From dave at plonka.us  Tue Oct  1 05:29:55 2019
From: dave at plonka.us (Dave Plonka)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 14:29:55 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] capturing history of bs(1) command / programming language
In-Reply-To: <20190909001945.GA2815@akamai.com>
References: <75D36093-D9D0-48EF-ACAC-DF739E0236B6@mac.com>
 <20081210180826.GE1746@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20190909001945.GA2815@akamai.com>
Message-ID: <CANPwAQapt6dWw-yYdMne7wtxt8Q1=nAoBrc9Ca3xgwnBwrZBrg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi TUHS folks,

Earlier this month I did a fair bit of research on a little known Unix
programming language - bs - and updated the wikipedia pages
accordingly.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bs_(programming_language)

Thanks for solving some bs mysteries goes to its author, Dick Haight,
as well as those that got us in touch: Doug McIlroy, Brian Kernighan,
and John Mashey.

Apart from what is in the aforementioned wikipedia page, in exchanging
email with me, Dick shared:

q(
I wrote bs at the time Unix (V 3?) and all of the commands were being
converted from assembler to C. So Thompson’s bas became my bs — sort
of. I included snobol’s succeed/fail feature (? Operator/fail return).
[...]

No one asked me to write bs. [...] I tried to get Dennis Ritche to add
something like “? / fail” to C but he didn’t. This is probably part of
why I wrote bs. I wasn’t part of the Unix inner circle (BTL Computing
Research, e.g., Thompson, Ritchie, McIlroy, etc). Neither were Mashey
& Dolotta. We were “support”.
)

The Release 3.0 manual (1980) mentions bs prominently on page 9:

   Writing a program. To enter the text of a source program into a
UNIX file, use ed(1). The four principal languages available under
UNIX are C (see cc(1)), Fortran (see f77(1)), bs (a
compiler/interpreter in the spirit of Basic, see bs(1)), and assembly
language (see as(1)).

Personally, some reasons I find bs noteworthy is (a) it is not much
like BASIC (from today's perspective) and (b)  as mentioned in the
wikipedia page, "The bs language is a hybrid interpreter and compiler
and [an early] divergence in Unix programming" (from Research Unix
mentioning only the other three languages):

q(
The bs language was meant for convenient development and debugging of
small, modular programs. It has a collection of syntax and features
from prior, popular languages but it is internally compiled, unlike a
Shell script. As such, in purpose, design, and function, bs is a
largely unknown, modest predecessor of hybrid interpreted/compiled
languages such as Perl and Python.
)

It survives today in some System III-derived or System V-derived
commercial operating systems, including HP-UX and AIX.

If you have additional information that might be useful for the
wikipedia page, please do share it.

Peace,
Dave

P.S. Here is a 2008 TUHS list discussion, "Re: /usr/bin/bs on HPUX?":

On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 01:08:26PM -0500, John Cowan wrote:
> Lord Doomicus scripsit:
>
> > I was poking around an HP UX system at work today, and noticed a
> > command I've never noticed before ... /usr/bin/bs.
> >
> > I'm sure it's been there for a long time, even though I've been an
> > HPUX admin for more than a decade, sometimes I'm just blind ... but
> > anyway ....
> >
> > I tried to search on google ... it looks like only HPUX, AIX, and
> > Maybe AU/X has it.  Seems to be some kind of pseudo BASIC like
> > interpreter.
>
> That's just what it is.  Here are the things I now know about it.
>
> 0.  The string "bs" gets an awful lot of false Google hits, no matter
> how hard you try.
>
> 1.  "bs" was written at AT&T, probably at the Labs, at some time between
> the release of 32V and System III.  It was part of both System III and
> at least some System V releases.
>
> 2.  It was probably meant as a replacement for "bas", which was a more
> conventional GW-Basic-style interpreter written in PDP-11 assembly
> language.  (32V still had the PDP-11 source, which of course didn't work.)
>
> 3.  At one time System III source code was available on the net,
> including bs.c and bs.1, but apparently it no longer is.  I downloaded
> it then but don't have it any more.
>
> 4.  I was able to compile it under several Unixes, but it wouldn't run:
> I think there must have been some kind of dependency on memory layout,
> but never found out exactly what.
>
> 5. I remember from the man page that it had regular expressions, and
> two commands "compile" and "execute" that switched modes to storing
> expressions and executing them on the spot, respectively.  That eliminated
> the need for line numbers.
>
> 6. It was apparently never part of Solaris.
>
> 7. It was never part of any BSD release, on which "bs" was the battleships
> game.
>
> 8. I can't find the man page on line anywhere either.
>
> 9. The man page said it had some Snobol features.  I think that meant
> the ability to return failure -- I vaguely remember an "freturn" command.
>
> 10.  99 Bottles of Beer has a sample bs program at
> http://www2.99-bottles-of-beer.net/language-bs-103.html .
>
> 11. If someone sends me a man page, I'll consider reimplementing it as
> Open Source.
>
> --
> We are lost, lost.  No name, no business, no Precious, nothing.  Only empty.
> Only hungry: yes, we are hungry.  A few little fishes, nassty bony little
> fishes, for a poor creature, and they say death.  So wise they are; so just,
> so very just.  --Gollum        cowan at ccil.org  http://ccil.org/~cowan

-- 

dave at plonka.us  http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~plonka/

From reed at reedmedia.net  Tue Oct  1 07:17:37 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 16:17:37 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Peter Collinson interviews?
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909301608180.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

Does anyone know where I can find the Unix-related interviews with Dr. 
Peter Collinson?

These are acknowledged in front-matter of Peter Salus's Quarter Century 
book which says previously appeared in ".EXE".  Bottom of 
https://www.hillside.co.uk/articles/index.html mentions the magazines 
aren't found. I didn't try contacting him yet.

I have read the Mahoney collection (archived at TUHS). Any other 
interview collections from long ago?

Jeremy C. Reed

echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
 tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Tue Oct  1 07:41:10 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 17:41:10 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Poll: good location for Unix documentation?
Message-ID: <20190930214110.32CA718C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Warner Losh

    > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/1972_stuff/tmg.pdf
    > has an earlier version.

That's the exact same as the one I have.


    > From: "Brian L. Stuart"

    > The M6 manual is another one that I didn't find.

Got that too (it's by Andrew Hall).

    Noel

From reed at reedmedia.net  Tue Oct  1 07:59:49 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 16:59:49 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] understand earliest hardware?
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909301624190.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

I read in the PDP-7 reference manual that Precision CRT Display Type 30 
and Precision Incremental Display Type 340 are the typical displays used 
with the PDP-7, but aren't standard equipment. I read about the 
Graphics-II scope. Was it the only display? I read it was used as a 
second terminal and that it would pause per display full with a button 
to continue.

I assume this second terminal's keyboard was TTY model 33 or similar 
since it was the standard equipment. Does anyone know?

Do you know if the PDP-7 or early edition Unixes have pen support for 
that Graphics-II or similar displays?

Clem has written that the PDP-7 had a disk from a PDP-9. Where is this 
cited?

The ~1971 draft "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" says first version runs 
on PDP-9 also.
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/
But I cannot find any other reference of running on PDP-9 at all. Was 
this academic?

That draft calls the PDP-7 version the "first edition" but later the 
PDP-11/20 is called the "first edition". When did the naming of first 
edition get defined to not include the PDP-7 version? Or is it because 
the early "0th" version was never released/shared outside?

Thompson interview 
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/transcripts/thompson.htm 
mentions an "interim machine" and a "PDP-11 that had PDP-10 memory 
management, KS-1."  What is this interim machine? Is this a PDP-11 
without a disk (for a few months?) What is this PDP-11 
and KS-1?  Maybe this is the PDP-11/20 with KS-11?

Do we know what hardware was supported for the early editions? We don't 
have all the kernel code and from a quick look from what is available I 
didn't see specific hardware references.

The later ~1974 "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" paper does mention some 
hardware at that time on the PDP-11/45 like a 201 dataset interface and 
a Tektronix 611 storage-tube display on a satellite PDP-11/20.

When did a CRT with keyboard terminal like DEC vt01 (with Tektronix 611 
CRT display), LS ADM-3, Hazeltine 2000, VT01A display with keyboard 
(what keyboard?) get supported?  Any code to help find this?  (The 
https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/picture.html does mention the 
VT01A plys keyboard).

Thanks,

Jeremy C. Reed

echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
 tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct  1 11:05:11 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 19:05:11 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] understand earliest hardware?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909301624190.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909301624190.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrkXRVmaURTeD04rL98xNgdtSYjOBRyeaTsRtGxO3mrkQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 4:00 PM <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> I read in the PDP-7 reference manual that Precision CRT Display Type 30
> and Precision Incremental Display Type 340 are the typical displays used
> with the PDP-7, but aren't standard equipment. I read about the
> Graphics-II scope. Was it the only display? I read it was used as a
> second terminal and that it would pause per display full with a button
> to continue.
>

According to the reconstructed kernel sources, it had both. I'm unsure
about the button detail.


> I assume this second terminal's keyboard was TTY model 33 or similar
> since it was the standard equipment. Does anyone know?
>

I've no looked at this detail, but I think it had its own keyboard
independent of a tty 33. We have the sources so we can look. They will be
the final answer on this anyway.


> Do you know if the PDP-7 or early edition Unixes have pen support for
> that Graphics-II or similar displays?
>

Yes.


> Clem has written that the PDP-7 had a disk from a PDP-9. Where is this
> cited?
>

You can look at the simh simulator to find where this is described. We know
there's one pdp-7 with the PDP-9 disk drive from the 18-bit service log
that was printed in 1972 available from bitsavers.org. It is excerpted
here: https://www.soemtron.org/downloads/decinfo/18bitservicelist1972.pdf for
details. Serial number 34 was Ken's PDP-7. I have a blog entry on that
here: https://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-pdp-7-where-unix-began.html that
describes things in some detail.


> The ~1971 draft "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" says first version runs
> on PDP-9 also.
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/
> But I cannot find any other reference of running on PDP-9 at all. Was
> this academic?
>

Private email from Ken earlier this year said that there were 2 PDP-9s and
3 PDP-15s at Bell Labs that ran pdp7 Unix at one time or another. There are
other instances sprinkled through the early newsletters I've been reading
lately, but they aren't greppable and I don't have the time to look at them
all again (including a couple of cases where it was said that Ken brought
things up on a PDP-9, which we know to be in error).


> That draft calls the PDP-7 version the "first edition" but later the
> PDP-11/20 is called the "first edition". When did the naming of first
> edition get defined to not include the PDP-7 version? Or is it because
> the early "0th" version was never released/shared outside?
>

It's the first version, but the 1st edition manual definitely describes the
PDP-11/20 port.


> Thompson interview
>
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/OralHistory/transcripts/thompson.htm
> mentions an "interim machine" and a "PDP-11 that had PDP-10 memory
> management, KS-1."  What is this interim machine? Is this a PDP-11
> without a disk (for a few months?) What is this PDP-11
> and KS-1?  Maybe this is the PDP-11/20 with KS-11?
>
> Do we know what hardware was supported for the early editions? We don't
> have all the kernel code and from a quick look from what is available I
> didn't see specific hardware references.
>

We know that it was a 11/20, initially without an MMU, and later with a
custom hacked MMU, which I think is the KS-11. Clem would know :)


> The later ~1974 "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" paper does mention some
> hardware at that time on the PDP-11/45 like a 201 dataset interface and
> a Tektronix 611 storage-tube display on a satellite PDP-11/20.
>

PDP 11/45 support was added as part of the efforts for the 4th edition.
bitsavers has a couple of interesting sets of notes from lectures at the
time: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/ has the interesting bits
(including the sources used to reconstruct the 1st edition kernel we have
in TUHS in the kernel routine documentation).


> When did a CRT with keyboard terminal like DEC vt01 (with Tektronix 611
> CRT display), LS ADM-3, Hazeltine 2000, VT01A display with keyboard
> (what keyboard?) get supported?  Any code to help find this?  (The
> https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/picture.html does mention the
> VT01A plys keyboard).
>

I'm unsure. I didn't research those details.

Warner


> Thanks,
>
> Jeremy C. Reed
>
> echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
>  tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Tue Oct  1 12:29:38 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 22:29:38 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] understand earliest hardware?
Message-ID: <20191001022938.5E6F318C08E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Jeremy C. Reed

    > "PDP-11 that had PDP-10 memory management, KS-1."  ... What is this
    > PDP-11 and KS-1?  Maybe this is the PDP-11/20 with KS-11?

Yes. The reference to "PDP-10 memory management" is because apparently the
KS11 did what the PDP-10 MMU did, i.e. divide the address space into two
sections. (On the -10, one was for code, and one for data.)

Alas, next to nothing is known of the KS11, although I've looked. There's a
mention of it in "Odd Comments and Strange Doings in Unix":

  https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/odd.html

but it doesn't say much.

    Noel

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct  1 12:38:47 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 20:38:47 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Leaked patches... v6 to v6.5
Message-ID: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>

Ok. I know there was never a v6.5... officially. But there are several
references to that in different bits of the early user group news letters.
This refers to v6 plus all the patches that "leaked" out of bell Labs via
udel and Lou Katz.

My question is,  have they survived? The story sure has, but I didn't find
them in the archive..
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From reed at reedmedia.net  Tue Oct  1 12:54:55 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 21:54:55 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Leaked patches... v6 to v6.5
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909302143430.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019, Warner Losh wrote:

> Ok. I know there was never a v6.5... officially. But there are several
> references to that in different bits of the early user group news letters.
> This refers to v6 plus all the patches that "leaked" out of bell Labs via
> udel and Lou Katz.
> My question?is,? have they survived? The story sure has, but I didn't find them
> in the archive..?

I think these are the same as what went other places too.

See 
Archive/Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz
unsw3/usr/sys/v6unix/ directory.
has annotated changes and a diff

(following from my writings...)

In preparation to his year sabbatical, Thompson put together a Unix 
system to take.  ``Since it was almost a release, I made a `diff' with 
V6. On the way to Berkeley, I stopped by Urbana-Champaign ... I left the 
`diff' tape there and ...  [said] I wouldn't mind it if it got 
around.''\cite{salus2008}

At the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, research assistant Mike 
O'Brien got a copy of the single-file diff (from Thompson directly). Its 
main purpose was to keep the Bell Labs systems from crashing.  O'Brien 
went through it, diff by diff, and annotated it so others would have 
some idea of what it was what and whether they were 
useful.\cite{mikeobrien1}

...

By the end of the summer, Haley and Joy began to explore the kernel 
internals. With Schriebman's observance, they installed the fixes 
and improvements provided on the ``fifty changes'' tape from Bell Labs.  
As they learned to maneuver through the kernel code, they suggested 
several small enhancements to streamline certain 
bottlenecks.\cite{mckusick85}


From clemc at ccc.com  Tue Oct  1 13:25:14 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem cole)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 23:25:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Leaked patches... v6 to v6.5
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909302143430.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909302143430.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <7D53B9FD-7368-420F-979D-06F841A1D5D6@ccc.com>

Right.  That’s the V6 diff tape.  I’m not sure where the story of it coming from Lou comes from (I’ve never heard that before to be honest). But   the source for many of us was Kens trip to CA and the stop to see Chesson at U of I.  

I don’t remember who gave it to us at CMU at the time but like copies of the Lions book there was an active underground in those days.  

Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. 

> On Sep 30, 2019, at 10:54 PM, reed at reedmedia.net wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, 30 Sep 2019, Warner Losh wrote:
>> 
>> Ok. I know there was never a v6.5... officially. But there are several
>> references to that in different bits of the early user group news letters.
>> This refers to v6 plus all the patches that "leaked" out of bell Labs via
>> udel and Lou Katz.
>> My question?is,? have they survived? The story sure has, but I didn't find them
>> in the archive..?
> 
> I think these are the same as what went other places too.
> 
> See 
> Archive/Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz
> unsw3/usr/sys/v6unix/ directory.
> has annotated changes and a diff
> 
> (following from my writings...)
> 
> In preparation to his year sabbatical, Thompson put together a Unix 
> system to take.  ``Since it was almost a release, I made a `diff' with 
> V6. On the way to Berkeley, I stopped by Urbana-Champaign ... I left the 
> `diff' tape there and ...  [said] I wouldn't mind it if it got 
> around.''\cite{salus2008}
> 
> At the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, research assistant Mike 
> O'Brien got a copy of the single-file diff (from Thompson directly). Its 
> main purpose was to keep the Bell Labs systems from crashing.  O'Brien 
> went through it, diff by diff, and annotated it so others would have 
> some idea of what it was what and whether they were 
> useful.\cite{mikeobrien1}
> 
> ...
> 
> By the end of the summer, Haley and Joy began to explore the kernel 
> internals. With Schriebman's observance, they installed the fixes 
> and improvements provided on the ``fifty changes'' tape from Bell Labs.  
> As they learned to maneuver through the kernel code, they suggested 
> several small enhancements to streamline certain 
> bottlenecks.\cite{mckusick85}
> 

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct  1 15:00:44 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 30 Sep 2019 23:00:44 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Leaked patches... v6 to v6.5
In-Reply-To: <7D53B9FD-7368-420F-979D-06F841A1D5D6@ccc.com>
References: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909302143430.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <7D53B9FD-7368-420F-979D-06F841A1D5D6@ccc.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrE3t++D1-1eUmwT+3jbOJE53xiHch+rjLA7Ws5fAi8Xg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019, 9:25 PM Clem cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Right.  That’s the V6 diff tape.


Yea. This copy looks like it has been applied and has the commentary on
it.  A rather nice find. There are a plethora of copies of v6 with changes
here and there for bug fixes and new drivers.

The other nugget is that "many of the changes ... are in our own sources"
suggesting they are in AUSAM since unsw was part of that effort...

I'll have to audit the diffs between v6.5 and v7...

I’m not sure where the story of it coming from Lou comes from (I’ve never
> heard that before to be honest).


Wikipedia :). It comes from our friend Warren:

Toomey, Warren (December 2011). "The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix"
<http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/the-strange-birth-and-long-life-of-unix/0>
. *IEEE Spectrum <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_Spectrum>*. IEEE
<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE>. Retrieved December 15, 2012.

Maybe he can say...

Warner



But   the source for many of us was Kens trip to CA and the stop to see
> Chesson at U of I.
>
> I don’t remember who gave it to us at CMU at the time but like copies of
> the Lions book there was an active underground in those days.
>
> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not
> quite.
>
> > On Sep 30, 2019, at 10:54 PM, reed at reedmedia.net wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, 30 Sep 2019, Warner Losh wrote:
> >>
> >> Ok. I know there was never a v6.5... officially. But there are several
> >> references to that in different bits of the early user group news
> letters.
> >> This refers to v6 plus all the patches that "leaked" out of bell Labs
> via
> >> udel and Lou Katz.
> >> My question?is,? have they survived? The story sure has, but I didn't
> find them
> >> in the archive..?
> >
> > I think these are the same as what went other places too.
> >
> > See
> > Archive/Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz
> > unsw3/usr/sys/v6unix/ directory.
> > has annotated changes and a diff
> >
> > (following from my writings...)
> >
> > In preparation to his year sabbatical, Thompson put together a Unix
> > system to take.  ``Since it was almost a release, I made a `diff' with
> > V6. On the way to Berkeley, I stopped by Urbana-Champaign ... I left the
> > `diff' tape there and ...  [said] I wouldn't mind it if it got
> > around.''\cite{salus2008}
> >
> > At the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle, research assistant Mike
> > O'Brien got a copy of the single-file diff (from Thompson directly). Its
> > main purpose was to keep the Bell Labs systems from crashing.  O'Brien
> > went through it, diff by diff, and annotated it so others would have
> > some idea of what it was what and whether they were
> > useful.\cite{mikeobrien1}
> >
> > ...
> >
> > By the end of the summer, Haley and Joy began to explore the kernel
> > internals. With Schriebman's observance, they installed the fixes
> > and improvements provided on the ``fifty changes'' tape from Bell Labs.
> > As they learned to maneuver through the kernel code, they suggested
> > several small enhancements to streamline certain
> > bottlenecks.\cite{mckusick85}
> >
>
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Tue Oct  1 15:56:03 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 15:56:03 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Leaked patches... v6 to v6.5
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfrE3t++D1-1eUmwT+3jbOJE53xiHch+rjLA7Ws5fAi8Xg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1909302143430.1609@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <7D53B9FD-7368-420F-979D-06F841A1D5D6@ccc.com>
 <CANCZdfrE3t++D1-1eUmwT+3jbOJE53xiHch+rjLA7Ws5fAi8Xg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191001055603.GA28677@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 11:00:44PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
>    Wikipedia :). It comes from our friend Warren:
>    Toomey, Warren (December 2011). [2]"The Strange Birth and Long Life of
>    Unix". [3]IEEE Spectrum. [4]IEEE. Retrieved December 15, 2012.
>    Maybe he can say...

Actually it comes from Salus' "A Quarter Century of Unix", pg. 139:

    Lou Katz’s version is a bit different:
    
    A large number of bug fixes was collected, and rather than
    issue them one at a time, a collection tape (”The 50 fixes”)
    was put together by Ken. Some of the ﬁxes were quite important,
    though I don't remember any in particular. I suspect
    that a significant fraction of the fixes were actually done by
    non-Bell people. Ken tried to send it out, but the lawyers kept
    stalling and stalling and stalling.
    
    Finally, in complete disgust, someone "found a tape on
    Mountain Avenue” which had the fixes. [The address of Bell
    Labs is 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ.]
    
    When the lawyers found out about it, they called every
    licensee and threatened them with dire consequences if they
    didn’t destroy the tape, after trying to find out how they got
    the tape. I would guess that no one would actually tell them
    how they came by the tape (I didn’t). It was the first of many
    attempts by the lawyers to justify their existence and to kill
    Unix.

Cheers, Warren

P.S In 2002 I wrote on the list:

The mythical `50 bugs' tape, described in Peter Salus' book `A Quarter
Century of UNIX' has been found lurking in the Unix Archive. You can
find it in Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz as the file
usr/sys/v6unix/unix_changes.

From dave at horsfall.org  Tue Oct  1 16:05:26 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 16:05:26 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Leaked patches... v6 to v6.5
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANCZdfpaS7BRSCwR1hVGL9VP7dHZSh6RubYhdQsBncsN5vrwOA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910011601020.19040@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 30 Sep 2019, Warner Losh wrote:

> Ok. I know there was never a v6.5... officially. But there are several 
> references to that in different bits of the early user group news 
> letters. This refers to v6 plus all the patches that "leaked" out of 
> bell Labs via udel and Lou Katz.

I was once referred to as "Mr Unix V6.5" when I shoehorned as much of V7 
into V6 (with AUSAM mods) as I could, such as XON/XOFF etc.  Those lucky 
buggers at Elec Eng and AGSM had 11/70s, whereas I had to support a number 
of 11/40s etc.

> My question is,  have they survived? The story sure has, but I didn't find
> them in the archive.. 

Sadly, not my version (UNSW/CSU).

-- Dave

From alec at sensi.org  Tue Oct  1 20:03:58 2019
From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay)
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 13:03:58 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] SystemV R3.2 manpages in e-form ?
Message-ID: <CAGqcPWCEPqjb1RFiLiQNuM-zSemffu9MhZgwpQ3rvWbTFpoH5w@mail.gmail.com>

Hi!

Is there a SystemV R3.2 manpages in the "-man" macropackage form or similar
?

AFAIK there are scanned documentations at bitsavers:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/att/unix/System_V_386_Release_3.2/
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/att/unix/System_V_Release_3/


P.S.   The disks in the old days were small and vendors distributed
manpages in print form...

--
-=AV=-
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From cmhanson at eschatologist.net  Wed Oct  2 08:40:52 2019
From: cmhanson at eschatologist.net (Chris Hanson)
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 15:40:52 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] DG/UX details?
Message-ID: <B7E72409-F0B9-46FA-83E7-51C17DA39DE2@eschatologist.net>

I’ve seen it said a couple of places that the DG/UX kernel was an almost complete rewrite and rather well-done.

Have any details been preserved? There’s not a whole lot out there that I’ve been able to find about DG/UX or the AViiON workstation series (whether 88K or Intel x86).

  -- Chris

PS - I’ve found that  my asking around has prompted some people to put things online, so may as well keep asking in various places. :)


From clemc at ccc.com  Wed Oct  2 23:50:12 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 09:50:12 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] DG/UX details?
In-Reply-To: <B7E72409-F0B9-46FA-83E7-51C17DA39DE2@eschatologist.net>
References: <B7E72409-F0B9-46FA-83E7-51C17DA39DE2@eschatologist.net>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PZO93XoEtGgwhK394LX23ZGT0HOVzwbKkYLyyEU4KW3w@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 7:00 PM Chris Hanson <cmhanson at eschatologist.net>
wrote:

> I’ve seen it said a couple of places that the DG/UX kernel was an almost
> complete rewrite and rather well-done.
>
Indeed - we worked with it at Locus and was one of the simplest kernels to
add things too.  The locks were easy to understand and it was well
documented/thought out.

>
> Have any details been preserved? There’s not a whole lot out there that
> I’ve been able to find about DG/UX or the AViiON workstation series
> (whether 88K or Intel x86).
>
Never seen it in the wild, sadly.  Hope it does appear at some point.


>
>   -- Chris
>
> PS - I’ve found that  my asking around has prompted some people to put
> things online, so may as well keep asking in various places. :)
>
+1
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From david at kdbarto.org  Thu Oct  3 00:02:48 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 07:02:48 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] DG/UX details?
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2PZO93XoEtGgwhK394LX23ZGT0HOVzwbKkYLyyEU4KW3w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <B7E72409-F0B9-46FA-83E7-51C17DA39DE2@eschatologist.net>
 <CAC20D2PZO93XoEtGgwhK394LX23ZGT0HOVzwbKkYLyyEU4KW3w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1C43D25F-8A26-4922-B74C-B14B6D2C1725@kdbarto.org>

I have to agree with Clem here. I ported multiple device drivers for custom boards to DG/UX and it was nicely done at the lower levels.

The documentation was excellent and the field service reps were more than helpful when I walked into strange corners that didn’t perfectly mesh between SunOS 4.X and DG/UX.

	David

> On Oct 2, 2019, at 6:50 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 7:00 PM Chris Hanson <cmhanson at eschatologist.net <mailto:cmhanson at eschatologist.net>> wrote:
> I’ve seen it said a couple of places that the DG/UX kernel was an almost complete rewrite and rather well-done.
> Indeed - we worked with it at Locus and was one of the simplest kernels to add things too.  The locks were easy to understand and it was well documented/thought out.
> 
> Have any details been preserved? There’s not a whole lot out there that I’ve been able to find about DG/UX or the AViiON workstation series (whether 88K or Intel x86).
> Never seen it in the wild, sadly.  Hope it does appear at some point.
>  
> 
>   -- Chris
> 
> PS - I’ve found that  my asking around has prompted some people to put things online, so may as well keep asking in various places. :)
> +1 

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From reed at reedmedia.net  Thu Oct  3 08:34:36 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2019 17:34:36 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

The Dallas Ft. Worth UNIX Users Group
will be highlighting the 50th anniversary on October 10,
November 14, and maybe in December.
http://www.dfwuug.org/wiki/Main/Welcome

I will be presenting about the early history next week
and then about BSD-specific history in November.

Any of you in the DFW area? Any suggestions on anyone local to invite? I 
am also looking for anyone local who can display old hardware or 
materials at the event. I only have some old books and training 
materials from 1980's.

Does anyone have scanned copies of early Lions commentary? (Not the 2000 
printing, unless it looks identical, please let me know.)

I will try to share my slides to this list by end of this week. (I did 
look at an early draft of Warner's slides, but didn't look at his final 
slides nor watch his presentation yet. My presentation is from scratch 
for now.)

Jeremy C. Reed

echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
 tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"


From finnoleary at inventati.org  Fri Oct  4 04:51:19 2019
From: finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary)
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2019 18:51:19 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
Message-ID: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>

Hi, I remember that someone had recovered some ancient /etc/passwd files
and had decrypted(?) them, and I remember reading that either ken or 
dmr's
password was something interesting like './,..,/' (it was entirely
punctuation characters, was around three different characters in total, 
and
was pretty damn short). I've tried to find this since, as a friend was
interested in it, and I cannot for the life of me find it!

Do any of you remember or have a link? :)
Thanks!

--
"Too enough is always not much!"

From leah at vuxu.org  Fri Oct  4 05:30:31 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2019 21:30:31 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org> (Finn O'Leary's
 message of "Thu, 03 Oct 2019 18:51:19 +0000")
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
Message-ID: <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>

Finn O'Leary <finnoleary at inventati.org> writes:

> Hi, I remember that someone had recovered some ancient /etc/passwd files
> and had decrypted(?) them, and I remember reading that either ken or
> dmr's
> password was something interesting like './,..,/' (it was entirely
> punctuation characters, was around three different characters in
> total, and
> was pretty damn short). I've tried to find this since, as a friend was
> interested in it, and I cannot for the life of me find it!

I did this once, but I never managed to crack all of them.
It was bwk who used /.,/.,

My findings (from https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/BSD-3-Snapshot-Development/etc/passwd):

gfVwhuAMF0Trw:dmac
Pb1AmSpsVPG0Y:uio
ymVglQZjbWYDE:/.,/.,
c8UdIntIZCUIA:bourne
AAZk9Aj5/Ue0E:foobar
E9i8fWghn1p/I:apr1744
IIVxQSvq1V9R2:axolotl
9EZLtSYjeEABE:network
P0CHBwE/mB51k:whatnot
Nc3IkFJyW2u7E:...hello
olqH1vDqH38aw:sacristy
9ULn5cWTc0b9E:sherril.
N33.MCNcTh5Qw:uucpuucp
FH83PFo4z55cU:wendy!!!
OVCPatZ8RFmFY:cowperso
X.ZNnZrciWauE:5%ghj
IL2bmGECQJgbk:pdq;dq
4BkcEieEtjWXI:jilland1
8PYh/dUBQT9Ss:theik!!!
lj1vXnxTAPnDc:sn74193n

But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole
8 letter lowercase + special symbols key space.

The uncracked ones are:

ozalp:m5syt3.lB5LAE:40:10:& Babaoglu,4156423806:/usr/ozalp:/bin/csh
hpk:9ycwM8mmmcp4Q:9:10:Howard Katseff,2019495337:/usr/staff/hpk:/bin/csh
tbl:cBWEbG59spEmM:10:10:Tom London,2019492006:/usr/staff/tbl
ken:ZghOT0eRm4U9s:52:10:& Thompson:/usr/staff/ken
fabry:d9B17PTU2RTlM:305:10:Bob &,4156422714:/usr/staff/fabry:/bin/csh

Any help is welcome.

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From scj at yaccman.com  Fri Oct  4 06:03:57 2019
From: scj at yaccman.com (Steve Johnson)
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2019 13:03:57 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] OT: compiler back-end bug
In-Reply-To: <20190929105016.92665200AB@orac.inputplus.co.uk>
Message-ID: <6696fb88a31a97eeae2c0f9970476ff6aa55e9d4@webmail.yaccman.com>


I have all to much experience with back end bugs, usually when someone
porting PCC asked for help.

The advice I always gave first was:  "what would the correct output
look like?"

90% of the time, they didn't know.  And it's hard to hit the target
if you don't know where it is...

Once you know what you want, then you figure out the first instruction
that isn't right and hit it with everything you have...

Hope this helps...

Steve

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Corderoy" <ralph at inputplus.co.uk>
To:<tuhs at tuhs.org>
Cc:
Sent:Sun, 29 Sep 2019 11:50:16 +0100
Subject:Re: [TUHS] OT: compiler back-end bug

 Hi Warren,

 > Good point Ralph:
 >
https://minnie.tuhs.org/wktcloud/index.php/s/HQjsggHb4i6wdWM?path=%2FSfiles

 I've always tried to avoid x86 and friends for ARM, so I may be
wrong,
 but the run up to the first of the two memcpy() calls looks the same
to
 me. Here's the assembler, values given an RBP of 100, and the stack
 contents. Good version first, bad second.

 rbp = 100
 L29:
 movq -8(%rbp),%rax rax = *92
 pushq %rax *92
 movq 16(%rbp),%rax rax = *116
 pushq %rax *92 *116
 movq $64,%rax rax = 64
 pushq %rax *92 *116 64
 movq 32(%rbp),%rax rax = *132
 popq %rcx rcx = 64 *92 *116
 addq %rcx,%rax rcx = 64+*132
 movq (%rax),%rax rax = *(64+*132)
 pushq %rax *92 *116 *(64+*132)
 movq $40,%rax rax = 40
 pushq %rax *92 *116 *(64+*132) 40
 movq 32(%rbp),%rax rax = *132
 popq %rcx rcx = 40 *92 *116 *(64+*132)
 addq %rcx,%rax rax = 40+*132
 movq (%rax),%rax rax = *(40+*132)
 popq %rcx rcx = *(64+*132) *92 *116
 addq %rcx,%rax rax = *(64+*132)+*(40+*132)
 pushq %rax *92 *116 *(64+*132)+*(40+*132)
 call Cmemcpy

 rbp = 100
 L29:
 movq -8(%rbp),%r8 r8 = *92
 pushq %r8 *92
 movq 16(%rbp),%r8 r8 = *116
 pushq %r8 *92 *116
 movq $64,%r8 r8 = 64
 movq 32(%rbp),%r9 r9 = *132
 addq %r9,%r8 r8 = *132+64
 movq (%r8),%r8 r8 = *(*132+64)
 movq $40,%r9 r9 = 40
 movq 32(%rbp),%r10 r10 = *132
 addq %r10,%r9 r9 = *132+40
 movq (%r9),%r9 r9 = *(*132+40)
 addq %r9,%r8 r8 = *(*132+64)+*(*132+40)
 pushq %r8 *92 *116 *(*132+64)+*(*132+40)
 call Cmemcpy

 A glance at the second memcpy() call look equivalent too.

 So perhaps it's not calculating the parameters to memcpy() that's
wrong,
 but the inputs into those calculations being faulty? I'd use gdb(1)
to
 break at particular instructions, examine memory, etc., to work
 backwards through the bad version until spotting where good data
becomes
 bad.

 -- 
 Cheers, Ralph.


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From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Oct  4 06:03:47 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo Nusquam)
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2019 16:03:47 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] OT: compiler back-end bug
In-Reply-To: <6696fb88a31a97eeae2c0f9970476ff6aa55e9d4@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <6696fb88a31a97eeae2c0f9970476ff6aa55e9d4@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <31d29b9b-9810-7731-cfd7-326acb9e2844@gmail.com>

On 10/03/19 16:03, Steve Johnson wrote (in part):
> Once you know what you want, then you figure out the first instruction 
> that isn't right and hit it with everything you have...
+42

N.

(And sorry, Warren, I haven't written iapx assembler in over a decade.)

From finnoleary at inventati.org  Fri Oct  4 06:41:51 2019
From: finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary)
Date: Thu, 03 Oct 2019 20:41:51 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>
Message-ID: <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>

On 2019-10-03 19:30, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
> I did this once, but I never managed to crack all of them.
> It was bwk who used /.,/.,
> 
> My findings (from
> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/BSD-3-Snapshot-Development/etc/passwd):
> 
> [ ... ]

Interesting~! Thank you for the quick response :)

> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole
> 8 letter lowercase + special symbols key space.
> [ ... ]
> Any help is welcome.

I'm not even sure how I would go about starting to crack them, as I have
very little experience with that! That said, I'd be willing to lend some
CPU power to recover the rest :)

-- 
- Finn
finnoleary.net

From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Fri Oct  4 08:04:38 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 00:04:38 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
Message-ID: <20191003220438.qBDYS%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Finn O'Leary wrote in <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb at inventati.org>:
 |On 2019-10-03 19:30, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
 |> I did this once, but I never managed to crack all of them.
 |> It was bwk who used /.,/.,
 |> 
 |> My findings (from
 |> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/BSD-3-Snapshot-Deve\
 |> lopment/etc/passwd):
 |> 
 |> [ ... ]
 |
 |Interesting~! Thank you for the quick response :)

 |> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
 |> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole
 |> 8 letter lowercase + special symbols key space.
 |> [ ... ]
 |> Any help is welcome.
 |
 |I'm not even sure how I would go about starting to crack them, as I have
 |very little experience with that! That said, I'd be willing to lend some
 |CPU power to recover the rest :)

The dark powers of criminal energy touched also me, i wanted to
write hazy spheres thereof, but that reminded me of hazy shade of
criminal from Public Enemy ("Once the riot started, it went like
a forest fire") thirty years ago.  (The one rap/hip hop i have
ever heard, with text that really mattered, sometimes.)

Oh, we like that wendy!!! was nothing fast-food alike.
And Kurt Shoens used sacristy!  How could that ever be decrypted.

Thanks, Leah.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Oct  4 09:24:18 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 09:24:18 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 3 Oct 2019, Finn O'Leary wrote:

>> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash 
>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole 8 letter lowercase + 
>> special symbols key space.

I can't find the original post, but, was upper case not tried?

-- Dave

From ches at cheswick.com  Fri Oct  4 10:59:32 2019
From: ches at cheswick.com (WIlliam Cheswick)
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2019 20:59:32 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <65C10476-6AB0-483C-9843-8E3FFF0A3941@cheswick.com>

I did extensive password checking in 112 at one point.  I saved almost none
Of the original passed files, but I do have /etc/passwd from:

arachne		caspian		cl44		fiji		mhmips		ore		ruble		tempo-hadrian
banc		cd		cl45		irisa		mht40-3		peso		sidewise	vector
bill		cdrom		coorong		irisb		mht40-3-mhbb	quark		subtillion	yankee
bloom		celerity	deneb		jazz		mhuxw		rgbvax		sun1c		zeno
bruce		chaos		dixie		lucian		none		rial		sunshine

This list includes 1033 different user names.  

Most do not have the pw field:

bruce:jpl:2v/xj5FQ.kqVY:4129:4129:John P. Linderman,MH 3D-435,6427 (gc,exp.6/1990):/tmp:/bin/ksh
tempo-hadrian:jpl:BQl9MmYhh.8oE:358:358:John P. Linderman:/usr/jpl:/bin/ksh
tempo-hadrian:jpl:sorry:358:358:John P. Linderman,3D-435,6427,4641129,11384:/usr/jpl:/bin/true
vector:jpl:2v/xj5FQ.kqVY:4129:4129:John P. Linderman,(gc)3D-435,6427,4641129:/tmp:/bin/ksh

Here’s one hash from a famous person.  I believe GPUs can now test over 8 billion tries in a second.

s6BGoOQ8LfLYo


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From lm at mcvoy.com  Fri Oct  4 14:20:34 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2019 21:20:34 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
Message-ID: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>

So my kid is using LaTex and I'd like to show him what troff can do.
For the record, back when he was born, 20 years ago, I was program
chair for Linux Expo (which sounds like a big deal but all it meant
was I had the job of formatting the proceedings).  LaTex was a big
deal but I pushed people towards troff and the few people that took
the push came back and said "holy crap is this easy".

My kid is a math guy, does anyone have some eqn input and output 
that they can share?

Thanks,

--lm

From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Oct  4 14:35:13 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 14:35:13 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910041430260.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 3 Oct 2019, Larry McVoy wrote:

> So my kid is using LaTex and I'd like to show him what troff can do. For 
> the record, back when he was born, 20 years ago, I was program chair for 
> Linux Expo (which sounds like a big deal but all it meant was I had the 
> job of formatting the proceedings).  LaTex was a big deal but I pushed 
> people towards troff and the few people that took the push came back and 
> said "holy crap is this easy".

:-)

I've always liked software where the user is in charge, not whoever wrote 
the tool.  A boss of mine was into LaTeX, and I hated it.

> My kid is a math guy, does anyone have some eqn input and output that 
> they can share?

I've only ever used "neqn" and that was yonks ago, so I'd be interested in 
seeing some examples.

-- Dave

From ggm at algebras.org  Fri Oct  4 15:12:43 2019
From: ggm at algebras.org (George Michaelson)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 15:12:43 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CAKr6gn2RrsSiMSiHnG276zBsfK=AEN7tPCku8Ov3P-S-Gb=d5A@mail.gmail.com>

I'm going to give a contrarian response. You may be wrong, and he
maybe should do LaTex.

Why?

because it's what his peer group, and professors, and other people
like markers and tutorial assisters will expect, and he can use things
like OverLeaf very probably on the Uni tab, which has shared edit, all
kinds of useful templates, and help communities.

You don't want to tie him to your apron strings, for help: He needs to
learn how to go out into the world and hassle other people for help
too!

My son, who is in the same kind-of cohort but perhaps 6years ahead,
wrote his thesis in OverLeaf and did very well in it.

The markup is XArchiV and journal friendly: His chances of getting
through peer review barriers which obsess with form, and not function
(sad) is better.

Sometimes, being the stand-out is not good. I was the only visible
Athiest in school and when I found a copy of the scots prayer book, it
was different page numbers and I couldn't find the hymn before they'd
finished singing it. I guess the example I am giving doesn't help my
own story because I am an essentially HAPPY athiest, but still: you
don't always want to be running against the stream.

If the maths is good, he's born to fly solo, and is heading into place
of excellence, none of this will matter. If he is looking to relate to
his community, it may.

On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 2:21 PM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> So my kid is using LaTex and I'd like to show him what troff can do.
> For the record, back when he was born, 20 years ago, I was program
> chair for Linux Expo (which sounds like a big deal but all it meant
> was I had the job of formatting the proceedings).  LaTex was a big
> deal but I pushed people towards troff and the few people that took
> the push came back and said "holy crap is this easy".
>
> My kid is a math guy, does anyone have some eqn input and output
> that they can share?
>
> Thanks,
>
> --lm

From leah at vuxu.org  Fri Oct  4 20:29:40 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 12:29:40 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 (Dave Horsfall's message of "Fri, 4 Oct 2019 09:24:18 +1000 (EST)")
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <877e5kpzvv.fsf@vuxu.org>

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> writes:

> On Thu, 3 Oct 2019, Finn O'Leary wrote:
>
>>> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
>>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole 8 letter
>>> lowercase + special symbols key space.
>
> I can't find the original post, but, was upper case not tried?

That explodes my computational resources (I don't have good GPU).  But
since all the other (simple) passwords use lowercase letters only, I
assumed it was a fair assumption.

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Oct  4 23:43:54 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 09:43:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <CAKr6gn2RrsSiMSiHnG276zBsfK=AEN7tPCku8Ov3P-S-Gb=d5A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
 <CAKr6gn2RrsSiMSiHnG276zBsfK=AEN7tPCku8Ov3P-S-Gb=d5A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzxjhcv05gUUqLk_=ShwKzPuvwx=BpV_N6K39Q0d4gpVfw@mail.gmail.com>

On 04/10/2019, George Michaelson <ggm at algebras.org> wrote (in part):
> I'm going to give a contrarian response. You may be wrong, and he
> maybe should do LaTex.
>
> Why?
>
> because it's what his peer group, and professors, and other people
> like markers and tutorial assisters will expect, [...]

Pace Larry but I tend to agree with George here.

N.

From reed at reedmedia.net  Sat Oct  5 00:53:29 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 09:53:29 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] v0 manpages of November 3,
 1970? and earliest writing about Unix?
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910040933490.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

Several v0 manpages say 11/3/70

See
https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/commit/14a2a9b10bd4f9c56217234afb321cd5e8509d72#diff-77750bb85687a23c2469f0679ad2c24b
The commit message says
"I've borrowed the V1 manuals from
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V1/man/man1
and changed them to reflect the PDP-7 utilities."

Where did that 1970 date come from?  Was it just made up? (Notice it is 
one year earlier, same day.) Maybe v0 didn't have any manuals? This was 
just an exercise in learning PDP7-Unix better? I understand they weren't 
in roff anyways.

Also ... what is the earliest known date where we have some 
scanned/printed document?

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/
says "runs on the PDP-7 and -9 computers; a more
modern version, a few months old, uses the PDP-11."
but no specific date.

The earliest date I see is from the 1stEdman / Dennis_v1 docs of 
November 3, 1971.  That is a full set of docs. There must be something 
prior to that date.

Anyone know of some early printed memo or other correspondence that 
mentions the work?

Thanks,

  Jeremy C. Reed

echo 'EhZ[h ^jjf0%%h[[Zc[Z_W$d[j%Xeeai%ZW[ced#]dk#f[d]k_d%' | \
  tr            '#-~'            '\-.-{'


From aksr at t-com.me  Sat Oct  5 00:57:50 2019
From: aksr at t-com.me (aksr)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 16:57:50 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>

On Thu, Oct 03, 2019 at 09:20:34PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> My kid is a math guy, does anyone have some eqn input and output 
> that they can share?

Have you tried (heard of) neatroff[1] and neateqn?
Neateqn uses TeX's algorithm for typesetting mathematical formulas.[2]
Here is an example: http://litcave.rudi.ir/neateqndemo.pdf

[1] http://litcave.rudi.ir/neatroff.pdf
[2] http://litcave.rudi.ir/neateqn.pdf

From ken at google.com  Sat Oct  5 01:05:48 2019
From: ken at google.com (Ken Thompson)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 08:05:48 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <877e5kpzvv.fsf@vuxu.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <877e5kpzvv.fsf@vuxu.org>
Message-ID: <CAG=a+riUuhXqM-znXsoHoxG8TBsiz1y8xe-ngS0vnZVXxw_7GQ@mail.gmail.com>

no, it was tty model 33.

On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 3:30 AM Leah Neukirchen <leah at vuxu.org> wrote:
>
> Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> writes:
>
> > On Thu, 3 Oct 2019, Finn O'Leary wrote:
> >
> >>> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
> >>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole 8 letter
> >>> lowercase + special symbols key space.
> >
> > I can't find the original post, but, was upper case not tried?
>
> That explodes my computational resources (I don't have good GPU).  But
> since all the other (simple) passwords use lowercase letters only, I
> assumed it was a fair assumption.
>
> --
> Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From ullbeking at andrewnesbit.org  Sat Oct  5 01:52:29 2019
From: ullbeking at andrewnesbit.org (U'll Be King of the Stars)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 16:52:29 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
Message-ID: <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>

On 04/10/2019 15:57, aksr wrote:
> Have you tried (heard of) neatroff[1] and neateqn?
> Neateqn uses TeX's algorithm for typesetting mathematical formulas.[2]
> Here is an example: http://litcave.rudi.ir/neateqndemo.pdf
> 
> [1] http://litcave.rudi.ir/neatroff.pdf
> [2] http://litcave.rudi.ir/neateqn.pdf

I have tried these and I have been in touch with the author.  He was 
very helpful.

One thing that surprised me during our discussions was the revelation 
that Groff is (apparently) optimized for authoring man pages.  I am 
personally interested in *roff as a typesetting system for technical 
documentatio in general.

I do agree with the other folk/s in this thread who have said that 
learning La/TeX is _much_ more advantageous as a _practical_ tool for 
writing maths and CS manuscripts.

I spent about 20 years buried in LaTeX during the academic phase of my 
life.  I don't miss it now but there was no way to collaborate and 
publish using a typesetting setting other than LaTeX because nothing 
else has that kind of commonality.

My field was signal processing, especially as applied to multimedia: 
music and audio specifically.  I would not have been able to write my 
PhD dissertation or write _any_ journal/conference articles without 
knowning LaTeX.

One thing that helped significantly is that I am an Emacs user.  This 
comes with AUCTeX mode, which, when set up properly, makes LaTeX 
tolerable for me.[1]

I now have the freedom to choose *roff for presentational markup for 
personal technical documentation.  I have also joined a project that 
uses DocBook for semantic markup.

But when one needs to collaborate in academia, and if one wants to 
minimize friction when communicating, then LaTeX (or sometimes even MS 
Word) is the standard that one's colleagues in maths, CS, and software 
engineering will use.  Don't be "that person" who causes friction 
unnecessarily; there are plenty more important hills to die on.

One tool I *highly* recommend learning well is Pandoc.  This is 
wonderful for translating between markup formats and even rendering 
output well.

When I would send end-of-week updates to managers, I would often convert 
new documentation that was contained within a restricted repository to 
PDF format and attach that to my email updates as well.

(Just in case there were permissions issues.  For example, corporate 
enterprise firewalls are notoriously difficult to make connections 
through.  They can make the documents even more difficult to access from 
their upstream repositories, and nobody want to be messing around with 
these kinds of permissions issues on a Friday afternoon.)

Andrew

[1] LaTeX is excellent compared to Markdown.  You can build a career on 
top of it but not on top of Markdown.  I don't even consider MD a proper 
markup format, aside from the simplest cases such as writing 
introductory README.md files.  The only thing that La/TeX and MD have in 
common for me is that they are both intolerable without Emacs modes 
(AUCTeX and markdown-down.el).
-- 
OpenPGP key: EB28 0338 28B7 19DA DAB0  B193 D21D 996E 883B E5B9

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct  5 02:08:38 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 12:08:38 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <65C10476-6AB0-483C-9843-8E3FFF0A3941@cheswick.com>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <b131e7d8e13b787df8146bd2edcd7bfb@inventati.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910040922160.40775@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <65C10476-6AB0-483C-9843-8E3FFF0A3941@cheswick.com>
Message-ID: <992ab358-2d91-71cd-3c8f-5b47e853d783@kilonet.net>

9ycwM8mmmcp4Q:graduat;



On 10/3/2019 8:59 PM, WIlliam Cheswick wrote:
> I did extensive password checking in 112 at one point.  I saved almost 
> none
> Of the original passed files, but I do have /etc/passwd from:
>
> arachnecaspiancl44fijimhmipsorerubletempo-hadrian
> banccdcl45irisamht40-3pesosidewisevector
> billcdromcoorongirisbmht40-3-mhbbquarksubtillionyankee
> bloomceleritydenebjazzmhuxwrgbvaxsun1czeno
> brucechaosdixieluciannonerialsunshine
>
> This list includes 1033 different user names.
>
> Most do not have the pw field:
>
> bruce:jpl:2v/xj5FQ.kqVY:4129:4129:John P. Linderman,MH 3D-435,6427 
> (gc,exp.6/1990):/tmp:/bin/ksh
> tempo-hadrian:jpl:BQl9MmYhh.8oE:358:358:John P. 
> Linderman:/usr/jpl:/bin/ksh
> tempo-hadrian:jpl:sorry:358:358:John P. 
> Linderman,3D-435,6427,4641129,11384:/usr/jpl:/bin/true
> vector:jpl:2v/xj5FQ.kqVY:4129:4129:John P. 
> Linderman,(gc)3D-435,6427,4641129:/tmp:/bin/ksh
>
> Here’s one hash from a famous person.  I believe GPUs can now test 
> over 8 billion tries in a second.
>
> s6BGoOQ8LfLYo
>
>

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From nobozo at gmail.com  Sat Oct  5 02:12:53 2019
From: nobozo at gmail.com (Jon Forrest)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 09:12:53 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
Message-ID: <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>


One slightly OT fact about TeX. On my 16GB, Core i7, SATA SSD
Lenovo T430s laptop running Fedora 30, it takes ~3 seconds to run TeX on
the ~900 page TeXBook. That's pretty fast. TeX contains all kinds of
code to make it fit in the constraints of a 1980s computer. I wonder
whether a redesign for a 2020 computer would be faster or slower.

I suspect, but can't prove, that classic [nt]roff might also
benefit in the same way. groff was written latter, so it might
suffer less.

Jon

From athornton at gmail.com  Sat Oct  5 03:24:11 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 10:24:11 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
 <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic1RrcNjm8FyDVrt4bnxTe72RP5EgVdhgptjWBe5JNCCbw@mail.gmail.com>

A modern TeX would probably look a lot like SILE:

http://sile-typesetter.org/

Simon's a smart guy.  It's a pretty neat project.

On Fri, Oct 4, 2019 at 9:13 AM Jon Forrest <nobozo at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> One slightly OT fact about TeX. On my 16GB, Core i7, SATA SSD
> Lenovo T430s laptop running Fedora 30, it takes ~3 seconds to run TeX on
> the ~900 page TeXBook. That's pretty fast. TeX contains all kinds of
> code to make it fit in the constraints of a 1980s computer. I wonder
> whether a redesign for a 2020 computer would be faster or slower.
>
> I suspect, but can't prove, that classic [nt]roff might also
> benefit in the same way. groff was written latter, so it might
> suffer less.
>
> Jon
>
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From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Sat Oct  5 03:43:00 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 19:43:00 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
 <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191004174300.Ok_Nq%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Jon Forrest wrote in <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6 at gmail.com>:
 |One slightly OT fact about TeX. On my 16GB, Core i7, SATA SSD
 |Lenovo T430s laptop running Fedora 30, it takes ~3 seconds to run TeX on
 |the ~900 page TeXBook. That's pretty fast. TeX contains all kinds of
 |code to make it fit in the constraints of a 1980s computer. I wonder
 |whether a redesign for a 2020 computer would be faster or slower.

It made a really huge difference whether you base upon the plain
TeX macros, maybe with epsf.tex for embedding .eps files, and
colordvi.tex for colors in slides, index and bibliography reviews
etc., or whether you use the huge LaTeX macros.  Also lazy loading
fonts added upon that, i finally added that and it saved a 1-2
second hang upon program startup (plain tex plus ~250kb single
file macro, plus the mentioned included) for each and every letter
that was sent out.

  % 00-05-31: new scheme to avoid waste. now a font is init only if it's used.
  % 2Compare (Cyrix 166+, 49MB, Linux 2.2.13-12, X 3.3.5):
  % | OLD                               | NEW                                   |
  % |-----------------------------------|---------------------------------------|
  % | 1178 strings out of 13013         | 1413 strings out of 13013             |
  % | 13106 string characters of 122154 | 17026 string characters of 122154     |
  % | 35574 words of memory of 263001   | 54220 words of memory of 263001       |
  % | 2086 multiletter of 10000+0       | 2321 multiletter of 10000+0           |
  % | 80647 font info for 276 fonts     | 20674 words of font info for 70 fonts |
  %   (out of 400000 for 1000)

 |I suspect, but can't prove, that classic [nt]roff might also
 |benefit in the same way. groff was written latter, so it might
 |suffer less.
 |
 |Jon
 --End of <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6 at gmail.com>

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

From khm at sciops.net  Sat Oct  5 04:55:04 2019
From: khm at sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 11:55:04 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <CAP2nic1RrcNjm8FyDVrt4bnxTe72RP5EgVdhgptjWBe5JNCCbw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
 <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
 <CAP2nic1RrcNjm8FyDVrt4bnxTe72RP5EgVdhgptjWBe5JNCCbw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191004185504.GA9810@wopr>

On Fri, Oct 04, 2019 at 10:24:11AM -0700, Adam Thornton wrote:
> A modern TeX would probably look a lot like SILE:
> 
> http://sile-typesetter.org/
> 
> Simon's a smart guy.  It's a pretty neat project.

I always bristled at SILE being described as a typesetting program.
It's a desktop publishing suite.  The whole advantage of roff and TeX is
that you're freed from micromanaging everything.  SILE takes that base
from TeX, and then puts back in all the knobs that a certain kind of
person likes to fiddle with.  This means if you're collaborating with
any sized group on a document, and you're using SILE, someone will turn
it into a figure-positioning bikeshedding competition. 

khm

From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Oct  5 05:02:07 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 12:02:07 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
Message-ID: <20191004190207.GA6882@mcvoy.com>

My complaint with LaTex et al is that it is escape based.  Roff wants
stuff to start at the beginning of the line.  Which mean Roff input will
version control *dramatically* better which leads to better collaboration.

My kid already knows Latex, I'd like him to try roff.

On Fri, Oct 04, 2019 at 04:52:29PM +0100, U'll Be King of the Stars wrote:
> On 04/10/2019 15:57, aksr wrote:
> >Have you tried (heard of) neatroff[1] and neateqn?
> >Neateqn uses TeX's algorithm for typesetting mathematical formulas.[2]
> >Here is an example: http://litcave.rudi.ir/neateqndemo.pdf
> >
> >[1] http://litcave.rudi.ir/neatroff.pdf
> >[2] http://litcave.rudi.ir/neateqn.pdf
> 
> I have tried these and I have been in touch with the author.  He was very
> helpful.
> 
> One thing that surprised me during our discussions was the revelation that
> Groff is (apparently) optimized for authoring man pages.  I am personally
> interested in *roff as a typesetting system for technical documentatio in
> general.
> 
> I do agree with the other folk/s in this thread who have said that learning
> La/TeX is _much_ more advantageous as a _practical_ tool for writing maths
> and CS manuscripts.
> 
> I spent about 20 years buried in LaTeX during the academic phase of my life.
> I don't miss it now but there was no way to collaborate and publish using a
> typesetting setting other than LaTeX because nothing else has that kind of
> commonality.
> 
> My field was signal processing, especially as applied to multimedia: music
> and audio specifically.  I would not have been able to write my PhD
> dissertation or write _any_ journal/conference articles without knowning
> LaTeX.
> 
> One thing that helped significantly is that I am an Emacs user.  This comes
> with AUCTeX mode, which, when set up properly, makes LaTeX tolerable for
> me.[1]
> 
> I now have the freedom to choose *roff for presentational markup for
> personal technical documentation.  I have also joined a project that uses
> DocBook for semantic markup.
> 
> But when one needs to collaborate in academia, and if one wants to minimize
> friction when communicating, then LaTeX (or sometimes even MS Word) is the
> standard that one's colleagues in maths, CS, and software engineering will
> use.  Don't be "that person" who causes friction unnecessarily; there are
> plenty more important hills to die on.
> 
> One tool I *highly* recommend learning well is Pandoc.  This is wonderful
> for translating between markup formats and even rendering output well.
> 
> When I would send end-of-week updates to managers, I would often convert new
> documentation that was contained within a restricted repository to PDF
> format and attach that to my email updates as well.
> 
> (Just in case there were permissions issues.  For example, corporate
> enterprise firewalls are notoriously difficult to make connections through.
> They can make the documents even more difficult to access from their
> upstream repositories, and nobody want to be messing around with these kinds
> of permissions issues on a Friday afternoon.)
> 
> Andrew
> 
> [1] LaTeX is excellent compared to Markdown.  You can build a career on top
> of it but not on top of Markdown.  I don't even consider MD a proper markup
> format, aside from the simplest cases such as writing introductory README.md
> files.  The only thing that La/TeX and MD have in common for me is that they
> are both intolerable without Emacs modes (AUCTeX and markdown-down.el).
> -- 
> OpenPGP key: EB28 0338 28B7 19DA DAB0  B193 D21D 996E 883B E5B9

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

From fabio at esse.ch  Sat Oct  5 05:25:13 2019
From: fabio at esse.ch (Fabio Scotoni)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 21:25:13 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <47c43a48-b980-5e6e-1e0d-6876e3f9a308@esse.ch>

On 10/4/19 6:20 AM, Larry McVoy wrote:
> So my kid is using LaTex and I'd like to show him what troff can do.
> For the record, back when he was born, 20 years ago, I was program
> chair for Linux Expo (which sounds like a big deal but all it meant
> was I had the job of formatting the proceedings).  LaTex was a big
> deal but I pushed people towards troff and the few people that took
> the push came back and said "holy crap is this easy".
> 
> My kid is a math guy, does anyone have some eqn input and output 
> that they can share?

I've got no such thing that I still have available to myself,
but perhaps "A System for Typesetting Mathematics" in the 7th Edition
manual volume 2A would be something of relevance?
It's both an introduction to eqn(1) and shows off what it can do.

https://tex.loria.fr/divers/unix-eqn1.ps.gz

http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/v7man/eqn/eqn2e.ps
^ seemingly updated version, found dvia Schaffter's mom macro documentation

From reed at reedmedia.net  Sat Oct  5 07:58:53 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 16:58:53 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] lowercase vs. uppercase PDP-7? (was Re: Recovered
 /etc/passwd files)
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910041653330.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Fri, 4 Oct 2019, Ken Thompson via TUHS wrote:

> no, it was tty model 33.

Changing the topic slightly ...

The scans for v0 code are in lowercase. I assume printed on TTY 37.
But why is the early PDP-7 code in lowercase?

I do see the B language code for "lcase" which converts to lowercase. 
Maybe something like that was used?

(I think I saw a scan mistake showing a "B" which is probably an "8" due 
to that. See pdp7-unix/src/cmd/bc.s "dab B i".)

I didn't see anything in historical login code or manuals about
upper versus lowercase.

Any experiences about upper versus lower case to share?
When did stuff get rewritten to have both cases in code?

Jeremy C. Reed

echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
 tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"

From rminnich at gmail.com  Sat Oct  5 08:41:30 2019
From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich)
Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2019 15:41:30 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] RFC formatting
Message-ID: <CAP6exYJYC0ALa6cV7krft_5mb5_UG1NFU1UGphXrFKKXG_eM2A@mail.gmail.com>

"why is the formatting so weird" someone asked me.

I am guessing, looking at RFC 1, that it was formatted with an
ancestor of runoff but ... anyone?

ron

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Oct  5 11:59:01 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2019 21:59:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
Message-ID: <201910050159.x951x1nh023003@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> does anyone have some eqn input and output that they can share?

I have a quite elaborate document that uses eqn, pic, and tbl. In
fact one table contains both pic and eqn entries (but not subtables;
Latex beats roff in being recursive). Take a look at
www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/wallpaper.pdf. If you think you'd like
to see the source, just holler.

> he maybe should do Latex

Sadly, math journals often demand Latex, but I've also run into
journals that require Word. I wanted to submit the document above
to a cartography journal until I found out they were in the
Word camp. I was, however, able to convert it to Latex. 

At one point the American Instutute of Physics took only roff
(and retypeset other manuscripts--in roff). I don't know what
their practice is q
now.

> Maybe v0 didn't have any manuals?
> I understand they weren't in roff anyways.

No manuals, true. But if there had been they would have been
in some version of roff, just as all Research Unix manuals were.

Doug

From michael at kjorling.se  Sun Oct  6 03:29:44 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2019 17:29:44 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
Message-ID: <20191005172944.GI20298@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2019 18:51 +0000, from finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary):
> password was something interesting like './,..,/' (it was entirely
> punctuation characters, was around three different characters in total, and
> was pretty damn short).

I'm a bit late to the party here (it's been a crazy week for me and
I'm only just now starting to catch up), but don't forget that hashed
Unix passwords back then were limited to eight bytes (actually I
believe the hard limit was 64 bits' worth of password, so if your
system used less than 8 bits per character, you could theoretically
cram more _characters_ into the password, but not more _entropy_,
which topped out at 2^64 no matter what you did, and in practice a
fair bit less because you wanted to be able to type it in).

Of course, this wasn't a problem in practice when even just hashing a
single candidate password took noticable fractions of a second. At 100
ms per hash, while you could exhaustively search the lower
alphanumerics four characters space within about two days (my
calculator says 1.944 * 86400 seconds for that) if you could hog the
computer for everyone, by the time you got to six characters the same
search would take almost 7 years, and eight characters the better part
of 9000 years (assuming you kept running it on the same hardware for
the duration).

Adding uppercase A-Z alongside lowercase a-z and 0-9 increases the
exhaustive search time even for the four characters password space to
about 17 days at 100 ms per hash. So with no additional information
for an attacker, even a [a-zA-Z0-9]{4} password was tolerably secure,
and a [a-zA-Z0-9]{5} one was more than good enough if you changed it
once a year (would take about three years to crack at 100 ms/hash).

William Cheswick mentioned 8e9 hashes per second. While that sounds
low for good ol' Unix crypt() to me, at that rate, an exhaustive
search of [a-z0-9]{8} would take about 353 days, again according to my
calculator. [a-z0-9]{4} would finish in about 18 seconds. My _guess_,
without having looked up current numbers, is that these figures are at
least some two orders of magnitude too high given modern hardware.
Just look at EFF's good ol' Deep Crack.

I wasn't really around much at the time, but if _The Cuckoo's Egg_ is
to be believed, the bigger problem was that people in general weren't
any better at choosing good passwords (or keeping them secret) back
then than they are today. That honestly wouldn't particularly surprise
me. Technology advances, but people remain largely the same?

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sun Oct  6 03:49:27 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2019 13:49:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <20191005172944.GI20298@localhost>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <20191005172944.GI20298@localhost>
Message-ID: <e0468b1c-2b5c-803c-3baf-77cd9a424e90@kilonet.net>

I cracked a root password for a certain system, back in the ARPANET days.

If memory serves, it was 5 characters.

I was able to get my hands on the crypt() source, and figure out that 
the first part of it was intentionally "lengthy" and it just 
pre-computed a bunch of stuff on purpose. At least, that's my memory of 
it at the time.

I was able to separate that precompute part, and then loop through all 
combinations further down the crypt() function. Made it a lot faster.

Was able to crack a 5-character password in less than a week (or maybe 
it was a few days) on a VAX-11/750. Of course, it was a simple password 
consisting of lower-case alpha and no numerics.

I think the first letter of the password was "b" which helped a lot ;)

Nowadays, run hashcat on an HPC cluster and you can break a lot of stuff...

art k.


On 10/5/2019 1:29 PM, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> On 3 Oct 2019 18:51 +0000, from finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary):
>> password was something interesting like './,..,/' (it was entirely
>> punctuation characters, was around three different characters in total, and
>> was pretty damn short).
> I'm a bit late to the party here (it's been a crazy week for me and
> I'm only just now starting to catch up), but don't forget that hashed
> Unix passwords back then were limited to eight bytes (actually I
> believe the hard limit was 64 bits' worth of password, so if your
> system used less than 8 bits per character, you could theoretically
> cram more _characters_ into the password, but not more _entropy_,
> which topped out at 2^64 no matter what you did, and in practice a
> fair bit less because you wanted to be able to type it in).
>
> Of course, this wasn't a problem in practice when even just hashing a
> single candidate password took noticable fractions of a second. At 100
> ms per hash, while you could exhaustively search the lower
> alphanumerics four characters space within about two days (my
> calculator says 1.944 * 86400 seconds for that) if you could hog the
> computer for everyone, by the time you got to six characters the same
> search would take almost 7 years, and eight characters the better part
> of 9000 years (assuming you kept running it on the same hardware for
> the duration).
>
> Adding uppercase A-Z alongside lowercase a-z and 0-9 increases the
> exhaustive search time even for the four characters password space to
> about 17 days at 100 ms per hash. So with no additional information
> for an attacker, even a [a-zA-Z0-9]{4} password was tolerably secure,
> and a [a-zA-Z0-9]{5} one was more than good enough if you changed it
> once a year (would take about three years to crack at 100 ms/hash).
>
> William Cheswick mentioned 8e9 hashes per second. While that sounds
> low for good ol' Unix crypt() to me, at that rate, an exhaustive
> search of [a-z0-9]{8} would take about 353 days, again according to my
> calculator. [a-z0-9]{4} would finish in about 18 seconds. My _guess_,
> without having looked up current numbers, is that these figures are at
> least some two orders of magnitude too high given modern hardware.
> Just look at EFF's good ol' Deep Crack.
>
> I wasn't really around much at the time, but if _The Cuckoo's Egg_ is
> to be believed, the bigger problem was that people in general weren't
> any better at choosing good passwords (or keeping them secret) back
> then than they are today. That honestly wouldn't particularly surprise
> me. Technology advances, but people remain largely the same?
>


From tj at enoti.me  Sun Oct  6 04:05:04 2019
From: tj at enoti.me (Tom Jones)
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2019 19:05:04 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>
Message-ID: <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>

On Thu, Oct 03, 2019 at 09:30:31PM +0200, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
> Finn O'Leary <finnoleary at inventati.org> writes:
> 
> > Hi, I remember that someone had recovered some ancient /etc/passwd files
> > and had decrypted(?) them, and I remember reading that either ken or
> > dmr's
> > password was something interesting like './,..,/' (it was entirely
> > punctuation characters, was around three different characters in
> > total, and
> > was pretty damn short). I've tried to find this since, as a friend was
> > interested in it, and I cannot for the life of me find it!
> 
> I did this once, but I never managed to crack all of them.
> It was bwk who used /.,/.,
> 
> My findings (from https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/BSD-3-Snapshot-Development/etc/passwd):
> 
> gfVwhuAMF0Trw:dmac
> Pb1AmSpsVPG0Y:uio
> ymVglQZjbWYDE:/.,/.,
> c8UdIntIZCUIA:bourne
> AAZk9Aj5/Ue0E:foobar
> E9i8fWghn1p/I:apr1744
> IIVxQSvq1V9R2:axolotl
> 9EZLtSYjeEABE:network
> P0CHBwE/mB51k:whatnot
> Nc3IkFJyW2u7E:...hello
> olqH1vDqH38aw:sacristy
> 9ULn5cWTc0b9E:sherril.
> N33.MCNcTh5Qw:uucpuucp
> FH83PFo4z55cU:wendy!!!
> OVCPatZ8RFmFY:cowperso
> X.ZNnZrciWauE:5%ghj
> IL2bmGECQJgbk:pdq;dq
> 4BkcEieEtjWXI:jilland1
> 8PYh/dUBQT9Ss:theik!!!
> lj1vXnxTAPnDc:sn74193n
> 
> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole
> 8 letter lowercase + special symbols key space.
> 
> The uncracked ones are:
> 
> ozalp:m5syt3.lB5LAE:40:10:& Babaoglu,4156423806:/usr/ozalp:/bin/csh

m5syt3.lB5LAE:12ucdort

> hpk:9ycwM8mmmcp4Q:9:10:Howard Katseff,2019495337:/usr/staff/hpk:/bin/csh
> tbl:cBWEbG59spEmM:10:10:Tom London,2019492006:/usr/staff/tbl
> ken:ZghOT0eRm4U9s:52:10:& Thompson:/usr/staff/ken
> fabry:d9B17PTU2RTlM:305:10:Bob &,4156422714:/usr/staff/fabry:/bin/csh

I pointed my FreeBSD build machine at the password file, but it didn't
manage many guesses a second (55000 per core with 48 cores, using john). 

I asked a friend to point their GPU rig at the password file. It is a
MSI Graphics Card R9 290X and is doing about 255MHashes/Second using
hashcat. He is going to do the alphanumeric space and then call it a
day.

