From rochkind at basepath.com  Fri Jul  1 00:05:04 2016
From: rochkind at basepath.com (Marc Rochkind)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 08:05:04 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>

Bill Cheswick: "What a different world it would be if IBM had selected the
M68000 and UCSD Pascal.  Both seemed
to me to better better choices at the time."

Not for those of us trying to write serious software. The IBM PC came out
in August, 1981, and I left Bell Labs to write software for it full time
about 5 months later. At the time, it seemed to me to represent the future,
and that turned out to be a correct guess.

Microsoft Basic is well known as the primary initial language for the PC,
but from day one there was another choice called Microsoft Pascal (we used
the IBM Pascal version). It was a considerable extension over classical
Pascal. It had full-blown string manipulation and pointers. With it, I was
able to implement a text editor called EDIX and an nroff-ripoff called
WORDIX. The compiler was full of bugs, but it was a true compiler, and the
programs were small enough and fast enough to work well on the limited 8088
(I think that was the processor) hardware.

Initially, with no hard drive, I had to switch floppies several times just
to compile one file. Later, I got a 6MB hard drive for about $3000.
Interestingly, that drive could not even hold one (raw) image from my
current digital camera!

We could not have used Microsoft Basic or UCSD Pascal.

Just a few years later, something called Lattice C came along, and we
switched (back) to C, and stayed with it from there on out.

--Marc

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 7:22 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Steve - good stuff.   comments below.
>
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 11:17 AM, <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:
>
>> But the documentation was a huge barrier
>
> ​Amen​ - I remember trying to read the report and getting utterly
> befuddled.
>
>
>
>> --all the
>> ​ ​
>> familiar ideas were given completely new (and unintuitive) names, making
>> ​ ​
>> it very difficult to get into.
>>
> ​And as importantly, it was not clear to many of us what we were getting
> for all that stuff.   Was it sugar or really going to help?​    C, BLISS,
> PL/360, BCPL et al, took a much more minimalist view.   Algol68 seems like
> it was the "one ring to rule them all" but how could you be sure?
>
>
>
>>
>> I may be biased in my view, but I think one fatal mistake that A68 made
>> was that it had no scheme for porting the language to the plethora of
>> computers and systems around at that time.
>
> ​I would put this this a little differently.   To me it was not so much
> that there was or was not a scheme to move the language, but it was not
> economical to try.​   Between your and Dennis's compilers, which were both
> "reachable" by many of us, when we needed a language and compiler for
> these new microprocessors that were becoming prevalent at the same time, we
> had the sources for your compilers and it was "just a matter of a new back
> end."
>
>
>
>> (The Bliss language from CMU
>> ​ ​
>> had a similar problem, requiring a bigger computer to compile for the
>> ​ ​
>> PDP-11).
>
> ​While true, I'm not so sure that was the real problem with BLISS.  I
> really think it was that CMU sold the language to DEC and compiler sources
> were not available to people.   I've always said if DEC had given away the
> BLISS compiler and made the sources available in the same manner as C (or
> Pascal for that matter), folks like me would have been tempted to use it
> write a backend for the 68K (Z8000, 8086 much less the 8-bit micros).​
>
> I also think the size issue could have been (and would have been) fixed if
> it was worth it.   But it was not.  The requirement of needing a PDP-10 (or
> later Vax) to run was due to the small address space of the PDP-11 and the
> amazing things that the BLISS optimizer did.   But you are correct - that
> was never done, so it certainly added why BLISS never went very far.
>
> My own experience was simple. At Tektronix, in the late 1970's I was given
> a chip that would become the 68K (it was yet to be numbered by Motorola at
> that point) and I wanted a HLL for the system we started to make with it
> (what would later be called Magnolia).  As a V6 (and later V7) licensee, I
> had the sources to the Ritchie compiler.  I knew both BLISS and C (as well
> as Algol/Pascal/FTN/PL-1 et,), and I admit in those days still had a
> fondness for the former as a CMU grad and Bill Wulf student.   But I did
> not have any of the CMU tools (PQCC et al) much less the DEC ones (and you
> are correct, I ould get access to the PDP-10, but I had a couple of UNIX
> boxes available).  So, I had your tools and they worked well.   Thus,
> I wrote a back end for my project for that chip.  It was that simple.   It
> was pure economics.
>
>
>
>
>> Pascal had P-code, and gave C a real run, especially as a
>> teaching language.
>
> ​Right, Pascal had a number of generally available compilers, with P-Code
> being the most used.​  It was as economical as C to work.   And a lot of
> people used it.  While I liked it as a teaching language, it was useless as
> a production language unless you hacked on it and extended it.  And as
> importantly for me, it could not be used as a "systems" language as it.  In
> fact, at that time Tektronix has at least 6 different but incompatible
> flavors of "Tek Pascal." It was language of choice in the product teams
> (BTW, our friends and rivals had over 20 flavors of HP BASIC in those days
> too).
>
> I picked C because I could and I knew my PDP-11 code would pretty much
> just work on this new device.   Admittedly "proof by lack of imagination"
> reined here, but I really could not image trying to use Pascal to write an
> OS.    I knew I could with BLISS or C.
>
>
>
>
>> Nowadays, newer languages like Python just piggyback on C or C++...
>
> ​Hmm... I would say piggyback on the C ecosystem - i.e. GCC (or now LLVM).​
>
> ​Clem​
>
>
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From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 00:11:50 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:11:50 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] A Talk on Early Unix
In-Reply-To: <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20160630065609.GA20869@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201606300710.u5U7AnW5019439@freefriends.org>
 <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzyFm8xGVMt3HCjv+8LUSrTwL-UrQt3njZHZK_ScyDvDnw@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 June 2016 at 06:30, Andrew Warkentin <andreww591 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6/30/16, arnold at skeeve.com <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:
>>> For example, I thought Unix was used at some point as the OS for some
>>> of the ESS switches in AT&T, but now I think I was mistaken.
>>
>> I think that your initial statement is correct. At Georgia Tech AT&T gave
>> us some 3B20s - vax size and larger, running System V, and I remember some
>> discussion that they were used inside AT&T as switches.
>>
>> This, of course, is second hand information; perhaps some of the Bell Labs
>> alumni can verify for real.
>>
>> Arnold
>>
>
> AFAIK the later ESS switches include a 3B machine but it only handles
> some administrative functions, with most of the the actual call
> processing being performed in dedicated hardware.

I feel dated:  2ESS was just coming in and offices had Strowger
switches when I left that field. Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5ESS_Switching_System) claims that 5ESS
ran under UNIX-RTR.

N.


From usotsuki at buric.co  Fri Jul  1 00:27:48 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:27:48 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] List reply-to
In-Reply-To: <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160630065609.GA20869@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201606300710.u5U7AnW5019439@freefriends.org>
 <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD-qYGo5RBsOf-kik16UX43b3Z72nfNSe2Q85rwG44nL7dFUnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1606301026250.96305@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Warren Toomey wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 04:39:22AM -0600, Andrew Warkentin wrote:
>> I really should stop using Gmail's web interface and find an MUA that
>> has a "reply to list" feature and defaults to replying to the list for
>> messages from the list.
>
> I'm running a fairly default Mailman setup for TUHS. The reply-to option
> is set to be the original poster. I can change it to the list address if
> most people are happy for it to be that way.
>
> Mind you, I'm sure either choice won't be suitable for all subscribers.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>

Of course nothing will please everybody. xD

With Alpine at least I think if it's set to reply-to the list address by 
default, then it'll just ask me when I hit reply, whether I want to use 
the reply-to address or not, so I can have it both ways.  Dunno about more 
"civilized" mail clients though - I've barely ever used anything that 
wasn't Pine. ;)

-uso.


From ches at cheswick.com  Fri Jul  1 00:28:16 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:28:16 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <2590BDA3-CD78-45C4-9063-88DEAF76E327@cheswick.com>

I assumed by 1980 that Rule 1 (program security) was an obvious given. Alas, no.

> On 30Jun 2016, at 9:44 AM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> 
> One of many, apparently, given Hoare's incredible classic "The Emperor's Old
> Clothes":
> 
>   http://zoo.cs.yale.edu/classes/cs422/2014/bib/hoare81emperor.pdf
> 
> (which should be required reading for every CS student).
> 
>       Noel



From ches at cheswick.com  Fri Jul  1 00:33:41 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:33:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>

I understand there were a number of problems that went the other way.  Motorola dropped the ball, software
was buggy, and IBM needed an immediate answer.

On the other hand, there was
no excuse for a Pascal compiler to be either large, buggy, or slow, even before Turbo Pascal.


> On 30Jun 2016, at 10:05 AM, Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com> wrote:
> 
> Not for those of us trying to write serious software. The IBM PC came out in August, 1981, and I left Bell Labs to write software for it full time about 5 months later. At the time, it seemed to me to represent the future, and that turned out to be a correct guess.
> 

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From ron at ronnatalie.com  Fri Jul  1 00:43:37 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:43:37 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
Message-ID: <9D41DBD8-CD03-4F78-BED7-7FE1F7463F82@ronnatalie.com>

> 
> On the other hand, there was
> no excuse for a Pascal compiler to be either large, buggy, or slow, even before Turbo Pascal.
> 
I remember the Pascal computer on my Apple II used to have to use some of the video memory while it was running.



From schily at schily.net  Fri Jul  1 00:57:33 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:57:33 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
Message-ID: <5775335d./pughAHP8rwelLlB%schily@schily.net>

William Cheswick <ches at cheswick.com> wrote:

> On the other hand, there was
> no excuse for a Pascal compiler to be either large, buggy, or slow, even before Turbo Pascal.

Large?

The original Wirth pascal compiler source was 1800 lines of pascal code.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From ori at helicontech.co.il  Fri Jul  1 01:07:08 2016
From: ori at helicontech.co.il (Ori Idan)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 18:07:08 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <5775335d./pughAHP8rwelLlB%schily@schily.net>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
 <5775335d./pughAHP8rwelLlB%schily@schily.net>
Message-ID: <CACyhTRGQGb-MF6dnbzL0fjozyZgqjgYW_vrq+TMVfg8rqLqNJw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 5:57 PM, Joerg Schilling <schily at schily.net> wrote:

> William Cheswick <ches at cheswick.com> wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, there was
> > no excuse for a Pascal compiler to be either large, buggy, or slow, even
> before Turbo Pascal.
>
> Large?
>
> The original Wirth pascal compiler source was 1800 lines of pascal code.
>

Pascal compiler written in Pascal? how can I compile the compiler it I
don't yet have a pascal compiler? :-)

Ori Idan
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From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 01:32:08 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 11:32:08 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 30, 2016 10:10 AM, "Marc Rochkind" <rochkind at basepath.com> wrote:

> Bill Cheswick: "What a different world it would be if IBM had selected
> the M68000 and UCSD Pascal.  Both seemed
> to me to better better choices at the time."
>
> Not for those of us trying to write serious software. The IBM PC came out
> in August, 1981, and I left Bell Labs to write software for it full time
> about 5 months later. At the time, it seemed to me to represent the future,
> and that turned out to be a correct guess.
>
> Microsoft Basic is well known as the primary initial language for the PC,
> but from day one there was another choice called Microsoft Pascal (we used
> the IBM Pascal version). It was a considerable extension over classical
> Pascal. It had full-blown string manipulation and pointers. With it, I was
> able to implement a text editor called EDIX and an nroff-ripoff called
> WORDIX. The compiler was full of bugs, but it was a true compiler, and the
> programs were small enough and fast enough to work well on the limited 8088
> (I think that was the processor) hardware.
>

I don't know about UCSD Pascal versus MS-DOS, but I think you yourself just
alluded to the processor distinction that Ches was referring to. Of course
it's only of historical interest now, but from a technology standpoint
MC68000 vs Intel 8088 seems like a no-brainer: the 68k is the superior
chip. From a business perspective, I guess it was a very different matter,
but that's not my area and the ship has long sailed over the horizon.
Still, it's fun to speculate and I can't help but think that a 68k-based
IBM PC would have been a nicer machine.

Initially, with no hard drive, I had to switch floppies several times just
> to compile one file. Later, I got a 6MB hard drive for about $3000.
> Interestingly, that drive could not even hold one (raw) image from my
> current digital camera!
>
> We could not have used Microsoft Basic or UCSD Pascal.
>
> Just a few years later, something called Lattice C came along, and we
> switched (back) to C, and stayed with it from there on out.
>

Something I never understood about the IBM PC: even the 8088 machine was
fairly beefy compared to e.g. a PDP-11/20. The 6th Edition Unix kernel was
objectively pretty small and understandable; mini-Unix showed that that
sort of software could be used on a machine without an MMU. I've never
understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a high-level language
instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS. Perhaps it's naive of me, but
even if they didn't use Unix directly, it was an existence proof that such
a thing was possible. I suppose, again, it was less a technical issue and
more a business issue, or perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of work or
missing some of the technical complexities.

        - Dan C.
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Fri Jul  1 01:49:26 2016
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 08:49:26 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160630154926.GM2203@mcvoy.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 11:32:08AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
> MC68000 vs Intel 8088 seems like a no-brainer: the 68k is the superior
> chip. From a business perspective, I guess it was a very different matter,
> but that's not my area and the ship has long sailed over the horizon.
> Still, it's fun to speculate and I can't help but think that a 68k-based
> IBM PC would have been a nicer machine.

+1

> Something I never understood about the IBM PC: even the 8088 machine was
> fairly beefy compared to e.g. a PDP-11/20. The 6th Edition Unix kernel was
> objectively pretty small and understandable; mini-Unix showed that that
> sort of software could be used on a machine without an MMU. I've never
> understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a high-level language
> instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS. Perhaps it's naive of me, but
> even if they didn't use Unix directly, it was an existence proof that such
> a thing was possible. I suppose, again, it was less a technical issue and
> more a business issue, or perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of work or
> missing some of the technical complexities.

I wonder if they just didn't know.  Unix was Bell Labs and Universities for
the most part.  Was the timing such that they may not have been aware of 
Unix?  Or maybe they knew about Unix but thought it was for the vax?


From schily at schily.net  Fri Jul  1 01:52:46 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:52:46 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5775404e.4SiDhXtGxDXSnXal%schily@schily.net>

Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com> wrote:

> Bill Cheswick: "What a different world it would be if IBM had selected the
> M68000 and UCSD Pascal.  Both seemed
> to me to better better choices at the time."
>
> Not for those of us trying to write serious software. The IBM PC came out
> in August, 1981, and I left Bell Labs to write software for it full time
> about 5 months later. At the time, it seemed to me to represent the future,
> and that turned out to be a correct guess.

I worked on a "Microengine" in 1979.

The Microengine was a micro PDP-11 with a modified micro code ROM that directly 
supported to execute p-code.

The machine was running a UCSD pascal based OS and was really fast and powerful.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 02:32:33 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 12:32:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <20160630154926.GM2203@mcvoy.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
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On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 11:49 AM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 11:32:08AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
> > MC68000 vs Intel 8088 seems like a no-brainer: the 68k is the superior
> > chip. From a business perspective, I guess it was a very different
> matter,
>
​Yup - you take what you can get.  And if Moto is not doing to sell it you
when you are designing a new system.​




> > but that's not my area and the ship has long sailed over the horizon.
> > Still, it's fun to speculate and I can't help but think that a 68k-based
> > IBM PC would have been a nicer machine.
>
> +1
>
​+1  And  I suspect so many fewer problems would have ensued.   At least
linear addressing would have been de rigueur from day 1;-)
​

>
> > Something I never understood about the IBM PC: even the 8088 machine was
> > fairly beefy compared to e.g. a PDP-11/20. The 6th Edition Unix kernel
> was
> > objectively pretty small and understandable; mini-Unix showed that that
> > sort of software could be used on a machine without an MMU. I've never
> > understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a high-level language
> > instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS. Perhaps it's naive of me, but
> > even if they didn't use Unix directly, it was an existence proof that
> such
> > a thing was possible. I suppose, again, it was less a technical issue and
> > more a business issue, or perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of work
> or
> > missing some of the technical complexities.
>
> I wonder if they just didn't know.

