brinkerhoff <jwb at paravolve.net>
Voice: +1 (212) 201-5706
VoIP: sip:jwb at paravolve.net
PGP Key: 0xE484C9B9


On Jun 14, 2006, at 7:46 PM, Jerry Peek wrote:

> This is a long New York Times article with a lot of detail.
> They say there'll be at least one public open house before it's
> demolished.  I think you can now read a limited number of NY Times
> articles without subscribing (they seem to count how many you read
> -- maybe with a cookie).  Here's the URL:
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/14/realestate/commercial/14bell.html
>
> Jerry
> -- 
> Jerry Peek, jpeek at jpeek.com, http://www.jpeek.com/
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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From dugo at xs4all.nl  Sun Jun 18 08:38:39 2006
From: dugo at xs4all.nl (Jacob Goense)
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 00:38:39 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 10
In-Reply-To: <20060612020940.GA9031@bitmover.com>
Message-ID: <20060618003755.H24579-100000@xs3.xs4all.nl>

On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Larry McVoy wrote:
> I've long thought that what we needed was control panel which operated on
> revision controlled flat files in /etc.  So you could write scripts to
> do the automated stuff but you could point and click to do the stuff that
> you forgot how to do.

Smit?



From lm at bitmover.com  Sun Jun 18 09:53:30 2006
From: lm at bitmover.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2006 16:53:30 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 10
In-Reply-To: <20060618003755.H24579-100000@xs3.xs4all.nl>
References: <20060612020940.GA9031@bitmover.com>
	<20060618003755.H24579-100000@xs3.xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <20060617235330.GC27621@bitmover.com>

On Sun, Jun 18, 2006 at 12:38:39AM +0200, Jacob Goense wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Jun 2006, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > I've long thought that what we needed was control panel which operated on
> > revision controlled flat files in /etc.  So you could write scripts to
> > do the automated stuff but you could point and click to do the stuff that
> > you forgot how to do.
> 
> Smit?

Good god, no, please, no.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com


From asbesto at freaknet.org  Wed Jun 21 19:38:10 2006
From: asbesto at freaknet.org (asbesto)
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:38:10 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] weird problem with our Decwriter III terminal ...
Message-ID: <20060621093810.GA24010@freaknet.org>


Hi,

maybe someone here can help us - our problem is that the
decwriter terminal seem to "jump" in particular positions
when printing

we don't understand how to solve this problem - maybe this is a
stepper motor problem, or another problem in gears/transmission?

the problem is evident in this image:

http://dyne.org/museum/dec/terminals/la120/tn/dscn3488.jpg.html

does someone have an idea about this problem?
tnx!

:)

-- 
[ asbesto : IW9HGS : freaknet medialab : radiocybernet : poetry ]
[ http://freaknet.org/asbesto http://papuasia.org/radiocybernet ]
[ NON SCRIVERMI USANDO LETTERE ACCENTATE, NON MANDARMI ALLEGATI ]
[ *I DELETE* EMAIL > 100K, ATTACHMENTS, HTML, M$-WORD DOC, SPAM ]



From johnzulu at yahoo.com  Thu Jun 22 15:31:13 2006
From: johnzulu at yahoo.com (John Chung)
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:31:13 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TUHS] weird problem with our Decwriter III terminal
In-Reply-To: <mailman.3.1150941601.82174.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20060622053113.49645.qmail@web36806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I would start with the gears first. Stepper motor
testing can be done by visual inpection by running
through 1 character at a time. Mark each turn when
moving to the next character. This requires diassembly
of the casing and other visual blocking components.

John

--- tuhs-request at minnie.tuhs.org wrote:

> Send TUHS mailing list submissions to
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> 
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> 
> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. weird problem with our Decwriter III terminal
> ... (asbesto)
> 
> 
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:38:10 +0000
> From: asbesto <asbesto at freaknet.org>
> Subject: [TUHS] weird problem with our Decwriter III
> terminal ...
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Message-ID: <20060621093810.GA24010 at freaknet.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> maybe someone here can help us - our problem is that
> the
> decwriter terminal seem to "jump" in particular
> positions
> when printing
> 
> we don't understand how to solve this problem -
> maybe this is a
> stepper motor problem, or another problem in
> gears/transmission?
> 
> the problem is evident in this image:
> 
>
http://dyne.org/museum/dec/terminals/la120/tn/dscn3488.jpg.html
> 
> does someone have an idea about this problem?
> tnx!
> 
> :)
> 
> -- 
> [ asbesto : IW9HGS : freaknet medialab :
> radiocybernet : poetry ]
> [ http://freaknet.org/asbesto
> http://papuasia.org/radiocybernet ]
> [ NON SCRIVERMI USANDO LETTERE ACCENTATE, NON
> MANDARMI ALLEGATI ]
> [ *I DELETE* EMAIL > 100K, ATTACHMENTS, HTML,
> M$-WORD DOC, SPAM ]
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 
> 
> End of TUHS Digest, Vol 32, Issue 15
> ************************************
> 


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From wb at freebie.xs4all.nl  Thu Jun 22 19:52:41 2006
From: wb at freebie.xs4all.nl (Wilko Bulte)
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 11:52:41 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] weird problem with our Decwriter III terminal
In-Reply-To: <20060622053113.49645.qmail@web36806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.3.1150941601.82174.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
	<20060622053113.49645.qmail@web36806.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <20060622095241.GA8166@freebie.xs4all.nl>

On Wed, Jun 21, 2006 at 10:31:13PM -0700, John Chung wrote..
> I would start with the gears first. Stepper motor
> testing can be done by visual inpection by running
> through 1 character at a time. Mark each turn when
> moving to the next character. This requires diassembly
> of the casing and other visual blocking components.

I don't recall if this model has one of these optical position
'belts', if yes, make sure the sensor and belt are free from
debris.

Wilko