    "for hashcat, 80s DES crypt is -m 1500"

- [tj]

From mparson at bl.org  Sun Oct  6 05:44:38 2019
From: mparson at bl.org (Michael Parson)
Date: Sat, 5 Oct 2019 14:44:38 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] earliest Unix roff
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2N89jOBK+T9EPn8JKNaSOUx=yDr9t4=CcyHM+3qnB2bEg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NmXGzN7imTKy-RRWRZ2ewWMEmUV9oDuP3-e3a4R+ynpA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2PXYWpv-8BQNKvUjgT=2W81GgzaOLyZiQ5=sM9+LXCWnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2MDbmoeMZq1esbuQvOCU7to0dUWsFyx98UQDLE3-c4fOA@mail.gmail.com>
 <201909132024.x8DKObEP013266@darkstar.fourwinds.com>
 <CAC20D2PvA26HMoABOcLMoS9Lu8=L3Wtx_8yK83K+vbhoMZt-hQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <463d5cc4-9bef-9ac3-a680-a5161d664dc1@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Nz-ofwD41vULF2-TL8-C33heCiHvoNNbcuj6GGKhtKzQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190913221345.GA16129@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAC20D2OQD-NJaFsqsLVL_kqmCsSeUOKAr7dm71P4uN9N8m+AbQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190914020240.GO2046@mcvoy.com> <20190914024433.GA19193@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <2e84c4d0-5239-b223-856d-00aacf8d3028@andrewnesbit.org>
 <201909150654.x8F6sChG021185@freefriends.org>
 <CAC20D2PfLq=J5ei+izXb2J7dSvU6=L6-GRd0gKA2ShSNg1=qBg@mail.gmail.com>
 <201909160552.x8G5qBYK025195@freefriends.org>
 <CAC20D2N89jOBK+T9EPn8JKNaSOUx=yDr9t4=CcyHM+3qnB2bEg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910051441240.28993@neener.bl.org>

(pardon the reply on an oldish thread, I've not read this group in a
while)

On Mon, 16 Sep 2019, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 16, 2019 at 1:52 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
>
>> I use the standalone Info reader (named info) if I want to look at the
>> Info output.
>>
> Fair enough, but be careful, while I admit I have not looked in a while,
> info(gnu) relies on emacs keybindings and a number of very emacs'ish things.
> Every time I have tried to deal with it, I have unprogram my fingers and
> reset them to emacs.
>
> If it would have used more(1) [or even less(1)] then I would not be as
> annoyed.
> Unix had fine tools [man(1), more(1), et al] and rms and friends felt the
> need to replace them with ITS-like programs.

A few years ago, I was introduced to pinfo[0] for reading info pages, it's
more like using the lynx browser to read info docs rather than the emacs
keybindings.

-- 
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ

[0] http://pinfo.sourceforge.net

From arnold at skeeve.com  Sun Oct  6 18:03:26 2019
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Sun, 06 Oct 2019 02:03:26 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
 <389f5a69-e103-7ec3-9b95-3e6e294a86e6@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201910060803.x9683QTm020295@freefriends.org>

Jon Forrest <nobozo at gmail.com> wrote:

> One slightly OT fact about TeX. On my 16GB, Core i7, SATA SSD
> Lenovo T430s laptop running Fedora 30, it takes ~3 seconds to run TeX on
> the ~900 page TeXBook. That's pretty fast.

You can thank Moore's Law for this. I remember trying to run TeX on
BSD 4.[12] vax with 4 Meg of memory and it taking many minutes to format
a single page.

The first time it became easy to run TeX, for me, was on sparcstation
class systems in the early 1990s.

> TeX contains all kinds of
> code to make it fit in the constraints of a 1980s computer. I wonder
> whether a redesign for a 2020 computer would be faster or slower.

I think it's just compute-intensive code. Moern versions of TeX use
WebToC to translate Knuth's web/pascal code to C, and that has been
the case for a long time.

(As an aside, everyone here who's read "TeX: The Program", raise
you hand.  [I have, but only once.])

> I suspect, but can't prove, that classic [nt]roff might also
> benefit in the same way. groff was written latter, so it might
> suffer less.

I don't think classic [nt]roff suffers at all. I remember (boy do I sound
like an old f*art) circa 1991, having both nroff and groff on a '486 class
system.  nroff was noticeably faster at formatting man pages than
groff was.  (Groff, of course, was ditroff and gave me PostScript output,
but comparing the two versions of nroff for text output, there
was a noticeable difference.)

Again, today, it doesn't really matter.

Arnold

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Mon Oct  7 03:47:47 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sun, 06 Oct 2019 13:47:47 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] lowercase vs. uppercase PDP-7?
Message-ID: <201910061747.x96Hllxs034213@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> The scans for v0 code are in lowercase. I assume printed on TTY 37.
> But why is the early PDP-7 code in lowercase?

Once you've used a device with lower case, upper case looks as
offensive as a ransom note. I went through this in moving "up"
from Whirlwind to IBM's 704. By 1969, we'd all had lower-case
terminals in our homes for several years.

So Unix was ASCII from the start. Upper-case from a TTY 33 was converted
to lower. On the PDP-11, at least, there was an escape convention for
upper case. I believe the lower-case convention was explained in the
introduction. In particular if you logged in with an upper-case user
name, the terminal driver was set to convert everything to lower.

Remember, too, that 33's used yellow paper. For printing on white
we had use other machines that had full ASCII support.

Doug

From david at kdbarto.org  Mon Oct  7 22:56:02 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 05:56:02 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
Message-ID: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>

I’ve got a few books I’ve just pulled off the shelf and no longer want/need.
I’m hoping someone will give them a good home.

UNIX System Labs Inc UNIX(r) System V Release 4
	Programmers Guide: System Services and Application Packaging Tools
	Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI) Reference Manual (2 copies)

AT&T 3B2/3B5/3B15 Computers Assembly Programming Manual

Sun Microsystems Inc (Sun Technical Reports)
	The UNIX System - 1985
	Sun 3 Architecture - 1986

I’m willing to split postage on mailing them wherever. If you are local (San Diego)
I’m willing to meet you wherever for an exchange and a coffee.

	David
(Also posted on the cctalk mailing list)


From jcapp at anteil.com  Mon Oct  7 23:05:19 2019
From: jcapp at anteil.com (Jim Capp)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 09:05:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
Message-ID: <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>

David,

I’m interested and will give them a good home.  I’m in Pennsylvania, so coffee would not work.  I’m also willing to cover your shipping costs. 

Cheers,

Jim


> On Oct 7, 2019, at 8:56 AM, David <david at kdbarto.org> wrote:
> 
> I’ve got a few books I’ve just pulled off the shelf and no longer want/need.
> I’m hoping someone will give them a good home.
> 
> UNIX System Labs Inc UNIX(r) System V Release 4
>    Programmers Guide: System Services and Application Packaging Tools
>    Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI) Reference Manual (2 copies)
> 
> AT&T 3B2/3B5/3B15 Computers Assembly Programming Manual
> 
> Sun Microsystems Inc (Sun Technical Reports)
>    The UNIX System - 1985
>    Sun 3 Architecture - 1986
> 
> I’m willing to split postage on mailing them wherever. If you are local (San Diego)
> I’m willing to meet you wherever for an exchange and a coffee.
> 
>    David
> (Also posted on the cctalk mailing list)
> 


From david at kdbarto.org  Mon Oct  7 23:15:00 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 06:15:00 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
Message-ID: <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>

These went exceptionally fast.

Timing of the first response was Jim Capp by about 1 minute. So if Jim will send me his physical address off list, I’ll coordinate with him in shipping them.

	David

> On Oct 7, 2019, at 6:05 AM, Jim Capp <jcapp at anteil.com> wrote:
> 
> David,
> 
> I’m interested and will give them a good home.  I’m in Pennsylvania, so coffee would not work.  I’m also willing to cover your shipping costs. 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
>> On Oct 7, 2019, at 8:56 AM, David <david at kdbarto.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I’ve got a few books I’ve just pulled off the shelf and no longer want/need.
>> I’m hoping someone will give them a good home.
>> 
>> UNIX System Labs Inc UNIX(r) System V Release 4
>>   Programmers Guide: System Services and Application Packaging Tools
>>   Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI) Reference Manual (2 copies)
>> 
>> AT&T 3B2/3B5/3B15 Computers Assembly Programming Manual
>> 
>> Sun Microsystems Inc (Sun Technical Reports)
>>   The UNIX System - 1985
>>   Sun 3 Architecture - 1986
>> 
>> I’m willing to split postage on mailing them wherever. If you are local (San Diego)
>> I’m willing to meet you wherever for an exchange and a coffee.
>> 
>>   David
>> (Also posted on the cctalk mailing list)
>> 
> 


From web at loomcom.com  Tue Oct  8 03:17:35 2019
From: web at loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito)
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:17:35 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
Message-ID: <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>


David writes:

> These went exceptionally fast.
>
> Timing of the first response was Jim Capp by about 1 minute. So if Jim
> will send me his physical address off list, I’ll coordinate with him
> in shipping them.


All (and especially Jim and David!)

I'm 100% fine with Jim getting these manuals (lord knows I don't have
any more room on my shelves!), but may I ask that the 3B2 manual be
scanned? There is an existing copy of this manual floating around
online, but the copy that was scanned was a proof print, has extensive
markup, and a very poor scan quality. I would love to see a better
version available!

All the best,

-Seth
--
Seth Morabito
Poulsbo, WA, USA
web at loomcom.com

From web at loomcom.com  Tue Oct  8 03:26:49 2019
From: web at loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito)
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:26:49 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
Message-ID: <87v9t0tqjq.fsf@loomcom.com>


U'll Be King of the Stars writes:

> On 04/10/2019 15:57, aksr wrote:
>
> [1] LaTeX is excellent compared to Markdown.  You can build a career
> on top of it but not on top of Markdown.  I don't even consider MD a
> proper markup format, aside from the simplest cases such as writing
> introductory README.md files.  The only thing that La/TeX and MD have
> in common for me is that they are both intolerable without Emacs modes
> (AUCTeX and markdown-down.el).

[With sincere apologies for taking this slightly more off-topic, but
still within the realm of the vaguely UNIX-y...]

This is one of the reasons I live in Emacs, too. I make extensive use of
org-mode, not only for organizing my life, but also for generating
documentation. Org-mode has extensive native support for LaTeX markup,
and exporting marked-up documents to PDF via LaTeX. Additionally, of
course, it can export to HTML and even Markdown if you like. But the
LaTeX support makes it killer.

In fact, veering back on-topic, there is even a mode to export Org-mode
files to Groff Memorandum Macros documents[1]! It's a pretty powerful
system.

-Seth


[1] https://orgmode.org/worg/exporters/ox-groff.html
--
Seth Morabito
Poulsbo, WA, USA
web at loomcom.com

From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct  8 04:34:55 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 14:34:55 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
Message-ID: <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>

I'd also like to ask that the Sun stuff be scanned ... thanks!


On 10/7/2019 1:17 PM, Seth J. Morabito wrote:
> David writes:
>
>> These went exceptionally fast.
>>
>> Timing of the first response was Jim Capp by about 1 minute. So if Jim
>> will send me his physical address off list, I’ll coordinate with him
>> in shipping them.
>
> All (and especially Jim and David!)
>
> I'm 100% fine with Jim getting these manuals (lord knows I don't have
> any more room on my shelves!), but may I ask that the 3B2 manual be
> scanned? There is an existing copy of this manual floating around
> online, but the copy that was scanned was a proof print, has extensive
> markup, and a very poor scan quality. I would love to see a better
> version available!
>
> All the best,
>
> -Seth
> --
> Seth Morabito
> Poulsbo, WA, USA
> web at loomcom.com
>
>


From aek at bitsavers.org  Tue Oct  8 04:38:07 2019
From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 11:38:07 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Poll: good location for Unix documentation?
In-Reply-To: <20190929213446.GA30379@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20190929185320.5902C18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <20190929213446.GA30379@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <d935b12c-f88a-0649-03c1-98738dcb8c8b@bitsavers.org>



On 9/29/19 2:34 PM, Warren Toomey wrote:
> Can someone point me at the
> docs that outline the procedure to get documents to Al

There is no documentation, just an email adr on the bottom of the main page
I can email you ftp upload info



From alan at alanlee.org  Tue Oct  8 04:36:13 2019
From: alan at alanlee.org (alan at alanlee.org)
Date: Mon, 07 Oct 2019 14:36:13 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
Message-ID: <8d0f5706d29fd08d2a8e5d3c47a301ef@alanlee.org>

Yes.  I was about to ask the same question on scanning.  Would be very 
handy to others.

Thanks,

-Alan

On 2019-10-07 13:17, Seth J. Morabito wrote:
> David writes:
> 
>> These went exceptionally fast.
>> 
>> Timing of the first response was Jim Capp by about 1 minute. So if Jim
>> will send me his physical address off list, I’ll coordinate with him
>> in shipping them.
> 
> 
> All (and especially Jim and David!)
> 
> I'm 100% fine with Jim getting these manuals (lord knows I don't have
> any more room on my shelves!), but may I ask that the 3B2 manual be
> scanned? There is an existing copy of this manual floating around
> online, but the copy that was scanned was a proof print, has extensive
> markup, and a very poor scan quality. I would love to see a better
> version available!
> 
> All the best,
> 
> -Seth
> --
> Seth Morabito
> Poulsbo, WA, USA
> web at loomcom.com

From chet.ramey at case.edu  Tue Oct  8 05:01:04 2019
From: chet.ramey at case.edu (Chet Ramey)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 15:01:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
 <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>

On 10/7/19 2:34 PM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> I'd also like to ask that the Sun stuff be scanned ... thanks!

https://www.rcsri.org/library/80s/UNIX-A-Sun-Tech-Report.pdf


-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet at case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

From athornton at gmail.com  Tue Oct  8 05:14:10 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 12:14:10 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <87v9t0tqjq.fsf@loomcom.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
 <87v9t0tqjq.fsf@loomcom.com>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic0pd6htp__6Y7o0Won4fb7gFwF-rpgfWN4qGrW+tOfAMA@mail.gmail.com>

And just in case you didn't know about it....

https://github.com/yjwen/org-reveal

This converts org-mode docs to reveal.js presentations.

https://athornton.github.io/Jupyter-PCW-2019/ is an example

On Mon, Oct 7, 2019 at 10:36 AM Seth J. Morabito <web at loomcom.com> wrote:

>
> U'll Be King of the Stars writes:
>
> > On 04/10/2019 15:57, aksr wrote:
> >
> > [1] LaTeX is excellent compared to Markdown.  You can build a career
> > on top of it but not on top of Markdown.  I don't even consider MD a
> > proper markup format, aside from the simplest cases such as writing
> > introductory README.md files.  The only thing that La/TeX and MD have
> > in common for me is that they are both intolerable without Emacs modes
> > (AUCTeX and markdown-down.el).
>
> [With sincere apologies for taking this slightly more off-topic, but
> still within the realm of the vaguely UNIX-y...]
>
> This is one of the reasons I live in Emacs, too. I make extensive use of
> org-mode, not only for organizing my life, but also for generating
> documentation. Org-mode has extensive native support for LaTeX markup,
> and exporting marked-up documents to PDF via LaTeX. Additionally, of
> course, it can export to HTML and even Markdown if you like. But the
> LaTeX support makes it killer.
>
> In fact, veering back on-topic, there is even a mode to export Org-mode
> files to Groff Memorandum Macros documents[1]! It's a pretty powerful
> system.
>
> -Seth
>
>
> [1] https://orgmode.org/worg/exporters/ox-groff.html
> --
> Seth Morabito
> Poulsbo, WA, USA
> web at loomcom.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
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From david at kdbarto.org  Tue Oct  8 07:19:58 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 14:19:58 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
Message-ID: <48ED5487-B872-4E98-945D-50C3D8E6F3D0@kdbarto.org>

I’ll leave it to Jim to see about scanning it (?bitsavers?). I don’t have the equipment or the bandwidth to do it.

	David

> On Oct 7, 2019, at 10:17 AM, Seth J. Morabito <web at loomcom.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> David writes:
> 
>> These went exceptionally fast.
>> 
>> Timing of the first response was Jim Capp by about 1 minute. So if Jim
>> will send me his physical address off list, I’ll coordinate with him
>> in shipping them.
> 
> 
> All (and especially Jim and David!)
> 
> I'm 100% fine with Jim getting these manuals (lord knows I don't have
> any more room on my shelves!), but may I ask that the 3B2 manual be
> scanned? There is an existing copy of this manual floating around
> online, but the copy that was scanned was a proof print, has extensive
> markup, and a very poor scan quality. I would love to see a better
> version available!
> 
> All the best,
> 
> -Seth
> --
> Seth Morabito
> Poulsbo, WA, USA
> web at loomcom.com


From david at kdbarto.org  Tue Oct  8 07:31:14 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 14:31:14 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
 <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>
 <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
Message-ID: <C6821076-03A0-4802-A22C-99FC296A9CD5@kdbarto.org>

> On Oct 7, 2019, at 12:01 PM, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey at case.edu> wrote:
> 
> On 10/7/19 2:34 PM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
>> I'd also like to ask that the Sun stuff be scanned ... thanks!
> 
> https://www.rcsri.org/library/80s/UNIX-A-Sun-Tech-Report.pdf
> 
> 
> -- 
> ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
> 		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
> Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet at case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

Different from the 2 that I’ve got. So If we can get the 2 scanned, all for the better.

	David



From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct  8 08:31:24 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 18:31:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
 <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>
 <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
Message-ID: <b5152960-3253-bc31-d21a-0465b432af65@kilonet.net>

Thank you! Any chance the Sun-3 tech stuff is online anywhere? I still 
have a 3/280 that I might have to resurrect at some point if it dies (it 
was running solid last time I turned it on), and any little bit helps.

On 10/7/2019 3:01 PM, Chet Ramey wrote:
> On 10/7/19 2:34 PM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
>> I'd also like to ask that the Sun stuff be scanned ... thanks!
> https://www.rcsri.org/library/80s/UNIX-A-Sun-Tech-Report.pdf
>
>


From chet.ramey at case.edu  Tue Oct  8 10:21:41 2019
From: chet.ramey at case.edu (Chet Ramey)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 20:21:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <b5152960-3253-bc31-d21a-0465b432af65@kilonet.net>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
 <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>
 <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
 <b5152960-3253-bc31-d21a-0465b432af65@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <a0d31177-d7a6-4461-97b4-aabd0f70f544@case.edu>

On 10/7/19 6:31 PM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> Thank you! Any chance the Sun-3 tech stuff is online anywhere? 

I looked briefly but unsuccessfully.


-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet at case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

From earl.baugh at gmail.com  Tue Oct  8 10:24:15 2019
From: earl.baugh at gmail.com (Earl Baugh)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 20:24:15 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <a0d31177-d7a6-4461-97b4-aabd0f70f544@case.edu>
References: <a0d31177-d7a6-4461-97b4-aabd0f70f544@case.edu>
Message-ID: <F392CB1C-40E2-4671-966A-EAEDA097BD0F@gmail.com>

What do you need? I have a bunch of Sun 3 docs. ( I have a Sun 1/100, Sun 2/120, Sun 3/110 and Sun 4/110 — on of each of the first 4 generations, all working 😀) 

Earl 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 7, 2019, at 8:22 PM, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey at case.edu> wrote:
> 
> ﻿On 10/7/19 6:31 PM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
>> Thank you! Any chance the Sun-3 tech stuff is online anywhere? 
> 
> I looked briefly but unsuccessfully.
> 
> 
> -- 
> ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
>         ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
> Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet at case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

From chet.ramey at case.edu  Tue Oct  8 10:40:42 2019
From: chet.ramey at case.edu (Chet Ramey)
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2019 20:40:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <F392CB1C-40E2-4671-966A-EAEDA097BD0F@gmail.com>
References: <a0d31177-d7a6-4461-97b4-aabd0f70f544@case.edu>
 <F392CB1C-40E2-4671-966A-EAEDA097BD0F@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0a67d788-3c59-5705-0886-1d1087d1489b@case.edu>

On 10/7/19 8:24 PM, Earl Baugh wrote:
> What do you need? I have a bunch of Sun 3 docs. ( I have a Sun 1/100, Sun 2/120, Sun 3/110 and Sun 4/110 — on of each of the first 4 generations, all working 😀) 

I have the sun-3 architecture report; I just looked for the benefit of
the list.


-- 
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
		 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU    chet at case.edu    http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/

From akosela at andykosela.com  Tue Oct  8 17:27:56 2019
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 09:27:56 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
References: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
 <1614BEF9-8622-4625-891C-A784592D9B49@anteil.com>
 <4DD83A6C-6825-4B22-A796-1A313F5F8478@kdbarto.org>
 <87wodgtqz4.fsf@loomcom.com>
 <ab402999-a819-9968-5dc3-bd52451b8412@kilonet.net>
 <16def659-e7f6-357e-f55c-dc10eb2b0c4a@case.edu>
Message-ID: <CALMnNGixVjpv3NoYKkAxqG7S_d_o5z2F7YW_oDfFO8DvFdmMFQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Monday, October 7, 2019, Chet Ramey <chet.ramey at case.edu> wrote:

> On 10/7/19 2:34 PM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> > I'd also like to ask that the Sun stuff be scanned ... thanks!
>
> https://www.rcsri.org/library/80s/UNIX-A-Sun-Tech-Report.pdf
>
>
This is pure gold.  Thank you.

--Andy
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From dot at dotat.at  Tue Oct  8 23:21:16 2019
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 14:21:16 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] RFC formatting
In-Reply-To: <CAP6exYJYC0ALa6cV7krft_5mb5_UG1NFU1UGphXrFKKXG_eM2A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAP6exYJYC0ALa6cV7krft_5mb5_UG1NFU1UGphXrFKKXG_eM2A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1910081346550.9957@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:

> "why is the formatting so weird" someone asked me.
>
> I am guessing, looking at RFC 1, that it was formatted with an
> ancestor of runoff but ... anyone?

This is really a question for the Internet History list, I think
http://www.postel.org/internet-history/

I don't know how things were done in the 1970s, except that the NIC used
Englebart's NLS. I get the impression that the earliest RFCs were
formatted using the facilities at the author's home institution; I don't
know about the mechanics of duplication and distribution, but it relied on
paper mail for some years until the NIC spun up an FTP server, e.g.
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc95

For a very long time, RFCs and drafts were produced using nroff. You can
see some of the remnants of that here:
https://www.rfc-editor.org/pubprocess/tools/

For about 20 years there has been an XML source format for RFCs
https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2629

But in the final stages the RFC Editor would convert to nroff to produce
the final published form.

They have just this week switched to a toolchain based on v3 of the
xml2rfc source format. I believe they aren't using nroff for the text
format any more, the publishing tool produces it directly.

https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/rfc-interest/jemoHh4imSYkX_Oo2FvMyt_7ZYg

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/
defend the right to speak, write, worship, associate, and vote freely

From krewat at kilonet.net  Wed Oct  9 03:38:42 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 13:38:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net>

I have some more out of this list, but not sure if I should send them or 
not. Ken's has not been cracked - yet.

ozalp:m5syt3.lB5LAE:40:10:& Babaoglu,4156423806:/usr/ozalp:/bin/csh

hpk:9ycwM8mmmcp4Q:9:10:Howard Katseff,2019495337:/usr/staff/hpk:/bin/csh

tbl:cBWEbG59spEmM:10:10:Tom London,2019492006:/usr/staff/tbl

ken:ZghOT0eRm4U9s:52:10:& Thompson:/usr/staff/ken

fabry:d9B17PTU2RTlM:305:10:Bob &,4156422714:/usr/staff/fabry:/bin/csh





On 10/5/2019 2:05 PM, Tom Jones wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 03, 2019 at 09:30:31PM +0200, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
>> Finn O'Leary <finnoleary at inventati.org> writes:
>>
>>> Hi, I remember that someone had recovered some ancient /etc/passwd files
>>> and had decrypted(?) them, and I remember reading that either ken or
>>> dmr's
>>> password was something interesting like './,..,/' (it was entirely
>>> punctuation characters, was around three different characters in
>>> total, and
>>> was pretty damn short). I've tried to find this since, as a friend was
>>> interested in it, and I cannot for the life of me find it!
>> I did this once, but I never managed to crack all of them.
>> It was bwk who used /.,/.,
>>
>> My findings (from https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/BSD-3-Snapshot-Development/etc/passwd):
>>
>> gfVwhuAMF0Trw:dmac
>> Pb1AmSpsVPG0Y:uio
>> ymVglQZjbWYDE:/.,/.,
>> c8UdIntIZCUIA:bourne
>> AAZk9Aj5/Ue0E:foobar
>> E9i8fWghn1p/I:apr1744
>> IIVxQSvq1V9R2:axolotl
>> 9EZLtSYjeEABE:network
>> P0CHBwE/mB51k:whatnot
>> Nc3IkFJyW2u7E:...hello
>> olqH1vDqH38aw:sacristy
>> 9ULn5cWTc0b9E:sherril.
>> N33.MCNcTh5Qw:uucpuucp
>> FH83PFo4z55cU:wendy!!!
>> OVCPatZ8RFmFY:cowperso
>> X.ZNnZrciWauE:5%ghj
>> IL2bmGECQJgbk:pdq;dq
>> 4BkcEieEtjWXI:jilland1
>> 8PYh/dUBQT9Ss:theik!!!
>> lj1vXnxTAPnDc:sn74193n
>>
>> But I never managed to crack ken's password with the hash
>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s, and I think I enumerated the whole
>> 8 letter lowercase + special symbols key space.
>>
>> The uncracked ones are:
>>
>> ozalp:m5syt3.lB5LAE:40:10:& Babaoglu,4156423806:/usr/ozalp:/bin/csh
> m5syt3.lB5LAE:12ucdort
>
>> hpk:9ycwM8mmmcp4Q:9:10:Howard Katseff,2019495337:/usr/staff/hpk:/bin/csh
>> tbl:cBWEbG59spEmM:10:10:Tom London,2019492006:/usr/staff/tbl
>> ken:ZghOT0eRm4U9s:52:10:& Thompson:/usr/staff/ken
>> fabry:d9B17PTU2RTlM:305:10:Bob &,4156422714:/usr/staff/fabry:/bin/csh
> I pointed my FreeBSD build machine at the password file, but it didn't
> manage many guesses a second (55000 per core with 48 cores, using john).
>
> I asked a friend to point their GPU rig at the password file. It is a
> MSI Graphics Card R9 290X and is doing about 255MHashes/Second using
> hashcat. He is going to do the alphanumeric space and then call it a
> day.
>
>      "for hashcat, 80s DES crypt is -m 1500"
>
> - [tj]
>

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From norman at oclsc.org  Wed Oct  9 04:38:43 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 14:38:43 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
Message-ID: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Back in the heyday of uucp, some sites were lazy and allowed
uucico access to any file in the file system (that was accessible
to the uucp user).  A common ploy for white hats and black hats
was to try
	uucp remotesys!/etc/passwd ~/remotesys
or the like, and see what came in and whether it had any easy
hashes (shadow password files didn't quite exist yet).

The system known to the uucp world as research! was more
careful: / was mapped to /usr/spool/uucp.  We left a phony
etc/passwd file there, containing plausible-looking entries
with hashes that, if cracked, spelled out

	why
	are
	you
	wasting
	your
	time

I don't remember whether anyone ever stole it by uucp, though
I think Bill Cheswick used it to set up the phony system
environment for Berferd to play in (Google for `cheswick berferd'
if you don't know the story).

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

From krewat at kilonet.net  Wed Oct  9 04:51:28 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 14:51:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>

Slightly off-topic, but still UUCP related. If a SunOS box NFS exported 
/, and I could mount /, even without root NFS access, using the uucp 
user, I could overwrite uucico because it was owned by uucp. The entry 
in inetd.conf would automatically run uucico as root. Telnet to the box 
on that port, and it would happily run whatever I put in the uucico file.

Bad joo-joo.



On 10/8/2019 2:38 PM, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Back in the heyday of uucp, some sites were lazy and allowed
> uucico access to any file in the file system (that was accessible
> to the uucp user).  A common ploy for white hats and black hats
> was to try
> 	uucp remotesys!/etc/passwd ~/remotesys
> or the like, and see what came in and whether it had any easy
> hashes (shadow password files didn't quite exist yet).
>
> The system known to the uucp world as research! was more
> careful: / was mapped to /usr/spool/uucp.  We left a phony
> etc/passwd file there, containing plausible-looking entries
> with hashes that, if cracked, spelled out
>
> 	why
> 	are
> 	you
> 	wasting
> 	your
> 	time
>
> I don't remember whether anyone ever stole it by uucp, though
> I think Bill Cheswick used it to set up the phony system
> environment for Berferd to play in (Google for `cheswick berferd'
> if you don't know the story).
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>


From dave at horsfall.org  Wed Oct  9 06:40:35 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 07:40:35 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>
 <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090738400.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Tue, 8 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:

> I have some more out of this list, but not sure if I should send them or
> not. Ken's has not been cracked - yet.

Has anyone tried "John the Ripper"?  And there was another tool (name
forgotten) that was specifically designed to attack crypt().

-- Dave

From dave at horsfall.org  Wed Oct  9 06:52:24 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 07:52:24 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090743160.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Tue, 8 Oct 2019, Norman Wilson wrote:

> I don't remember whether anyone ever stole it by uucp, though I think 
> Bill Cheswick used it to set up the phony system environment for Berferd 
> to play in (Google for `cheswick berferd' if you don't know the story).

And an excellent story: if you haven't read it then read it; if you have 
read it then read it again.  I'm sure that I have the book somewhere.

Semi-spoiler: the protagonist used to sleep next to his terminal (leaving 
his girlfriend alone) until the perp tried to log in, upon which alarms 
went off and he was finally able to trace the call.

Or am I confusing it with "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll?

-- Dave

From krewat at kilonet.net  Wed Oct  9 06:57:06 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 16:57:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090738400.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>
 <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090738400.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <b7652ffc-4dab-e6be-c90f-124fc558d292@kilonet.net>

Using hashcat on an nvidia GPU cluster. crypt() is slow on it, I guess 
because the GPUs are not able to do it efficiently.

On 10/8/2019 4:40 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:
>
>> I have some more out of this list, but not sure if I should send them or
>> not. Ken's has not been cracked - yet.
>
> Has anyone tried "John the Ripper"?  And there was another tool (name
> forgotten) that was specifically designed to attack crypt().
>
> -- Dave
>


From dave at horsfall.org  Wed Oct  9 07:02:42 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 08:02:42 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Tue, 8 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:

> Slightly off-topic, but still UUCP related. If a SunOS box NFS exported 
> /, and I could mount /, even without root NFS access, using the uucp 
> user, I could overwrite uucico because it was owned by uucp. The entry 
> in inetd.conf would automatically run uucico as root. Telnet to the box 
> on that port, and it would happily run whatever I put in the uucico 
> file.
>
> Bad joo-joo.

*Cough cough* I remember that *cough cough*...

Unix systems in those days were broken in subtle ways; we once broke into 
a Gould (marketed as the most secure box on the planet[*]) by 
social-engineering a marketoid (we tricked him into running a custom "ls" 
or something).  "Thank you Sir, and we've just broken into your Gould; 
there's the root prompt".

[*]
They never did pay us our bounty, because we "cheated" :-)

-- Dave

From michael at kjorling.se  Wed Oct  9 07:15:22 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 21:15:22 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090743160.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090743160.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <tqkjt9nn7p9zgkk9cm9d@localhost>

On 9 Oct 2019 07:52 +1100, from dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall):
> Semi-spoiler: the protagonist used to sleep next to his terminal (leaving
> his girlfriend alone) until the perp tried to log in, upon which alarms went
> off and he was finally able to trace the call.
> 
> Or am I confusing it with "The Cuckoo's Egg" by Clifford Stoll?

You might be. At least, what you describe definitely bears a close
resemblance to events recounted in Stoll's book. Of course, that by
itself doesn't mean something similar can't have been done by or
happened to others. When all you've got is a hammer...

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From web at loomcom.com  Wed Oct  9 07:11:14 2019
From: web at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito)
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 14:11:14 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] eqn
In-Reply-To: <CAP2nic0pd6htp__6Y7o0Won4fb7gFwF-rpgfWN4qGrW+tOfAMA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191004042034.GS13997@mcvoy.com> <20191004145750.GA1466863@lap>
 <4ba947af-00c7-53ee-046a-3b6306e5d1f0@andrewnesbit.org>
 <87v9t0tqjq.fsf@loomcom.com>
 <CAP2nic0pd6htp__6Y7o0Won4fb7gFwF-rpgfWN4qGrW+tOfAMA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <50bb3193-4c1c-4185-b7a3-8c93ef2b44c7@www.fastmail.com>



On Mon, Oct 7, 2019, at 12:14 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:
> And just in case you didn't know about it....
> 
> https://github.com/yjwen/org-reveal
> 
> This converts org-mode docs to reveal.js presentations.
> 
> https://athornton.github.io/Jupyter-PCW-2019/ is an example

I was not familiar with this, thanks for pointing it out!

In the past, for presentations I have used org-beamer to produce LaTeX Beamer presentations, which works very well, but of course there are no fancy transitions or anything. I'll definitely check out reveal.js, I didn't know that was a thing.

-Seth
--
 Seth Morabito
 Poulsbo, WA
 web at loomcom.com


From krewat at kilonet.net  Wed Oct  9 07:22:03 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 17:22:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>



On 10/8/2019 5:02 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Tue, 8 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:
>
>> Slightly off-topic, but still UUCP related. If a SunOS box NFS 
>> exported /, and I could mount /, even without root NFS access, using 
>> the uucp user, I could overwrite uucico because it was owned by uucp. 
>> The entry in inetd.conf would automatically run uucico as root. 
>> Telnet to the box on that port, and it would happily run whatever I 
>> put in the uucico file.
>>
>> Bad joo-joo.
>
> *Cough cough* I remember that *cough cough*...

cough cough back at you, sir ;)

>
> Unix systems in those days were broken in subtle ways; we once broke 
> into a Gould (marketed as the most secure box on the planet[*]) by 
> social-engineering a marketoid (we tricked him into running a custom 
> "ls" or something).  "Thank you Sir, and we've just broken into your 
> Gould; there's the root prompt".

I was able to social-engineer an operator a few times on TOPS-10 systems 
back in the day to reset passwords, or mount disks. "Can you give me a 
list of disks you have ready to mount?" - "blah blah blah" - "OK, mount 
pack BLARG".

But then, one time, I was talking to an "operator" for a while before I 
realized it was an ELIZA-like program that kept going back around in a 
loop. Trying to be suave, I started it by asking how they were doing, 
and got all sorts of weird responses.

At some point, realizing I was talking to a bot, I said: "I feel bad" - 
and it replied something to the effect of "Can you explain why you feel 
bad?". Typical ELIZA response ;)

Someone at that university had a sense of humor, that's for sure. Broke 
into it anyway guessing passwords.

ak



From jcapp at anteil.com  Wed Oct  9 08:59:24 2019
From: jcapp at anteil.com (Jim Capp)
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 2019 18:59:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <07F6CE19-6D98-4089-8142-517AB142C70E@kdbarto.org>
Message-ID: <20774963.3022.1570575564420.JavaMail.root@zimbraanteil>

David, 


Did you get my "off list" email about the books? 


Cheers, 


Jim 



From: "David" <david at kdbarto.org> 
To: "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" <tuhs at tuhs.org> 
Sent: Monday, October 7, 2019 8:56:02 AM 
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books 

I’ve got a few books I’ve just pulled off the shelf and no longer want/need. 
I’m hoping someone will give them a good home. 

UNIX System Labs Inc UNIX(r) System V Release 4 
Programmers Guide: System Services and Application Packaging Tools 
Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI) Reference Manual (2 copies) 

AT&T 3B2/3B5/3B15 Computers Assembly Programming Manual 

Sun Microsystems Inc (Sun Technical Reports) 
The UNIX System - 1985 
Sun 3 Architecture - 1986 

I’m willing to split postage on mailing them wherever. If you are local (San Diego) 
I’m willing to meet you wherever for an exchange and a coffee. 

David 
(Also posted on the cctalk mailing list) 

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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Wed Oct  9 10:38:11 2019
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 17:38:11 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] INed/Rand Editor/Ned [was Re: My EuroBSDcon talk
 (preview for commentary)
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfoL2JGwhE1kn3sckUrREKq=v9+6oLm1H8gAf446y87SQg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANCZdfrK4iFQCWOFP4MoUggpfJVmoJ0dnSg6H0cCi4dop7sVXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Nq+eTQDdft5nW8kKcWFdt9ZK4-5kJX6OcMcYBffk9HGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190915232524.9A5491570CE9@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <CANCZdfr83yx7eUu-t+j-D8z9TMSkuAvPpb81hJdk95070gmZcA@mail.gmail.com>
 <7F62BF6B-8FEA-4C43-9E35-05BDE9BF04EA@ccc.com>
 <CAKr6gn3dKiFCr3D4sYv1+xJbD4cHq5X6AFEtz8MF7NtKdnY6dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190916023738.F34E81570CE9@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <B2C11377-D557-4542-94D9-31E3D9C789D6@technologists.com>
 <CAC20D2MfPCf7Dqke_U=Bod+WeZnvpszrgo7TwpeJB5G3CsG+oA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoL2JGwhE1kn3sckUrREKq=v9+6oLm1H8gAf446y87SQg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c0dbd69cdf46c34f@orthanc.ca>

Warner Losh writes:

> Venix had vi. At least 2.0 pulled that in from Berkeley...

But they built it with '#define SMALL' or whatever the #ifdef was for
the 16-bit version.  I was working at a court reporting company at the
time, and we had just introduced the court reporters to UNIX for editing,
proofing, and typesetting the transcripts.  Within a few weeks they were
blowing through the limits of the 16-bit-restricted Venix vi.  I ended up
bootlegging the vi source from a friend so we could compile an un-
restricted address space binary for them to use.

This same bunch of reporters, within a couple of months, were writing
their own awk scripts to look for transcription errors, and their own
troff macros to typeset the final product in client-specific formats.

When I first arrived there they were using Convergent NGEN workstations
to transcribe the tapes.  In well under a year we had replaced those
with a Convergent MiniFrame and moved the entire workflow over to
vi/awk/troff spitting out Postscript, most of the tools for which
the reporters wrote themselves.

Today, when I listen to all our "technical support" people at work
whine about how they can't log in to XXX (because they didn't run
ssh-add), it sets my hair on fire.  I would so love to put them in
the Waybac Machine and let the old gang school them in "learn to do
your fscking job!"

Sorry, what were we talking about ... ?

--lyndon

From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Wed Oct  9 11:10:15 2019
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019 18:10:15 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] INed/Rand Editor/Ned [was Re: My EuroBSDcon talk
 (preview for commentary)
In-Reply-To: <CAKr6gn2Z-CAJeNhxU-paqjVxrBXHuGNukqWn0OVCK5GyYLFKeA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANCZdfrK4iFQCWOFP4MoUggpfJVmoJ0dnSg6H0cCi4dop7sVXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Nq+eTQDdft5nW8kKcWFdt9ZK4-5kJX6OcMcYBffk9HGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190915232524.9A5491570CE9@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <CANCZdfr83yx7eUu-t+j-D8z9TMSkuAvPpb81hJdk95070gmZcA@mail.gmail.com>
 <7F62BF6B-8FEA-4C43-9E35-05BDE9BF04EA@ccc.com>
 <CAKr6gn3dKiFCr3D4sYv1+xJbD4cHq5X6AFEtz8MF7NtKdnY6dw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190916023738.F34E81570CE9@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <B2C11377-D557-4542-94D9-31E3D9C789D6@technologists.com>
 <CAC20D2MfPCf7Dqke_U=Bod+WeZnvpszrgo7TwpeJB5G3CsG+oA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoL2JGwhE1kn3sckUrREKq=v9+6oLm1H8gAf446y87SQg@mail.gmail.com>
 <20190916202153.wbpzx3jn3a7rs6kb@localhost.localdomain>
 <201909162047.x8GKlSbX001635@darkstar.fourwinds.com>
 <CAKr6gn2Z-CAJeNhxU-paqjVxrBXHuGNukqWn0OVCK5GyYLFKeA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c0dbd6a7374cc712@orthanc.ca>

[Sorry, coming to this thread very late ...]

George Michaelson writes:

> Terminfo just didn't feel very *relevant*

In the sense that we no longer stare down collections of Ann Arbor
Ambassador's with their endless combinations of screen configurations,
or just dealing with adm3a vs. xl83 vs. vtXX0, sure.

But terminfo (or cap) is still relevant to me every day in a couple
of ways, even though my $TERM is almost always 'xterm'.

Lots of terminals have internal memory buffers that curses can take
advantage of.  The most common case is to have a cursor-oriented
application (vi, less, systat) grab on to one of those buffers and
use it while they run, and then restore the original terminal screen
when they exit.  This preserves the shell session context around
the editor/whatever session.  Sometimes this is useful.  Sometimes
it is not.

I happen to dislike that behaviour.  When I'm churning through a
sequence of commands and get to the point where I need to look up
something obscure in the manpage, there's nothing more frustrating
than running 'man foo', finding the section of the manpage that
describes exactly what I need to do, pressing 'q' to exit the pager,
and watching said pager erase the very information I was looking for
just to redraw the screen back to the point where I originally became
lost :-P

terminfo saves me[1] from that behaviour.  The decision about how,
when, or if to use those memory buffers is part of the terminfo
definition for the $TERM I'm using.  So I can customize the inter-
action between xterm and less by writing my own 'xterm' terminfo
definition that doesn't do the memory buffer dance.  POSIX even
defines interfaces such as $TERMINFO and tic(1) that ensure I can
portably push my own 'xterm' definitions around to all the systems
I work on.

But of course, *everybody* knows the entire universe lives in an
ANSI terminal now, so why bother with curses?

This is the same logic that *knows* that nobody in the universe
customizes the colours they use in their terminal sessions, so
they can feel free to make up whatever colour mappings they want.
Don't like it?  Then set our app-specific configuration settings,
or environment variables, or both.  Because, why should we pay
attention to the terminal attribute mappings that have been in
terminfo/curses for how many decades?

--lyndon

[1] OpenBSD is very annoying about this. On every (every!) other
    UNIX variant I use, I can upload and compile my custom
    terminfo 'xterm' definition and It Just Works.  Not OpenBSD ...

From nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com  Wed Oct  9 15:49:48 2019
From: nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com (Nigel Williams)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 16:49:48 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>

ken is done:

ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!

took 4+ days on an AMD Radeon Vega64 running hashcat at about 930MH/s
during that time (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and
slows down towards the end).

From nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com  Wed Oct  9 15:52:00 2019
From: nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com (Nigel Williams)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 16:52:00 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:49 PM Nigel Williams
<nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!

BTW, is that a chess move?

From imp at bsdimp.com  Wed Oct  9 16:00:46 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 00:00:46 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoaUm-FTDhBk05zQ_CTdEQ2y1uw9irQpxqzSVgOCUMjbQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 8, 2019, 11:52 PM Nigel Williams <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:49 PM Nigel Williams
> <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
> > ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>
> BTW, is that a chess move?
>

Most common opening.

Warner

>
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From akosela at andykosela.com  Wed Oct  9 18:16:02 2019
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 10:16:02 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfoaUm-FTDhBk05zQ_CTdEQ2y1uw9irQpxqzSVgOCUMjbQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoaUm-FTDhBk05zQ_CTdEQ2y1uw9irQpxqzSVgOCUMjbQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMnNGgVFHiBz5n0YZq8FiMt=iVN0t4dKKzCrKHk25fdq+0w7A@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/9/19, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 8, 2019, 11:52 PM Nigel Williams
> <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:49 PM Nigel Williams
>> <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
>> > ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>>
>> BTW, is that a chess move?
>>
>
> Most common opening.
>

Descriptive chess notation is not as popular today as it was back in
the 70s, but it actually makes perfect sense as Ken is a long time
chess enthusiast.

--Andy

From ken at google.com  Wed Oct  9 18:53:25 2019
From: ken at google.com (Ken Thompson)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 01:53:25 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CALMnNGgVFHiBz5n0YZq8FiMt=iVN0t4dKKzCrKHk25fdq+0w7A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoaUm-FTDhBk05zQ_CTdEQ2y1uw9irQpxqzSVgOCUMjbQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMnNGgVFHiBz5n0YZq8FiMt=iVN0t4dKKzCrKHk25fdq+0w7A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAG=a+rj8VcXjS-ftaj8P2_duLFSUpmNgB4-dYwnTsY_8g5WdEA@mail.gmail.com>

congrats.

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 1:16 AM Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/9/19, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Oct 8, 2019, 11:52 PM Nigel Williams
> > <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:49 PM Nigel Williams
> >> <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
> >> > ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
> >>
> >> BTW, is that a chess move?
> >>
> >
> > Most common opening.
> >
>
> Descriptive chess notation is not as popular today as it was back in
> the 70s, but it actually makes perfect sense as Ken is a long time
> chess enthusiast.
>
> --Andy

From leah at vuxu.org  Wed Oct  9 19:16:17 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 11:16:17 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAG=a+rj8VcXjS-ftaj8P2_duLFSUpmNgB4-dYwnTsY_8g5WdEA@mail.gmail.com>
 (Ken Thompson via TUHS's message of "Wed, 9 Oct 2019 01:53:25 -0700")
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoaUm-FTDhBk05zQ_CTdEQ2y1uw9irQpxqzSVgOCUMjbQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMnNGgVFHiBz5n0YZq8FiMt=iVN0t4dKKzCrKHk25fdq+0w7A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAG=a+rj8VcXjS-ftaj8P2_duLFSUpmNgB4-dYwnTsY_8g5WdEA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <87lftul1ni.fsf@vuxu.org>

Ken Thompson via TUHS <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org> writes:

> congrats.

chapeau :)

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From leah at vuxu.org  Wed Oct  9 22:55:16 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 14:55:16 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net> (Arthur
 Krewat's message of "Tue, 8 Oct 2019 13:38:42 -0400")
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>
 <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <87h84ikrij.fsf@vuxu.org>

Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> writes:

> I have some more out of this list, but not sure if I should send them
> or not. Ken's has not been cracked - yet.

I'd be curious to have the complete list.

Thanks,
-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From reed at reedmedia.net  Wed Oct  9 23:30:22 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 08:30:22 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Wed, 2 Oct 2019, reed at reedmedia.net wrote:

> Does anyone have scanned copies of early Lions commentary? (Not the 2000 
> printing, unless it looks identical, please let me know.)

I got copied of the cover and front page off-list. Thank you!

> I will try to share my slides to this list by end of this week. (I did 
> look at an early draft of Warner's slides, but didn't look at his final 
> slides nor watch his presentation yet. My presentation is from scratch 
> for now.)

I have a rough draft of around 63 slides. I have a maybe around 10 more 
to add. It is too much content for an hour. Temporarily they are at
http://reedmedia.net/~reed/pres/.tmp-ibu4txv873cv/
pdf is 63 slides at ~5MB
(please don't distribute as I didn't yet cite sources in it nor have 
re-use statements for some images I borrowed.)
J.tex is the source for the pdf.
The real source is the notes in the .data file there. (It is a mess.)
I plan to add a few photos of the earliest participants (as named in 
the research edition manuals.)
I will add a few pages about Berkeley Unix up to 3BSD. (Later will do 
one hour talk just on BSD.)

Few questions:

If using a 4.5 inch diameter roll of paper for the TTY, how did you cut 
the paper into 11 inch pages? Or did you just let it roll up?

Anyone have a pointer to the photo of a Graphic Systems (GSI) 
phototypesetter (1973)? (for troff v3 slide)

Was patent department that first used Unix on PDP-11 and roff (~1971)
same department that would later handle Unix licensing two years later? 
(~1973)

Anyone have a pointer to a picture of GE 635 or 645 system? (for multics 
slide)


From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 10 02:17:21 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 12:17:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <87h84ikrij.fsf@vuxu.org>
References: <6dceffe228804a76de1e12f18d1fc0dc@inventati.org>
 <87bluxpqy0.fsf@vuxu.org> <20191005180503.GA31679@tom-desk.erg.abdn.ac.uk>
 <b2905a0a-62ff-1e76-f8c1-427ec25af7f4@kilonet.net> <87h84ikrij.fsf@vuxu.org>
Message-ID: <7a53adad-bafa-b7b6-b23b-e9da89ce9894@kilonet.net>

By crypt() hash:

9ycwM8mmmcp4Q:graduat;

m5syt3.lB5LAE:12ucdort

d9B17PTU2RTlM:561cml..

cBWEbG59spEmM:..pnn521





On 10/9/2019 8:55 AM, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
> Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> writes:
>
>> I have some more out of this list, but not sure if I should send them
>> or not. Ken's has not been cracked - yet.
> I'd be curious to have the complete list.
>
> Thanks,

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From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 10 02:31:15 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 10:31:15 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfprfaSkKM4+S-xgc6fz6LhNMGPgF9NsrbCJint8e7wU_A@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 7:30 AM <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 2 Oct 2019, reed at reedmedia.net wrote:
>
> > Does anyone have scanned copies of early Lions commentary? (Not the 2000
> > printing, unless it looks identical, please let me know.)
>
> I got copied of the cover and front page off-list. Thank you!
>
> > I will try to share my slides to this list by end of this week. (I did
> > look at an early draft of Warner's slides, but didn't look at his final
> > slides nor watch his presentation yet. My presentation is from scratch
> > for now.)
>
> I have a rough draft of around 63 slides. I have a maybe around 10 more
> to add. It is too much content for an hour. Temporarily they are at
> http://reedmedia.net/~reed/pres/.tmp-ibu4txv873cv/
> pdf is 63 slides at ~5MB
> (please don't distribute as I didn't yet cite sources in it nor have
> re-use statements for some images I borrowed.)
> J.tex is the source for the pdf.
> The real source is the notes in the .data file there. (It is a mess.)
> I plan to add a few photos of the earliest participants (as named in
> the research edition manuals.)
> I will add a few pages about Berkeley Unix up to 3BSD. (Later will do
> one hour talk just on BSD.)
>
> Few questions:
>
> If using a 4.5 inch diameter roll of paper for the TTY, how did you cut
> the paper into 11 inch pages? Or did you just let it roll up?
>
> Anyone have a pointer to the photo of a Graphic Systems (GSI)
> phototypesetter (1973)? (for troff v3 slide)
>
> Was patent department that first used Unix on PDP-11 and roff (~1971)
> same department that would later handle Unix licensing two years later?
> (~1973)
>
> Anyone have a pointer to a picture of GE 635 or 645 system? (for multics
> slide)
>

You can find images at:

https://multicians.org/drv-bull.html (says its a GE-645 installed in Paris)

https://multicians.org/mulimg/radc-bldg3-a.jpg (ROME building 3
GECOS/Honeywell systems)

https://multicians.org/645artist.html (weird artist's conception)

In general, there's several images on the multicians page. In my talk I
found one of a later Honeywell system that I mistakenly thought was a 645.

Great slides. Good detail on the bell-labs stream of innovation (better
than my talk by far, I think). Great use of early manual artifacts to drive
the story telling. It's clearly only slightly related to my talk and that
it was done from scratch with at most an element or two from my talk that
could easily have come from this list instead.

So some feedback:

The slide that has LSI-Unix is missing mini-unix. If you look at the AUUGN
news letters, that's mentioned much more than LSI-Unix, so it was out in
the wild.

CB-UNIX had its origins in SCCS Unix, which was derived from a ~1st edition
Unix for a switch (SCCS here is Switch Control Center System) done by New
Jersey Bell in 1972. It took in snapshots from research unix from time to
time. After V6, CB-Unix 1.0 was done based on it, with its additions in the
areas of IPC and enhancements for production systems. After V7, there was a
2.x series. This was later merged with System III / Unix/TS 3.0 to produce
what would become System V (I found conflicting accounts of whether this
was done in Unix/TS 4.0 (never released outside of bell labs) or in Unix TS
5.0). The merges were what we'd call "cherry picks" today: the IPC features
and some minor other things were re-done for the Unix/TS environment and
would become what we call today System V IPC. CB-Unix had infrastructure to
port to multiple CPUs, but really only ran on the 11/70. The IPC system was
called maus (pronounced mouse, evidently). We gave man pages and source for
it in PDF form in the TUHS archive. I'm slowly plowing through OCRing the
sources... All this work was done in Columbus OH. Unix/TS targeted time
sharing systems that developers, secretaries, etc used. CB-UNIX targeted
call record collection systems and similar "production" systems.

MERT is interesting... It ported V4 Unix to run under a PDP-11
hypervisor... It was later called UNIX/RT and merged code from V5 and/or V6
(the recollections differ), but not V7 as the system call ABI changed for
that. It was cancelled in favor of Unix/TS, but hung on to life, was ported
to the 3B2 and later systems to become DMERT...  There's hints of this
scattered in the different bell labs technical journals and in the TUHS
archive of recollections of early unix from the 80s on usenet.

I'll have to go through the PWB stuff in more detail than I have time right
now.

I'm unsure the thing you labeled as DISPLAY-2 is the DISPLAY-2 or the
standard Option 340 display. I know people on this list said it was a
display-2 (maybe my early slides did as well). Based on pictures in the
PDP-7 manuals, I think it was the 340...

Where are you giving it?

Warner
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From lars at nocrew.org  Thu Oct 10 02:47:14 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 16:47:14 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 (reed@reedmedia.net's message of "Wed, 9 Oct 2019 08:30:22 -0500
 (CDT)")
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <7wv9sx3lyl.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Reed wrote:
> Anyone have a pointer to a picture of GE 635 or 645 system?

I linke this one, because it's from MIT.  Unfortunately it's very small.

https://multicians.org/phase-one.html

From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 10 02:54:19 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 12:54:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <7wv9sx3lyl.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <7wv9sx3lyl.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <079f7351-5f26-55b3-4a59-90bec4254b82@kilonet.net>



On 10/9/2019 12:47 PM, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> Reed wrote:
>> Anyone have a pointer to a picture of GE 635 or 645 system?
> I linke this one, because it's from MIT.  Unfortunately it's very small.
>
> https://multicians.org/phase-one.html
>
Lars, you need to be more of a link hacker ;)

https://multicians.org/mulimg/martin-widrig-645.jpg



From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Thu Oct 10 03:19:29 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Wed,  9 Oct 2019 13:19:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
Message-ID: <20191009171929.123D518C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Lars Brinkhoff

    > Unfortunately it's very small.

There's a larger version hiding 'behind' it.

There are very few 645 images. There's the large painting of a 645, which
for many years hung in the hallway on the 5th floor of Tech Sq:

 https://multicians.org/645artist.html

	Noel

From robpike at gmail.com  Thu Oct 10 05:59:43 2019
From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 09:59:43 -1000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>

I coulda told you that. One tends to learn passwords (inadvertently) when
they're short and typed nearby often enough. (Sorry, ken.)

If I remember right, the first half of this password was on a t-shirt
commemorating Belle's first half-move, although its notation may have been
different.

Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful. It was
distasteful back when, and it still is. The attitudes around hackery have
changed; the position nowadays seems to be that the bad guys are doing it
so the good guys should be rewarded for doing it first. That's disingenuous
at best, and dangerous at worst.

-rob


On Tue, Oct 8, 2019 at 7:50 PM Nigel Williams <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
wrote:

> ken is done:
>
> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>
> took 4+ days on an AMD Radeon Vega64 running hashcat at about 930MH/s
> during that time (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and
> slows down towards the end).
>
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Thu Oct 10 06:13:21 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 06:13:21 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
Message-ID: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, we just had about a dozen new subscribers to the TUHS list. Rather than
e-mail you all individually, I thought I'd use the list itself to say
"Welcome!".

The TUHS list generally has a high signal/noise ratio on the history of
Unix, the systems and software, and anecdotes from those who used the
various flavours. Occasionally, we drift a bit off-topic and I'll gently
nudge the conversation back to Unix history.

The list archives are at: https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/
and you should browse the last couple of months to get a feel for
what we talk about.

Cheers, Warren

From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 10 06:14:07 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 16:14:07 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <d555ce36-9f5d-cd3c-1b53-b0061205e80f@kilonet.net>

On 10/9/2019 3:59 PM, Rob Pike wrote:
>
> Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful. It 
> was distasteful back when, and it still is. The attitudes around 
> hackery have changed; the position nowadays seems to be that the bad 
> guys are doing it so the good guys should be rewarded for doing it 
> first. That's disingenuous at best, and dangerous at worst.

Which is why, after a point, I asked if the results were OK to post.

TBH, I ranged far and wide in my hacking back in the early 80's. I am 
proud of it on the one hand, because it exposed me to systems that I 
would never have had access to. And when I found huge gaping security 
holes, I usually let them know. But on the other hand, well, you've 
expressed the exact sentiment. My only experience with TOPS-20 and UNIX 
early on was because of that.

I never went to college. In fact, I never graduated high school. But I 
was hired as a consultant to do systems programming for TOPS-10 systems 
by the consulting firm that ran BOCES/LIRICS in Dix Hills, NY. I was 
mentored by a great guy, Bruce Maier, and using my hacking experience, I 
continue to this day to try to help both my consulting customers, and 
the general public whenever I can.

I'm a white-hat kinda guy ;)

art k.






From khm at sciops.net  Thu Oct 10 06:09:42 2019
From: khm at sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 13:09:42 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>

On Wed, Oct 09, 2019 at 09:59:43AM -1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> 
> Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful. It was
> distasteful back when, and it still is. The attitudes around hackery have
> changed; the position nowadays seems to be that the bad guys are doing it
> so the good guys should be rewarded for doing it first. That's disingenuous
> at best, and dangerous at worst.
> 

And not really relevant to this topic, in fact.  It's not like we're
sitting around rainbow-tabling someone's Macbook.  This stuff is, at
this point, of historical interest.  "How many decades old must a hash
be before it's acceptable to decode it" is a valid question worth
answering, but comparing this kind of archaeology to active attack is
slightly absurd.

khm

From rtomek at ceti.pl  Thu Oct 10 06:50:05 2019
From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 22:50:05 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191009205004.GA18701@tau1.ceti.pl>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 06:13:21AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we just had about a dozen new subscribers to the TUHS list. Rather than
> e-mail you all individually, I thought I'd use the list itself to say
> "Welcome!".

Aloha!

SunOS/Solaris 1992-1995 (user)
AIX - a very short period inside Solaris period (user)
Linux 1994-... (finally, a small time admin)
OpenBSD ... (if I migrate there) - ... 

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **

From bakul at bitblocks.com  Thu Oct 10 07:05:06 2019
From: bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 14:05:06 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 09 Oct 2019 13:09:42 -0700."
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>
Message-ID: <20191009210513.B3660156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>

On Wed, 09 Oct 2019 13:09:42 -0700 Kurt H Maier <khm at sciops.net> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 09, 2019 at 09:59:43AM -1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> > 
> > Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful. It was
> > distasteful back when, and it still is. The attitudes around hackery have
> > changed; the position nowadays seems to be that the bad guys are doing it
> > so the good guys should be rewarded for doing it first. That's disingenuous
> > at best, and dangerous at worst.
> > 
>
> And not really relevant to this topic, in fact.  It's not like we're
> sitting around rainbow-tabling someone's Macbook.  This stuff is, at
> this point, of historical interest.  "How many decades old must a hash
> be before it's acceptable to decode it" is a valid question worth
> answering, but comparing this kind of archaeology to active attack is
> slightly absurd.

I feel more than slightly absurd asking this but is the
password ken used in 1980 is of "historical interest"?

From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 10 07:09:50 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 15:09:50 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <20191009210513.B3660156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr> <20191009210513.B3660156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfqKJ4g-J8Q-5rmbzOigTOAaSxxDfOb9CUQkaH7YYKiHQg@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 3:05 PM Bakul Shah <bakul at bitblocks.com> wrote:

> I feel more than slightly absurd asking this but is the
> password ken used in 1980 is of "historical interest"?
>

Only if he still uses it for online banking... :)

Warner
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 10 07:16:15 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 17:16:15 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfqKJ4g-J8Q-5rmbzOigTOAaSxxDfOb9CUQkaH7YYKiHQg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>
 <20191009210513.B3660156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <CANCZdfqKJ4g-J8Q-5rmbzOigTOAaSxxDfOb9CUQkaH7YYKiHQg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3a088340-49bd-b828-cd38-99b35e39ae42@kilonet.net>

On 10/9/2019 5:09 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
> Only if he still uses it for online banking... :)

LMFAO.



From athornton at gmail.com  Thu Oct 10 08:05:29 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 15:05:29 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <3a088340-49bd-b828-cd38-99b35e39ae42@kilonet.net>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr> <20191009210513.B3660156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <CANCZdfqKJ4g-J8Q-5rmbzOigTOAaSxxDfOb9CUQkaH7YYKiHQg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3a088340-49bd-b828-cd38-99b35e39ae42@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic2g47RBxDhyvrDBSLSnd6j_bNeSfzkWhOShEFFpWMRhKA@mail.gmail.com>

It is, if nothing else, a nice example of Moore's Law.

Here's a thing on the distribution tape (at least, I assume it was; happy
to be wrong here) but which was assumed to be fundamentally safe, because
it was computationally infeasible to rainbow-table the hash...so why not
leave your real password hash on the images you gave to the world?

40 years later, it's obviously within the reach of hobbyists spending, I
presume, essentially zero dollars to do the computational work (at least, I
hope no one sunk more than a few bucks on doing it).

...which is why we went to salted passwords, and shadow pw files that hid
the hashes while leaving the other fields available to all users, and more
secure and longer hashes than original crypt(1), quite some time ago.

In fact there's an interesting little essay about the history of that arms
race up until about 33 years ago in the 1986 Unix System Manager's Manual,
Section 18.  It's by two guys named Morris and Thompson.

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 2:16 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> On 10/9/2019 5:09 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
> > Only if he still uses it for online banking... :)
>
> LMFAO.
>
>
>
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From dave at horsfall.org  Thu Oct 10 09:04:12 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:04:12 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910100955100.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Wed, 9 Oct 2019, Nigel Williams wrote:

> <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>
> BTW, is that a chess move?

Looks like Queen's Gambit (remember the Chess machine?).  I never did 
figure out how to counter it, being a King's Gambit bod (although I'm 
coming to grips with the Spanish Defence).

-- Dave

From dave at horsfall.org  Thu Oct 10 09:26:42 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:26:42 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910101025330.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Warren Toomey wrote:

> All, we just had about a dozen new subscribers to the TUHS list. Rather 
> than e-mail you all individually, I thought I'd use the list itself to 
> say "Welcome!".

May this list live forever!

-- Dave

From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Thu Oct 10 09:28:10 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 01:28:10 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAP2nic2g47RBxDhyvrDBSLSnd6j_bNeSfzkWhOShEFFpWMRhKA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>
 <20191009210513.B3660156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <CANCZdfqKJ4g-J8Q-5rmbzOigTOAaSxxDfOb9CUQkaH7YYKiHQg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3a088340-49bd-b828-cd38-99b35e39ae42@kilonet.net>
 <CAP2nic2g47RBxDhyvrDBSLSnd6j_bNeSfzkWhOShEFFpWMRhKA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191009232810.82G40%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Adam Thornton wrote in <CAP2nic2g47RBxDhyvrDBSLSnd6j_bNeSfzkWhOShEFFpWMR\
hKA at mail.gmail.com>:
 |It is, if nothing else, a nice example of Moore's Law.
 |
 |Here's a thing on the distribution tape (at least, I assume it was; \
 |happy to be wrong here) but which was assumed to be fundamentally safe, \
 |because it was computationally infeasible to rainbow-table the 
 |hash...so why not leave your real password hash on the images you gave \
 |to the world?
 |
 |40 years later, it's obviously within the reach of hobbyists spending, \
 |I presume, essentially zero dollars to do the computational work (at \
 |least, I hope no one sunk more than a few bucks on doing it).

Solar cells are costly.
No, please do not say zero xy when you are using electronics.
They are anything else but zero cost, not when their resources are
captured, not when they or their assembly lines are built, not when
they are shipped, not when they are used.

Sorry if i bug you, but this day noble prices where given to
people who improved batteries.  Batteries are ok, but we just
started the next race for rare earth and resources, instead of
looking to a really sustainable future.

 |...which is why we went to salted passwords, and shadow pw files that \
 |hid the hashes while leaving the other fields available to all users, \
 |and more secure and longer hashes than original crypt(1), quite 
 |some time ago.
 |
 |In fact there's an interesting little essay about the history of that \
 |arms race up until about 33 years ago in the 1986 Unix System Manager's \
 |Manual, Section 18.  It's by two guys named Morris and 
 |Thompson.

After i have given up on being smart and started to use very long
passwords, entire sentences when i have to type them,

  dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1 count=512 |
  LC_ALL=C tr -cd 'a-zA-Z0-9_.,=@%^+-'

otherwise, i am now in the position to nag web and other
interfaces here and there which restrict password lengths to 8 or
so, and/or which restrict the allowed content.
Now in public.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

From wkt at tuhs.org  Thu Oct 10 09:51:33 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 09:51:33 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191009235133.GA30416@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 06:13:21AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> The TUHS list generally has a high signal/noise ratio on the history of
> Unix, the systems and software, and anecdotes from those who used the
> various flavours. Occasionally, we drift a bit off-topic and I'll gently
> nudge the conversation back to Unix history.

Heh, I just realised that I'm the UNIX of mail list administrators. I say
nothing when you do the usual things, but give you a cryptic warning when
you do something not quite right :)

Ciao, Warren

From grog at lemis.com  Thu Oct 10 09:58:29 2019
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:58:29 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191009235829.GA88463@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday, 10 October 2019 at  6:13:21 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we just had about a dozen new subscribers to the TUHS
> list. Rather than e-mail you all individually, I thought I'd use the
> list itself to say "Welcome!".

"Welcome!".

> The TUHS list generally has a high signal/noise ratio on the history of
> Unix, the systems and software, and anecdotes from those who used the
> various flavours. Occasionally, we drift a bit off-topic and I'll gently
> nudge the conversation back to Unix history.

You might like to point at the COFF list (coff at tuhs.org) for
(slightly) off-topic posts.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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From dave at horsfall.org  Thu Oct 10 10:03:26 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:03:26 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009235133.GA30416@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <20191009235133.GA30416@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910101054100.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Warren Toomey wrote:

> Heh, I just realised that I'm the UNIX of mail list administrators. I 
> say nothing when you do the usual things, but give you a cryptic warning 
> when you do something not quite right :)

Was it "ed" that only gave two error messages?  Something like "tmp" for 
/tmp being full, and "?" for "error - you get to figure it out"?

And there was the car (ObUS: auto) that only had a single warning light: 
"The user is supposed to know what it means."

-- Dave

From greg.m.travis at gmail.com  Thu Oct 10 10:22:46 2019
From: greg.m.travis at gmail.com (greg travis)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 20:22:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910101054100.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <20191009235133.GA30416@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910101054100.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CAJvuEa1M6ZX8b2A5xz7RKrX4NcdkypG8M8iLUoqJmqhoifFFmQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 8:03 PM Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> And there was the car (ObUS: auto) that only had a single warning light:
> "The user is supposed to know what it means."
>
> -- Dave
>

"Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most
automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gauge, nor any of the
other numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the
driver makes a mistake, a giant “?” lights up in the center of the
dashboard. “The experienced driver,” says Thompson, “will usually know
what’s wrong.”"

(https://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/new90/366.html)
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Thu Oct 10 13:31:29 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Wed, 09 Oct 2019 23:31:29 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
Message-ID: <201910100331.x9A3VTUH073703@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> Was patent department that first used Unix on PDP-11 and roff (~1971)
> same department that would later handle Unix licensing two years later?
> (~1973)

No. The former was the BTL legal and patent department. The latter was
at AT&T (or perhaps Western Electric).

Doug

From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 10 13:49:31 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 21:49:31 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <201910100331.x9A3VTUH073703@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910100331.x9A3VTUH073703@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoERRQscgUXGjb4AErYfu50_VpBcDktxh3V+xt0vaWt1Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 9:32 PM Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> > Was patent department that first used Unix on PDP-11 and roff (~1971)
> > same department that would later handle Unix licensing two years later?
> > (~1973)
>
> No. The former was the BTL legal and patent department. The latter was
> at AT&T (or perhaps Western Electric)
>

I know all the later contracts were with western electric... we have them
due to the bsd/at&t lawsuit, right?

Warner

>
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From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 10 14:21:08 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 9 Oct 2019 22:21:08 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfoERRQscgUXGjb4AErYfu50_VpBcDktxh3V+xt0vaWt1Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910100331.x9A3VTUH073703@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANCZdfoERRQscgUXGjb4AErYfu50_VpBcDktxh3V+xt0vaWt1Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrSTiEQSnxihr-sFRF7XJHMty1aA_wV-KuZdOWxJM8hNw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 9:49 PM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 9:32 PM Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
>> > Was patent department that first used Unix on PDP-11 and roff (~1971)
>> > same department that would later handle Unix licensing two years later?
>> > (~1973)
>>
>> No. The former was the BTL legal and patent department. The latter was
>> at AT&T (or perhaps Western Electric)
>>
>
> I know all the later contracts were with western electric... we have them
> due to the bsd/at&t lawsuit, right?
>

Ah, Berkeley's contract for Oct 73 is with Western Electric.

Warner

>
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From lars at nocrew.org  Thu Oct 10 15:37:31 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 05:37:31 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfprfaSkKM4+S-xgc6fz6LhNMGPgF9NsrbCJint8e7wU_A@mail.gmail.com>
 (Warner Losh's message of "Wed, 9 Oct 2019 10:31:15 -0600")
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <CANCZdfprfaSkKM4+S-xgc6fz6LhNMGPgF9NsrbCJint8e7wU_A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7w36g12mas.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Warner Losh wrote:
> I'm unsure the thing you labeled as DISPLAY-2 is the DISPLAY-2 or the
> standard Option 340 display. I know people on this list said it was a
> display-2 (maybe my early slides did as well). Based on pictures in
> the PDP-7 manuals, I think it was the 340...

The photo does look much like a 340 CRT.  Is there anything known about
how the GRAPHICS-2 (not DISPLAY-2, right?) hardware was built?  Is it
possible a 340 CRT was repurposed for GRAPHICS-2?

From katolaz at freaknet.org  Thu Oct 10 16:31:18 2019
From: katolaz at freaknet.org (Vincenzo Nicosia)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 08:31:18 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910100955100.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACCFpdy+jgKDK4a2s3pC9nL4hD_7xWNB1tFNiu4nWisuFB1ArQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910100955100.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20191010063118.xwq5ivjxrtu4syxp@unixfarts.net>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 10:04:12AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Wed, 9 Oct 2019, Nigel Williams wrote:
> 
> > <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:
> > > ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
> > 
> > BTW, is that a chess move?
> 
> Looks like Queen's Gambit (remember the Chess machine?).  I never did figure
> out how to counter it, being a King's Gambit bod (although I'm coming to
> grips with the Spanish Defence).
> 

Sorry for being pedantic, but that's just the first move in the
Queen's pawn game. Whether it might become a Queen's gambit or one of
the other hundreds of possible openings starting like that, well,
depends only on where the two players decide to go afterwards ;)

The "!" at the end indicates that the move is considered "strong", or
giving an immediate slight advantage, and is normally read aloud with
a slight grin in your face...