​Possible -- ignorance of that team would have been high, certainly at the
managerial layers.   You might ask Guy Sotomayer who showed up in Boca soon
after the release if not before it.   Guy certainly knew UNIX (he was one
of my lab partners at CMU​) and I'm sure a number of his peers did also.




> Unix was Bell Labs and Universities for
> ​ ​
> the most part.

​Mumble, IBM was selling to universities and has a strong on-site presence
at MIT (that's were VM came from).   Boca was doing stuff with 8085s and
this was "entry systems" so I think the field of view was a lot more
shallow.​   But parts of IBM knew about UNIX and TOPS-10.   One of Guy and
my other lab partners was Chris Pathe', who graduated from CMU to work for
IBM, but programming DEC systems for them.   They hired him because he knew
TOPS and UNIX, *etc.*



> Was the timing such that they may not have been aware of
> Unix?  Or maybe they knew about Unix but thought it was for the vax?

Stuff I have read said that IBM wanted to compete originally with S-100
type systems with this new system.   Hence the famous desire for CP/M​.
They always were primarily buying the SW from firms that had built SW for
microprocessors.  And, if I understand the history pieces that have been
published, the project was financed by large systems, that wanted to system
to run VisiCalc, which was a hit in financial circles.   But large systems
team were not doing much the SW themselves for these boxes.  It >>seems<<
like IBM was thinking about SW in terms of very large machines so even
PDP-11's were small in those days.  That said their marketing folks for the
PC, put the focus on 16 bits was because they wanted to be "better" than
the 8-bit 8080/8085/Z80 that was the S-100 standard or the 6502 in the
Apple II.   Hence, Moto pushing an 8-bit chip was rejected.


​Clem​
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Fri Jul  1 02:34:58 2016
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 12:34:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] A Talk on Early Unix
Message-ID: <201606301634.u5UGYw2i016010@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> I'm curious if the name "TPC" was an allusion to the apocryphal telephone
> company of the same name in the 1967 movie, "The President's Analyst"?

Good spotting. Ken T confirms it was from the flick.

doug


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Fri Jul  1 03:07:41 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 13:07:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <20160630170740.GA30017@mercury.ccil.org>

Dan Cross scripsit:

> I've never understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a
> high-level language instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS.

I think because to IBM "a real OS" meant MVS.  The difference between
Unix and MS-DOS simply wasn't visible to them.  

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Don't be so humble.  You're not that great.
        --Golda Meir


From scj at yaccman.com  Fri Jul  1 03:17:06 2016
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 10:17:06 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

My memory was that the 68000 gave the 8086 a pretty good run for its
money, but when Moto came out with a memory management chip it had some
severe flaws that made paging and fault recovery impossible, while the
equivalent features available on the 8086 line were tolerable.  There were
some bizarre attempts to page with the 68000 (I remember one product that
had two 68000 chips, one of which was solely to sit on the shoulder of the
other and remember enough information to respond to faults!).  By the time
Moto fixed it, the 8086 had taken the field...

I got a lot more respect for the 8086 architecture when working at
Transmeta.  The instruction set encoding means that programs are small,
and that means that, for a given icache size, the cache hit rate was much
better than for our (wide word) machine.  By the time we had upped the
size of our caches, the increased area and cost made our chip much less
competitive.



From schily at schily.net  Fri Jul  1 03:27:50 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 19:27:50 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <57755696.ZeDWkFFCgjjgPkR8%schily@schily.net>

scj at yaccman.com wrote:

> My memory was that the 68000 gave the 8086 a pretty good run for its
> money, but when Moto came out with a memory management chip it had some
> severe flaws that made paging and fault recovery impossible, while the
> equivalent features available on the 8086 line were tolerable.  There were
> some bizarre attempts to page with the 68000 (I remember one product that
> had two 68000 chips, one of which was solely to sit on the shoulder of the
> other and remember enough information to respond to faults!).  By the time
> Moto fixed it, the 8086 had taken the field...

The 68451 did exist early. We had a "ExorMax" development system with the MMU 
that we used to develop our UNOS derivate "VBERTOS" before we had our own 
hardware.

The design bug in the mc68000 was that the execption stack did not contain the 
complete microcode state for things like "*p++" and thus was not restartable at 
the same state.

The ideas using two 68000 did put the main CPU into halt (from wehre it could 
be restarted) and did only run the exception handling code on the second CPU.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From beebe at math.utah.edu  Fri Jul  1 03:17:30 2016
From: beebe at math.utah.edu (Nelson H. F. Beebe)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 11:17:30 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
Message-ID: <CMM.0.96.0.1467307050.beebe@gamma.math.utah.edu>

Ori Idan <ori at helicontech.co.il> asks today:

>> Pascal compiler written in Pascal? how can I compile the compiler it I
>> don't yet have a pascal compiler? :-)

You compile the code by hand into assembly language for the CDC
6400/6600 machines, and bootstrap that way: see

	Urs Ammann
	On Code Generation in a PASCAL Compiler
	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380070311

	Niklaus Wirth
	The Design of a PASCAL Compiler
	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380010403

It has been a long time since I read those articles in the journal
Software --- Practice and Experience, but my recollection is that they
wrote the compiler in a minimal subset of Pascal needed to do the job,
just to ease the hand-translation process.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From rochkind at basepath.com  Fri Jul  1 03:57:10 2016
From: rochkind at basepath.com (Marc Rochkind)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 11:57:10 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <20160630170740.GA30017@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAOkr1zVhGyN5oLOLFvx-5uxbiVOaYU-Vsav4uUnZ3Lyq1FPwuw@mail.gmail.com>

Dan Cross: "... even if they didn't use Unix directly, it was an existence
proof that such a thing was possible".

Indeed it was. IBM contracted with Interactive Systems (Heinz Lycklama's
company, in Santa Monica) to produce PC/IX, which was complete System 3 for
the IBM PC. 8088, 4.77MHz, and 512K of RAM (if I'm remembering the numbers
correctly). It was my primary development system for the first edition of
Advanced UNIX Programming.

As for why "IBM" didn't do something other than MS-DOS originally: It
depends what you mean by "IBM". The PC was not originally strategic,
although it might have become that way after a few years. It was just a
small group in Boca Raton (as I recall) that whipped it out pretty quickly.
MS-DOS was a good choice within the class of what then were known as
personal computer operating systems (CP/M being the leader for 8080/Z80
Intel systems).

I don't think PC/IX would have run on a floppy-only system. And, if it
would, it would have been a demonstration only--entirely impractical. IBM
didn't provide a PC with a hard drive until later, and that's when PC/IX
came along.

Don't forget that the IBM PC completely dominated office use where personal
computers were needed. A runaway success. That makes me think that the
technical solutions were correct for what the project was supposed to
achieve.

When I tried to write responsive software for UNIX and UNIX-like OSes
running on PCs, I could never achieve good results because the display
support was inadequate. Typically, you treated the display like a terminal
(escape sequences). MS-DOS allowed me to write to display memory directly,
which what was made PC software so responsive.

To say it another way, UNIX on a PC was always just a port. No
consideration was given to providing support for the way PCs were actually
used. That didn't happen until Xerox PARC started to produce PCs (at a much
higher cost, of course). The first decent "PC" was the Macintosh SE. The
earlier Macs were dogs.

--Marc



On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 11:07 AM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> Dan Cross scripsit:
>
> > I've never understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a
> > high-level language instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS.
>
> I think because to IBM "a real OS" meant MVS.  The difference between
> Unix and MS-DOS simply wasn't visible to them.
>
> --
> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> Don't be so humble.  You're not that great.
>         --Golda Meir
>
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From usotsuki at buric.co  Fri Jul  1 04:26:02 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:26:02 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <20160630170740.GA30017@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630170740.GA30017@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1606301423370.9974@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, John Cowan wrote:

> Dan Cross scripsit:
>
>> I've never understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a
>> high-level language instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS.
>
> I think because to IBM "a real OS" meant MVS.  The difference between
> Unix and MS-DOS simply wasn't visible to them.

And perhaps even less so when MS-DOS picked up a few of Xenix's features 
for 2.0 (mainly file i/o with Unix-like semantics, but FIND was a 
stripped-down version of "fgrep", and several of the new commands in 2.0 
were certainly derived from Unix...or even BSD), although to anyone who 
actually knew anything, that's about where the similarity ended.

-uso.


From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 04:31:27 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:31:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zVhGyN5oLOLFvx-5uxbiVOaYU-Vsav4uUnZ3Lyq1FPwuw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAEoi9W57NN665z4d805WyURPB_q_N0F=2Ji2zaAx7yZxgu4WEg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com>
wrote:

> Dan Cross: "... even if they didn't use Unix directly, it was an existence
> proof that such a thing was possible".
>
> Indeed it was. IBM contracted with Interactive Systems (Heinz Lycklama's
> company, in Santa Monica) to produce PC/IX, which was complete System 3 for
> the IBM PC. 8088, 4.77MHz, and 512K of RAM (if I'm remembering the numbers
> correctly). It was my primary development system for the first edition of
> Advanced UNIX Programming.
>
> As for why "IBM" didn't do something other than MS-DOS originally: It
> depends what you mean by "IBM". The PC was not originally strategic,
> although it might have become that way after a few years. It was just a
> small group in Boca Raton (as I recall) that whipped it out pretty quickly.
> MS-DOS was a good choice within the class of what then were known as
> personal computer operating systems (CP/M being the leader for 8080/Z80
> Intel systems).
>
> I don't think PC/IX would have run on a floppy-only system. And, if it
> would, it would have been a demonstration only--entirely impractical. IBM
> didn't provide a PC with a hard drive until later, and that's when PC/IX
> came along.
>
> Don't forget that the IBM PC completely dominated office use where
> personal computers were needed. A runaway success. That makes me think that
> the technical solutions were correct for what the project was supposed to
> achieve.
>
> When I tried to write responsive software for UNIX and UNIX-like OSes
> running on PCs, I could never achieve good results because the display
> support was inadequate. Typically, you treated the display like a terminal
> (escape sequences). MS-DOS allowed me to write to display memory directly,
> which what was made PC software so responsive.
>
> To say it another way, UNIX on a PC was always just a port. No
> consideration was given to providing support for the way PCs were actually
> used. That didn't happen until Xerox PARC started to produce PCs (at a much
> higher cost, of course). The first decent "PC" was the Macintosh SE. The
> earlier Macs were dogs.
>

Sorry, I don't think I was being clear in my earlier post. I get that IBM
(for the definition that is the group that built the PC) did not ship a
Unix port and frankly probably wouldn't have. But what irks me is that they
didn't produce an ersatz operating system that could support Unix-like
functionality: for example, support multiple processes, have a real
system-call interface, etc. In other words, why didn't they have a more
capable kernel than MS-DOS? Surely a motivated team could have produced a
floppy-only system capable of running multiple processes, etc. It wouldn't
be Unix, it wouldn't even necessarily be a clone of Unix, but it could have
been something better than MS-DOS.

My impression was that DOS programmers had to jump through a lot of hoops
due to the anemia of the "INT 21h" services, the memory model of the
8088/8086, and lack of a system-standard programming library: I suspect a
lot of them ended up using DOS as little more than a filesystem. Consider
the display issue you mention: as I understand it, programmers could
interact with the display adapter by simply reading and writing to
well-known addresses (did this require special IO instructions? I don't
believe so). Suppose instead that the OS provided a "system call" to "map"
the display memory into one's process and return a small structure
describing it (e.g., base pointer, rows, columns, a bitmap of capabilities
[color and so on]), or -1 on failure. If the mapping were successful, the
programmer could indirect through this pointer and treat the display as one
would in DOS (perhaps with a library to facilitate application
development). On the 8088 that wouldn't be protected, of course, so it
could be bypassed but the 80286 came along fairly shortly after and had an
on-chip MMU with protected mode. Again, it doesn't have to be Unix, but DOS
didn't really help the programmer a lot here as far as I can tell.

I'm not sure I would assert that their success was due to good technical
decisions; this was the era where IBM dominated business and as the saying
went, "no one ever got fired for buying IBM." The IBM brand added de facto
legitimacy to the personal computer in the workplace at a critical time
when it was just starting to make inroads into business: surely their
success had a lot more to do with that than choosing to use the 8088 and
DOS? The VHS vs. Betamax argument may apply here.

        - Dan C.
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 04:49:03 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:49:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
Message-ID: <CAC20D2Oc7Kfr_jVYf8yaBAX-cSAb_QWSVHynRB3uA70urST3Qw@mail.gmail.com>

Steve almost right....mixing a few memories...see below..

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 1:17 PM, <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:

> My memory was that the 68000 gave the 8086 a pretty good run for its
> money,

​Indeed - most of the UNIX workstations folks picked it because of the
linear addressing.​


but when Moto came out with a memory management chip it had some
> severe flaws that made paging and fault recovery impossible, while the
> equivalent features available on the 8086 line were tolerable.

​Different issues...​

​When the 68000 came out there was a base/limit register chip available,​
who's number I forget (Moto offered to Apple for no additional cost if they
would use it in the Mac but sadly they did not).    This chip was similar
to the 11/70 MMU, as that's what Les and Nick were used to using (they used
a 11/70 running Unix V6 has the development box and had been before the
what would become the 68000 -- another set of great stories from Les, Nick
and Tom Gunter).

The problem with running a 68000 with VM was not the MMU, it was the
microcode.   Nick did not store all of the needed information needed by the
microcode to recover from a faulted instruction, so if a instruction could
not complete, it could not be restarted without data loss.


> There were
> ​ ​
> some bizarre attempts to page with the 68000 (I remember one product that
> had two 68000 chips, one of which was solely to sit on the shoulder of the
> other and remember enough information to respond to faults!).

​This was referred to as Forest Baskett mode -- he did a early paper that
described it.  I just did a quick look but did not see a copy in my shelf
of Moto stuff.​   At least two commercial systems were built this way -
Apollo and Masscomp.

The two processors are called the "executor" and "fixer."  The trick is
that when the MMU detects an fault will occur, the executor is sent "wait
state" cycles telling it that the required memory location is just taking
longer to read or write.   The fixer is then given the faulting address,
which handles the fault.    When the page is finally filled, on the
Masscomp system the cache is then loaded and the executor is allowed to
complete the memory cycle.

When Nick fixed the microcode for the processor, the updated chip was
rebranded as the 68010.   In the case of the Masscomp MC-500 CPU board, we
popped the new chip in as the executor and changed the PAL's so the fault
was allowed to occur (creating the MPU board).   This allowed the executor
to go do other work while the fixer was dealing with the fault.    We
picked up a small amount of performance, but in fact it was not much.   I
still have a system on my home network BTW (although I have not turned it
on in a while -- it was working last time I tried it).

Note the 68010 still needed an external MMU.  Apollo and Masscomp built
their own, although fairly soon after they did the '10 Moto created a chip
to replace the base/limit register scheme with one that handled 2-level
pages.

In Masscomp's case when we did the 5000 series which was based on the
68020, use their MMU for their low end (300 series)  and our custom MMU on
the larger systems (700 series).