Being a Semi-Slav player as black, I would have probably used "!?"
instead of "!", thus providing a fairer assessment of "p/q2-q4" and
automatically keeping Ken's password safe for much longer ;P

HND

From crossd at gmail.com  Thu Oct 10 18:21:20 2019
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 04:21:20 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 1:50 AM Nigel Williams <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
wrote:

> ken is done:
>
> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>
> took 4+ days on an AMD Radeon Vega64 running hashcat at about 930MH/s
> during that time (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and
> slows down towards the end).
>

This feat made it The Register:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/09/ken_thompsons_old_unix_password_cracked/

        - Dan C.
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From lars at nocrew.org  Thu Oct 10 19:11:36 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 09:11:36 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <079f7351-5f26-55b3-4a59-90bec4254b82@kilonet.net> (Arthur
 Krewat's message of "Wed, 9 Oct 2019 12:54:19 -0400")
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <7wv9sx3lyl.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
 <079f7351-5f26-55b3-4a59-90bec4254b82@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <7wtv8h0xtj.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Arthur Krewat wrote:
> Lars, you need to be more of a link hacker ;)
> https://multicians.org/mulimg/martin-widrig-645.jpg

Well, it's not my preferred type of hacking.

Here's another one... or is it?  File name says 635, but the caption
says "Mary Thompson, Jerry Clancy, Don Widrig; Project MAC, 1967" There
was no 635 at Project MAC, was there?

https://multicians.org/mulimg/mrt-gfc-drw-635.jpg

"Mary Thompson and Noel Morris at MIT Project MAC GE-645 Multics
machine, 1967"

https://multicians.org/thvv/vvimg/mrt-nim-645.jpg

From tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk  Thu Oct 10 19:21:10 2019
From: tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk (Tony Travis)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:21:10 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <739d7179-e68a-d00d-c018-775d32ebea12@minke-informatics.co.uk>

On 09/10/2019 21:13, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we just had about a dozen new subscribers to the TUHS list. Rather than
> e-mail you all individually, I thought I'd use the list itself to say
> "Welcome!".
> [...]

Hi, Warren.

I'm one of your recent TUHS list subscribers - I first encountered AT&T 
Version 7 Unix on a PDP11/34 and I've used all sorts of *nix since then.

One thing I noticed on this list is people's interest in the use of 
UPPER/lower case in Unix. It's always puzzled me when everyone talks 
about [the] PDP11 when, in fact, is says "pdp11" on the system itself:

> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Pdp-11-40.jpg/250px-Pdp-11-40.jpg

DEC seemed to have a schizophrenic attitude to this in their 
documentation, sometimes using "PDP11" and sometimes "pdp11".

Not sure if anyone else had a similar experience to me when visiting the 
"Computer History Museum" in Palo Alto and being totally shocked to see 
machines I used 'quite recently' there as museum exhibits!

I also made a complaint to the Museum, because the original Donald 
Becker Beowulf was hidden away in a corner behind a Cray machine :-(

Nevertheless, a fantastic museum and I highly recommend a visit!

Bye,

   Tony.

-- 
Minke Informatics Limited, Registered in Scotland - Company No. SC419028
Registered Office: 3 Donview, Bridge of Alford, AB33 8QJ, Scotland (UK)
tel. +44(0)19755 63548                    http://minke-informatics.co.uk
mob. +44(0)7985 078324        mailto:tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk

From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 10 21:58:56 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 07:58:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net>

Oh well. Late to the party as usual ;) (time is EST, New York)

-rw------- 1 ******** ***      23 Oct  9 06:09 cracked.node006.txt

  $ cat cracked.node006.txt

ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!



On 10/10/2019 4:21 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 1:50 AM Nigel Williams 
> <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com <mailto:nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>     ken is done:
>
>     ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>
>     took 4+ days on an AMD Radeon Vega64 running hashcat at about 930MH/s
>     during that time (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and
>     slows down towards the end).
>
>
> This feat made it The Register: 
> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/09/ken_thompsons_old_unix_password_cracked/
>
>         - Dan C.
>

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From leah at vuxu.org  Thu Oct 10 22:07:03 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 14:07:03 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net> (Arthur
 Krewat's message of "Thu, 10 Oct 2019 07:58:56 -0400")
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>

Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> writes:

> Oh well. Late to the party as usual ;) (time is EST, New York)
>
> -rw------- 1 ******** ***      23 Oct  9 06:09 cracked.node006.txt
>
>  $ cat cracked.node006.txt
>
> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!

I was notified Bill Joy's password does not yet appear in any list:

bill:.2xvLVqGHJm8M:8:10:& Joy,4156424948:/usr/bill:/bin/csh

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Thu Oct 10 23:18:48 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 09:18:48 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
Message-ID: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Tony Travis

    > It's always puzzled me when everyone talks about [the] PDP11 when, in
    > fact, is says "pdp11" on the system itself:

DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; e.g. the "pdp11
peripherals handbook" (to transcribe the cover exactly) uses "PDP-11"
several times on pg 1-1.

	Noel


From henry.r.bent at gmail.com  Thu Oct 10 23:57:10 2019
From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 09:57:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>

I have no opinion on the password hacking (especially since Ken seemed fine
with it), but this is to me distasteful.  The media was alerted, and that
media was of all things The Register?  It's not exactly a site known for
its thoughtful or balanced journalism.

-Henry


On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 04:22, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 1:50 AM Nigel Williams <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ken is done:
>>
>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>>
>> took 4+ days on an AMD Radeon Vega64 running hashcat at about 930MH/s
>> during that time (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and
>> slows down towards the end).
>>
>
> This feat made it The Register:
> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/09/ken_thompsons_old_unix_password_cracked/
>
>         - Dan C.
>
>
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Fri Oct 11 00:05:26 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:05:26 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <f056a3ff-10a1-337e-79cb-c78506b81854@kilonet.net>

It's here, too:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/forum-cracks-the-vintage-passwords-of-ken-thompson-and-other-unix-pioneers/


On 10/10/2019 9:57 AM, Henry Bent wrote:
> I have no opinion on the password hacking (especially since Ken seemed 
> fine with it), but this is to me distasteful.  The media was alerted, 
> and that media was of all things The Register?  It's not exactly a 
> site known for its thoughtful or balanced journalism.
>
> -Henry
>
>
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 04:22, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com 
> <mailto:crossd at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On Wed, Oct 9, 2019, 1:50 AM Nigel Williams
>     <nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com
>     <mailto:nw at retrocomputingtasmania.com>> wrote:
>
>         ken is done:
>
>         ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
>
>         took 4+ days on an AMD Radeon Vega64 running hashcat at about
>         930MH/s
>         during that time (those familiar know the hash-rate fluctuates and
>         slows down towards the end).
>
>
>     This feat made it The Register:
>     https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/09/ken_thompsons_old_unix_password_cracked/
>
>             - Dan C.
>

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From leah at vuxu.org  Fri Oct 11 00:10:32 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:10:32 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 (Henry Bent's message of "Thu, 10 Oct 2019 09:57:10 -0400")
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <87tv8g4ron.fsf@vuxu.org>

Henry Bent <henry.r.bent at gmail.com> writes:

> I have no opinion on the password hacking (especially since Ken seemed fine
> with it), but this is to me distasteful.  The media was alerted, and that
> media was of all things The Register?  It's not exactly a site known for
> its thoughtful or balanced journalism.

To be fair, I wrote this up on my blog because I really enjoyed this
little piece of history, and put it on lobste.rs, expecting the usual
20 regulars to like it.  I did not expect the story to take off like
this!

(I also declined interview questions from The Register and Ars
Technica, because I don't have anything to add there and did not even
find the end result.)

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From reed at reedmedia.net  Fri Oct 11 00:21:32 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 09:21:32 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
In-Reply-To: <7w36g12mas.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910021718380.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910090818030.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <CANCZdfprfaSkKM4+S-xgc6fz6LhNMGPgF9NsrbCJint8e7wU_A@mail.gmail.com>
 <7w36g12mas.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910100919580.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:

> Warner Losh wrote:
> > I'm unsure the thing you labeled as DISPLAY-2 is the DISPLAY-2 or the
> > standard Option 340 display. I know people on this list said it was a
> > display-2 (maybe my early slides did as well). Based on pictures in
> > the PDP-7 manuals, I think it was the 340...
> 
> The photo does look much like a 340 CRT.  Is there anything known about
> how the GRAPHICS-2 (not DISPLAY-2, right?) hardware was built?  Is it
> possible a 340 CRT was repurposed for GRAPHICS-2?

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/03-scope.pdf
Jump down to page 20 and more.

Also see some of the PDP-7 assembler code in same directory
about "G-2" and "graphic-2" (keyboard and display) etc.

From reed at reedmedia.net  Fri Oct 11 01:18:45 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:18:45 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] where are v7 manual scans? license details?
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910101013090.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

I am surprised to not find any scans of early (pre-1980) Seventh Edition 
Unix Programmer's Manual. Does anyone have any? (We do have the source 
files and I see volume 2 manual scanned from  later years.)

Also where is a copy the new license introduced with v7? I have copy of 
1973 and 1974. Anyone have a scanned later version?

from etc/rc:

echo "Restricted rights: Use, duplication, or disclosure
is subject to restrictions stated in your contract with
Western Electric Company, Inc." >/dev/console

Thanks,

Jeremy C. Reed

echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
 tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Fri Oct 11 01:20:31 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:20:31 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
Message-ID: <20191010152031.546AE18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Lars Brinkhoff

    > There was no 635 at Project MAC, was there?

I seem to recall reading about one. And in:

  https://multicians.org/chrono.html

there's this entry: "08/65 GE 635 delivered to Project MAC". Clicking on the
'GE 635' link leads to "MIT's GE-635 system was installed on the ninth floor
of 545 Tech Square in 1965, and used to support a simulated 645 until the real
hardware was delivered."

	Noel

From larry0 at me.com  Fri Oct 11 01:27:31 2019
From: larry0 at me.com (Larry W. Cashdollar)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:27:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <12C03898-A590-4E33-8888-50BE4466D85C@me.com>

On 10/9/19, 4:13 PM, "TUHS on behalf of Warren Toomey" <tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org on behalf of wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
   > All, we just had about a dozen new subscribers to the TUHS list. Rather than
    >e-mail you all individually, I thought I'd use the list itself to say
    >"Welcome!".
 
 Hello, Everyone!

My first interaction with a UNIX system was with a Dec Alpha in my C programming class ~ 1993.  In 1994 I installed Slackware on my 486. 
I've worked with HP-UX, SCO, BSD, *inux*, Solaris, IRIX, AIX since then.  I have a Sun Ultra 1500, Sun Ultra 5 and an SGI Indy R5000 all running at home
In my office.

Thank you!,
Larry Cashdollar.

Yes, that's my real name. __




From imp at bsdimp.com  Fri Oct 11 03:20:40 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:20:40 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] My case for video footage of the machine Ken would later use
 to create Unix
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrsSSGhR7rFenRGwDFJVDVT54AsEa2fEsTgrmsNy3HkRA@mail.gmail.com>

https://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2019/10/video-footage-of-first-pdp-7-to-run-unix.html

is a blog entry where I step through the evidence that the PDP-7 in The
Incredible Machine video that was posted here a while ago is quite likely
the PDP-7 Ken used to create Unix after its days of starting in Bell Labs
films were over...

Warner
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From imp at bsdimp.com  Fri Oct 11 03:28:20 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:28:20 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] where are v7 manual scans? license details?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910101013090.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910101013090.28652@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrcrdFrsaYoyf9eUvEHyLqNsCSGDLT+8NO4T_mk=9XAhQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 9:19 AM <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> I am surprised to not find any scans of early (pre-1980) Seventh Edition
> Unix Programmer's Manual. Does anyone have any? (We do have the source
> files and I see volume 2 manual scanned from  later years.)
>


Bell Labs published the V7 manuals with HRW publishing. Copies are
available on eBay. I recently got Volume 1 and 2 copies of Volume 2.  The
publication date is 1983...  Cool to have, but not as cool as an artifact
of the original manual :) Some sellers have them for $75, but I got my
copies for like $10 each...

Warner


> Also where is a copy the new license introduced with v7? I have copy of
> 1973 and 1974. Anyone have a scanned later version?
>
> from etc/rc:
>
> echo "Restricted rights: Use, duplication, or disclosure
> is subject to restrictions stated in your contract with
> Western Electric Company, Inc." >/dev/console
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jeremy C. Reed
>
> echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
>  tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"
>
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From david at kdbarto.org  Fri Oct 11 03:51:07 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 10:51:07 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
In-Reply-To: <20774963.3022.1570575564420.JavaMail.root@zimbraanteil>
References: <20774963.3022.1570575564420.JavaMail.root@zimbraanteil>
Message-ID: <85EF801C-4A20-4B3A-BC98-5B42C89ABC70@kdbarto.org>

I’ve replied 2 times off list and seen nothing. So (sorry about spamming the list) just to let you know I’m shipping them out on Saturday which is when I can get to the UPS office.

	David

> On Oct 8, 2019, at 3:59 PM, Jim Capp <jcapp at anteil.com> wrote:
> 
> David,
> 
> Did you get my "off list" email about the books?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
> From: "David" <david at kdbarto.org <mailto:david at kdbarto.org>>
> To: "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" <tuhs at tuhs.org <mailto:tuhs at tuhs.org>>
> Sent: Monday, October 7, 2019 8:56:02 AM
> Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix books
> 
> I’ve got a few books I’ve just pulled off the shelf and no longer want/need.
> I’m hoping someone will give them a good home.
> 
> UNIX System Labs Inc UNIX(r) System V Release 4
>         Programmers Guide: System Services and Application Packaging Tools
>         Device Driver Interface/Driver-Kernel Interface (DDI/DKI) Reference Manual (2 copies)
> 
> AT&T 3B2/3B5/3B15 Computers Assembly Programming Manual
> 
> Sun Microsystems Inc (Sun Technical Reports)
>         The UNIX System - 1985
>         Sun 3 Architecture - 1986
> 
> I’m willing to split postage on mailing them wherever. If you are local (San Diego)
> I’m willing to meet you wherever for an exchange and a coffee.
> 
>         David
> (Also posted on the cctalk mailing list)

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From rsk at gsp.org  Fri Oct 11 03:36:46 2019
From: rsk at gsp.org (Rich Kulawiec)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 13:36:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Old Unix and DWB manuals seeking scanning and a permanent
 home
Message-ID: <20191010173646.GA14544@gsp.org>

I've lugged these around for 35-ish years.  I'd like to seem them 
scanned and stored someplace as permanent as can be found, so if
someone/anyone could tell me how to facilitate that, I'll package
them for shipping.

My apologies if this has already been done and I'm simply not aware of it.

I have other stuff that probably needs the same treatment, but
excavating the alluvial layers that have accumulated will take time.

Single small-format red binder:

	Unix System User Reference Manual - AT&T Bell Labs
	Unix System Release 2.0
	including Division 452 standard and local commands 
	October 1985

Set of four small format gray binders:

	Documenter's Workbench 1.0, April 1984
	1. Introduction and Reference Manual, 307-150, issue 2
	2. Text Formatter Reference, 307-151, issue 2
	3. Macro Package Reference, 307-152 issue 2
	4. Preprocessor Reference, 307-153, issue 2

Set of two slip-cased small format maroon/gray binders:

	Unix System V Documenters Workbench Release 2.0
	1. Technical Discusion and Reference 310-005, issue 1
	2. Product Overview 999-805-007IS, User Guide 999-805-006IS,
	Reference Card 999-805-008IS, issue 1

---rsk

From web at loomcom.com  Fri Oct 11 04:56:50 2019
From: web at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:56:50 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] 
 =?utf-8?q?Old_Unix_and_DWB_manuals_seeking_scanning_and_a?=
 =?utf-8?q?_permanent_home?=
In-Reply-To: <20191010173646.GA14544@gsp.org>
References: <20191010173646.GA14544@gsp.org>
Message-ID: <07ab9a63-0ca0-489c-aaa5-140985d7544c@www.fastmail.com>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019, at 10:36 AM, Rich Kulawiec wrote:
> I've lugged these around for 35-ish years.  I'd like to seem them 
> scanned and stored someplace as permanent as can be found, so if
> someone/anyone could tell me how to facilitate that, I'll package
> them for shipping.

If nobody else has claimed them, I'd like to offer to give them a home and scan them.

I have already scanned document 310-004, the Documenter's Workbench 2.0 User's Guide (see: https://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/documents/Applications/), but I don't have any of the other documents you mention here.

All the best,

-Seth
-- 
  Seth Morabito
  Poulsbo, WA
  web at loomcom.com

From berny at berwynlodge.com  Fri Oct 11 05:41:42 2019
From: berny at berwynlodge.com (Berny Goodheart)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 20:41:42 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] History talk in Dallas Texas October 10
Message-ID: <1DC93797-18BC-4BC1-8968-6A986C4AD2E1@berwynlodge.com>

I have “The” original first versions from John signed by him and Ken. Among a lot of other stuff….

From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Oct 11 06:24:08 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:24:08 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2NH6gF8Zhnj+QcZmjUW93BdvchyLkBrotk7b7eZdhCu=A@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:00 PM Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:

> Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful. It was
> distasteful back when, and it still is. The attitudes around hackery have
> changed; the position nowadays seems to be that the bad guys are doing it
> so the good guys should be rewarded for doing it first. That's disingenuous
> at best, and dangerous at worst.
>
Amen
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From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 06:38:24 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:38:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NH6gF8Zhnj+QcZmjUW93BdvchyLkBrotk7b7eZdhCu=A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NH6gF8Zhnj+QcZmjUW93BdvchyLkBrotk7b7eZdhCu=A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzzfG9QEO0mE+HwmDqOXjW1yELRyk+sOtHo7eWRyU7s8bw@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/10/2019, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:00 PM Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful.
[...]
> Amen

Some (large) companies regularly run password crackers on their
employees' passwords and inform them if their passwords are found
"insufficiently strong to protect company assets".

Good, bad, distasteful, prudent, off-topic?

N.

From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 06:52:19 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:52:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzzfG9QEO0mE+HwmDqOXjW1yELRyk+sOtHo7eWRyU7s8bw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NH6gF8Zhnj+QcZmjUW93BdvchyLkBrotk7b7eZdhCu=A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJfiPzzfG9QEO0mE+HwmDqOXjW1yELRyk+sOtHo7eWRyU7s8bw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp8bW-5at7J5ZpeTMt-jpayMSDONL7vJLaWeL2tDqM2mLg@mail.gmail.com>

Randal Schwartz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randal_L._Schwartz) got
slammed with 3 felony charges (since revoked) for doing that favor for
Intel. An Intel VP with a ridiculously weak password was unamused. It's one
thing to badger your employees, quite another to post old passwords in the
clear in a public forum. Those old passwords may turn up in unexpected
places, or reveal information that the user would prefer not to be made
public now. (Shame on Ken for liking chess :-). Bad idea, and off-topic.

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:38 PM Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/10/2019, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Oct 9, 2019 at 4:00 PM Rob Pike <robpike at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful.
> [...]
> > Amen
>
> Some (large) companies regularly run password crackers on their
> employees' passwords and inform them if their passwords are found
> "insufficiently strong to protect company assets".
>
> Good, bad, distasteful, prudent, off-topic?
>
> N.
>
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Fri Oct 11 06:55:46 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 06:55:46 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.

So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
previously used?

Mine was: Oh, I can:
  + write a simple script
  + to edit a file on the fly
  + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
  + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!

I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.

Cheers, Warren

From spedraja at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 07:11:31 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:11:31 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CACytpF9EODaUHw+g9OyqkEwhqhAmiogLc3diEaqUqBMDFLVkHg@mail.gmail.com>

El jue., 10 oct. 2019 22:56, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> escribió:

>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>

Me too. But in adittion and specially:

+ the availability of the C compiler
+ syslog

Regards
Sergio Pedraja
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From mparson at bl.org  Fri Oct 11 07:13:03 2019
From: mparson at bl.org (Michael Parson)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:13:03 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <e9d199cf5bb1ccfa5000a6eadd537f37@bl.org>

On 2019-10-10 15:55, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. 
> Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
> 
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems 
> you'd
> previously used?
> 
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!

I'm a bit younger, first started playing with Unix systems in 1992, a 
Sun something running SunOS 4.1.something while in collage.  I just 
kinda assumed that this remote system I was accessing over a dial-up 
connection some some big-iron box, I mean, it had dozens of people 
logged into it at a time!  Of course it was something bigger than the PC 
I had at home.  When I first saw a Sun pizza-box, and realized it was 
the same class system I'd been logging into remotely, I was impressed, 
but was still sure it was some magic that made it way more special than 
the PC stuff I was used to.

I later learned about Linux and installed it on a 486DX-50 that had been 
slated to be a backup Novell box at my job.  This was a system that did 
a decent job at being a Novel server, its clone had ~45 systems attached 
to it in the student lab, was a file/print server, etc.  I knew that it 
was a beefy box for Windows (3.1, at the time), but with Linux... With 
Linux, I had X11 on the console, could be playing Doom, browse thew eb 
with Mosaic, etc, while a dozen+ CS students were logged in from the 
Wyse terminals in the next building, and it kept chugging along.

> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.

I started out on home-PCs of the era: Commodore 64, Apple II, various 
CP/M systems, TI 99/4A, and of course MS/PC-DOS systems.  Unix showed me 
what a computer could really do.  I don't really remember being 
impressed with pipes, for some reason, they just made sense to me.  For 
me, the first time someone showed me xargs, that was cool. It was my 
introduction to command-line scripting.

> Cheers, Warren

-- 
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ

From mrudge at ubuntu.com  Fri Oct 11 07:15:50 2019
From: mrudge at ubuntu.com (Matt Rudge)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 22:15:50 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAErawUMYqpuet-==sC60FiYA0uM+r7BntttOUBbi_dwYJGHSRQ@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for the warm welcome!

For me, it was uucp of all things. I needed to set up a way of
copying mailboxes from one place to another over a modem-to-modem
connection. Unix allowed me to do it with a simple script and minimal
overhead.

When I realised that I also had a C compiler built in then....

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019 at 21:56, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>


-- 
www.mattrudge.net - for wibble and guff
blog.mattrudge.net - for Linuxy goodness
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From jcapp at anteil.com  Fri Oct 11 07:25:10 2019
From: jcapp at anteil.com (Jim Capp)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 17:25:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CACytpF9EODaUHw+g9OyqkEwhqhAmiogLc3diEaqUqBMDFLVkHg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CACytpF9EODaUHw+g9OyqkEwhqhAmiogLc3diEaqUqBMDFLVkHg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <EE70593C-F955-4C5C-8917-08C839C5BBF6@anteil.com>

My “aha” moment was the discovery of man pages and the realization that the design of the entire system, from inodes to tty drivers were freely available at my fingertips for perusal. 

It was like having an operating system design course “on-line”, and what a beautiful design!!!

Cheers,

Jim


> On Oct 10, 2019, at 5:11 PM, SPC <spedraja at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> El jue., 10 oct. 2019 22:56, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> escribió:
>> 
>> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
>> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
>> previously used?
>> 
>> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>>   + write a simple script
> 
> 
> Me too. But in adittion and specially:
> 
> + the availability of the C compiler
> + syslog
> 
> Regards
> Sergio Pedraja
> 
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From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Fri Oct 11 07:31:59 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:31:59 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191010213159.AzhR_%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Warren Toomey wrote in <20191010205546.GA29154 at minnie.tuhs.org>:
 |All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
 |A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
 |if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
 |
 |So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
 |first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
 |previously used?
 |
 |Mine was: Oh, I can:

I get the feeling somebody's watching me!  (However:

  #?0|kent:$ prt-get info xeyes
  Package 'xeyes' not found
  #?255|kent:$ prt-get dsearch xeye
  No matching packages found
  #?255|kent:$ prt-get fsearch xeye
  #?255|kent:$)

 |  + write a simple script

Perl with full set of manual pages available!  (Only as single
page HTML before.)

 |  + to edit a file on the fly

That was really hard, coming from Notepad plus or what its name
was.  Luckily there was MidnightCommander as a NortonCommander
clone, otherwise i would likely have been bogged down.  xedit no,
xemacs no.  There was a graphical editor thing, i think it used
Motif, but i have forgotten.  Had syntax highlighting, but had no
tabs if i recall correctly.  It was a long way to get myself going
with emacs, but finally, after a year or two, came to vim.

The window managers were really hard to get right, i grabbed
a super-cheap SuSE debug CD on 1999-01-11, it used fvwm2.  Focus
follows mouse and much more i could not deal with.  I booted
Windows for working purposes until first of May 1999, when
i finally switched over to fulltime Linux.  (I ended up using
icewm after Enlightenment (cool but to slow) and WindowMaker did
not make it.  Until i discovered ahwm, which then was it.  Only
recently i switched to cwm.)

 |  + with no temporary files (a la pipes)

That did bother you.  I am superficial.  And i came in via 4DOS.
And as a Basic, .BAT and perl "programmer".

 |  + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!

Discovery of shebang was a tremendous moment.  And anything around
that.  Discovery of manuals, for example the GNU C library manual!
Ah, it soon was discovery of the entire basic UNIX tool set, that
dispersed set of tools acting together for a greater whole!  That
was really, really great.

 |I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.

C64/GEOS, Win 3.1/DOS, Windows95/4DOS. 

 |Cheers, Warren
 --End of <20191010205546.GA29154 at minnie.tuhs.org>

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

From greg.m.travis at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 07:33:26 2019
From: greg.m.travis at gmail.com (greg travis)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 17:33:26 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <EE70593C-F955-4C5C-8917-08C839C5BBF6@anteil.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CACytpF9EODaUHw+g9OyqkEwhqhAmiogLc3diEaqUqBMDFLVkHg@mail.gmail.com>
 <EE70593C-F955-4C5C-8917-08C839C5BBF6@anteil.com>
Message-ID: <CAJvuEa0H5Xv_5pK24EQmfAywm+K4hKf9X0own_UpyBwTe4MZjw@mail.gmail.com>

Before unix, I had only used a TRS80-III and an Atari 800.  So it was my
first real operating system.  I think I was pretty amazed when I logged in
to my account from a second location and it was the same account, somehow.
Magic!

I was also pretty blown away when my professor used ^T in Unipress Emacs.

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 5:25 PM Jim Capp <jcapp at anteil.com> wrote:

> My “aha” moment was the discovery of man pages and the realization that
> the design of the entire system, from inodes to tty drivers were freely
> available at my fingertips for perusal.
>
> It was like having an operating system design course “on-line”, and what a
> beautiful design!!!
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jim
>
>
> On Oct 10, 2019, at 5:11 PM, SPC <spedraja at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> El jue., 10 oct. 2019 22:56, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> escribió:
>
>>
>> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
>> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
>> previously used?
>>
>> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>>   + write a simple script
>>
>
> Me too. But in adittion and specially:
>
> + the availability of the C compiler
> + syslog
>
> Regards
> Sergio Pedraja
>
>
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Fri Oct 11 07:34:27 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 14:34:27 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191010213427.GE5593@mcvoy.com>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 06:55:46AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

Unix was pretty much the first thing I used.  I did regress to CPM Z80
based machine because 40-60 users on a 1Mhz (I think) VAX was crazy
slow, even though it had disk and I think 4MB of ram, the 128K 4mhz
z80 with floppies was faster.

I wrote assembly versions of ls, cp, mv, rm, etc - assembly so that 
I could cram the program into a 512 byte sector (both for speed of
loading as well as for small size).

The aha moment for me was one of the many times I was logged into
slovax (an 11/750 that had the BSD source on it) reading popen.c
and got to the point where it forked a process.  It blew my mind,
here I am in libc and it's creating processes for me.  I just didn't
expect that but was struck by the thought "huh, these Unix guys don't
fool around, they use the abstractions they advertise".

I expected something like Windows spawn or some VMS complex thing,
I sure as heck didn't expect fork and exec, shows how naive I was 
at the time.  Fun times.

From web at loomcom.com  Fri Oct 11 09:10:02 2019
From: web at loomcom.com (Seth J. Morabito)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:10:02 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <875zkw5h9x.fsf@loomcom.com>


Warren Toomey writes:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

A fun topic!

I'm a bit on the young side, so Unix was my first exposure to any kind
of timesharing or multi-user system. Prior to getting access to MIPS
Ultrix 4.2 on a DECstation, my experience consisted ENTIRELY of:

    * 8-bit systems, mainly Commodore 64 and Tandy TRS-80
    * The Commodore Amiga 1000 and 500
    * DOS and Windows 3.0 in the form of an IBM PC XT and a PS/2

Then, when I arrived at Cornell University in 1992, I discovered that
there was a network of three clustered DECstations, sharing about 2GB
(!) of system and user disk space. Enormous!

As an avid reader of BYTE Magazine, I had _heard_ of Unix in the trade
press, but I didn't honestly know what it was. I was plunged head first
into it as a user, and quickly found myself addicted. I did get some
guidance from a few experienced users, so I wasn't completely on my
own. I owe them quite a bit for their patience and guidance.

For me, the "Aha!" moment was entirely related to being attached to
Usenet and the Internet. The fact that I could suddently read email
(with the RAND MH system) and Usenet (with nn) and communicate with all
of these very clever people all over the world was positively
intoxicating.

My love only grew when I discovered that there was a C compiler
installed, and that I could build my own programs from source downloaded
by FTP. Later, Perl 4 was installed, and I learned how to write my own
programs. It was an exciting time in my young life.

-Seth
--
Seth Morabito
Poulsbo, WA, USA
web at loomcom.com

From blstuart at bellsouth.net  Fri Oct 11 09:23:32 2019
From: blstuart at bellsouth.net (Brian L. Stuart)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 23:23:32 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <1586929316.4330765.1570749812945@mail.yahoo.com>

 On Thursday, October 10, 2019, 4:55:58 PM EDT, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

For me, it was reading the source code on 6th Ed.
Seeing the elegance, simplicity, and beauty was
like seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time or
hearing Beethoven's 9th for the first time.

To this day, I still remember looking through some
of the userland code and saw that who figured out
if you use it in "who am i" just by looking at argc.
Using as "who are you" or "who really cares" was
fun, but the real effect was realizing how much
more I'd understand by reading code than by reading
documentation.

BLS
  
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From ggm at algebras.org  Fri Oct 11 09:28:09 2019
From: ggm at algebras.org (George Michaelson)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 09:28:09 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <1586929316.4330765.1570749812945@mail.yahoo.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <1586929316.4330765.1570749812945@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAKr6gn0N7dGBcv1dS8X9=acM-TrddbARZ=6-ihv0myOc37dMMg@mail.gmail.com>

Wanting to print something and reaching for Tops-10 PIP.. to realize I
didn't need to do that. Irrational concepts did not carry across

Logging in by name but having my uid:gid map naturally to the Tops-10
[xxxx,yyy] form. -Rational concepts carried across

Learn. "omg. Is that all there is? really? is it that simple? you mean
the file permissions flags ARE BITS IN A WORD"

RUNOF -> nroff.

The pascal and fortran experience was a bit of a backwards step. But
makefiles were logical, and once I stopped writing in fortran, things
got remarkably better.

csh in many ways. I know that's heresy for a lot of people, but some
things were just subtly easier in csh. I didn't write csh scripts.

-G

From bakul at bitblocks.com  Fri Oct 11 09:35:12 2019
From: bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:35:12 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <91EB49CE-EF4F-4F0D-9734-2710ABC84E2F@bitblocks.com>

On Oct 10, 2019, at 1:55 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
> 
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
> 
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>  + write a simple script
>  + to edit a file on the fly
>  + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>  + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
> 
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
> 
> Cheers, Warren

Being an OS student I had read "The Unix Timesharing System" paper by
Ritchie and Thompson and had wanted to use Unix years before I actually
had the chance. I don't remember an "Aha!" moment but I took to it like
a duck to water. Most everything felt just so comfortable and right.
It was very much as I had imagined it to be.

Prior to it I had used TSO, TOPS-10, VM/CMS and VMS. And CP/M @home.


From david at kdbarto.org  Fri Oct 11 09:49:23 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:49:23 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <91EB49CE-EF4F-4F0D-9734-2710ABC84E2F@bitblocks.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <91EB49CE-EF4F-4F0D-9734-2710ABC84E2F@bitblocks.com>
Message-ID: <3A5CAD53-ABFD-468F-869D-59FACA81BD5D@kdbarto.org>


> On Oct 10, 2019, at 4:35 PM, Bakul Shah <bakul at bitblocks.com> wrote:
> 
> On Oct 10, 2019, at 1:55 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>> 
>> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
>> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
>> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>> 
>> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
>> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
>> previously used?
>> 
>> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>> + write a simple script
>> + to edit a file on the fly
>> + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>> + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>> 
>> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>> 
>> Cheers, Warren
> 

I was at UCSD on the Pascal project, so I was used to using a machine with
a nice editor and had access to the OS source code to play with and learn from.
When UCSD spun the Pascal project out to SofTech MicroSystems I moved as
well. SofTech had a pdp 11/45 running V6 with the famous patch tape.

We called it V6.9.

When I first logged in, it was just a feeling of simplicity and elegance. I could
edit files, move them around on the disk, and when I was curious about what
was happening under the covers, I could go look at the sources.

Aha - I could use the shell to script the formatting of text files making the task
of generating new printed documentation for the Pascal Project something
as easy as saying ./printdocs.sh. After that it was all nroff, vi, and C compiler
experiences, learning what really made this system tick.

Back at UCSD I got access to the VAX (sdcsvax) and did all of my homework
there never again returning to the Pascal system on the Terak boxes.

Never looked back, I’ve been using Unix as my OS ever since.

	David


From gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 11:44:30 2019
From: gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com (Gregg Levine)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 21:44:30 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAC5iaNHpL0JGa1TFfvnv7x1UwzByaN2QAetW58xPNc3HN-LpMg@mail.gmail.com>

Hello!
Me? I got started bitbanging my way through things on Apple 2 designs,
and then DOS on a grouch PC/XT clone from AT&T, and then a PC/AT clone
also from AT&T, there I also included Windows. Around the time the
P100 came out from Intel I also stuffed Slackware onto it in the form
their Zipslack, and about the time I'd gotten connected to the 'net, I
found your site, and off I went. I'd run UNIX on SIMH/pdp-11. (Amazing
stuff that!) And for your Larry I also had a Sun system here who also
ran first my website, then just the background stuff.

Meeting Ken sometime earlier at the VCF East, and recognizing Brian
from his style, made me realize that Armstrong the musician was right
about it being a "wonderful world". especially watching the big gaggle
of machines celebrating the wonders of UNiX.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren

From gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 11:45:58 2019
From: gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com (Gregg Levine)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 21:45:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAC5iaNHpL0JGa1TFfvnv7x1UwzByaN2QAetW58xPNc3HN-LpMg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAC5iaNHpL0JGa1TFfvnv7x1UwzByaN2QAetW58xPNc3HN-LpMg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC5iaNH3yFkYp+ZHxjvu-_KbXQoRR7jzi7zK3KbP_QPBuGs4Sg@mail.gmail.com>

Hello again.
(Silly keyboard.) That line regarding the Sun box, should read "for you Larry".
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 9:44 PM Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hello!
> Me? I got started bitbanging my way through things on Apple 2 designs,
> and then DOS on a grouch PC/XT clone from AT&T, and then a PC/AT clone
> also from AT&T, there I also included Windows. Around the time the
> P100 came out from Intel I also stuffed Slackware onto it in the form
> their Zipslack, and about the time I'd gotten connected to the 'net, I
> found your site, and off I went. I'd run UNIX on SIMH/pdp-11. (Amazing
> stuff that!) And for your Larry I also had a Sun system here who also
> ran first my website, then just the background stuff.
>
> Meeting Ken sometime earlier at the VCF East, and recognizing Brian
> from his style, made me realize that Armstrong the musician was right
> about it being a "wonderful world". especially watching the big gaggle
> of machines celebrating the wonders of UNiX.
> -----
> Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
> "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> > All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> > A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> > if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
> >
> > So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> > first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> > previously used?
> >
> > Mine was: Oh, I can:
> >   + write a simple script
> >   + to edit a file on the fly
> >   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
> >   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
> >
> > I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
> >
> > Cheers, Warren

From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Oct 11 12:46:02 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:46:02 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:

> DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; e.g. the "pdp11
> peripherals handbook" (to transcribe the cover exactly) uses "PDP-11"
> several times on pg 1-1.

And being an acronym it is of course upper-case...

-- Dave

From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Oct 11 12:49:11 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:49:11 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111347340.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Henry Bent wrote:

> I have no opinion on the password hacking (especially since Ken seemed 
> fine with it), but this is to me distasteful.  The media was alerted, 
> and that media was of all things The Register?  It's not exactly a site 
> known for its thoughtful or balanced journalism.

I've found The Register to be pretty OK, but what would you recommend in
its place?

-- Dave

From lm at mcvoy.com  Fri Oct 11 12:56:54 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:56:54 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] bwk
Message-ID: <20191011025654.GK5593@mcvoy.com>

I miss Brian on this list.  I've interacted with him over the years, the
one I remember the most was I was trying to do an awk like interface to a
key/value "database".  I talked to him about it and he sent me ~bwk/awk
which had all the original awk source and the troff source to the awk
book in english and french.  

Ken, Doug, Rob, Steve, anyone, could you coax him onto this list?

If you want me to try first I will, I don't know if he remembers me
or not.  But I can try and then maybe one of you follow up?

From lars at nocrew.org  Fri Oct 11 15:49:13 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 05:49:13 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] My case for video footage of the machine Ken would later
 use to create Unix
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfrsSSGhR7rFenRGwDFJVDVT54AsEa2fEsTgrmsNy3HkRA@mail.gmail.com>
 (Warner Losh's message of "Thu, 10 Oct 2019 11:20:40 -0600")
References: <CANCZdfrsSSGhR7rFenRGwDFJVDVT54AsEa2fEsTgrmsNy3HkRA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7weezjzvae.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Warner Losh wrote:
> https://bsdimp.blogspot.com/2019/10/video-footage-of-first-pdp-7-to-run-unix.html

Thank you.  I think your attention to detail is commendable.

From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Oct 11 16:24:05 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 17:24:05 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzzfG9QEO0mE+HwmDqOXjW1yELRyk+sOtHo7eWRyU7s8bw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NH6gF8Zhnj+QcZmjUW93BdvchyLkBrotk7b7eZdhCu=A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJfiPzzfG9QEO0mE+HwmDqOXjW1yELRyk+sOtHo7eWRyU7s8bw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111721430.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Nemo wrote:

> Some (large) companies regularly run password crackers on their 
> employees' passwords and inform them if their passwords are found 
> "insufficiently strong to protect company assets".

An ex-employer of mine (not the reason I left) used to do just that.

> Good, bad, distasteful, prudent, off-topic?

Depends :-)

-- Dave

From ralph at inputplus.co.uk  Fri Oct 11 19:03:46 2019
From: ralph at inputplus.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 10:03:46 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] bwk
In-Reply-To: <20191011025654.GK5593@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191011025654.GK5593@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20191011090346.30CB01FDC8@orac.inputplus.co.uk>

Hi Larry,

> I miss Brian on this list.

I too think it would be great if he was, but I suspect if he wanted to
be here, he would already be.  He gets forwarded the odd list email by
some ex-colleagues that want his input on a bit of history and they feed
back his recollection.  By not being here he probably gets a lot more done
with his time.  :-)  Especially with the recent influx of new subscribers
and the possible growth in number of emails and change in signal:noise.

-- 
Cheers, Ralph.

From leah at vuxu.org  Fri Oct 11 20:55:57 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 12:55:57 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> (Warren Toomey's message
 of "Fri, 11 Oct 2019 06:55:46 +1000")
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>

Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> writes:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

I'm not sure if this was *my* "Aha, Unix!" moment, but my Dad
complained once that he had some CSV file containing bills and needed
to do some computation, and it would be a hassle to do in Delphi
(which he is most proficient in).  So I told him I could have a look
at it on my Linux system, and while he explained what computations he
needed, I would type in some awk oneliner and a bit of other pipe
stuff and he had his answer within minutes.

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From pechter at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 21:09:35 2019
From: pechter at gmail.com (William Pechter)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 07:09:35 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111721430.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NH6gF8Zhnj+QcZmjUW93BdvchyLkBrotk7b7eZdhCu=A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJfiPzzfG9QEO0mE+HwmDqOXjW1yELRyk+sOtHo7eWRyU7s8bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111721430.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <2e0412a9-ba41-6c70-9a42-3a1da710823d@gmail.com>

On 10/11/2019 2:24 AM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Nemo wrote:
>
>> Some (large) companies regularly run password crackers on their 
>> employees' passwords and inform them if their passwords are found 
>> "insufficiently strong to protect company assets".
>
> An ex-employer of mine (not the reason I left) used to do just that.
>
>> Good, bad, distasteful, prudent, off-topic?
>
> Depends :-)
>
> -- Dave

And when I was an instructor and sysadmin at Pyramid, I caught a 
co-worker with a SUID ksh binary named  "..."  "hidden under his home 
directory in a directory named "..." because su took too long.  Yeah and 
su had logging.  Thank you COPS.  Not that I distrusted him -- but when 
you share sysadmin duties there are things thatshouldn't be done.


Bill





From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 21:46:12 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 07:46:12 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] bwk
In-Reply-To: <20191011090346.30CB01FDC8@orac.inputplus.co.uk>
References: <20191011025654.GK5593@mcvoy.com>
 <20191011090346.30CB01FDC8@orac.inputplus.co.uk>
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp83auZm8-BSgU6pWuQ5JuBer15iwg_v6t=0z8FDW8dOAg@mail.gmail.com>

I happen to know that Brian is very busy writing a book/memoir about early
UNIX, coming out very soon. I suspect it is sucking up all his free time.

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 5:04 AM Ralph Corderoy <ralph at inputplus.co.uk>
wrote:

> Hi Larry,
>
> > I miss Brian on this list.
>
> I too think it would be great if he was, but I suspect if he wanted to
> be here, he would already be.  He gets forwarded the odd list email by
> some ex-colleagues that want his input on a bit of history and they feed
> back his recollection.  By not being here he probably gets a lot more done
> with his time.  :-)  Especially with the recent influx of new subscribers
> and the possible growth in number of emails and change in signal:noise.
>
> --
> Cheers, Ralph.
>
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From coppero1237 at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 22:04:15 2019
From: coppero1237 at gmail.com (Tyler Adams)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 15:04:15 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
Message-ID: <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>

One of the things that makes unix so special to me is how many different
ways I had the "Aha" moment.

Viscerally, I got drawn in after I tried writing some Batch script for a
windows machine and found bash so much easier.

Intellectually, ESR's Art of Unix Programming really shown a light onto
what made unix feel so fun. Seeing the unix principles laid out shortly and
clearly was world changing.

Then when Apple and Google pumped out 3 BILLION unix like devices and made
unix mainstream, it just nailed it in that unix is a really special piece
of software*.*

 Tyler


On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 1:56 PM Leah Neukirchen <leah at vuxu.org> wrote:

> Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> writes:
>
> > All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> > A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> > if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
> >
> > So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> > first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> > previously used?
>
> I'm not sure if this was *my* "Aha, Unix!" moment, but my Dad
> complained once that he had some CSV file containing bills and needed
> to do some computation, and it would be a hassle to do in Delphi
> (which he is most proficient in).  So I told him I could have a look
> at it on my Linux system, and while he explained what computations he
> needed, I would type in some awk oneliner and a bit of other pipe
> stuff and he had his answer within minutes.
>
> --
> Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/
>
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From ality at pbrane.org  Fri Oct 11 22:28:31 2019
From: ality at pbrane.org (Anthony Martin)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 05:28:31 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191009200942.GA73878@wopr>
Message-ID: <20191011122831.GA10582@alice>

Kurt H Maier <khm at sciops.net> once said:
> On Wed, Oct 09, 2019 at 09:59:43AM -1000, Rob Pike wrote:
> > I find this hacking distasteful. It was distasteful back when, and it
> > still is.
> 
> And not really relevant to this topic, in fact.

It is relevant, in fact.

And if you're going to peck someone's password out of a hash, at least
keep your beak shut. Don't write a cock-a-hoop article that will surely
be parroted all over the net. It's foul.

  Anthony

From katolaz at freaknet.org  Fri Oct 11 22:53:52 2019
From: katolaz at freaknet.org (KatolaZ)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 14:53:52 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191011125352.tim4tv556w5mq4my@unixfarts.net>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 06:55:46AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
> 
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
> 

[cut]

Disclaimer: I am on the young-ish side as well.

I learned the basic Unix commands and the use of vi(1) from a book,
some four or five years before I sat in front of a unix login prompt
(around '91 or '92). I just found the whole thing amazing, so I
re-read that book several times, waiting for the day when I would have
been there for real.

Then finally that day came, and that was my "aahhh, Unix!"
moment. Instantly, everything made so much sense. As somebody else
suggested, I really felt like a duck plunging in a pond for the first
time.

Since then, it has been just a sequence of "aha! Unix!" moments, like
when I conjured a longish pipe which solved in 30 seconds a reporting
problem on which two people had spent about two weeks, or when I left
a colleague jaw-dropped after seeing how I fitted several million data
points to a reference distribution with an awk+bc oneliner :P

HND

From tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk  Fri Oct 11 22:55:13 2019
From: tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk (Tony Travis)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:55:13 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <a0a5fc29-1ae4-9b00-5207-072903365a6e@minke-informatics.co.uk>

On 11/10/2019 03:46, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> 
>> DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; e.g. the "pdp11
>> peripherals handbook" (to transcribe the cover exactly) uses "PDP-11"
>> several times on pg 1-1.
> 
> And being an acronym it is of course upper-case...

Hi, Dave.

On the _machine_ itself, DEC wrote "pdp11"...

An acronym doesn't have to be upper-case!

Many Unix commands are lower case acronyms:

   cd = (c)ange (d)irectory
   pwd (p)rint (w)orking (directory)
   ls = (l)ist file(s)

I guess that my introduction to Seventh Edition Unix running on a 
"pdp11/34" made me think it was obviously designed to run Unix ;-)

Bye,

   Tony.

-- 
Minke Informatics Limited, Registered in Scotland - Company No. SC419028
Registered Office: 3 Donview, Bridge of Alford, AB33 8QJ, Scotland (UK)
tel. +44(0)19755 63548                    http://minke-informatics.co.uk
mob. +44(0)7985 078324        mailto:tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk

From spedraja at gmail.com  Fri Oct 11 23:19:08 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 15:19:08 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] BSD Password cracked (fun)
In-Reply-To: <739d7179-e68a-d00d-c018-775d32ebea12@minke-informatics.co.uk>
References: <20191009201321.GA24336@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <739d7179-e68a-d00d-c018-775d32ebea12@minke-informatics.co.uk>
Message-ID: <CACytpF9+i0kggGRsHR_C5DGjUYLDu2kTY_fX6rs_Vhvkm0U0zQ@mail.gmail.com>

A bit of fun. In appeareance, 39 years later, Ken Thompson's password on
BSD Unix has been cracked... Congratulations for the password, by the way.


https://thehackernews.com/2019/10/unix-bsd-password-cracked.html

Cordiales saludos / Kind Regards.

Gracias | Regards - Saludos | Greetings | Freundliche Grüße | Salutations
-- 
*Sergio Pedraja*
-- 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiopedraja
-----
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From mparson at bl.org  Fri Oct 11 23:11:08 2019
From: mparson at bl.org (Michael Parson)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 08:11:08 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <a0a5fc29-1ae4-9b00-5207-072903365a6e@minke-informatics.co.uk>
References: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <a0a5fc29-1ae4-9b00-5207-072903365a6e@minke-informatics.co.uk>
Message-ID: <4c1973ab965afdcc938cbb7dca913427@bl.org>

On 2019-10-11 07:55, Tony Travis wrote:
> On 11/10/2019 03:46, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>> 
>>> DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; e.g. the "pdp11
>>> peripherals handbook" (to transcribe the cover exactly) uses "PDP-11"
>>> several times on pg 1-1.
>> 
>> And being an acronym it is of course upper-case...
> 
> Hi, Dave.
> 
> On the _machine_ itself, DEC wrote "pdp11"...

Well, that's also in-line with their using all lower-case on their logo.

> An acronym doesn't have to be upper-case!
> 
> Many Unix commands are lower case acronyms:
> 
>   cd = (c)ange (d)irectory
>   pwd (p)rint (w)orking (directory)
>   ls = (l)ist file(s)

I always thought of it as (l)i(s)t files.

> I guess that my introduction to Seventh Edition Unix running on a
> "pdp11/34" made me think it was obviously designed to run Unix ;-)
> 
> Bye,
> 
>   Tony.

-- 
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ

From pete at nomadlogic.org  Sat Oct 12 02:44:32 2019
From: pete at nomadlogic.org (Pete Wright)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 09:44:32 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <1e8b746e-da68-6e1a-d1f4-f9a9a13a7686@nomadlogic.org>



On 10/10/19 1:55 PM, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

For me it happened in highschool - 1992/1993.  I had been playing around 
with my i386 at home which had a modem and i used to dial into my local 
library and eventually bbs's and stuff.  then my school offered a class 
on Earth Systems Science which was partly funded and sponsored by NASA 
which was awesome by itself, but for me the real turning point was our 
computer lab had an SGI indigo workstation.  everything about it blew my 
mind, i have very clear memories of learning how to download satalite 
data via ftp, use tar to expand the data then visualize it.  i also 
remember bugging one of the smarter guys in the class how he changed his 
prompt to look so cool :^)

this workstation also had mosaic and we were all given email addresses 
(domain gaia.circles.org, even had a webpage hosted there!).

so for me - this Unix aha! moment was very closely mixed with an 
Internet aha! moment when i discovered how much more info was available 
to me compared to my local suburban library :)

-pete

-- 
Pete Wright
pete at nomadlogic.org
@nomadlogicLA


From velocityboy at gmail.com  Sat Oct 12 03:13:37 2019
From: velocityboy at gmail.com (Jim Geist)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:13:37 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAJohCKLCv2=37kzQfaBAHZ3oQ8xABW0cmzX5PGSnp0rXJ5sWzg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>

As an undergrad in the 80's. Before college most of my experience had been
on various flavors of BASIC, with the one exception being a summer spent at
a science camp where I did Pascal on an Apple ][ and other programming
assignments on VMS.

My college had a big schism between the computer services department that
serviced the whole school -- they ran an IBM 4341 with VM/SP -- and the
actual computer science department that ran UNIX on a VAX-11/780. Undergrad
classes were mostly on the mainframe and grad students used the VAX. I
learned C on the mainframe but was able to talk my way into a UNIX account
and started seeing how much more elegant things were.
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Oct 12 03:20:58 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 10:20:58 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAJohCKLCv2=37kzQfaBAHZ3oQ8xABW0cmzX5PGSnp0rXJ5sWzg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAJohCKLCv2=37kzQfaBAHZ3oQ8xABW0cmzX5PGSnp0rXJ5sWzg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191011172058.GC3783@mcvoy.com>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 01:13:37PM -0400, Jim Geist wrote:
> My college had a big schism between the computer services department that
> serviced the whole school -- they ran an IBM 4341 with VM/SP -- and the
> actual computer science department that ran UNIX on a VAX-11/780. Undergrad
> classes were mostly on the mainframe and grad students used the VAX. I
> learned C on the mainframe but was able to talk my way into a UNIX account
> and started seeing how much more elegant things were.

Our CS department had a mainframe as well, also a handful of 11/750s and
11/780s.  The compiler class was taught on the mainframe, the prof had
a lex/yacc clone he had written and wanted us to use that.

My buddy Rob Netzer and I had 3B1 (Unix PC) or maybe 2, I think I had
one as well, and we asked the prof if we could do the class on those.
Rob had to write the lex/yacc clone to be compat with the profs, he
did and we happily avoided using the mainframe.  We were very sold
on Unix by then.

From rodrigosloop at gmail.com  Sat Oct 12 03:37:31 2019
From: rodrigosloop at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Rodrigo_G=2E_L=C3=B3pez?=)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 19:37:31 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] bwk
In-Reply-To: <CAC0cEp83auZm8-BSgU6pWuQ5JuBer15iwg_v6t=0z8FDW8dOAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191011025654.GK5593@mcvoy.com>
 <20191011090346.30CB01FDC8@orac.inputplus.co.uk>
 <CAC0cEp83auZm8-BSgU6pWuQ5JuBer15iwg_v6t=0z8FDW8dOAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+cCjXqpdXqZ1dkA=ft3LjHYqP7i_eRU4N+F=Nu3ZaekYHbBSQ@mail.gmail.com>

that is great news. i've got all of his books, except the one about Go he
wrote with Donovan. i'll definitely be purchasing that one about UNIX.

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019, 1:47 PM John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl at gmail.com> wrote:

> I happen to know that Brian is very busy writing a book/memoir about early
> UNIX, coming out very soon. I suspect it is sucking up all his free time.
>
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From jcapp at anteil.com  Sat Oct 12 03:40:43 2019
From: jcapp at anteil.com (Jim Capp)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:40:43 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAJohCKLCv2=37kzQfaBAHZ3oQ8xABW0cmzX5PGSnp0rXJ5sWzg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8137868.3267.1570815643313.JavaMail.root@zimbraanteil>

Thanks Jim. Your story about BASIC and C reminded me of another "aha" moment. 


My first programming job involving UNIX in the early 1980's was to send data to an IBM mainframe via 2780/3780 binary synchronous communications (BSC). 


I started writing a HEX dump utility using BASIC. I wasn't happy with the execution speed and started reading man pages. 


I discovered C. Having done some work with assembly, I immediately recognized the similarity and function as a "portable assembler". 


By that time, UNIX had been ported to at least a dozen different architectures. 


I was sold on the design, utility, and "openness" of the documentation, and have been working with nearly every flavor of *NIX ever since. 


Cheers, 


Jim 





From: "Jim Geist" <velocityboy at gmail.com> 
To: "Warren Toomey" <wkt at tuhs.org> 
Cc: "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" <tuhs at tuhs.org> 
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 1:13:37 PM 
Subject: Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment? 







On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey < wkt at tuhs.org > wrote: 


All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome. 
A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you 
if the conversation goes a bit off-topic. 

So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you 
first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd 
previously used? 

Mine was: Oh, I can: 
+ write a simple script 
+ to edit a file on the fly 
+ with no temporary files (a la pipes) 
+ AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me! 

I was using TOPS-20 beforehand. 

Cheers, Warren 



As an undergrad in the 80's. Before college most of my experience had been on various flavors of BASIC, with the one exception being a summer spent at a science camp where I did Pascal on an Apple ][ and other programming assignments on VMS. 


My college had a big schism between the computer services department that serviced the whole school -- they ran an IBM 4341 with VM/SP -- and the actual computer science department that ran UNIX on a VAX-11/780. Undergrad classes were mostly on the mainframe and grad students used the VAX. I learned C on the mainframe but was able to talk my way into a UNIX account and started seeing how much more elegant things were. 
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From larry0 at me.com  Sat Oct 12 03:48:59 2019
From: larry0 at me.com (Larry W. Cashdollar)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 13:48:59 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <675D27CE-AA1B-4CF5-B8F1-6E71E096CC13@me.com>

>On 10/10/19, 4:56 PM, "TUHS on behalf of Warren Toomey" <tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org on behalf of wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
    
 >  So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
 >first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

When I first typed ps -x and saw all the running processes on the system.  That was on a Dec Alpha at the university of southern Maine in the computer science lab.   I thought to myself I need this on my PC.  A few weeks later my friend pointed me at Slackware.     

-- Larry C$
    
    




From arnold at skeeve.com  Sat Oct 12 07:10:32 2019
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 15:10:32 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] bwk
In-Reply-To: <20191011090346.30CB01FDC8@orac.inputplus.co.uk>
References: <20191011025654.GK5593@mcvoy.com>
 <20191011090346.30CB01FDC8@orac.inputplus.co.uk>
Message-ID: <201910112110.x9BLAW6P024713@freefriends.org>

Ralph Corderoy <ralph at inputplus.co.uk> wrote:

> Hi Larry,
>
> > I miss Brian on this list.
>
> I too think it would be great if he was, but I suspect if he wanted to
> be here, he would already be.  He gets forwarded the odd list email by
> some ex-colleagues that want his input on a bit of history and they feed
> back his recollection.  By not being here he probably gets a lot more done
> with his time.  :-)  Especially with the recent influx of new subscribers
> and the possible growth in number of emails and change in signal:noise.
>
> -- 
> Cheers, Ralph.

This probably sums it up. I also send him bits and pieces as I think
would interest him. 

Besides the book someone mentioned (it's good! I'm one of the reviewers),
he also teaches classes and advises students.

So, the "he'd be here if he wanted to be" is correct.  More's the pity
for us.

Arnold

From rtomek at ceti.pl  Sat Oct 12 07:56:20 2019
From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 23:56:20 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191011215620.GB12901@tau1.ceti.pl>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 06:55:46AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.

I am from this previous dozen. The current one, I guess, might have
come here with help of outlets like Lobsters and HN.

> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

Oh, that is a good question.

I think I had a few aha's which are now faded, but the one I remember
well was when I wrote a program which was to be described in a
document, and it generated lots of data (20mb, which for me, in
mid-1990-ies, was a lot - today, one of my org files is bigger and I
keep adding to it every day). There was no way I would want to process
this data by hand, and reading it into Excel was a no-no either,
because typical Windows machine had 4-8 megs of ram and I did not
think they would be able to handle this task. The files compressed
well (like, 20:1). So I wrote some shell scripts and (n)awk scripts,
find-ed compressed files, feeded uncompressed data via pipe and awk
made nice tables for LaTeX and data for gnuplot. On a machine that had
4mb of ram itself.

So, that was a moment - I could use Unix and the tools to make things
requiring much bigger machines (if they were not running Unix).

Later on, knowing some nuances of Unix helped me a lot, even if those
were really small tricks. Like, using 'cp -l' to copy huge source tree
to user with inadequate quota and then compile it. Later on, I bought
me a crappy modem without hardware error control, and it was unusable
when connection was made from Windows/DOS (time counted in seconds,
then hangup because of line errors). Again, Unix (Linux, actually) to
the rescue - after I learned to use ppp, hangups became extremely
rare, even if many times connection was despetately slow. Still, slow
was better than none.

> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
> 
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.

Before I started to use university SunOS, I was using university's VAX
for a year and Amiga at home. On Amiga, I sometimes played and
sometimes played with a system. So I already had some expectations
about what a computer should be like (at least, the "my
computer"). Before that, I spent few years playing on and off with
other people's 8-bit computers (with their knowledge, of course) -
Atari (800?), Polish-made Meritum-1 (docs said it was CP/M capable,
but at that time, I had hard time getting more info on this and
programing simple stuff in Basic was low hanging fruit).

While Amiga gave me many early pleasures of multitasking (playing
Centurion and doing low-priority fractal in the background, just for
the kicks), and I kept her up to 1994, SunOS quickly dwarfed
her. Around 1994 I got introduced to the Linux concept by a bud.

Anyway, I installed Slackware on 486 and was able to configure olvwm
on it, thus having almost same look as uni-SunOS. Which helped with
adoption. After that, fvwm. After some time with KDE and Gnome, back
to fvwm, because it just works.

There is still plenty to learn. I feel like I barely licked the
surface. My recent memorable aha was when I wrote a script in Elisp
rather than in bash, as usually. Elisp is hardly a scripting language,
it just copes in some cases, but for some reason complicated flow
control looked much better than I expected.

Another aha was after reading that running stuff in pipes may
outperform some well know parallel computing frameworks. Yes indeed,
each part of multipipe runs on different cpu and OS takes care of
making the flows as fluent as it can. And the concept of pipe is,
what, more than fourty years old? Almost fifty? This quite an aha, I
think.

-- 
Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **

From finnoleary at inventati.org  Sat Oct 12 09:46:48 2019
From: finnoleary at inventati.org (Finn O'Leary)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 23:46:48 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <525d0f880ade38b959207fdeef1d8f26@inventati.org>

(my apologies, I sent this the other day assuming it would
  be sent to the list, but instead it got sent directly to
  rob pike! oops!)

I agree, but I do believe that the time itself is a mitigating
factor.

To me this is much more akin to replicating a key for a lock
that is no longer used, than anything else. It really doesn't
serve much more purpose than pure curiosity and is of historical
interest at best.

On a (slightly?) related note, it's very, very surprising to me
that this has hit news outlets. I never considered that this
would get much more than a handful of replies, let alone this
much interest.

--
- Finn
"Enough too is much not!"

On 2019-10-09 19:59, Rob Pike wrote:
> I coulda told you that. One tends to learn passwords (inadvertently)
> when they're short and typed nearby often enough. (Sorry, ken.)
> 
> If I remember right, the first half of this password was on a t-shirt
> commemorating Belle's first half-move, although its notation may have
> been different.
> 
> Interesting though it is, though, I find this hacking distasteful. It
> was distasteful back when, and it still is. The attitudes around
> hackery have changed; the position nowadays seems to be that the bad
> guys are doing it so the good guys should be rewarded for doing it
> first. That's disingenuous at best, and dangerous at worst.
> 
> -rob

From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Oct 12 10:04:06 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem cole)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:04:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and
 Lower case at DEC
References: <012a01d5808f$0e56dcf0$2b0496d0$@net>
Message-ID: <97E7C5AB-B2C6-4C7F-B6D6-E98066E01038@ccc.com>

FYI.  I sent this to one of the lead DOC people from the old days to see if she knew.  Here is her answer.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Janet Egan" 
> Date: October 11, 2019 at 7:53:16 PM EDT
> To: "'Clem Cole'" 
> Subject: RE: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and Lower case at DEC
> 
> Hi Clem,
>  
> Hmm, I don’t remember whether the style guide addressed that. In the docs for  RSX-11M and such I always wrote it “PDP-11”, that is upper case with the dash.  I do remember the logo on the machine as always lower case with no dash. The PDP-8 had the same style logo. And you’re right about seeing the lower case on the cover of the handbooks.  I have never seen the lower case with the dash or the upper case without it. I don’t think I still have my copy of the style guide. Maybe I’ll take a look around my archives for it.   
>  
> What a fun question to be thinking about .
> Janet
>  
>  
> From: Clem Cole 
> Sent: Friday, October 11, 2019 9:47 AM
> To: Janet Egan
> Subject: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and Lower case at DEC
>  
> Janet,
>    I'm part of The Unix Historical Society (TUHS) mailing list and a topic came up that I thought you might be able to shed some light on.  The observation was that 'DEC seemed to have a schizophrenic attitude to wrt to use of upper and lower case WRT to the PDP-11 brand,' i.e. sometimes using "PDP-11" and sometimes "pdp11"  (but I note rarely if ever PDP11 or pdp-11) . For instance, the logo on the system itself was all lower: PDP-11/40 but DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; but when used on the places like the cover could be either  e.g. the "pdp11 peripherals handbook" to transcribe the cover exactly but it uses upper case "PDP-11" several times on pg 1-1 and the same on the binding.  But I could not find examples of pdp-11 or PDP11, i.e. if all lower it was with the dash or all upper without.
>  
>   Do you remember if there were rules or guidelines and if so what they might have been?
>  
> Thanks,
> Clem
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct 12 10:21:53 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:21:53 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <525d0f880ade38b959207fdeef1d8f26@inventati.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKzdPgw0Vz8UFbK7c_Jr+RHGMssSxN=t8W36J0FMTPt5w+wkgA@mail.gmail.com>
 <525d0f880ade38b959207fdeef1d8f26@inventati.org>
Message-ID: <1810f402-58c3-5526-61ee-669ba0e92cdc@kilonet.net>

On 10/11/2019 7:46 PM, Finn O'Leary wrote:
> On a (slightly?) related note, it's very, very surprising to me
> that this has hit news outlets. I never considered that this
> would get much more than a handful of replies, let alone this
> much interest.

Nor me. Now my name, along with Leah Neukirchen is out there in 
connection with this. I don't care about myself, but Leah may not have 
wanted her name out there in relation to this.

I was out there for various other things including of all things, Ford 
trucks. And I even have an IMDB entry for something I did way back in 
the mid 80's.

While the white-hat hacker in me revels in the publicity, I, like you, 
am somewhat taken aback by the exposure. I can't blame anyone here or 
elsewhere for that. I'm just a little shell-shocked that the TUHS 
mailing list has this much exposure. WHICH IS NOT A BAD THING!

Ah well... the Internet is what it is. ;)

art k.

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct 12 10:23:04 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:23:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper
 and Lower case at DEC
In-Reply-To: <97E7C5AB-B2C6-4C7F-B6D6-E98066E01038@ccc.com>
References: <012a01d5808f$0e56dcf0$2b0496d0$@net>
 <97E7C5AB-B2C6-4C7F-B6D6-E98066E01038@ccc.com>
Message-ID: <378222e3-9adc-50a2-49f0-ea5fbceaa196@kilonet.net>

While BAH was more involved in PDP-10 stuff, I wonder what her take is 
on this.

On 10/11/2019 8:04 PM, Clem cole wrote:
> FYI.  I sent this to one of the lead DOC people from the old days to 
> see if she knew.  Here is her answer.
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
>> *From:* "Janet Egan"
>> *Date:* October 11, 2019 at 7:53:16 PM EDT
>> *To:* "'Clem Cole'"
>> *Subject:* *RE: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper 
>> and Lower case at DEC*
>>
>> Hi Clem,
>>
>> Hmm, I don’t remember whether the style guide addressed that. In the 
>> docs for  RSX-11M and such I always wrote it “PDP-11”, that is upper 
>> case with the dash.  I do remember the logo on the machine as always 
>> lower case with no dash. The PDP-8 had the same style logo. And 
>> you’re right about seeing the lower case on the cover of the 
>> handbooks.  I have never seen the lower case with the dash or the 
>> upper case without it. I don’t think I still have my copy of the 
>> style guide. Maybe I’ll take a look around my archives for it.
>>
>> What a fun question to be thinking about .
>>
>> Janet
>>
>> *From:*Clem Cole
>> *Sent:* Friday, October 11, 2019 9:47 AM
>> *To:* Janet Egan
>> *Subject:* Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper and 
>> Lower case at DEC
>>
>> Janet,
>>
>>  I'm part of The Unix Historical Society (TUHS) mailing list and a 
>> topic came up that I thought you might be able to shed some 
>> light on.  The observation was that 'DEC seemed to have a 
>> schizophrenic attitude to wrt to use of upper and lower case WRT to 
>> the PDP-11 brand,' i.e. sometimes using "PDP-11" and sometimes 
>> "pdp11"  (but I note rarely if ever PDP11 or pdp-11) . For instance, 
>> the logo on the system itself was all lower: PDP-11/40 
>> <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/ee/Pdp-11-40.jpg/250px-Pdp-11-40.jpg> but 
>> DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; but when used on 
>> the places like the cover could be either /e.g. /the 
>> "pdp11 peripherals handbook" to transcribe the cover exactly but it 
>> uses upper case "PDP-11" several times on pg 1-1 and the same on the 
>> binding.  But I could not find examples of pdp-11 or PDP11, /i.e./ if 
>> all lower it was with the dash or all upper without.
>>
>> Do you remember if there were rules or guidelines and if so what they 
>> might have been?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Clem
>>

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From ricercar at lycos.com  Sat Oct 12 12:41:07 2019
From: ricercar at lycos.com (ricercar at lycos.com)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 21:41:07 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>

Perhaps impertinent since it's not part of the UNIX standard, but probably when
I first started using emacs. I have also grown to appreciate ed, though I
learned that quite a bit later.

On 10/10/19 3:55 PM, Warren Toomey wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>    + write a simple script
>    + to edit a file on the fly
>    + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>    + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
>
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Oct 12 13:01:55 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:01:55 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
Message-ID: <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 09:41:07PM -0500, ricercar at lycos.com wrote:
> I first started using emacs. I have also grown to appreciate ed, though I
> learned that quite a bit later.

If you were on some 300 baud dial up modem, ed made tons of sense.  You
had a mental picture of the file in your head, you didn't need to see
all of it in real time, that was wasteful.  ed let you see as much as
you needed and as little as was productive.  And it worked without 
termcap.  ed rocks, it's yet another little program that does what
it needs to do and no more.

ed was like a lot of stuff that Bell Labs did that dated back to the
days when getting a print out took a day or so.  pic(1) is a great
example of that.  I *love* pic because I can look at the input to
pic and I can see what it will look like.  xfig and friends are 
not so much.

From rich.salz at gmail.com  Sat Oct 12 13:23:21 2019
From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Richard Salz)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 23:23:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
Message-ID: <CAFH29tq=Mfk9RQNchoT+a7XzR3+qpUuBZA9_Mr1OL7RAYFW_Xw@mail.gmail.com>

My first Unix-related AHA moment was working through the sample code in the
BSD 4.1c networking tutorial and having two unrelated processes that I
wrote communicate.  Without a pipe!  (I'd already used Unix for a few years
and didn't think twice, it was just a natural fit.  But sockets, woah.)
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Oct 12 13:34:48 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:34:48 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29tq=Mfk9RQNchoT+a7XzR3+qpUuBZA9_Mr1OL7RAYFW_Xw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
 <CAFH29tq=Mfk9RQNchoT+a7XzR3+qpUuBZA9_Mr1OL7RAYFW_Xw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191012033448.GH3558@mcvoy.com>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 11:23:21PM -0400, Richard Salz wrote:
> My first Unix-related AHA moment was working through the sample code in the
> BSD 4.1c networking tutorial and having two unrelated processes that I
> wrote communicate.  Without a pipe!  (I'd already used Unix for a few years
> and didn't think twice, it was just a natural fit.  But sockets, woah.)

Sockets woah indeed.  Shout out to Clem and the Masscomp doc people because
they, not UW Madison that was doing all sorts of good work, the Masscomp 
docs got me to understand sockets.

Richard, I get it, it is a light bulb moment when you realize that
you can get two unrelated processes talk to each other.  It bumps your
understanding of what is possible.  Which today seems lame, there is so
much, but I get it, back then that was huge.

From lars at nocrew.org  Sat Oct 12 14:24:01 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 04:24:01 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper
 and Lower case at DEC
In-Reply-To: <378222e3-9adc-50a2-49f0-ea5fbceaa196@kilonet.net> (Arthur
 Krewat's message of "Fri, 11 Oct 2019 20:23:04 -0400")
References: <012a01d5808f$0e56dcf0$2b0496d0$@net>
 <97E7C5AB-B2C6-4C7F-B6D6-E98066E01038@ccc.com>
 <378222e3-9adc-50a2-49f0-ea5fbceaa196@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <7wpnj2wpzy.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Arthur Krewat wrote:
> While BAH was more involved in PDP-10 stuff, I wonder what her take is
> on this.

I don't think there ever was a lower case "pdp10" on the machines.
>From what I see, it was "PDP-10", "decsystem10", "DECSYSTEM 20",
or "DECSYSTEM 2020".

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Oct 12 14:42:42 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 00:42:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

For a contrast in aha moments, consider this introduction to
an early Apple (Apple II, I think).

When my wife got one, my natural curiosity led me to try to
make "Hello world".

I asked her what to use as an editor and learned it all depends
on what you're editing.

So I looked in the manual. First thing you do to make a C program
is to set up a "project", as if it was a corporate undertaking.

I found it easier to write a program in some other editor than
the one for C. Bad idea. Every file had a type and that editor
produced files of some type other than C program.

After succumbing to the Apple straitjacket, I succeeded.

Then I found "Hello world" given as an example in the manual.
The code took up almost a page; real men make programs that
set up their own windows.

Aha, Apple! Not intended for programmers.
And that didn't change until OS X.

Doug

From aap at papnet.eu  Sat Oct 12 15:35:03 2019
From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 07:35:03 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper
 and Lower case at DEC
In-Reply-To: <7wpnj2wpzy.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <012a01d5808f$0e56dcf0$2b0496d0$@net>
 <97E7C5AB-B2C6-4C7F-B6D6-E98066E01038@ccc.com>
 <378222e3-9adc-50a2-49f0-ea5fbceaa196@kilonet.net>
 <7wpnj2wpzy.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <20191012053503.GA58481@indra.papnet.eu>

On 12/10/19, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> I don't think there ever was a lower case "pdp10" on the machines.
> From what I see, it was "PDP-10", "decsystem10", "DECSYSTEM 20",
> or "DECSYSTEM 2020".

Nope, the KI10 panel says "pdp10" in the lower left next to the digital logo.


aap

From athornton at gmail.com  Sat Oct 12 16:12:47 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 23:12:47 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <06AE2396-8976-4F15-9F03-469BC4C3A178@gmail.com>

On Oct 11, 2019, at 9:42 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> Aha, Apple! Not intended for programmers.
> And that didn't change until OS X.


Well, the II kinda was.  Not by the time of the //gs, which, if you were writing C, was probably the one you were using.  By then it had a windowing system and complications.  And then the Mac, prior to OS X, yeah, not intended for the end user to be a software developer.

But the II/II+/IIe were all straightforward machines.  As long as you wanted to write BASIC or 6502 assembly they were reasonably programmer-friendly (I say, as someone who couldn’t afford Merlin, the real assembler of the day, at that point, and did his assembly by hand, so, yeah, maybe not THAT friendly).  Once you learned what the zero page addresses were for in the particular OS/ROM BASIC you were running, it was a pretty intelligible system.

….and now having done a little googling, there was indeed an Aztec C for Apple II DOS 3.3 in 1982.  If that was what you were using, well, yep, looks like you had to use its editor, but the sample program (slightly more complex than “Hello world") looks pretty much like it would have in any other C (interestingly, no #include <stdio.h> needed):

main(argc, argv)
int argc;
char *argv[];
{
  register int i = 1;

  printf("Program <%s> has %d arguments\n", argv[0], argc-l);
  while (--argc) {
    printf("Arg %d = <%s>\n", i, argv[i]);
    i++;
  }
}
So I’m guessing you were using something for the //gs plus GS/OS.

Adam

From wobblygong at gmail.com  Sat Oct 12 18:55:42 2019
From: wobblygong at gmail.com (Wesley Parish)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:55:42 +1300
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CACNPpebWy-vE+m4zBu9UEOYdWihJ=n2Ede_P0-hh0cT=mCSYkA@mail.gmail.com>

I don't really think I had an "Aha" moment as such. More a set of
them, after discovering computers again after failing to understand
them at high school - I blame Apple BASIC for that.

I think it was discovering two articles on Minix (also discussing the
Minix book) and Coherent in a local computer magazine, and of course
that Unix came with source was mentioned. So I bought the Minix book,
then when I could, I did a Unix course at the local polytech (SCO of
some description c. early 90s) and got the SLS Linux that now resides
in the Bochs area at Sourceforge.

It wasn't instantaneous, but more of a build-up - this stuff is
powerful and just works. Even better, you can read the source files
and get to understand everything about it - so you're not in a "cargo
cult" attitude to operating systems and applications: everything is in
your hands and you can go in as deeply as you wish. You just have to
be willing to work at learning it.

My 0.02c worth - don't spend it all at once!!! :)

Wesley Parish
On 10/11/19, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>

From usotsuki at buric.co  Sat Oct 12 20:05:20 2019
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 06:05:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910120602340.83222@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sat, 12 Oct 2019, Doug McIlroy wrote:

> For a contrast in aha moments, consider this introduction to
> an early Apple (Apple II, I think).
>
> When my wife got one, my natural curiosity led me to try to
> make "Hello world".
>
> I asked her what to use as an editor and learned it all depends
> on what you're editing.
>
> So I looked in the manual. First thing you do to make a C program
> is to set up a "project", as if it was a corporate undertaking.
>
> I found it easier to write a program in some other editor than
> the one for C. Bad idea. Every file had a type and that editor
> produced files of some type other than C program.
>
> After succumbing to the Apple straitjacket, I succeeded.
>
> Then I found "Hello world" given as an example in the manual.
> The code took up almost a page; real men make programs that
> set up their own windows.
>
> Aha, Apple! Not intended for programmers.
> And that didn't change until OS X.
>
> Doug
>

That sounds like Macintosh rather than Apple ][.

-uso.

From tuhs at t.lastninja.net  Sat Oct 12 20:17:41 2019
From: tuhs at t.lastninja.net (Naveen Nathan)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:17:41 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <862ee186-0e99-408d-94e5-2bcc80d05689@www.fastmail.com>

My aha moment was implementing a bourne-like shell for
a Unix & C course I took in uni.

We were given about 3 weeks to implement the shell from
scratch with a lot of bonus points up for grabs such as
using lex/yacc for parsing, supporting more than one pipe
in a pipeline, backgrounding jobs, advanced i/o redirection,
etc.

It was quite fun, and we got to sort of "prove" how the Unix
shell works and how the fundamental interfaces behave.

- Naveen

From meillo at marmaro.de  Sat Oct 12 21:54:35 2019
From: meillo at marmaro.de (markus schnalke)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 13:54:35 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <1iJFyl-7yr-00@marmaro.de>

Hoi,

my Aha moments were (in no particular order):

- Users can change their login shell! -- This surely was the most
  impressing discovery for me.

- Users are regarded as programmers and are provided with
  structurally all possiblities, i.e. you can recreate the whole
  system to your preferences within your home directory and use
  that as the default.

- The shell as a fluid way from dumb programm calling to full
  programming, where any user can float up and down the level,
  based on personal skills and the problem at hand.

- Chroot (Linux from Scratch)

- To me it's actually more a philosophy behind it all, and UNIX
  itself ist more a demonstration and the scientific experiment
  that helped to uncover and shape this philosophy. The Aha moment
  was that there is so much behind it.

- Those guys implemented about anything there is about an
  operating system and application tools, and -- what is even
  more impressive -- in each of those fields (typesetting, fonts,
  chess, languages, and so on for a long time), they went deep
  and invented there as well. Such a small group and so hugely
  much and deep output!


meillo

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Oct 12 22:49:14 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 08:49:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910120602340.83222@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910120602340.83222@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <201910121249.x9CCnEEP092354@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> That sounds like Macintosh rather than Apple ][.

You are right. My error. I might add that OS X was
afforded a different kind of "Aha, Unix!" moment.

Doug

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sat Oct 12 23:55:13 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 09:55:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191012135513.57C4818C091@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Warren Toomey

    > What was your "ahah" moment when you first saw that Unix was special,
    > especially compared to the systems you'd previously used?

Sometime in my undergrad sophmore year, IIRC. A friend had a undergrad
research thing with DSSR, who I think at that point had the first UNIX at
MIT. He showed me the system, and wrote a tiny command in C, compiled it, and
executed the binary from the shell.

No big deal, right? Well, at that point ('75 or so), the only OS's I had used
were RSTS-11, a batch system running on an Interdata (programs were submitted
on card decks), the DELPHI system (done by the people in DSSR), and a few
similar things. I had never used a system where an ordinary user could 'add' a
command to the command interpreter, and was blown away. (At that point in
time, not many OS's could do that.)

Unix was in a whole different world compared to contemporaneous PDP-11
OS's. It felt like a 'mainframe' OS (background jobs, etc), but on a mini.

      Noel

From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Oct 13 00:26:00 2019
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 10:26:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <201910121249.x9CCnEEP092354@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910120442.x9C4ggMF021949@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910120602340.83222@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <201910121249.x9CCnEEP092354@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910121018160.98187@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sat, 12 Oct 2019, Doug McIlroy wrote:

>> That sounds like Macintosh rather than Apple ][.
>
> You are right. My error. I might add that OS X was
> afforded a different kind of "Aha, Unix!" moment.
>
> Doug
>

For me Unix felt like something that took the best parts of MS-DOS (which 
I was very familiar with) and improved on them - plus I knew / as a path 
separator from ProDOS on the Apple ][ (you can probably see where I'm 
going) ;p.

I later learned that this was because MS-DOS, while it was growing out of 
its "CP/M clone" phase, had pinched a lot of things from Unix and so this 
similarity was not a coincidence.  But what MS-DOS has to fumble around 
with and pretend to do, Unix actually *did*.

Not to mention, it had, like the Apple ][ and unlike MS-DOS, a single 
environment that combined a command shell and a programming language. 
Plus the network transparency.

It was the best of both worlds.

-uso.
Random: One of my laptops' Windows 10 install ate itself due to a bum 
update a couple days ago.  I had left Windows on it when I got it because 
I'd heard that the company's laptops that were not in a specific product 
line would not run Linux properly.  Actually, it was no problem at all, so 
it's running Debian now.  I also have a broken laptop that runs Debian 
headless.  I know it's not the real thing, but it'll suffice me. ;p

From tytso at mit.edu  Sun Oct 13 00:37:33 2019
From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Y. Ts'o)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 10:37:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
 <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20191012143733.GE16225@mit.edu>

On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 08:01:55PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> If you were on some 300 baud dial up modem, ed made tons of sense.  You
> had a mental picture of the file in your head, you didn't need to see
> all of it in real time, that was wasteful.  ed let you see as much as
> you needed and as little as was productive.  And it worked without 
> termcap.  ed rocks, it's yet another little program that does what
> it needs to do and no more.
> 
> ed was like a lot of stuff that Bell Labs did that dated back to the
> days when getting a print out took a day or so....

ed isn't all that different from most of the text based editors from
that era.  My first text based editor was "edit" from the PDP-8's 4k
disk monitor system.  The "monitor" was located in the high 128
(12-bit) word page of the PDP-8's 4k core memory, and the editor and
its text buffer had to fit in the bottom 3968 words, which meant you
had to read and edit your program file in small chunks[1].

[1] https://www.pdp8.net/asr33/dms_session.shtml

The 4k disk monitor pre-dated Unix by two years, and similar text
editors were part of the PDP-15 and PDP-11 operating systems from
Digital.  Many of the edito commands that I remember from using ASR-35
connected to my Dad's PDP-8/i are the same as what /bin/ed.
Fortunately people weren't trying to copyright user interfaces back in
the 1960's.....

					- Ted


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Oct 13 00:51:25 2019
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 09:51:25 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191012135513.57C4818C091@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191012135513.57C4818C091@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <BC18BFD2-865A-4D8D-A814-411B93E4A6A1@ronnatalie.com>

I graduated high school in 1977.     I hadn’t heard anything about UNIX but I had hung around the University of Maryland and the like enough to know about Digital Equipment Corporation.     One of my friend’s mother worked in the doc room a the local DEC office in Lanham and being the budding computer geeks we had, we’d often stop by the office and pick up whatever manuals she could spare to give us.   I had processor handbooks, software handbook, peripheral handbook, etc… all in my personal library when I enrolled at Johns Hopkins that year.

I got a letter from Professor Bill Huggins who was teaching my first year course “Models and Simulation” stating that the course would be taught on the departments PDP-11/45 computer (this I found in my documents) using BASIC/PLUS (again a fine DEC product taken from the RSTS operating system) on the UNIX  operating system.    The last one stumped me.    There was not a mention (obviously) of UNIX anywhere in my docs.   Of course, you couldn’t google it back then, and I probably could have asked around at the UofM (I had friends in various computer installations there) but probably would have not yielded an answer.

All was answered a few weeks later when I started classes.    The EE department had the PDP-11 and it was run by an organization called the UCS (Undergraduate Computer Society) on behalf of the department.   This was a group of indeed undergraduates headed at the time by Michael Muuss and Pete Koziar.    It was split into groups including the system programming headed by those two, documentation (led by George Toth), hardware (run by Bill Lindeman), and Operations (Joe Pistritto).    It was at an early meeting of this where the whole UNIX things was explained to me.    Also, having pretty much BASIC’d myself out in high school (We used HP 2000 systems that only ran basic) and was desperate for a higher level language (I’d done some Fortran and Cobol as well as APL and PLUM (and odd PL/I-ish variant at UofM), I set to learn C.     At the time there were mimeographed copies of K&R’s document which was the first chapter of “The C Programming Language.”    Mike Muuss, always the one to mentor someone, helped review my early stabs at C.   I remember typing many of these on a Model 33 using \( \) for curly braces, etc…

I quickly moved through becoming an operator (where you had to demonstrate knowledge of the file system structure as well as use of icheck/dcheck/clri and the like to recover from crashes).     Mike then mentored me through basic system programming.   He printed out a copy of the kernel sources for me.    I volunteered to debug some device drivers George Toth had written and Mike spent a night half sleeping on a bean bag chair in the computer room supervising my stabs at Kernel work.

At that point UNIX did crash a bit and this wasn’t helped by the fact that there were many students who thought that crashing or otherwise hacking on the machine was sport.     I rapidly became adept at working both sides of the scheme, but trying to break the machine from user mode and then going back and fixing things (either ones I had found or figuring out what others had done).     It was probably the only machine other than ones I owned myself that I was deeply involved in all aspects of.   The University had a graphics display system donated to them and I set about using a DR-11 to interface it.

After college I was hired to do database work on an RSX-11M system.    However, the QA department had just gotten in to PWB and source code control so I got deputized into helping set up an IS PWB system to maintain the source and project documentation.   It was here that I hacked on the -ms macro package and the lineprinter spooler to handle security classifications.

About six months into it, I ran into Mike and former classmates Bob Miles and Doug Kingston at a Unix conference and they told me they were porting UNIX to a supercomputer, the Delelcor HEP.   I actually had a HEP manual (my friends at the UofM had given it to me after they passed at doing the software).    Soon I was back at BRL working with Mike doing not only the HEP (I did the ld and F77 ports and all the IO system, as well as conspiring with Denelcor’s Burton Smith on redesigning the IO system so it had reasonable performance), but also on early TCP/IP work.    I was going to use the MIT C gateway (written by fellow list member Noel Chiappa) but support from MIT was problematic as Noel had been deported to Bermuda (or some such thing) at the critical time, so I wrote my own based on my own pidjin operating system, though it booted using a UNIX boot block and filesystem.

Among other things I did, having detested the C shell syntax, was add many features (notably job control and the TCSH-style command line editing) to /bin/sh.  (KSH hadn’t escaped the labs yet).     Amusingly, since I sat down at a UNIX conference and explained to some guys working on some of the open source shells how job control actually worked, my name showed up in many of the Linux manual set as a contributor.

Those were really the glory days.    Mike’s standard answer to any computer problem at the labs was “Let’s put UNIX on it” and we usually did.

I then went off to spend several years as a University administrator (Rutgers) and then got sucked into a startup Image Processing company where I remained for 21 years only randomly dabbling in UNIX.    Though several years in I was using a MIPS workstation.    Of course, I was using /bin/sh and absent mindedly typed “fg.”    It came back and said “Job control not enabled.”    That was odd, I thought.   It sounds like something I wrote.   I typed “set -J” and it said “Job control enabled.”   Holy crap, this is one of my shells.    I later found that Doug Gwyn had put my shell on his SYSV-on-BSD emulation package tape.    The mach guys included the shell from that in all their distributions, so any mach-derived system had a “ron shell” on it.


From david at kdbarto.org  Sun Oct 13 02:12:19 2019
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 09:12:19 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
 <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <7F3CB32A-3D7F-4D49-80CC-C9EEE61DCC68@kdbarto.org>


> On Oct 11, 2019, at 8:01 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Oct 11, 2019 at 09:41:07PM -0500, ricercar at lycos.com wrote:
>> I first started using emacs. I have also grown to appreciate ed, though I
>> learned that quite a bit later.
> 
> If you were on some 300 baud dial up modem, ed made tons of sense.  You
> had a mental picture of the file in your head, you didn't need to see
> all of it in real time, that was wasteful.  ed let you see as much as
> you needed and as little as was productive.  And it worked without 
> termcap.  ed rocks, it's yet another little program that does what
> it needs to do and no more.
> 
> ed was like a lot of stuff that Bell Labs did that dated back to the
> days when getting a print out took a day or so.  pic(1) is a great
> example of that.  I *love* pic because I can look at the input to
> pic and I can see what it will look like.  xfig and friends are 
> not so much.

After using ed and other Unix programs I convinced a member of the
UCSD Pascal project that having a line oriented editor would make sense.
YALOE (Yet Another Line Oriented Editor) was the result. It took almost all
of the commands that ed did and so familiarity with one would allow you to
work with the other.

The simplicity of ed was so nice. One other thing using ed forced me to do
was to keep my files small. Large files would quickly become something you
had to hunt around in. Small files were easier to edit.

	David

From athornton at gmail.com  Sun Oct 13 03:59:24 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 10:59:24 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <7F3CB32A-3D7F-4D49-80CC-C9EEE61DCC68@kdbarto.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
 <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>
 <7F3CB32A-3D7F-4D49-80CC-C9EEE61DCC68@kdbarto.org>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic1WwXhFuXYvaHdu5MQMD4BXgUQuNi4OT6LDeLNejq_QUg@mail.gmail.com>

Now I'm trying to remember if I ever had a single epiphanic a-ha moment.

I don't think I did.  I remember being introduced to Unix the summer before
my senior year of high school, when I was a research intern at a physics
lab at UT Austin.  I learned very little about Unix, but learned how to
drive Emacs inexpertly (I remain pretty mediocre at it thirty years later)
and how to read and post to Usenet.

At Rice, although by my sophomore year I was making beer money as a student
systems programmer on our VM/CMS system, I'd gravitated to the Sun3/60
workstations we had around the place.  And it would have been, I guess, in
the fall of my sophomore year that I started playing around with Linux.  By
the spring, IIRC, I had gotten 4 more MB of discrete DIP RAM (for my
Gateway 2000 386DX/25) and repartitioned my hard disk (65MB RLL, IIRC).

The rest of undergrad life and graduate school I multibooted between
DOS-Windows, OS/2, and Linux, but my primary environment became Linux/X by,
oh, 1997 or so.  It became OS X in the early 2000s (too bad BeOS didn't
make it) but that is (from my perspective as not-a-kernel-developer) just a
BSD with a nice GUI; that's where I've stayed in terms of my favorite
interactive environment.

As far back as 1998 I remember someone saying to me "I've never seen
someone use a GUI as just a collection of terminal windows before."

My graduate advisor was Mike Mahoney, so I strongly suspect I absorbed a
lot of the Way Things Ought To Be from him.  Which is why I guess I feel
like the following principles are basically axioms of how you should design
an operating system:

1) everything's a file, and a file is just an unstructured stream of
bytes.  Device drivers look like files and give you byte streams
2) input on stdin, output on stdout, errors to stderr
3) pipe things that do #2 together to compose complex functionality.
Record semantics are the responsibility of the communicating applications
to know, not the pipeline layer, which just transmits bytes
4) fork() and exec()

I am willing to grudgingly recognize that #4 in particular is not a great
way to create UI-intensive user-facing apps, and that you do need some sort
of threading/lightweight process model to deal with a bunch of asynchronous
interrupt-triggered user interactions.  But for something operating as a
classic transforming filter, which really *is* most computing problems,
those four things do nicely.

Adam
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From nobozo at gmail.com  Sun Oct 13 05:10:12 2019
From: nobozo at gmail.com (Jon Forrest)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 12:10:12 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAP2nic1WwXhFuXYvaHdu5MQMD4BXgUQuNi4OT6LDeLNejq_QUg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
 <20191012030155.GG3558@mcvoy.com>
 <7F3CB32A-3D7F-4D49-80CC-C9EEE61DCC68@kdbarto.org>
 <CAP2nic1WwXhFuXYvaHdu5MQMD4BXgUQuNi4OT6LDeLNejq_QUg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3171e2de-fa39-2112-f2fc-bd901885962e@gmail.com>


I was a new grad student at UC Santa Barbara (where I did my
undergrad) in ~1977. Somebody who I had found for my
committee had just returned from a stay at Bell Labs,
and he told me about this thing called Unix. It sounded
very interesting, so I asked around. It turned out that
the Computer Center, where all computing was done back
then, had a PDP11/45 on which they ran RSTS during the
day, and Unix at night.

In fact, somebody had created a sign in one of the
terminal rooms that said

"Oh say can you C by the dawn's early light".

which very accurately described my life back then,
because I was spending many a night learning C,
and was getting used to seeing the dawn's early
light while doing so.

Not exactly an "Aha" moment, but what I learned
from spending these sleepless nights is what
got me started on a career that lasted ~40 years.

Jon Forrest

From michael at kjorling.se  Sun Oct 13 05:33:53 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 19:33:53 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <7b7gk3rkhnthgh4gqstmg3gb@localhost>

On 11 Oct 2019 06:55 +1000, from wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey):
> What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

My Unix moment wasn't anywhere near as distinct as some other
peoples'. It was rather very much a gradual process.

I got Internet access of my own as I recall some time in 1996. (I'd
got a modem only a year or so earlier.) I definitely had Internet
access and my own e-mail address in mid-1996.

At that time, having had problems installing Windows 95 on top of
3.1x, I believe I was still running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on
MS-DOS.

Before I figured out how to get Trumpet Winsock to talk to my ISP (it
probably would have gone more easily if not for the fact that due to
still young age at the time and English not being my native language I
was rather Englishtically challenged), that meant dial-up and log in
to my ISP's Unix systems, which I mainly used to send and receive
e-mail using Pine (which I _was_ able to figure out how to use).

Looking back today at some of the e-mails from around that time, I'm
guessing that system ran Solaris; the message-IDs from the oldest
e-mails I still have clearly indicate "Pine.SOL.3.92" but a quick web
search for what SOL meant to Pine turned out to be rather unhelpful.

Also somewhere around that same time, someone first introduced me to
Linux, but the two of us just weren't ready for each other at the
time. I dipped my toes twice before taking the plunge to using Linux
(then Red Hat 6.2) as my main desktop OS some time in mid-2000. Even
then it took a while to get used to, but on the whole, here I am
almost two decades later, not looking back... (though I do have to use
Windows at work.)

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From cym224 at gmail.com  Sun Oct 13 05:39:54 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo Nusquam)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 15:39:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <ac06df0b-49c6-828e-e8a5-5c0500a7db84@gmail.com>

On 10/10/19 22:46, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>
>> DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; e.g. the "pdp11
>> peripherals handbook" (to transcribe the cover exactly) uses "PDP-11"
>> several times on pg 1-1.
>
> And being an acronym it is of course upper-case...

At the risk of being labelled a pedant. from the OED:

acronym orig. U.S. (ˈækrənɪm) [f. acr(o- + -onym after homonym.]
A word formed from the initial letters of other words. Hence as v. 
trans., to convert into an acronym (chiefly pass. and as pa. pple.). 
Also acroˈnymic a.; acroˈnymically adv.; ˈacronyming vbl. n.; 
ˈacronymize v. trans.

vs.

initialism (ɪnˈɪʃəlɪzm) [f. initial n. + -ism.]
The use of initials; a significative group of initial letters. Now spec. 
a group of initial letters used as an abbreviation for a name or 
expression, each letter or part being pronounced separately (contrasted 
with acronym).

N.
> -- Dave


From tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk  Sun Oct 13 06:42:24 2019
From: tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk (Tony Travis)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:42:24 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Welcome to new TUHS subscribers
In-Reply-To: <ac06df0b-49c6-828e-e8a5-5c0500a7db84@gmail.com>
References: <20191010131848.C13DC18C08B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910111344470.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <ac06df0b-49c6-828e-e8a5-5c0500a7db84@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c8e1933a-cee7-c341-3d20-1834a02fdfce@minke-informatics.co.uk>

On 12/10/2019 20:39, Nemo Nusquam wrote:
> On 10/10/19 22:46, Dave Horsfall wrote:
>> On Thu, 10 Oct 2019, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>>
>>> DEC documentation mostly used uppercase in the text; e.g. the "pdp11
>>> peripherals handbook" (to transcribe the cover exactly) uses "PDP-11"
>>> several times on pg 1-1.
>>
>> And being an acronym it is of course upper-case...
> 
> At the risk of being labelled a pedant. from the OED:

Hi, Nemo.

It takes one to know one!

> https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/acronym

What is interesting about this definition is that an 'acronym' is 
pronounced as a word (i.e. not spelled out as letters). So, from that 
point of view PDP-11 is an 'initialism' and not an acronym :-)

> https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/initialism

Which opens up a whole area of controversy about how to pronounce:

   vi

In my experience, research users and hackers spell it out as "vee eye" 
as originally described by Bill Joy, but business/enterprise users tend 
to pronounce it as "vye" instead.

Well, I'm a research *nix user so I spell "vi" out, but my dark secret 
is that I do pronounce "vim" as a full word and don't spell it out...

I suppose this is just about recognition of a suitable peer group that 
agree, but it really sets my teeth on edge when people pronounce "vi"!

Anyone else got pet hates about how people pronounce *nix commands?

There are many pointless discussions about this already on the Internet, 
so please only post comments here of historical interest like mine :-)

Bye,

   Tony.

-- 
Minke Informatics Limited, Registered in Scotland - Company No. SC419028
Registered Office: 3 Donview, Bridge of Alford, AB33 8QJ, Scotland (UK)
tel. +44(0)19755 63548                    http://minke-informatics.co.uk
mob. +44(0)7985 078324        mailto:tony.travis at minke-informatics.co.uk

From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Sun Oct 13 07:32:53 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 23:32:53 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29tq=Mfk9RQNchoT+a7XzR3+qpUuBZA9_Mr1OL7RAYFW_Xw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <3d9ff257-8505-8792-abcf-fd44846b58f1@lycos.com>
 <CAFH29tq=Mfk9RQNchoT+a7XzR3+qpUuBZA9_Mr1OL7RAYFW_Xw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191012213253.72mf5%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Richard Salz wrote in <CAFH29tq=Mfk9RQNchoT+a7XzR3+qpUuBZA9_Mr1OL7RAYFW_\
Xw at mail.gmail.com>:
 |My first Unix-related AHA moment was working through the sample code \
 |in the BSD 4.1c networking tutorial and having two unrelated processes \
 |that I wrote communicate.  Without a pipe!  (I'd already used 
 |Unix for a few years and didn't think twice, it was just a natural \
 |fit.  But sockets, woah.)

Oh yes, and having a single-threaded HTTP server which could serve
small static files to hundreds (128) of (test) clients concurrently
on a Cyrix 166, simply by using non-blocking I/O and select(2)
(through event driven C++ objects).

(And by that time i think / seem to recall from computer magazine
article JAVA implemented such I/O / xy monitors by creating
a thread of execution, and the select(2) Cygwin code that i have
seen was _so_ complicated and expensive, it was a real Aha!, just
like in Kate Bush's "Wow".)

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

From gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com  Sun Oct 13 08:38:23 2019
From: gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com (Gregg Levine)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 18:38:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <7b7gk3rkhnthgh4gqstmg3gb@localhost>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7b7gk3rkhnthgh4gqstmg3gb@localhost>
Message-ID: <CAC5iaNF1g6jG2=vLGhtY4==vrsn3nih2EDx6vxk9wnyJpfdrTQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hello!
Actually Michael you're not alone in the problems regarding Trumpet
Windsock. I spent an exhaustive summer several years ago trying to get
it to work. And that was on my backup machine. I did get Win95 to
install onto Win3.11 without a problem. It only seems hard.

By time the string of events that I described above happened within
the Linux world, well that's where I am now.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

On Sat, Oct 12, 2019 at 3:34 PM Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se> wrote:
>
> On 11 Oct 2019 06:55 +1000, from wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey):
> > What was your "ahah" moment when you
> > first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> > previously used?
>
> My Unix moment wasn't anywhere near as distinct as some other
> peoples'. It was rather very much a gradual process.
>
> I got Internet access of my own as I recall some time in 1996. (I'd
> got a modem only a year or so earlier.) I definitely had Internet
> access and my own e-mail address in mid-1996.
>
> At that time, having had problems installing Windows 95 on top of
> 3.1x, I believe I was still running Windows for Workgroups 3.11 on
> MS-DOS.
>
> Before I figured out how to get Trumpet Winsock to talk to my ISP (it
> probably would have gone more easily if not for the fact that due to
> still young age at the time and English not being my native language I
> was rather Englishtically challenged), that meant dial-up and log in
> to my ISP's Unix systems, which I mainly used to send and receive
> e-mail using Pine (which I _was_ able to figure out how to use).
>
> Looking back today at some of the e-mails from around that time, I'm
> guessing that system ran Solaris; the message-IDs from the oldest
> e-mails I still have clearly indicate "Pine.SOL.3.92" but a quick web
> search for what SOL meant to Pine turned out to be rather unhelpful.
>
> Also somewhere around that same time, someone first introduced me to
> Linux, but the two of us just weren't ready for each other at the
> time. I dipped my toes twice before taking the plunge to using Linux
> (then Red Hat 6.2) as my main desktop OS some time in mid-2000. Even
> then it took a while to get used to, but on the whole, here I am
> almost two decades later, not looking back... (though I do have to use
> Windows at work.)
>
> --
> Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
>   “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
>               is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)
>

From crossd at gmail.com  Sun Oct 13 11:37:49 2019
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 21:37:49 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W7mUt0VrTf_frNodk0sOLOyX2A7k=FcXN5v=Vgg8HxP1w@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>

I'm afraid I have a rather pedestrian story. Like many folks in the 80s, we
had a home computer, and in early high school I got kind of hooked on this
idea of using a modem to call other computers. I remember one of the kids
at school telling me, "don't use DOS unless you're afraid of speed." At the
time, I had no real conception of what that meant, nor how fundamentally
wrong it was, but hey, ok. Our home machine was actually a Mac, but I
managed to convince the family that a PC clone running DOS would be a
better machine.

Dad relented, a suitable machine was acquired and while it is likely the
thing would have become another object gather dust, an unfortunate
encounter with a solid object at a high rate of speed basically ended my
changes of becoming a professional skateboarder and the (new) computer
filled the void. As I was recuperating from that broken collar bone, I got
into the idea of learning C.

My dad, an engineer, mentioned to me that the folks at his company were
using Sun machines and the word "Unix" hung in the air. It was mysterious
and cool. Eventually, I saved up enough money to order a copy of Coherent,
which while interesting, was abstruse and opaque: let's face it, DOS was
written to drive what amounted to souped up microcontrollers; things were
pretty understandable in that world once you achieved a basic level of
competence. But this Unix thing sounded intriguing and I wanted to learn
more. Getting access was a challenge. Coherent didn't really seem like the
thing.

About a year of DOS and some Coherent later, I fell in with a crowd of
undergrads at the local university who were mostly CS/EE/Math majors and
that cemented things: it pains me somewhat to admit it, but I got into Unix
because that's what the cool kids were doing. I ditched DOS and Coherent
and installed NetBSD. Interestingly, I found a Linux distribution
somewhere, and we had that running in a lab for a while, but it didn't
stick; I still thought BSD was better and at the time, that was probably
(technically) true. Besides, we were mostly running RISC machines running
various commercial Unix variants; the BSD/Linux stuff was just for messing
around and/or for home use.

The one unique quirk in this anecdote is that, at some point, I did two
weird things: 1) I saw an ad locally for a guy selling a DECstation running
Ultrix and I bought it. I could never get X to work on my 486, but it sure
worked on the DECstation, so I had a graphical environment at home. 2) I
bought a VAX off USENET. Not a "real" VAX in the 10th edition sense, but a
desktop VAXstation. I ran VMS on that. Both of those machines are probably
still down in my basement somewhere.... Anyway, while the kids were running
Linux at home, most people I knew really wanted a RISC workstation and I
had one as well as a personal VAX. That definitely gave me some street cred
for a while.

At some point I had learned enough technically to realize that Unix really
was better than the alternatives I had access to; I liked VMS, but it was
specific to a limited set of hardware and seemed more complex than Unix for
little benefit. Some people claimed it was simpler, though; I'm not sure in
what sense they meant, even today. Some of the college folks I was spending
time with used the local mainframe (VM/ESA) a fair bit and RSCS was a big
deal locally. I played around with it, but never found it all that
interesting; it seemed to me that Unix did everything the mainframe could
do, but, well, better.

So yeah, that's it: it's kind of sad, but I ran Unix because people told me
Unix was better. And while on the one hand it was obviously better than
DOS, I had limited exposure to other systems from which to form a real
opinion about its relative merits with respect to similarly ambitious
designs. I see now the superiority of the design relative to other common
systems of the day, but that's a perspective developed after the fact, as
opposed to something that I saw or felt at the time.

One more aside here: Doug lambasted the Macintosh earlier, but in
retrospect I'm really glad that our first computer was a Mac. It was never
a machine that was designed for command-line use; hence why something was
simple as "Hello, World!" would be so complex. But it did have a regularity
of interface and was simple enough that for years I never realized a
computer could be any different. I didn't appreciate the value of those
early lessons and how they shaped how I thought about how a system should
work until much, much  later.

        - Dan C.
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From jon at fourwinds.com  Sun Oct 13 11:57:47 2019
From: jon at fourwinds.com (Jon Steinhart)
Date: Sat, 12 Oct 2019 18:57:47 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <201910130157.x9D1vl7x028976@darkstar.fourwinds.com>

Well, I guess mine is kinda weird.  I had messed with a number of
computer systems a litle bit and then became proficient with 516-TSS
as a result of being part of the explorer scout post at BTL Murray
Hill in high school.  Interesting note is that one of my advisors
who wrote a lot of 516-TSS interviewed Ken for his job at BTL.
Ended up with a paid job at BTL starting near the end of my senior
year of high school.  Needed to document my work.  Don't remember
why, but my group acquired a PDP-11/40 that was across the hall
from the 516 lab in building 2 that was running UNIX version 3.
I started using roff on it to do my documentation which meant
learning ed and a bunch of other tools.  Of course, I took the
manual home and read it cover to cover and started messing around
with the various cool tools that it had and was hooked.

Jon

From rudi.j.blom at gmail.com  Sun Oct 13 13:45:41 2019
From: rudi.j.blom at gmail.com (Rudi Blom)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 10:45:41 +0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <CAMYpm87oqH=_QFPrtyXXn4utjxZLwhZYZT7T9mfuPSbgf2AMHw@mail.gmail.com>

Not sure I had an "aha erlebnis" with UNIX. I'd done some testing on a
Philips PTS6000 with T.O.S. All assembler code with debugging syslod
the most fun (breakpointing code which moves itself in memory). Then I
was a user on VAX 11/730, 11/750 with Ultrix which was a bit of a step
down. The VAXes run VMS during the week and only in weekends we could
place our disk pack and boot Ultrix. Funny feeling to go home when
colleagues arrive in the morning.

Later "Propriety UNIX" versions  based on System III, 7, V. No source.
Still had shells, command line, scripts, a bit of programming in C if
all else fails (or is too slow). Never liked Windows. In that sense
maybe more an 'aha windows' moment to quickly forget :-)

Cheers,
uncle rubl

From richard at inf.ed.ac.uk  Sun Oct 13 23:53:44 2019
From: richard at inf.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 14:53:44 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [TUHS] Awk for CSV files
In-Reply-To: Larry McVoy's message of Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:56:54 -0700
Message-ID: <20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>

I was reminded of this by Larry's comment:

> I miss Brian on this list.  I've interacted with him over the years, the
> one I remember the most was I was trying to do an awk like interface to a
> key/value "database".

Recently I've had to deal with a lot of data in CSV
(comma-separated-value) format.  Awk is *almost* prefect for this, but
of course doesn't handle the quoting of fields that contain commas.
One can usually work around it by finding a character that doesn't
occur in the data and converting the CSV file to use that as the
separator, but it's not ideal.

Awk's input could easily be modified to handle CSV files, but output
would be a bit more difficult, because you don't specify field
boundaries explicitly on output.  One possibility would be a printf()
format specifier that takes a field and quotes it appropriately.

-- Richard

-- 
The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.


From arnold at skeeve.com  Mon Oct 14 00:57:31 2019
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 08:57:31 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Awk for CSV files
In-Reply-To: <20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>
References: <20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <201910131457.x9DEvVGa026545@freefriends.org>

Awk and csv isn't new. Googling 'awk csv' gets you a bunch of results.

There is also the 'csv' dynamically loadable extension for gawk to
be found in the gawkextlib project.  Contact me off-list if you want
more details.

Thanks,

Arnold

Richard Tobin <richard at inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> I was reminded of this by Larry's comment:
>
> > I miss Brian on this list.  I've interacted with him over the years, the
> > one I remember the most was I was trying to do an awk like interface to a
> > key/value "database".
>
> Recently I've had to deal with a lot of data in CSV
> (comma-separated-value) format.  Awk is *almost* prefect for this, but
> of course doesn't handle the quoting of fields that contain commas.
> One can usually work around it by finding a character that doesn't
> occur in the data and converting the CSV file to use that as the
> separator, but it's not ideal.
>
> Awk's input could easily be modified to handle CSV files, but output
> would be a bit more difficult, because you don't specify field
> boundaries explicitly on output.  One possibility would be a printf()
> format specifier that takes a field and quotes it appropriately.
>
> -- Richard
>
> -- 
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

From robert at timetraveller.org  Mon Oct 14 01:00:43 2019
From: robert at timetraveller.org (Robert Brockway)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 01:00:43 +1000 (AEST)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.20.1910140034420.2337@mira.opentrend.net>

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019, Warren Toomey wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.

Well I've been on this list for 13 years (just checked) but I'll jump in.
I've mostly lurked with probably less than 13 comments total.

> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

I had run Microware OS-9 as a teenager which is somewhat Unix like so some 
commands were familiar to me from the outset, but my Unix ahah moment is 
almost embarrassingly simple.

I was trying to arrange to meet with a fellow student during 2nd year at 
University to work on a project.  It was 1992 so neither of us had a 
calendar readily available.  I turned to the dumbterm in front of me and 
said "If Unix had a calendar command I think it would be 'cal'".  I typed 
cal and when it worked I realised I found Unix so much more intuitive than 
other OSes I had used in the past.

I used Unix at university for the next couple of years, installed Linux at 
home in 1994 and a year later I founded a Unix user group[1].  At the 
first meeting I hoped we wouldn't run out of things to talk about.  I had 
a lot to learn.

[1] Which is still going to this day.  http://www.humbug.org.au.

Rob

From arnold at skeeve.com  Mon Oct 14 01:33:09 2019
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 09:33:09 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <201910131533.x9DFX9Ev028135@freefriends.org>

Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

I first met Unix in the fall of 1980, after a two-year hiatus from
college. Up to then, I'd only used Sperry Univac mainframes and a
weird Xerox computer (only a little) and punch cards on an IBM 1130.

In the interim, the college gave the undergrads access to a PDP-11/70
at the med school running IS/1 - Interactive Systems' commercial version
of V6.  No access for us to source code, though. :-(

I/O redirection and space separated arguments were really cool, as well
as pipelines. Light years ahead of anything else.

More or less simultaneously, someone lent me their copies of "Software Tools"
and "The C Programming Language" (which I immediately got my own copies
of). Software Tools opened my eyes to the whole Unix philosophy.

K&R was so dense that my head was swimming after the first read.  I then
read it through again, and everything pretty much clicked.

I decided pretty quickly during the course of that first year with Unix
that I only wanted to work with C and Unix. Both were so far ahead of
everything else...

Arnold

From lm at mcvoy.com  Mon Oct 14 01:41:45 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 08:41:45 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <201910131533.x9DFX9Ev028135@freefriends.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201910131533.x9DFX9Ev028135@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <20191013154145.GA7864@mcvoy.com>

On Sun, Oct 13, 2019 at 09:33:09AM -0600, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> K&R was so dense that my head was swimming after the first read.  I then
> read it through again, and everything pretty much clicked.

Agreed, it's an awesome book.  All the stuff you need is there and there
is no fluff.  I suspect people will still be reading that book 50 years
from now.

From davidpotesta at gmail.com  Mon Oct 14 01:47:33 2019
From: davidpotesta at gmail.com (David Potesta)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 10:47:33 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191013154145.GA7864@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201910131533.x9DFX9Ev028135@freefriends.org>
 <20191013154145.GA7864@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CAFQggi5wa+X+2EVFt-ZRWM8R2i01Aje9G0i5U96S141tJ2fEFQ@mail.gmail.com>

I just bought my first copy about 3 months ago.

On Sun, Oct 13, 2019 at 10:42 AM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 13, 2019 at 09:33:09AM -0600, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> > K&R was so dense that my head was swimming after the first read.  I then
> > read it through again, and everything pretty much clicked.
>
> Agreed, it's an awesome book.  All the stuff you need is there and there
> is no fluff.  I suspect people will still be reading that book 50 years
> from now.
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 14 02:07:58 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 12:07:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191013160758.4F81118C07A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Arnold Skeeve

    > K&R was so dense that my head was swimming after the first read.

I learned C from "Programming in C - A Tutorial", by Brian Kernighan, which
for some reason seemed to have fallen into desuetude from V7 on (at least,
that was the impression I got). Which was a pity, it was one of the best
documents I ever read - a breeze to read through, and clear as crystal.

	Noel

From rich.salz at gmail.com  Mon Oct 14 02:25:07 2019
From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Richard Salz)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 12:25:07 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191013160758.4F81118C07A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191013160758.4F81118C07A@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CAFH29tq-p1GAVucE1ZOaEU3J2N5Hj-yXCCEjPV_xjYqFLkjQ4g@mail.gmail.com>

Man, those Bell Labs folks could really write. They were short, clear,
unambiguous.
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From wlc at jctaylor.com  Mon Oct 14 04:46:01 2019
From: wlc at jctaylor.com (William Corcoran)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 18:46:01 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Awk for CSV files
In-Reply-To: <20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>
References: Larry McVoy's message of Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:56:54
 -0700,<20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <E6A771F4-70CD-4D8C-884F-F0CD806B5B20@jctaylor.com>

Today, working with v7m, SVR1, and bsd2.11 all PDP11 ports, for example, will stay booted and operational for long periods under simulation. 

With these older UNIX variants, working with awk and even the classic shell tools is often problematic.  Moreover resource constraints seem to be a persistent annoyance under simulation.  

When dealing with even moderately sized text files, one is often left with writing a C program to ameliorate the limitations of any attempt to exclusively use awk, and the other classic shell tools. It’s not a leap to suggest that users running UNIX on actual metal instead of simulation faced the same resource challenges.  

Holy cow have things changed.   Today, awk, and the other classic shell tools are amazing.   Resource limitations are rare or even non-existent, especially so in the Cloud.  Google seems to have led the way into taming unstructured data.   Even email today is virtually one huge text stream where it’s binary element is masked by even more text.  Text, text, text!   All of this text data (CSV or whatever) has paved the way and extended the meaningful life of the classic shell tools and even newer tools that are now classics—-especially when an RDB is involved.  

Just don’t hit that null or you might need to ameliorate with C again.   

Truly,

Bill Corcoran


> On Oct 13, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Richard Tobin <richard at inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> I was reminded of this by Larry's comment:
> 
>> I miss Brian on this list.  I've interacted with him over the years, the
>> one I remember the most was I was trying to do an awk like interface to a
>> key/value "database".
> 
> Recently I've had to deal with a lot of data in CSV
> (comma-separated-value) format.  Awk is *almost* prefect for this, but
> of course doesn't handle the quoting of fields that contain commas.
> One can usually work around it by finding a character that doesn't
> occur in the data and converting the CSV file to use that as the
> separator, but it's not ideal.
> 
> Awk's input could easily be modified to handle CSV files, but output
> would be a bit more difficult, because you don't specify field
> boundaries explicitly on output.  One possibility would be a printf()
> format specifier that takes a field and quotes it appropriately.
> 
> -- Richard
> 
> -- 
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
> 

From henry.r.bent at gmail.com  Mon Oct 14 05:36:30 2019
From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 15:36:30 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Awk for CSV files
In-Reply-To: <E6A771F4-70CD-4D8C-884F-F0CD806B5B20@jctaylor.com>
References: <20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>
 <E6A771F4-70CD-4D8C-884F-F0CD806B5B20@jctaylor.com>
Message-ID: <CAEdTPBfE+DTN_1XSUT8CZcjnhMszry0AQOou7AcPiXZrqBQciA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 at 14:54, William Corcoran <wlc at jctaylor.com> wrote:

> Today, working with v7m, SVR1, and bsd2.11 all PDP11 ports, for example,
> will stay booted and operational for long periods under simulation.
>

This has certainly been my experience as well with mature, for the era, BSD
ports.  Most of the problems I have encountered have been with TCP/IP
issues in 2.11BSD and Ultrix 3.1 related to traffic they were never
expecting.


> With these older UNIX variants, working with awk and even the classic
> shell tools is often problematic.  Moreover resource constraints seem to be
> a persistent annoyance under simulation.
>

I think our expectations of a 16 bit Unix are going to be well out of
proportion now.  When 16 and 32 bit Unix systems existed side by side it
was easy to consider the resource limitations of both when programming.
Now that 16 bit systems have moved completely out of general end user space
we only consider the constraints of the 32 and 64 bit systems that exist
side by side.

Some of my interests lie in preserving early '90s hardware with original
operating systems, and working within their constraints.  Porting modern
tools to SunOS 4 or Ultrix 4 or IRIX 4 (huh, everyone really was stuck on
the same version) is a challenge but it can be done, as long as those tools
do not necessarily rely on shared libraries.  Backporting C99 to C89 is
often not as difficult as it would seem, though it can sometimes be
laborious.  On the other hand, porting modern tools to my PDP 11/23 running
2.9BSD is a total non-starter for reasons that I am sure I do not have to
elaborate upon here.

-Henry
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From peter at rulingia.com  Mon Oct 14 05:46:03 2019
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 06:46:03 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>

I don't recall a specific aha moment either.  Possibly it was make - I had
previously expressed a wish for some sort of dependency tracking mechanism
to speed up the build system I was using in my job, and had been told it
couldn't be done.  I was impressed that Unix provided one out of the box.

On 2019-Oct-11 15:04:15 +0300, Tyler Adams <coppero1237 at gmail.com> wrote:
>Then when Apple and Google pumped out 3 BILLION unix like devices and made
>unix mainstream, it just nailed it in that unix is a really special piece
>of software*.*

Well, whilst Apple and Google products are built around a Unix-like core,
none of them expose the Unix UI to normal users.  And, if you come from a
Unix background, even once you access the underlying core, the differences
are more likely to trip you up than make you feel at home.  Instead, they
each have their own, proprietary UI, together with a relatively proprietary
development environment.  None of them are going to introduce a new
generation to Unix or generate Unix evangelists.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From scj at yaccman.com  Mon Oct 14 07:45:37 2019
From: scj at yaccman.com (Steve Johnson)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 14:45:37 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <3171e2de-fa39-2112-f2fc-bd901885962e@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <bf8e55555edd1399f7ca6cfa9aedc931cde17871@webmail.yaccman.com>



My Aha, Unix! moment was the Unix man pages, especially that they had
a section for BUGS.  The very reality of it attracted me.  As Gloria
Steinem said, "Something doesn't have to be perfect to be
wonderful!"  I notice that on Linux the older man pages still have
BUG sections, but the newer ones don't.  Telling.   Even more
telling is that 'man python' gives you a lot of information, but at
the end where the Bugs section used to be is a section labled
"LICENSING"... 

I did have the opportunity in the early years to demonstrate Unix to
several dozen people, mostly users of the (IBM) mainframe computers
and the GE/Honeywell Time Sharing System.  The sequence that
initiated gasps, confusion, and ultimately joy was:
%  echo hello joe > hijoe
% cat hijoe
hello joe

At the time, permanent file storage was a relatively new concept for
mainframes, and the implementations were very influenced by space
constraints and punched card images.  The IBM was worst, because for
them a disc file was made to look like a tape drive -- "records" that
had multiple card images on them."  In order to create a file, you
had to submit a job (punched cards again) using a Job Control Language
whose authors are hopefully all burning in hell at this very moment. 
And the job failed if the file was already there, ...   The time
sharing system was not much better -- still had the notion of card
images in mind, but also an initial size, a maximum size, and a lot of
settings for who could do what with the file.  In the time sharing
system, a special subsystem took control and asked you roughly a dozen
questions, one at a time.   It was quite common to botch one or more
of the answers, in which case you got to answer all the questions
again.  No wonder when the file was finally created, the system
replied "Successful!".

Typing the above created shock and awe followed by questions like
"what's the blocking factor" and "what device is it allocated on". 
Followed, mostly, by a dazed joy as they finally got it...

Steve

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Forrest" <nobozo at gmail.com>
To:<tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
Cc:
Sent:Sat, 12 Oct 2019 12:10:12 -0700
Subject:Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?

 I was a new grad student at UC Santa Barbara (where I did my
 undergrad) in ~1977. Somebody who I had found for my
 committee had just returned from a stay at Bell Labs,
 and he told me about this thing called Unix. It sounded
 very interesting, so I asked around. It turned out that
 the Computer Center, where all computing was done back
 then, had a PDP11/45 on which they ran RSTS during the
 day, and Unix at night.

 In fact, somebody had created a sign in one of the
 terminal rooms that said

 "Oh say can you C by the dawn's early light".

 which very accurately described my life back then,
 because I was spending many a night learning C,
 and was getting used to seeing the dawn's early
 light while doing so.

 Not exactly an "Aha" moment, but what I learned
 from spending these sleepless nights is what
 got me started on a career that lasted ~40 years.

 Jon Forrest


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From scj at yaccman.com  Mon Oct 14 08:17:46 2019
From: scj at yaccman.com (Steve Johnson)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 15:17:46 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] God vs god (was Upper/Lower at DEC)
In-Reply-To: <7wpnj2wpzy.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <3c4014d4052d6fe3afb97bdb89a4d22c7854059b@webmail.yaccman.com>


There is a story (or perhaps an urban legend) that mainframe computers
used all upper case, in spite of research showing lower case was
easier to read, because some executive said "But with all lower case,
we can't spell God's name right".  Anybody able to put some reality
behind that? 

Steve

----- Original Message -----
From: "Lars Brinkhoff" <lars at nocrew.org>
To:"Arthur Krewat" <krewat at kilonet.net>
Cc:<tuhs at tuhs.org>
Sent:Sat, 12 Oct 2019 04:24:01 +0000
Subject:Re: [TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of
Upper and Lower case at DEC

 Arthur Krewat wrote:
 > While BAH was more involved in PDP-10 stuff, I wonder what her take
is
 > on this.

 I don't think there ever was a lower case "pdp10" on the machines.
 From what I see, it was "PDP-10", "decsystem10", "DECSYSTEM 20",
 or "DECSYSTEM 2020".


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From wlc at jctaylor.com  Mon Oct 14 08:30:21 2019
From: wlc at jctaylor.com (William Corcoran)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 22:30:21 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Awk for CSV files
In-Reply-To: <CAEdTPBfE+DTN_1XSUT8CZcjnhMszry0AQOou7AcPiXZrqBQciA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191013135344.E0F4C292AD4E@macaroni.inf.ed.ac.uk>
 <E6A771F4-70CD-4D8C-884F-F0CD806B5B20@jctaylor.com>,
 <CAEdTPBfE+DTN_1XSUT8CZcjnhMszry0AQOou7AcPiXZrqBQciA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <580AE12E-384E-4C13-9EA3-F9E53A2CC4C3@jctaylor.com>

Agreed.  Although it seems like a lot of these processor “bits” beyond 32 are now put to use into senseless saccharin AI endeavors like autocorrect.  I type “its” and it comes out as “it’s” when clearly it should have been “its” and it’s depressing, even more so when I miss it.

Truly,

Bill Corcoran
On Oct 13, 2019, at 3:36 PM, Henry Bent <henry.r.bent at gmail.com<mailto:henry.r.bent at gmail.com>> wrote:

On Sun, 13 Oct 2019 at 14:54, William Corcoran <wlc at jctaylor.com<mailto:wlc at jctaylor.com>> wrote:
Today, working with v7m, SVR1, and bsd2.11 all PDP11 ports, for example, will stay booted and operational for long periods under simulation.

This has certainly been my experience as well with mature, for the era, BSD ports.  Most of the problems I have encountered have been with TCP/IP issues in 2.11BSD and Ultrix 3.1 related to traffic they were never expecting.

With these older UNIX variants, working with awk and even the classic shell tools is often problematic.  Moreover resource constraints seem to be a persistent annoyance under simulation.

I think our expectations of a 16 bit Unix are going to be well out of proportion now.  When 16 and 32 bit Unix systems existed side by side it was easy to consider the resource limitations of both when programming.  Now that 16 bit systems have moved completely out of general end user space we only consider the constraints of the 32 and 64 bit systems that exist side by side.

Some of my interests lie in preserving early '90s hardware with original operating systems, and working within their constraints.  Porting modern tools to SunOS 4 or Ultrix 4 or IRIX 4 (huh, everyone really was stuck on the same version) is a challenge but it can be done, as long as those tools do not necessarily rely on shared libraries.  Backporting C99 to C89 is often not as difficult as it would seem, though it can sometimes be laborious.  On the other hand, porting modern tools to my PDP 11/23 running 2.9BSD is a total non-starter for reasons that I am sure I do not have to elaborate upon here.

-Henry
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From nobozo at gmail.com  Mon Oct 14 10:36:18 2019
From: nobozo at gmail.com (Jon Forrest)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 17:36:18 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <bf8e55555edd1399f7ca6cfa9aedc931cde17871@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <bf8e55555edd1399f7ca6cfa9aedc931cde17871@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <f381278c-8010-ea69-e6b3-6455c31e5b40@gmail.com>



On 10/13/2019 2:45 PM, Steve Johnson wrote:
> 

> I did have the opportunity in the early years to demonstrate Unix to 
> several dozen people, mostly users of the (IBM) mainframe computers and 
> the GE/Honeywell Time Sharing System.  The sequence that initiated 
> gasps, confusion, and ultimately joy was:
> %  echo hello joe > hijoe
> % cat hijoe
> hello joe

A technically equivalent but more dramatic version of this
that I used to use back then was a shell script that would
prompt for the name of a file to display, and then display the
file whose name the user entered.

This would make steam come out of the ears of the IBM mainframe
people because it wasn't possible to do that on the IBM mainframe
in use at the time.

Jon




From stewart at serissa.com  Mon Oct 14 12:08:03 2019
From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 22:08:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <f381278c-8010-ea69-e6b3-6455c31e5b40@gmail.com>
References: <bf8e55555edd1399f7ca6cfa9aedc931cde17871@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <f381278c-8010-ea69-e6b3-6455c31e5b40@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2C91B1E4-ACAA-4388-83B9-8A018BD9D27B@serissa.com>

With JCL it is as easy to read one tape as it is to read 1000 tapes.

> On 2019, Oct 13, at 8:36 PM, Jon Forrest <nobozo at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> On 10/13/2019 2:45 PM, Steve Johnson wrote:
> 
>> I did have the opportunity in the early years to demonstrate Unix to several dozen people, mostly users of the (IBM) mainframe computers and the GE/Honeywell Time Sharing System.  The sequence that initiated gasps, confusion, and ultimately joy was:
>> %  echo hello joe > hijoe
>> % cat hijoe
>> hello joe
> 
> A technically equivalent but more dramatic version of this
> that I used to use back then was a shell script that would
> prompt for the name of a file to display, and then display the
> file whose name the user entered.
> 
> This would make steam come out of the ears of the IBM mainframe
> people because it wasn't possible to do that on the IBM mainframe
> in use at the time.
> 
> Jon
> 
> 
> 


From stewart at serissa.com  Mon Oct 14 12:13:34 2019
From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 22:13:34 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
Message-ID: <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>

I first encountered Unix as v6 on an 11/34 at Stanford Information Systems Lab.  I read all the man pages and then the Lions book turned up and then we had need of some new device drivers, and then we needed to get hooked up to the Arpanet,… and it took off from there.

-Larry


From rp at servium.ch  Mon Oct 14 12:32:36 2019
From: rp at servium.ch (Rico Pajarola)
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 2019 19:32:36 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
Message-ID: <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>

My first "Aha moment" was when I (accidentally) discovered job control.
Being able to hit ctrl-Z while editing something, do some things, type "fg"
and be back where I left off was just amazing. None of the "unix emulation"
products on top of dos/windows could do that (at least at the time, the
ones available to me. IIRC cygwin these days has job control).

Then I bought O'Reilly's "Unix Power Tools" book (which I recommend to
anyone. Great book). The next epiphany was the discovery of `` (backticks)
and xargs. Command line arguments and pipes could be transformed into each
other. Just wow. Then I discovered vi and permanently lost the ability to
be happy with other operating systems.


On Sun, Oct 13, 2019 at 7:21 PM Lawrence Stewart <stewart at serissa.com>
wrote:

> I first encountered Unix as v6 on an 11/34 at Stanford Information Systems
> Lab.  I read all the man pages and then the Lions book turned up and then
> we had need of some new device drivers, and then we needed to get hooked up
> to the Arpanet,… and it took off from there.
>
> -Larry
>
>
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From toby at telegraphics.com.au  Mon Oct 14 19:37:16 2019
From: toby at telegraphics.com.au (Toby Thain)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 10:37:16 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] God vs god (was Upper/Lower at DEC)
In-Reply-To: <3c4014d4052d6fe3afb97bdb89a4d22c7854059b@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <3c4014d4052d6fe3afb97bdb89a4d22c7854059b@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <906baa19-11b4-fef3-d853-0b17eb200c3f@telegraphics.com.au>

On 2019-10-13 11:17 p.m., Steve Johnson wrote:
> There is a story (or perhaps an urban legend) that mainframe computers
> used all upper case, in spite of research showing lower case was easier
> to read, because some executive said "But with all lower case, we can't
> spell God's name right".  Anybody able to put some reality behind that?
> 


Did nobody explain to the executive that, like printed typography for
FIVE HUNDRED years prior, that a character set with lower case would
include BOTH CASES? (Typographic research doesn't claim that lower case
_only_ is easier to read, and there are reasons to believe it is not.)



> Steve
> 
> 
> 
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     From:
>     "Lars Brinkhoff" <lars at nocrew.org>
> 
>     To:
>     "Arthur Krewat" <krewat at kilonet.net>
>     Cc:
>     <tuhs at tuhs.org>
>     Sent:
>     Sat, 12 Oct 2019 04:24:01 +0000
>     Subject:
>     Re: [TUHS] Fwd: Curious Question from the Ether about use of Upper
>     and Lower case at DEC
> 
> 
>     Arthur Krewat wrote:
>     > While BAH was more involved in PDP-10 stuff, I wonder what her take is
>     > on this.
> 
>     I don't think there ever was a lower case "pdp10" on the machines.
>     From what I see, it was "PDP-10", "decsystem10", "DECSYSTEM 20",
>     or "DECSYSTEM 2020".
> 


From michael at kjorling.se  Mon Oct 14 19:49:26 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 09:49:26 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>

On 13 Oct 2019 19:32 -0700, from rp at servium.ch (Rico Pajarola):
> Then I bought O'Reilly's "Unix Power Tools" book (which I recommend to
> anyone. Great book).

Speaking of that book, it's available in ebook form as part of Humble
Bundle's current "Linux & UNIX" bundle.

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/linux-unix-oreilly-books

USD 1 for that book and a few others.

I made a longer post about that bundle to the COFF list.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From crossd at gmail.com  Mon Oct 14 21:57:14 2019
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 07:57:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix 50 event at BTL Murray Hill?
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W7Bt+fiKDWL9bF2krqpixZioNzxUwYyhHDPUPMeA0dQbg@mail.gmail.com>

This just came over another list, and I'm surprised not to have seen
anything about it here. Anyone heard about it?

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/12/1625237/bell-labs-plans-big-50th-anniversary-event-for-unix

        - Dan C.
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From thomas.paulsen at firemail.de  Mon Oct 14 22:22:47 2019
From: thomas.paulsen at firemail.de (Thomas Paulsen)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:22:47 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Unix 50 event at BTL Murray Hill?
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7Bt+fiKDWL9bF2krqpixZioNzxUwYyhHDPUPMeA0dQbg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEoi9W7Bt+fiKDWL9bF2krqpixZioNzxUwYyhHDPUPMeA0dQbg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <eb6fa9ee9cdb27580df5c190ff4d725d@firemail.de>

isn't late October somewhat too late as Ken did his work in summer '69.

--- Ursprüngliche Nachricht ---
Von: Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com>
Datum: 14.10.2019 13:57:14
An: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society <tuhs at tuhs.org>
Betreff: [TUHS] Unix 50 event at BTL Murray Hill?

> This just came over another list, and I'm surprised not to have seen
> anything about it here. Anyone heard about it?
>
> https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/10/12/1625237/bell-labs-plans-big-50th-anniversary-event-for-unix
>
>
>         - Dan C.
>



From jose.a.guerra at gmail.com  Mon Oct 14 22:34:47 2019
From: jose.a.guerra at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?Sm9zw6kgR3VlcnJh?=)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 08:34:47 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix @ 50
Message-ID: <CACxTyBUFWXexCq8_fFgM0qV5C6XV1eCeLenvbEMsRs=k7i7Eig@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.bell-labs.com/unix50/event/
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From terry at jon.es  Mon Oct 14 23:29:27 2019
From: terry at jon.es (Terry Jones)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 15:29:27 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] A UNIX shell based on Python
Message-ID: <CACqnu4XbCsq44MebcGNe4XEHfgqEoYQ9-AOac3LYcPc2b5vJVg@mail.gmail.com>

I wrote a UNIX shell based on Python the other night in case anyone's
interested: https://github.com/terrycojones/daudin   Apologies for a modern
instead of an historic subject...

Terry
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Tue Oct 15 01:32:53 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 11:32:53 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <201910141532.x9EFWrjC001713@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

Apropos of Steve Johnson's evocative description of JCL and other
pre-Unix OS interfaces, doing legwork for Multics I ran the following
experiment on a lot of then-current time-sharing systems.

As a model of creating and installing a new compiler, I used a very
short Fortran program that simply copied its input to its output,
stopping after finding END in column 7 of the input. The drill was
	compile the program
	run it, using its own source as input
	compile the freshly made output file
This failed on every system I tried it on, though local
experts could intervene with magic to overcome the
gratuitous file-type distinctions that typically 
got in the way. Dartmouth's DTSS came closest, but
inexplicably, even to the gurus, it had a special 
prohibition against a program reading the source
from which it was compiled.

Incidentally, my favorite manifestation of JCL-like mumbo jumbo
was the ironically named FUTIL control card in GECOS.

Doug

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Tue Oct 15 02:45:58 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 12:45:58 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191014164558.A029318C079@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Doug McIlroy

    > doing legwork for Multics I ran the following experiment on a lot of
    > then-current time-sharing systems.

Fascinating; you don't happen to remember the ones you tried, do you?

Also, when you say "legwork for Multics", was this something done during
the planning stages (so, say '64-'65), or later on?

    Noel

From cym224 at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 04:28:20 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo Nusquam)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:28:20 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix @ 50
In-Reply-To: <CACxTyBUFWXexCq8_fFgM0qV5C6XV1eCeLenvbEMsRs=k7i7Eig@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACxTyBUFWXexCq8_fFgM0qV5C6XV1eCeLenvbEMsRs=k7i7Eig@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <fe4b480a-2eb8-bc56-48d5-e40a65a9c1c0@gmail.com>

On 10/14/19 08:34, José Guerra wrote:
> https://www.bell-labs.com/unix50/event/
>
Interesting that they did not use the iconic picture of Ken Thomson 
seated at the console and Dennis Ritchie standing beside him.

From cym224 at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 04:36:11 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo Nusquam)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 14:36:11 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
Message-ID: <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>


On 10/14/19 05:49, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> On 13 Oct 2019 19:32 -0700, from rp at servium.ch (Rico Pajarola):
>> Then I bought O'Reilly's "Unix Power Tools" book (which I recommend to
>> anyone. Great book).
> Speaking of that book, it's available in ebook form as part of Humble
> Bundle's current "Linux & UNIX" bundle.
>
> https://www.humblebundle.com/books/linux-unix-oreilly-books
>
> USD 1 for that book and a few others.
Mininum is USD1 but I humbly suggest paying more.

N.

(And I still have the first print edition.)

From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 06:39:53 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 16:39:53 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX at 50
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp-7=gWZRK7AvXk4huEXK4qksPF1Nmf7CArams5asoMSog@mail.gmail.com>

Here's the schedule <https://www.bell-labs.com/unix50/event/>
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From velocityboy at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 07:10:31 2019
From: velocityboy at gmail.com (Jim Geist)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 17:10:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>

I mentioned earlier in this thread that my first exposure to Unix was on
our school's VAX many years ago. Today someone from school gifted me an
original copy of the VAX 4.2BSD Unix User's Manual, complete with a B&W
drawing of the daemon on the cover.

I didn't know that John Lasseter of Pixar fame was responsible for that
logo.

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 2:44 PM Nemo Nusquam <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On 10/14/19 05:49, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> > On 13 Oct 2019 19:32 -0700, from rp at servium.ch (Rico Pajarola):
> >> Then I bought O'Reilly's "Unix Power Tools" book (which I recommend to
> >> anyone. Great book).
> > Speaking of that book, it's available in ebook form as part of Humble
> > Bundle's current "Linux & UNIX" bundle.
> >
> > https://www.humblebundle.com/books/linux-unix-oreilly-books
> >
> > USD 1 for that book and a few others.
> Mininum is USD1 but I humbly suggest paying more.
>
> N.
>
> (And I still have the first print edition.)
>
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Tue Oct 15 08:22:43 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 08:22:43 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191014222243.GA13074@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 05:10:31PM -0400, Jim Geist wrote:
>    I mentioned earlier in this thread that my first exposure to Unix was
>    on our school's VAX many years ago. Today someone from school gifted me
>    an original copy of the VAX 4.2BSD Unix User's Manual, complete with a
>    B&W drawing of the daemon on the cover.
>    I didn't know that John Lasseter of Pixar fame was responsible for that
>    logo.

I donated this image to Kirk from my set a while back:
https://www.mckusick.com/beastie/gif/4.2daemon.gif

Cheers, Warren

From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct 15 08:56:07 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 18:56:07 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>

There's a small intersection between Lasseter and NYIT where I currently 
work. A friend worked there during the CGL/NYIT days, and when they 
closed up, I dumpster dived a lot of stuff.

Including the NFS 2.0 sources that Warren currently has in the TUHS 
archives ;)

Towards the end, they were using BSD 4.3 on Vaxen - I even got my hands 
on a couple of 750's, which have been ruined over the years because of 
environmental problems with the storage location. I do still have a 
complete set of boards.

I still have an RM05 pack, labeled /pix ... probably way past the 
ability to be read, I'm afraid, unless someone wants to sacrifice an 
RM05 drive to try.

art k.


On 10/14/2019 5:10 PM, Jim Geist wrote:
> I mentioned earlier in this thread that my first exposure to Unix was 
> on our school's VAX many years ago. Today someone from school gifted 
> me an original copy of the VAX 4.2BSD Unix User's Manual, complete 
> with a B&W drawing of the daemon on the cover.
>
> I didn't know that John Lasseter of Pixar fame was responsible for 
> that logo.


From velocityboy at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 09:44:41 2019
From: velocityboy at gmail.com (Jim Geist)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:44:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>

I can't remember, can the 750 run off of normal power or does it require
3-phase?

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 6:56 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> There's a small intersection between Lasseter and NYIT where I currently
> work. A friend worked there during the CGL/NYIT days, and when they
> closed up, I dumpster dived a lot of stuff.
>
> Including the NFS 2.0 sources that Warren currently has in the TUHS
> archives ;)
>
> Towards the end, they were using BSD 4.3 on Vaxen - I even got my hands
> on a couple of 750's, which have been ruined over the years because of
> environmental problems with the storage location. I do still have a
> complete set of boards.
>
> I still have an RM05 pack, labeled /pix ... probably way past the
> ability to be read, I'm afraid, unless someone wants to sacrifice an
> RM05 drive to try.
>
> art k.
>
>
> On 10/14/2019 5:10 PM, Jim Geist wrote:
> > I mentioned earlier in this thread that my first exposure to Unix was
> > on our school's VAX many years ago. Today someone from school gifted
> > me an original copy of the VAX 4.2BSD Unix User's Manual, complete
> > with a B&W drawing of the daemon on the cover.
> >
> > I didn't know that John Lasseter of Pixar fame was responsible for
> > that logo.
>
>
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From athornton at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 09:47:31 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 16:47:31 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>


> On Oct 14, 2019, at 4:44 PM, Jim Geist <velocityboy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't remember, can the 750 run off of normal power or does it require 3-phase?


730 looks like it runs off plain old 220V (haven’t tried yet).  I would expect the 750 to be the same but I don’t actually know.

Adam

From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct 15 09:52:03 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:52:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c5c1e1c7-41ea-4adf-de44-8b14f0aaf43c@kilonet.net>

 From what I remember, the 750 will run off single-phase 110 volt. So 
will an RM05, but it has to be 220 (which, in the US, requires two 
phases to make 220).

I think only the RP06/7's really needed 3-phase, but even then, I could 
be wrong. Most of this DEC equipment really only needed single-phase, 
but balancing the load was always a good idea in places that were 
already 3-phase capable.