> By the time
> ​ ​
> Moto fixed it, the 8086 had taken the field...
>
​Well sort of.   The 68K definitely won the UNIX wars, at least until the
386 and linear addressing would show up in the Intel line.​  There were
some alternatives like the Z8000, NS32032, and AT&T did the 32100 which was
used in the 3B2/3B5 et al. but 68K was the lion share.


​Clem​
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From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 04:52:36 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 14:52:36 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W6ugA9A9FR6yFEyL=fupTkRL2Xm3-kO3630NCpsigi=dQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 1:17 PM, <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:

> My memory was that the 68000 gave the 8086 a pretty good run for its
> money, but when Moto came out with a memory management chip it had some
> severe flaws that made paging and fault recovery impossible, while the
> equivalent features available on the 8086 line were tolerable.  There were
> some bizarre attempts to page with the 68000 (I remember one product that
> had two 68000 chips, one of which was solely to sit on the shoulder of the
> other and remember enough information to respond to faults!).  By the time
> Moto fixed it, the 8086 had taken the field...
>

Brantley Coile mentioned this here a couple of years ago: M68k couldn't
restart auto-inc/dec style instructions after a fault (there wasn't enough
information in the trap frame to ensure the side-effects were correct),
which made e.g. dynamic paging hard. He did a Unix port in which he simply
loaded the process completely before switching to it (e.g., like <= 32V).
But if I understand correctly, this was fixed by the time the 68010 came
out (1982). And it wouldn't have mattered for a non-paging system. So in
principle the 68000 could support a 7th-Edition style Unix and indeed, did
so. Surely it could have supported another similar operating system for a
hypothetical IBM PC based around the 68k.

Still, the point that the 68451 MMU was pretty lame is well taken. The
segment table was too small (96 entries?) and it was clearly designed to
support segmented memory rather than paging. It is inadequate to the latter
task. The 68851 available for the 68020 got it right; supposedly this could
be used with the 68010 as well, but I don't know that anyone ever tried
that in a real product.

I got a lot more respect for the 8086 architecture when working at
> Transmeta.  The instruction set encoding means that programs are small,
> and that means that, for a given icache size, the cache hit rate was much
> better than for our (wide word) machine.  By the time we had upped the
> size of our caches, the increased area and cost made our chip much less
> competitive.
>

I've heard that this is still one of the selling points of the x86
instruction set. As someone put it to me not too long ago, "think of it as
a dense bytecoding over the underlying RISC core." We're back to a P-code.

        - Dan C.
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 05:21:58 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:21:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W57NN665z4d805WyURPB_q_N0F=2Ji2zaAx7yZxgu4WEg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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Message-ID: <CAC20D2M=yv-TQdbsJQHcRX8NDkGD9zQX+fvv0p1UsiNsMityhw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:


> ​...​
> why didn't they have a more capable kernel than MS-DOS?
>
​I don't think they cared. or felt it was needed at the time (I disagreed
then and still do).




> Surely a motivated team could have produced a floppy-only system capable
> of running multiple processes, etc. It wouldn't be Unix, it wouldn't even
> necessarily be a clone of Unix, but it could have been something better
> than MS-DOS.
>
​As Marc pointed out.  The PC was fabulously successful for what it was
designed to be.  They wanted something the run VisiCalc and later a word
processor for corporate America.   We are programmers saw it >>could<< have
been more capable, but they did not really care.   The system way, way out
did what it was planned.   So it's hard to tell folks that did something
bad.

​... ​
> I'm not sure I would assert that their success was due to good technical
> decisions;
>
​exactly.​



> ​...
>  The IBM brand added de facto legitimacy to the personal computer in the
> workplace at a critical time when it was just starting to make inroads into
> business: surely their success had a lot more to do with that than choosing
> to use the 8088 and DOS?
>
​Indeed.​

Although I think a side story is that you did not mention is that IBM
allowed the system to be cloned.  Remember at this same time, Apple out
Franklin computer out of business for cloning the Apple II.    Because the
PC became a standard of sort, because their were choices in getting lower
cost systems, not just buying from IBM.   That ended top cementing it,




> The VHS vs. Betamax argument may apply here.
>
​Maybe - I think of it in terms of economics.​     PCs and DOS
"won" because they were cheaper than any other solution to the a similar
task and it was good enough,   Like VHS/Betamax it was good enough for
many, many people - so economics drove the standard.  But also at the time,
Apple, who had a better product and actually was more polished than MS-DOS
was, was >>perceived<< as being for home use and DOS for business.   IBM
and MSFT and Intel did a great job of convincing people of that idea.   Add
to it that it was cheaper, it was a hard order to get businesses to
consider Macs.

Which is different from Betamax....   business (TV stations/professionals
et al) picked the "better" system.    But they did not here, they picked
the cheap one no matter what.

Clem
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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Fri Jul  1 05:23:08 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:23:08 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20160630192307.GB30017@mercury.ccil.org>

Noel Chiappa scripsit:

> One of many, apparently, given Hoare's incredible classic "The Emperor's
> Old Clothes":

I agree with 90% of what he says, but not about Algol 68.  He obviously
has a strong preference for small languages: it would be interesting
to see his uncensored opinions of C++, the Godzilla of our day as Ada
and PL/I and Algol 68 were the Godzillas of theirs.  But from where we
stand now, A68 looks like a minizilla indeed, and has many interesting
ideas (notably structural equivalence).  It would need a few upgrades
to provide for subtyping and functional programming.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
In might the Feanorians / that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien / with burning and with broken troth.
and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o'er the roaring tide.
        --the Earendillinwe


From dds at aueb.gr  Fri Jul  1 05:21:27 2016
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 22:21:27 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>

On 30/06/2016 18:32, Dan Cross wrote:
> Of
> course it's only of historical interest now, but from a technology
> standpoint MC68000 vs Intel 8088 seems like a no-brainer: the 68k is the
> superior chip.

Two factors might had made the choice of 8088 a more practical one for IBM.

First, the 8088 was a 16-bit CPU with an 8-bit data bus in a cheap 
40-pin package.  This halved the number DRAM chips required and allowed 
the IBM PC to be easily designed along existing easily-available 8-bit 
peripherals.  In contrast the 68000 had a 16-bit data bus in a more 
expensive 64-pin package.  Remember that in the 1980s glue logic was 
implemented through simple TTL chips, so adopting the 68000 might have 
doubled the number of chips on the motherboard.

In addition, the 8086 architecture was an extension of the 8080 one, 
which made it easier to make the MS-DOS API compatible with the CP/M 
one, which was used by many popular programs.  This would simplify their 
porting.  (A lot of early IBM PC software was written in assembly 
language.)  The MS-DOS 1.0 interrupts (system calls) even used the same 
numbers and structures (file control blocks - FCBs) as those used by 
CP/M.  MS-DOS 2.0 added file paths and other Unix-influenced abstractions.



From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 05:43:21 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:43:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W5ZWbZrkEvCcE2_Ema8LthYo3c0uCOqnSk4-GbyqiGQyg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:

> On 30/06/2016 18:32, Dan Cross wrote:
>
>> Of
>> course it's only of historical interest now, but from a technology
>> standpoint MC68000 vs Intel 8088 seems like a no-brainer: the 68k is the
>> superior chip.
>>
>
> Two factors might had made the choice of 8088 a more practical one for IBM.
>
> First, the 8088 was a 16-bit CPU with an 8-bit data bus in a cheap 40-pin
> package.  This halved the number DRAM chips required and allowed the IBM PC
> to be easily designed along existing easily-available 8-bit peripherals.
> In contrast the 68000 had a 16-bit data bus in a more expensive 64-pin
> package.  Remember that in the 1980s glue logic was implemented through
> simple TTL chips, so adopting the 68000 might have doubled the number of
> chips on the motherboard.
>

It sounds an awful lot like Motorola was actively trying to steer IBM away
from the 68k, but that the 68k was what they really wanted. If that was the
case, presumably they could get the glue logic to an acceptable level. I've
looked at some 68k based board designs and it rarely seems that bad for
small systems; Clements's book has a really nice design for a 68030-based
system, even, that looks like it could be done on a fairly small board.

I wanted to write back and say that the 68008 in the 48-ing DIP package
would address these concerns: 20bit address bus and an 8-bit data bus, but
that doesn't appear to have been available until 1982.

In addition, the 8086 architecture was an extension of the 8080 one, which
> made it easier to make the MS-DOS API compatible with the CP/M one, which
> was used by many popular programs.  This would simplify their porting.  (A
> lot of early IBM PC software was written in assembly language.)  The MS-DOS
> 1.0 interrupts (system calls) even used the same numbers and structures
> (file control blocks - FCBs) as those used by CP/M.  MS-DOS 2.0 added file
> paths and other Unix-influenced abstractions.
>

That's a fair point. But if they were willing to look at UCSD Pascal,
presumably foregoing CP/M compatibility, why not the Unix syscall interface
as well?

        - Dan C.
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 05:47:16 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:47:16 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAC20D2PvPs9av5wsTcs=8mQaLdsYbsREciLgTD8cMHgxi+skjg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:

> First, the 8088 was a 16-bit CPU with an 8-bit data bus in a cheap 40-pin
> package.  This halved the number DRAM chips required and allowed the IBM PC
> to be easily designed along existing easily-available 8-bit peripherals.
> In contrast the 68000 had a 16-bit data bus in a more expensive 64-pin
> package.  Remember that in the 1980s glue logic was implemented through
> simple TTL chips, so adopting the 68000 might have doubled the number of
> chips on the motherboard.
>
hrrmpt...​Moto had the 68008 which was an 8 bit bus, smaller # of pins,
plus all of the 68K chips could directly talk the 6800 line of peripheral
chips (I even have an old Moto app note right here telling you how).  In
fact IBM, used a number of 6800 chips in the PC for things like the display
controller.

Also remember in those days IBM and Moto were very, very tight.  MECL
-- Motorola Emitter Coupled Logic was design by Moto for IBM for the 370
family.  TTL or as it was called at IBM - VTL (Vendor Transistor Logic),
was less favored.

That said, what would become the 68000 was TTL levels.   That was because
the prototyped it in TTL (and wrote the microcode on the TTL system).



> In addition, the 8086 architecture was an extension of the 8080 one,
>
​Yes and no.​  Yes the 4004's HL register pair still lives on.  But the
8080/8085 instruction set was different from the 8086.




> which made it easier to make the MS-DOS API compatible with the CP/M one,
> which was used by many popular programs.  This would simplify their
> porting.  (A lot of early IBM PC software was written in assembly
> language.)
>
​Yes there were tools to help move assembler code but it still had to be
hand tuned,  Even the PL/M tools were specific to 8080 and 8086.​

But I don't know of much code that took the CP/M to MS-DOS conversion path.




> The MS-DOS 1.0 interrupts (system calls) even used the same numbers and
> structures (file control blocks - FCBs) as those used by CP/M.
>
​Yes, DOS-86 was attempt to rewrite CP/M for the 8086 by Seattle computer
products.  And CP/M was attempt by Digital Research to rewrite RT-11.
There are a lot of common structures, I/O calls and even command names.
 But that is more of the "baby duck syndrome" - it was what the
implementors knew and were used too.​

As other have suggested, it is sad that the model was not UNIX.   The BDS
guys wrote a UNIX-like system for the S-100 machines.   I remember it being
shown to Dennis at a USENIX in the early 1980s and he stating how much
it reminded him of early UNIX.  So yes, the key is that if people had had
other models AND it had made economic sense, the world might have been
different.

But RT-11, ney: CP/M , ney DOS-86, ney PC-DOS, ney MS-DOS >>was<< good
enough as Marc pointed out.   IBM and the Microsoft were fabulously
successful with what they build, even if it was not technically as good as
what was possible.
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From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 05:51:58 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:51:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2M=yv-TQdbsJQHcRX8NDkGD9zQX+fvv0p1UsiNsMityhw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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Message-ID: <CAEoi9W7YwYRhqkg=0_BArsmE-w1h_uR7ca6JeHq4OJWEJ4yq0Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:21 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 2:31 PM, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ​...​
>> why didn't they have a more capable kernel than MS-DOS?
>>
> ​I don't think they cared. or felt it was needed at the time (I disagreed
> then and still do).
>

Yeah...I guess you are right.

Surely a motivated team could have produced a floppy-only system capable of
>> running multiple processes, etc. It wouldn't be Unix, it wouldn't even
>> necessarily be a clone of Unix, but it could have been something better
>> than MS-DOS.
>>
> ​As Marc pointed out.  The PC was fabulously successful for what it was
> designed to be.  They wanted something the run VisiCalc and later a word
> processor for corporate America.   We are programmers saw it >>could<< have
> been more capable, but they did not really care.   The system way, way
> out did what it was planned.   So it's hard to tell folks that did
> something bad.
>
> ​... ​
>> I'm not sure I would assert that their success was due to good technical
>> decisions;
>>
> ​exactly.​
>
>
>
>> ​...
>>  The IBM brand added de facto legitimacy to the personal computer in the
>> workplace at a critical time when it was just starting to make inroads into
>> business: surely their success had a lot more to do with that than choosing
>> to use the 8088 and DOS?
>>
> ​Indeed.​
>
> Although I think a side story is that you did not mention is that IBM
> allowed the system to be cloned.  Remember at this same time, Apple out
> Franklin computer out of business for cloning the Apple II.    Because the
> PC became a standard of sort, because their were choices in getting lower
> cost systems, not just buying from IBM.   That ended top cementing it,
>

That's an excellent point.

The VHS vs. Betamax argument may apply here.
>>
> ​Maybe - I think of it in terms of economics.​     PCs and DOS
> "won" because they were cheaper than any other solution to the a similar
> task and it was good enough,
>

I suspect that, at the end of the day, this is the real reason for the
success of the PC. It's easy, as an engineer, to second-guess it and ask
why it couldn't have been "more" than it was, but I suspect a business
person would look at me funny. From a business perspective, it was wildly
successful (until the clone market undercut IBM so much they got out of the
PC business altogether). In economics vs technology, economics almost
always wins.

        - Dan C.


Like VHS/Betamax it was good enough for many, many people - so economics
> drove the standard.  But also at the time, Apple, who had a better product
> and actually was more polished than MS-DOS was, was >>perceived<< as being
> for home use and DOS for business.   IBM and MSFT and Intel did a great job
> of convincing people of that idea.   Add to it that it was cheaper, it was
> a hard order to get businesses to consider Macs.
>
> Which is different from Betamax....   business (TV stations/professionals
> et al) picked the "better" system.    But they did not here, they picked
> the cheap one no matter what.
>
> Clem
>
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 05:53:30 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:53:30 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W5ZWbZrkEvCcE2_Ema8LthYo3c0uCOqnSk4-GbyqiGQyg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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Message-ID: <CAC20D2OVWwqQngQxqfn7xBp8CGYAgukkYxJsxZUVJQnOV86_Kw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:43 PM, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:

> I wanted to write back and say that the 68008 in the 48-ing DIP package
> would address these concerns: 20bit address bus and an 8-bit data bus, but
> that doesn't appear to have been available until 1982.

​When the pick of the 8086/8088 was made, the 68000 did not official exist
either.​  As I understand it, >>I believe<< that the 68008 is just an 68000
die, that is bonded differently.  All the logic is in both chips.
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 05:55:12 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:55:12 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7YwYRhqkg=0_BArsmE-w1h_uR7ca6JeHq4OJWEJ4yq0Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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 <20160630170740.GA30017@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAOkr1zVhGyN5oLOLFvx-5uxbiVOaYU-Vsav4uUnZ3Lyq1FPwuw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W57NN665z4d805WyURPB_q_N0F=2Ji2zaAx7yZxgu4WEg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2M=yv-TQdbsJQHcRX8NDkGD9zQX+fvv0p1UsiNsMityhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W7YwYRhqkg=0_BArsmE-w1h_uR7ca6JeHq4OJWEJ4yq0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2M5ZiavP-Fm1xphyfB21fvPx-y5w134OHY-h+FGt_FJZA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:

> In economics vs technology, economics almost always wins.

​Amen - although I would probably have said it as:    s/almost//
Clem
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From schily at schily.net  Fri Jul  1 05:59:29 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 21:59:29 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W6ugA9A9FR6yFEyL=fupTkRL2Xm3-kO3630NCpsigi=dQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAEoi9W6ugA9A9FR6yFEyL=fupTkRL2Xm3-kO3630NCpsigi=dQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <57757a21.LPn+mSLKqXszpxKR%schily@schily.net>

Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:

> Still, the point that the 68451 MMU was pretty lame is well taken. The
> segment table was too small (96 entries?) and it was clearly designed to
> support segmented memory rather than paging. It is inadequate to the latter
> task. The 68851 available for the 68020 got it right; supposedly this could
> be used with the 68010 as well, but I don't know that anyone ever tried
> that in a real product.

We at H.Berthold AG in Berlin did manage to use 12 68451 in parallel for our 
virtual UNOS variant.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 06:04:40 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:04:40 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2M5ZiavP-Fm1xphyfB21fvPx-y5w134OHY-h+FGt_FJZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630170740.GA30017@mercury.ccil.org>
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 <CAEoi9W7YwYRhqkg=0_BArsmE-w1h_uR7ca6JeHq4OJWEJ4yq0Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2M5ZiavP-Fm1xphyfB21fvPx-y5w134OHY-h+FGt_FJZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W623K-q5xVeQVuvSuW6FSqu0wLCLtZ9RF2B3pcCUQa3ig@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:55 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:51 PM, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In economics vs technology, economics almost always wins.
>
> ​Amen - although I would probably have said it as:    s/almost//
>

That was my escape hatch for the rare but fortuitous moments where the
stars align and the technologically superior solution matches the
economics. :-)
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From crossd at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 06:06:33 2016
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:06:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <57757a21.LPn+mSLKqXszpxKR%schily@schily.net>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAEoi9W6ugA9A9FR6yFEyL=fupTkRL2Xm3-kO3630NCpsigi=dQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <57757a21.LPn+mSLKqXszpxKR%schily@schily.net>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W7Pqzfx5Yy520ZSPxc82A5ndNiQL=vN-D0CCXm7TTCAHQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 3:59 PM, Joerg Schilling <schily at schily.net> wrote:

> Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Still, the point that the 68451 MMU was pretty lame is well taken. The
> > segment table was too small (96 entries?) and it was clearly designed to
> > support segmented memory rather than paging. It is inadequate to the
> latter
> > task. The 68851 available for the 68020 got it right; supposedly this
> could
> > be used with the 68010 as well, but I don't know that anyone ever tried
> > that in a real product.
>
> We at H.Berthold AG in Berlin did manage to use 12 68451 in parallel for
> our
> virtual UNOS variant.


Sorry, I was referring to using a 68851 with a 68010; I'd imagine that by
the time the 68851 was appearing in new designs, it was paired with the
68020.

Wow. *12* 68451s? That's pretty wild.
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From schily at schily.net  Fri Jul  1 06:27:29 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 22:27:29 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] 68000 vs. 8086 ( was Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W7Pqzfx5Yy520ZSPxc82A5ndNiQL=vN-D0CCXm7TTCAHQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20160630134457.BE26B18C103@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <6bec9228a3749e424f479675e12b0e71.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAEoi9W6ugA9A9FR6yFEyL=fupTkRL2Xm3-kO3630NCpsigi=dQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <57757a21.LPn+mSLKqXszpxKR%schily@schily.net>
 <CAEoi9W7Pqzfx5Yy520ZSPxc82A5ndNiQL=vN-D0CCXm7TTCAHQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <577580b1.pWCGK4t8wxhhgjGO%schily@schily.net>

Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:

> > We at H.Berthold AG in Berlin did manage to use 12 68451 in parallel for
> > our
> > virtual UNOS variant.

> Wow. *12* 68451s? That's pretty wild.

3 have been officially supported.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From stewart at serissa.com  Fri Jul  1 06:47:15 2016
From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:47:15 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <0B1FBD65-890A-4A06-B05F-7018C640BE08@serissa.com>

Regarding Pascal for the IBM PC. In its day, Borland Turbo Pascal was particularly fast.

But C existed as well. 

In 1982 I was building an ethernet telephone at PARC and used the 8088, mostly because
they were cheap (due to the PC) and because we had an internal C compiler for it.
I felt C was the necessary language, because that’s what we used on V7 at Stanford.

-L



From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 06:57:33 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:57:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 June 2016 at 15:21, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:
[...]
> Two factors might had made the choice of 8088 a more practical one for IBM.
>
[...]
> In addition, the 8086 architecture was an extension of the 8080 one, which
> made it easier to make the MS-DOS API compatible with the CP/M one, which
> was used by many popular programs.  This would simplify their porting.  (A
> lot of early IBM PC software was written in assembly language.)

I heard that a lot of the BIOS was a simple-minded translation of
corresponding 8080-assembler.  I believe that; if you look at the
horrible assembler, which was actually printed in the IBM Technical
Manual, you could see that most 8086 extensions were not used.

N.


From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul  1 08:22:16 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 08:22:16 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] A Talk on Early Unix
In-Reply-To: <CAD-qYGo5RBsOf-kik16UX43b3Z72nfNSe2Q85rwG44nL7dFUnw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20160630065609.GA20869@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201606300710.u5U7AnW5019439@freefriends.org>
 <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD-qYGo5RBsOf-kik16UX43b3Z72nfNSe2Q85rwG44nL7dFUnw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607010820170.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Andrew Warkentin wrote:

> I really should stop using Gmail's web interface and find an MUA that 
> has a "reply to list" feature and defaults to replying to the list for 
> messages from the list (it would presumably need explicit filters to 
> detect messages from some lists because not all lists use the List-Post 
> header). It's annoying when I try to reply to the list and instead end 
> up replying to only the poster (I know about the problems with Reply-To 
> munging; I'm not sure why it isn't more common for MUAs to have a "reply 
> to list" feature to better deal with lists that don't munge Reply-To).

I'm a FreeBSD/Alpine bigot myself, but I've heard good things about 
Linux/Mutt.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From bqt at update.uu.se  Fri Jul  1 08:17:05 2016
From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 00:17:05 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-11 MMU (was: 68000 vs. 8086)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.31.1467314550.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.31.1467314550.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <e65515f8-137c-d149-a1a2-2a54f7ec9c72@update.uu.se>

On 2016-06-30 21:22, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
>
> but when Moto came out with a memory management chip it had some
>> > severe flaws that made paging and fault recovery impossible, while the
>> > equivalent features available on the 8086 line were tolerable.
> ​Different issues...​
>
> ​When the 68000 came out there was a base/limit register chip available,​
> who's number I forget (Moto offered to Apple for no additional cost if they
> would use it in the Mac but sadly they did not).    This chip was similar
> to the 11/70 MMU, as that's what Les and Nick were used to using (they used
> a 11/70 running Unix V6 has the development box and had been before the
> what would become the 68000 -- another set of great stories from Les, Nick
> and Tom Gunter).

Clem, I think pretty much all you are writing is correct, except that I 
don't get your reference to the PDP-11 MMU.

The MMU of the PDP-11 is not some base/limit register thing. It's a 
paged memory, with a flat address space. Admittedly, you only have 8 
pages, but I think it's just plain incorrect to call it something else.
(Even though noone I know of ever wrote a demand-paged memory system for 
a PDP-11, there is no technical reason preventing you from doing it. 
Just that with 8 pages, and load more physical memory than virtual, it 
just didn't give much of any benifits.)

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul  1 08:34:05 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 08:34:05 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] List reply-to
In-Reply-To: <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160630065609.GA20869@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201606300710.u5U7AnW5019439@freefriends.org>
 <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD-qYGo5RBsOf-kik16UX43b3Z72nfNSe2Q85rwG44nL7dFUnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607010826380.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Warren Toomey wrote:

> I'm running a fairly default Mailman setup for TUHS. The reply-to option 
> is set to be the original poster. I can change it to the list address if 
> most people are happy for it to be that way.
> 
> Mind you, I'm sure either choice won't be suitable for all subscribers.

You'll make enemies either way :-)

I once ran a list with Reply-To set to the list, and people used to 
replying to sender posted some sensitive information...

My preference is "list", and lusers will quickly learn after their first 
mistake...  This is a technical mailing list, after all.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From david at kdbarto.org  Fri Jul  1 08:55:17 2016
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 15:55:17 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs / Pascal
In-Reply-To: <mailman.27.1467307673.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.27.1467307673.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <47BC1783-6192-4C1B-8CBA-249ABF736ADB@kdbarto.org>


> On Jun 30, 2016, at 10:27 AM, schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
> Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com> wrote:
> 
>> Bill Cheswick: "What a different world it would be if IBM had selected the
>> M68000 and UCSD Pascal.  Both seemed
>> to me to better better choices at the time."
>> 
>> Not for those of us trying to write serious software. The IBM PC came out
>> in August, 1981, and I left Bell Labs to write software for it full time
>> about 5 months later. At the time, it seemed to me to represent the future,
>> and that turned out to be a correct guess.
> 
> I worked on a "Microengine" in 1979.
> 
> The Microengine was a micro PDP-11 with a modified micro code ROM that directly 
> supported to execute p-code.
> 
> The machine was running a UCSD pascal based OS and was really fast and powerful.
> 
> Jörg

Very likely one of the Western Digital products. They were the first to take UCSD Pascal and burned the p-code interpreter into the ROM. Made for a blindingly fast system. I worked with the folks who did the port and make it all play together. Fun days.

I worked on the OS and various utility programs those days. Nothing to do with the interpreters.

When the 68000 came out SofTech did a port of the system to it. Worked very well; you could take code compiled on the 6502 system write it to a floppy, take the floppy to the 68k system and just execute the binary. It worked amazingly well.

	David



From random832 at fastmail.com  Fri Jul  1 08:58:18 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 18:58:18 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] List reply-to
In-Reply-To: <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160630065609.GA20869@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201606300710.u5U7AnW5019439@freefriends.org>
 <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD-qYGo5RBsOf-kik16UX43b3Z72nfNSe2Q85rwG44nL7dFUnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <1467327498.3638694.653653361.276114D7@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016, at 08:17, Warren Toomey wrote:
> I'm running a fairly default Mailman setup for TUHS. The reply-to option
> is set to be the original poster. I can change it to the list address if
> most people are happy for it to be that way.
> 
> Mind you, I'm sure either choice won't be suitable for all subscribers.

My own email works fine with it as-is, it shows a "reply to list" button
based on, I assume, the List-Post header.

I'd worry that changing the Reply-To header to be the list would (in
addition to obliterating the original reply-to for the odd poster that
has it distinct from their from address) make the "reply to sender"
button go to the list and force people to copy the address manually.


From david at kdbarto.org  Fri Jul  1 09:00:22 2016
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 16:00:22 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs / Pascal
In-Reply-To: <mailman.25.1467300770.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.25.1467300770.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <C59B0097-EA50-42F7-B535-97F2FF6A11DE@kdbarto.org>


> Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com>
> 
>> 
>> On the other hand, there was
>> no excuse for a Pascal compiler to be either large, buggy, or slow, even before Turbo Pascal.
>> 
> I remember the Pascal computer on my Apple II used to have to use some of the video memory while it was running.

UCSD Pascal, the Apple Pascal base, would grab the video memory as space to write the heap when compiling. When the Terak system was in use at UCSD the video memory would display on the screen so you could watch the heap grow down the screen while the stack crawled up when compiling. If it ever hit in the middle, you had a crash. Exciting times.

Terak systems were 11/03 based, IIRC. (http://www.threedee.com/jcm/terak/)

	David



From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul  1 09:07:30 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 09:07:30 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CACyhTRGQGb-MF6dnbzL0fjozyZgqjgYW_vrq+TMVfg8rqLqNJw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
 <5775335d./pughAHP8rwelLlB%schily@schily.net>
 <CACyhTRGQGb-MF6dnbzL0fjozyZgqjgYW_vrq+TMVfg8rqLqNJw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607010905350.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, Ori Idan wrote:

> Pascal compiler written in Pascal? how can I compile the compiler it I 
> don't yet have a pascal compiler? :-)

I've always said that the ultimate test of a compiler was whether it could 
compile itself.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From random832 at fastmail.com  Fri Jul  1 09:11:00 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 19:11:00 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1467328260.3640485.653662833.5AEA31EC@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016, at 16:57, Nemo wrote:
> I heard that a lot of the BIOS was a simple-minded translation of
> corresponding 8080-assembler.  I believe that; if you look at the
> horrible assembler, which was actually printed in the IBM Technical
> Manual, you could see that most 8086 extensions were not used.

Well, a new system means there are no expert programmers for it, who
have learned all the tricks and how it all fits together. You see
something similar in environments like console video games, with a
progression of higher-performance games within each console generation
as programmers learn to wring more out of the same hardware.


From rochkind at basepath.com  Fri Jul  1 09:16:14 2016
From: rochkind at basepath.com (Marc Rochkind)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 17:16:14 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>

Clem Cole: "IBM allowed the system to be cloned"

I never looked at it that way. To discourage cloning, IBM published and
copyrighted the BIOS source code. Most serious programmers were very
familiar with it, because one had to know details of the BIOS to program
the computer, for many applications (such as ours). That reduced the number
of programmers who could work on a BIOS clone, as such people would have to
be recruited from outside the world of the IBM PC. A few outfits sprang up
to do clean-room BIOS clones, including an outfit called Phoenix, which had
the best. Compaq's internal BIOS was also excellent.

As for the computer hardware, it was just Intel parts along with
off-the-shelf floppy disk controllers and drives and other such stuff. IBM
had built the PC almost entirely from existing parts, and had no exclusive
on any of it.

For the clones, no copyrighted code was used, the programmers had never
seen the code, and the function of the BIOS wasn't copyrightable. So, IBM
really had no way to prevent the clones.

There were a lot of PCs in the early 1980s that weren't clones. They had
8088 or 8086 CPUs, and looked liked PCs, but they weren't identical, so we
had to port our software. Sometimes companies gave us machines, including
AT&T, whose PC was made by Olivetti. I remember many conversations with
computer vendors in which I was just trying to get the memory address and
layout for the screen. They never could even understand the question. DEC,
which had their own weird version of a PC, was the worst.

Within a few years all these went away, and only identical clones existed,
for which we didn't need to develop a special version.

A few people here have said that IBM could have produced a more
sophisticated OS. Actually, I would have been against anything that took up
more resident memory. Initially, I think the most memory IBM would supply
was 384K, and most serious applications needed it all. Multiprogramming or
sophisticated system calls of any sort would have sucked up valuable
memory. I was able to design the EDIX editor to be entirely memory
resident, even with multiple active files, with no floppy swapping at all.

As someone mentioned, we pretty much used MS-DOS only for its file
management. Access to all other facilities was through the BIOS or directly
to the hardware. With such a completely unprotected system, running more
than one application at a time was out of the question.