On 10/14/2019 7:44 PM, Jim Geist wrote:
> I can't remember, can the 750 run off of normal power or does it 
> require 3-phase?
>
> On Mon, Oct 14, 2019 at 6:56 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net 
> <mailto:krewat at kilonet.net>> wrote:
>
>     There's a small intersection between Lasseter and NYIT where I
>     currently
>     work. A friend worked there during the CGL/NYIT days, and when they
>     closed up, I dumpster dived a lot of stuff.
>
>     Including the NFS 2.0 sources that Warren currently has in the TUHS
>     archives ;)
>
>     Towards the end, they were using BSD 4.3 on Vaxen - I even got my
>     hands
>     on a couple of 750's, which have been ruined over the years
>     because of
>     environmental problems with the storage location. I do still have a
>     complete set of boards.
>
>     I still have an RM05 pack, labeled /pix ... probably way past the
>     ability to be read, I'm afraid, unless someone wants to sacrifice an
>     RM05 drive to try.
>
>     art k.
>
>
>     On 10/14/2019 5:10 PM, Jim Geist wrote:
>     > I mentioned earlier in this thread that my first exposure to
>     Unix was
>     > on our school's VAX many years ago. Today someone from school
>     gifted
>     > me an original copy of the VAX 4.2BSD Unix User's Manual, complete
>     > with a B&W drawing of the daemon on the cover.
>     >
>     > I didn't know that John Lasseter of Pixar fame was responsible for
>     > that logo.
>

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From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct 15 09:54:04 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:54:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <a16c8477-4dc8-3602-a1dd-bc9084f07c90@kilonet.net>

On 10/14/2019 7:47 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:
>> On Oct 14, 2019, at 4:44 PM, Jim Geist <velocityboy at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I can't remember, can the 750 run off of normal power or does it require 3-phase?
>
> 730 looks like it runs off plain old 220V (haven’t tried yet).  I would expect the 750 to be the same but I don’t actually know.
>

True, the 750 might need 220. I really can't remember. But when I set up 
a few, with a TU78, and a few RM05's at the warehouse I was storing 
them, I really only needed a single phase.

And again, in the US, 220 requires "two phases" but the actual equipment 
only needed a single source of 220. So it was "single phase". Clear as 
mud? :)


ak

From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Oct 15 09:54:51 2019
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 18:54:51 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>

There is no DEC process cabinets that is really three phase.    Some of the power controllers (notably the VAX 780 and the larger PDP-11’s), that had three phase cords on them but all they do is split out the three phases as three 120V circuits.
I believe Armando Stetner made use of this when he ran a VAX in his hotel room at one of the conferences, he just ran 120V extension cords all over the place to get it up.

There are some of the old washing machine harddisks that were designed to run on 208/240 (still single phase).   I’m not sure if the RP06’s fell into this category but some of the Storage Tek drives did.



From Caipenghui_c at 163.com  Tue Oct 15 09:46:05 2019
From: Caipenghui_c at 163.com (Caipenghui)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 07:46:05 +0800
Subject: [TUHS] Celebrating 50 years of Unix
Message-ID: <8053C456-12E7-478D-A391-BAA0D0D1A7F1@163.com>

Unix has a history of 50 years. Unix has a tremendous impact on the Internet. Is Unix ready for the next computing era?
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From henry.r.bent at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 10:03:10 2019
From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 20:03:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <a16c8477-4dc8-3602-a1dd-bc9084f07c90@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <a16c8477-4dc8-3602-a1dd-bc9084f07c90@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CAEdTPBc=50vJuSR2s3dz8gsn2tx-_i=uAcRgfzvVBj2C_Zz-cg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, 14 Oct 2019 at 19:54, Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> On 10/14/2019 7:47 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:
> >> On Oct 14, 2019, at 4:44 PM, Jim Geist <velocityboy at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I can't remember, can the 750 run off of normal power or does it
> require 3-phase?
> >
> > 730 looks like it runs off plain old 220V (haven’t tried yet).  I would
> expect the 750 to be the same but I don’t actually know.
> >
>
> True, the 750 might need 220. I really can't remember. But when I set up
> a few, with a TU78, and a few RM05's at the warehouse I was storing
> them, I really only needed a single phase.
>
> And again, in the US, 220 requires "two phases" but the actual equipment
> only needed a single source of 220. So it was "single phase". Clear as
> mud? :)
>
>
> ak
>

A quick trawl through the Bitsavers 11/750 field maintenance docs did not
definitively answer the question.  Looks like it could have been 240V 12A
or 120V 24A.

-Henry
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct 15 10:04:00 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 20:04:00 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <1f867fcc-0e6e-f382-7351-6a8591a860da@kilonet.net>

On 10/14/2019 7:54 PM, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> There are some of the old washing machine harddisks that were designed to run on 208/240 (still single phase).
Yup, exactly. Still takes "two phases" to make 208/240 in the US.

ak

From ggm at algebras.org  Tue Oct 15 10:07:34 2019
From: ggm at algebras.org (George Michaelson)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 10:07:34 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
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 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <CAKr6gn1qGBc2qJh0Uiq=zt+dGZOtQxEkLtOW8i+wF2dzZ933mA@mail.gmail.com>

Tracy Kidder evokes different emotions around "the soul of a new
machine" -To me, the book is great because its a humanist reading of
technology choices. People matter. Careers are built on seemingly
trivial decisions like the size of the average door frame in a lift in
Tokyo. (a brief moment in the book, from memory)

I always wished it had been written about Digital Equipment and not
Data General, because the only DG box I worked on (a Nova) was a dog.
I know one person who came from Australia (UQ) to Maynard, to track
the building of the Dec-10 destined for the campus. He had
entertaining anecdotes about parking and weather. (australians are not
naturally prepared for 2m of snow and the effect of parking in the
wrong side of the snow shadow, which explains why the parking spots
were empty for the visitor to claim) -I think the birth of the pdp-8
and pdp-11 would be fascinating. I was told the queue to sign up for
pdp-8 at the IFIP  floor show  in the 60s in Edinburgh was a mile
long: people were dog tired of walking card decks over to central
computing facilities and the offer of a deskside or even desktop (if
your desk was strong enough) compute engine for stats and maths and
process control...

Sub-floor radius limits made it hard to retrofit a Cray into the UQ
machine room because the piping radii had been done for the IBM
mainframe. We had to lift the raised floor for the flourinert piping.
400Hz voltage demanded a spinning metal regenerator to do frequency
conversion from the Australian wallplate voltage/frequency. Our
groundplane was inadequate. The Tops-10 box, the cluster of Vaxen,
were completely oblivious to most of this: they did air cooling
through floor venting, thats really all that mattered in their
machine-room.  It was the one we chose to fit the comms racks because
it was the least pain to work in, and the nearest to the hosts which
could actually use Internet protocols trivially on UTP or thinwire.
(the IBM required us to buy a $10,000 PC to fit the line card which
translated TCP/IP into IBM networking and was possibly the last piece
of "thickwire" ethernet we owned)

-G

From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Oct 15 10:10:54 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 17:10:54 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAKr6gn1qGBc2qJh0Uiq=zt+dGZOtQxEkLtOW8i+wF2dzZ933mA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
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 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
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 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
 <CAKr6gn1qGBc2qJh0Uiq=zt+dGZOtQxEkLtOW8i+wF2dzZ933mA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191015001054.GG905@mcvoy.com>

On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 10:07:34AM +1000, George Michaelson wrote:
> I always wished it had been written about Digital Equipment and not
> Data General ...
> -I think the birth of the pdp-8 and pdp-11 would be fascinating. 

+1.  I'd read that book in a heartbeat.

From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Oct 15 10:06:47 2019
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:06:47 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <1f867fcc-0e6e-f382-7351-6a8591a860da@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
 <1f867fcc-0e6e-f382-7351-6a8591a860da@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <44E546CD-352D-40C6-B4FA-B27999AE6B9F@ronnatalie.com>

Absolutely INCORRECT.   The drives see (and the power cord only provides) ONE phase.

208 is essentially a single phase voltage you get by connecting two of your three phase legs. 
240 V on 120/240 is only single phase.

> On Oct 14, 2019, at 7:04 PM, Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:
> 
> On 10/14/2019 7:54 PM, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>> There are some of the old washing machine harddisks that were designed to run on 208/240 (still single phase).
> Yup, exactly. Still takes "two phases" to make 208/240 in the US.
> 
> ak


From krewat at kilonet.net  Tue Oct 15 10:27:31 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 20:27:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <44E546CD-352D-40C6-B4FA-B27999AE6B9F@ronnatalie.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
 <1f867fcc-0e6e-f382-7351-6a8591a860da@kilonet.net>
 <44E546CD-352D-40C6-B4FA-B27999AE6B9F@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <6d743a91-ef54-f107-07bd-2755ea1f4a12@kilonet.net>

That's exactly my point. For example, in my house, I have two phases. 
Each one, to neutral, gets me 120 volts.

If I use both phases, I get 220.

The equipment might be "single phase 220", but I need two phases out of 
the electric panel to get it.

Sorry, I may not have explained myself well enough ;)


On 10/14/2019 8:06 PM, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> Absolutely INCORRECT.   The drives see (and the power cord only provides) ONE phase.
>
> 208 is essentially a single phase voltage you get by connecting two of your three phase legs.
> 240 V on 120/240 is only single phase.
>
>> On Oct 14, 2019, at 7:04 PM, Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:
>>
>> On 10/14/2019 7:54 PM, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>>> There are some of the old washing machine harddisks that were designed to run on 208/240 (still single phase).
>> Yup, exactly. Still takes "two phases" to make 208/240 in the US.
>>
>> ak
>
>


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Oct 15 10:27:44 2019
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:27:44 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Supercomputer UNIX (was Aga moments).
In-Reply-To: <CAKr6gn1qGBc2qJh0Uiq=zt+dGZOtQxEkLtOW8i+wF2dzZ933mA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
 <CAKr6gn1qGBc2qJh0Uiq=zt+dGZOtQxEkLtOW8i+wF2dzZ933mA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5BEB9BF4-9357-4F59-8F0C-8D417130549E@ronnatalie.com>

I’ll omit comments on Data Generals, DEC-10/20, and other non-UNIX stuff.

We had a series of three supercomputers at the BRL.    The first was the Denelcor HEP which was pretty much purpose built for us.   Originally slated to be an Analog, then Hybrid, it ended up as a MIMD ECL-logic digital machine.   Denelcor was stalled on what OS to use and was writing their own proprietary one when we stepped in and told them we would put UNIX on the thing.     The thing was slated to share the main computer center room with the last Cyber 7600 ever build.    We had taped out the location of all the cabinets on the floor around this building pillar.     Shortly after I started at the labs, I flew out to Denelcor and noted that the machine was sitting on their floor in our configuration except they had tape where our building pillar was.    It was kind of a fun research exercise.   The thing had 4 PEMs which each could run 8 independent (what we would call in UNIX) processes.    The hardware could also schedule for each of these up to 256 (what we would call in UNIX) threads.   All the memory had two semaphores on each word (full/empty bits) and the various load/store operations could be told to “wait for full” or “wait for empty.”

The I/O on the thing was a box that had 32 individual UNIBUSs on it.   It’s memory showed up on the common memory bus (really a big network) without the semaphore bits.   I wrote all the UNIX IO code to drive this stuff and found out that it was taking forever to start I/Os.    This was because they had put the control logic on this secondary bus called (aptly) “The Low Speed Bus.”    The LSB’s primary function was to get the machine booted up (which involved programming the network swtich for the regular memory channel).   Confronted with the problem at the local Golden Corral one night, Burton Smith the original designer and I designed a new control system to use a spare PDP-11/34 I had that would connect things up direct to the highspeed memory.   It ran the same pidjin OS that our internet routers ran (LOS…no time for sharing, uniprocessor system).

Tthe thing excelled at highly parallelizable stuff like Mike’s raytrace code and really all it ever got used for is to make a movie “A Shell’s-eye view of a tank.”

It got shutdown and promplty replaced with the Army’s first “real” supercomputer, a Cray X/MP.    This particular machine was slated for delivery to Apple, but the Army used “emergency” authority to get Cray to give it to us.    We pretty much insisted on runing UNICOS (Cray’s UNIX) rather than Cray’s prorpietary OS.     As I recall, the X/MP didn’t really require anything special as far as facility goes.    There’s a picture in my files somewhere of me standing in the middle of the thing peering out.

One of my last jobs at BRL was to be on the selection board for the Cray 2 there.    That as the previous poster states, required a lot of specialized facility work.   It wasn’t installed before I left, but it was my signature that was on the $25 Million dollar procurement paperwork for that thing.

Amusingly, Mike wanted to call the two machines Patton and Rommel (hey, it’s the army).   We named the XMP Patton, but then one of our interns whose last name was Patton managed to wreck his car and kill himself so the powers that be decided that the Patton name would officially dedicated to him and nixed the idea of Rommel.   The Cray 2 was named after long term director of the laboratory, Robert J. Eichelberger (father of modern shaped charges).   The problem is that Eichelberger wasn’t a workable name on the network, and RJE had bad connotations with regard to old mainframe submittals.    The machine was officially known as “Bob.”



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Oct 15 10:33:46 2019
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:33:46 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Supercomputer UNIX (was Aha moments).
In-Reply-To: <5BEB9BF4-9357-4F59-8F0C-8D417130549E@ronnatalie.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org> <87h84f4kle.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <CAEuQd1ADddKAWv1rDJRCA_fHL=2P=61ivW+p+Xs4khO-vH9F=g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191013194603.GB68749@server.rulingia.com>
 <D847F3A8-05BB-495E-9673-E903AC497A2C@serissa.com>
 <CACwAiQmqdLaBtARxGK9s5ZzxqLjtMQKO87ViKyU+OJFpqL771w@mail.gmail.com>
 <gtd7m794xwhfxbg4rqnvrgbm@localhost>
 <bd859295-fd06-945d-144a-8aa436b62f1a@gmail.com>
 <CAJohCK+kS240hhXmcL=iiQi+wYJ_5-L3UfFdZvDUUtGfASnJWA@mail.gmail.com>
 <0b49b06e-7fd7-8b0d-c568-ea11c36347df@kilonet.net>
 <CAJohCKLvaJiTJFkMKy11-A2LK2Vq+JoZPc=N+LXsefXZ0EnNqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <4AA7BE7E-30B6-4F47-B745-657DDE2260E1@gmail.com>
 <0A4E13BD-C4B5-4D03-8226-3FCF2293A0A3@ronnatalie.com>
 <CAKr6gn1qGBc2qJh0Uiq=zt+dGZOtQxEkLtOW8i+wF2dzZ933mA@mail.gmail.com>
 <5BEB9BF4-9357-4F59-8F0C-8D417130549E@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <FB99D217-B361-4994-8FBC-13B5F0BED0E4@ronnatalie.com>

One project I did get to try was to see if I could vectorize the UNIX crypt routine.     There was a common joke at the time that if a hacker had a Cray, he might be able to derive a lot of passwords.   Since my job a the time had officially computer security in it, I got to try.   It wasn’t as much fun as converting the SGI flight simulator to use TCP/IP so that when 6PM rolled around every day all the SGI’s at the lab went into a massive dog fight.    I remember being collared at an IETC meeting at NASA Ames and being forced to give them the mods.    I figured I killed productivity at NASA for quite a bit with that move.


From patbarron at acm.org  Tue Oct 15 10:28:14 2019
From: patbarron at acm.org (Pat Barron)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 20:28:14 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>

I don't know that I had a single "Aha!" moment, but there were a few 
things that just got hold of me and led me down the Unix path...

The first Unix I used was V7m on a PDP-11/40, in college.  By this point, 
I was "aware" of Unix, in theory I even knew C - but never had an actual 
system to try it out on until this point.  I'd used other operating 
systems (or things that called themselves operating systems...), primarily 
TRSDOS, CP/M, OS1100, TOPS-10, TOPS-20, and VMS.  Unix was certainly the 
first multiuser operating system that I ever had administrator access on.

1) The idea of taking the output of one program, and using it directly as
    input to another program - and the simplicity by which it was done -
    was revolutionary to me.  It was not unusual for me at that time to do
    things like this by having the first program create a temporary file,
    and then having another program open this temporary file and use it as
    input, but the whole paradigm of stdin/stdout/pipes made it so you
    didn't even have to "know" in your program that you might need to use
    the output of some other program (via a temporary file) as input.
    That was amazing to me.

2) Unix was really the first operating system that I had full, buildable
    sources for.  (I theoretically had access to VMS source code, but it
    was on microfiche and not in machine-readable form, so it was just a
    read-only reference.)  If I wanted to see how the OS was doing
    something, I could look.  If I wanted to change something the OS did,
    or add something to the OS (either in the kernel, or as a user space
    utility), I could do that (and I did on a couple of occasions).  If
    something was broken, I could try to figure it out and fix it.  There
    was this bug in V7m, where if you were on a non-separate I&D system
    that didn't have the floating point option (and our 11/40 did not), and
    you tried to run an "a.out" file that was zero length, you'd get a
    kernel panic.  We were using the system for a computer architecture
    course, students were programming in assembly language, and if there
    was a problem with the source file the assembler would leave a zero
    length executable behind.  Of course, students would try to run it
    anyway, even though "as" produced errors.  We'd sometimes get 3 or 4
    system crashes in the course of an evening.  The students and the
    instructors were all up in arms because any time this would happen,
    everyone would lose whatever they were working on (and maybe more, if
    the filesystem got messed up during the panic), and if there was no one
    around who had a key to the computer room when it happened, it would
    stay down until they could find someone who had physical access and the
    knowledge to know how to deal with "fsck"...  (The construction in the
    lab was pretty minimal, and the walls to most of the rooms didn't go
    all the way to the ceiling - sometimes when it crashed and no one was
    around, they'd take to climbing over the wall to reboot the system
    themselves - which could produce disasterous results of there were
    filesystem issues...)  I found the problem, and I fixed it.  That was
    my first adventure in kernel debugging...  (Later, we migrated to a
    PDP-11/24 and we ordered the KEF11-A floating point option for it, so
    that problem became moot.)

3) The idea of processes being able to talk to each other (without some
    kind of pre-arrangement, like setting up a pipe between them, or
    using temporary files) was just amazing, and this was the first time
    I'd really seen it.  I knew VMS had this thing called a "mailbox",
    but I never used it for anything and didn't even know what it was
    for.  On V7m, I stumbled across the mpx(5) man page.  I think the
    first time I came across it, I stared at it for hours, looking at
    the description and trying to figure out what you'd even use that
    functionality for.  At some point it was like a lightning bolt hit
    me - "Oh, wait!  You can use this to send messages between unrelated
    processes!"  Except V7m came with one little proviso - the mpx code
    was there, but it didn't work...  So I dug into it, and made it work -
    at least, well enough for what I wanted to use it for.  I wrote a
    multiuser chat program with it (isn't that the first thing any
    undergrad does when they discover interprocess communications?  :-) ).
    I had a similar epiphany with sockets on 4.2BSD a year or two later,
    under similar circumstances.  The one thing I found in command with
    both mpx and sockets was that the documentation described the
    low-level functionality - but there was nothing that clearly stated,
    "This functionaliy is used to allow processes to talk to each other"...

I'm sure there are plenty more experiences with early Unix that ensured
that I'd continue down this path, but I think these are my favorites.

--Pat.

From andreww591 at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 11:19:24 2019
From: andreww591 at gmail.com (Andrew Warkentin)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:19:24 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
References: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
Message-ID: <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>

I didn't really have a single "Aha" moment, but I remember borrowing
some books on Unix from the library and realizing it was more powerful
than anything else I'd used (up until then, I'd only really used
DOS/Windows, classic Mac OS, and Apple II systems; as you can probably
tell, I'm quite a bit younger than many other people on this list).
Shortly afterwards, I installed Linux (initially Mandrake 8.2, but I
replaced it with Debian 3.0 shortly thereafter; I still have my
original Debian 3.0 install around as a VM that I use from time to
time) and never really looked back. I did keep a Windows dual boot
around for a while but that eventually went away (although I still do
have Windows VMs around). Soon after that, I decided I was going to
put together my own Unix-like OS; initially I was going to put
together a NeXTStep/OS X-like Linux distribution, but then later
decided I was going to write a QNX-like microkernel-based OS instead.
I still don't have anything that is actually useful at the moment,
although now I am making a bit better progress than in the past (I
changed my mind on several parts of the design and was quite busy with
other projects for a while).

From andreww591 at gmail.com  Tue Oct 15 11:56:38 2019
From: andreww591 at gmail.com (Andrew Warkentin)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 19:56:38 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Celebrating 50 years of Unix
In-Reply-To: <8053C456-12E7-478D-A391-BAA0D0D1A7F1@163.com>
References: <8053C456-12E7-478D-A391-BAA0D0D1A7F1@163.com>
Message-ID: <CAD-qYGopG00nCB7YAaKLVj1QxCvaRgBkJ95pZNu18KRbHZfgRg@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/14/19, Caipenghui <Caipenghui_c at 163.com> wrote:
> Unix has a history of 50 years. Unix has a tremendous impact on the
> Internet. Is Unix ready for the next computing era?

I don't think conventional Unix (SysV/BSD/Linux) has aged very well at
all. As far as I'm concerned, all "modern" conventional Unices are
basically cargo cult Unix at this point (especially Linux, but I'd
also say it's true of current BSD and SysV). They're just carrying
forward the architecture of late-70s research Unix without really
understanding the design philosophy. The conventional Unix
architecture was fine on a PDP-11, but it doesn't scale well to
larger, more complex systems. A modern OS should be designed with
security and extensibility in mind.

That being said, I believe it is still possible to write a truly
modern OS that is Unix-like and compatible with programs written for
conventional Unix while still being secure and extensible. That's what
I'm doing with the OS I'm writing <https://gitlab.com/uxrt>. It will
be a thoroughly modern OS that will take the Unix philosophy further
than it's ever been taken before (even further than Plan 9 does) and
will be binary compatible with Linux.

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct 15 14:06:11 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2019 22:06:11 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
 <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfqNXrFuT6PByf3P9XAHrgBWLMC0Z3sQCJKuSONZ_Z9QRA@mail.gmail.com>

I had two aha moments.

First was that I really didn't want the filesystem to do logical name
translation. It was simple enough to do in the program. So no way to have
the kernel expand /usr/share/fubar/$USER/fu. While VMS' logical names were
a cool wart on its filename stuff, the whole ball of wax had too many
special cases for different device types, permission areas of logical
names, logical name table nesting rules, etc. Simpler was better.

The second was the simplicity of the install... boot one file to prep the
disk, one to copy a fs to the future swap system and a final one to get the
ball rolling... for booting off of tape, on systems with no real memory,
this kept what wound up in memory small enough to live in the sub Megabyte
systems ot needed to work on...  though once there was a lot more, this was
left behind when you could just load one kernel with a ran disk to do all
the setup... the different pieces of the install acted as a Koan for how
Unix worked...

Warner

On Mon, Oct 14, 2019, 7:19 PM Andrew Warkentin <andreww591 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I didn't really have a single "Aha" moment, but I remember borrowing
> some books on Unix from the library and realizing it was more powerful
> than anything else I'd used (up until then, I'd only really used
> DOS/Windows, classic Mac OS, and Apple II systems; as you can probably
> tell, I'm quite a bit younger than many other people on this list).
> Shortly afterwards, I installed Linux (initially Mandrake 8.2, but I
> replaced it with Debian 3.0 shortly thereafter; I still have my
> original Debian 3.0 install around as a VM that I use from time to
> time) and never really looked back. I did keep a Windows dual boot
> around for a while but that eventually went away (although I still do
> have Windows VMs around). Soon after that, I decided I was going to
> put together my own Unix-like OS; initially I was going to put
> together a NeXTStep/OS X-like Linux distribution, but then later
> decided I was going to write a QNX-like microkernel-based OS instead.
> I still don't have anything that is actually useful at the moment,
> although now I am making a bit better progress than in the past (I
> changed my mind on several parts of the design and was quite busy with
> other projects for a while).
>
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From grog at lemis.com  Tue Oct 15 14:27:08 2019
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:27:08 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha,
 Unix!" moment?)
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfqNXrFuT6PByf3P9XAHrgBWLMC0Z3sQCJKuSONZ_Z9QRA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
 <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfqNXrFuT6PByf3P9XAHrgBWLMC0Z3sQCJKuSONZ_Z9QRA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191015042708.GD7292@eureka.lemis.com>

On Monday, 14 October 2019 at 22:06:11 -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> The second was the simplicity of the install...

Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.

I wasn't alone.  A year or two later (about 1994) I was contacted by
the editorial team of iX, a German Unix magazine, asking if I had
managed to install Consensys UNIX System V.4 (maybe from tape by this
time).  They were having such difficulties that they ended up with an
article saying effectively "Consensys looks good, and we've heard good
things from other people, but we totally failed to install it".

That was one of the things that I found so refreshing with BSD/386,
also round that time.  Part of the issue with the System V variants
was the incessant entry of activation keys for every tiny component,
as well as the lack of overall documentation.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA
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From thomas.paulsen at firemail.de  Tue Oct 15 18:42:24 2019
From: thomas.paulsen at firemail.de (Thomas Paulsen)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 10:42:24 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <201910141532.x9EFWrjC001713@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910141532.x9EFWrjC001713@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <a66c0609c882d27510663ce7b5714ee4@firemail.de>

I started using  cards with a sperry univac scientific mainframe, the ibm mainframes with block terminals and later ibm  "midrange" computers, when I finally got a network programming job on a SNI Unix system. Finally I felt free, I had the 'I can do what ever I want' feelingup to today.



From arrigo at alchemistowl.org  Tue Oct 15 19:03:09 2019
From: arrigo at alchemistowl.org (Arrigo Triulzi)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 11:03:09 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha,
 Unix!" moment?)
In-Reply-To: <20191015042708.GD7292@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
 <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfqNXrFuT6PByf3P9XAHrgBWLMC0Z3sQCJKuSONZ_Z9QRA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191015042708.GD7292@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <56623FD9-B886-46C2-A32D-6B4B2AC20F3E@alchemistowl.org>

On 15 Oct 2019, at 06:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
> my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.

Not to mention Xenix/286… the never ending 5”1/4 “HD” floppies… the ones which somehow were almost readable but not quite… then you started the install again and a different floppy failed.

Was it tar on the raw floppy? I don’t remember to be honest.

Arrigo


From dds at aueb.gr  Tue Oct 15 22:55:25 2019
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 15:55:25 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] The Unix Game
Message-ID: <655e3240-0795-bdf1-4997-b35041cd1863@aueb.gr>

The game at https://www.unixgame.io/unix50 has you solve challenges by 
arranging Scratch-like blocks into shell pipelines.  Neat!

Diomidis

From michael at kjorling.se  Wed Oct 16 02:32:22 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 16:32:22 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <f056a3ff-10a1-337e-79cb-c78506b81854@kilonet.net>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBfBE=eAXmoGqRQQmrZU94MpuZ+=UOwBuojekpMm2y8oZQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <f056a3ff-10a1-337e-79cb-c78506b81854@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <rvgjxphzxpmbzrc79g9wgvhw@localhost>

On 10 Oct 2019 10:05 -0400, from krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat):
> It's here, too:
> 
> https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/10/forum-cracks-the-vintage-passwords-of-ken-thompson-and-other-unix-pioneers/

The circle is now all; it's back in the blogosphere.

Though Schneier refers to these as passwords of "early Internet
pioneers".

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/10/cracking_the_pa.html

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From imp at bsdimp.com  Wed Oct 16 13:20:47 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 21:20:47 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha,
 Unix!" moment?)
In-Reply-To: <56623FD9-B886-46C2-A32D-6B4B2AC20F3E@alchemistowl.org>
References: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
 <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfqNXrFuT6PByf3P9XAHrgBWLMC0Z3sQCJKuSONZ_Z9QRA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191015042708.GD7292@eureka.lemis.com>
 <56623FD9-B886-46C2-A32D-6B4B2AC20F3E@alchemistowl.org>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfp0+Hddfv7FKvqNWxV9puMX97v6W0uFJaO_cHMGtfQ-1Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 3:03 AM Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo at alchemistowl.org>
wrote:

> On 15 Oct 2019, at 06:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> > Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
> > my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.
>
> Not to mention Xenix/286… the never ending 5”1/4 “HD” floppies… the ones
> which somehow were almost readable but not quite… then you started the
> install again and a different floppy failed.
>
> Was it tar on the raw floppy? I don’t remember to be honest.
>

Venix had a boot disk, and the rest of the disks were tar without
compression...

Warner
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From patbarron at acm.org  Wed Oct 16 13:50:39 2019
From: patbarron at acm.org (Pat Barron)
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2019 23:50:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha,
 Unix!" moment?)
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910152340090.9141@booboo.lectroid.com>

Possibly the most time consuming install I did was installing Xenix on a 
bunch of Intel i310 systems.  Xenix was a "secondary" OS for these 
systems, the main OS being iRMX.  Xenix for these systems was distributed 
on 5.25" floppies.  Lots and lots of floppies...  They came in a 3-ring 
binder, many pages of floppies...  We also had a couple of i380 systems, 
Xenix for those came on 8" floppies...  That was time consuming, but it 
was just manual labor.

The most unpleasasnt install I can recall was AIX 2.2.1 on the IBM-PC/RT. 
Which also was really (under the covers) Interactive UNIX, with some other 
stuff mixed in.  Not only was this also time-consuming with a binder full 
of 5.25" floppies, but my recollection is that there were too many 
opportunities to make a tiny little mistake during the install and have to 
start all over again.

--Pat.

From pontus at Update.UU.SE  Wed Oct 16 16:36:38 2019
From: pontus at Update.UU.SE (Pontus Pihlgren)
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 08:36:38 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] The Unix Game
In-Reply-To: <655e3240-0795-bdf1-4997-b35041cd1863@aueb.gr>
References: <655e3240-0795-bdf1-4997-b35041cd1863@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <20191016063638.ptabgs7v27hpu45g@Update.UU.SE>

On Tue, Oct 15, 2019 at 03:55:25PM +0300, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:
> The game at https://www.unixgame.io/unix50 has you solve challenges by
> arranging Scratch-like blocks into shell pipelines.  Neat!

This was fun! I've had it on my to-do list for years to make a tool like 
this. If you include "tee" (and I guess any command line tool) it could 
be quite interesting.

With a preview function at each pipe it could be pretty useful too.

But I'm digressing from the topic of this mailing list, sorry.

/P

From mrudge at ubuntu.com  Wed Oct 16 18:20:29 2019
From: mrudge at ubuntu.com (Matt Rudge)
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 09:20:29 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Simple Unix install? (was: What was your "Aha,
 Unix!" moment?)
In-Reply-To: <56623FD9-B886-46C2-A32D-6B4B2AC20F3E@alchemistowl.org>
References: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910141915570.15367@booboo.lectroid.com>
 <CAD-qYGrGY+J0Bw9=OPU1m9O48vRR9yk9iCA8uGJYQLfs8poRPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfqNXrFuT6PByf3P9XAHrgBWLMC0Z3sQCJKuSONZ_Z9QRA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191015042708.GD7292@eureka.lemis.com>
 <56623FD9-B886-46C2-A32D-6B4B2AC20F3E@alchemistowl.org>
Message-ID: <CAErawUPB8dsHhNFFFoeu0ySiAKtNQE9=C3t8QtSnrz4vRyKVLg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, 15 Oct 2019 at 10:55, Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo at alchemistowl.org>
wrote:
>
> On 15 Oct 2019, at 06:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> > Clearly you weren't installing Interactive UNIX/386 from floppy, like
> > my first experience.  It was like pulling teeth.
>
> Not to mention Xenix/286… the never ending 5”1/4 “HD” floppies… the ones
which somehow were almost readable but not quite… then you started the
install again and a different floppy failed.
>

I can remember having to reinstall Xenix on a Wang PC-002. The floppy disks
had been kept in a folder next to a radiator, and I had to clean the floppy
drive with compressed air before we could start. Surprisingly the reinstall
went smoothly, but very slowly! The real issue was getting the serial
terminal board working again!

Matt
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From pdagog at gmail.com  Wed Oct 16 23:29:45 2019
From: pdagog at gmail.com (Pierre DAVID)
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 15:29:45 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <bf8e55555edd1399f7ca6cfa9aedc931cde17871@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <3171e2de-fa39-2112-f2fc-bd901885962e@gmail.com>
 <bf8e55555edd1399f7ca6cfa9aedc931cde17871@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <20191016132945.GA19109@vagabond>

On Sun, Oct 13, 2019 at 02:45:37PM -0700, Steve Johnson wrote:
>
>
>My Aha, Unix! moment was the Unix man pages, especially that they had
>a section for BUGS.  The very reality of it attracted me.  As Gloria
>Steinem said, "Something doesn't have to be perfect to be
>wonderful!"  I notice that on Linux the older man pages still have
>BUG sections, but the newer ones don't.  Telling.   Even more
>telling is that 'man python' gives you a lot of information, but at
>the end where the Bugs section used to be is a section labled
>"LICENSING"...
>
>I did have the opportunity in the early years to demonstrate Unix to
>several dozen people, mostly users of the (IBM) mainframe computers
>and the GE/Honeywell Time Sharing System.  The sequence that
>initiated gasps, confusion, and ultimately joy was:
>%  echo hello joe > hijoe
>% cat hijoe
>hello joe
>

Coming from a Multics background, my first view of Unix (sort of 
v7 ported to a Bull Mini6) was more like a rant: "cwd" on Multics 
has been renamed to a more cryptic "cd" on Unix, these guys have 
done worse!

The Aha! came when I realized that redirections were so simple...  

Pierre

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Thu Oct 17 00:39:22 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 2019 10:39:22 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <201910161439.x9GEdMjb108350@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
> 
>     > From: Doug McIlroy
> 
>     > doing legwork for Multics I ran the following experiment on a lot of
>     > then-current time-sharing systems.
> 
> Fascinating; you don't happen to remember the ones you tried, do you?
> 
> Also, when you say "legwork for Multics", was this something done during
> the planning stages (so, say '64-'65), or later on?

It was probably 1965. The places we visited
included at least Rand, NBS, Michigan, and Dartmouth. 
I specifically remember trying the experiment
at Michigan and Dartmouth. There were other places,
too, but they've dropped from memory.

Doug

From lbickley at bickleywest.com  Fri Oct 18 05:29:10 2019
From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 12:29:10 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] New: The Earliest UNIX Code - From the Collection of the
 Software History Center, Computer History Museum
Message-ID: <20191017122910.40253af0@asrock>

THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
http://bit.ly/31pWcvM

Cheers,
Lyle

-- 
73   NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
https://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

From lbickley at bickleywest.com  Fri Oct 18 05:21:05 2019
From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 12:21:05 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] New: The Earliest UNIX Code - From the Collection of the
 Software History Center, Computer History Museum
Message-ID: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>

THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
http://bit.ly/31pWcvM

Cheers,
Lyle
-- 
73   NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
https://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

From wkt at tuhs.org  Fri Oct 18 06:44:38 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 06:44:38 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
Message-ID: <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 12:21:05PM -0700, Lyle Bickley wrote:
> THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
> http://bit.ly/31pWcvM

Thanks Lyle. Yay, one of the two artifacts I've been waiting
for has dropped. This is the second half of the PDP-7 source
code "book", of which we've only had the first half from
Norman Wilson.

We now have the source to Space Travel, plus roff and sh, for
the PDP-7!

I've broken the single PDF from CHM into several sections and
put them here:

https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/

09-1-35.pdf	user-mode programs: maths functions, ln, ls, moo,nm
10-36-55.pdf	user-mode programs: pool game
11-56-91.pdf	user-mode programs: pd, psych, rm, rn, roff, salv, sh
12-92-119.pdf	user-mode programs: space travel
13-120-147.pdf	user-mode programs: stat, tm, t (B interpreter?)
14-148-165.pdf  user-mode programs: ttt, un

We may also have the B interpreter, but I'm not sure about that.

Cheers all, Warren

From michael at kjorling.se  Fri Oct 18 06:39:10 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 20:39:10 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] New: The Earliest UNIX Code - From the Collection of the
 Software History Center, Computer History Museum
In-Reply-To: <20191017122910.40253af0@asrock>
References: <20191017122910.40253af0@asrock>
Message-ID: <njhccnsq9czn4kjn4cfgjxcn@localhost>

On 17 Oct 2019 12:29 -0700, from lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley):
> THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
> http://bit.ly/31pWcvM

https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-earliest-unix-code-an-anniversary-source-code-release/

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From imp at bsdimp.com  Fri Oct 18 08:39:34 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 16:39:34 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrqFn6D2hX4pegcoNTd9=1UZhdxF6U-J6Oakrte6WSrqQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:45 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 12:21:05PM -0700, Lyle Bickley wrote:
> > THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
> > http://bit.ly/31pWcvM
>
> Thanks Lyle. Yay, one of the two artifacts I've been waiting
> for has dropped. This is the second half of the PDP-7 source
> code "book", of which we've only had the first half from
> Norman Wilson.
>
> We now have the source to Space Travel, plus roff and sh, for
> the PDP-7!
>
> I've broken the single PDF from CHM into several sections and
> put them here:
>
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/
>
> 09-1-35.pdf     user-mode programs: maths functions, ln, ls, moo,nm
> 10-36-55.pdf    user-mode programs: pool game
> 11-56-91.pdf    user-mode programs: pd, psych, rm, rn, roff, salv, sh
> 12-92-119.pdf   user-mode programs: space travel
> 13-120-147.pdf  user-mode programs: stat, tm, t (B interpreter?)
> 14-148-165.pdf  user-mode programs: ttt, un
>
> We may also have the B interpreter, but I'm not sure about that.
>

Have these been OCR'd yet? Or just the scans?

Warner
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Fri Oct 18 08:51:06 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:51:06 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfrqFn6D2hX4pegcoNTd9=1UZhdxF6U-J6Oakrte6WSrqQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CANCZdfrqFn6D2hX4pegcoNTd9=1UZhdxF6U-J6Oakrte6WSrqQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <58778A1D-5640-475A-8BF3-6F4F2A5F9B5F@tuhs.org>

No OCRs yet. Warren

On 18 October 2019 8:39:34 am AEST, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
>On Thu, Oct 17, 2019 at 2:45 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>> This is the second half of the PDP-7 source
>> code "book", of which we've only had the first half from
>> Norman Wilson.
>>
>> We now have the source to Space Travel, plus roff and sh, for
>> the PDP-7!
>Have these been OCR'd yet? Or just the scans?
>
>Warner

-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.

From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Oct 18 11:49:59 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 12:49:59 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910181245051.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 11 Oct 2019, Warren Toomey wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. 
Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?

When I discovered that there was nothing special about the Shell i.e. I 
could write/modify it, as it was not privileged in any way (unlike, cough 
cough, DCL etc).

-- Dave

From wkt at tuhs.org  Fri Oct 18 13:01:03 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 13:01:03 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191018030103.GA11296@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 06:44:38AM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> We now have the source to Space Travel, plus roff and sh, for
> the PDP-7!
> I've broken the single PDF from CHM into several sections.

A few people have asked me if the scans have been OCR'd yet. The
answer is no. Also, the input is not easily recognisable with
automated OCR technology: I've already tried. We will have to
hand transcribe the files as we did with the first half.

There is already a PDP7 Unix mailing list from the past resurrection
effort. If you'd like to join and help out with the transcribing,
please e-mail me and I'll add you to the list. The list archive is:
https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/pdp7-unix/

Cheers, Warren

From lbickley at bickleywest.com  Fri Oct 18 15:02:40 2019
From: lbickley at bickleywest.com (Lyle Bickley)
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 22:02:40 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] New: The Earliest UNIX Code - From the Collection of the
 Software History Center, Computer History Museum
In-Reply-To: <C70C156D-B0EA-4FC7-AF1F-83DFD6E28A90@jctaylor.com>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <C70C156D-B0EA-4FC7-AF1F-83DFD6E28A90@jctaylor.com>
Message-ID: <20191017220240.7778b12d@asrock>

I didn't do all the work - I'm just a volunteer and "messenger" from the
Computer History Museum (CHM).

The real work was done by David C. Brock, who is a historian of technology and
director at the CHM Software History Center. 

Cheers,
Lyle
--
On Fri, 18 Oct 2019 04:52:17 +0000
William Corcoran <wlc at jctaylor.com> wrote:

> Thanks for all of your effort Mr. Bickley!  
> 
> From Your biggest “fan!”
> 
> Truly,
> 
> Bill Corcoran 
> 
> > On Oct 17, 2019, at 4:38 PM, Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> wrote:
> > 
> > THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
> > http://bit.ly/31pWcvM
> > 
> > Cheers,
> > Lyle
> > -- 
> > 73   NM6Y
> > Bickley Consulting West Inc.
> > https://bickleywest.com
> > 
> > "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"  



-- 
73   NM6Y
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
https://bickleywest.com

"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

From lars at nocrew.org  Fri Oct 18 15:07:50 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:07:50 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org> (Warren Toomey's message
 of "Fri, 18 Oct 2019 06:44:38 +1000")
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <7wv9smpro9.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Warren Toomey wrote:
> We now have the source to Space Travel

Is it here, and if so, which pages?

https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/09/102785108-05-001-acc.pdf

From lars at nocrew.org  Fri Oct 18 15:10:12 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:10:12 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <7wv9smpro9.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> (Lars Brinkhoff's message of
 "Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:07:50 +0000")
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7wv9smpro9.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <7wr23aprkb.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

>> We now have the source to Space Travel
> Is it here, and if so, which pages?

Oh, the PDF is searchable.  Very nice.  Page 109.

From wlc at jctaylor.com  Fri Oct 18 14:52:17 2019
From: wlc at jctaylor.com (William Corcoran)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 04:52:17 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] New: The Earliest UNIX Code - From the Collection of the
 Software History Center, Computer History Museum
In-Reply-To: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
Message-ID: <C70C156D-B0EA-4FC7-AF1F-83DFD6E28A90@jctaylor.com>

Thanks for all of your effort Mr. Bickley!  

From Your biggest “fan!”

Truly,

Bill Corcoran 

> On Oct 17, 2019, at 4:38 PM, Lyle Bickley <lbickley at bickleywest.com> wrote:
> 
> THE EARLIEST UNIX CODE: AN ANNIVERSARY SOURCE CODE RELEASE
> http://bit.ly/31pWcvM
> 
> Cheers,
> Lyle
> -- 
> 73   NM6Y
> Bickley Consulting West Inc.
> https://bickleywest.com
> 
> "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"

From lars at nocrew.org  Fri Oct 18 15:59:30 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 05:59:30 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <58778A1D-5640-475A-8BF3-6F4F2A5F9B5F@tuhs.org> (Warren Toomey's
 message of "Fri, 18 Oct 2019 08:51:06 +1000")
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CANCZdfrqFn6D2hX4pegcoNTd9=1UZhdxF6U-J6Oakrte6WSrqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <58778A1D-5640-475A-8BF3-6F4F2A5F9B5F@tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <7wftjqppa5.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Warren Toomey wrote:
> Warner Losh wrote:
>>> We now have the source to Space Travel, plus roff and sh, for the
>>> PDP-7!
>>Have these been OCR'd yet? Or just the scans?
> No OCRs yet. Warren

What is everyone's experience with source code OCR?  I have tried it a
few times, and the resutls haven't been that good.  In my experience
it's about as much effort as typing it manually.

I'm working on a GRAPHICS-2 simulation so we can run Space Travel.
Obviously I'd like a machine readable version of the program.  However,
I'm not volunteering to do all the typing myself.

From lars at nocrew.org  Fri Oct 18 17:40:36 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:40:36 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] File system salvager, "salv"
In-Reply-To: <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org> (Warren Toomey's message
 of "Fri, 18 Oct 2019 06:44:38 +1000")
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <7wwod2o617.fsf_-_@junk.nocrew.org>

Warren Toomey wrote:
> 11-56-91.pdf	user-mode programs: pd, psych, rm, rn, roff, salv, sh

My attention is drawn to "salv".

Clem Cole wrote in 2016:

> The original FS tools for UNIX icheck/dcheck/ncheck were very crude.
> TSS and MTS (used a similar/same FS format) and and had a similar
> program in the key of fsck that Ted was familiar (as did a number of
> DEC systems for that matter).  Ted wrote the original version of
> premordial fsck for v6 at UMich (maybe v5 - Joy probably would know
> what the version of UNIX was there then).  Ted took "pre-fsck" to Bell
> Lab the summer between Mich and CMU. [...]

https://minnie.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/TUHS/Mail_list/2016-April.txt

There are these V2 and V3 man pages.
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v2/v2man.pdf
https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V3/man/man8/salv.8

I see a V3 man page for dcheck, but nothing for icheck until V6.

So it appears before fsck, and before icheck etc, there was salv, the
file system salvager tool.  Some quick searching reveals that CTSS,
Multics, and ITS all also used the term salv and/or salvager for the
corresponding program, so there's ample precedent.

From spedraja at gmail.com  Fri Oct 18 19:30:52 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 11:30:52 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <7wftjqppa5.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CANCZdfrqFn6D2hX4pegcoNTd9=1UZhdxF6U-J6Oakrte6WSrqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <58778A1D-5640-475A-8BF3-6F4F2A5F9B5F@tuhs.org>
 <7wftjqppa5.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <CACytpF9gO-yjf3X3ij=XvmJVUbGQYS5ByhXZ+c-8BNSXB=Y3MQ@mail.gmail.com>

El vie., 18 oct. 2019 8:00, Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> escribió:

>
> What is everyone's experience with source code OCR?  I have tried it a
> few times, and the resutls haven't been that good.  In my experience
> it's about as much effort as typing it manually.
>

I use Office Lens with my móviles. Impressive results (for good) in some
moments.

Cordiales saludos / Best Regards / Salutations / Freundliche Grüße
-----
Sergio Pedraja
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From lars at nocrew.org  Fri Oct 18 21:35:48 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 11:35:48 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Sun Spacewar
Message-ID: <7w1rvanv57.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Hello,

A 1983 implementation of the Spacewar game for a Sun computer has
appeared.  Here is some information from the author:
http://www.classiccmp.org/pipermail/cctalk/2019-October/050060.html

Here is a copy of the tarball:
https://github.com/PDP-10/Spacewar/blob/not-pdp10/orbit.tar.gz?raw=true

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Fri Oct 18 21:52:09 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:52:09 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
Message-ID: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> 10-36-55.pdf    user-mode programs: pool game

This game, written by ken, used the Graphic 2. One of its
earliest tests--random starting positions and velocities on
a frictionless table with no collision detection--produced
a mesmerizing result. This was saved in a program called
"weird1", which was carried across to the PDP11.

Weird1 was a spectacular accidental demonstration of structure
in pseudo-random numbers. After several minutes the dots
representing pool balls would evanescently form short local
alignments.  Thereafter from time to time ever-larger alignments
would materialize. Finally in a grand climax all the balls
converged to a single point.

It was stunning to watch perfect order emerge from apparent
chaos.  One of my fondest hopes is to see weird1 revived.

Doug

From ron at ronnatalie.com  Fri Oct 18 22:07:20 2019
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:07:20 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910181245051.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910181245051.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <6F78AA08-8CCE-4BC5-9011-2A3867C54F1F@ronnatalie.com>

Indeed, the shell and just about any command (save a few setuid ones) were just programs that you could just as soon have your own copies of.
that was always very neat coming from more “canned” systems.


> On Oct 17, 2019, at 8:49 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2019, Warren Toomey wrote:
> 
>> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. 
> Welcome.
>> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
>> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>> 
>> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
>> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
>> previously used?
> 
> When I discovered that there was nothing special about the Shell i.e. I could write/modify it, as it was not privileged in any way (unlike, cough cough, DCL etc).
> 
> -- Dave


From imp at bsdimp.com  Fri Oct 18 23:37:06 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:37:06 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <7wr23aprkb.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7wv9smpro9.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <7wr23aprkb.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrvGyWyBu1n6HDxMMCQW_SoXwFxvdTZnGEbqy_2unE=nQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:10 PM Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:

> >> We now have the source to Space Travel
> > Is it here, and if so, which pages?
>
> Oh, the PDF is searchable.  Very nice.  Page 109.
>

Searchable means at least some ocr uas happened.

I have had at best mediocre results trying to ocr the cb unix file. Maybe
these will be different.

Warner

>
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Oct 19 00:28:34 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 09:28:34 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] File system salvager, "salv"
In-Reply-To: <7wwod2o617.fsf_-_@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7wwod2o617.fsf_-_@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PEzmqRS4L=ZkQacFZMFznxUVVWDxvy2E73Fvo54g9frg@mail.gmail.com>

+1

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 2:41 AM Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:

> Warren Toomey wrote:
> > 11-56-91.pdf  user-mode programs: pd, psych, rm, rn, roff, salv, sh
>
> My attention is drawn to "salv".
>
> Clem Cole wrote in 2016:
>
> > The original FS tools for UNIX icheck/dcheck/ncheck were very crude.
> > TSS and MTS (used a similar/same FS format) and and had a similar
> > program in the key of fsck that Ted was familiar (as did a number of
> > DEC systems for that matter).  Ted wrote the original version of
> > premordial fsck for v6 at UMich (maybe v5 - Joy probably would know
> > what the version of UNIX was there then).  Ted took "pre-fsck" to Bell
> > Lab the summer between Mich and CMU. [...]
>
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/TUHS/Mail_list/2016-April.txt
>
> There are these V2 and V3 man pages.
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v2/v2man.pdf
> https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V3/man/man8/salv.8
>
> I see a V3 man page for dcheck, but nothing for icheck until V6.
>
> So it appears before fsck, and before icheck etc, there was salv, the
> file system salvager tool.  Some quick searching reveals that CTSS,
> Multics, and ITS all also used the term salv and/or salvager for the
> corresponding program, so there's ample precedent.
>
-- 
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct 19 00:34:21 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:34:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net> <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>
Message-ID: <90ffe509-76b5-6629-c55a-7785815fda2e@kilonet.net>

This has been solved.

First attempted was a full 8-character upper/lower/numeric brute force 
which took over 6 days and failed.

Second attempt was lower-case with control characters, and succeeded in 
around 40 minutes.

There's a control character in it ;)

Because of the outpouring of negativity about these disclosures, I am 
reluctant to post the actual password without the user's consent, since 
he's still alive. If anyone knows Bill, and can contact him, please ask 
for permission.

This was done on three nodes of a Dell HPC cluster, each node containing 
two Tesla V100 nVidia GPU cards, for a total of 30720 CUDA cores.

Session..........: hashcat
Status...........: Running
Hash.Type........: descrypt, DES (Unix), Traditional DES
Hash.Target......: .2xvLVqGHJm8M
Time.Started.....: Fri Oct 18 06:53:25 2019 (40 mins, 1 sec)
Time.Estimated...: Fri Oct 18 08:06:55 2019 (33 mins, 29 secs)
Guess.Mask.......: ?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1 [8]
Guess.Charset....: -1 lowernonprint.hcchr, -2 Undefined, -3 Undefined, 
-4 Undefined
Guess.Queue......: 1/1 (100.00%)
Speed.#2.........:  1666.0 MH/s (401.65ms) @ Accel:32 Loops:1024 Thr:256 
Vec:1
Speed.#3.........:  1663.7 MH/s (402.23ms) @ Accel:32 Loops:1024 Thr:256 
Vec:1
Speed.#*.........:  3329.7 MH/s
Recovered........: 0/1 (0.00%) Digests, 0/1 (0.00%) Salts
Progress.........: 22674229475111/29366087151182 (77.21%)
Rejected.........: 0/22674229475111 (0.00%)
Restore.Point....: 108847949/714924299 (15.23%)
Restore.Sub.#2...: Salt:0 Amplifier:147456-148480 Iteration:0-1024
Restore.Sub.#3...: Salt:0 Amplifier:134144-135168 Iteration:0-1024
Candidates.#2....: $HEX[6e7010627170696d] -> $HEX[076710740f150509]
Candidates.#3....: $HEX[0a1f676c0f150509] -> $HEX[1f710c1979060809]
Hardware.Mon.#2..: Temp: 61c Util:100% Core:1380MHz Mem: 877MHz Bus:16
Hardware.Mon.#3..: Temp: 57c Util:100% Core:1380MHz Mem: 877MHz Bus:16




On 10/10/2019 8:07 AM, Leah Neukirchen wrote:
> Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> writes:
>
>> Oh well. Late to the party as usual ;) (time is EST, New York)
>>
>> -rw------- 1 ******** ***      23 Oct  9 06:09 cracked.node006.txt
>>
>>   $ cat cracked.node006.txt
>>
>> ZghOT0eRm4U9s:p/q2-q4!
> I was notified Bill Joy's password does not yet appear in any list:
>
> bill:.2xvLVqGHJm8M:8:10:& Joy,4156424948:/usr/bill:/bin/csh
>


From royce at techsolvency.com  Sat Oct 19 01:01:12 2019
From: royce at techsolvency.com (Royce Williams)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:01:12 -0800
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <90ffe509-76b5-6629-c55a-7785815fda2e@kilonet.net>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net> <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <90ffe509-76b5-6629-c55a-7785815fda2e@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CA+E3k90Z2kxk89tdPqha=2q82MxEbVsAwN24SRCEZ1+nwHxERw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 6:35 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> This has been solved.
>
> First attempted was a full 8-character upper/lower/numeric brute force
> which took over 6 days and failed.
>
> Second attempt was lower-case with control characters, and succeeded in
> around 40 minutes.
>
> There's a control character in it ;)
>

I'd long suspected that someone would have done this; it would be a great
way to expand the total keyspace, and extend the life of

But given Ken's seminal work in password stretching and keyspace analysis,
I always suspected that it was ken, not bill.

in 2015, I was intrigued by the idea that he'd left a little puzzle in a
hash that he knew would be publicly available. I even went so far as to
construct a small FPGA cluster in pursuit of that theory:

https://www.techsolvency.com/passwords/ztex/

What original caught my attention was the logic behind enforcing password
quality in passwd.c during a specific era of BSD code, which exited
ambiguously in a double negative of sorts, where control characters were
not disallowed during password entry. (I'll try to dig up the source.)

Anyway, I must have made an error in my original work in 2015, in which I
found both of ken's:

https://twitter.com/TychoTithonus/status/1182181560264491008

... but managed to miss bill's entirely, thinking that it had already been
cracked. In the superset of all CSRG-published distros, there are slightly
more than 1400 total hashes, and one of bill's appears to have been lost in
the shuffle (the other was trivial).

So some hearty (and bittersweet!) kudos for solving this puzzle! It is what
drove me into password auditing as a passion (and profession).

Royce

--
Royce Williams
Tech Solvency
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From royce at techsolvency.com  Sat Oct 19 01:05:01 2019
From: royce at techsolvency.com (Royce Williams)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:05:01 -0800
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CA+E3k90Z2kxk89tdPqha=2q82MxEbVsAwN24SRCEZ1+nwHxERw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net> <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <90ffe509-76b5-6629-c55a-7785815fda2e@kilonet.net>
 <CA+E3k90Z2kxk89tdPqha=2q82MxEbVsAwN24SRCEZ1+nwHxERw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+E3k90WfzeP5v32SuW=Bc4M4EExm83PQn_OTAy7zSbcVxzTCg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 7:01 AM Royce Williams <royce at techsolvency.com>
wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 6:35 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:
>
>> There's a control character in it ;)
>>
>
> I'd long suspected that someone would have done this; it would be a great
> way to expand the total keyspace, and extend the life of
>

Er, "[...] extend the life of descrypt as a hashing algorithm". :)

Royce

-- 
Royce Williams
Tech Solvency
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From cym224 at gmail.com  Sat Oct 19 03:36:57 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 13:36:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <7wftjqppa5.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <20191017122105.0c8b07bf@asrock>
 <20191017204438.GA1224@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CANCZdfrqFn6D2hX4pegcoNTd9=1UZhdxF6U-J6Oakrte6WSrqQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <58778A1D-5640-475A-8BF3-6F4F2A5F9B5F@tuhs.org>
 <7wftjqppa5.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzw9MKHK1n6H_rXartZR-ka5roAiyBUDe5xXwmYYORoRjw@mail.gmail.com>

On 18/10/2019, Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:
> Warren Toomey wrote:
>> Warner Losh wrote:
>>>> We now have the source to Space Travel, plus roff and sh, for the
>>>> PDP-7!
>>>Have these been OCR'd yet? Or just the scans?
>> No OCRs yet. Warren
>
> What is everyone's experience with source code OCR?  I have tried it a
> few times, and the resutls haven't been that good.  In my experience
> it's about as much effort as typing it manually.

Doug had an excellent comment on OCR:
https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2019-February/017474.html

From royce at techsolvency.com  Sat Oct 19 04:32:37 2019
From: royce at techsolvency.com (Royce Williams)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 10:32:37 -0800
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CA+E3k90Z2kxk89tdPqha=2q82MxEbVsAwN24SRCEZ1+nwHxERw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net> <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <90ffe509-76b5-6629-c55a-7785815fda2e@kilonet.net>
 <CA+E3k90Z2kxk89tdPqha=2q82MxEbVsAwN24SRCEZ1+nwHxERw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+E3k91oJdfwPBYcGO3a2_nr7vLWU0MTxrsmQs4h0rBEyGvL6A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 7:01 AM Royce Williams <royce at techsolvency.com> wrote:

> What original caught my attention was the logic behind enforcing password quality in passwd.c during a specific era of BSD code, which exited ambiguously in a double negative of sorts, where control characters were not disallowed during password entry. (I'll try to dig up the source.)

Specifically, see the eras in which passwd.c looked something like this:

https://github.com/dank101/4.2BSD/blob/708b3890ac0c2f034f2840b5ee9125b3c83a05bc/bin/passwd.c#L69-L107

        while (c = *p++) {
                if (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z')
                        flags |= 2;
                else if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z')
                        flags |= 4;
                else if (c >= '0' && c <= '9')
                        flags |= 1;
                else
                        flags |= 8;
        }
        if (flags >= 7 && pwlen >= 4)
                ok = 1;

I was intrigued that the "special characters" character set was
defined negatively, such that control characters would also count.


Royce

From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Sat Oct 19 04:36:10 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 20:36:10 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Doug McIlroy wrote in <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809 at coolidge.cs.Dartmouth\
.EDU>:
 |> 10-36-55.pdf    user-mode programs: pool game
 |
 |This game, written by ken, used the Graphic 2. One of its
 |earliest tests--random starting positions and velocities on
 |a frictionless table with no collision detection--produced
 |a mesmerizing result. This was saved in a program called
 |"weird1", which was carried across to the PDP11.
 |
 |Weird1 was a spectacular accidental demonstration of structure
 |in pseudo-random numbers. After several minutes the dots
 |representing pool balls would evanescently form short local
 |alignments.  Thereafter from time to time ever-larger alignments
 |would materialize. Finally in a grand climax all the balls
 |converged to a single point.
 |
 |It was stunning to watch perfect order emerge from apparent
 |chaos.  One of my fondest hopes is to see weird1 revived.

Not about random orders chaos, no, quite the opposite, but the
IOCCC context 2012 was won by endoh1, a fluid simulator using
"Smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH)", and the "marching
squares" algorithm to render particles.  If the defaults for
gravity (1 -> 0), pressure (4 -> 1) and viscosity (8 -> 2) are
changed entertaining effects can be seen.

It is like swirling, not self-organizing order out of chaos, but
i wanted to post it nonetheless because of some properties of the
code, for example the IOCCC Makefile introduces "make love", may
also echo "You are not expected to understand this", and what else
can be expected.  The xxx.txt is an input file i made for this
post, the competition ones are neat (a fountain, for example), but
for normal gravity etc.

  $ make endoh1_color
  $ ./endoh1_color < xxx.txt

And spend some time.

 |Doug
 --End of <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809 at coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
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#!/usr/bin/env make
#
# 2012 makefile
#
# This work by Landon Curt Noll, Simon Cooper, and Leonid A. Broukhis
# is licensed under:
#
#	Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
#
# See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


################
# tool locations
################
#
SHELL= /bin/bash
CP= cp
CPP= cpp
GUNZIP= gunzip
LD= ld
MAKE= make
RM= rm
SED= sed
TAR= tar
TRUE= true

# Set X11_LIBDIR to the directory where the X11 library resides
#
X11_LIBDIR= /usr/X11R6/lib

# Set X11_INCLUDEDIR to the directory where the X11 include files reside
#
X11_INCDIR= /usr/X11R6/include

# Compiler warnings
#
#CWARN=
#CWARN= -Wall -W
CWARN= -Wall -W -pedantic

# compiler standard
#
#CSTD=
#CSTD= -ansi
CSTD= -std=c99

# compiler bit architecture
#
# Some entries require 32-bitness:
# ARCH= -m32
#
# Some entries require 64-bitess:
# ARCH= -m64
#
# By default we assume nothing:
#
ARCH=

# optimization
#
# Most compiles will safely use -O2.  Some can use only -O1 or -O.
# A few compilers have broken optimizers or this entry make break
# under those buggy optimizers and thus you may not want anything.
#
#OPT=
#OPT= -O
#OPT= -O1
OPT= -O2
#OPT= -O3

# Libraries needed to build
#
LIBS= -lm

# default flags for ANSI C compilation
#
CFLAGS= ${CWARN} ${CSTD} ${ARCH} ${OPT} 

# ANSI compiler
#
# Set CC to the name of your ANSI compiler.
#
# Some entries seem to need gcc.  If you have gcc, set
# both CC and MAY_NEED_GCC to gcc.
#
# If you do not have gcc, set CC to the name of your ANSI compiler, and
# set MAY_NEED_GCC to either ${CC} (and hope for the best) or to just :
# to disable such programs.
#
CC= cc
#CC=clang
MAY_NEED_GCC= gcc


##############################
# Special flags for this entry
##############################
#
ENTRY= endoh1
DATA= column.txt column2.txt column3.txt corners.txt dripping-pan.txt \
	evaporation.txt flat.txt fountain.txt funnel.txt funnel2.txt \
	funnel3.txt leidenfrost.txt logo.txt pour-out.txt tanada.txt
ALT_OBJ= endoh1_color.o
ALT_ENTRY= endoh1_color

# The factor of gravity
#
G=0

# The factor of pressure
#
P=1

# The factor of viscosity
#
V=2

#################
# build the entry
#################
#
all: ${ENTRY} ${DATA}
	@${TRUE}

${ENTRY}: ${ENTRY}.c
	${CC} ${CFLAGS} -DG=$G -DP=$P -DV=$P $< -o $@ ${LIBS}

# alternative executable
#
alt: ${ALT_ENTRY}
	@${TRUE}

endoh1_deobfuscate: endoh1_deobfuscate.c
	${CC} ${CFLAGS} -DG=$G -DP=$P -DV=$P $< -o $@ ${LIBS}

endoh1_color: endoh1_color.c
	${CC} ${CFLAGS} -DG=$G -DP=$P -DV=$P $< -o $@ ${LIBS}

# data files
#
data: ${DATA}
	@${TRUE}


###############
# utility rules
###############
#
everything: all alt

clean:
	${RM} -f ${ENTRY}.o ${ALT_OBJ}

clobber: clean
	${RM} -f ${ENTRY} ${ALT_ENTRY}

nuke: clobber
	@${TRUE}

dist_clean: nuke
	@${TRUE}

install:
	@echo "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman!"
	@${TRUE}

# backwards compatibility
#
build: all
	@${TRUE}


##################
# 133t hacker rulz
##################
#
love:
	@echo 'not war?'
	@${TRUE}

haste:
	$(MAKE) waste
	@${TRUE}

waste:
	@echo 'waste'
	@${TRUE}

easter_egg:
	@echo you expected to mis-understand this $${RANDOM} magic
	@echo chongo '<was here>' "/\\oo/\\"
	@echo Readers shall be disallowed from not being unable to partly misunderstand this partocular final echo.

# Understand the history of "I Am the Walrus" and
# and in particular John Lennon's remarks on that
# song and you might be confused about these next
# rules in a different way. :-)
#
supernova: nuke
	@-if [ -r .code_anal ]; then \
	    ${RM} -f .code_anal_v3; \
	else \
	    echo "You are not expected to understand this"; \
	fi
	@${TRUE}

deep_magic:
	@-if [ -r .code_anal ]; then \
	    ccode_analysis --deep_magic 1c2c85c7a02c55d1add91967eca491d53c101dc1 --FNV1a_hash 256-bit "${ENTRY}"; \
	else \
	    echo "Understand different"; \
	fi
	@${TRUE}

magic: deep_magic
	@-if [ -r .code_anal ]; then \
	    ccode_analysis --mode 21701 --level 23209 --FNV1a_hash 256-bit "${ENTRY}"; \
	else \
	    echo "These aren't the droids you're looking for Mr. Spock!"; \
	fi
	@${TRUE}
-------------- next part --------------
                                       @                                       
###############################################################################
#           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                                      #
#           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx          #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                            #
#                           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                            #
#                           xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                            #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             # 
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                                                                             #
#                                                   @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@    # 
#    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@             @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@   # 
#    @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@             @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@   # 
#                                                                             #
###############################################################################

From spedraja at gmail.com  Sat Oct 19 06:19:14 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 22:19:14 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
Message-ID: <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>

Well, It appears that CHM has published an article about "Space Travel"
code...

https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-earliest-unix-code-an-anniversary-source-code-release/


Cordiales saludos / Kind Regards.

Gracias | Regards - Saludos | Greetings | Freundliche Grüße | Salutations
-- 
*Sergio Pedraja*
--
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From ken at google.com  Sat Oct 19 08:04:59 2019
From: ken at google.com (Ken Thompson)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 15:04:59 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>

while writing "space travel,"
i could not get the space ship integration
around a planet to keep from either gaining or
losing energy due to floating point errors.
i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
weird simple double integration that self
corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
ascertain, the formula was never published
and no one i have asked (including me) has
been able to recreate it.

i look forward to the OCR of the code.

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 1:20 PM SPC <spedraja at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Well, It appears that CHM has published an article about "Space Travel" code...
>
> https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-earliest-unix-code-an-anniversary-source-code-release/
>
> Cordiales saludos / Kind Regards.
>
> Gracias | Regards - Saludos | Greetings | Freundliche Grüße | Salutations
> --
> Sergio Pedraja
> --

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct 19 09:20:35 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 19:20:35 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9053c41b-e306-8547-50fd-207e0bfb49af@kilonet.net>



On 10/18/2019 6:04 PM, Ken Thompson via TUHS wrote:
> while writing "space travel,"
> i could not get the space ship integration
> around a planet to keep from either gaining or
> losing energy due to floating point errors.
> i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
> a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
> i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
> weird simple double integration that self
> corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
> ascertain, the formula was never published
> and no one i have asked (including me) has
> been able to recreate it.
>
>
This reminds me of an experiment I performed comparing speeds of x86 
assembler, and C, when I first started working in it. The experiment was 
to generate a 3D cube wireframe, and rotate it about any (or all three) 
of it's axes, moving it X degrees at a time. Simple vector math, really. 
Included perspective, so that the back-end of the wireframe cube would 
look smaller than the front side.

I had been an assembler snob, having started in MACRO-10 on a KA10 
PDP-10 in 9th grade. I always assumed assembler would be faster for 
anything, given the right amount of optimization. The assembler side of 
the experiment, I did the CGA graphics directly. I think in the C 
version, I used the built-in library that came with it. I no longer have 
the source for the C version, but I do, for the assembler version. I 
didn't have an 8087 floating point accelerator, so I wrote my assembler 
example to use two 16-bit words of integers, combining them for a 31-bit 
integer value with sign.

Timing 1000 rotations, the assembler version took X amount of time. The 
C version took X*1.5

Now mind you, the C version used real floating point, and a software 
floating point library with no hardware accelerator. At that point, I 
realized C was the way to go. It had passed my experiment with flying 
colors. The C compiler, I believe, was from Computer Innovations, 
Copyright (c)1981,82,83,84,85

The reason this is similar to Ken's statement above: In the assembler 
version, the cube would deform quite a bit before the run would finish. 
A 31-bit integer didn't accurately reflect the result of the math. Over 
time, that slight inaccuracy really added up. The accuracy of the C 
version using floats was spot on.  So while I basically cheated for the 
assembler version, causing the deformation of the cube over time, the C 
version was 100% accurate even though it was slower.

I wonder, is there something inherently different between PDP-11/7 
floats and Intel's leading to the inaccuracy Ken mentions? Was the 
PDP-11 (or the -7) floating point that much different than IEEE-754 ?

art k.


From g.branden.robinson at gmail.com  Sat Oct 19 10:57:55 2019
From: g.branden.robinson at gmail.com (G. Branden Robinson)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 11:57:55 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <9053c41b-e306-8547-50fd-207e0bfb49af@kilonet.net>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9053c41b-e306-8547-50fd-207e0bfb49af@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <20191019005752.3r7srxe73v47rtuy@localhost.localdomain>

At 2019-10-18T19:20:35-0400, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> I didn't have an 8087 floating point accelerator, so I wrote my
> assembler example to use two 16-bit words of integers, combining them
> for a 31-bit integer value with sign.
> 
> Now mind you, the C version used real floating point, and a software
> floating point library with no hardware accelerator. At that point, I
> realized C was the way to go. It had passed my experiment with flying
> colors. The C compiler, I believe, was from Computer Innovations,
> Copyright (c)1981,82,83,84,85
> 
> The reason this is similar to Ken's statement above: In the assembler
> version, the cube would deform quite a bit before the run would
> finish. A 31-bit integer didn't accurately reflect the result of the
> math. Over time, that slight inaccuracy really added up. The accuracy
> of the C version using floats was spot on.  So while I basically
> cheated for the assembler version, causing the deformation of the cube
> over time, the C version was 100% accurate even though it was slower.
> 
> I wonder, is there something inherently different between PDP-11/7
> floats and Intel's leading to the inaccuracy Ken mentions? Was the
> PDP-11 (or the -7) floating point that much different than IEEE-754 ?

It sounds like it could be a simple matter of precision to me.

It takes 32 bits to store a single-precision floating point value.

Double-precision requires 64.  In IEEE 754, the significand is 53 bits
(52 bits plus the implicit leading 1).

I can never remember the C type promotion rules without looking them up,
but IIRC at least in some circumstances C promotes floats to doubles, at
least for intermediate results.  And the software floating-point library
you used could well have done the same, or perhaps it used doubles all
the way internally.  Either of these could have prevented accumulated
roundoff.

I've heard, with a level of conviction somewhere between folklore and
formal demonstration[1], that for many practical numerical problems,
single-precision is just not quite good enough, but double-precision is
ample.  Somewhere between 24 and 53 bits of significant, perhaps, there
is a sweet spot.

The wisdom I've absorbed is, if you have to do floating-point, use
doubles, unless you can clearly and convincingly articulate why you
absolutely need more precision, or can get away with less.  (For same 3D
game-rendering applications, half-precision is adequate.)

A non-quantified "single-precision will be faster" declaration should be
understood to include a lot of "!!1!11" punctuation after it, and such
people should be handled as delicately as any other Gentoo user.

Regards,
Branden

[1] Example: Ben Klemens, _21st-Century C_, O'Reilly.
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From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Oct 19 11:06:23 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 12:06:23 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] In memoriam: Ken Iverson
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191205520.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

We lost Ken Iverson on this day in 2004; a Canadian mathematician and computer 
scientist, he gave us APL (and its obscure one-liners).