One might ask why we had such a primitive system with 384K, when UNIX had
been developed over 10 years before on a smaller system. Simple: UNIX had
swapping. With no hard drive, and floppies being inserted and removed,
everything had to be resident in RAM. In addition, as I've mentioned
already, screen speed is what distinguished PC software, ever since Apple
games and Visicalc. Traditional UNIX screen speed was ridiculously slow,
until the workstations came along, but for many times the price of a PC. To
get the screen speed on a PC, the application had to own the hardware. UNIX
insists on standing between the application and the hardware. In PC land
that would be unacceptable.

--Marc

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 2:57 PM, Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 30 June 2016 at 15:21, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:
> [...]
> > Two factors might had made the choice of 8088 a more practical one for
> IBM.
> >
> [...]
> > In addition, the 8086 architecture was an extension of the 8080 one,
> which
> > made it easier to make the MS-DOS API compatible with the CP/M one, which
> > was used by many popular programs.  This would simplify their porting.
> (A
> > lot of early IBM PC software was written in assembly language.)
>
> I heard that a lot of the BIOS was a simple-minded translation of
> corresponding 8080-assembler.  I believe that; if you look at the
> horrible assembler, which was actually printed in the IBM Technical
> Manual, you could see that most 8086 extensions were not used.
>
> N.
>
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From random832 at fastmail.com  Fri Jul  1 09:38:53 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 19:38:53 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1467329933.3645182.653679281.7C8A6348@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016, at 19:16, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> ...and the function of the BIOS wasn't copyrightable.

Well, that's apparently not actually settled law, judging by the fact
that Oracle v. Google wasn't laughed out of court nearly thirty years
later.


From ches at cheswick.com  Fri Jul  1 09:43:36 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 19:43:36 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs / Pascal
In-Reply-To: <C59B0097-EA50-42F7-B535-97F2FF6A11DE@kdbarto.org>
References: <mailman.25.1467300770.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <C59B0097-EA50-42F7-B535-97F2FF6A11DE@kdbarto.org>
Message-ID: <1B3F2199-2A6D-4F23-87D9-9DC973945E9D@cheswick.com>

Shades of the BLIT loading.

> On 30Jun 2016, at 7:00 PM, David <david at kdbarto.org> wrote:
> 
> compiling. When the Terak system was in use at UCSD the video memory would display on the screen so you could watch the heap grow down the screen while the stack crawled up when compiling. If it ever hit in the middle, you had a crash. Exciting times.



From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 10:01:01 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:01:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] PDP-11 MMU (was: 68000 vs. 8086)
In-Reply-To: <e65515f8-137c-d149-a1a2-2a54f7ec9c72@update.uu.se>
References: <mailman.31.1467314550.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <e65515f8-137c-d149-a1a2-2a54f7ec9c72@update.uu.se>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PsCGf-+4yzai5sBbKhpxsvVn1=e-Uj8gEThRninwffPg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 6:17 PM, Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote:

> Clem, I think pretty much all you are writing is correct, except that I
> don't get your reference to the PDP-11 MMU.
>
> The MMU of the PDP-11 is not some base/limit register thing. It's a paged
> memory, with a flat address space. Admittedly, you only have 8 pages, but I
> think it's just plain incorrect to call it something else.
> (Even though noone I know of ever wrote a demand-paged memory system for a
> PDP-11, there is no technical reason preventing you from doing it. Just
> that with 8 pages, and load more physical memory than virtual, it just
> didn't give much of any benifits.)
>
​Johnny - yes I stand made more precise.   11's with MMU's do support
pages, but the MMU is is base/limits with 1 level page displacement and as
you point a not a lot of pages and with only 16 bits of base address the
virtual addresses are pretty limited (although as BSD 2.8 and later showed
you can do a lot with a bit of care and overlays).

I fairly certain that the original Moto MMU chip worked the same way, as
Nick and Les were definitely using the PDP-11/70 as the example, even
though those system did have more address bits.   I also, I know that the
custom MMU on the Magnolia the system we built at Tektronix with first
pre-68K did work that way, as I did it and I too model it from the 11/70.


In Magnolias case, it was that way because the Altos and Dorado's from PARC
did not have an MMU.   Roger Bates was my office mate at Tektronix and one
of the HW guys from the Dorado and Altos.  He was the main HW guy on
Magnolia had to learn about MMU's from me. But I was once a HW guy too --
and when we built that system those gates in Magnolia were mine :-)  The
original OS (Magix 1.0) ran PDP-11 style since that's all the CPU could do
(Magix was a V7 like system).   A couple of years later, when the CPU chips
were replaced with the first 68010's, the OS was updated to work more like
a Vax.   I've forgotten if Roger added a second level at that point, as I
had left the project to head back to grad school and I did not do that part
of the coding.

Clem
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 10:38:56 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:38:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>

Marc,

I mostly agree but you have a little history out of order.  Apple and
Franklin really are important here.  More inline...

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 7:16 PM, Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com>
wrote:

> Clem Cole: "IBM allowed the system to be cloned"
>
> I never looked at it that way. To discourage cloning, IBM published and
> copyrighted the BIOS source code.
>
​Hang on that it was not quite that simple.   In fact IBM did publish
everything because that was what all the PC folks did at the time.   As did
IBM themselves in their mainframes.   Remember when the PC was originally
developed, Judge Green has not yet left IBM from its bondage.​   So IBM was
very careful in those days to follow industry norms.   The PC folks (like
Apple, Altair, Cromemco et al) published the schematics and the ROM
listings.  The OS's and higher level tools were closed but the rest tended
to be generally available so IBM followed suit.





> ​....​
>  A few outfits sprang up to do clean-room BIOS clones, including an outfit
> called Phoenix, which had the best. Compaq's internal BIOS was also
> excellent.
>
​This post the Franklin Computer case.​  Clones of Apple II sprung up, with
CPU motherboards coming from Taiwan.   Hey I made an Apple II clone, as
well as an Xerox 820 clone in those days myself (I may still have the
later).

Franklin Computer of Philadelphia started to sell their Apple II to run
Visacalc - which was the "killer app" of the day (note a theme here).  Jobs
did not like it and took them to court.  I actually knew the main attorney
for Franklin at the time (one of the few big cases he even lost).   Apple
won because it was the contents of the ROM (bit for bit) that was found to
be identical.   The question became could you "copyright" the bits. [There
is a whole side discussion about what the memory chip guys of that day did
to try to keep people from copying them BTW].

Anyway, once that became case law, the concept of a "clean room" was
created.  As you say, Phoenix did a remarkable job.   BTW:  in an
interested side note, years later, IBM sold Phoenix its BIOS and started to
use theirs when the Phoenix BIOS became the gold standard.



>
> As for the computer hardware, it was just Intel parts
>
​Motorola, WD, and TI parts originally.​




> For the clones, no copyrighted code was used, the programmers had never
> seen the code, and the function of the BIOS wasn't copyrightable. So, IBM
> really had no way to prevent the clones.
>
​If they had not published the original material, I suspect it would have
been far, far harder and less attractive.   But also remember, clone in the
IBM land was already around.  Amdahl was selling like hot cakes.  IBM had
learned that with the clone market, they sold more of their own product.
It was an interesting business view.   The pie was getting bigger faster,
so they got a larger amount of pie, even though the percentage of the pie
got smaller.​  So IBM made more money.

This was a lesson a lot of companies, particularly computer firms, never
quite understood.   Having a weak, buy alive competitor is better than no
competition.




>
>
> There were a lot of PCs in the early 1980s that weren't clones.
>
​Absolutely.​  But if the OS has been reasonable and had be able to hide
the differences (and you not be able to go directly to HW addresses etc..)
this would have been less of an issue.




> ​...
> DEC, which had their own weird version of a PC, was the worst.
>
​No doubt.​



> One might ask why we had such a primitive system with 384K, when UNIX had
> been developed over 10 years before on a smaller system. Simple: UNIX had
> swapping.
>
​Truth is folks built systems that swapped to floppies (and cassette tape
et al) in those days.  Originally Magix was going to be in that same camp
when it was a "G-job" by Roger and myself.  When our boss funded its the
first thing we did was add a 10M disk.​




> ​... ​
> To get the screen speed on a PC, the application had to own the hardware.
>
​That was a deficiency of the PC HW design.   Other systems, such as the
Magnolia and later Apollo/Masscomp/Sun, showed you could have fine speed
with out having to do that.  Also in "PC land" consider when the '20 Mac
came out and Apple started to get religion (as did NeXT shortly there
after).

You could do it, but the original PC designs were sloppy and did not care
-- the feeling was that extra HW (and SW to support) was unnecessary.   In
many ways, the original PC guys were right given how far and how long those
systems lived.   But it was painful for the SW building as you pointed out.
   You should not have had to do such "unnatural" or "unsafe" acts.




> UNIX insists on standing between the application and the hardware.
>
​As it should ;-) ​It required  good HW under the covers and then UNIX
drivers that did the the right things.  In the same time frame as the PC
was developed it was definitely possible and would not have cost more.​




> In PC land that would be unacceptable.
>
​Only because the HW sucked and the OS did not have the right types of
structures to make it work.​

Seriously, Marc I get it and you are better man for dealing with the craziness
of the day.  Many of the rest of us would not at the time, and until we got
"real HW" did not mess that much with it.  Then again, I did not care to
run a VisaCalc or a Word Perfect :-)

Clem
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From rochkind at basepath.com  Fri Jul  1 11:21:52 2016
From: rochkind at basepath.com (Marc Rochkind)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 19:21:52 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOkr1zVpR-LaNMgenNf6sGFVyREOQBeXiSa5Sc+uUoq5qD6F=A@mail.gmail.com>

thanks for these comments... lots of interesting stuff

On Thursday, June 30, 2016, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Marc,
>
> I mostly agree but you have a little history out of order.  Apple and
> Franklin really are important here.  More inline...
>
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 7:16 PM, Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','rochkind at basepath.com');>> wrote:
>
>> Clem Cole: "IBM allowed the system to be cloned"
>>
>> I never looked at it that way. To discourage cloning, IBM published and
>> copyrighted the BIOS source code.
>>
> ​Hang on that it was not quite that simple.   In fact IBM did publish
> everything because that was what all the PC folks did at the time.   As did
> IBM themselves in their mainframes.   Remember when the PC was originally
> developed, Judge Green has not yet left IBM from its bondage.​   So IBM was
> very careful in those days to follow industry norms.   The PC folks (like
> Apple, Altair, Cromemco et al) published the schematics and the ROM
> listings.  The OS's and higher level tools were closed but the rest tended
> to be generally available so IBM followed suit.
>
>
>
>
>
>> ​....​
>>  A few outfits sprang up to do clean-room BIOS clones, including an
>> outfit called Phoenix, which had the best. Compaq's internal BIOS was also
>> excellent.
>>
> ​This post the Franklin Computer case.​  Clones of Apple II sprung up,
> with CPU motherboards coming from Taiwan.   Hey I made an Apple II clone,
> as well as an Xerox 820 clone in those days myself (I may still have the
> later).
>
> Franklin Computer of Philadelphia started to sell their Apple II to run
> Visacalc - which was the "killer app" of the day (note a theme here).  Jobs
> did not like it and took them to court.  I actually knew the main attorney
> for Franklin at the time (one of the few big cases he even lost).   Apple
> won because it was the contents of the ROM (bit for bit) that was found to
> be identical.   The question became could you "copyright" the bits. [There
> is a whole side discussion about what the memory chip guys of that day did
> to try to keep people from copying them BTW].
>
> Anyway, once that became case law, the concept of a "clean room" was
> created.  As you say, Phoenix did a remarkable job.   BTW:  in an
> interested side note, years later, IBM sold Phoenix its BIOS and started to
> use theirs when the Phoenix BIOS became the gold standard.
>
>
>
>>
>> As for the computer hardware, it was just Intel parts
>>
> ​Motorola, WD, and TI parts originally.​
>
>
>
>
>> For the clones, no copyrighted code was used, the programmers had never
>> seen the code, and the function of the BIOS wasn't copyrightable. So, IBM
>> really had no way to prevent the clones.
>>
> ​If they had not published the original material, I suspect it would have
> been far, far harder and less attractive.   But also remember, clone in the
> IBM land was already around.  Amdahl was selling like hot cakes.  IBM had
> learned that with the clone market, they sold more of their own product.
> It was an interesting business view.   The pie was getting bigger faster,
> so they got a larger amount of pie, even though the percentage of the pie
> got smaller.​  So IBM made more money.
>
> This was a lesson a lot of companies, particularly computer firms, never
> quite understood.   Having a weak, buy alive competitor is better than no
> competition.
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>> There were a lot of PCs in the early 1980s that weren't clones.
>>
> ​Absolutely.​  But if the OS has been reasonable and had be able to hide
> the differences (and you not be able to go directly to HW addresses etc..)
> this would have been less of an issue.
>
>
>
>
>> ​...
>> DEC, which had their own weird version of a PC, was the worst.
>>
> ​No doubt.​
>
>
>
>> One might ask why we had such a primitive system with 384K, when UNIX had
>> been developed over 10 years before on a smaller system. Simple: UNIX had
>> swapping.
>>
> ​Truth is folks built systems that swapped to floppies (and cassette tape
> et al) in those days.  Originally Magix was going to be in that same camp
> when it was a "G-job" by Roger and myself.  When our boss funded its the
> first thing we did was add a 10M disk.​
>
>
>
>
>> ​... ​
>> To get the screen speed on a PC, the application had to own the hardware.
>>
> ​That was a deficiency of the PC HW design.   Other systems, such as the
> Magnolia and later Apollo/Masscomp/Sun, showed you could have fine speed
> with out having to do that.  Also in "PC land" consider when the '20 Mac
> came out and Apple started to get religion (as did NeXT shortly there
> after).
>
> You could do it, but the original PC designs were sloppy and did not care
> -- the feeling was that extra HW (and SW to support) was unnecessary.
> In many ways, the original PC guys were right given how far and how long
> those systems lived.   But it was painful for the SW building as you
> pointed out.    You should not have had to do such "unnatural" or "unsafe"
> acts.
>
>
>
>
>> UNIX insists on standing between the application and the hardware.
>>
> ​As it should ;-) ​It required  good HW under the covers and then UNIX
> drivers that did the the right things.  In the same time frame as the PC
> was developed it was definitely possible and would not have cost more.​
>
>
>
>
>> In PC land that would be unacceptable.
>>
> ​Only because the HW sucked and the OS did not have the right types of
> structures to make it work.​
>
> Seriously, Marc I get it and you are better man for dealing with the craziness
> of the day.  Many of the rest of us would not at the time, and until we got
> "real HW" did not mess that much with it.  Then again, I did not care to
> run a VisaCalc or a Word Perfect :-)
>
> Clem
>
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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Fri Jul  1 11:34:17 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 21:34:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
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 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160701013416.GD23682@mercury.ccil.org>

Clem Cole scripsit:

> ​Truth is folks built systems that swapped to floppies (and cassette tape
> et al) in those days.  

Indeed, the PDP-8 system I cut my teeth on swapped (infrequently) to DECtape,
which is essentially a floppy drive without random access.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
There is / One art / No more / No less
To do / All things / With art- / -Lessness          --Piet Hein


From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Jul  1 12:35:27 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 22:35:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzzykSFuhQy1E+f=BZk+PCBhzVxzsPLoienx-CJp3szd0w@mail.gmail.com>

On 30 June 2016 at 20:38, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
> Marc,
>
[...]
> Seriously, Marc I get it and you are better man for dealing with the
> craziness of the day.  Many of the rest of us would not at the time, and
> until we got "real HW" did not mess that much with it.

Anyone remember Desqview/X?  A strange beast, running some window
manager on X on a PC. They made available a variant of gcc and you
could actually compile some X stuff.  I say "some" because I tried
compiling something by running xmkmf+make  and went back to laying
subfloor in an adjacent room.  A few minutes later, I heard the PC
rebooting.  The underlying file system was still DOS and thus 8.3
names.  The source included headers that differed in the 9th place and
the stack eventually blew.

N.


From khm at sciops.net  Fri Jul  1 13:01:50 2016
From: khm at sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:01:50 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzzykSFuhQy1E+f=BZk+PCBhzVxzsPLoienx-CJp3szd0w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJfiPzzykSFuhQy1E+f=BZk+PCBhzVxzsPLoienx-CJp3szd0w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160701030150.GL53768@wopr>

On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 10:35:27PM -0400, Nemo wrote:
> 
> Anyone remember Desqview/X? 

The best feature that software had was it let you run Windows programs
from the machine running DV/X on a unix workstation.  It was the only
reason anyone used the Sun machines in one of the labs when I first got
to college.

khm


From jcea at jcea.es  Fri Jul  1 13:27:06 2016
From: jcea at jcea.es (Jesus Cea)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 05:27:06 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CACyhTRGQGb-MF6dnbzL0fjozyZgqjgYW_vrq+TMVfg8rqLqNJw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <E1FF25D7-C7D5-4D27-A94B-85ADDC9708B6@cheswick.com>
 <5775335d./pughAHP8rwelLlB%schily@schily.net>
 <CACyhTRGQGb-MF6dnbzL0fjozyZgqjgYW_vrq+TMVfg8rqLqNJw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <646a0173-5218-aebe-63d9-0afede6eb766@jcea.es>

On 30/06/16 17:07, Ori Idan wrote:
> Pascal compiler written in Pascal? how can I compile the compiler it I
> don't yet have a pascal compiler? :-)

That is standard procedure:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28compilers%29

-- 
Jesús Cea Avión                         _/_/      _/_/_/        _/_/_/
jcea at jcea.es - http://www.jcea.es/     _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
Twitter: @jcea                        _/_/    _/_/          _/_/_/_/_/
jabber / xmpp:jcea at jabber.org  _/_/  _/_/    _/_/          _/_/  _/_/
"Things are not so easy"      _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
"My name is Dump, Core Dump"   _/_/_/        _/_/_/      _/_/  _/_/
"El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz

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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Fri Jul  1 13:48:39 2016
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:48:39 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] A Talk on Early Unix
In-Reply-To: <728E6849-FAE3-43C2-9950-16BA591CE9B4@ronnatalie.com>
References: <201606301241.u5UCfgXc014753@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <728E6849-FAE3-43C2-9950-16BA591CE9B4@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <5F0770EE-B494-445D-B78B-55EEF32A4702@orthanc.ca>


> On Jun 30, 2016, at 5:53 AM, Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> 
> Ah yes, the 3B’s.   Running the state university computer department (in NJ) we got a lot of 3B’s (3B2, 3B5, 3B20).

We had the misfortune of being donated a 3B4000.  

> The 3B20 was definitely a piece of telephone equipment.

The 3B4000 had a 3B20 inside that acted as the bootstrap controller (ala the micro-pdp inside the larger Vaxen doing similar duty).  Most impressively, said 3B20, with the CPU and IO power of a match stick, was also the Ethernet portal for the entire 3B4000.  It couldn't even come close to keeping up with its 10 mbit/s NIC.

AT&T flogged this abomination to us as the core of our "distributed network environment."  Actually, they flogged it to us as a "1 million dollar donation in kind" because they knew nobody would buy that piece of shit, but this way they got the tax write off, and our beloved University president got to grin madly at a press conference.

When they replaced it with a half-dozen 3B2-xxx servers (about a year later) we at least got a marginal improvement in network throughput.  But they cancelled that out with RFS.

Basically, the 3B2s (and the 3B4K by extension) were designed to hang off the side of the 4ESS and collect toll call records for billing purposes.  Anyone remember Tuxedo?

> The 3B5 was an interesting machine.   We found out how rugged it was when a drain pipe broke over the top of it (the Rutgers main computer center was underground under a court yard between the twin towers of the Hill Center).   The thing survived a deluge of water being dumped into it.

I don't think we ever landed one of those in the shop.  It seemed like an intriguing bit of gear back when I looked at it.  Decades ago, now.

--lyndon



From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Fri Jul  1 13:52:13 2016
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:52:13 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>


> On Jun 30, 2016, at 5:38 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> ​Hang on that it was not quite that simple.   In fact IBM did publish everything because that was what all the PC folks did at the time.   As did IBM themselves in their mainframes.   Remember when the PC was originally developed, Judge Green has not yet left IBM from its bondage.​   So IBM was very careful in those days to follow industry norms.   The PC folks (like Apple, Altair, Cromemco et al) published the schematics and the ROM listings.  The OS's and higher level tools were closed but the rest tended to be generally available so IBM followed suit.

But IBM had long stopped publishing source for VM/360 by that point.  They were quite aware by the time of ??-DOS that copyright applied to source code.

And by then there were copyright notices being slapped all over BIOS code.  I remember seeing it in S-100 systems at the time.

From brantleycoile at me.com  Fri Jul  1 19:32:53 2016
From: brantleycoile at me.com (Brantley Coile)
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 05:32:53 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <CMM.0.96.0.1467307050.beebe@gamma.math.utah.edu>
References: <CMM.0.96.0.1467307050.beebe@gamma.math.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <411C9B22-5CA2-4539-AD93-73292A124BEF@me.com>

Wirth attempted to write a simple language to write the real Pascal compiler. One fatal flaw was that the simpler language lacked recursion, which was optional in those days, and the use of the Pascal-0 was abandoned. The next attempt was to write the compiler in Pascal and ``desk’’ compile it into machine code. That was amazingly successful, if tedious.

Later, to make porting easier, the good professor wrote a version that generated a stack based intermediate code called P-code. You could get a copy of the compiler in Pascal and P-code, write your own P-code interpreter and have a Pascal compiler. It was easy. Pascal compilers spread like locus after that. One could then change the compiler to write machine code for the actual machine, although many just extended their P-code emulators. It was “compile once, run anywhere” long before Java’s virtual machine.

BCPL came the same way, with a version of the compiler in CINIT code to move the compiler. 

The PCC required a donor machine already running Unix in somewhat close proximity to the target machine.

  Brantley Coile

> On Jun 30, 2016, at 1:17 PM, Nelson H. F. Beebe <beebe at math.utah.edu> wrote:
> 
> Ori Idan <ori at helicontech.co.il> asks today:
> 
>>> Pascal compiler written in Pascal? how can I compile the compiler it I
>>> don't yet have a pascal compiler? :-)
> 
> You compile the code by hand into assembly language for the CDC
> 6400/6600 machines, and bootstrap that way: see
> 
> 	Urs Ammann
> 	On Code Generation in a PASCAL Compiler
> 	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380070311
> 
> 	Niklaus Wirth
> 	The Design of a PASCAL Compiler
> 	http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/spe.4380010403
> 
> It has been a long time since I read those articles in the journal
> Software --- Practice and Experience, but my recollection is that they
> wrote the compiler in a minimal subset of Pascal needed to do the job,
> just to ease the hand-translation process.
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> - Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
> - University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
> - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
> - 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
> - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------



From ches at cheswick.com  Fri Jul  1 22:47:01 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 08:47:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>

>>​...​why didn't they have a more capable kernel than MS-DOS?
​>I don't think they cared. or felt it was needed at the time (I disagreed then and still do).

MS-DOS was a better choice at the time than Unix. It had to fit on floppies, and was very simple.

“Unix is a system administrations nightmare” — dmr

Actually, MS-DOS was a runtime system, not an operating system, despite the last two letters of its name.
This is a term of art lost to antiquity.
Run time systems offered a minimum of features: a loader, a file system, a crappy, built-in shell,
I/O for keyboards, tape, screens, crude memory management, etc. No multiuser, no network stacks, no separate processes (mostly). DEC had several (RT11, RSTS, RSX) and the line is perhaps a little fuzzy: they were getting operating-ish.

It all had to fit on a floppy (do I remember correctly that the original floppyies, SSSD, were 90KB?), run
flight simulator and some business apps.  MSDOS lasted a decade, and served the PC world well, for all its
crapiness.  Win 3.1 was an attempt at an OS, and Win 95 an actual one, with a network stack and everything.

>I agree with 90% of what he says, but not about Algol 68.  He obviously
>has a strong preference for small languages: it would be interesting
>to see his uncensored opinions of C++, the Godzilla of our day as Ada

I’d be astonished if he had anything good at all to say about C++.

He’s still around…you could ask him...

From rochkind at basepath.com  Fri Jul  1 23:43:08 2016
From: rochkind at basepath.com (Marc Rochkind)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 07:43:08 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
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 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
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Message-ID: <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>

Bill: "MS-DOS was a runtime system, not an operating system"

Well said... that's completely true.

Those original floppies were I believe 160K. If you paid extra, the box
would hold two drives. Later, IBM introduced double-sided drives, at 320K
each.

The XT model, with a built-in hard drive (10MB as I recall) came out
one-and-a-half years after the original, in 1983. With it came MS-DOS 2.0,
with a hierarchical file system.

Since the forward slash was used for command-line options, paths used a
backwards slash.

--Marc

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 6:47 AM, William Cheswick <ches at cheswick.com> wrote:

> >>​...​why didn't they have a more capable kernel than MS-DOS?
> ​>I don't think they cared. or felt it was needed at the time (I disagreed
> then and still do).
>
> MS-DOS was a better choice at the time than Unix. It had to fit on
> floppies, and was very simple.
>
> “Unix is a system administrations nightmare” — dmr
>
> Actually, MS-DOS was a runtime system, not an operating system, despite
> the last two letters of its name.
> This is a term of art lost to antiquity.
> Run time systems offered a minimum of features: a loader, a file system, a
> crappy, built-in shell,
> I/O for keyboards, tape, screens, crude memory management, etc. No
> multiuser, no network stacks, no separate processes (mostly). DEC had
> several (RT11, RSTS, RSX) and the line is perhaps a little fuzzy: they were
> getting operating-ish.
>
> It all had to fit on a floppy (do I remember correctly that the original
> floppyies, SSSD, were 90KB?), run
> flight simulator and some business apps.  MSDOS lasted a decade, and
> served the PC world well, for all its
> crapiness.  Win 3.1 was an attempt at an OS, and Win 95 an actual one,
> with a network stack and everything.
>
> >I agree with 90% of what he says, but not about Algol 68.  He obviously
> >has a strong preference for small languages: it would be interesting
> >to see his uncensored opinions of C++, the Godzilla of our day as Ada
>
> I’d be astonished if he had anything good at all to say about C++.
>
> He’s still around…you could ask him...
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From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul  1 23:47:14 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 09:47:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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Message-ID: <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 8:47 AM, William Cheswick <ches at cheswick.com> wrote:
>
>
> MS-DOS was a better choice at the time than Unix.

​Mumble - the question is what is UNIX.  When comparing MS-DOS to UNIX, I'm
talking about the kernel and the programming API.   Unix as a Kernel could
be very small.​  You might not have had as many commands as we do today
/{,usr}/*bin but it could and did fit.   We ran V7 off floppies on LSI-11s
in those days.   It worked just fine.



> It had to fit on floppies, and was very simple.
>
​UNIX could (and did) at the time --   by the time of the AT (which was
when the PC's hockey stick curve took off) an 5.25" floppy had a capacity
of 1.44M.  An RK05, the V6 and V7 standard,  was 2.5 M which is a 40% loss
of space, but it was do-able.  We also know swapping would have been
slower, but again, had been and was done.  I will say, I used to have an 8"
floppy insides hanging over my desk at one point.  You see that there is no
magnetic material left near the center -- where the i-list was.



>
> “Unix is a system administrations nightmare” — dmr
>
​+1 -- this would have been an issue, particularly pre-Goble work on
getting the write ordering correct.  Halts and crashes trashed the FS and
that was an issue!!​  But it was fixed when people cared, and I suspect if
a Unix-ish system had been on the low end, it would have been addressed.




>
> Actually, MS-DOS was a runtime system, not an operating system, despite
> the last two letters of its name.
>
​Amen​.  I use the words "executive."  Or as I have said, it was really
agreement between applications programs on how modify the disk structures
and what could be left in what places in main memory.  As Marc apply points
out, applications >>had to<< by-pass MS-DOS because the HW was not very
good and there really were not good services from the "OS" provided.




> This is a term of art lost to antiquity.
>
​Amen -- sad and very important. ​




> Run time systems offered a minimum of features: a loader, a file system, a
> crappy, built-in shell,
> I/O for keyboards, tape, screens, crude memory management, etc.

And most importantly, were based around an agreement between programs, but
that agreement had no way to be enforced.​



> No multiuser, no network stacks, no separate processes (mostly).

​Networking not so much.  You definitely could (and people did/do) add
networking to executives.  In those days, DEC has DECnet for their systems
(including MS-DOS) and today in the IoT world, I use many of my Arduino's
with network connections.  But I the programing is very much like it was in
my DOS-8/DOS-11/RT-11 days.



> DEC had several (RT11, RSTS, RSX) and the line is perhaps a little fuzzy:
> they were getting operating-ish.
>
​Be careful here Ches.  RT-11 and DOS-11 meet your (and my definitions).
But RSTS and RSX were multi-users and ran (run) protected mode, have/had
full networking stacks etc.  [There is even a lively network of historic
DEC users that to this day have those systems running and available on the
Internet and few member of which lurk and even sometimes comment on this
mailing list].




>
> It all had to fit on a floppy (do I remember correctly that the original
> floppyies, SSSD, were 90KB?), run
> flight simulator and some business apps.

​We ran V7 on 8" floppies (SA800's from Shugart Associates IIRC).  These
were ~ 256K each.  You did have to swap disks in/out a little as Marc
described.   You booted from one Floppy and replaced it with a "root" FS
floppy after the OS loaded.   But it all could and did fit.  You had ad
editor, the compilers, etc.

That said, no graphics files or other stuff   Which as you point out was
important.




> MSDOS lasted a decade, and served the PC world well, for all its
> ​ ​
> crapiness.

​I basically agree.   Although I think it could have been a UNIX-like
substance just as easily >>if<< people had cared.   They key point is that
they did not:  MS-DOS was good enough for what the market needed, and it
was not economically interesting to try supplant it.   The PC (together
with MS-DOS) was a classic "Christensen​ style disruption" to the
minicomputer industry.  As the good Professor points out, the PC was not as
technically good as the technology it replaced, but it was served a new
market that did not care and was good enough for it.



> Win 3.1 was an attempt at an OS, and Win 95 an actual one, with a network
> stack and everything.

​Again - classic Christensen disruption.   The faster moving technology
starts to catch up with the established one.​

So it all come back to my basic point.   The PC and MS-DOS >>could<< have
been made to be in the image of UNIX easily; if people had cared or it was
needed/desired.   But economics caused it to stay in "all its crapiness"
not technology.
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From bqt at update.uu.se  Sat Jul  2 00:37:14 2016
From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 16:37:14 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] DEC OSes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.43.1467380592.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.43.1467380592.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <9f8ceb72-1be6-17c3-f090-7c7a9e518fdf@update.uu.se>

On 2016-07-01 15:43, William Cheswick <ches at cheswick.com> wrote:
>
>>> >>​...​why didn't they have a more capable kernel than MS-DOS?
> ​>I don't think they cared. or felt it was needed at the time (I disagreed then and still do).
>
> MS-DOS was a better choice at the time than Unix. It had to fit on floppies, and was very simple.
>
> “Unix is a system administrations nightmare” — dmr
>
> Actually, MS-DOS was a runtime system, not an operating system, despite the last two letters of its name.
> This is a term of art lost to antiquity.