-- Dave

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct 19 11:11:09 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2019 21:11:09 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <20191019005752.3r7srxe73v47rtuy@localhost.localdomain>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9053c41b-e306-8547-50fd-207e0bfb49af@kilonet.net>
 <20191019005752.3r7srxe73v47rtuy@localhost.localdomain>
Message-ID: <d3994ff4-9360-3b16-bcda-e29b09264d2e@kilonet.net>

On 10/18/2019 8:57 PM, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> and such people should be handled as delicately as any other Gentoo user.
You sir, win the Internet today ;)



From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Oct 19 11:15:23 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 12:15:23 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Vaxen, my children...
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

A little off-topic, but quite amusing...

-- Dave

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Time to post this classic; I don't recall who wrote it.  Note that the 
references are pretty obscure now...

-----

VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places.  In my business, I am 
frequently called by small sites and startups having VAX problems.  So when a 
friend of mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution (ELFI) called me one 
day to ask for help, I was intrigued because this outfit is a really major VAX 
user - they have several large herds of VAXen - and plenty of sharp VAXherds to 
take care of them.

So I went to see what sort of an ELFI mess they had gotten into.  It seems they 
had shoved a small 750 with two RA60s running a single application, PC style, 
into a data center with two IBM 3090s and just about all the rest of the disk 
drives in the world.  The computer room was so big it had three street 
addresses.  The operators had only IBM experience and, to quote my friend, they 
were having "a little trouble adjusting to the VAX", were a bit hostile towards 
it and probably needed some help with system management.  Hmmm, hostility... 
Sigh.

Well, I thought it was pretty ridiculous for an outfit with all that VAX muscle 
elsewhere to isolate a dinky old 750 in their Big Blue Country, and said so 
bluntly.  But my friend patiently explained that although small, it was an 
"extremely sensitive and confidential application."  It seems that the 750 had 
originally been properly clustered with the rest of a herd and in the care of 
one of their best VAXherds.  But the trouble started when the Chief User went 
to visit his computer and its VAXherd.

He came away visibly disturbed and immediately complained to the ELFI's 
Director of Data Processing that, "There are some very strange people in there 
with the computers."  Now since this user person was the Comptroller of this 
Extremely Large Financial Institution, the 750 had been promptly hustled over 
to the IBM data center which the Comptroller said, "was a more suitable place." 
The people there wore shirts and ties and didn't wear head bands or cowboy 
hats.

So my friend introduced me to the Comptroller, who turned out to be five feet 
tall, 85 and a former gnome of Zurich.  He had a young apprentice gnome who was 
about 65.  The two gnomes interviewed me in whispers for about an hour before 
they decided my modes of dress and speech were suitable for managing their 
system and I got the assignment.

There was some confusion, understandably, when I explained that I would 
immediately establish a procedure for nightly backups.  The senior gnome seemed 
to think I was going to put the computer in reverse, but the apprentice's son 
had an IBM PC and he quickly whispered that "backup" meant making a copy of a 
program borrowed from a friend and why was I doing that?  Sigh.

I was shortly introduced to the manager of the IBM data center, who greeted me 
with joy and anything but hostility.  And the operators really weren't hostile 
- it just seemed that way.  It's like the driver of a Mack 18 wheeler, with a 
condo behind the cab, who was doing 75 when he ran over a moped doing its best 
to get away at 45.  He explained sadly, "I really warn't mad at mopeds but to 
keep from runnin' over that'n, I'da had to slow down or change lanes!"

Now the only operation they had figured out how to do on the 750 was reboot it. 
This was their universal cure for any and all problems. After all it works on a 
PC, why not a VAX?  Was there a difference? Sigh.

But I smiled and said, "No sweat, I'll train you.  The first command you learn 
is HELP" and proceeded to type it in on the console terminal.  So the data 
center manager, the shift supervisor and the eight day-operators watched the 
LA100 buzz out the usual introductory text.  When it finished they turned to me 
with expectant faces and I said in an avuncular manner, "This is your most 
important command!"

The shift supervisor stepped forward and studied the text for about a minute. 
He then turned with a very puzzled expression on his face and asked, "What do 
you use it for?"  Sigh.

Well, I tried everything.  I trained and I put the doc set on shelves by the 
750 and I wrote a special 40 page doc set and then a four page doc set.  I 
designed all kinds of command files to make complex operations into simple 
foreign commands and I taped a list of these simplified commands to the top of 
the VAX.  The most successful move was adding my home phone number.

The cheat sheets taped on the top of the CPU cabinet needed continual 
maintenance, however.  It seems the VAX was in the quietest part of the data 
center, over behind the scratch tape racks.  The operators ate lunch on the CPU 
cabinet and the sheets quickly became coated with pizza drippings, etc.

But still the most used solution to hangups was a reboot and I gradually got 
things organized so that during the day when the gnomes were using the system, 
the operators didn't have to touch it.  This smoothed things out a lot.

Meanwhile, the data center was getting new TV security cameras, a halon gas 
fire extinguisher system and an immortal power source.  The data center manager 
apologized because the VAX had not been foreseen in the plan and so could not 
be connected to immortal power.  The VAX and I felt a little rejected but I 
made sure that booting on power recovery was working right. At least it would 
get going again quickly when power came back.

Anyway, as a consolation prize, the data center manager said he would have one 
of the security cameras adjusted to cover the VAX.  I thought to myself, 
"Great, now we can have 24 hour video tapes of the operators eating Chinese 
takeout on the CPU."  I resolved to get a piece of plastic to cover the cheat 
sheets.

One day, the apprentice gnome called to whisper that the senior was going to 
give an extremely important demonstration.  Now I must explain that what the 
750 was really doing was holding our National Debt.  The Reagan administration 
had decided to privatize it and had quietly put it out for bid.  My Extreme 
Large Financial Institution had won the bid for it and was, as ELFIs are wont 
to do, making an absolute bundle on the float.

On Monday the Comptroller was going to demonstrate to the board of directors 
how he could move a trillion dollars from Switzerland to the Bahamas.  The 
apprentice whispered, "Would you please look in on our computer?  I'm sure 
everything will be fine, sir, but we will feel better if you are present.  I'm 
sure you understand?"  I did.

Monday morning, I got there about five hours before the scheduled demo to check 
things over.  Everything was cool.  I was chatting with the shift supervisor 
and about to go upstairs to the Comptroller's office.  Suddenly there was a 
power failure.

The emergency lighting came on and the immortal power system took over the load 
of the IBM 3090s.  They continued smoothly, but of course the VAX, still on 
city power, died.  Everyone smiled and the dead 750 was no big deal because it 
was 7 AM and gnomes don't work before 10 AM.  I began worrying about whether I 
could beg some immortal power from the data center manager in case this was a 
long outage.

Immortal power in this system comes from storage batteries for the first five 
minutes of an outage.  Promptly at one minute into the outage we hear the gas 
turbine powered generator in the sub-basement under us automatically start up 
getting ready to take the load on the fifth minute. We all beam at each other.

At two minutes into the outage we hear the whine of the backup gas turbine 
generator starting.  The 3090s and all those disk drives are doing just fine. 
Business as usual.  The VAX is dead as a door nail but what the hell.

At precisely five minutes into the outage, just as the gas turbine is taking 
the load, city power comes back on and the immortal power source commits 
suicide.  Actually it was a double murder and suicide because it took both 
3090s with it.

So now the whole data center was dead, sort of.  The fire alarm system had its 
own battery backup and was still alive.  The lead acid storage batteries of the 
immortal power system had been discharging at a furious rate keeping all those 
big blue boxes running and there was a significant amount of sulfuric acid 
vapor.  Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke detectors were convinced it 
had.

The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas 
release was screaming.  We started to panic but the data center manager shouted 
over the din, "Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance test last 
week.  It's disabled and nothing will happen."

He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge. But the 
secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and instantly did 
its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters.  It had twice the capacity and 
six times the discharge rate.

Now the ear splitting gas discharge under the raised floor was so massive and 
fast, it blew about half of the floor tiles up out of their framework. It came 
up through the floor into a communications rack and blew the cover panels off, 
decking an operator.  Looking out across that vast computer room, we could see 
the air shimmering as the halon mixed with it.

We stampeded for exits to the dying whine of 175 IBM disks.  As I was escaping 
I glanced back at the VAX, on city power, and noticed the usual flickering of 
the unit select light on its system disk indicating it was happily rebooting.

Twelve firemen with air tanks and axes invaded.  There were frantic phone calls 
to the local IBM Field Service office because both the live and backup 3090s 
were down.  About twenty minutes later, seventeen IBM CEs arrived with dozens 
of boxes and, so help me, a barrel.  It seems they knew what to expect when an 
immortal power source commits murder.

In the midst of absolute pandemonium, I crept off to the gnome office and 
logged on.  After extensive checking it was clear that everything was just fine 
with the VAX and I began to calm down.  I called the data center manager's 
office to tell him the good news.  His secretary answered with, "He isn't 
expected to be available for some time.  May I take a message?" I left a 
slightly smug note to the effect that, unlike some other computers, the VAX was 
intact and functioning normally.

Several hours later, the gnome was whispering his way into a demonstration of 
how to flick a trillion dollars from country 2 to country 5.  He was just 
coming to the tricky part, where the money had been withdrawn from Switzerland 
but not yet deposited in the Bahamas.  He was proceeding very slowly and the 
directors were spellbound.  I decided I had better check up on the data center.

Most of the floor tiles were back in place.  IBM had resurrected one of the 
3090s and was running tests.  What looked like a bucket brigade was working on 
the other one.  The communication rack was still naked and a fireman was 
standing guard over the immortal power corpse.  Life was returning to normal, 
but the Big Blue Country crew was still pretty shaky.

Smiling proudly, I headed back toward the triumphant VAX behind the tape racks 
where one of the operators was eating a plump jelly bun on the 750 CPU.  He saw 
me coming, turned pale and screamed to the shift supervisor, "Oh my God, we 
forgot about the VAX!"  Then, before I could open my mouth, he rebooted it.  It 
was Monday, 19-Oct-1987.  VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places.

-- Dave

From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Sat Oct 19 23:11:10 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 09:11:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <CA+E3k91oJdfwPBYcGO3a2_nr7vLWU0MTxrsmQs4h0rBEyGvL6A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1570559927.29337.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2e6e1005-3bbf-5dcc-3fcc-099864c752dc@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910090753420.52199@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <8088e5bd-3530-d3e1-8066-db6ea9389dea@kilonet.net>
 <CACCFpdx_6oeyNkgH_5jgfxbxWbZ6VtOXQNKOsonHPF2=747ZOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7sx3JF+MDHs5Z2hAGEVMTU3-3UXwd_BwFaAbmuythjZw@mail.gmail.com>
 <3054d652-7320-a99b-df24-67001f974d39@kilonet.net> <8736g06byw.fsf@vuxu.org>
 <90ffe509-76b5-6629-c55a-7785815fda2e@kilonet.net>
 <CA+E3k90Z2kxk89tdPqha=2q82MxEbVsAwN24SRCEZ1+nwHxERw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA+E3k91oJdfwPBYcGO3a2_nr7vLWU0MTxrsmQs4h0rBEyGvL6A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp8+nb0PXg71ej6LFBB6VHZ_891oqywLwJdyx_ymNYjeXw@mail.gmail.com>

Related story. A user came to us with a problem while we were in our
computer room. We asked him to log in at the VAX console, so we could look
into the problem. Moments later, dozens of users flooded in, asking what
had happened. Seems the first user had a CTRL-P in his password, which,
when entered at the console, triggered the VAX to pause.

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 2:34 PM Royce Williams <royce at techsolvency.com>
wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 7:01 AM Royce Williams <royce at techsolvency.com>
> wrote:
>
> > What original caught my attention was the logic behind enforcing
> password quality in passwd.c during a specific era of BSD code, which
> exited ambiguously in a double negative of sorts, where control characters
> were not disallowed during password entry. (I'll try to dig up the source.)
>
> Specifically, see the eras in which passwd.c looked something like this:
>
>
> https://github.com/dank101/4.2BSD/blob/708b3890ac0c2f034f2840b5ee9125b3c83a05bc/bin/passwd.c#L69-L107
>
>         while (c = *p++) {
>                 if (c >= 'a' && c <= 'z')
>                         flags |= 2;
>                 else if (c >= 'A' && c <= 'Z')
>                         flags |= 4;
>                 else if (c >= '0' && c <= '9')
>                         flags |= 1;
>                 else
>                         flags |= 8;
>         }
>         if (flags >= 7 && pwlen >= 4)
>                 ok = 1;
>
> I was intrigued that the "special characters" character set was
> defined negatively, such that control characters would also count.
>
>
> Royce
>
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Oct 19 23:13:48 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 09:13:48 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
Message-ID: <201910191313.x9JDDmVJ021440@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

Apropos of OCR on shabby typewriting, I've had good luck with doing
the OCR twice with the paper differently positioned, then using diff
to spot discrepancies. For a final proofreading, a team of two--one
reading the original aloud, the other checking the copy, works much
faster and more accurately than a single person checking side-by-side
texts.

Doug

From norman at oclsc.org  Sat Oct 19 23:45:30 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 09:45:30 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
Message-ID: <1571492733.19343.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

I'm amused (in a good way) that this thread persists, and
without becoming boring.

Speaking as someone who was Ken's sysadmin for six years,
I find it hard to get upset over someone cracking a password
hash that has been out in the open for decades, using an
algorithm that became pragmatically unsafe slightly fewer
decades ago.  It really shouldn't be in use anywhere any
more anyway.  Were I still Ken's sysadmin I'd have leaned
on him to change it long ago.

So far as I know, my password from that era didn't escape
the Labs, but nevertheless I abandoned it long ago--when
I left the Labs myself, in fact.

I do have one password that has been unchanged since the
mid-1990s and is stored in heritage hash on a few computers
that don't even have /etc/shadow, but those are not public
systems.  And it's probably time I changed it anyway.

None of this is to excuse the creeps who steal passwords
these days, nor to promote complacency.  At the place I now
work we had a possible /etc/shadow exposure some years back,
and we reacted by pushing everyone to change their passwords
and also by taking various measures to keep even the hashes
better-hidden.  But there is, or should be, a difference
between a password that is still in use and one that was exposed
so long ago, and in what is now so trivial an algorithm, that
it is no more than a puzzle for fans of the old-fart days.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sun Oct 20 00:40:08 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:40:08 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
Message-ID: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

I was about to add a footnote to history about
how the broad interests and collegiality of
Bell Labs staff made Space Travel work, when
I saw that Ken beat me to telling how he got
help from another Turing Award winner.

> while writing "space travel,"
> i could not get the space ship integration
> around a planet to keep from either gaining or
> losing energy due to floating point errors.
> i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
> a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
> i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
> weird simple double integration that self
> corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
> ascertain, the formula was never published
> and no one i have asked (including me) has
> been able to recreate it.

If I remember correctly, the cause of Ken's
difficulty was not roundoff error. It
was discretization error in the integration
formula--probably f(t+dt)=f(t)+f'(t)dt.
Dick saw that the formula did not conserve
energy and found an alternative that did.

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sun Oct 20 00:47:17 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 10:47:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Vaxen, my children...
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <25e29217-2f55-eb72-95e7-6f41fc054627@kilonet.net>



On 10/18/2019 9:15 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> A little off-topic, but quite amusing...
>
> -- Dave
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> Time to post this classic; I don't recall who wrote it.  Note that the 
> references are pretty obscure now...
>
> -----

I've read this a few times, but every time, I have to laugh out loud. ;)

art k.


From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Sun Oct 20 04:32:56 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 00:02:56 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>

Forgive me for both hijacking this thread, and to address my amateurish
gnawing concern, but how was it be possible to write differential/integral
equations at an assembly/machine level at the time, especially in machines
such as the PDP-7 and such which had IIRC just 16 instructions and operated
on the basis of mere words, especially the floating point math being done.
Surmising from some personal experience that writing mathematical programs
is hard even now, although there exist certain functional paradigms, and
specialised environments such as MATLAB or Mathematica. The
complexity seems to remain the same if not more now, due to the vast oodles
of data to handle stemming from the nature of the world.

Were they loaded as just words as any other instruction or were there
separate coprocessors that did the number crunching? I'm guessing
Fortran-ish kind of implementations were done, but the hardware level
computation itself I just can't process.

It just blows my mind now thinking backwards in terms of those
monster machines being loaded with trails of paper tape instructions to
play Space Travel. Being born in the late 90's doesn't help me too.

Also, on a related note, don't know if you've watched the interview
<https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o> of Ken done by Brian at the Vintage Comptuer
Federation 2019, there might be a few surprises lurking around the middle
of that when they discuss pipes and grep.

Thank you!

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 8:11 PM Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> I was about to add a footnote to history about
> how the broad interests and collegiality of
> Bell Labs staff made Space Travel work, when
> I saw that Ken beat me to telling how he got
> help from another Turing Award winner.
>
> > while writing "space travel,"
> > i could not get the space ship integration
> > around a planet to keep from either gaining or
> > losing energy due to floating point errors.
> > i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
> > a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
> > i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
> > weird simple double integration that self
> > corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
> > ascertain, the formula was never published
> > and no one i have asked (including me) has
> > been able to recreate it.
>
> If I remember correctly, the cause of Ken's
> difficulty was not roundoff error. It
> was discretization error in the integration
> formula--probably f(t+dt)=f(t)+f'(t)dt.
> Dick saw that the formula did not conserve
> energy and found an alternative that did.
>


-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Sun Oct 20 04:44:13 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 00:14:13 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5riKFJMx170JjX+OqxgfPozQ8jOzd5zeKSq24NyovTCg8A@mail.gmail.com>

After some poking around, a Program library (PDP-7) and a Floating point
reference manual for a PDP-8 turned up and is now slowly dawning on me that
libraries could exist back then too, and that complex polynomials could
also be written into routines albeit a bit tedious.

http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp7/DIGITAL-7-30-A_FltPtPkg.pdf

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp8/software/DEC-08-YQYB-D_PDP-8_Floating-Point_System_Programmers_Reference_Manual_Sep69.pdf

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 12:02 AM Abhinav Rajagopalan <
abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Forgive me for both hijacking this thread, and to address my amateurish
> gnawing concern, but how was it be possible to write differential/integral
> equations at an assembly/machine level at the time, especially in machines
> such as the PDP-7 and such which had IIRC just 16 instructions and operated
> on the basis of mere words, especially the floating point math being done.
> Surmising from some personal experience that writing mathematical programs
> is hard even now, although there exist certain functional paradigms, and
> specialised environments such as MATLAB or Mathematica. The
> complexity seems to remain the same if not more now, due to the vast oodles
> of data to handle stemming from the nature of the world.
>
> Were they loaded as just words as any other instruction or were there
> separate coprocessors that did the number crunching? I'm guessing
> Fortran-ish kind of implementations were done, but the hardware level
> computation itself I just can't process.
>
> It just blows my mind now thinking backwards in terms of those
> monster machines being loaded with trails of paper tape instructions to
> play Space Travel. Being born in the late 90's doesn't help me too.
>
> Also, on a related note, don't know if you've watched the interview
> <https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o> of Ken done by Brian at the Vintage
> Comptuer Federation 2019, there might be a few surprises lurking around the
> middle of that when they discuss pipes and grep.
>
> Thank you!
>
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 8:11 PM Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> I was about to add a footnote to history about
>> how the broad interests and collegiality of
>> Bell Labs staff made Space Travel work, when
>> I saw that Ken beat me to telling how he got
>> help from another Turing Award winner.
>>
>> > while writing "space travel,"
>> > i could not get the space ship integration
>> > around a planet to keep from either gaining or
>> > losing energy due to floating point errors.
>> > i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
>> > a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
>> > i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
>> > weird simple double integration that self
>> > corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
>> > ascertain, the formula was never published
>> > and no one i have asked (including me) has
>> > been able to recreate it.
>>
>> If I remember correctly, the cause of Ken's
>> difficulty was not roundoff error. It
>> was discretization error in the integration
>> formula--probably f(t+dt)=f(t)+f'(t)dt.
>> Dick saw that the formula did not conserve
>> energy and found an alternative that did.
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Abhinav Rajagopalan
>
>
>

-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sun Oct 20 05:19:40 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 15:19:40 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2N=mcR3X=rg=or_19y9pwq5dijbOou53pCiMj1+h7ng8A@mail.gmail.com>

Abhinav -- it is still done today.   For Intel's MKL we must have a team of
programmers that specialize in writing math at the lowest levels.  DEC,
CDC, Cray, IBM did the same thing back in the day.   Check out:  Intel Math
Kernel Library (*a.k.a.* MKL) <https://software.intel.com/en-us/mkl>.

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 2:34 PM Abhinav Rajagopalan <
abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Forgive me for both hijacking this thread, and to address my amateurish
> gnawing concern, but how was it be possible to write differential/integral
> equations at an assembly/machine level at the time, especially in machines
> such as the PDP-7 and such which had IIRC just 16 instructions and operated
> on the basis of mere words, especially the floating point math being done.
> Surmising from some personal experience that writing mathematical programs
> is hard even now, although there exist certain functional paradigms, and
> specialised environments such as MATLAB or Mathematica. The
> complexity seems to remain the same if not more now, due to the vast oodles
> of data to handle stemming from the nature of the world.
>
> Were they loaded as just words as any other instruction or were there
> separate coprocessors that did the number crunching? I'm guessing
> Fortran-ish kind of implementations were done, but the hardware level
> computation itself I just can't process.
>
> It just blows my mind now thinking backwards in terms of those
> monster machines being loaded with trails of paper tape instructions to
> play Space Travel. Being born in the late 90's doesn't help me too.
>
> Also, on a related note, don't know if you've watched the interview
> <https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o> of Ken done by Brian at the Vintage
> Comptuer Federation 2019, there might be a few surprises lurking around the
> middle of that when they discuss pipes and grep.
>
> Thank you!
>
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 8:11 PM Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> I was about to add a footnote to history about
>> how the broad interests and collegiality of
>> Bell Labs staff made Space Travel work, when
>> I saw that Ken beat me to telling how he got
>> help from another Turing Award winner.
>>
>> > while writing "space travel,"
>> > i could not get the space ship integration
>> > around a planet to keep from either gaining or
>> > losing energy due to floating point errors.
>> > i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
>> > a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
>> > i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
>> > weird simple double integration that self
>> > corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
>> > ascertain, the formula was never published
>> > and no one i have asked (including me) has
>> > been able to recreate it.
>>
>> If I remember correctly, the cause of Ken's
>> difficulty was not roundoff error. It
>> was discretization error in the integration
>> formula--probably f(t+dt)=f(t)+f'(t)dt.
>> Dick saw that the formula did not conserve
>> energy and found an alternative that did.
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Abhinav Rajagopalan
>
>
>
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sun Oct 20 05:26:51 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 15:26:51 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Vaxen, my children...
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PXv7KUR3q3GXsyqZbM+fgk+xqexVdh0+UghnF5FxvAUg@mail.gmail.com>

An old Usenet Apocrypha message.    IIRC this show up after the great
automated crash in 1987 and was being used an example of why the IBM
monoculture led to the melt down of the markets.

On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 9:16 PM Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> A little off-topic, but quite amusing...
>
> -- Dave
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>
> Time to post this classic; I don't recall who wrote it.  Note that the
> references are pretty obscure now...
>
> -----
>
> VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places.  In my business, I am
> frequently called by small sites and startups having VAX problems.  So
> when a
> friend of mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution (ELFI) called
> me one
> day to ask for help, I was intrigued because this outfit is a really major
> VAX
> user - they have several large herds of VAXen - and plenty of sharp
> VAXherds to
> take care of them.
>
> So I went to see what sort of an ELFI mess they had gotten into.  It seems
> they
> had shoved a small 750 with two RA60s running a single application, PC
> style,
> into a data center with two IBM 3090s and just about all the rest of the
> disk
> drives in the world.  The computer room was so big it had three street
> addresses.  The operators had only IBM experience and, to quote my friend,
> they
> were having "a little trouble adjusting to the VAX", were a bit hostile
> towards
> it and probably needed some help with system management.  Hmmm,
> hostility...
> Sigh.
>
> Well, I thought it was pretty ridiculous for an outfit with all that VAX
> muscle
> elsewhere to isolate a dinky old 750 in their Big Blue Country, and said
> so
> bluntly.  But my friend patiently explained that although small, it was an
> "extremely sensitive and confidential application."  It seems that the 750
> had
> originally been properly clustered with the rest of a herd and in the care
> of
> one of their best VAXherds.  But the trouble started when the Chief User
> went
> to visit his computer and its VAXherd.
>
> He came away visibly disturbed and immediately complained to the ELFI's
> Director of Data Processing that, "There are some very strange people in
> there
> with the computers."  Now since this user person was the Comptroller of
> this
> Extremely Large Financial Institution, the 750 had been promptly hustled
> over
> to the IBM data center which the Comptroller said, "was a more suitable
> place."
> The people there wore shirts and ties and didn't wear head bands or cowboy
> hats.
>
> So my friend introduced me to the Comptroller, who turned out to be five
> feet
> tall, 85 and a former gnome of Zurich.  He had a young apprentice gnome
> who was
> about 65.  The two gnomes interviewed me in whispers for about an hour
> before
> they decided my modes of dress and speech were suitable for managing their
> system and I got the assignment.
>
> There was some confusion, understandably, when I explained that I would
> immediately establish a procedure for nightly backups.  The senior gnome
> seemed
> to think I was going to put the computer in reverse, but the apprentice's
> son
> had an IBM PC and he quickly whispered that "backup" meant making a copy
> of a
> program borrowed from a friend and why was I doing that?  Sigh.
>
> I was shortly introduced to the manager of the IBM data center, who
> greeted me
> with joy and anything but hostility.  And the operators really weren't
> hostile
> - it just seemed that way.  It's like the driver of a Mack 18 wheeler,
> with a
> condo behind the cab, who was doing 75 when he ran over a moped doing its
> best
> to get away at 45.  He explained sadly, "I really warn't mad at mopeds but
> to
> keep from runnin' over that'n, I'da had to slow down or change lanes!"
>
> Now the only operation they had figured out how to do on the 750 was
> reboot it.
> This was their universal cure for any and all problems. After all it works
> on a
> PC, why not a VAX?  Was there a difference? Sigh.
>
> But I smiled and said, "No sweat, I'll train you.  The first command you
> learn
> is HELP" and proceeded to type it in on the console terminal.  So the data
> center manager, the shift supervisor and the eight day-operators watched
> the
> LA100 buzz out the usual introductory text.  When it finished they turned
> to me
> with expectant faces and I said in an avuncular manner, "This is your most
> important command!"
>
> The shift supervisor stepped forward and studied the text for about a
> minute.
> He then turned with a very puzzled expression on his face and asked, "What
> do
> you use it for?"  Sigh.
>
> Well, I tried everything.  I trained and I put the doc set on shelves by
> the
> 750 and I wrote a special 40 page doc set and then a four page doc set.  I
> designed all kinds of command files to make complex operations into simple
> foreign commands and I taped a list of these simplified commands to the
> top of
> the VAX.  The most successful move was adding my home phone number.
>
> The cheat sheets taped on the top of the CPU cabinet needed continual
> maintenance, however.  It seems the VAX was in the quietest part of the
> data
> center, over behind the scratch tape racks.  The operators ate lunch on
> the CPU
> cabinet and the sheets quickly became coated with pizza drippings, etc.
>
> But still the most used solution to hangups was a reboot and I gradually
> got
> things organized so that during the day when the gnomes were using the
> system,
> the operators didn't have to touch it.  This smoothed things out a lot.
>
> Meanwhile, the data center was getting new TV security cameras, a halon
> gas
> fire extinguisher system and an immortal power source.  The data center
> manager
> apologized because the VAX had not been foreseen in the plan and so could
> not
> be connected to immortal power.  The VAX and I felt a little rejected but
> I
> made sure that booting on power recovery was working right. At least it
> would
> get going again quickly when power came back.
>
> Anyway, as a consolation prize, the data center manager said he would have
> one
> of the security cameras adjusted to cover the VAX.  I thought to myself,
> "Great, now we can have 24 hour video tapes of the operators eating
> Chinese
> takeout on the CPU."  I resolved to get a piece of plastic to cover the
> cheat
> sheets.
>
> One day, the apprentice gnome called to whisper that the senior was going
> to
> give an extremely important demonstration.  Now I must explain that what
> the
> 750 was really doing was holding our National Debt.  The Reagan
> administration
> had decided to privatize it and had quietly put it out for bid.  My
> Extreme
> Large Financial Institution had won the bid for it and was, as ELFIs are
> wont
> to do, making an absolute bundle on the float.
>
> On Monday the Comptroller was going to demonstrate to the board of
> directors
> how he could move a trillion dollars from Switzerland to the Bahamas.  The
> apprentice whispered, "Would you please look in on our computer?  I'm sure
> everything will be fine, sir, but we will feel better if you are present.
> I'm
> sure you understand?"  I did.
>
> Monday morning, I got there about five hours before the scheduled demo to
> check
> things over.  Everything was cool.  I was chatting with the shift
> supervisor
> and about to go upstairs to the Comptroller's office.  Suddenly there was
> a
> power failure.
>
> The emergency lighting came on and the immortal power system took over the
> load
> of the IBM 3090s.  They continued smoothly, but of course the VAX, still
> on
> city power, died.  Everyone smiled and the dead 750 was no big deal
> because it
> was 7 AM and gnomes don't work before 10 AM.  I began worrying about
> whether I
> could beg some immortal power from the data center manager in case this
> was a
> long outage.
>
> Immortal power in this system comes from storage batteries for the first
> five
> minutes of an outage.  Promptly at one minute into the outage we hear the
> gas
> turbine powered generator in the sub-basement under us automatically start
> up
> getting ready to take the load on the fifth minute. We all beam at each
> other.
>
> At two minutes into the outage we hear the whine of the backup gas turbine
> generator starting.  The 3090s and all those disk drives are doing just
> fine.
> Business as usual.  The VAX is dead as a door nail but what the hell.
>
> At precisely five minutes into the outage, just as the gas turbine is
> taking
> the load, city power comes back on and the immortal power source commits
> suicide.  Actually it was a double murder and suicide because it took both
> 3090s with it.
>
> So now the whole data center was dead, sort of.  The fire alarm system had
> its
> own battery backup and was still alive.  The lead acid storage batteries
> of the
> immortal power system had been discharging at a furious rate keeping all
> those
> big blue boxes running and there was a significant amount of sulfuric acid
> vapor.  Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke detectors were
> convinced it
> had.
>
> The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon gas
> release was screaming.  We started to panic but the data center manager
> shouted
> over the din, "Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance test
> last
> week.  It's disabled and nothing will happen."
>
> He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge.
> But the
> secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and instantly
> did
> its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters.  It had twice the
> capacity and
> six times the discharge rate.
>
> Now the ear splitting gas discharge under the raised floor was so massive
> and
> fast, it blew about half of the floor tiles up out of their framework. It
> came
> up through the floor into a communications rack and blew the cover panels
> off,
> decking an operator.  Looking out across that vast computer room, we could
> see
> the air shimmering as the halon mixed with it.
>
> We stampeded for exits to the dying whine of 175 IBM disks.  As I was
> escaping
> I glanced back at the VAX, on city power, and noticed the usual flickering
> of
> the unit select light on its system disk indicating it was happily
> rebooting.
>
> Twelve firemen with air tanks and axes invaded.  There were frantic phone
> calls
> to the local IBM Field Service office because both the live and backup
> 3090s
> were down.  About twenty minutes later, seventeen IBM CEs arrived with
> dozens
> of boxes and, so help me, a barrel.  It seems they knew what to expect
> when an
> immortal power source commits murder.
>
> In the midst of absolute pandemonium, I crept off to the gnome office and
> logged on.  After extensive checking it was clear that everything was just
> fine
> with the VAX and I began to calm down.  I called the data center manager's
> office to tell him the good news.  His secretary answered with, "He isn't
> expected to be available for some time.  May I take a message?" I left a
> slightly smug note to the effect that, unlike some other computers, the
> VAX was
> intact and functioning normally.
>
> Several hours later, the gnome was whispering his way into a demonstration
> of
> how to flick a trillion dollars from country 2 to country 5.  He was just
> coming to the tricky part, where the money had been withdrawn from
> Switzerland
> but not yet deposited in the Bahamas.  He was proceeding very slowly and
> the
> directors were spellbound.  I decided I had better check up on the data
> center.
>
> Most of the floor tiles were back in place.  IBM had resurrected one of
> the
> 3090s and was running tests.  What looked like a bucket brigade was
> working on
> the other one.  The communication rack was still naked and a fireman was
> standing guard over the immortal power corpse.  Life was returning to
> normal,
> but the Big Blue Country crew was still pretty shaky.
>
> Smiling proudly, I headed back toward the triumphant VAX behind the tape
> racks
> where one of the operators was eating a plump jelly bun on the 750 CPU.
> He saw
> me coming, turned pale and screamed to the shift supervisor, "Oh my God,
> we
> forgot about the VAX!"  Then, before I could open my mouth, he rebooted
> it.  It
> was Monday, 19-Oct-1987.  VAXen, my children, just don't belong some
> places.
>
> -- Dave
>
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From henry.r.bent at gmail.com  Sun Oct 20 05:50:04 2019
From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 15:50:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2N=mcR3X=rg=or_19y9pwq5dijbOou53pCiMj1+h7ng8A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2N=mcR3X=rg=or_19y9pwq5dijbOou53pCiMj1+h7ng8A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEdTPBf-gbwypJtUzwgCeTYM6YRwbnsJUoUEYDG7PK3fPCLvYQ@mail.gmail.com>

I think the astonishment is not so much that tailored specialty floating
point libraries exist, or that programmers are able to squeeze performance
out of processors using hardware floating point and/or vector units.  What
is impressive to me is that floating point was being done on processors
that had essentially no hardware support for floating point whatsoever, and
that the processors in question were running at what we would consider
infinitesimally slow speeds by the standards of what is inside my barely
modern home thermostat.

These hacks make me think of the "demoscene" folks who write programs for
early '80s home 8 bit microcomputers in assembly.  The idea is to squeeze
as much apparent visual performance out of a system as possible, so an
example might be scrolling characters across the screen while a wireframe
cube rotates in the background, all on a Commodore VIC-20 with 4K of RAM.
The idea is to start with a mathematically sound algorithm but then cut
every corner possible and account for every single timing bug and hardware
quirk.  It's a fun demonstration for two or three minutes but I imagine
that after an hour or two the numerical inaccuracies would set in, just as
described earlier in this thread.

-Henry

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019 at 15:20, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Abhinav -- it is still done today.   For Intel's MKL we must have a team
> of programmers that specialize in writing math at the lowest levels.  DEC,
> CDC, Cray, IBM did the same thing back in the day.   Check out:  Intel
> Math Kernel Library (*a.k.a.* MKL) <https://software.intel.com/en-us/mkl>.
>
>
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 2:34 PM Abhinav Rajagopalan <
> abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Forgive me for both hijacking this thread, and to address my amateurish
>> gnawing concern, but how was it be possible to write differential/integral
>> equations at an assembly/machine level at the time, especially in machines
>> such as the PDP-7 and such which had IIRC just 16 instructions and operated
>> on the basis of mere words, especially the floating point math being done.
>> Surmising from some personal experience that writing mathematical programs
>> is hard even now, although there exist certain functional paradigms, and
>> specialised environments such as MATLAB or Mathematica. The
>> complexity seems to remain the same if not more now, due to the vast oodles
>> of data to handle stemming from the nature of the world.
>>
>> Were they loaded as just words as any other instruction or were there
>> separate coprocessors that did the number crunching? I'm guessing
>> Fortran-ish kind of implementations were done, but the hardware level
>> computation itself I just can't process.
>>
>> It just blows my mind now thinking backwards in terms of those
>> monster machines being loaded with trails of paper tape instructions to
>> play Space Travel. Being born in the late 90's doesn't help me too.
>>
>> Also, on a related note, don't know if you've watched the interview
>> <https://youtu.be/EY6q5dv_B-o> of Ken done by Brian at the Vintage
>> Comptuer Federation 2019, there might be a few surprises lurking around the
>> middle of that when they discuss pipes and grep.
>>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 8:11 PM Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I was about to add a footnote to history about
>>> how the broad interests and collegiality of
>>> Bell Labs staff made Space Travel work, when
>>> I saw that Ken beat me to telling how he got
>>> help from another Turing Award winner.
>>>
>>> > while writing "space travel,"
>>> > i could not get the space ship integration
>>> > around a planet to keep from either gaining or
>>> > losing energy due to floating point errors.
>>> > i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
>>> > a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
>>> > i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
>>> > weird simple double integration that self
>>> > corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
>>> > ascertain, the formula was never published
>>> > and no one i have asked (including me) has
>>> > been able to recreate it.
>>>
>>> If I remember correctly, the cause of Ken's
>>> difficulty was not roundoff error. It
>>> was discretization error in the integration
>>> formula--probably f(t+dt)=f(t)+f'(t)dt.
>>> Dick saw that the formula did not conserve
>>> energy and found an alternative that did.
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Abhinav Rajagopalan
>>
>>
>>
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From thomas.paulsen at firemail.de  Sun Oct 20 05:55:55 2019
From: thomas.paulsen at firemail.de (Thomas Paulsen)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 21:55:55 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel related question
In-Reply-To: <CAEdTPBf-gbwypJtUzwgCeTYM6YRwbnsJUoUEYDG7PK3fPCLvYQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2N=mcR3X=rg=or_19y9pwq5dijbOou53pCiMj1+h7ng8A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBf-gbwypJtUzwgCeTYM6YRwbnsJUoUEYDG7PK3fPCLvYQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1bdfce73d1d30be76bee52287a510334@firemail.de>

s there a authentic space travel release available in C for Linux?



From michael at kjorling.se  Sun Oct 20 06:12:43 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 20:12:43 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>

On 20 Oct 2019 00:02 +0530, from abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan):
> Forgive me for both hijacking this thread, and to address my amateurish
> gnawing concern, but how was it be possible to write differential/integral
> equations at an assembly/machine level at the time, especially in machines
> such as the PDP-7 and such which had IIRC just 16 instructions and operated
> on the basis of mere words, especially the floating point math being done.

As long as you have the basic instructions (which pretty much any
computer capable of doing useful arithemtic calculations will need
anyway), you can implement the rest of what you need using those
building blocks. Specific _hardware_ support for floating point
calculations is not needed.

If nothing else, you can always implement your own routines to do
fixed-point multi-word arithmetic. Really about all you need for that
is the basic arithmetic and binary operations, the concept of a carry
or overflow flag, and conditional and unconditional jumps. With the
_possible_ exception of a carry flag of some kind, a digital computer
really wouldn't be very useful without those!

>From there to emulating floating-point instead is not a huge leap.

Given that, the kind of equations you can use the computer to solve is
just a matter of how fast you need to have the answers.

Emulation might be slow, and implementing your own might not be pretty
by today's standards where we're taught to rely on standard libraries,
but it definitely can get the job done.

If you want an example that might perhaps be easier to relate to, on
the IBM PC, it wasn't until the Pentium that you could actually count
on having a floating-point unit available. The 8086/8088, 80186,
80286, 80386 and 80486 all either didn't ever include a FPU on-die, or
only some variants included a FPU. (In the IBM PC world, that's pretty
much from 1981 to the late 1990s.) On some systems, and with some of
those CPUs, a FPU was an extra chip the user would install, or have
someone install, on the motherboard; with others, the user could
choose to purchase variants with or without a FPU. As a result, for
the better part of two decades, PC software that needed the ability to
do floating-point calculations but couldn't require a separate
hardware FPU shipped with support for emulating floating point in
software. Again, the emulation was slower, but it got the job done,
and it allowed running the software on a huge portion of the hardware
base which otherwise wouldn't have been able to do so.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From imp at bsdimp.com  Sun Oct 20 06:19:14 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 14:19:14 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel related question
In-Reply-To: <1bdfce73d1d30be76bee52287a510334@firemail.de>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2N=mcR3X=rg=or_19y9pwq5dijbOou53pCiMj1+h7ng8A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBf-gbwypJtUzwgCeTYM6YRwbnsJUoUEYDG7PK3fPCLvYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1bdfce73d1d30be76bee52287a510334@firemail.de>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfq81Pg60n11kcauQq3s_6TNKdcX1cVQXcqeyHSj99gkMg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 1:56 PM Thomas Paulsen <thomas.paulsen at firemail.de>
wrote:

> s there a authentic space travel release available in C for Linux?
>

Nope

>
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Sun Oct 20 06:24:52 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 16:24:52 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CAEdTPBf-gbwypJtUzwgCeTYM6YRwbnsJUoUEYDG7PK3fPCLvYQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2N=mcR3X=rg=or_19y9pwq5dijbOou53pCiMj1+h7ng8A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEdTPBf-gbwypJtUzwgCeTYM6YRwbnsJUoUEYDG7PK3fPCLvYQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4b8b55d6-d4a2-1743-898d-ef61a44de088@kilonet.net>

On 10/19/2019 3:50 PM, Henry Bent wrote:
> The idea is to squeeze as much apparent visual performance out of a 
> system as possible, so an example might be scrolling characters across 
> the screen while a wireframe cube rotates in the background, all on a 
> Commodore VIC-20 with 4K of RAM.
You ain't lived until you try to take Impossible Mission from the 
Commodore 64, and convert it to an Atari 7800 using that Maria 
steaming-pile-of-doodoo. Talk about optimizing ;)

art k.


From rich.salz at gmail.com  Sun Oct 20 06:29:10 2019
From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Richard Salz)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 16:29:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Vaxen, my children...
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2PXv7KUR3q3GXsyqZbM+fgk+xqexVdh0+UghnF5FxvAUg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CAC20D2PXv7KUR3q3GXsyqZbM+fgk+xqexVdh0+UghnF5FxvAUg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAFH29tq+XUULwcC0fEo4MWEjrSQW9SOzvtuSe=axpbAN9L3vKA@mail.gmail.com>

In other words, not true.

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 3:29 PM Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> An old Usenet Apocrypha message.    IIRC this show up after the great
> automated crash in 1987 and was being used an example of why the IBM
> monoculture led to the melt down of the markets.
>
> On Fri, Oct 18, 2019 at 9:16 PM Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> A little off-topic, but quite amusing...
>>
>> -- Dave
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>
>> Time to post this classic; I don't recall who wrote it.  Note that the
>> references are pretty obscure now...
>>
>> -----
>>
>> VAXen, my children, just don't belong some places.  In my business, I am
>> frequently called by small sites and startups having VAX problems.  So
>> when a
>> friend of mine in an Extremely Large Financial Institution (ELFI) called
>> me one
>> day to ask for help, I was intrigued because this outfit is a really
>> major VAX
>> user - they have several large herds of VAXen - and plenty of sharp
>> VAXherds to
>> take care of them.
>>
>> So I went to see what sort of an ELFI mess they had gotten into.  It
>> seems they
>> had shoved a small 750 with two RA60s running a single application, PC
>> style,
>> into a data center with two IBM 3090s and just about all the rest of the
>> disk
>> drives in the world.  The computer room was so big it had three street
>> addresses.  The operators had only IBM experience and, to quote my
>> friend, they
>> were having "a little trouble adjusting to the VAX", were a bit hostile
>> towards
>> it and probably needed some help with system management.  Hmmm,
>> hostility...
>> Sigh.
>>
>> Well, I thought it was pretty ridiculous for an outfit with all that VAX
>> muscle
>> elsewhere to isolate a dinky old 750 in their Big Blue Country, and said
>> so
>> bluntly.  But my friend patiently explained that although small, it was
>> an
>> "extremely sensitive and confidential application."  It seems that the
>> 750 had
>> originally been properly clustered with the rest of a herd and in the
>> care of
>> one of their best VAXherds.  But the trouble started when the Chief User
>> went
>> to visit his computer and its VAXherd.
>>
>> He came away visibly disturbed and immediately complained to the ELFI's
>> Director of Data Processing that, "There are some very strange people in
>> there
>> with the computers."  Now since this user person was the Comptroller of
>> this
>> Extremely Large Financial Institution, the 750 had been promptly hustled
>> over
>> to the IBM data center which the Comptroller said, "was a more suitable
>> place."
>> The people there wore shirts and ties and didn't wear head bands or
>> cowboy
>> hats.
>>
>> So my friend introduced me to the Comptroller, who turned out to be five
>> feet
>> tall, 85 and a former gnome of Zurich.  He had a young apprentice gnome
>> who was
>> about 65.  The two gnomes interviewed me in whispers for about an hour
>> before
>> they decided my modes of dress and speech were suitable for managing
>> their
>> system and I got the assignment.
>>
>> There was some confusion, understandably, when I explained that I would
>> immediately establish a procedure for nightly backups.  The senior gnome
>> seemed
>> to think I was going to put the computer in reverse, but the apprentice's
>> son
>> had an IBM PC and he quickly whispered that "backup" meant making a copy
>> of a
>> program borrowed from a friend and why was I doing that?  Sigh.
>>
>> I was shortly introduced to the manager of the IBM data center, who
>> greeted me
>> with joy and anything but hostility.  And the operators really weren't
>> hostile
>> - it just seemed that way.  It's like the driver of a Mack 18 wheeler,
>> with a
>> condo behind the cab, who was doing 75 when he ran over a moped doing its
>> best
>> to get away at 45.  He explained sadly, "I really warn't mad at mopeds
>> but to
>> keep from runnin' over that'n, I'da had to slow down or change lanes!"
>>
>> Now the only operation they had figured out how to do on the 750 was
>> reboot it.
>> This was their universal cure for any and all problems. After all it
>> works on a
>> PC, why not a VAX?  Was there a difference? Sigh.
>>
>> But I smiled and said, "No sweat, I'll train you.  The first command you
>> learn
>> is HELP" and proceeded to type it in on the console terminal.  So the
>> data
>> center manager, the shift supervisor and the eight day-operators watched
>> the
>> LA100 buzz out the usual introductory text.  When it finished they turned
>> to me
>> with expectant faces and I said in an avuncular manner, "This is your
>> most
>> important command!"
>>
>> The shift supervisor stepped forward and studied the text for about a
>> minute.
>> He then turned with a very puzzled expression on his face and asked,
>> "What do
>> you use it for?"  Sigh.
>>
>> Well, I tried everything.  I trained and I put the doc set on shelves by
>> the
>> 750 and I wrote a special 40 page doc set and then a four page doc set.
>> I
>> designed all kinds of command files to make complex operations into
>> simple
>> foreign commands and I taped a list of these simplified commands to the
>> top of
>> the VAX.  The most successful move was adding my home phone number.
>>
>> The cheat sheets taped on the top of the CPU cabinet needed continual
>> maintenance, however.  It seems the VAX was in the quietest part of the
>> data
>> center, over behind the scratch tape racks.  The operators ate lunch on
>> the CPU
>> cabinet and the sheets quickly became coated with pizza drippings, etc.
>>
>> But still the most used solution to hangups was a reboot and I gradually
>> got
>> things organized so that during the day when the gnomes were using the
>> system,
>> the operators didn't have to touch it.  This smoothed things out a lot.
>>
>> Meanwhile, the data center was getting new TV security cameras, a halon
>> gas
>> fire extinguisher system and an immortal power source.  The data center
>> manager
>> apologized because the VAX had not been foreseen in the plan and so could
>> not
>> be connected to immortal power.  The VAX and I felt a little rejected but
>> I
>> made sure that booting on power recovery was working right. At least it
>> would
>> get going again quickly when power came back.
>>
>> Anyway, as a consolation prize, the data center manager said he would
>> have one
>> of the security cameras adjusted to cover the VAX.  I thought to myself,
>> "Great, now we can have 24 hour video tapes of the operators eating
>> Chinese
>> takeout on the CPU."  I resolved to get a piece of plastic to cover the
>> cheat
>> sheets.
>>
>> One day, the apprentice gnome called to whisper that the senior was going
>> to
>> give an extremely important demonstration.  Now I must explain that what
>> the
>> 750 was really doing was holding our National Debt.  The Reagan
>> administration
>> had decided to privatize it and had quietly put it out for bid.  My
>> Extreme
>> Large Financial Institution had won the bid for it and was, as ELFIs are
>> wont
>> to do, making an absolute bundle on the float.
>>
>> On Monday the Comptroller was going to demonstrate to the board of
>> directors
>> how he could move a trillion dollars from Switzerland to the Bahamas.
>> The
>> apprentice whispered, "Would you please look in on our computer?  I'm
>> sure
>> everything will be fine, sir, but we will feel better if you are
>> present.  I'm
>> sure you understand?"  I did.
>>
>> Monday morning, I got there about five hours before the scheduled demo to
>> check
>> things over.  Everything was cool.  I was chatting with the shift
>> supervisor
>> and about to go upstairs to the Comptroller's office.  Suddenly there was
>> a
>> power failure.
>>
>> The emergency lighting came on and the immortal power system took over
>> the load
>> of the IBM 3090s.  They continued smoothly, but of course the VAX, still
>> on
>> city power, died.  Everyone smiled and the dead 750 was no big deal
>> because it
>> was 7 AM and gnomes don't work before 10 AM.  I began worrying about
>> whether I
>> could beg some immortal power from the data center manager in case this
>> was a
>> long outage.
>>
>> Immortal power in this system comes from storage batteries for the first
>> five
>> minutes of an outage.  Promptly at one minute into the outage we hear the
>> gas
>> turbine powered generator in the sub-basement under us automatically
>> start up
>> getting ready to take the load on the fifth minute. We all beam at each
>> other.
>>
>> At two minutes into the outage we hear the whine of the backup gas
>> turbine
>> generator starting.  The 3090s and all those disk drives are doing just
>> fine.
>> Business as usual.  The VAX is dead as a door nail but what the hell.
>>
>> At precisely five minutes into the outage, just as the gas turbine is
>> taking
>> the load, city power comes back on and the immortal power source commits
>> suicide.  Actually it was a double murder and suicide because it took
>> both
>> 3090s with it.
>>
>> So now the whole data center was dead, sort of.  The fire alarm system
>> had its
>> own battery backup and was still alive.  The lead acid storage batteries
>> of the
>> immortal power system had been discharging at a furious rate keeping all
>> those
>> big blue boxes running and there was a significant amount of sulfuric
>> acid
>> vapor.  Nothing actually caught fire but the smoke detectors were
>> convinced it
>> had.
>>
>> The fire alarm klaxon went off and the siren warning of imminent halon
>> gas
>> release was screaming.  We started to panic but the data center manager
>> shouted
>> over the din, "Don't worry, the halon system failed its acceptance test
>> last
>> week.  It's disabled and nothing will happen."
>>
>> He was half right, the primary halon system indeed failed to discharge.
>> But the
>> secondary halon system observed that the primary had conked and instantly
>> did
>> its duty, which was to deal with Dire Disasters.  It had twice the
>> capacity and
>> six times the discharge rate.
>>
>> Now the ear splitting gas discharge under the raised floor was so massive
>> and
>> fast, it blew about half of the floor tiles up out of their framework. It
>> came
>> up through the floor into a communications rack and blew the cover panels
>> off,
>> decking an operator.  Looking out across that vast computer room, we
>> could see
>> the air shimmering as the halon mixed with it.
>>
>> We stampeded for exits to the dying whine of 175 IBM disks.  As I was
>> escaping
>> I glanced back at the VAX, on city power, and noticed the usual
>> flickering of
>> the unit select light on its system disk indicating it was happily
>> rebooting.
>>
>> Twelve firemen with air tanks and axes invaded.  There were frantic phone
>> calls
>> to the local IBM Field Service office because both the live and backup
>> 3090s
>> were down.  About twenty minutes later, seventeen IBM CEs arrived with
>> dozens
>> of boxes and, so help me, a barrel.  It seems they knew what to expect
>> when an
>> immortal power source commits murder.
>>
>> In the midst of absolute pandemonium, I crept off to the gnome office and
>> logged on.  After extensive checking it was clear that everything was
>> just fine
>> with the VAX and I began to calm down.  I called the data center
>> manager's
>> office to tell him the good news.  His secretary answered with, "He isn't
>> expected to be available for some time.  May I take a message?" I left a
>> slightly smug note to the effect that, unlike some other computers, the
>> VAX was
>> intact and functioning normally.
>>
>> Several hours later, the gnome was whispering his way into a
>> demonstration of
>> how to flick a trillion dollars from country 2 to country 5.  He was just
>> coming to the tricky part, where the money had been withdrawn from
>> Switzerland
>> but not yet deposited in the Bahamas.  He was proceeding very slowly and
>> the
>> directors were spellbound.  I decided I had better check up on the data
>> center.
>>
>> Most of the floor tiles were back in place.  IBM had resurrected one of
>> the
>> 3090s and was running tests.  What looked like a bucket brigade was
>> working on
>> the other one.  The communication rack was still naked and a fireman was
>> standing guard over the immortal power corpse.  Life was returning to
>> normal,
>> but the Big Blue Country crew was still pretty shaky.
>>
>> Smiling proudly, I headed back toward the triumphant VAX behind the tape
>> racks
>> where one of the operators was eating a plump jelly bun on the 750 CPU.
>> He saw
>> me coming, turned pale and screamed to the shift supervisor, "Oh my God,
>> we
>> forgot about the VAX!"  Then, before I could open my mouth, he rebooted
>> it.  It
>> was Monday, 19-Oct-1987.  VAXen, my children, just don't belong some
>> places.
>>
>> -- Dave
>>
>
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From ewe2 at ewe2.ninja  Sun Oct 20 06:27:45 2019
From: ewe2 at ewe2.ninja (ewe2)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 16:27:45 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <1571492733.19343.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1571492733.19343.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20191019202745.GA31260@mail.ewe2.ninja>

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 09:45:30AM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
> I'm amused (in a good way) that this thread persists, and
> without becoming boring.
> 
> Speaking as someone who was Ken's sysadmin for six years,
> I find it hard to get upset over someone cracking a password
> hash that has been out in the open for decades, using an
> algorithm that became pragmatically unsafe slightly fewer
> decades ago.  It really shouldn't be in use anywhere any
> more anyway.  Were I still Ken's sysadmin I'd have leaned
> on him to change it long ago.
 
I have a disk from one of Melbourne Uni's old Alpha servers from back in the
1990's and the passwd file is a who's who of staff, but I could only crack 3
of the student's passwords. The system is interesting in other ways, it's a
snapshot of the old oz.au network.

-- 
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise as they fly by.

From krewat at kilonet.net  Sun Oct 20 06:40:14 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 16:40:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
Message-ID: <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>

On 10/19/2019 4:12 PM, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> As long as you have the basic instructions (which pretty much any
> computer capable of doing useful arithemtic calculations will need
> anyway), you can implement the rest of what you need using those
> building blocks. Specific_hardware_  support for floating point
> calculations is not needed.

Not to mention, if you start using log/alog tables, and/or sin/cos/tan 
tables, and interpolation, you can quickly ramp up computation speed for 
simple games that have a small matrix of coordinates. Something like 
EMPIRE becomes quite easy.

Imagine my distress when, after cutting my teeth on a PDP-10, that 
working on a 6502 I had to do my own division. Oh, the HORROR!

art k.


From krewat at kilonet.net  Sun Oct 20 06:41:23 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 16:41:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Recovered /etc/passwd files
In-Reply-To: <20191019202745.GA31260@mail.ewe2.ninja>
References: <1571492733.19343.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191019202745.GA31260@mail.ewe2.ninja>
Message-ID: <239097c0-a864-079b-a5da-ce99a530a3e5@kilonet.net>

On 10/19/2019 4:27 PM, ewe2 wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2019 at 09:45:30AM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
>> I'm amused (in a good way) that this thread persists, and
>> without becoming boring.
>>
>> Speaking as someone who was Ken's sysadmin for six years,
>> I find it hard to get upset over someone cracking a password
>> hash that has been out in the open for decades, using an
>> algorithm that became pragmatically unsafe slightly fewer
>> decades ago.  It really shouldn't be in use anywhere any
>> more anyway.  Were I still Ken's sysadmin I'd have leaned
>> on him to change it long ago.
>   
> I have a disk from one of Melbourne Uni's old Alpha servers from back in the
> 1990's and the passwd file is a who's who of staff, but I could only crack 3
> of the student's passwords. The system is interesting in other ways, it's a
> snapshot of the old oz.au network.
>
Contact me off list ;)

art k.


From michael at kjorling.se  Sun Oct 20 07:15:03 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 21:15:03 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <jgrpbpr4ws4bswhtg9f9ztsg@localhost>

On 19 Oct 2019 16:40 -0400, from krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat):
> Not to mention, if you start using log/alog tables, and/or sin/cos/tan
> tables, and interpolation, you can quickly ramp up computation speed for
> simple games that have a small matrix of coordinates.

Indeed; like I said, at some point, it becomes just a matter of how
quickly you need the answer. It's not really _difficult_ to do any of
this if you're willing to wait a while to learn the value of 1/2. It's
a little more involved if you want log10(e^pi * pi^e) _fast_.

After all, Apollo navigated to, around, and back from, the Moon, using
an on-board computer that today would barely run that thermostat that
someone mentioned. 2048 15+1-bit word RAM (3840 bytes, plus parity),
36864 15+1-bit word ROM (69120 bytes, again plus parity). It could
display three general-purpose five-digit decimal numbers, each with
sign, plus three specific-purpose two-digit decimal numbers, and was
operated using a 19-key keyboard (0-9, plus, minus, and a few function
keys). In fairness, a lot of the heavier calculations were performed
by Mission Control on the ground and the results were uplinked either
digitally or via voice transmission to the spacecraft, but still...
Those programmers didn't exactly have the luxury of, when they
realized they were running out of memory, just sending along the rest
of the software on tape and telling the user to load it on an
as-needed basis.

Premature optimization is the root of all evil in 99% of the cases,
but in that last 1%, a targeted optimization effort is exactly what
you need.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From rminnich at gmail.com  Sun Oct 20 10:36:48 2019
From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 17:36:48 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] 1: jmp 1b
Message-ID: <CAP6exYLY6pkfGX6z_65qcSfApQVzoHDCMxuKUxjih368_=5WVw@mail.gmail.com>

where did the relative labels come from? I still show them to people
when we're doing assembly and still use them all the time. Most people
have not seen them and find them wonderfully convenient. I know they
were in as by the time I came along in 1976; when did they first show
up?

From imp at bsdimp.com  Sun Oct 20 10:44:59 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Sat, 19 Oct 2019 18:44:59 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] 1: jmp 1b
In-Reply-To: <CAP6exYLY6pkfGX6z_65qcSfApQVzoHDCMxuKUxjih368_=5WVw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAP6exYLY6pkfGX6z_65qcSfApQVzoHDCMxuKUxjih368_=5WVw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfpNfN-hA5UsFM__hXDUyFLpaGGFG4wYooQbkVPYryaZKw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 6:37 PM ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:

> where did the relative labels come from? I still show them to people
> when we're doing assembly and still use them all the time. Most people
> have not seen them and find them wonderfully convenient. I know they
> were in as by the time I came along in 1976; when did they first show
> up?
>

The pdp7 as sources have them...

Warner

>
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From aap at papnet.eu  Sun Oct 20 17:14:32 2019
From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 09:14:32 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] 1: jmp 1b
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfpNfN-hA5UsFM__hXDUyFLpaGGFG4wYooQbkVPYryaZKw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAP6exYLY6pkfGX6z_65qcSfApQVzoHDCMxuKUxjih368_=5WVw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfpNfN-hA5UsFM__hXDUyFLpaGGFG4wYooQbkVPYryaZKw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191020071432.GB20503@indra.papnet.eu>

On 19/10/19, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 19, 2019, 6:37 PM ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > where did the relative labels come from? I still show them to people
> > when we're doing assembly and still use them all the time. Most people
> > have not seen them and find them wonderfully convenient. I know they
> > were in as by the time I came along in 1976; when did they first show
> > up?
> >
> 
> The pdp7 as sources have them...

I seem to remember they were suggest by Knuth, but I don't know when and
where, sorry.
I very much agree that they are great.

aap

From norman at oclsc.org  Sun Oct 20 23:38:24 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 09:38:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 1: jmp 1b
Message-ID: <1571578708.16814.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

In `UNIX Assembler Reference Manual,' Dennis credits Knuth
for numeric temporary labels, with a reference to volume 1
of The Art of Computer Programming.

I'm several thousand kilometers from my copy of Knuth (though
rather nearer to Knuth himself, albeit not within asking
range), so I'll leave it to others to track down the exact
reference.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
(temporarily Sacramento CA)

From norman at oclsc.org  Mon Oct 21 05:25:52 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 15:25:52 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Bakul Shah:

  Being an OS student I had read "The Unix Timesharing System" paper by
  Ritchie and Thompson and had wanted to use Unix years before I actually
  had the chance. I don't remember an "Aha!" moment but I took to it like
  a duck to water. Most everything felt just so comfortable and right.
  It was very much as I had imagined it to be.

=====

That's more or less what it was like to me.  Not so much
an aha! moment, more just a feeling of coming home.  It
took a while to understand the different way things worked
in UNIX (I had previously used TOPS-10 for several years)
but as it all sank in it felt more and more right.

C felt the same way.  It took me a while to grok the pointer
syntax (I had done a lot of MACRO-10 programming so I certainly
understood the concept, just not how it fit into the higher-
level language), but things like the three-clause condition
in for so that all control for a loop could be in one place
were just magically right.

I don't think I read the CACM paper before I touched UNIX,
but I had read both editions of Software Tools, so my brain
was perhaps pre-seeded with some of the ideas.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

From ewe2 at ewe2.ninja  Mon Oct 21 06:12:19 2019
From: ewe2 at ewe2.ninja (Sean Dwyer)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 16:12:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 03:25:52PM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
> That's more or less what it was like to me.  Not so much
> an aha! moment, more just a feeling of coming home.  It
> took a while to understand the different way things worked
> in UNIX (I had previously used TOPS-10 for several years)
> but as it all sank in it felt more and more right.

Up to my 30s I had only vaguely known about computers, it definitely wasn't my
thing, I was a musician. But one day I found myself buying a $3k Packard Bell
486, learnt DOS and began buying CD-ROMS with software often taken straight
off the big ftp sites. That is how I discovered Unix and how much better than
DOS it was. Within a year (1994) I was running my own Linux system. There was
a lot of stuff being ported from Solaris and the BSDs and I was learning C
just to build utilities I wanted, but if there was a 'killer app' for me that
was the aha! moment, it was a close contest between adventure and ching.

The odd thing was that adventure was certainly playable, but ching only
existed as a weird hybrid of shell script and two C programs and used some
kind of manpage macros and I didn't understand why but I loved it. That was my
introduction really to the Unix tools philosophy and suddenly the way my Linux
system worked made sense. Being also a history buff I wanted to know how this
all happened and that led to Don Libes and Life With Unix and my fate was
sealed.

-- 
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise as they fly by.

From tuhs at t.lastninja.net  Mon Oct 21 07:34:57 2019
From: tuhs at t.lastninja.net (Naveen Nathan)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:34:57 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is now out
Message-ID: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>

It can be purchased here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552/

- Naveen


From imp at bsdimp.com  Mon Oct 21 08:05:30 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 16:05:30 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoRdr5qf8aXgW7RUv4BqSxkPqvtNJM9i_w9B4OD=P2CtA@mail.gmail.com>

Any way to buy it on kindle?

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 3:35 PM Naveen Nathan <tuhs at t.lastninja.net> wrote:

> It can be purchased here:
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552/
>
> - Naveen
>
>
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From norman at oclsc.org  Mon Oct 21 08:43:46 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 18:43:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
Message-ID: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.

I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback, `Independently
published.'  Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in bricks-and-mortar
bookshops any time soon?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

From lm at mcvoy.com  Mon Oct 21 10:06:03 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 17:06:03 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191021000603.GE27969@mcvoy.com>

Ordered.  Now can we get bwk on the list?

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 08:34:57AM +1100, Naveen Nathan wrote:
> It can be purchased here:
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552/
> 
> - Naveen

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com  Mon Oct 21 10:54:23 2019
From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 20:54:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <20191021000603.GE27969@mcvoy.com>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
 <20191021000603.GE27969@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CAHYQbfBysnhSFUtOCkUws17ZtB7kdE-tDrA+F4StysPLfikerg@mail.gmail.com>

heh.  +1 on both points


On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 8:06 PM Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> Ordered.  Now can we get bwk on the list?
>
> On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 08:34:57AM +1100, Naveen Nathan wrote:
> > It can be purchased here:
> > https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552/
> >
> > - Naveen
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
>
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From ken at google.com  Mon Oct 21 12:31:55 2019
From: ken at google.com (Ken Thompson)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 19:31:55 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
Message-ID: <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>

i was writing the small utilities for the first
pdp-11 unix. (rm ls date ....)

so, cd was next.

% pwd
/usr/ken
% cd /tmp
% pwd
/usr/ken

Aha!

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 1:12 PM Sean Dwyer <ewe2 at ewe2.ninja> wrote:
>
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 03:25:52PM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
> > That's more or less what it was like to me.  Not so much
> > an aha! moment, more just a feeling of coming home.  It
> > took a while to understand the different way things worked
> > in UNIX (I had previously used TOPS-10 for several years)
> > but as it all sank in it felt more and more right.
>
> Up to my 30s I had only vaguely known about computers, it definitely wasn't my
> thing, I was a musician. But one day I found myself buying a $3k Packard Bell
> 486, learnt DOS and began buying CD-ROMS with software often taken straight
> off the big ftp sites. That is how I discovered Unix and how much better than
> DOS it was. Within a year (1994) I was running my own Linux system. There was
> a lot of stuff being ported from Solaris and the BSDs and I was learning C
> just to build utilities I wanted, but if there was a 'killer app' for me that
> was the aha! moment, it was a close contest between adventure and ching.
>
> The odd thing was that adventure was certainly playable, but ching only
> existed as a weird hybrid of shell script and two C programs and used some
> kind of manpage macros and I didn't understand why but I loved it. That was my
> introduction really to the Unix tools philosophy and suddenly the way my Linux
> system worked made sense. Being also a history buff I wanted to know how this
> all happened and that led to Don Libes and Life With Unix and my fate was
> sealed.
>
> --
> I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise as they fly by.

From wkt at tuhs.org  Mon Oct 21 12:37:20 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 12:37:20 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191021023720.GA12808@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 07:31:55PM -0700, Ken Thompson via TUHS wrote:
> i was writing the small utilities for the first
> pdp-11 unix. (rm ls date ....)
> 
> so, cd was next.
> 
> % pwd
> /usr/ken
> % cd /tmp
> % pwd
> /usr/ken
> 
> Aha!

As in, 'cd' has to be built into the shell. If it's external, the forked
child gets to change directory and the parent shell doesn't. I'm just
putting this in for those who didn't spot the nuance immediately -- took
me a few tens of seconds.

But wasn't "chdir" built into the PDP-7 Unix shell?

Thanks, Warren

From bakul at bitblocks.com  Mon Oct 21 12:40:50 2019
From: bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 19:40:50 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 20 Oct 2019 19:31:55 -0700."
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191021024058.1D136156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>

On Sun, 20 Oct 2019 19:31:55 -0700 Ken Thompson via TUHS <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org> wrote:
> i was writing the small utilities for the first
> pdp-11 unix. (rm ls date ....)
>
> so, cd was next.
>
> % pwd
> /usr/ken
> % cd /tmp
> % pwd
> /usr/ken
>
> Aha!

It was probably more like this:
% pwd
/usr/ken

?
Aha!

From Caipenghui_c at 163.com  Mon Oct 21 12:41:37 2019
From: Caipenghui_c at 163.com (Caipenghui)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:41:37 +0800
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfoRdr5qf8aXgW7RUv4BqSxkPqvtNJM9i_w9B4OD=P2CtA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoRdr5qf8aXgW7RUv4BqSxkPqvtNJM9i_w9B4OD=P2CtA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CBBD32C1-5FF4-4120-8DBC-D47F22F9CAEB@163.com>

ok,He looks good..Hope to produce an electronic version...... 

于 2019年10月21日 GMT+08:00 上午6:05:30, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> 写到:
>Any way to buy it on kindle?
>
>On Sun, Oct 20, 2019, 3:35 PM Naveen Nathan <tuhs at t.lastninja.net>
>wrote:
>
>> It can be purchased here:
>> https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552/
>>
>> - Naveen
>>
>>
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Mon Oct 21 12:45:04 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2019 19:45:04 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191021024504.GI27969@mcvoy.com>

On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 07:31:55PM -0700, Ken Thompson via TUHS wrote:
> i was writing the small utilities for the first
> pdp-11 unix. (rm ls date ....)
> 
> so, cd was next.
> 
> % pwd
> /usr/ken
> % cd /tmp
> % pwd
> /usr/ken
> 
> Aha!

I'm old and slow, had to think about that one.  Aha indeed!

From dave at horsfall.org  Mon Oct 21 14:55:30 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 15:55:30 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211547580.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019, Michael Kjörling wrote:

> If you want an example that might perhaps be easier to relate to, on the 
> IBM PC, it wasn't until the Pentium that you could actually count on 
> having a floating-point unit available. [...]

Am I the only one who remembers the Defectium (as we called it)?  Intel 
denied the the problem until their noses got rubbed into it, after which 
they instructed Sales to refuse replacements for any chip that failed 
after using a demo program that demonstrated said defect, claiming that it 
would hardly ever happen.

Err, would you fly on an aircraft designed by Defectiums?  Or cross a 
bridge, etc?

-- Dave

From dave at horsfall.org  Mon Oct 21 15:03:08 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:03:08 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Vaxen, my children...
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29tq+XUULwcC0fEo4MWEjrSQW9SOzvtuSe=axpbAN9L3vKA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910191214420.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CAC20D2PXv7KUR3q3GXsyqZbM+fgk+xqexVdh0+UghnF5FxvAUg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFH29tq+XUULwcC0fEo4MWEjrSQW9SOzvtuSe=axpbAN9L3vKA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211556440.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019, Richard Salz wrote:

> In other words, not true.

I never claimed that it was true, given that I saw it in a humo[u]r 
newsgroup many years ago.  Perhaps net.humor.funny?

The line at the end, "It was Monday, 19-Oct-1987" ought to provide a 
chrome-plated hint; I snagged it around then and saved it, reposting it at 
various times on its anniversary.

-- Dave

From dave at horsfall.org  Mon Oct 21 15:14:09 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:14:09 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211604030.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 19 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:

> Not to mention, if you start using log/alog tables, and/or sin/cos/tan 
> tables, and interpolation, you can quickly ramp up computation speed for 
> simple games that have a small matrix of coordinates. Something like 
> EMPIRE becomes quite easy.

Star Wars on a GT-40, which Andrew Hume (formerly UNSW, who is now at Bell 
last I heard) reverse-engineered to support three players, not two.

Oddly enough, DEC Field Circus stopped replacing GT-40 switch consoles
after that (certain keys were worn out)...