Strangely enough, the definition I have of a runtime system is very 
different than yours. Languages had/have runtime systems. Some 
environments had runtime systems, but they have a somewhat different 
scope than what MS-DOS is.
I'd call MS-DOS a program loader and a file system.

> Run time systems offered a minimum of features: a loader, a file system, a crappy, built-in shell,
> I/O for keyboards, tape, screens, crude memory management, etc. No multiuser, no network stacks, no separate processes (mostly). DEC had several (RT11, RSTS, RSX) and the line is perhaps a little fuzzy: they were getting operating-ish.

Uh? RSX and RSTS/E are full fledged operating systems with multiuser 
proteciton, time sharing, virtual memory, and all bells and whistles you 
could ever ask for... Including networking... DECnet was born on RSX.

And RSTS/E offered several runtime systems, it had an RT-11 runtime 
system, an RSX runtime system, you also had a TECO runtime system, and 
the BASIC+ runtime system, and you could have others. You could 
definitely have had a Unix runtime system in RSTS/E as well, but I don't 
know if anyone ever wrote one.

In RSX, compilers/languages have runtime systems, which you linked with 
your object files for that language, in order to get a complete runnable 
binary.

	Johnny



From usotsuki at buric.co  Sat Jul  2 01:13:34 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 11:13:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> ​Networking not so much.  You definitely could (and people did/do) add
> networking to executives.  In those days, DEC has DECnet for their systems
> (including MS-DOS) and today in the IoT world, I use many of my Arduino's
> with network connections.  But I the programing is very much like it was in
> my DOS-8/DOS-11/RT-11 days.

I've seen TSR network stacks for MS-DOS; I don't *use* such, but they 
exist.

> ​We ran V7 on 8" floppies (SA800's from Shugart Associates IIRC).  These
> were ~ 256K each.  You did have to swap disks in/out a little as Marc
> described.   You booted from one Floppy and replaced it with a "root" FS
> floppy after the OS loaded.   But it all could and did fit.  You had ad
> editor, the compilers, etc.

I think that's how Minix worked on 5.25" floppies too, if I remember how I 
got it up on my old Tandy 1000EX.

> So it all come back to my basic point.   The PC and MS-DOS >>could<< have
> been made to be in the image of UNIX easily; if people had cared or it was
> needed/desired.   But economics caused it to stay in "all its crapiness"
> not technology.

I think OS/2 was certainly closer to Unix than MS-DOS was.

-uso.

From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Jul  2 02:13:27 2016
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 12:13:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
Message-ID: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

On recent visit to the Living Computer Museum in
Seattle I got to play with Unix on a 3B2--something
I never did at Bell Labs. Maybe next time I
go they'll offer a real nostalgia trip on
the PDP-7, thanks to Warren's efforts.

doug


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Jul  2 03:39:23 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 13:39:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <20160701173922.GA22510@mercury.ccil.org>

Clem Cole scripsit:

> ​UNIX could (and did) at the time --   by the time of the AT (which was
> when the PC's hockey stick curve took off) an 5.25" floppy had a capacity
> of 1.44M.  An RK05, the V6 and V7 standard,  was 2.5 M which is a 40% loss
> of space, but it was do-able.  

The AT also had the 10 MB disk.  Back when I had an AT, I ran Xenix
System III on it along with the MS C compiler, and was able to create
console-mode programs to run on everyone else's MS-DOS machines.
It's hard to remember/believe that Xenix was a Microsoft product before
DOS was.

> > DEC had several (RT11, RSTS, RSX) and the line is perhaps a little fuzzy:
> > they were getting operating-ish.
> >
> ​Be careful here Ches.  RT-11 and DOS-11 meet your (and my definitions).

I would say even RT-11 is somewhere between executive and OS.  It could
run foreground tasks (hence the name Real Time) if properly sysgenned,
and it had a decent kernel API that you didn't have to bypass.

> But RSTS and RSX were multi-users and ran (run) protected mode, have/had
> full networking stacks etc.  

+1

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
We pledge allegiance to the penguin and to the intellectual property
regime for which he stands, one world under Linux, with free music
and open source software for all.  --Julian Dibbell on Brazil, edited


From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Jul  2 04:40:58 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 14:40:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
In-Reply-To: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>

As an interesting aside, I once pointed out to Dennis that boot loader for
the 3B2 was larger than V6.

Clem

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> On recent visit to the Living Computer Museum in
> Seattle I got to play with Unix on a 3B2--something
> I never did at Bell Labs. Maybe next time I
> go they'll offer a real nostalgia trip on
> the PDP-7, thanks to Warren's efforts.
>
> doug
>
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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Jul  2 07:58:10 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 17:58:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>

Marc Rochkind scripsit:

> Since the forward slash was used for command-line options, paths used a
> backwards slash.

This use of forward slashes came into MS-DOS from CP/M, which got it from
the DEC operating systems.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Yes, chili in the eye is bad, but so is your ear.  However, I would
suggest you wash your hands thoroughly before going to the toilet.
        --gadicath


From jacob.ritorto at gmail.com  Sat Jul  2 08:27:02 2016
From: jacob.ritorto at gmail.com (Jacob Ritorto)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 18:27:02 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
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 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
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 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>

>
> Marc Rochkind scripsit:
>
> > Since the forward slash was used for command-line options, paths used a
> > backwards slash.



Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"  In my day
(although I'm under fifty), we called them slash and backslash.  The M$
culture seems to encourage this redundant advective as normal parlance.

--jake
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From dugo at xs4all.nl  Sat Jul  2 08:54:14 2016
From: dugo at xs4all.nl (Jacob Goense)
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 18:54:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
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 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
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Message-ID: <15cb56a0fcd78ef763bbdc82ef263e4f@xs4all.nl>

On 2016-07-01 18:27, Jacob Ritorto wrote:
>> Marc Rochkind scripsit:
>> 
>>> Since the forward slash was used for command-line options, paths
>> used a
>>> backwards slash.
> 
> Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"  In my day
> (although I'm under fifty), we called them slash and backslash.  The
> M$ culture seems to encourage this redundant advective as normal
> parlance.

Yes, but not but not when used for emphasis.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Jul  2 09:44:09 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 19:44:09 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
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 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160701234409.GD26015@mercury.ccil.org>

Jacob Ritorto scripsit:

> Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"  In my day
> (although I'm under fifty), we called them slash and backslash.  The M$
> culture seems to encourage this redundant advective as normal parlance.

I encourage it, after hearing people say "Aitch tee tee pee, colon,
backslash, backslash, ...."

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Arise, you prisoners of Windows / Arise, you slaves of Redmond, Wash,
The day and hour soon are coming / When all the IT folks say "Gosh!"
It isn't from a clever lawsuit / That Windowsland will finally fall,
But thousands writing open source code / Like mice who nibble through a wall.
        --The Linux-nationale by Greg Baker


From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Jul  2 09:49:46 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 09:49:46 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
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 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607020947330.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Marc Rochkind wrote:

> Those original floppies were I believe 160K. If you paid extra, the box 
> would hold two drives. Later, IBM introduced double-sided drives, at 
> 320K each.

Those in the know, of course, simply put a notch on the opposite side.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sat Jul  2 10:08:37 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 20:08:37 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <20160701234409.GD26015@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701234409.GD26015@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012007320.14656@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, John Cowan wrote:

> Jacob Ritorto scripsit:
>
>> Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"  In my day
>> (although I'm under fifty), we called them slash and backslash.  The M$
>> culture seems to encourage this redundant advective as normal parlance.
>
> I encourage it, after hearing people say "Aitch tee tee pee, colon,
> backslash, backslash, ...."
>
>

Oy gevalt. *crumbles to dust*

-uso.


From norman at oclsc.org  Sat Jul  2 10:12:40 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Fri, 01 Jul 2016 20:12:40 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
Message-ID: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
would give an Englishman a stroke.

If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From khm at sciops.net  Sat Jul  2 11:09:40 2016
From: khm at sciops.net (Kurt H Maier)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 18:09:40 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <20160701234409.GD26015@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701234409.GD26015@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20160702010940.GE16672@wopr>

On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 07:44:09PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Jacob Ritorto scripsit:
> 
> > Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"  In my day
> > (although I'm under fifty), we called them slash and backslash.  The M$
> > culture seems to encourage this redundant advective as normal parlance.
> 
> I encourage it, after hearing people say "Aitch tee tee pee, colon,
> backslash, backslash, ...."
> 

NPR did this on a national basis for many, many years.

khm


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sat Jul  2 11:12:05 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 21:12:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607020947330.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607020947330.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012111220.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Dave Horsfall wrote:

> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Marc Rochkind wrote:
>
>> Those original floppies were I believe 160K. If you paid extra, the box
>> would hold two drives. Later, IBM introduced double-sided drives, at
>> 320K each.
>
> Those in the know, of course, simply put a notch on the opposite side.

Well, yeah, if the drive let you. I did that on the Apple ][ all the time.

But try that on a 5150 and you get "Drive not ready". :/

-uso.


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sat Jul  2 11:13:00 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 21:13:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:

> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>
> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON
>

I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)

-uso.


From steve at quintile.net  Sat Jul  2 11:57:00 2016
From: steve at quintile.net (Steve Simon)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 02:57:00 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] A Talk on Early Unix
In-Reply-To: <5F0770EE-B494-445D-B78B-55EEF32A4702@orthanc.ca>
References: <201606301241.u5UCfgXc014753@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <728E6849-FAE3-43C2-9950-16BA591CE9B4@ronnatalie.com>
 <5F0770EE-B494-445D-B78B-55EEF32A4702@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <565D9C6F-C672-473C-981E-1E492F1A41AB@quintile.net>

Tuxedo, yes.

I thought, still think it is kinda cool.
I used it at telecom nz, we where trying to userp the hegemony of CICS,
and from what I heard later - failed.

this would have been 1997, it was still going, owned by BEA.

-Steve


> On 1 Jul 2016, at 04:48, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Jun 30, 2016, at 5:53 AM, Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>> 
>> Ah yes, the 3B’s.   Running the state university computer department (in NJ) we got a lot of 3B’s (3B2, 3B5, 3B20).
> 
> We had the misfortune of being donated a 3B4000.  
> 
>> The 3B20 was definitely a piece of telephone equipment.
> 
> The 3B4000 had a 3B20 inside that acted as the bootstrap controller (ala the micro-pdp inside the larger Vaxen doing similar duty).  Most impressively, said 3B20, with the CPU and IO power of a match stick, was also the Ethernet portal for the entire 3B4000.  It couldn't even come close to keeping up with its 10 mbit/s NIC.
> 
> AT&T flogged this abomination to us as the core of our "distributed network environment."  Actually, they flogged it to us as a "1 million dollar donation in kind" because they knew nobody would buy that piece of shit, but this way they got the tax write off, and our beloved University president got to grin madly at a press conference.
> 
> When they replaced it with a half-dozen 3B2-xxx servers (about a year later) we at least got a marginal improvement in network throughput.  But they cancelled that out with RFS.
> 
> Basically, the 3B2s (and the 3B4K by extension) were designed to hang off the side of the 4ESS and collect toll call records for billing purposes.  Anyone remember Tuxedo?
> 
>> The 3B5 was an interesting machine.   We found out how rugged it was when a drain pipe broke over the top of it (the Rutgers main computer center was underground under a court yard between the twin towers of the Hill Center).   The thing survived a deluge of water being dumped into it.
> 
> I don't think we ever landed one of those in the shop.  It seemed like an intriguing bit of gear back when I looked at it.  Decades ago, now.
> 
> --lyndon



From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Jul  2 12:59:27 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 12:59:27 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607021257030.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Jacob Ritorto wrote:

> Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"  In my day 
> (although I'm under fifty), we called them slash and backslash.  The M$ 
> culture seems to encourage this redundant advective as normal parlance.

In my day, it was "slash" and "slosh" (you need to be Australian to 
understand).

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

From grog at lemis.com  Sat Jul  2 13:27:33 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 13:27:33 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160702032733.GB61337@eureka.lemis.com>

On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 18:27:02 -0400, Jacob Ritorto wrote:
>>
>> Marc Rochkind scripsit:
>>
>>> Since the forward slash was used for command-line options, paths used a
>>> backwards slash.
>
> Does anyone besides me bristle at the term "forward slash?"

Does anybody not?  I've even written a Rant about it:
http://www.lemis.com/grog/Rant/bad-language.php#forward-slash

As I say there, I thought it might be an Australianism.  Dave
Horsefall clearly has other views.  Either way, it makes me twitch
every time I hear it.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 szigiszabolcs at gmail.com  Sat Jul  2 14:37:47 2016
From: szigiszabolcs at gmail.com (SZIGETI Szabolcs)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 06:37:47 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607020947330.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607020947330.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CAKt831FjUuJMgaVBp+_kpuY=Szgw9kuec61S3qUHQJWV+EV0Tg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

I think that only worked on the Commodore 64 and likes, where the drive did
not use the index hole to identify the start of sectors/tracks. Punching a
hole there was much harder operation, than cutting a new write protect
notch.

Szanolcs
2016.07.02. 2:16 ezt írta ("Dave Horsfall" <dave at horsfall.org>):

> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Marc Rochkind wrote:
>
> > Those original floppies were I believe 160K. If you paid extra, the box
> > would hold two drives. Later, IBM introduced double-sided drives, at
> > 320K each.
>
> Those in the know, of course, simply put a notch on the opposite side.
>
> --
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will
> suffer."
>
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From random832 at fastmail.com  Sat Jul  2 14:52:38 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 00:52:38 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <1467435158.1704714.654776241.33B3CC76@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Fri, Jul 1, 2016, at 21:13, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)

Not "Solidus"? (Along with its counterpart, the reverse solidus)


From grog at lemis.com  Sat Jul  2 15:59:53 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 15:59:53 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] List reply-to
In-Reply-To: <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160630065609.GA20869@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <201606300710.u5U7AnW5019439@freefriends.org>
 <CAD-qYGpJdbtqCFBYBexTiaqFGGCXK6rauiOMsqLB+LdGFqaOLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAD-qYGo5RBsOf-kik16UX43b3Z72nfNSe2Q85rwG44nL7dFUnw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630121730.GA15576@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <20160702055953.GC61337@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday, 30 June 2016 at 22:17:30 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 04:39:22AM -0600, Andrew Warkentin wrote:
>> I really should stop using Gmail's web interface and find an MUA that
>> has a "reply to list" feature and defaults to replying to the list for
>> messages from the list.
>
> I'm running a fairly default Mailman setup for TUHS. The reply-to option
> is set to be the original poster. I can change it to the list address if
> most people are happy for it to be that way.

I'd be happy to see that change.  Ideally I think that the reply
should be both to the list and to the poster, but if some MUAs find
the concept too difficult, then the list seems the right choice.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 brantleycoile at me.com  Sat Jul  2 19:53:19 2016
From: brantleycoile at me.com (Brantley Coile)
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 05:53:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAKt831FjUuJMgaVBp+_kpuY=Szgw9kuec61S3qUHQJWV+EV0Tg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607020947330.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CAKt831FjUuJMgaVBp+_kpuY=Szgw9kuec61S3qUHQJWV+EV0Tg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <69C1D66D-F8FA-4571-B3E4-AFCDE86D7BD3@me.com>

The dual notch worked on Apple, as it didn’t use the index hole either. Woz didn’t see any sense in the index hole. This scheme only worked after the media for all the disks were two sided, oxide on both sides of the mylar. At first they were made from the same sheets as 1/2” magnetic tape, which has oxide on only one side.