> Imagine my distress when, after cutting my teeth on a PDP-10, that 
> working on a 6502 I had to do my own division. Oh, the HORROR!

And you tell that to the young people of day, and they won't believe 
you...

Now, where did I put my Z-80 full ANSI C Compiler...

-- Dave

From lars at nocrew.org  Mon Oct 21 15:23:45 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 05:23:45 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211604030.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 (Dave Horsfall's message of "Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:14:09 +1100 (EST)")
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211604030.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <7w7e4yisda.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Dave Horsfall wrote:
> Star Wars on a GT-40, which Andrew Hume (formerly UNSW, who is now at
> Bell last I heard) reverse-engineered to support three players, not
> two.

Does that still exist?

From aap at papnet.eu  Mon Oct 21 16:22:42 2019
From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:22:42 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
Message-ID: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>

DMR explained how PDP-7 UNIX was used in "The Evolution of the Unix
Time-sharing System" but having played with it myself, I stumbled in a
couple of cases and found it a bit awkward to use.
Maybe someone (ken and doug?) can shed some light on "elaborate set of
conventions" that dmr mentioned.

My questions are these:


you cannot execute a program if you're in a directory you can't write into.

	I asked Warren about this when I first tried pdp7 unix and he
explained it to me: the shell creates a link to the binary and executes
it. If it can't write into the current directory, it fails to create the
link and hence can't execute the program.
	How was this handled in practice? did users have write
permissions on all directories? did you just stay in your directory all
the time?


. and ..

	Was this introduced first with PDP-11 unix or did the convention
start on the PDP-7 already? It certainly seems to be the case with .
but how about ..? the dd directory seems to take on the role of a sort
of root directory and the now discovered program pd actually creates a
file .. (haven't tried to understand what it does though yet)
What does dd stand for, dotdot? directory directory?


aap

From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Mon Oct 21 20:43:54 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:13:54 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>

>
> . and ..
>
>         Was this introduced first with PDP-11 unix or did the convention
> start on the PDP-7 already? It certainly seems to be the case with .
> but how about ..? the dd directory seems to take on the role of a sort
> of root directory and the now discovered program pd actually creates a
> file .. (haven't tried to understand what it does though yet)
> What does dd stand for, dotdot? directory directory?
>
>
>
. and .. are quite intuitive the more I think about it, they're essentially
acting as symbolic representations of the 'current' and 'parent' dirs as
in, when we look at it from / :

                   /
       |--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
     /etc /bin /root /home /mnt /dev /usr
       |--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
     ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../

As we see, each of the subdirectories hold a / prefix to them as we're used
to seeing, and this translated to the subfolders having their ../
descriptor denoting their parent (I think of them as recursive pointers to
parent dirs), where the parent holds ../ and child dir has a name like /..
and invoking

I don't know if it wasn't until the mkdir() syscall was added this approach
took form. There was an earlier 'Aha, Unix!' thread where Ken had mentioned
a similar thing, where invoking pwd gave only the /usr/name directory even
if the directory had been changed with chdir, essentially stemming out of
only the forked child changing dirs, when the cd wasn't built into the
shell (this was in the PDP-11 when he was writing the initial set utilities
like cd, ls)

Also, depending on the implementation of 'ls' we were to try this out
today, these are bound to have their differences. The original syscalls on
the PDP-7 had chdir,

swp:			" system call dispatch table
   jmp .		" base instruction
   .save; .getuid; .open; .read; .write; .creat; .seek; .tell
   .close; .link; .unlink; .setuid; .rename; .exit; .time; .intrp
   .chdir; .chmod; .chown; badcal; .sysloc; badcal; .capt; .rele
   .status; badcal; .smes; .rmes; .fork


mkdir was probably in the works at this stage.

We should also touch upon the "cd -" as this one takes you back like a back
button into the directory you were last inside, whereas the cd ../.. takes
you up or down the hierarchy depending on the placement of the / and adding
placeholders i.e directory names in place of the .. (dots).

Of course, only the creators can embark upon the design details of the
hierarchical system and the reasons behind all the above and more.

Since you mentioned the word dd, the utility which serves me like none
other for my frequent rewrites of images, it too has an interesting past,
it seems like 'dd' was non-unixy in it's design approach, if I'm to believe
the lores around, which leads me to think that this might have been another
one of the many idiosyncratic naming conventions used back then. More on
the dd stuff: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/dd.html

Personally, I just like to think of it in my head as disk-disk.

-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From jason-tuhs at shalott.net  Mon Oct 21 20:45:40 2019
From: jason-tuhs at shalott.net (jason-tuhs at shalott.net)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 03:45:40 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191021024504.GI27969@mcvoy.com>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191021024504.GI27969@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.LRH.2.21.1910210322180.2617@waffle.shalott.net>


>> % pwd
>> /usr/ken
>> % cd /tmp
>> % pwd
>> /usr/ken
>>
>> Aha!

> I'm old and slow, had to think about that one.  Aha indeed!

I've actually been asking this (or, as a variation, how a child can set 
environment in its parent) as an interview question for unix sysadmins for 
the past fifteen or so years.  Maybe one in three gets it.

The answer that I'm secretly hoping for, no one has ever yet given me:


hashbrown/home/jason-112719: /bin/pwd
/home/jason

hashbrown/home/jason-112720: ./cd.sh /tmp

hashbrown/home/jason-112721: /bin/pwd
/tmp

hashbrown/home/jason-112722: cat cd.sh
cat: cd.sh: No such file or directory

hashbrown/home/jason-112723: cat ~/cd.sh
#!/bin/sh

test -n "$1" && TARGET=$1 || TARGET=$HOME

( echo "call (int) chdir(\"$TARGET\")" ; echo detach ; echo quit ) | gdb -q -p $PPID >/dev/null 2>&1 &


"With ptrace(2) all things are possible."


  -Jason


From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Mon Oct 21 21:38:11 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 17:08:11 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5rjiezTY0DM+B9Gafa3DZDHPCbKPhAxttu91LD+zX=f9Vw@mail.gmail.com>

Also, I only now realized that only mknod existed, up until a long time,
only later on with the GNU coreutils did mkdir as a command come into
existence. Running the PDP-11 v7 on SIMH showed that, gotten so accustomed
to the Linux env that thinking backwards seemed suddenly arcane.

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 4:13 PM Abhinav Rajagopalan <
abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>> . and ..
>>
>>         Was this introduced first with PDP-11 unix or did the convention
>> start on the PDP-7 already? It certainly seems to be the case with .
>> but how about ..? the dd directory seems to take on the role of a sort
>> of root directory and the now discovered program pd actually creates a
>> file .. (haven't tried to understand what it does though yet)
>> What does dd stand for, dotdot? directory directory?
>>
>>
>>
> . and .. are quite intuitive the more I think about it, they're
> essentially acting as symbolic representations of the 'current' and
> 'parent' dirs as in, when we look at it from / :
>
>                    /
>        |--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
>      /etc /bin /root /home /mnt /dev /usr
>        |--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|
>      ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../ ../
>
> As we see, each of the subdirectories hold a / prefix to them as we're
> used to seeing, and this translated to the subfolders having their ../
> descriptor denoting their parent (I think of them as recursive pointers to
> parent dirs), where the parent holds ../ and child dir has a name like /..
> and invoking
>
> I don't know if it wasn't until the mkdir() syscall was added this
> approach took form. There was an earlier 'Aha, Unix!' thread where Ken had
> mentioned a similar thing, where invoking pwd gave only the /usr/name
> directory even if the directory had been changed with chdir, essentially
> stemming out of only the forked child changing dirs, when the cd wasn't
> built into the shell (this was in the PDP-11 when he was writing the
> initial set utilities like cd, ls)
>
> Also, depending on the implementation of 'ls' we were to try this out
> today, these are bound to have their differences. The original syscalls on
> the PDP-7 had chdir,
>
> swp:			" system call dispatch table
>    jmp .		" base instruction
>    .save; .getuid; .open; .read; .write; .creat; .seek; .tell
>    .close; .link; .unlink; .setuid; .rename; .exit; .time; .intrp
>    .chdir; .chmod; .chown; badcal; .sysloc; badcal; .capt; .rele
>    .status; badcal; .smes; .rmes; .fork
>
>
> mkdir was probably in the works at this stage.
>
> We should also touch upon the "cd -" as this one takes you back like a
> back button into the directory you were last inside, whereas the cd ../..
> takes you up or down the hierarchy depending on the placement of the / and
> adding placeholders i.e directory names in place of the .. (dots).
>
> Of course, only the creators can embark upon the design details of the
> hierarchical system and the reasons behind all the above and more.
>
> Since you mentioned the word dd, the utility which serves me like none
> other for my frequent rewrites of images, it too has an interesting past,
> it seems like 'dd' was non-unixy in it's design approach, if I'm to believe
> the lores around, which leads me to think that this might have been another
> one of the many idiosyncratic naming conventions used back then. More on
> the dd stuff: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/dd.html
>
> Personally, I just like to think of it in my head as disk-disk.
>
> --
>
> Abhinav Rajagopalan
>
>
>

-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From wlc at jctaylor.com  Mon Oct 21 21:55:38 2019
From: wlc at jctaylor.com (William Corcoran)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 11:55:38 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LRH.2.21.1910210322180.2617@waffle.shalott.net>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191021024504.GI27969@mcvoy.com>,
 <alpine.LRH.2.21.1910210322180.2617@waffle.shalott.net>
Message-ID: <5640BEA7-8340-4E65-B786-E08EF2BB3EA7@jctaylor.com>

You could cheat a little:

CHDIR=/usr/newFolder
echo “cd ${CHDIR}” > ./changeEnv
.   ./changeEnv


Bill Corcoran 


> On Oct 21, 2019, at 6:52 AM, "jason-tuhs at shalott.net" <jason-tuhs at shalott.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>>> % pwd
>>> /usr/ken
>>> % cd /tmp
>>> % pwd
>>> /usr/ken
>>> 
>>> Aha!
> 
>> I'm old and slow, had to think about that one.  Aha indeed!
> 
> I've actually been asking this (or, as a variation, how a child can set environment in its parent) as an interview question for unix sysadmins for the past fifteen or so years.  Maybe one in three gets it.
> 
> The answer that I'm secretly hoping for, no one has ever yet given me:
> 
> 
> hashbrown/home/jason-112719: /bin/pwd
> /home/jason
> 
> hashbrown/home/jason-112720: ./cd.sh /tmp
> 
> hashbrown/home/jason-112721: /bin/pwd
> /tmp
> 
> hashbrown/home/jason-112722: cat cd.sh
> cat: cd.sh: No such file or directory
> 
> hashbrown/home/jason-112723: cat ~/cd.sh
> #!/bin/sh
> 
> test -n "$1" && TARGET=$1 || TARGET=$HOME
> 
> ( echo "call (int) chdir(\"$TARGET\")" ; echo detach ; echo quit ) | gdb -q -p $PPID >/dev/null 2>&1 &
> 
> 
> "With ptrace(2) all things are possible."
> 
> 
> -Jason
> 

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 21 21:58:29 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 07:58:29 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
Message-ID: <20191021115829.C05FB18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Abhinav Rajagopalan

    > I only now realized that only mknod existed, up until a long time, only
    > later on with the GNU coreutils did mkdir as a command come into
    > existence.

Huh? See:

    https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/man/man1/mkdir.1

(And probably before that, that was the quickest one to find?)

Maybe that was a typo for 'mkdir as a system call'? (I recall having to do a
fork() to execute 'mkdir', back when.) But 4.2 had mkdir().

       Noel


From thomas.paulsen at firemail.de  Mon Oct 21 22:00:30 2019
From: thomas.paulsen at firemail.de (Thomas Paulsen)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 14:00:30 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5rjiezTY0DM+B9Gafa3DZDHPCbKPhAxttu91LD+zX=f9Vw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANOZ5rjiezTY0DM+B9Gafa3DZDHPCbKPhAxttu91LD+zX=f9Vw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <be9f73c626b3f12da38ab1e59abd96c9@firemail.de>


> Also, I only now realized that only mknod existed, up until a long time,
>
> only later on with the GNU coreutils did mkdir as a command come into
> existence. Running the PDP-11 v7 on SIMH showed that, gotten so accustomed
>
> to the Linux env that thinking backwards seemed suddenly arcane.
>
that's not true. mkdir isn't a GNU invention. Its much older.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mkdir#History
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/mknod.2.html



From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 21 22:10:00 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:10:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191021121000.34E3B18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org>

    > But wasn't "chdir" built into the PDP-7 Unix shell?

No.  See "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", in section "Process
control".

Also, the old 'cd' had different syntax than today's (since there was no notion
of a pathname in the earliest Unix); it took instead a list of directories (e.g.
"cd dd ken").

    Noel


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 21 22:34:20 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:34:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191021123420.EB37518C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

{Been meaning to get to this one for a while...}

    > From: Pat Barron <patbarron at acm.org>

    > The idea of processes being able to talk to each other (without some
    > kind of pre-arrangement, like setting up a pipe between them, or using
    > temporary files) was just amazing ... On V7m, I stumbled across the
    > mpx(5) man page.

It's probably worth pointing out that before V7, stock Unix _didn't_ have a
way for two un-related processes to communicate, hence the invention of port()
by Rand. See:

  https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6
  https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=BBN-V6/doc/ipc

(Note: BBN did _not_ do the original port() stuff, they just used it.)

       Noel

From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Mon Oct 21 23:31:45 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 19:01:45 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <be9f73c626b3f12da38ab1e59abd96c9@firemail.de>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANOZ5rjiezTY0DM+B9Gafa3DZDHPCbKPhAxttu91LD+zX=f9Vw@mail.gmail.com>
 <be9f73c626b3f12da38ab1e59abd96c9@firemail.de>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5rhRWJzLPjR9O2Gu_txdCP67XX1N-HfQ_=FHACOTBXJTpw@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks, didn't mean it as a GNU thing at all. Sure, mkdir would've existed
back in research Unix too. My experience has only been limited to the Linux
envs, which is why I was led to attribute mkdir to the evolution in
mknod(), I only know that they all either descended down from SysV or BSD,
those who have used the real Unices would know better. Seeing as I haven't
had the privilege of using any except briefly on an emulator.

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 5:30 PM Thomas Paulsen <thomas.paulsen at firemail.de>
wrote:

>
> > Also, I only now realized that only mknod existed, up until a long time,
> >
> > only later on with the GNU coreutils did mkdir as a command come into
> > existence. Running the PDP-11 v7 on SIMH showed that, gotten so
> accustomed
> >
> > to the Linux env that thinking backwards seemed suddenly arcane.
> >
> that's not true. mkdir isn't a GNU invention. Its much older.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mkdir#History
> http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man2/mknod.2.html
>
>
>

-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Mon Oct 21 23:59:28 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 09:59:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <7w7e4yisda.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211604030.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <7w7e4yisda.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp-2ow3Ub72zwQEacaqtFhuL_bVGEzgaAxCg6uS4gzi3Gw@mail.gmail.com>

Andrew left Bell Labs for AT&T Labs when Alcatel took over the Bell Labs
name. He is/was reachable at andrew at humeweb.com. I'm cc-ing him. He might
enjoy the goings-on here.

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 1:24 AM Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:

> Dave Horsfall wrote:
> > Star Wars on a GT-40, which Andrew Hume (formerly UNSW, who is now at
> > Bell last I heard) reverse-engineered to support three players, not
> > two.
>
> Does that still exist?
>
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From leah at vuxu.org  Tue Oct 22 00:05:17 2019
From: leah at vuxu.org (Leah Neukirchen)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 16:05:17 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] 1: jmp 1b
In-Reply-To: <1571578708.16814.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org> (Norman
 Wilson's message of "Sun, 20 Oct 2019 09:38:24 -0400")
References: <1571578708.16814.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <87v9sinqhu.fsf@vuxu.org>

Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> writes:

> In `UNIX Assembler Reference Manual,' Dennis credits Knuth
> for numeric temporary labels, with a reference to volume 1
> of The Art of Computer Programming.
>
> I'm several thousand kilometers from my copy of Knuth (though
> rather nearer to Knuth himself, albeit not within asking
> range), so I'll leave it to others to track down the exact
> reference.

TAOCP 1 (1968), page 147:

"Local symbols have a different nature; we write, for example 2H
("2 here") in the location field, and 2F ("2 forward") or 2B
("2 backward") in the address field of a MIXAL line:

  2B means the closest previous location 2H
  2F means the closest following location 2H

[...]

The idea of local symbols was introduced by M. E. Conway in 1958,
in connection with an assembly program for the UNIVAC 1."

This is the originator of Conway's Law, btw.  I could not find
more detail about this assembler.

-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah at vuxu.org>  https://leahneukirchen.org/

From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Tue Oct 22 00:09:32 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 10:09:32 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 1: jmp 1b
In-Reply-To: <1571578708.16814.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1571578708.16814.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp-keuXCUXs3VGBCqywW2ay1zBnvaU_reKUH=MDV7ZS7Qw@mail.gmail.com>

I'm seldom more than a couple feet from my Knuth, Second Printing 1969,
$19.50 at the Tech Coop.

On page 147, Knuth credits

The idea of local symbols was introduced by M. E. Conway in 1958, in
connection with an assembly program for the UNIVAC 1.


On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 9:41 AM Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

> In `UNIX Assembler Reference Manual,' Dennis credits Knuth
> for numeric temporary labels, with a reference to volume 1
> of The Art of Computer Programming.
>
> I'm several thousand kilometers from my copy of Knuth (though
> rather nearer to Knuth himself, albeit not within asking
> range), so I'll leave it to others to track down the exact
> reference.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
> (temporarily Sacramento CA)
>
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From patbarron at acm.org  Tue Oct 22 01:10:49 2019
From: patbarron at acm.org (Pat Barron)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 11:10:49 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Vaxen, my children...
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1910211106490.12596@booboo.lectroid.com>

On the copy of this story that appears here:

http://crash.com/fun/texts/vaxen-dont.html

it is atrributed as such:

'The author of this piece is Jack Harvey, harvey(at)eisner.decus.org, and 
it was originally published under the title "The Immortal Murderer" on 
January 18th, 1989 on DECUServe, the DECUS member bulletin board.'

--Pat.

From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Tue Oct 22 01:44:20 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 21:14:20 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191021115829.C05FB18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191021115829.C05FB18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5ri7Ec83232g51pkayK1BK8veSrUHGQW0czN=7H3WRM==Q@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks, mkdir actually seems to go back to V4.

Also, V4 was the first to have the kernel in a 'high level language' C,
from the V4 tree,

The files in nsys/ come from nsys.tar.gz
> <http://minnie.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v3/nsys.tar.gz>,
> which was donated by Dennis Ritchie. This is a version of the kernel quite
> close to that released in Fourth Edition, but *without pipes*. Dennis
> Ritchie writes:



> This is a tar archive derived from a DECtape labelled "nsys". What is
> contains is just the kernel source, written in the pre-K&R dialect of C. It
> is intended only for PDP-11/45, and has setup and memory-handling code that
> will not work on other models (it's missing things special to the later,
> smaller models, and the larger physical address space of the still later
> 11/70.) It appears that it is intended to be loaded into memory at physical
> address 0, and transferred to at location 0.


The efforts behind the PDP-7 file system were quite tedious and was a
general directed graph, only word addressable which meant lack of path
names as it ignored null chars, the link call being used to link
directories together which is where dd arises as the precursor to .. today.
The required files for the user was just linked in together in their dirs.

Quoting from DMR's Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing system,

So that every user did not need to maintain a link to all directories of
> interest, there existed a directory called *dd* that contained entries
> for the directory of each user. Thus, to make a link to file *x* in
> directory *ken*, I might do

ln dd ken ken
> ln ken x x
> rm ken
>
This scheme rendered subdirectories sufficiently hard to use as to make
> them unused in practice. Another important barrier was that there was no
> way to create a directory while the system was running; all were made
> during recreation of the file system from paper tape, so that directories
> were in effect a nonrenewable resource.


No mkdir/mknode while the system was running, the whole file system had to
be recreated from the paper tape each time! Thank DEC for the PDP-11. And
of course, no pipes until '72. Earlier parent had pondered on the write
permissions required to execute programs, this below explanation from the
paper might help.

Another mismatch between the system as it had been and the new process
> control scheme took longer to become evident. Originally, the read/write
> pointer associated with each open file was stored within the process that
> opened the file. (This pointer indicates where in the file the next read or
> write will take place.) The problem with this organization became evident
> only when we tried to use command files. Suppose a simple command file
> contains

ls
> who

and it is executed as follows:

sh comfile >output

The sequence of events was

1) The main shell creates a new process, which opens *outfile* to receive
> the standard output and executes the shell recursively.

2) The new shell creates another process to execute *ls*, which correctly
> writes on file *output* and then terminates.

3) Another process is created to execute the next command. However, the IO
> pointer for the output is copied from that of the shell, and it is still 0,
> because the shell has never written on its output, and IO pointers are
> associated with processes. The effect is that the output of *who*
> overwrites and destroys the output of the preceding *ls* command.

Solution of this problem required creation of a new system table to contain
> the IO pointers of open files independently of the process in which they
> were opened.


Source: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/hist.html



On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 5:28 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > From: Abhinav Rajagopalan
>
>     > I only now realized that only mknod existed, up until a long time,
> only
>     > later on with the GNU coreutils did mkdir as a command come into
>     > existence.
>
> Huh? See:
>
>     https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/man/man1/mkdir.1
>
> (And probably before that, that was the quickest one to find?)
>
> Maybe that was a typo for 'mkdir as a system call'? (I recall having to do
> a
> fork() to execute 'mkdir', back when.) But 4.2 had mkdir().
>
>        Noel
>
>

-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From dario at darioniedermann.it  Tue Oct 22 02:16:11 2019
From: dario at darioniedermann.it (Dario Niedermann)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 18:16:11 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <5dadd9cb.Gu7JyQSQNtzyNZ/y%dario@darioniedermann.it>

Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> [...] What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems
> you'd previously used?

Not particularly serious, but still enlightening, was the first time
I did:

	cat /dev/urandom > /dev/dsp

on Linux and had white noise come out of the speaker. It was one of the
first things that made me realize how far the "everything is a file"
concept can be taken.

OK, Unix-like moment.

-- 
Dario Niedermann.                 Also on the Internet at:

gopher://darioniedermann.it/  <>  https://www.darioniedermann.it/

From will.senn at gmail.com  Tue Oct 22 02:35:39 2019
From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 11:35:39 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 47, Issue 31
In-Reply-To: <mailman.158.1571666722.1308.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.158.1571666722.1308.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <aca57080-03cf-bf9d-957c-96bcbe79e675@gmail.com>

On 10/21/19 9:05 AM, tuhs-request at minnie.tuhs.org wrote:
> Message: 17
> Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:10:00 -0400 (EDT)
> From:jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  (Noel Chiappa)
> To:tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> Cc:jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
> Message-ID:<20191021121000.34E3B18C09F at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
>
>      > From: Warren Toomey<wkt at tuhs.org>
>
>      > But wasn't "chdir" built into the PDP-7 Unix shell?
>
> No.  See "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", in section "Process
> control".
>
> Also, the old 'cd' had different syntax than today's (since there was no notion
> of a pathname in the earliest Unix); it took instead a list of directories (e.g.
> "cd dd ken").
>
>      Noel
>
Wanna have some fun?

chdir system

then try to find your way back 'home'...

v0's subdirectories suck.

-- 
GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462  7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF


From aap at papnet.eu  Tue Oct 22 02:50:42 2019
From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 18:50:42 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191021121000.34E3B18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191021121000.34E3B18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20191021165042.GA18793@indra.papnet.eu>

On 21/10/19, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>     > From: Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org>
> 
>     > But wasn't "chdir" built into the PDP-7 Unix shell?
> 
> No.  See "The Evolution of the Unix Time-sharing System", in section "Process
> control".

In fact, in our code it is:
https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/sh.s#L367
Probably a later version than what dmr described. And it would
contradict the timing of ken's aha-moment story.


aap

From aap at papnet.eu  Tue Oct 22 02:54:50 2019
From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 18:54:50 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
Message-ID: <20191021165450.GB18793@indra.papnet.eu>

On 21/10/19, Angelo Papenhoff wrote:
> . and ..

To this I seem to have found an answer by checking how stat.s and ls.s
work. 'stat foo' will check whether '../foo' (using /-notation) exists
and will then print the status.
'ls foo' will check whether '../foo' is a directory and will then open
foo and list it. It will default to .. if no argument is given.
This to me suggests that .. (confusingly) refers to the current
directory.
. does not seem to have any conventional meaning.


To the first question I still have no answer.


aap

From paul.winalski at gmail.com  Tue Oct 22 05:21:34 2019
From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 15:21:34 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211547580.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211547580.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CABH=_VRY97M=cvwEeM_RZdVVHGJKv6DRVCbqjse1mPwZ2W+0nw@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/21/19, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
> Am I the only one who remembers the Defectium (as we called it)?  Intel
> denied the the problem until their noses got rubbed into it, after which
> they instructed Sales to refuse replacements for any chip that failed
> after using a demo program that demonstrated said defect, claiming that it
> would hardly ever happen.

I'm sure that's become a textbook case study in classes on public
relations.  It really WAS an obscure corner case, and every CPU chip
has an errata list, but that's not the point.  Intel would have been
far better off admitting the problem and replacing the chips at the
get-go.  In the end they had to replace them anyway, and the $$$ cost
to Intel's reputation way outstripped the cost of replacing the chips.

David Letterman even did a "9.9998 reasons to buy genuine Intel"
routine.  That for me was the definitive proof that computers had gone
mainstream in society.

> Err, would you fly on an aircraft designed by Defectiums?  Or cross a
> bridge, etc?

I'm much more alarmed by the lack of memory error detection and
correction on a lot of modern computers.  This is one of my big
concerns with the use of GPUs for heavy-duty computation.  GPUs
typically don't have memory with error detection because the worst
that happens if there's a memory error in the GPU is you get a bad
pixel or two displayed.  I'd not like to cross a bridge whose design
software used CUDA.

-Paul W.

From khm at sciops.net  Tue Oct 22 05:38:04 2019
From: khm at sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 12:38:04 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <CABH=_VRY97M=cvwEeM_RZdVVHGJKv6DRVCbqjse1mPwZ2W+0nw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211547580.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CABH=_VRY97M=cvwEeM_RZdVVHGJKv6DRVCbqjse1mPwZ2W+0nw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191021193804.GA75174@wopr>

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 03:21:34PM -0400, Paul Winalski wrote:
>
> I'm much more alarmed by the lack of memory error detection and
> correction on a lot of modern computers.  This is one of my big
> concerns with the use of GPUs for heavy-duty computation.  GPUs
> typically don't have memory with error detection because the worst
> that happens if there's a memory error in the GPU is you get a bad
> pixel or two displayed.  I'd not like to cross a bridge whose design
> software used CUDA.
>
       
This might be true of gaming cards and low-end workstation cards, but   
the higher-end Quadro cards and all the dedicated GPGPUs have had at    
least ECC since at least the Maxwell era.  Of course, nobody does a     
single run and stamps the drawings, so the process itself should catch  
these problems, but any correctly-configured CAD workstation or compute
cluster has error-correcting memory, both on the system and in the
accelerators.  AMD's Radeon Pro and Intel's Xeon Phi accelerators do
ECC as well.

khm

From bakul at bitblocks.com  Tue Oct 22 07:40:44 2019
From: bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 14:40:44 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
Message-ID: <BEE1B81B-1C23-46DA-901E-F6FCFE72EF7F@bitblocks.com>

I would pay extra for a copy titled A History of the Unix-speaking Peoples.

> On Oct 20, 2019, at 2:34 PM, Naveen Nathan <tuhs at t.lastninja.net> wrote:
> 
> It can be purchased here:
> https://www.amazon.com/dp/1695978552/
> 
> - Naveen
> 

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From jaapna at xs4all.nl  Tue Oct 22 12:09:26 2019
From: jaapna at xs4all.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 10:09:26 +0800
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191021115829.C05FB18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191021115829.C05FB18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <8C03B0A4-B24D-47A1-8B92-641F7CAD804D@xs4all.nl>



> On Oct 21, 2019, at 19:58, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
> Maybe that was a typo for 'mkdir as a system call'? (I recall having to do a
> fork() to execute 'mkdir', back when.) But 4.2 had mkdir().

I believe, it was 4.2 (or 4.1c) according to David Tilbrook's paper on rename. The site qef.com <http://qef.com/> seems to have disappeard, but the wayback machine has  copies[1]

	jaap

[1] as example, https://web.archive.org/web/20070228190911/http://www.qef.com/html/docs/rename.ps <https://web.archive.org/web/20070228190911/http://www.qef.com/html/docs/rename.ps>


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From athornton at gmail.com  Tue Oct 22 15:19:39 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2019 22:19:39 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LRH.2.21.1910210322180.2617@waffle.shalott.net>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191021024504.GI27969@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.LRH.2.21.1910210322180.2617@waffle.shalott.net>
Message-ID: <67BD97E1-2D05-4C77-999E-9FAEDC0C6C5E@gmail.com>



> On Oct 21, 2019, at 3:45 AM, jason-tuhs at shalott.net wrote:
> 
> hashbrown/home/jason-112723: cat ~/cd.sh
> #!/bin/sh
> 
> test -n "$1" && TARGET=$1 || TARGET=$HOME
> 
> ( echo "call (int) chdir(\"$TARGET\")" ; echo detach ; echo quit ) | gdb -q -p $PPID >/dev/null 2>&1 &
> 
> 
> "With ptrace(2) all things are possible.”


I honestly don’t know whether to applaud or vomit.

Adam


From peter at rulingia.com  Tue Oct 22 15:25:47 2019
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 16:25:47 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191021023720.GA12808@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191021023720.GA12808@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191022052547.GA7075@server.rulingia.com>

On 2019-Oct-21 12:37:20 +1000, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>As in, 'cd' has to be built into the shell. If it's external, the forked
>child gets to change directory and the parent shell doesn't. I'm just
>putting this in for those who didn't spot the nuance immediately -- took
>me a few tens of seconds.

I'm still amazed at the number of people who don't get this and write
shellscripts that save the working directory on entry and do an explicit cd
at the end (usually without considering that the shellscript could die at
other locations).

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From ewe2 at ewe2.ninja  Tue Oct 22 16:29:44 2019
From: ewe2 at ewe2.ninja (Sean Dwyer)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 02:29:44 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191021023720.GA12808@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <1571599556.22415.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20191020201219.GA5035@mail.ewe2.ninja>
 <CAG=a+rhJarC=V2Pmi5ZykP20Keo7UV5AWnkk7h6Oe_9Ai-ZPaQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191021023720.GA12808@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20191022062944.GA26946@mail.ewe2.ninja>

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019 at 12:37:20PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 20, 2019 at 07:31:55PM -0700, Ken Thompson via TUHS wrote:
> > i was writing the small utilities for the first
> > pdp-11 unix. (rm ls date ....)
> > 
> > so, cd was next.
> > 
> > % pwd
> > /usr/ken
> > % cd /tmp
> > % pwd
> > /usr/ken
> > 
> > Aha!
> 
> As in, 'cd' has to be built into the shell. If it's external, the forked
> child gets to change directory and the parent shell doesn't. I'm just
> putting this in for those who didn't spot the nuance immediately -- took
> me a few tens of seconds.
> 
> But wasn't "chdir" built into the PDP-7 Unix shell?
> 
> Thanks, Warren

Aha indeed, Ken & Warren! 

chdir seems to be a syscall in 7 (sys4.c), its handling in sh mostly in xec.c,
a real workout for the preprocessor ;)

-- 
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise as they fly by.

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Tue Oct 22 23:36:13 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 09:36:13 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
Message-ID: <20191022133613.D6E8C18C0B7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Sean Dwyer

    > chdir seems to be a syscall in 7 (sys4.c)

It's been a system call forever, see e.g.:

  https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V1/man/man2/chdir.2

(And the working dir was a property of the process, not data in the shell.)

     Noel

From abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com  Wed Oct 23 00:22:32 2019
From: abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com (Abhinav Rajagopalan)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 19:52:32 +0530
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191022133613.D6E8C18C0B7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191022133613.D6E8C18C0B7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CANOZ5rjCs=t+4cgwY+nNUpDf3aCKR2m3HBEwMNyZLjrWkfNeFw@mail.gmail.com>

On a somewhat related note, if someone could shine some light on, if such
chdir() which wasn't yet integrated into the shell function independent of
fork() as in did fork() just spawn off a new child shell if one did chdir()
or more generally how did processes interact when/if more than one child
existed. I know PDP-7 had some archaic IPC but haven't gotten around to
grokking fork.s or others to understand the actual operation.



On Tue, 22 Oct 2019 at 7:06 PM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > From: Sean Dwyer
>
>     > chdir seems to be a syscall in 7 (sys4.c)
>
> It's been a system call forever, see e.g.:
>
>   https://minnie.tuhs.org//cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V1/man/man2/chdir.2
>
> (And the working dir was a property of the process, not data in the shell.)
>
>      Noel
>
-- 

Abhinav Rajagopalan
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From peter at rulingia.com  Wed Oct 23 04:07:05 2019
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 05:07:05 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>

On 2019-Oct-21 16:13:54 +0530, Abhinav Rajagopalan <abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com> wrote:
>We should also touch upon the "cd -" as this one takes you back like a back
>button into the directory you were last inside, whereas the cd ../.. takes
>you up or down the hierarchy depending on the placement of the / and adding
>placeholders i.e directory names in place of the .. (dots).

There are two different mechanisms here.  "-" as a "cd" argument is a
relatively recent shell builtin: More modern shells keep track of the
previous working directory ($OLDPWD) and evaluate "cd -" as "cd $OLDPWD",
which will return to the previous working directory (modulo filesystem
changes).  Note that it's a "swap" operation, not a "back" operation:
Repeated "cd -" invocations will swap between two directories, not keep
going back through previous working directorie.  I'm not sure when this
feature was introduced but don't believe it was part of ancient Unix.

OTOH, "cd ../.." just passes "../.." to the kernel as a pathname and the
kernel evaluates it using its normal pathname lookup.  Having it move
up (towards the root of) the filesystem relies on the presence of a ".."
directory entry being the parent directory inode.

>Since you mentioned the word dd, the utility which serves me like none
>other for my frequent rewrites of images, it too has an interesting past,
>it seems like 'dd' was non-unixy in it's design approach, if I'm to believe
>the lores around, which leads me to think that this might have been another
>one of the many idiosyncratic naming conventions used back then. More on
>the dd stuff: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/dd.html

As noted in the jargon file, the dd(1) syntax is deliberately reminiscent
of the DD statement in IBM JCL.  This was presumably a joke and one of the
BTL old-timers on the list may know more of the background.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Wed Oct 23 06:08:55 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 06:08:55 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5rjCs=t+4cgwY+nNUpDf3aCKR2m3HBEwMNyZLjrWkfNeFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191022133613.D6E8C18C0B7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <CANOZ5rjCs=t+4cgwY+nNUpDf3aCKR2m3HBEwMNyZLjrWkfNeFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191022200855.GA16140@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 07:52:32PM +0530, Abhinav Rajagopalan wrote:
>    On a somewhat related note, if someone could shine some light on, if
>    such chdir() which wasn't yet integrated into the shell function
>    independent of fork() as in did fork() just spawn off a new child shell
>    if one did chdir() or more generally how did processes interact when/if
>    more than one child existed. I know PDP-7 had some archaic IPC but
>    haven't gotten around to grokking fork.s or others to understand the
>    actual operation.

The best place to learn all this is Dennis' paper on the Evolution of Unix:
http://www.read.seas.harvard.edu/~kohler/class/aosref/ritchie84evolution.pdf

Cheers, Warren

From wkt at tuhs.org  Wed Oct 23 06:27:20 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 06:27:20 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Two Unix50 Videos
Message-ID: <20191022202720.GA21600@minnie.tuhs.org>

from the Nokia event are up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUt3L3fLFt4
Unix Today and Tomorrow: Future of Compute & Platforms: The Kernel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3GADLe__M
The origin of Unix panel session

Cheers, Warren

From aap at papnet.eu  Wed Oct 23 07:38:03 2019
From: aap at papnet.eu (Angelo Papenhoff)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 23:38:03 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191022213803.GA87610@indra.papnet.eu>

Found an easter egg: Grace Emlin is credited with helping with the book
on page xiii.


From robpike at gmail.com  Wed Oct 23 07:51:00 2019
From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 08:51:00 +1100
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <20191022213803.GA87610@indra.papnet.eu>
References: <fbc7aac4-cd2d-4422-9bff-bd27a1a552f3@www.fastmail.com>
 <20191022213803.GA87610@indra.papnet.eu>
Message-ID: <CAKzdPgxQa05R304s4h8w-=eNVE=9xT6MQPcRc4vZA7_gszM_bw@mail.gmail.com>

Telling secrets out of school.

-rob


On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 8:38 AM Angelo Papenhoff <aap at papnet.eu> wrote:

> Found an easter egg: Grace Emlin is credited with helping with the book
> on page xiii.
>
>
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From mah at mhorton.net  Wed Oct 23 10:07:33 2019
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 17:07:33 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
Message-ID: <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>

dd is deprecated?  I'm surprised. I use it all the time. It's great when 
a blocksize of 512 is too slow, like for large files onto slow backup 
disks or network transfers, I might use dd bs=10240 or some such thing.

I suppose the block size on Linux might be bigger these days, but the 
command is still standard.

     Mary Ann

On 10/22/19 11:07 AM, Peter Jeremy wrote:
> Since you mentioned the word dd, the utility which serves me like none
>> other for my frequent rewrites of images, it too has an interesting past,
>> it seems like 'dd' was non-unixy in it's design approach, if I'm to believe
>> the lores around, which leads me to think that this might have been another
>> one of the many idiosyncratic naming conventions used back then. More on
>> the dd stuff: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/dd.html
> As noted in the jargon file, the dd(1) syntax is deliberately reminiscent
> of the DD statement in IBM JCL.  This was presumably a joke and one of the
> BTL old-timers on the list may know more of the background.
>

From cbbrowne at gmail.com  Wed Oct 23 12:00:55 2019
From: cbbrowne at gmail.com (Christopher Browne)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 22:00:55 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <8C03B0A4-B24D-47A1-8B92-641F7CAD804D@xs4all.nl>
References: <20191021115829.C05FB18C09F@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <8C03B0A4-B24D-47A1-8B92-641F7CAD804D@xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <CAFNqd5W5LN-fmUW+Pa18tcfpM-YnAAGJH2O-OXNDdzwLtn3axQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Oct 21, 2019, 10:16 PM Jaap Akkerhuis <jaapna at xs4all.nl> wrote:

>
>
> On Oct 21, 2019, at 19:58, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> Maybe that was a typo for 'mkdir as a system call'? (I recall having to do
> a
> fork() to execute 'mkdir', back when.) But 4.2 had mkdir().
>
>
> I believe, it was 4.2 (or 4.1c) according to David Tilbrook's paper on
> rename. The site qef.com seems to have disappeard, but the wayback
> machine has  copies[1]
>

Timing being everything, I happily have a copy of it all, as I used wget to
pull it into a git repo.

It's doubtless not in "native" form as he used one of his little languages
(that were part of qef) to generate it.  But HTML isn't too bad for this.
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From khm at sciops.net  Wed Oct 23 12:02:03 2019
From: khm at sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 19:02:03 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <20191023020203.GA47206@wopr>

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 05:07:33PM -0700, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
> dd is deprecated?  I'm surprised. I use it all the time. 

dd is not deprecated.  The maintainer of the jargon file is not a
reliable narrator.  dd(1) is even specified in IEEE Std 1003.1-2017,
which mentions the JCL history and explains that it takes 'operands' and
not 'options' to retain compatibility with the original syntax.

dd(1) on Plan 9 changes to regular option flags, such as -if= and -of=,
and some folks get disproportionately annoyed by the change.  Can't
please everyone, I guess.

khm

From lm at mcvoy.com  Wed Oct 23 12:19:30 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 19:19:30 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191023020203.GA47206@wopr>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <20191023020203.GA47206@wopr>
Message-ID: <20191023021930.GM27969@mcvoy.com>

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 07:02:03PM -0700, Kurt H Maier wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 05:07:33PM -0700, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
> > dd is deprecated?? I'm surprised. I use it all the time. 
> 
> dd is not deprecated.  The maintainer of the jargon file is not a
> reliable narrator.  dd(1) is even specified in IEEE Std 1003.1-2017,
> which mentions the JCL history and explains that it takes 'operands' and
> not 'options' to retain compatibility with the original syntax.
> 
> dd(1) on Plan 9 changes to regular option flags, such as -if= and -of=,
> and some folks get disproportionately annoyed by the change.  Can't
> please everyone, I guess.

I really need to move this into the distros, it's dd on steriods and the
docs don't list the latest options, I made it go backwards, I made it
use the crc/xor stuff that bk has, I made it use the compression stuff
that bk has:

LMDD(8)                             LMBENCH                            LMDD(8)



NAME
       lmdd - move io for performance and debugging tests

SYNOPSIS
       lmdd [ option=value ] ...

DESCRIPTION
       lmdd  copies a specified input file to a specified output with possible
       conversions.  This program is primarily useful for timing I/O since  it
       prints out the timing statistics after completing.

OPTIONS
       if=name        Input  file is taken from name; internal is the default.
                      internal  is  a  special  file  that  acts  like   Sun's
                      /dev/zero,  i.e.,  it provides a buffer of zeros without
                      doing a system call to get them.
                      The following file names are taken to mean the  standard
                      input: -, 0, or stdin.

       of=name        Output file is taken from name; internal is the default.
                      internal is a special file  that  acts  like  /dev/null,
                      without doing a system call to get rid of the data.
                      The  following file names are taken to mean the standard
                      output: -, 1, or stdout.
                      The following file names are taken to mean the  standard
                      error: 2, or stderr.

       bs=n           Input  and  output  block  size  n bytes (default 8192).
                      Note that this is different from dd(1),  it  has  a  512
                      byte  default.    Also  note  that the block size can be
                      followed by 'k' or 'm' to indicate kilo bytes (*1024) or
                      megabytes (*1024*1024), respectively.

       ipat=n         If  n  is  non  zero, expect a known pattern in the file
                      (see opat).  Mismatches will  be  displayed  as  "ERROR:
                      off=%d  want=%x got=%x".  The pattern is a sequence of 4
                      byte integers with the first 0, second  1,  and  so  on.
                      The default is not to check for the pattern.

       opat=n         If n is non zero, generate a known pattern on the output
                      stream.  Used for  debugging  file  system  correctness.
                      The default is not to generate the pattern.

       mismatch=n     If  n  is  non zero, stop at the first mismatched value.
                      Used with ipat.

       skip=n         Skip n input blocks before starting copy.

       fsync=n        If n is non-zero,  call  fsync(2)  on  the  output  file
                      before exiting or printing timing statistics.

       sync=n         If  n is non-zero, call sync(2) before exiting or print-
                      ing timing statistics.

       rand=n         This argument, by default off, turns on random behavior.
                      The  argument  is not a flag, it is a size, that size is
                      used as the upper bound for the seeks.  Also  note  that
                      the block size can be followed by 'k' or 'm' to indicate
                      kilo bytes (*1024) or megabytes (*1024*1024),

       flush=n        If n is non-zero and mmap(2) is available, call msync(2)
                      to invalidate the output file.  This flushes the file to
                      disk so that you don't have unmount/mount.  It is not as
                      good as mount/unmount because it just flushes file pages
                      - it misses the indirect blocks which are still  cached.
                      Not supported on all systems, compile time option.

       rusage=n       If  n  is  non-zero,  print rusage statistics as well as
                      timing statistics.  Not supported on all  systems,  com-
                      pile time option.

       count=n        Copy only n input records.

EXAMPLES
       This  is  the  most common usage, the intent is to measure disk perfor-
       mance.  The disk is a spare partition mounted on /spare.

           # mount /spare
           # lmdd if=internal of=/spare/XXX count=1000 fsync=1
           7.81 MB in 3.78 seconds (2.0676 MB/sec)

           : Flush cache
           # umount /spare
           # mount /spare

           # lmdd if=/spare/XXX of=internal
           7.81 MB in 2.83 seconds (2.7611 MB/sec)


AUTHOR
       Larry McVoy, lm at sun.com



(c)1994 Larry McVoy                 $Date$                             LMDD(8)


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Wed Oct 23 12:22:10 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 22:22:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX file systam
Message-ID: <201910230222.x9N2MAg2080740@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> As noted in the jargon file, the dd(1) syntax is deliberately reminiscent
> of the DD statement in IBM JCL.  This was presumably a joke

That is certainly true and reflects its major early usage to
prepare tapes to carry to other systems.

 Though I haven't use dit in ages, I recall that the joke was
so fully engtained that the command was more likely to be
written "dd  ifile=x ofile=y" than "dd <x >y"

Doug

From gilles at gravier.org  Wed Oct 23 15:13:24 2019
From: gilles at gravier.org (Gilles Gravier)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 09:13:24 +0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi!

Mine was more of an "oh oh" moment... when, back in 1994, I needed to clean
up /tmp on the company Data General Aviion that I was administering... and
I typed "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"

Notice the involuntary space between /tmp and /* ... hence the "oh oh..."
moment when I started seeing this take long... and when I typed Ctrl-C and
started seeing some things like "/bin/ls not found" when I looked for the
files in / ...

Gilles

Le ven. 11 oct. 2019 à 00:55, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> a écrit :

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>


-- 
*Gilles Gravier*  - Gilles at Gravier.org
GSM : +33618347147 and +41794728437
Skype : ggravier | PGP Key : 0xA610DB098DE6D026
<http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=0xA610DB098DE6D026&op=index>
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From lars at nocrew.org  Wed Oct 23 15:48:04 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 05:48:04 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu> (Angelo Papenhoff's
 message of "Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:22:42 +0200")
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
Message-ID: <7wpnioc8rv.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Does anyone have any input for Angelo?  I think the questions he asks
are interesting.  Please note he's asking about PDP-7 Unix, not the
unrelated "dd" command and how "." and ".." work in later Unix versions.


Angelo Papenhoff wrote:
> you cannot execute a program if you're in a directory you can't write into.
>
> 	I asked Warren about this when I first tried pdp7 unix and he
> explained it to me: the shell creates a link to the binary and executes
> it. If it can't write into the current directory, it fails to create the
> link and hence can't execute the program.
> 	How was this handled in practice? did users have write
> permissions on all directories? did you just stay in your directory all
> the time?


> . and ..

This part is apparently resolved.

From athornton at gmail.com  Wed Oct 23 16:19:41 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 2019 23:19:41 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic3L6QsbtyiBr9fa4mzHugGC3e3db52pJNo1NPszd5OLZw@mail.gmail.com>

I can't remember an epiphanal "a-ha!" moment.

I remember that by 1999 I had migrated from OS/2 to Linux as my primary
computing environment, and I've never really left; I ran Linux for a bunch
of years, and then slid over to OS X, where I've mostly remained--the host
OS on most of the modern stuff I own is either OS X or Linux, with other
Unixes usually running under emulation (I have a NeXTStation and three
Sparc machines of varying vintage, all running period-appropriate Unixes,
when I fire them up, but they don't stay running; the MicroVAX comes
frustratingly close to running but doesn't quite, and I haven't even
powered up the VAX 11/730 I got a couple months ago to see how close it is
to usable).  Turning back the clock farther...

In 1998 I remember someone saying, with a mixture of awe and horror, "I've
never seen anyone use a GUI as just a place to stash a bunch of terminal
windows before."  I also remember screwing with dialup scripts to run PPP
on my Linux machine at home, which must have been '96 or so?  So that early
I was clearly living in it at least enough that I didn't want to leave to
fire up another OS (although I also remember learning far too much about
PPP on OS/2), and spending enough time connected to the Internet that I
wanted a network stack running all the time.

I remember Cygwin on NT and ... EMX, I think it was? ... to let me use and
build Unixy-feeling things on NT and OS/2 respectively, which suggests that
while I was still using them in the mid-to-late 90s I kinda hated them.
(That's not quite fair; OS/2 had some nice points.)

In 1992 or 1993 I remember fiddling with definitions inside kernel include
files to make my soundcard, my parallel port, and my modem all work at the
same time (again on Linux), and not finding that a big deal (I had some
nonstandard IRQs set up to get everything to play nice together, IIRC).  I
guess that was also about when I was hand-editing my partition table to
multiboot a 386DX/25 of my very own so it could run Linux and DOS/Win3.11
off the same drive.

I remember some very early Linux experiences (late '91 or early '92) as my
first exposure to bash (the Sun workstations at school ran SunOS and my
environment, at least, was csh, which was certainly less unpleasant than
/bin/sh) and realizing how vastly much more I liked using bash than csh, as
well as the difficulty my muscle memory had transitioning from
esc-completion to tab-completion.  I remember that I didn't really speak C
at that point.  Though come to think of it I didn't really get _fluent_ at
C until the late-ish 90s.

The first Unix system I used was something, probably Xenix, on a Dell '386
in a physics lab at UT Austin in the summer of '89, and while I didn't
really "get" Unix at that point, I knew I liked it better than DOS, and it
let me access Usenet, which was a huge deal.  That was the same summer and
same lab where I discovered the flight simulator on the SGI IRIS.  I'm sure
that hardware was expensive and used to do complex nonlinear dynamic
simulations for people, but it was also certainly used for flying pretend
planes in what seemed then like an astonishingly realistically rendered 3-D
world.  That summer was when I made the choice between Emacs and vi, and
that choice has stuck with me for 30 years.  In two more years the core of
my .emacs file (which I inherited, obviously) will be old enough to be
president.

Adam

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 10:14 PM Gilles Gravier <gilles at gravier.org> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> Mine was more of an "oh oh" moment... when, back in 1994, I needed to
> clean up /tmp on the company Data General Aviion that I was
> administering... and I typed "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"
>
> Notice the involuntary space between /tmp and /* ... hence the "oh oh..."
> moment when I started seeing this take long... and when I typed Ctrl-C and
> started seeing some things like "/bin/ls not found" when I looked for the
> files in / ...
>
> Gilles
>
> Le ven. 11 oct. 2019 à 00:55, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> a écrit :
>
>> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
>> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
>> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>>
>> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
>> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
>> previously used?
>>
>> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>>   + write a simple script
>>   + to edit a file on the fly
>>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>>
>> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>>
>> Cheers, Warren
>>
>
>
> --
> *Gilles Gravier*  - Gilles at Gravier.org
> GSM : +33618347147 and +41794728437
> Skype : ggravier | PGP Key : 0xA610DB098DE6D026
> <http://pgp.mit.edu:11371/pks/lookup?search=0xA610DB098DE6D026&op=index>
>
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From thomas.paulsen at firemail.de  Wed Oct 23 18:34:09 2019
From: thomas.paulsen at firemail.de (Thomas Paulsen)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 10:34:09 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>



> dd is deprecated?  I'm surprised. I use it all the time. It's great when

I don't think so. A quick google search doesn't support that.




From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 24 01:08:57 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:08:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>

More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)

On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
> "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"


From lm at mcvoy.com  Thu Oct 24 01:11:51 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 08:11:51 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <20191023151151.GA1655@mcvoy.com>

I posted a "paper" here about how to recover from that on a Masscomp
so yeah, guilty as well.  It was a learning experience.

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 11:08:57AM -0400, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)
> 
> On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
> >"sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

From rich.salz at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 01:17:17 2019
From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Richard Salz)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:17:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CAFH29tpzVB6EoOttqs=T5uovG9=sPsQDm9DNTH-DgHPmDC1Rzg@mail.gmail.com>

I turned it into a reflex tester:
   trap "ls | wc ; exit" 1 2 3 15
   echo go... `ls | wc`
   rm -f *

And I got a prize at Usenix for it.

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 11:09 AM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)
>
> On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
> > "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"
>
>
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From arrigo at alchemistowl.org  Thu Oct 24 01:22:52 2019
From: arrigo at alchemistowl.org (Arrigo Triulzi)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 17:22:52 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29tpzVB6EoOttqs=T5uovG9=sPsQDm9DNTH-DgHPmDC1Rzg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
 <CAFH29tpzVB6EoOttqs=T5uovG9=sPsQDm9DNTH-DgHPmDC1Rzg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <B747C764-4C07-4975-BAA3-9325A2D036B2@alchemistowl.org>

On 23 Oct 2019, at 17:17, Richard Salz <rich.salz at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I turned it into a reflex tester:
>    trap "ls | wc ; exit" 1 2 3 15
>    echo go... `ls | wc`
>    rm -f *
> 
> And I got a prize at Usenix for it.

I assume this was tested both on personal and work systems to see if the reflex speed changed?

Arrigo


From arrigo at alchemistowl.org  Thu Oct 24 01:26:03 2019
From: arrigo at alchemistowl.org (Arrigo Triulzi)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 17:26:03 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191023151151.GA1655@mcvoy.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
 <20191023151151.GA1655@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <2464C07E-66EA-45AF-8952-BF30D2DC7D63@alchemistowl.org>

I had posted a question on sys.unix.wizards about this a long long time ago when in academia. The gist of it was: “when does the system die after issuing the lethal command?”

We tested on a limited number of systems (Linux with kernel around 1.0, SunOS 4.1.4, SGI Irix and both DEC OSF/1 and Ultrix) but I lost the results :(

> On 23 Oct 2019, at 17:11, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> I posted a "paper" here about how to recover from that on a Masscomp
> so yeah, guilty as well.  It was a learning experience.
> 
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 11:08:57AM -0400, Arthur Krewat wrote:
>> More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)
>> 
>> On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
>>> "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From crossd at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 01:33:42 2019
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:33:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <2464C07E-66EA-45AF-8952-BF30D2DC7D63@alchemistowl.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
 <20191023151151.GA1655@mcvoy.com>
 <2464C07E-66EA-45AF-8952-BF30D2DC7D63@alchemistowl.org>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W6W4ZEyr_K8WjU6V4q80azExmz6bA6_xB3kTSWcmA-iOA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 11:26 AM Arrigo Triulzi <arrigo at alchemistowl.org>
wrote:

> I had posted a question on sys.unix.wizards about this a long long time
> ago when in academia. The gist of it was: “when does the system die after
> issuing the lethal command?”
>
> We tested on a limited number of systems (Linux with kernel around 1.0,
> SunOS 4.1.4, SGI Irix and both DEC OSF/1 and Ultrix) but I lost the results
> :(
>

The irony....

        - Dan C.
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From krewat at kilonet.net  Thu Oct 24 02:19:32 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 12:19:32 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W6W4ZEyr_K8WjU6V4q80azExmz6bA6_xB3kTSWcmA-iOA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
 <20191023151151.GA1655@mcvoy.com>
 <2464C07E-66EA-45AF-8952-BF30D2DC7D63@alchemistowl.org>
 <CAEoi9W6W4ZEyr_K8WjU6V4q80azExmz6bA6_xB3kTSWcmA-iOA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <13626f0b-8dc4-d94f-527c-72ca4520054e@kilonet.net>

Laugh out loud moment of the day...

On 10/23/2019 11:33 AM, Dan Cross wrote:
>
> The irony....
>
>         - Dan C.


From will.senn at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 02:45:06 2019
From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:45:06 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <31872e63-ff9a-e2d5-0642-d23ec58817bd@gmail.com>

On 10/23/19 10:08 AM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)
>
> On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
>> "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"
>
Oh yeah. Did something similar on my Powerbook back around Panther:

sudo rm -fr /bin

I heart my Macs (all of 'em), it was just a matter of copying back the 
bin directory or reinstalling over the existing files or grabbing the 
timemachine copy or somesuch... whatever it was, it was 20 minutes of 
frustration, then all good. Try that on linux... no, don't :), unless 
you're doing timeshift or something similar and just wanna have some fun.

Will


-- 
GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462  7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF


From athornton at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 08:19:12 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 15:19:12 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <31872e63-ff9a-e2d5-0642-d23ec58817bd@gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
 <31872e63-ff9a-e2d5-0642-d23ec58817bd@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic02CkkZuMMwfQG2WxMUBWQ9u8rYD=28Vu2FaAdSo8Edig@mail.gmail.com>

_These_ days on the Mac, the root filesystem is mounted ro with some cute
overmounting tricks such that everything mutable in normal operations lives
in /System/Volumes/Data.  I presume updates take the form of booting into
single-user-mode and running a script to remount rw and copy, but I haven't
actually looked into it.

Adam

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 9:45 AM Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/23/19 10:08 AM, Arthur Krewat wrote:
> > More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)
> >
> > On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
> >> "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"
> >
> Oh yeah. Did something similar on my Powerbook back around Panther:
>
> sudo rm -fr /bin
>
> I heart my Macs (all of 'em), it was just a matter of copying back the
> bin directory or reinstalling over the existing files or grabbing the
> timemachine copy or somesuch... whatever it was, it was 20 minutes of
> frustration, then all good. Try that on linux... no, don't :), unless
> you're doing timeshift or something similar and just wanna have some fun.
>
> Will
>
>
> --
> GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462  7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF
>
>
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From arnold at skeeve.com  Thu Oct 24 09:28:48 2019
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 17:28:48 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <201910232328.x9NNSmia001653@freefriends.org>

Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

> ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.
>
> I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback, `Independently
> published.'  Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in bricks-and-mortar
> bookshops any time soon?
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON

BWK used Create Space, which is Amazon, to self publish. So, I suspect
that it won't be in brick-and-mortar shops.  They may can order for
you but in that case it'd probably be more expensive than just ordering
it yourself.

Arnold

From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 24 09:38:19 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 17:38:19 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <201910232328.x9NNSmia001653@freefriends.org>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <201910232328.x9NNSmia001653@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrgm6cD4PvX-A3f82Pvr+2NhvZdeHt=q8txAcR9urgf2Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:29 PM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:

> Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
>
> > ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.
> >
> > I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback, `Independently
> > published.'  Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in
> bricks-and-mortar
> > bookshops any time soon?
> >
> > Norman Wilson
> > Toronto ON
>
> BWK used Create Space, which is Amazon, to self publish. So, I suspect
> that it won't be in brick-and-mortar shops.  They may can order for
> you but in that case it'd probably be more expensive than just ordering
> it yourself.
>


Mine arrived today. Yippie.

Warner

> Arnold
>
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From athornton at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 09:59:40 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 16:59:40 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfrgm6cD4PvX-A3f82Pvr+2NhvZdeHt=q8txAcR9urgf2Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <201910232328.x9NNSmia001653@freefriends.org>
 <CANCZdfrgm6cD4PvX-A3f82Pvr+2NhvZdeHt=q8txAcR9urgf2Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAP2nic30s3OK4onOvgJYeXu6hz5NxtYHzrq9+Zbd=-c0Qb0eFQ@mail.gmail.com>

Since at least some of you are in contact with bwk, and since I haven't
seen it mentioned here, can someone please pass along a typo correction
with some semantic value?  The RTM worm was 1988, not '98.

And when you do, please pass along my appreciation for his kind words about
Mike Mahoney (my former thesis advisor, RIP) at the back when he was
talking about his sources.

And since Lee was mentioned in bwk's book...does anyone here know for sure
that Lee and Melinda Varian are still alive, and would they have contact
info for them they would be willing to share?  I worked for Melinda for a
while but have fallen out of touch.

Adam

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 4:39 PM Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2019, 5:29 PM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
>
>> Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
>>
>> > ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.
>> >
>> > I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback,
>> `Independently
>> > published.'  Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in
>> bricks-and-mortar
>> > bookshops any time soon?
>> >
>> > Norman Wilson
>> > Toronto ON
>>
>> BWK used Create Space, which is Amazon, to self publish. So, I suspect
>> that it won't be in brick-and-mortar shops.  They may can order for
>> you but in that case it'd probably be more expensive than just ordering
>> it yourself.
>>
>
>
> Mine arrived today. Yippie.
>
> Warner
>
>> Arnold
>>
>
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From jpl.jpl at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 10:05:09 2019
From: jpl.jpl at gmail.com (John P. Linderman)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 20:05:09 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Two Unix50 Videos
In-Reply-To: <20191022202720.GA21600@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191022202720.GA21600@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAC0cEp_Tt7p_BdZR2pUjDuRtf+EPWW8mGdqh8_ENMvBBWRzYzw@mail.gmail.com>

Here (I hope) is a link to the Tribute to Dennis. My apologies for my
"laugh track".

https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsie49r6rk6cwm7/RitchieTribute.mov?dl=0

On Tue, Oct 22, 2019 at 4:28 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> from the Nokia event are up:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUt3L3fLFt4
> Unix Today and Tomorrow: Future of Compute & Platforms: The Kernel
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz3GADLe__M
> The origin of Unix panel session
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
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From imp at bsdimp.com  Thu Oct 24 10:06:50 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 18:06:50 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 3:04 AM Thomas Paulsen <thomas.paulsen at firemail.de>
wrote:

>
>
> > dd is deprecated?  I'm surprised. I use it all the time. It's great when
>
> I don't think so. A quick google search doesn't support that.
>

dd isn't deprecated. There's no heir apparent, it's in POSIX.1 and there's
no advantage to changing. There's not even been talk of that, at east in
*BSD land.

Warner
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From mparson at bl.org  Thu Oct 24 12:23:57 2019
From: mparson at bl.org (Michael Parson)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 21:23:57 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
 <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <496001dc0ab086a1e2d6d3a5f47dc5f1@bl.org>

On 2019-10-23 19:06, Warner Losh wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 3:04 AM Thomas Paulsen
> <thomas.paulsen at firemail.de> wrote:
> 
>>> dd is deprecated?  I'm surprised. I use it all the time. It's
>> great when
>> 
>> I don't think so. A quick google search doesn't support that.
> 
> dd isn't deprecated. There's no heir apparent, it's in POSIX.1 and
> there's no advantage to changing. There's not even been talk of that,
> at east in *BSD land.

I'm sure the systemd people are eyeballing it.

-- 
Michael Parson
Pflugerville, TX
KF5LGQ

From cbbrowne at gmail.com  Thu Oct 24 12:29:42 2019
From: cbbrowne at gmail.com (Christopher Browne)
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2019 22:29:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAFNqd5WWCpiDodVxVJ-pEWDcLcgThckFuSUKORJiNX+JuJX7Zw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, 21 Oct 2019 at 06:45, Abhinav Rajagopalan <
abhinavrajagopalan at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>>
> Since you mentioned the word dd, the utility which serves me like none
> other for my frequent rewrites of images, it too has an interesting past,
> it seems like 'dd' was non-unixy in it's design approach, if I'm to believe
> the lores around, which leads me to think that this might have been another
> one of the many idiosyncratic naming conventions used back then. More on
> the dd stuff: http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/D/dd.html
>
> Personally, I just like to think of it in my head as disk-disk.
>

I am pretty sure that "dd" derives from  the "DD" statement in IBM JCL that
stands for "Data Definition"

Here's a link to practical-ish documentation about that:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/zosbasics/com.ibm.zos.zjcl/zjclc_jclDDstmt.htm

On MVS, TSO, and such systems, compiled programs would be written in
languages like COBOL, PL/1, FORTRAN, and such, and the programs would
commonly reference input and output devices.  The programs are controlled
(we could say, "scripted") by JCL code that indicate the files (possibly
other devices) to be connected up.  Each file that is accessed gets its own
DD line in the JCL script that indicates the various metadata about the
file, such as its name, block size, storage class, how much space is
allocated, literally dozens of options.

Back in the '90s my "Y2K remediation" involvement was at American Airlines;
I was one of the Unix guys working alongside mainframe guys; as soon as I
started seeing the JCL for their TSO batch jobs, it was pretty obvious that
this was from whence derived the dd command on Unix.  The mainframe guys
enthused a lot about a sorting tool with similar syntax called SyncSort
that they'd use to do many of the things we'd do with cut and grep.

The Jargon File claim that dd is deprecated makes little sense; dd is THE
good tool for grabbing exact chunks of data out of binary files, and I
haven't seen a would-be successor.  It would be interesting to see some
alternative constructed; given that it's all about dealing with pretty
messy sorts of I/O work, an alternative is liable to have its messiness in
different places.
-- 
When confronted by a difficult problem, solve it by reducing it to the
question, "How would the Lone Ranger handle this?"
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From thomas.paulsen at firemail.de  Thu Oct 24 18:25:09 2019
From: thomas.paulsen at firemail.de (Thomas Paulsen)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2019 10:25:09 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <CAFNqd5WWCpiDodVxVJ-pEWDcLcgThckFuSUKORJiNX+JuJX7Zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAFNqd5WWCpiDodVxVJ-pEWDcLcgThckFuSUKORJiNX+JuJX7Zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <54b31e5e60363ff3b84159b819c07a0b@firemail.de>

MVS(Z/OS).DD statement means Data definition,
//DD-name DD Parameters
whereas DD-NAME identifies the dataset (=file). The real file is referenced by this name within the program. Say DD hello then the program source says: open hello; read hello, and so on.

Thus MVS(Z/OS).DD  having nothing todo withUNIX.DD.



From jra at andrusk.com  Fri Oct 25 03:31:50 2019
From: jra at andrusk.com (Justin Andrusk)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2019 17:31:50 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <i-8i7P_LAHvEjwrCE5tyo-ZS642O58DwMak17kAsqbvmVTv42_is4VbFmx94DnsCSdxUOIi2IsxEc7fTjigQ2Ik_2_VdSaj19MxoCkDxX60=@andrusk.com>

Just got ordered for my birthday, w00t!

Justin


‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On Sunday, October 20, 2019 6:43 PM, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

> ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.
>
> I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback, `Independently
> published.' Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in bricks-and-mortar
> bookshops any time soon?
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON



From tih at hamartun.priv.no  Fri Oct 25 03:32:38 2019
From: tih at hamartun.priv.no (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2019 19:32:38 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <31872e63-ff9a-e2d5-0642-d23ec58817bd@gmail.com> (Will Senn's
 message of "Wed, 23 Oct 2019 11:45:06 -0500")
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
 <31872e63-ff9a-e2d5-0642-d23ec58817bd@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <m2zhhqm4ll.fsf@thuvia.hamartun.priv.no>

Will Senn <will.senn at gmail.com> writes:

> Try that on linux... no, don't :)

We accidentally totally hosed a Linux system running MySQL a dozen or so
years back.  Redhat, and pretty much "rpm -qa | xargs rpm -e".  Totally
destroyed the ability to do anything at all on that box, of course, even
using the logged-in shell that caused the damage.  We set up a new host,
replicated the running database across, and retired the original.  No
down time, no data loss.  :)

-tih
-- 
Most people who graduate with CS degrees don't understand the significance
of Lisp.  Lisp is the most important idea in computer science.  --Alan Kay

From earl.baugh at gmail.com  Fri Oct 25 12:45:28 2019
From: earl.baugh at gmail.com (Earl Baugh)
Date: Thu, 24 Oct 2019 22:45:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <i-8i7P_LAHvEjwrCE5tyo-ZS642O58DwMak17kAsqbvmVTv42_is4VbFmx94DnsCSdxUOIi2IsxEc7fTjigQ2Ik_2_VdSaj19MxoCkDxX60=@andrusk.com>
References: <i-8i7P_LAHvEjwrCE5tyo-ZS642O58DwMak17kAsqbvmVTv42_is4VbFmx94DnsCSdxUOIi2IsxEc7fTjigQ2Ik_2_VdSaj19MxoCkDxX60=@andrusk.com>
Message-ID: <4906DB3B-701F-43DF-863A-64FB42EC95F6@gmail.com>

I got mine the other day and am at least a third of the way thru...I’m trying to pace myself because I’m really enjoying it and am torn by wanting to see what I’ll learn next and how bummed I’ll be when I’m done :-) 

Earl 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 24, 2019, at 1:42 PM, Justin Andrusk <jra at andrusk.com> wrote:
> 
> ﻿Just got ordered for my birthday, w00t!
> 
> Justin
> 
> 
> ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
>> On Sunday, October 20, 2019 6:43 PM, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.
>> 
>> I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback, `Independently
>> published.' Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in bricks-and-mortar
>> bookshops any time soon?
>> 
>> Norman Wilson
>> Toronto ON
> 
> 

From jsqmobile at gmail.com  Sat Oct 26 06:58:54 2019
From: jsqmobile at gmail.com (John S Quarterman)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:58:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAMQqxCM+cmtug8oBWbohxQx6X-waUU1bXcM1HBz38huc+4GzpA@mail.gmail.com>

Manual small enough to pick up. Man pages for each program. IO simple and
made sense. -jsq

On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
>
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>   + write a simple script
>   + to edit a file on the fly
>   + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>   + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
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From michael at kjorling.se  Sat Oct 26 07:08:04 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 21:08:04 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <496001dc0ab086a1e2d6d3a5f47dc5f1@bl.org>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
 <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <496001dc0ab086a1e2d6d3a5f47dc5f1@bl.org>
Message-ID: <z3t7qn97mscfnkwgvbrdb9rb@localhost>

On 23 Oct 2019 21:23 -0500, from mparson at bl.org (Michael Parson):
>>>> dd is deprecated?  I'm surprised. I use it all the time.
>>> 
>>> I don't think so. A quick google search doesn't support that.
>> 
>> dd isn't deprecated. There's no heir apparent, it's in POSIX.1 and
>> there's no advantage to changing. There's not even been talk of that,
>> at east in *BSD land.

The only thing resembling "deprecation" of dd that I'm aware of is the
recommendation I saw many years ago to not use it to copy potentially
problematic storage media (for data recovery), but to use ddrescue for
that purpose instead. The reason for this is that with conv=noerror
(without which it'd simply abort if it encounters an I/O error), dd
would simply skip past data in the input that it can't read, but not
adjust any offsets in the output, which wreaks havoc with anything
where offsets matter (such as in file system metadata).


> I'm sure the systemd people are eyeballing it.

That wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From krewat at kilonet.net  Sat Oct 26 07:34:22 2019
From: krewat at kilonet.net (Arthur Krewat)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 17:34:22 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <z3t7qn97mscfnkwgvbrdb9rb@localhost>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
 <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <496001dc0ab086a1e2d6d3a5f47dc5f1@bl.org>
 <z3t7qn97mscfnkwgvbrdb9rb@localhost>
Message-ID: <e86263e9-45f5-d0d6-ad62-95f70474138c@kilonet.net>

On 10/25/2019 5:08 PM, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> The only thing resembling "deprecation" of dd that I'm aware of is the
> recommendation I saw many years ago to not use it to copy potentially
> problematic storage media (for data recovery), but to use ddrescue for
> that purpose instead. The reason for this is that with conv=noerror
> (without which it'd simply abort if it encounters an I/O error), dd
> would simply skip past data in the input that it can't read, but not
> adjust any offsets in the output, which wreaks havoc with anything
> where offsets matter (such as in file system metadata).

Which is where conv=sync,noerror comes in. Of course, I have no freakin' 
idea what version of UNIX that came into being. ;)

art k.



From will.senn at gmail.com  Sat Oct 26 08:11:08 2019
From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 17:11:08 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <CAMQqxCM+cmtug8oBWbohxQx6X-waUU1bXcM1HBz38huc+4GzpA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAMQqxCM+cmtug8oBWbohxQx6X-waUU1bXcM1HBz38huc+4GzpA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b3c6c6ed-e7de-74f7-c652-9857ec898b81@gmail.com>

On 10/25/19 3:58 PM, John S Quarterman wrote:
> Manual small enough to pick up. Man pages for each program. IO simple 
> and made sense. -jsq
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2019 at 4:56 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org 
> <mailto:wkt at tuhs.org>> wrote:
>
>     All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight.
>     Welcome.
>     A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
>     if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
>
>     So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
>     first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the
>     systems you'd
>     previously used?
>
>     Mine was: Oh, I can:
>       + write a simple script
>       + to edit a file on the fly
>       + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>       + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
>
>     I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
>
>     Cheers, Warren
>
I've been watching this thread and thinking to myself, what was my 
personal aha moment?

I guess it came to me in 1993 when I downloaded Patrick Volkerding's 
magnificent 11 floppy labor of love via my amazingly fast 300 baud modem 
attached to the University of Texas at Arlington's VMS system with a 
gateway to the internet. After many weeks of trying, I eventually got 
Slackware downloaded and burned to floppies. After booting up and after 
another couple of weeks of configuration frustration, I was able to run 
X on my machine and while it would be another decade before I switched 
over permanently, I never got over how much more powerful *nix was than 
anything I'd been exposed to and way more interesting than Windows 3 
which was prevalent at the time. I was a C programmer back then and to 
have access to a system that was predicated on the language was awesome.

Then In 2005, I bought a powerbook with my bonus, I learned you could 
have your cake (beautiful gui - thank you Next) and eat it too (thank 
you FreeBSD) and after that you couldn't pay me enough to ever switch 
back to windows :).

Then, In 2019, I downloaded Mint 19.2 Tina Cinnamon 64 bit edition to my 
$300 Lenovo Thinkpad T430, installed zfsutils and marveled at how far 
linux has come.

Oh, wait! Last week, I...

But seriously, I am constantly surprised at how Unix underpins so much 
of my computing happiness. Gone are the doldrums of blue screens, 
stoopid command lines, even stoopider menus, microsoft bob's, and paper 
clip wizards,. Every time I move a mouse in the classroom and windows 
shows up, I shudder. Then I calmly connect my hdmi cable from my laptop 
to the projector, breathe a sigh of relief, and fire up my 
Mac/Linux/FreeBSD/Unix v6/v7/v0 environment and show my students what it 
means to be free :).

OK, so technically speaking these aren't exactly Unix recollections, but 
they are certainly dependent on their Unix forebears and wouldn't exist 
without that heritage.

Thank you Unix pioneers for making such a fun (something new to learn 
every day) system. Oh, and thanks for the file metaphor, and thanks for 
vi, best editor ever, and for C, and and and...

Thanks,

Will



-- 
GPG Fingerprint: 68F4 B3BD 1730 555A 4462  7D45 3EAA 5B6D A982 BAAF

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From reed at reedmedia.net  Sat Oct 26 07:50:57 2019
From: reed at reedmedia.net (reed at reedmedia.net)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:50:57 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <e86263e9-45f5-d0d6-ad62-95f70474138c@kilonet.net>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
 <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <496001dc0ab086a1e2d6d3a5f47dc5f1@bl.org>
 <z3t7qn97mscfnkwgvbrdb9rb@localhost>
 <e86263e9-45f5-d0d6-ad62-95f70474138c@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1910251648120.1208@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Fri, 25 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:

> Which is where conv=sync,noerror comes in. Of course, I have no 
> freakin' idea what version of UNIX that came into being. ;)

Looks like dd was introduced in Fifth Edition (and had those conversion 
values).

From imp at bsdimp.com  Sat Oct 26 08:54:43 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Fri, 25 Oct 2019 16:54:43 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 UNIX filesystem
In-Reply-To: <e86263e9-45f5-d0d6-ad62-95f70474138c@kilonet.net>
References: <20191021062242.GA91599@indra.papnet.eu>
 <CANOZ5riWWibJ4OY8SnZ7q_o1VaMRFq_-1yXedq2PMXupc1ckMA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191022180705.GD51849@server.rulingia.com>
 <7455e361-b2fd-96b3-b9cd-37730f9aeed7@mhorton.net>
 <9f77f0d4cba8e6bc1f6fb9b5e26e883a@firemail.de>
 <CANCZdfrpizLqnN-XH2OtpygmMEFEJd7H3YtVuJ9pf7B7QY-maQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <496001dc0ab086a1e2d6d3a5f47dc5f1@bl.org> <z3t7qn97mscfnkwgvbrdb9rb@localhost>
 <e86263e9-45f5-d0d6-ad62-95f70474138c@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfqkvkvwSePo_7nHX1cY0yvWchd-bua-037+4dG6TR5djw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Oct 25, 2019, 3:35 PM Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> On 10/25/2019 5:08 PM, Michael Kjörling wrote:
> > The only thing resembling "deprecation" of dd that I'm aware of is the
> > recommendation I saw many years ago to not use it to copy potentially
> > problematic storage media (for data recovery), but to use ddrescue for
> > that purpose instead. The reason for this is that with conv=noerror
> > (without which it'd simply abort if it encounters an I/O error), dd
> > would simply skip past data in the input that it can't read, but not
> > adjust any offsets in the output, which wreaks havoc with anything
> > where offsets matter (such as in file system metadata).
>
> Which is where conv=sync,noerror comes in. Of course, I have no freakin'
> idea what version of UNIX that came into being. ;)
>

Ddrescue tries multiple times with different sizes, which dd doesn't do.

Warner

art k.
>
>
>
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From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Oct 26 10:33:45 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 11:33:45 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CABq8+zfoPjgLvLeKkR4sx8tB-KVzNbJ7Zg7JOxYEfj9FLZzidQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <c2db7993-cc03-fbc2-b86d-392b4ed90ddd@kilonet.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910261132290.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Wed, 23 Oct 2019, Arthur Krewat wrote:

> More than one of us have done that in our lifetime ;)
>
> On 10/23/2019 1:13 AM, Gilles Gravier wrote:
>> "sudo rm -rf /tmp /*"

It's almot becomea rite of passage :-)

-- Dave

From wlc at jctaylor.com  Sat Oct 26 10:57:57 2019
From: wlc at jctaylor.com (William Corcoran)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 00:57:57 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] What was your "Aha, Unix!" moment?
In-Reply-To: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191010205546.GA29154@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <17663F7E-1E54-4BA7-BC4C-F10BD3BF5368@jctaylor.com>

The year was 1986.  Top Gun was in the theaters. Lionel Ritchie was belting out “Say you, say me” on serious overplay.  

I was working on the coolest machine I ever saw.  The Motorola S290. Initially, we had System III and eventually System V.   At the time, I learned MS DOS months before I was exposed to UNIX.   I could not understand how a new small Motorola UNIX Super-microcomputer  could have such an extensive set of documentation.  I had to read these huge books to learn this same system could run computers from DEC and others.  These UNIX books were so extensive and I found there were two ways to use UNIX:  (1) sign on to the system at at work; or, (2) sign on to the system in my imagination.   Both were equally as fun.  

The Motorola S290 had a small DPU tower called Data Processing Unit and several other similar shaped small towers linked by a SCSI bus that housed 5.25” devices of the day.  This included 50MB hard disks, Wangtek Streaming Tape Drive.

Yes! You could mount a streaming tape as a block device!  It would “shoe shine” the tape heads if you “cd” into a formatted tape.  It was not practical as a block device, but it worked.  

The Motorola S290 DPU ran a primary operating system called ISOS. It was UNIX like. But not UNIX.  Boot disks had to have an ISOS partition and a UNIX partition.  

The Motorola S290 would first boot ISOS.  Then, UNIX would start afterwards.

ISOS has similar UNIX commands like “cd”, “ls”, and “ps”

After working in a UNIX shell one day, I signed on to ISOS.   I wanted to understand how UNIX integrated with ISOS. 

What blew my 1986 kid mind: After signing on to ISOS, I did a “ps”

PID  PPID  ...   COMMAND
123   2               “/UNIX”

Aha UNIX!   UNIX was a process running under ISOS!

Bill Corcoran 


> On Oct 10, 2019, at 4:56 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> All, we had another dozen TUHS suscribers to the list overnight. Welcome.
> A reminder that we're here to discuss Unix Heritage, so I'll nudge you
> if the conversation goes a bit off-topic.
> 
> So I'll kick off another thread. What was your "ahah" moment when you
> first saw that Unix was special, especially compared to the systems you'd
> previously used?
> 
> Mine was: Oh, I can:
>  + write a simple script
>  + to edit a file on the fly
>  + with no temporary files (a la pipes)
>  + AND I can change the file suffix and the system won't stop me!
> 
> I was using TOPS-20 beforehand.
> 
> Cheers, Warren

From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Oct 26 12:09:59 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 13:09:59 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <7w7e4yisda.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211604030.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <7w7e4yisda.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910261309090.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 21 Oct 2019, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:

>> Star Wars on a GT-40, which Andrew Hume (formerly UNSW, who is now at
>> Bell last I heard) reverse-engineered to support three players, not
>> two.
>
> Does that still exist?

Most unlikely; a lot of stuff got lost from those days :-(

-- Dave

From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Oct 26 12:24:02 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 13:24:02 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] How to do differential/integral on a PDP-7,
 was: Space Travel
In-Reply-To: <68553366-4E6F-4E17-8903-282C67186D16@humeweb.com>
References: <201910191440.x9JEe8PB035921@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CANOZ5rjGQeA3BFaMFXV3s-+11Ev9th2zerhvmBZetT6q0Eh2VQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <zrz47njfzctbxdqsjnnskppq@localhost>
 <443935c0-b033-e3ae-ea63-6a0fb3f8eb9e@kilonet.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910211604030.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <7w7e4yisda.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>
 <CAC0cEp-2ow3Ub72zwQEacaqtFhuL_bVGEzgaAxCg6uS4gzi3Gw@mail.gmail.com>
 <68553366-4E6F-4E17-8903-282C67186D16@humeweb.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910261322310.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 21 Oct 2019, Andrew Hume wrote:

> the gt40??? oh my lord! good job i am en route to the bell labs 50th
> anniversary.
> its been a long time since i heard the name “Dave Horsfall”!

Yep :-)  Although now retired, I'm still active in Unix projects.

-- Dave

From Caipenghui_c at 163.com  Sat Oct 26 19:39:40 2019
From: Caipenghui_c at 163.com (Caipenghui)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 17:39:40 +0800
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
Message-ID: <63A5F607-CDFC-45E1-8FDD-A040EF8A2424@163.com>

Hello everyone,

What is the special meaning of using / as directory partition in UNIX? And \ as the escape character.

Caipenghui
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From lars at nocrew.org  Sun Oct 27 01:10:11 2019
From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 15:10:11 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> (Doug
 McIlroy's message of "Fri, 18 Oct 2019 07:52:09 -0400")
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <7wmudn7dbg.fsf@junk.nocrew.org>

Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> writes:
>> 10-36-55.pdf    user-mode programs: pool game
>
> This game, written by ken, used the Graphic 2. One of its
> earliest tests--random starting positions and velocities on
> a frictionless table with no collision detection--produced
> a mesmerizing result.

This is what the pool game looks like:

https://github.com/simh/simh/issues/754#issuecomment-546611076

From salewski at att.net  Sun Oct 27 11:51:12 2019
From: salewski at att.net (Alan D. Salewski)
Date: Sat, 26 Oct 2019 21:51:12 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Two Unix50 Videos
In-Reply-To: <CAC0cEp_Tt7p_BdZR2pUjDuRtf+EPWW8mGdqh8_ENMvBBWRzYzw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191022202720.GA21600@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAC0cEp_Tt7p_BdZR2pUjDuRtf+EPWW8mGdqh8_ENMvBBWRzYzw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191027015112.GF7489@att.net>

On 2019-10-23 20:05:09, John P. Linderman spake thus:
> Here (I hope) is a link to the Tribute to Dennis. My apologies for my
> "laugh track".
> 
> https://www.dropbox.com/s/jsie49r6rk6cwm7/RitchieTribute.mov?dl=0

Thanks you -- that just made my weekend! My oldest fork() joined me for
another viewing to appreciate it, too.

-Al

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
a l a n   d.   s a l e w s k i                   salewski at att.net
1024D/FA2C3588 EDFA 195F EDF1 0933 1002  6396 7C92 5CB3 FA2C 3588
-----------------------------------------------------------------

From imp at bsdimp.com  Mon Oct 28 02:32:14 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 10:32:14 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] My EuroBSDCon Unix Talk is up
Message-ID: <CANCZdfpVDQVc3Rs4kVOof9a4hpShUXDpvEZfuJGwOiUy8qhk2A@mail.gmail.com>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlzaDgzPY8 has my EuroBSDcon unix talk
that everybody here was so kind to assist me on.

Warner
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Mon Oct 28 06:31:28 2019
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 16:31:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
Message-ID: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> What is the special meaning of using / as directory partition in UNIX? And \ as  the escape character.

\ came from Multics. The first day Multics ran at Bell Labs Bob Morris
famously typed backslash-newline at the login prompt and crashed the
system.

Multics had a hierarchical file system, too, but I don't recall how
pathnames were punctuated.

Doug

From rich.salz at gmail.com  Mon Oct 28 06:42:55 2019
From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Richard Salz)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 16:42:55 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>

>
>
> Multics had a hierarchical file system, too, but I don't recall how
> pathnames were punctuated.
>

>

>
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From bakul at bitblocks.com  Mon Oct 28 06:46:21 2019
From: bakul at bitblocks.com (Bakul Shah)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 13:46:21 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 27 Oct 2019 16:31:28 -0400."
 <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <20191027204628.7EFFE156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 16:31:28 -0400 Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> > What is the special meaning of using / as directory partition in UNIX? And 
> \ as  the escape character.
>
> \ came from Multics. The first day Multics ran at Bell Labs Bob Morris
> famously typed backslash-newline at the login prompt and crashed the
> system.
>
> Multics had a hierarchical file system, too, but I don't recall how
> pathnames were punctuated.

From what I read:

>dir1>dir2>file1	-- absolute: /dir1/di2/file1
file1			-- relative: if >dir1>dir2 is the working dir
<file2			-- relative: ../file2 == >dir1>file2
<dir3>file4		-- ../dir3/file3
<<dir4>file5		-- ../../dir4/file5 == >dir4>file5

<< is more compact thant ../.. and I like the vertical symmetry of < and >!

From charles.unix.pro at gmail.com  Mon Oct 28 06:49:01 2019
From: charles.unix.pro at gmail.com (Charles Anthony)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 13:49:01 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Oct 27, 2019 at 1:43 PM Richard Salz <rich.salz at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>> Multics had a hierarchical file system, too, but I don't recall how
>> pathnames were punctuated.
>>
>
> >
>
>>
/home/CAnthony     >user_dir_dir>User>CAnthony

../foo   <foo

-- Charles
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Oct 28 07:31:33 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 17:31:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
Message-ID: <20191027213133.9907E18C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Charles Anthony

    > /home/CAnthony     

I think it was >user_dir_dir>Group>User, wasn't it? I seem to remember my
homedir on MIT-Multics was >udd>CSR>JNChiappa?

And I wonder if the 'dd' directory on PDP-7 Unix owe anything to 'udd'?

Getting back to the original query, I'm wondering if '/' was picked
as it wasn't shifted, unlike '>'?

   Noel

From charles.unix.pro at gmail.com  Mon Oct 28 07:51:28 2019
From: charles.unix.pro at gmail.com (Charles Anthony)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 14:51:28 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <20191027213133.9907E18C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20191027213133.9907E18C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CANV78LSdkPj-tc=ezHfSgWU0PYriDJ86HRR0WA7fvh44su8pAw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Oct 27, 2019 at 2:31 PM Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
wrote:

>     > From: Charles Anthony
>
>     > /home/CAnthony
>
> I think it was >user_dir_dir>Group>User, wasn't it? I seem to remember my
> homedir on MIT-Multics was >udd>CSR>JNChiappa?
>
>
>user_dir_dir>Project>User

>user_dir_dir          Home directories of users
>daemon_dir_dir    Home directories of daemons
>process_dir_dir    /proc

"Names" are aliases, similar to soft links; "udd" is a name for
"user_dir_dir" so ">udd" and ">user_dir_dir" point to the same directory.

>user_dir_dir>SysAdmin>admin    or   >udd>sa>a   is  ~root/

Circulating back to the original question, backslash is used as an escape
character on Multics.  "\f" is end-of-file-ish, used eg to leave input mode
in text editors.

-- Charles

And I wonder if the 'dd' directory on PDP-7 Unix owe anything to 'udd'?
>
> Getting back to the original query, I'm wondering if '/' was picked
> as it wasn't shifted, unlike '>'?
>
>    Noel
>


-- 
X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett
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From gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net  Mon Oct 28 09:01:44 2019
From: gtaylor at tnetconsulting.net (Grant Taylor)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 17:01:44 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>

On 10/27/19 2:49 PM, Charles Anthony wrote:
> /home/CAnthony     >user_dir_dir>User>CAnthony
Is there any relation between Multics' use of ">" as a directory 
separator and MS-DOS's default use of ">" at the end of the command prompt?



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die

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From usotsuki at buric.co  Mon Oct 28 11:11:25 2019
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 21:11:25 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:

> On 10/27/19 2:49 PM, Charles Anthony wrote:
>> /home/CAnthony     >user_dir_dir>User>CAnthony
> Is there any relation between Multics' use of ">" as a directory separator 
> and MS-DOS's default use of ">" at the end of the command prompt?

I can't imagine there's any such connection.  MS-DOS got it from CP/M, 
which didn't even have the concept of subdirectories until after MS-DOS 
did.

-uso.

From imp at bsdimp.com  Mon Oct 28 12:46:52 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Sun, 27 Oct 2019 20:46:52 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] My EuroBSDCon talk
Message-ID: <CANCZdfqN88HFneLjvemOwUet1hAss-DJS4zf8ED_wF3kTm_5cQ@mail.gmail.com>

My talk has been posted.

https://youtu.be/FTlzaDgzPY8

Thanks to everyone who helped make it better.

Warner

P.s. this may be a duplicate email... I had domain issues when I sent it
before...
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From ewe2 at ewe2.ninja  Mon Oct 28 15:54:46 2019
From: ewe2 at ewe2.ninja (Sean Dwyer)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 01:54:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] My EuroBSDCon talk
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfqN88HFneLjvemOwUet1hAss-DJS4zf8ED_wF3kTm_5cQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CANCZdfqN88HFneLjvemOwUet1hAss-DJS4zf8ED_wF3kTm_5cQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191028055445.GA30376@mail.ewe2.ninja>

On Sun, Oct 27, 2019 at 08:46:52PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> My talk has been posted.
> 
> https://youtu.be/FTlzaDgzPY8
> 
> Thanks to everyone who helped make it better.

Really interesting talk, good luck with the Venix stuff!

-- 
I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise as they fly by.

From michael at kjorling.se  Mon Oct 28 22:00:02 2019
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 12:00:02 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>

On 27 Oct 2019 21:11 -0400, from usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas):
> On Sun, 27 Oct 2019, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
>> Is there any relation between Multics' use of ">" as a directory
>> separator and MS-DOS's default use of ">" at the end of the command
>> prompt?
> 
> I can't imagine there's any such connection.  MS-DOS got it from CP/M, which
> didn't even have the concept of subdirectories until after MS-DOS did.

If there was such a relationship, it would probably make more sense
for the command prompt termination character to be ":", not ">", as
DOS labelled devices as [whatever]: (like "A:" or "NUL:"). So I agree
with Steve; I imagine it's unrelated. They just had to use _something_
as a default to indicate that the computer is waiting for a command,
and ">" is as good a character as any.

In either case, since MS-DOS/PC-DOS did what CP/M already did in that
regard, the question would probably need to be posed to Kildall where
he got it from. Unless Kildall wrote it down, getting a first hand
account on the reasoning behind that particular choice would be...
nontrivial.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
  “The most dangerous thought that you can have as a creative person
              is to think you know what you’re doing.” (Bret Victor)


From clemc at ccc.com  Mon Oct 28 23:44:18 2019
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 09:44:18 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2NhyRTnkEOFK6Oj_UShKDHcnLEY4oVbMMdS=RV-xkB_3Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 8:01 AM Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se>
wrote:

> the question would probably need to be posed to Kildall where he got it
> from.
>
Kildall was in record stating that CP/M's model was RT-11, which came from
DOS-11 which came from DOS-8
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From usotsuki at buric.co  Tue Oct 29 01:08:44 2019
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 11:08:44 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910281106290.77349@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Mon, 28 Oct 2019, Michael Kjörling wrote:

> On 27 Oct 2019 21:11 -0400, from usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas):
>>
>> I can't imagine there's any such connection.  MS-DOS got it from CP/M, which
>> didn't even have the concept of subdirectories until after MS-DOS did.
>
> If there was such a relationship, it would probably make more sense
> for the command prompt termination character to be ":", not ">", as
> DOS labelled devices as [whatever]: (like "A:" or "NUL:"). So I agree
> with Steve; I imagine it's unrelated. They just had to use _something_
> as a default to indicate that the computer is waiting for a command,
> and ">" is as good a character as any.

86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt character.  This was changed for 
IBM's release, for some clone releases, and for MS-DOS 2.0.

-uso.

From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Tue Oct 29 01:51:44 2019
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 11:51:44 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
Message-ID: <20191028155144.ACBAB18C07E@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Charles Anthony

    >> I think it was >user_dir_dir>Group>User, wasn't it?

    > user_dir_dir>Project>User

Oh, right. Too many years spent on Unix! :-)

    > "Names" are aliases, similar to soft links

I feel like they are more similar to hard links; they belong to a segment, and
if the name is given to another segment, and the original segment has only
that name, it goes away. (See the discussion under "add_name" in the MPM
'Commands and Active Fuinctions'). Also, Multics does real soft links (too),
so names can't be soft links! :-)

	Noel

From ality at pbrane.org  Tue Oct 29 03:36:10 2019
From: ality at pbrane.org (Anthony Martin)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 10:36:10 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <20191027204628.7EFFE156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191027204628.7EFFE156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
Message-ID: <20191028173539.GA129556@alice>

Bakul Shah <bakul at bitblocks.com> once said:
> >dir1>dir2>file1	-- absolute: /dir1/di2/file1
> file1			-- relative: if >dir1>dir2 is the working dir
> <file2			-- relative: ../file2 == >dir1>file2
> <dir3>file4		-- ../dir3/file3
> <<dir4>file5		-- ../../dir4/file5 == >dir4>file5
> 
> << is more compact thant ../.. and I like the vertical symmetry of < and >!

"Getting Less Than Right" would have been an
interesting title. ;)

Unix uses dot for the current directory. Was
there any notation for this in Multics?

  Anthony

From charles.unix.pro at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 04:17:26 2019
From: charles.unix.pro at gmail.com (Charles Anthony)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 11:17:26 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <20191028173539.GA129556@alice>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191027204628.7EFFE156E80B@mail.bitblocks.com>
 <20191028173539.GA129556@alice>
Message-ID: <CANV78LTcL8T43oWsHBvrk_5STBDjSD-PQHB-67inJpX_0ZoHdg@mail.gmail.com>

>
>
>
> Unix uses dot for the current directory. Was
> there any notation for this in Multics?
>
> Not as a special symbol. As a command parameter,   [pwd]   is equivalent
to UNIX `pwd`;  [hd]  would be equivalent to ~, evaluating to the home
directory,

-- Charles
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From dave at horsfall.org  Tue Oct 29 04:47:33 2019
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 05:47:33 +1100 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910281106290.77349@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910281106290.77349@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910290544171.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 28 Oct 2019, Steve Nickolas wrote:

> 86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt character.  This was changed for 
> IBM's release, for some clone releases, and for MS-DOS 2.0.

The best I've ever seen was RT-11's "." - talk about minimalist...

Actually this thread probably belongs on COFF by now.

-- Dave

From fuz at fuz.su  Tue Oct 29 06:07:45 2019
From: fuz at fuz.su (Robert Clausecker)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 21:07:45 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
Message-ID: <20191028200745.GA36348@fuz.su>

Some time ago, I wrote a piece [1] about the design of the AT&T
assembler syntax.  While I'm still not quite sure if everything in there
is correct, this explanation seemed plausible to me; the PDP-11
assembler being adapted for the 8086, then the 80386 and then ELF
targets, giving us today's convoluted syntax.

The one thing in this chain I have never found is an AT&T style
assembler for x86 before ELF was introduced.  Supposedly, it would get
away without % as a register prefix, thus being much less obnoxious to
use.  Any idea if such an assembler ever existed and if yes where?
I suppose Xenix might have shipped something like that.

The only AT&T syntax assemblers I know today are those from Solaris,
the GNU project, the LLVM project, and possibly whatever macOS ships.
Are there (or where there) any other x86 AT&T assemblers?  Who was
the first party to introduce this?

Yours,
Robert Clausecker

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42250270/417501

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - for an 8-bit clean world 
/\  - against html email  - against proprietary attachments

From paul.winalski at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 06:43:16 2019
From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:43:16 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX Backslash History
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910290544171.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201910272031.x9RKVSem124842@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAFH29trMHepMHK0C+UapNVXvjfnFMv5ov4W4YS+yOn4i+mhV0A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANV78LQa=VTZAMmVeRphTvrkxrkrAzgoU_-KqtdgqfWY2uUZJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <51f2d838-d097-a93f-b44d-9c670d206d2b@tnetconsulting.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910272110350.28402@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <xzdtvssnnqfvfxq9swgv979g@localhost>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1910281106290.77349@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.21.9999.1910290544171.17400@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CABH=_VReuYZSM4sTCss5gjcbEZm9rzTaKoA2z7D1QRnikMKE2w@mail.gmail.com>

On 10/28/19, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Oct 2019, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>
>> 86-DOS actually did use ":" as a prompt character.  This was changed for
>> IBM's release, for some clone releases, and for MS-DOS 2.0.
>
> The best I've ever seen was RT-11's "." - talk about minimalist...
>
> Actually this thread probably belongs on COFF by now.

RT-11 was following standard DEC practice by using "." as its command
prompt.  The "monitor dot" was the command prompt in both TOPS-10 and
TOPS-20.

Most DEC operating systems, including RT-11, TOPS-10/20, and VMS, used
"/" as a prefix on command options; "-" performs this function on UNIX
since "/" is the directory delimiter.  Back in the days of stand-alone
programs, physical switches on the console were used to set program
options.  This of course won't work when you have multiprogramming.  I
was told that DEC chose "/" because it looks like a toggle switch.
Command options in fact were initially called "switches".

-Paul W.

From fuz at fuz.su  Tue Oct 29 06:14:08 2019
From: fuz at fuz.su (Robert Clausecker)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 21:14:08 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
Message-ID: <20191028201408.GA37167@fuz.su>

Some time ago, I wrote a piece [1] about the design of the AT&T
assembler syntax.  While I'm still not quite sure if everything in there
is correct, this explanation seemed plausible to me; the PDP-11
assembler being adapted for the 8086, then the 80386 and then ELF
targets, giving us today's convoluted syntax.

The one thing in this chain I have never found is an AT&T style
assembler for x86 before ELF was introduced.  Supposedly, it would get
away without % as a register prefix, thus being much less obnoxious to
use.  Any idea if such an assembler ever existed and if yes where?
I suppose Xenix might have shipped something like that.

The only AT&T syntax assemblers I know today are those from Solaris,
the GNU project, the LLVM project, and possibly whatever macOS ships.
Are there (or where there) any other x86 AT&T assemblers?  Who was
the first party to introduce this?

Yours,
Robert Clausecker

[1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42250270/417501

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - for an 8-bit clean world 
/\  - against html email  - against proprietary attachments

From web at loomcom.com  Tue Oct 29 07:06:12 2019
From: web at loomcom.com (Seth Morabito)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 14:06:12 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
In-Reply-To: <20191028201408.GA37167@fuz.su>
References: <20191028201408.GA37167@fuz.su>
Message-ID: <4a3383f9-473b-430c-8b91-6324a2793437@www.fastmail.com>

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019, at 1:14 PM, Robert Clausecker wrote:
> Some time ago, I wrote a piece [1] about the design of the AT&T
> assembler syntax.  


Thanks for pointing this out, I think it's a really interesting read.

I'm a bit of an oddball among my friends, because I actually like and prefer AT&T syntax. I think most of the other developers I know find my attitude to be abhorrent :)

-Seth
-- 
  Seth Morabito
  Poulsbo, WA
  web at loomcom.com

From mah at mhorton.net  Tue Oct 29 07:41:39 2019
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 14:41:39 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>

I'm enjoying bwk's book very much, but it has me wondering. There are 
two stories I've heard that supposedly occurred at Murray Hill, but he 
didn't include them. I've read past the badge section and the "grepping 
for my keys" comment, so I believe I've come past the right point.

Without telling the actual stories here, one involves a monkey picture 
pasted onto a Bell Labs badge, the other is about an MTS who was late to 
a meeting because she was grepping her apartment for her keys. I've told 
these stories often, and they get a good laugh.

Does anyone have first hand knowledge of these stories, who told them, 
whether they are true, etc?

Thanks,

     Mary Ann

On 10/20/19 3:43 PM, Norman Wilson wrote:
> ISBN 9781695978553, for anyone who wants to know that.
>
> I see it for sale on amazon.com and amazon.ca, paperback, `Independently
> published.'  Does anyone know if it is likely to appear in bricks-and-mortar
> bookshops any time soon?
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON

From alec at sensi.org  Tue Oct 29 07:48:29 2019
From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 00:48:29 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
Message-ID: <CAGqcPWAdVQU=XAK1QYetrWayAm6ApX=bOjSDDu4DLtM0NdZqbg@mail.gmail.com>

Robert Clausecker <fuz at fuz.su>wrote:

> The one thing in this chain I have never found is an AT&T style
> assembler for x86 before ELF was introduced.

There were alot of AT&T codebase ports to x86 architecture except Xenix:
Microport, INTERACTIVE, Everex, Wyse e.t.c. using AT&T x86 syntax.

I've tried Microport SystemV /386 (SysV R3.2). It uses COFF
as format for executables:
See:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?67736-History-behind-the-disk-images-of-AT-amp-T-UNIX-System-V-Release-4-Version-2-1-for-386&p=560039#post560039
(Rather interesting kernel ABI/Call convention)

and
https://gunkies.org/wiki/Unix_SYSVr3

There were also SystemV R2 to i286 ports i.e.:
https://gunkies.org/wiki/Microport_System_V
with a.out binary format.

From norman at oclsc.org  Tue Oct 29 07:54:26 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 17:54:26 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
Message-ID: <1572299670.14422.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Mary Ann Horton:

  I'm enjoying bwk's book very much, but it has me wondering. There are 
  two stories I've heard that supposedly occurred at Murray Hill, but he 
  didn't include them.

====

You can't expect every story to be there.  The book would be too
heavy to lift!

Could the `monkey picture on a badge' story be that of G. R. Emlin's
badge?  She was a gremlin doll, not a monkey, but it would be
reasonable to mistake the former for the latter.

Here's a good pictore of G R herself, with what I believe to be at
least a second-generation badge.  The original badge was an old-style
Bell Labs one with a green border; I forget whether that meant
contractor or something else, but a regular MTS badge was blue-bordered
at the time.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

From norman at oclsc.org  Tue Oct 29 07:55:29 2019
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 17:55:29 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
Message-ID: <1572299735.14620.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Bother:

   Here's a good pictore of G R herself, with what I believe to be at
  least a second-generation badge.

Forgot to paste in the URL.  Here it is:

http://www.peteradamsphoto.com/g-r-emlin/

From fuz at fuz.su  Tue Oct 29 07:59:16 2019
From: fuz at fuz.su (Robert Clausecker)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 22:59:16 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
In-Reply-To: <CAGqcPWAdVQU=XAK1QYetrWayAm6ApX=bOjSDDu4DLtM0NdZqbg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGqcPWAdVQU=XAK1QYetrWayAm6ApX=bOjSDDu4DLtM0NdZqbg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191028215916.GA43520@fuz.su>

Hi Alexander,

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 12:48:29AM +0300, Alexander Voropay wrote:
> Robert Clausecker <fuz at fuz.su>wrote:
> 
> > The one thing in this chain I have never found is an AT&T style
> > assembler for x86 before ELF was introduced.
> 
> There were alot of AT&T codebase ports to x86 architecture except Xenix:
> Microport, INTERACTIVE, Everex, Wyse e.t.c. using AT&T x86 syntax.
> 
> I've tried Microport SystemV /386 (SysV R3.2). It uses COFF
> as format for executables:
> See:
> http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?67736-History-behind-the-disk-images-of-AT-amp-T-UNIX-System-V-Release-4-Version-2-1-for-386&p=560039#post560039
> (Rather interesting kernel ABI/Call convention)

Nice find!  It seems to use lcall to selector 7 for system calls.  A
similar choice was made in 386BSD all the way through FreeBSD 2.2.8
where it was replaced with int $0x80 as in Linux.

> and
> https://gunkies.org/wiki/Unix_SYSVr3
> 
> There were also SystemV R2 to i286 ports i.e.:
> https://gunkies.org/wiki/Microport_System_V
> with a.out binary format.

I'll have a look at that.

Thank you for the help!

Yours,
Robert Clausecker

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - for an 8-bit clean world 
/\  - against html email  - against proprietary attachments

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct 29 08:08:53 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:08:53 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
In-Reply-To: <20191028200745.GA36348@fuz.su>
References: <20191028200745.GA36348@fuz.su>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfo-DnYM8_1mQZMcgKd7OP14iJ7ffF7PLJv-xMRBBTuaOw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 2:16 PM Robert Clausecker <fuz at fuz.su> wrote:

> Some time ago, I wrote a piece [1] about the design of the AT&T
> assembler syntax.  While I'm still not quite sure if everything in there
> is correct, this explanation seemed plausible to me; the PDP-11
> assembler being adapted for the 8086, then the 80386 and then ELF
> targets, giving us today's convoluted syntax.
>
> The one thing in this chain I have never found is an AT&T style
> assembler for x86 before ELF was introduced.  Supposedly, it would get
> away without % as a register prefix, thus being much less obnoxious to
> use.  Any idea if such an assembler ever existed and if yes where?
> I suppose Xenix might have shipped something like that.
>
> The only AT&T syntax assemblers I know today are those from Solaris,
> the GNU project, the LLVM project, and possibly whatever macOS ships.
> Are there (or where there) any other x86 AT&T assemblers?  Who was
> the first party to introduce this?
>

VENIX 2.0 had this. It was a Pure AT&T syntax w/o % signs:

eg
|
| VENIX/86 start off (bootstrap starts execution at location 0 `start').
|
| Relocate complete kernel down to low memory.
        .text
start:  cli
        mov     dx,#LOWMEM      | base of relocated kernel
        mov     cx,cs
        cmp     cx,dx           | are we there (put there by bootstrap) ?
        beq     L0002           | Yes.
        mov     ds,cx

which is clearly op dst, src.

VENIX's compiler was from the MIT compiler collection which was a port of
the portable C compiler to x86 that everybody used (it seems, I don't have
a reference for that, just speculation).  You can find a version of
this code in the TUHS archive in Applications/Portable_CC which has the
8086.zip.

There's follow on work from a university in Queens in 286.zip that adds
near/far stuff (the original one didn't, and the VENIX code assumes none of
the segment registers change in userland code for its context switching
code). I've not looked at this code.

All this code is dyed in the wool K&R code from a V7-level C compiler, so
it won't compile on newer systems. And it's a right-royal pain in the
backside to convert on the fly because it wasn't written to be portable to
ANSI compilers and modern C compilers no longer have a K&R mode...

Thanks again to Al Kossow for this being in the archive. It's possible to
find this on FTP sites if you look hard enough. I found them in the past,
but I can't find it now that I went looking, so I'm quite happy that it's
in the archive. VENIX 2.1 released a newer version of the compiler than was
in VENIX 2.0. I don't know if those pre-date or post-date this stuff.

Sadly, the modern PCC project no longer works with 16-bit code, but I
suppose that's par for the course these days.

Warner

Yours,
> Robert Clausecker
>
> [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42250270/417501
>
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From nobozo at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 08:09:53 2019
From: nobozo at gmail.com (Jon Forrest)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 15:09:53 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <91571786-c448-c7d9-995f-4bf7c434a29e@gmail.com>



On 10/28/19 2:41 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote:

> Without telling the actual stories here, one involves a monkey picture 
> pasted onto a Bell Labs badge, the other is about an MTS who was late to 
> a meeting because she was grepping her apartment for her keys. I've told 
> these stories often, and they get a good laugh.

I don't know what happened at Bell Labs but I can tell a similar story
about what happened at Ford Aerospace, which was a very early commercial
Unix user (e.g. PWB in 1978).

Ford had secure entry points into the buildings, where you would go into
a pod that's similar to what you go though in airports these days.
While you were in the pod, you were supposed to show your badge
to a camera which was being monitored by a security person sitting
nearby. Most of these security people were humorless and seemed to
enjoy this task.

One of the people in my group was real joker. So, one day he decided
to paste a piece of a brown paper bag over his picture on his badge.
Along with this, he put a brown paper bag over his head, and went
into the security pod. The reaction of the security person was classic.
It took him a little while to overcome the fact that the badge matched
what he was seeing, and that he needed to investigate further.

Jon


From fuz at fuz.su  Tue Oct 29 08:24:17 2019
From: fuz at fuz.su (Robert Clausecker)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 23:24:17 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfo-DnYM8_1mQZMcgKd7OP14iJ7ffF7PLJv-xMRBBTuaOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191028200745.GA36348@fuz.su>
 <CANCZdfo-DnYM8_1mQZMcgKd7OP14iJ7ffF7PLJv-xMRBBTuaOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191028222417.GA45136@fuz.su>

Hi Warner,

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 04:08:53PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> VENIX 2.0 had this. It was a Pure AT&T syntax w/o % signs:
> 
> eg
> |
> | VENIX/86 start off (bootstrap starts execution at location 0 `start').
> |
> | Relocate complete kernel down to low memory.
>         .text
> start:  cli
>         mov     dx,#LOWMEM      | base of relocated kernel
>         mov     cx,cs
>         cmp     cx,dx           | are we there (put there by bootstrap) ?
>         beq     L0002           | Yes.
>         mov     ds,cx
> 
> which is clearly op dst, src.

op dst, src is Intel syntax.  AT&T syntax has op src, dst like MACRO-11.
There are a number of other differences: (a) | instead of / or # as a comment
character (b) different mnemonics (beq instead of je) and (c) # instead of $
as the comment character.

Without seeing some more code, I'd say it's not AT&T syntax.

> VENIX's compiler was from the MIT compiler collection which was a port of
> the portable C compiler to x86 that everybody used (it seems, I don't have
> a reference for that, just speculation).  You can find a version of
> this code in the TUHS archive in Applications/Portable_CC which has the
> 8086.zip.
>
> There's follow on work from a university in Queens in 286.zip that adds
> near/far stuff (the original one didn't, and the VENIX code assumes none of
> the segment registers change in userland code for its context switching
> code). I've not looked at this code.

Will have a look!

> All this code is dyed in the wool K&R code from a V7-level C compiler, so
> it won't compile on newer systems. And it's a right-royal pain in the
> backside to convert on the fly because it wasn't written to be portable to
> ANSI compilers and modern C compilers no longer have a K&R mode...
> 
> Thanks again to Al Kossow for this being in the archive. It's possible to
> find this on FTP sites if you look hard enough. I found them in the past,
> but I can't find it now that I went looking, so I'm quite happy that it's
> in the archive. VENIX 2.1 released a newer version of the compiler than was
> in VENIX 2.0. I don't know if those pre-date or post-date this stuff.

Thank you for trying to dig up the source.

> Sadly, the modern PCC project no longer works with 16-bit code, but I
> suppose that's par for the course these days.

OpenWatcom still works, but it's not too compatible.

> Warner
> 
> Yours,
> > Robert Clausecker
> >
> > [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42250270/417501

Yours,
Robert Clausecker

-- 
()  ascii ribbon campaign - for an 8-bit clean world 
/\  - against html email  - against proprietary attachments

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct 29 08:29:26 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:29:26 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
In-Reply-To: <20191028222417.GA45136@fuz.su>
References: <20191028200745.GA36348@fuz.su>
 <CANCZdfo-DnYM8_1mQZMcgKd7OP14iJ7ffF7PLJv-xMRBBTuaOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20191028222417.GA45136@fuz.su>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfooqSDFTPouDgmOGFWqzEOpFrJ8oGRAHS8k_+VZDsboGQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 4:24 PM Robert Clausecker <fuz at fuz.su> wrote:

> Hi Warner,
>
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 04:08:53PM -0600, Warner Losh wrote:
> > VENIX 2.0 had this. It was a Pure AT&T syntax w/o % signs:
> >
> > eg
> > |
> > | VENIX/86 start off (bootstrap starts execution at location 0 `start').
> > |
> > | Relocate complete kernel down to low memory.
> >         .text
> > start:  cli
> >         mov     dx,#LOWMEM      | base of relocated kernel
> >         mov     cx,cs
> >         cmp     cx,dx           | are we there (put there by bootstrap) ?
> >         beq     L0002           | Yes.
> >         mov     ds,cx
> >
> > which is clearly op dst, src.
>
> op dst, src is Intel syntax.  AT&T syntax has op src, dst like MACRO-11.
> There are a number of other differences: (a) | instead of / or # as a
> comment
> character (b) different mnemonics (beq instead of je) and (c) # instead of
> $
> as the comment character.
>
> Without seeing some more code, I'd say it's not AT&T syntax.
>

Doh! I've been mixing the two up since the 90s :(. Yea, this stuff isn't
AT&T syntax...  It's from a compiler from MIT... I should have taken the
hint that it used MIT sequence :)

Warner
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From mah at mhorton.net  Tue Oct 29 09:01:02 2019
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:01:02 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <91571786-c448-c7d9-995f-4bf7c434a29e@gmail.com>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
 <91571786-c448-c7d9-995f-4bf7c434a29e@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>

That's similar but different in a couple of important ways. And it's not 
G.R. Emlin's, that's what reminded me of it.

Here is the badge story as I heard it.

Two MTS at Murray Hill were discussing their badges. It was routine to 
walk into the building, show the guard your badge, and keep walking.

One guy said "They never look at those things!  I'll bet I could paste a 
picture of a monkey on my badge, and he'd never notice it!". The other 
guy said "You're on!".

So the first guy pastes a monkey picture on his badge. The second guy 
tips off the guard, and watches from inside the building.

The first guy comes into the building and flashes his monkey badge to 
the guard. No reaction, so he keeps on walking. A few second later, the 
guard calls after him. "Hey, come back here! Let me see your badge." The 
guy knows he's in trouble, but he comes back and hands the guard his badge.

The guard looks at the badge. He looks at the employee. He looks at the 
badge. He looks at the employee. He looks at the badge.

Handing the badge back to the employee, he says "OK, you can go!"


On 10/28/19 3:09 PM, Jon Forrest wrote:
>
>
> On 10/28/19 2:41 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
>
>> Without telling the actual stories here, one involves a monkey 
>> picture pasted onto a Bell Labs badge, the other is about an MTS who 
>> was late to a meeting because she was grepping her apartment for her 
>> keys. I've told these stories often, and they get a good laugh.
>
> [brown paper bag story]
>

From nobozo at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 09:18:47 2019
From: nobozo at gmail.com (Jon Forrest)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 16:18:47 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
 <91571786-c448-c7d9-995f-4bf7c434a29e@gmail.com>
 <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <bdb8862e-8614-ba7b-9366-d1e7a0650348@gmail.com>



On 10/28/2019 4:01 PM, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
> That's similar but different in a couple of important ways. And it's not 
> G.R. Emlin's, that's what reminded me of it.
> 
> Here is the badge story as I heard it.

You're right. Your story is very similar to mine. I wonder
if my friend heard the Bell Labs story and decided to try
it at Ford. Your description of the guard's reaction was
better, and more accurate, than mine.

In my case, I know it happened because I was there.

Jon


From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Tue Oct 29 09:49:00 2019
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 00:49:00 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
 <91571786-c448-c7d9-995f-4bf7c434a29e@gmail.com>
 <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <20191028234900.LOEFm%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Mary Ann Horton wrote in <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562 at mhorton.net>:
 |That's similar but different in a couple of important ways. And it's not 
 |G.R. Emlin's, that's what reminded me of it.
 |
 |Here is the badge story as I heard it.
 |
 |Two MTS at Murray Hill were discussing their badges. It was routine to 
 |walk into the building, show the guard your badge, and keep walking.
 |
 |One guy said "They never look at those things!  I'll bet I could paste a 
 |picture of a monkey on my badge, and he'd never notice it!". The other 
 |guy said "You're on!".
 |
 |So the first guy pastes a monkey picture on his badge. The second guy 
 |tips off the guard, and watches from inside the building.
 |
 |The first guy comes into the building and flashes his monkey badge to 
 |the guard. No reaction, so he keeps on walking. A few second later, the 
 |guard calls after him. "Hey, come back here! Let me see your badge." The 
 |guy knows he's in trouble, but he comes back and hands the guard his badge.
 |
 |The guard looks at the badge. He looks at the employee. He looks at the 
 |badge. He looks at the employee. He looks at the badge.
 |
 |Handing the badge back to the employee, he says "OK, you can go!"

Early side channel attack.

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)

From cym224 at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 10:31:16 2019
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo Nusquam)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 20:31:16 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
In-Reply-To: <4a3383f9-473b-430c-8b91-6324a2793437@www.fastmail.com>
References: <20191028201408.GA37167@fuz.su>
 <4a3383f9-473b-430c-8b91-6324a2793437@www.fastmail.com>
Message-ID: <5623d077-218b-4b15-ae62-8b84ab4bbfae@gmail.com>

On 10/28/19 17:06, Seth Morabito wrote:

>>
>> Thanks for pointing this out, I think it's a really interesting read.
>>
>> [...] because I actually like and prefer AT&T syntax.
+1


>   I think most of the other developers I know find my attitude to be abhorrent :)
>
> -Seth


From stewart at serissa.com  Tue Oct 29 12:05:50 2019
From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 22:05:50 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
 <91571786-c448-c7d9-995f-4bf7c434a29e@gmail.com>
 <4caae9f3-a9dd-1a77-6f2b-633cba870562@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <EB6FA403-C650-468E-8DDB-78061DB5805E@serissa.com>

Regarding badge stories, my favorite is Richard Feynman, who found a hole in the fence at Los Alamos and one day exited four times without going in.  (Recollection of the story, I think in Surely You’re Joking…)

But that reminds me of my favorite arithmetic problem:

Q:  explain negative numbers
A;  Four people go into an empty room.  Seven people leave.  How many people have to go into the room before it is empty again?



From wkt at tuhs.org  Tue Oct 29 12:18:43 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 12:18:43 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: UNIX-7 boots on sn 129
Message-ID: <20191029021843.GA24461@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, I just received this from Stephen Jones at the LCM+L.

----- Forwarded message from Stephen Jones <StephenJo at livingcomputers.org> -----

Subject: UNIX-7 boots on sn 129

   Hello Folks .. you’ll hear through official channels along with videos
   and pictures (hopefully soon) that we just got PDP-7 UNICS to boot on
   a real PDP-7 (sn 129) using our newly designed “JK09” disk drive.

   The recent posting of source is going to be great .. we’ve been using
   the simh image that has been available for a while.

   BTW, compiling the B Hello World on a real 7 is much more satisfying
   than it is under simh …

   More to come, please watch Living Computers for updates.
   (PS sorry we’re late to the BTL party).

   Stephen M. Jones
----- End forwarded message -----

From stewart at serissa.com  Tue Oct 29 12:18:46 2019
From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 22:18:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Space Travel, was New: The Earliest UNIX Code
In-Reply-To: <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201910181152.x9IBq95P001809@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20191018183610.diq_a%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <CACytpF--GW2+i=T7q396E6JRaij-xbR=pvV8thr_YyxjwLN_Mg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAG=a+rgS8iJKnd85wv5kt8JfgZNkOR0u47FySMXYvD+jsOKEZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <363F5ECC-7F3E-4441-B9E7-2828BF21F303@serissa.com>


> On 2019, Oct 18, at 6:04 PM, Ken Thompson via TUHS <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> while writing "space travel,"
> i could not get the space ship integration
> around a planet to keep from either gaining or
> losing energy due to floating point errors.
> i asked dick hamming if he could help. after
> a couple hours, he came back with a formula.
> i tried it and it worked perfectly. it was some
> weird simple double integration that self
> corrected for fp round off. as near as i can
> ascertain, the formula was never published
> and no one i have asked (including me) has
> been able to recreate it.
> 
> i look forward to the OCR of the code.
> 

I think this must be a variant of “Symplectic Integration”.

My son had an internship at Mitre having something to do with orbit 
determination and I got to reading papers about it.

Symplectic integration is what you want for systems described by a Hamiltonian, 
such as orbits because the usual integrators (Euler, Runge-Kutta) don’t conserve 
the interchange between position and momentum, or something like that.

As far as I can tell, this sort of stuff started getting published in the 1980s, 
so Hamming may well have tossed it off earlier and just not written it up.

Could be a nice historical footnote for the development of orbit calculations.
Could be fun to reverse engineer the code.

-L


From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct 29 13:57:47 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 21:57:47 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: UNIX-7 boots on sn 129
In-Reply-To: <20191029021843.GA24461@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191029021843.GA24461@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoBWKZabCsSF0NZTKhnX_p2LvdH9mcvRWrziYpgMiLB3g@mail.gmail.com>

That's awesome. I'll wager it is only the second PDP-7 to boot unix, and
the first PDP-7A. And maybe the 6th machine ever. Well done.

Warner

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 8:19 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, I just received this from Stephen Jones at the LCM+L.
>
> ----- Forwarded message from Stephen Jones <StephenJo at livingcomputers.org>
> -----
>
> Subject: UNIX-7 boots on sn 129
>
>    Hello Folks .. you’ll hear through official channels along with videos
>    and pictures (hopefully soon) that we just got PDP-7 UNICS to boot on
>    a real PDP-7 (sn 129) using our newly designed “JK09” disk drive.
>
>    The recent posting of source is going to be great .. we’ve been using
>    the simh image that has been available for a while.
>
>    BTW, compiling the B Hello World on a real 7 is much more satisfying
>    than it is under simh …
>
>    More to come, please watch Living Computers for updates.
>    (PS sorry we’re late to the BTL party).
>
>    Stephen M. Jones
> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
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From wkt at tuhs.org  Tue Oct 29 14:04:34 2019
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 14:04:34 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
Message-ID: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting PDP-7.

So, cast your eyes on https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/

Cheers, Warren

P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.

From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Oct 29 15:07:08 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 23:07:08 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoH0XPUuLK7kZguNxJ0LHj1b3_b8Lur9V8ezDdgdM+94g@mail.gmail.com>

This looks awesome. The readme says it's unsure if this is v6 or v7. Diff
of a few files suggests v6 with the 'u' area being a pointer instead of a
struct and a few of the elements names changed a bit... The dates are from
1976 or 1977, which also matches...

And we have this from wikipedia: "By 1976, the operating system was in use
at various academic institutions, including Princeton
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University>, where Tom Lyon and
others ported it to the S/370, to run as a guest OS under VM/370
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system)>."  which matches the
dates as well found on the tape.

This is seriously cool. There are a few corrupted files (like dsk.h).
Kernel sources are there, but there's no userland programs apart from the
assembler and C compiler. Looking at the kernel dskio.s routines suggests
it's making an upcall to something with the sio instructions which suggests
this is the VM/370 version.

The hits keep coming!

Warner

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 10:04 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting PDP-7.
>
> So, cast your eyes on https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
> P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.
>
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From athornton at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 15:19:43 2019
From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton)
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 2019 22:19:43 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <D986E076-E5AD-4A39-9859-E7EBDCC49404@gmail.com>



> On Oct 28, 2019, at 9:04 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting PDP-7.
> 
> So, cast your eyes on https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
> 
> Cheers, Warren
> 
> P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.


Well.

Time to dust of Hercules again.  Too bad the LCM+L has my P/390 and I had to give my Integrated Server back to IBM.

Adam

From spedraja at gmail.com  Tue Oct 29 17:14:46 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 08:14:46 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <D986E076-E5AD-4A39-9859-E7EBDCC49404@gmail.com>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <D986E076-E5AD-4A39-9859-E7EBDCC49404@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACytpF-KkrutGhd6STqEeRpw=y0-ajJA3tAMBmLrtMhFE=yncg@mail.gmail.com>

El mar., 29 oct. 2019 6:20, Adam Thornton <athornton at gmail.com> escribió:

>
>
> > On Oct 28, 2019, at 9:04 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> > All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> > arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting
> PDP-7.
> >
> > So, cast your eyes on
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
>
> Time to dust of Hercules again.
>

Amazing, Warren. And for sure the Hercules reference. Just today I was
searching for Hercules VM/370 Packs (Four & Six). Succesfully, I must say.
I will appreciate to read about all the attempts to put it on working
state. Sadly, this used to be managed on Hercules groups under Yahoogroups,
but this platform is closing. I can provide some details in [COFF] list
later.

Cordiales saludos / Best Regards / Salutations / Freundliche Grüße
-----
Sergio Pedraja

>
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From alec at sensi.org  Wed Oct 30 00:38:36 2019
From: alec at sensi.org (Alexander Voropay)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 17:38:36 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Design of the AT&T assembly syntax
Message-ID: <CAGqcPWDFH+z4SMhAOX6b9P+tGTTEwiQv7rN8nqrtDK4i_h3Yhg@mail.gmail.com>

Robert Clausecker <fuz at fuz.su> wrote:

> > I've tried Microport SystemV /386 (SysV R3.2). It uses COFF
> Nice find!  It seems to use lcall to selector 7 for system calls.  A
> similar choice was made in 386BSD all the way through FreeBSD 2.2.8
> where it was replaced with int $0x80 as in Linux.

Technically speaking
lcall $0x07,$0
uses selector 0 with RPL=3 (bit0 and bit1==1) and LDT (bit2==1)

It seems it's oldest way to call kernel from userspace on x86 architecture.
AT&T's programmers used this sycall convention for SysVR3 and
SysVR4 on i386 (not sure about SysVR2 on i286).
There are very few examples with lcall-type syscall  i.e.
http://www.sco.com/developers/devspecs/abi386-4.pdf
(figure 3-26)
(and leaked SysVR4 i386 sources)

William Jolitz used this convention in his amazing articles about
porting BSD4.3 to the i386 (c)1991
http://www.informatica.co.cr/unix-source-code/research/1991/0101.html
(p."System Call Inteface"). See also 386BSD 0.0:
https://github.com/386bsd/386bsd/blob/0.0/arch/i386/i386/locore.s#L361
(Did he run AT&T userspace on his kernel ???)
As you mentioned, most of early *BSD systems on i386 also used lcall.

Linus selected to use "DOS-style" call with INT 0x80.
More recent BSD on i386 also use INT.
https://john-millikin.com/unix-syscalls
http://asm.sourceforge.net/intro/hello.html

Solaris on x86 (ex. SysVR4) also uses lcall. See a
https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/sergey/cs258/solaris-on-x86.pdf
p.4.2.3
and Solaris (later OpenSolaris and later Illumos) sourcecode.

From imp at bsdimp.com  Wed Oct 30 01:10:51 2019
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 09:10:51 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <CACytpF-KkrutGhd6STqEeRpw=y0-ajJA3tAMBmLrtMhFE=yncg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <D986E076-E5AD-4A39-9859-E7EBDCC49404@gmail.com>
 <CACytpF-KkrutGhd6STqEeRpw=y0-ajJA3tAMBmLrtMhFE=yncg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CANCZdfoVrDtZ87eWiKa3gUkt2MHzqkgub+c7s+8gYsPC3YD-HA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 1:15 AM SPC <spedraja at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> El mar., 29 oct. 2019 6:20, Adam Thornton <athornton at gmail.com> escribió:
>
>>
>>
>> > On Oct 28, 2019, at 9:04 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
>> > arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting
>> PDP-7.
>> >
>> > So, cast your eyes on
>> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
>>
>> Time to dust of Hercules again.
>>
>
> Amazing, Warren. And for sure the Hercules reference. Just today I was
> searching for Hercules VM/370 Packs (Four & Six). Succesfully, I must say.
> I will appreciate to read about all the attempts to put it on working
> state. Sadly, this used to be managed on Hercules groups under Yahoogroups,
> but this platform is closing. I can provide some details in [COFF] list
> later.
>

I sure hope the internet archive pulls it all down before it goes away.
Geocities used to have a lot of obscure hardware info on it and that was
mostly lost when they went away :(

Warner
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From spedraja at gmail.com  Wed Oct 30 01:22:42 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 16:22:42 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <CANCZdfoVrDtZ87eWiKa3gUkt2MHzqkgub+c7s+8gYsPC3YD-HA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <D986E076-E5AD-4A39-9859-E7EBDCC49404@gmail.com>
 <CACytpF-KkrutGhd6STqEeRpw=y0-ajJA3tAMBmLrtMhFE=yncg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANCZdfoVrDtZ87eWiKa3gUkt2MHzqkgub+c7s+8gYsPC3YD-HA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACytpF9RwbtXtus_sy-_moKTQqd0ASz1nRhQo-Re6VNjWRmSCQ@mail.gmail.com>

El mar., 29 oct. 2019 a las 16:11, Warner Losh (<imp at bsdimp.com>) escribió:

Amazing, Warren. And for sure the Hercules reference. Just today I was
>> searching for Hercules VM/370 Packs (Four & Six). Succesfully, I must say.
>> I will appreciate to read about all the attempts to put it on working
>> state. Sadly, this used to be managed on Hercules groups under Yahoogroups,
>> but this platform is closing. I can provide some details in [COFF] list
>> later.
>>
>
> I sure hope the internet archive pulls it all down before it goes away.
> Geocities used to have a lot of obscure hardware info on it and that was
> mostly lost when they went away :(
>
> Warner
>

Just in case and for knowledge of anyone interested, I have made a backup
pf the messages and contents at date of all the Hercules-related groups
under Yahoogroups. It's saved in SQLite format plus the files accesibles
individually.

I've added too some new URLs with the VM packs and some other stuff as
Hercules v.4, Turnkey TK4 distro, and so.

In fact I am thinking to raise one webpage dedicated to this matter, in
english and spanish languages. I had the same idea for a TUHS mirror some
time ago but it's just now when I have some free time to think seriously
about it.

Kind Regards
Sergio
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From mah at mhorton.net  Wed Oct 30 06:13:48 2019
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2019 13:13:48 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UNIX: A History and a Memoir by Brian W. Kernighan is
 now out
In-Reply-To: <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
References: <1571611430.28265.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <abe1c095-d53c-b673-276f-e64abcd99803@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <2b4f016b-5f54-199f-523b-866daf4d11b7@mhorton.net>

Thanks to Jon's super response on the first story, we know it originally 
occurred at Ford Aerospace.

Let me tell the other story. Perhaps someone will know some details.

When I tell it, usually to nontechnical people, I prefix it by 
explaining that UNIX has 3 different grep programs, all of which find 
text in files. There is regular grep. There is fgrep, the "fixed grep", 
which is simpler and only looks for basic text. And there is egrep, the 
"enhanced grep", that will look for fancy patterns and is very powerful. 
You would expect that fgrep, being the simplest, would be the fastest, 
but as it turns out, egrep is the fastest and fgrep is the slowest.

One day at a meeting at Bell Labs, an MTS came rushing into the meeting, 
all out of breath. "Sorry I'm late, I was grepping my apartment for my 
keys."

Dryly, the boss replied "You should have used egrep. It's faster."



From pugs at ieee.org  Thu Oct 31 13:56:04 2019
From: pugs at ieee.org (Tom Lyon)
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 20:56:04 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>

Hi, folks. Tom Lyon here - this UNIX 370 stuff was recovered by Stephen at
LCM+L from DECtapes that I've had sitting around for 40+ years.
You can read all about the Princeton/Amdahl project here:
https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/12/370unixpart1/

If anyone wants to get serious with the code, you'll need Hercules with a
VM/370 image as well as a PDP-11 emulator running V6. There's not a lot
beyond the kernel, I got the shell working enough to prove that fork
worked, and then ran out of steam because of the awful communication
problems between the PDP and the IBM.  [ But that was my start as a
networking guy ]. I personally haven't had time to do anything with the
recovered bits.

I've been lurking on TUHS for a while - a special Hi to Ken Thompson and
Steve Johnson. I owe a lot to each of them. Read about my summer at Bell
with the Interdata 8/32 here: https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/16/belllabspart1/

On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:04 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting PDP-7.
>
> So, cast your eyes on https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
> P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.
>


-- 
- Tom
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Thu Oct 31 14:16:53 2019
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Wed, 30 Oct 2019 21:16:53 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20191031041653.GL6515@mcvoy.com>

Hijacking this a bit but much props to Tom, he has done so much.  I 
learned he exposed the IOMMU to user space in Linux, you have to be
a geek to get how cool that is, it's life changing for VMs and Tom
just sort of said yeah, I did that, like it was not a big deal.

So I hosted Tom and a bunch of other systems guys at my place, we did
a rib fest and talked about systems.  It's the most fun I've had in
years, Kirk and Eric came and spent the night in my guest house and
Kirk dryly said "could we do this more often than every 20 years" 
because I used to go to their house for wine tastings.  But it had
been at least 20 years.

Kevin Bowling was the energy that got that meeting going and he has
asked me if there was some way to get an East Coast version of that
going.  He really wants the DEC people, he has a theory that if we
could get the PDP-11 people and the VAX people there would be so many
good stories.

Would there be any interest in getting the DEC people together and 
getting them to tell stories?  I hate to travel but I'd travel for
that, especially if we got bwk and other Bell Labs people like 
Doug to show up.

Pugs, happy to see you here, this list is fun.

On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 08:56:04PM -0700, Tom Lyon wrote:
> Hi, folks. Tom Lyon here - this UNIX 370 stuff was recovered by Stephen at
> LCM+L from DECtapes that I've had sitting around for 40+ years.
> You can read all about the Princeton/Amdahl project here:
> https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/12/370unixpart1/
> 
> If anyone wants to get serious with the code, you'll need Hercules with a
> VM/370 image as well as a PDP-11 emulator running V6. There's not a lot
> beyond the kernel, I got the shell working enough to prove that fork
> worked, and then ran out of steam because of the awful communication
> problems between the PDP and the IBM.  [ But that was my start as a
> networking guy ]. I personally haven't had time to do anything with the
> recovered bits.
> 
> I've been lurking on TUHS for a while - a special Hi to Ken Thompson and
> Steve Johnson. I owe a lot to each of them. Read about my summer at Bell
> with the Interdata 8/32 here: https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/16/belllabspart1/
> 
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:04 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> > All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> > arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting PDP-7.
> >
> > So, cast your eyes on https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
> >
> > Cheers, Warren
> >
> > P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.
> >
> 
> 
> -- 
> - Tom

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

From arnold at skeeve.com  Thu Oct 31 17:51:19 2019
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 01:51:19 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201910310751.x9V7pJ26030054@freefriends.org>

Hi Tom,

Kudos for making these things available. The links are great reading
as well.

I have the strong impression that this is different from the port
at Bell Labs described in the 1984 BSTJ article; can you confirm?

Warren, can you add the links into the README or whatever that's
in the archive?

Thanks,

Arnold

Tom Lyon <pugs at ieee.org> wrote:

> Hi, folks. Tom Lyon here - this UNIX 370 stuff was recovered by Stephen at
> LCM+L from DECtapes that I've had sitting around for 40+ years.
> You can read all about the Princeton/Amdahl project here:
> https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/12/370unixpart1/
>
> If anyone wants to get serious with the code, you'll need Hercules with a
> VM/370 image as well as a PDP-11 emulator running V6. There's not a lot
> beyond the kernel, I got the shell working enough to prove that fork
> worked, and then ran out of steam because of the awful communication
> problems between the PDP and the IBM.  [ But that was my start as a
> networking guy ]. I personally haven't had time to do anything with the
> recovered bits.
>
> I've been lurking on TUHS for a while - a special Hi to Ken Thompson and
> Steve Johnson. I owe a lot to each of them. Read about my summer at Bell
> with the Interdata 8/32 here: https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/16/belllabspart1/
>
> On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:04 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>
> > All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> > arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting PDP-7.
> >
> > So, cast your eyes on https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
> >
> > Cheers, Warren
> >
> > P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.
> >
>
>
> -- 
> - Tom

From spedraja at gmail.com  Thu Oct 31 18:09:34 2019
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 09:09:34 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACytpF9Z46aq=bho+7CsbNRann09vhskuKTOvhNiHpU_OOe=1Q@mail.gmail.com>

El jue., 31 oct. 2019 a las 4:57, Tom Lyon (<pugs at ieee.org>) escribió:

> Hi, folks. Tom Lyon here - this UNIX 370 stuff was recovered by Stephen at
> LCM+L from DECtapes that I've had sitting around for 40+ years.
> You can read all about the Princeton/Amdahl project here:
> https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/12/370unixpart1/
>

Welcome.

> If anyone wants to get serious with the code, you'll need Hercules with a
> VM/370 image as well as a PDP-11 emulator running V6. There's not a lot
> beyond the kernel, I got the shell working enough to prove that fork
> worked, and then ran out of steam because of the awful communication
> problems between the PDP and the IBM.  [ But that was my start as a
> networking guy ]. I personally haven't had time to do anything with the
> recovered bits.
>

Both items are available. Hoping it could be helpful, I share below some
links to related IBM 370 and DEC PDP-11 stuff that I've recently found and
more or less organized:

*HERCULES*

The Hercules System/370, ESA/390, and z/Architecture Emulator -
http://www.hercules-390.eu/

SoftDevLabs (SDL) version of Hercules 4.x, code named Hyperion -
http://www.softdevlabs.com/hyperion.html

*A branch of the original development of Hercules numbered itself as v.4
with more or less regular compilations *
*VM/370*

Robert O'Hara Six Pack Distribution v1.2 of VM/370 -
http://www.smrcc.org.uk/members/g4ugm/VM370.htm

*Very interesting because he includes in the same webpage downloads of the
previous VM/370 packs (Paul Gorinskey's, Andy Norrie's, Bob Abele's)*

*There is a BETA version v1.3 available too.*

Implementing VSAM under VM/370 SixPack v1.2 -
http://www.kicksfortso.com/same/KooKbooK/KooKbooK-14.htm

A compilation of Operating Systems for IBM S/370 available for download on
the Internet - https://geronimo370.nl/s370/s-370-operating-systems/<<

*It includes one direct link to the page of Robert O'Hara SixPack BETA
version v1.3 *

A relatively wide explanation of the features available in SixPack v1.2 -
https://hub.docker.com/r/rbanffy/vm370

*It includes something inusual: one link to Github where you can find one
DOCKER implementation of theSixPack v1.2 *

A surprising (and interesting) bunch of videoclips about VM/370 -
<http://www.hercules-390.eu/>https://bestofclip.net/search?s=VM/370
*PDP-11*

SIMH (Conputer History Sinulator Project). The original distribution, V3.10-0,
updated 24-Feb-2019  - http://simh.trailing-edge.com/
SIMH Original Software Kits (including bootable UNIX v7 and v6 disks) -
http://simh.trailing-edge.com/software.html

The SIMH v.4.x Github place, a branch of the original project with some
interesting additions - https://github.com/simh/simh
SIMH v4.0 development binaries -
https://github.com/simh/Win32-Development-Binaries

Kind Regards

Sergio Pedraja
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From pugs at ieee.org  Thu Oct 31 23:51:08 2019
From: pugs at ieee.org (Tom Lyon)
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2019 06:51:08 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix, IBM, 370
In-Reply-To: <201910310751.x9V7pJ26030054@freefriends.org>
References: <20191029040434.GA29996@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAAOGWQhAnQvU6ro_sdj1iP0eRk5uWkUKxHebdwFfUsr8dFJ9zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <201910310751.x9V7pJ26030054@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <CAAOGWQicE=7phJsZ0ijBOn07z0278MoBgaurVGWZ5iaG7GChCw@mail.gmail.com>

The Bell Labs 370 port was different, it was based on running inside of
TSS/370, which was an IBM OS which hardly anyone besides Bells's ESS group
used.

Clem can tell us all about the IBM/Locus port to the 370.  And maybe there
was another IBM port??

Much later, Sun ported Solaris to the Hitachi HDS 370 clones (for Hitachi),
and then to Amdahl clones for Amdahl/Fujitsu.

On Thu, Oct 31, 2019 at 12:51 AM <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:

> Hi Tom,
>
> Kudos for making these things available. The links are great reading
> as well.
>
> I have the strong impression that this is different from the port
> at Bell Labs described in the 1984 BSTJ article; can you confirm?
>
> Warren, can you add the links into the README or whatever that's
> in the archive?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Arnold
>
> Tom Lyon <pugs at ieee.org> wrote:
>
> > Hi, folks. Tom Lyon here - this UNIX 370 stuff was recovered by Stephen
> at
> > LCM+L from DECtapes that I've had sitting around for 40+ years.
> > You can read all about the Princeton/Amdahl project here:
> > https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/12/370unixpart1/
> >
> > If anyone wants to get serious with the code, you'll need Hercules with a
> > VM/370 image as well as a PDP-11 emulator running V6. There's not a lot
> > beyond the kernel, I got the shell working enough to prove that fork
> > worked, and then ran out of steam because of the awful communication
> > problems between the PDP and the IBM.  [ But that was my start as a
> > networking guy ]. I personally haven't had time to do anything with the
> > recovered bits.
> >
> > I've been lurking on TUHS for a while - a special Hi to Ken Thompson and
> > Steve Johnson. I owe a lot to each of them. Read about my summer at Bell
> > with the Interdata 8/32 here:
> https://akapugs.blog/2018/05/16/belllabspart1/
> >
> > On Mon, Oct 28, 2019 at 9:04 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> > > All, the second Unix artifact that I've been waiting to announce has
> > > arrived. This time the LCM+L is announcing it. It's not the booting
> PDP-7.
> > >
> > > So, cast your eyes on
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/IBM/370/
> > >
> > > Cheers, Warren
> > >
> > > P.S Thanks to Stephen Jones for this as well.
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > - Tom
>


-- 
- Tom
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