My first floppy drive was in 1978 and it sure beat paper tape!

  Brantley Coile

> On Jul 2, 2016, at 12:37 AM, SZIGETI Szabolcs <szigiszabolcs at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I think that only worked on the Commodore 64 and likes, where the drive did not use the index hole to identify the start of sectors/tracks. Punching a hole there was much harder operation, than cutting a new write protect notch.
> 
> Szanolcs
> 
> 2016.07.02. 2:16 ezt írta ("Dave Horsfall" <dave at horsfall.org>):
> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> 
> > Those original floppies were I believe 160K. If you paid extra, the box
> > would hold two drives. Later, IBM introduced double-sided drives, at
> > 320K each.
> 
> Those in the know, of course, simply put a notch on the opposite side.
> 
> --
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."



From mwe012008 at gmx.net  Sat Jul  2 21:00:30 2016
From: mwe012008 at gmx.net (Michael Welle)
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 13:00:30 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] ML archive
Message-ID: <87inwo1f01.fsf@luisa.c0t0d0s0.de>

Hello,

I want to complete my local ML archive (I deleted a few emails and I
wasn't subscribed before 2001 or so I think). After downloading the
archives and hitting them a few times to get somewhat importable mboxes,
I ended with 8699 emails in a maildir (in theory that should be a
superset of the 5027 emails in my regular TUHS maildir. I will merge
them next.). Two dozens mails are obviously defective (can be repaired
manually maybe) and some more might be defective (needs deeper
checking). So, has anybody more ;)?

Regards
hmw


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Jul  3 01:10:45 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 11:10:45 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2CC8E22C-6A08-4816-B8C4-B59A125AE70C@ronnatalie.com>


> On Jul 1, 2016, at 2:40 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> As an interesting aside, I once pointed out to Dennis that boot loader for the 3B2 was larger than V6.
> 
> Clem

I seem to recall the 3B2 was one of the first machines I dealt with that had a “soft” power switch.    I remember not having sufficient privs on one machine to turn it off.   Fortunately, I had sufficient privs to yank the plug out of the wall.

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From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Jul  3 01:17:10 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 11:17:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <20160701173922.GA22510@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701173922.GA22510@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <D2ED853B-FFBF-4B1B-B19D-2A7E802B13BC@ronnatalie.com>

> 
> The AT also had the 10 MB disk.  Back when I had an AT, I ran Xenix
> System III on it along with the MS C compiler, and was able to create
> console-mode programs to run on everyone else's MS-DOS machines.
> It's hard to remember/believe that Xenix was a Microsoft product before
> DOS was.

I had an Xenix running on my AT as well.

> 
> I would say even RT-11 is somewhere between executive and OS.  It could
> run foreground tasks (hence the name Real Time) if properly sysgenned,
> and it had a decent kernel API that you didn't have to bypass.

I remember the FB (Foreground/Background) version that had more flexibility, even so, it didn’t preempt any running job.   My second paying computer job was writing database software for an RT-11 system.    This was a port of a 370 mainframe application to do lab test management at Hopkins hospital.   This was after the two guys who were tasked with porting it to the Series-1 were having a hard time with it.    Being the wizkid, the IBM guys brought me a 3101 Ascii terminal and asked if I could do anything with it and I connected it to the RT system in lieu of the ADM3 I had been using.

From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Jul  3 01:25:46 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 11:25:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <3924CC93-092A-4433-9A02-6E13CE35148E@ronnatalie.com>

> 
> I think OS/2 was certainly closer to Unix than MS-DOS was.
> 
Mostly it had the ugliness of both systems.    The presentation manager and various other aspects got points for the concept, but the implementation was really far from robust.    You spent a lot of time hard-rebooting the the thing when it got wedged.   I was so happy to just switch to AIX on all the PS/2s.    One of my contracts was to port AIX to the i860 on a couple of add in cards (the IBM Wizard and then subsequently the W4).   We actually started with the 370 version of the AIX kernel (closer than the i386 version).    Still it was fun because were were running two UNIXes per box:  one on the i860 and the other on the i386.   The TCF (borrowed from the UCLA Locus system) made it all seamlessly move back and forth.    We even had it boogeying with a 370 when we were working at IBM’s Palo Alto center.





From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Jul  3 01:32:24 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 11:32:24 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <3924CC93-092A-4433-9A02-6E13CE35148E@ronnatalie.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <3924CC93-092A-4433-9A02-6E13CE35148E@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607021130440.78278@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Ronald Natalie wrote:

>>
>> I think OS/2 was certainly closer to Unix than MS-DOS was.
>>
> Mostly it had the ugliness of both systems.

Not gonna deny that, having been tinkering around with porting stuff to 
the earliest versions of OS/2 lately.

(Actually, I was trying to see if I could make a sort of quasi-'nix out of 
OS/2 1.0 using Watcom. ;) Haven't been doing too well at that because of 
Watcom's limited libc.)

-uso.


From lm at mcvoy.com  Sun Jul  3 02:00:27 2016
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 09:00:27 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
In-Reply-To: <2CC8E22C-6A08-4816-B8C4-B59A125AE70C@ronnatalie.com>
References: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <2CC8E22C-6A08-4816-B8C4-B59A125AE70C@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>

Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC

My buddy Rob got one and I think I did too or maybe just had a login
on his.  Neat machines for their time.


From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Sun Jul  3 04:49:18 2016
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 11:49:18 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
In-Reply-To: <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>
References: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <2CC8E22C-6A08-4816-B8C4-B59A125AE70C@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <40A21ABD-6257-4755-BE3D-3166C6F00468@orthanc.ca>


> On Jul 2, 2016, at 9:00 AM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC
> 
> My buddy Rob got one and I think I did too or maybe just had a login
> on his.  Neat machines for their time.

Slick little machines.  Built by Convergent Technologies, running CTIX (their System V port).  Back in the day I was a Convergent reseller.  We never pushed the 7300, but we did shift a few MiniFrame and MightyFrame servers.

The MightyFrame was an impressive little beast.  We sold a couple that were supporting upwards of 40 terminals running database applications running under Mistress (later renamed Empress, in one of the earlier instances of political correctness invading the IT landscape).  CTIX incorporated the Berkeley network stack, and one of the systems ran an X.25 link to Datapac.

Perhaps the coolest aspect of the Convergent systems was the RS422 daisy-chained terminal interface.  The PT-100 and GT-100 terminals had loop-through RS422 interfaces, running at a couple of hundred Kb/s (I forget the exact speed).  You would daisy chain strings of terminals from the server, so 40 terminals only burned up four RS422 ports on the server side (in our deployments, at least).  Using these terminals was reminiscent of working on a 327x, since screen updates tended to come in bursts that looked just like block-mode updates.  The GT variant supported bit-mapped graphics - blazingly fast compared to something like a Tek 4010 running over an RS232 line.

--lyndon



From brantleycoile at me.com  Sun Jul  3 05:39:01 2016
From: brantleycoile at me.com (Brantley Coile)
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 15:39:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
In-Reply-To: <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>
References: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <2CC8E22C-6A08-4816-B8C4-B59A125AE70C@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <4E93D24A-B971-4D4F-BD12-53C857C6A5FD@me.com>

I had several. It would win the “largest personal machine footprint” contest. 

> On Jul 2, 2016, at 12:00 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC
> 
> My buddy Rob got one and I think I did too or maybe just had a login
> on his.  Neat machines for their time.



From cym224 at gmail.com  Sun Jul  3 05:46:21 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 15:46:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607021130440.78278@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <3924CC93-092A-4433-9A02-6E13CE35148E@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607021130440.78278@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzy9DpOPWuHmOu79-C7fG6F074q9SVBhxquARVJqoTscPQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 2 July 2016 at 11:32, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
[...]
> (Actually, I was trying to see if I could make a sort of quasi-'nix out of
> OS/2 1.0 using Watcom. ;) Haven't been doing too well at that because of
> Watcom's limited libc.)

The MKS Toolkit for OS/2 along with gcc+emx gave a second-order
approximation.  (And Warp Connect had 'Net tools, even remote logins
with the former.)

N.


From random832 at fastmail.com  Sun Jul  3 07:07:04 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 17:07:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] ML archive
In-Reply-To: <87inwo1f01.fsf@luisa.c0t0d0s0.de>
References: <87inwo1f01.fsf@luisa.c0t0d0s0.de>
Message-ID: <1467493624.1873121.655162457.687FFA51@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Sat, Jul 2, 2016, at 07:00, Michael Welle wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I want to complete my local ML archive (I deleted a few emails and I
> wasn't subscribed before 2001 or so I think). After downloading the
> archives and hitting them a few times to get somewhat importable mboxes,
> I ended with 8699 emails in a maildir (in theory that should be a
> superset of the 5027 emails in my regular TUHS maildir. I will merge
> them next.). Two dozens mails are obviously defective (can be repaired
> manually maybe) and some more might be defective (needs deeper
> checking). So, has anybody more ;)?

Gah, the archive files from before 2002 are a nightmare.

My best guess on the proper message count is 8675. This is the number of
blocks of non-blank lines which either start with "From " (the easy
case) or, for the hard case, meet the following conditions:

In a file dated 2001 or earlier
First line contains a colon
Contains at least one line starting with "Received:"

There might still be a handful of messages this fails to split out. I
would recommend interpreting files dated October 2001 or later as a
strict MBOXO archive, and only doing special processing to files dated
September 2001 or earlier (I haven't factored out my own script to be
able to do anything other than count messages)


From wkt at tuhs.org  Sun Jul  3 08:01:45 2016
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 08:01:45 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Interactive C Environments
Message-ID: <20160702220145.GB3232@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, I've been asked by Wendell to forward this query about C
interpreters to the mailing list for him.

----- Forwarded message from Wendell P <wendellp at operamail.com> -----

I have a project at softwarepreservation.org to collect work done,
mostly in the 1970s and 80s, on C interpreters.

http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c

One thing I'm trying to track down is Cin, the C interpreter in UNIX
v10. I found the man page online and the tutorial in v2 of the Saunders
book, but that's it. Can anyone help me to find files or docs?

BTW, if you have anything related to the other commercial systems
listed, I'd like to hear. I've found that in nearly all cases, the
original developers did not keep the files or papers.

Cheers,
Wendell

----- End forwarded message -----


From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Jul  3 09:21:13 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 09:21:13 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <20160702032733.GB61337@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAOkr1zVfo+CWfC3v9YjBWC_Jo4Ck0iDDV5kwsBnei-f9_JxcCQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701215809.GB26015@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAHYQbfAcAf6pEtVyEvW9ta7JfnSdx65T=0xkoW-VfsukvfGHhA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160702032733.GB61337@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607030906370.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

[ backslash vs. slosh ]

> As I say there, I thought it might be an Australianism.  Dave Horsefall 
> clearly has other views.  Either way, it makes me twitch every time I 
> hear it.

Please, no "e" in "Horsfall" (although it is named after an old 
Anglo/Saxon word, referring to someone who tends horses in a field).

I have a mixed English/Scottish background (with Aussie citizenship), if 
that helps to explain my weird turns of phrase...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From peter at rulingia.com  Sun Jul  3 09:32:17 2016
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 09:32:17 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <20160702233217.GA40900@server.rulingia.com>

On 2016-Jun-30 22:21:27 +0300, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:
>First, the 8088 was a 16-bit CPU with an 8-bit data bus in a cheap 
>40-pin package.  This halved the number DRAM chips required and allowed 
>the IBM PC to be easily designed along existing easily-available 8-bit 
>peripherals.  In contrast the 68000 had a 16-bit data bus in a more 
>expensive 64-pin package.  Remember that in the 1980s glue logic was 
>implemented through simple TTL chips, so adopting the 68000 might have 
>doubled the number of chips on the motherboard.

My understanding was that the 8-bit bus was a requirement so IBM could
have a 64KB base model using the then new 64k×1 chips.  IBM also
emasculated the PC so it didn't compete with their existing minis.  The
68008 wasn't available until later (and this would explain why Motorola
pushed the 6809 as a solution).

Both the 8086 and M68k could relatively easily use 8-bit peripherals
(both Intel and Motorola had a range of 8-bit peripherals that they
didn't want to make instantly obsolete).

>In addition, the 8086 architecture was an extension of the 8080 one, 
>which made it easier to make the MS-DOS API compatible with the CP/M 

Since IBM was buying the software, I'm not sure how much of a driver
this was.  Definitely, porting from 8080 to 8086 was easier but writing
from scratch would be far easier on M68k.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Jul  3 11:18:20 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 2 Jul 2016 21:18:20 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzy9DpOPWuHmOu79-C7fG6F074q9SVBhxquARVJqoTscPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <3924CC93-092A-4433-9A02-6E13CE35148E@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607021130440.78278@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <CAJfiPzy9DpOPWuHmOu79-C7fG6F074q9SVBhxquARVJqoTscPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607022116520.74094@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Nemo wrote:

> On 2 July 2016 at 11:32, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
> [...]
>> (Actually, I was trying to see if I could make a sort of quasi-'nix out of
>> OS/2 1.0 using Watcom. ;) Haven't been doing too well at that because of
>> Watcom's limited libc.)
>
> The MKS Toolkit for OS/2 along with gcc+emx gave a second-order
> approximation.  (And Warp Connect had 'Net tools, even remote logins
> with the former.)
>
> N.
>

EMX is either the DJGPP/MinGW or the Cygwin of the OS/2 world, right?

-uso.


From brad at anduin.eldar.org  Sun Jul  3 11:17:52 2016
From: brad at anduin.eldar.org (Brad Spencer)
Date: Sat, 02 Jul 2016 21:17:52 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] A Talk on Early Unix
In-Reply-To: <5F0770EE-B494-445D-B78B-55EEF32A4702@orthanc.ca> (message from
 Lyndon Nerenberg on Thu, 30 Jun 2016 20:48:39 -0700)
Message-ID: <xon7fd35xkv.fsf@anduin.eldar.org>

Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca> writes:

[snip]

> Basically, the 3B2s (and the 3B4K by extension) were designed to hang off the side of the 4ESS and collect toll call records for billing purposes.  Anyone remember Tuxedo?

[snip]

> --lyndon


Tuxedo, the database??  FML buffers, etc..  That Tuxedo???

If so, Ya, the system I worked on when I was at AT&T / Lucent in the
mid-90's to early 2000s used it.  The product was a traffic management
system called NTMOS or NetMinder/NTM.  We had the source code to the
version of Tuxedo used by the product, and ran it on the Vax initially
and then ported it to the Mips based Star servers [Tandems], i386 based
NCR systems, probably the Sun Sparc at some point, and lastly the HPs.




-- 
Brad Spencer - brad at anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS
http://anduin.eldar.org  - & -  http://anduin.ipv6.eldar.org [IPv6 only]


From mwe012008 at gmx.net  Sun Jul  3 15:46:14 2016
From: mwe012008 at gmx.net (Michael Welle)
Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2016 07:46:14 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] ML archive
In-Reply-To: <1467493624.1873121.655162457.687FFA51@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 (Random's message of "Sat, 02 Jul 2016 17:07:04 -0400")
References: <87inwo1f01.fsf@luisa.c0t0d0s0.de>
 <1467493624.1873121.655162457.687FFA51@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <87oa6fuvdl.fsf@luisa.c0t0d0s0.de>

Hello,

Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> writes:

> On Sat, Jul 2, 2016, at 07:00, Michael Welle wrote:
>> Hello,
>> 
>> I want to complete my local ML archive (I deleted a few emails and I
>> wasn't subscribed before 2001 or so I think). After downloading the
>> archives and hitting them a few times to get somewhat importable mboxes,
>> I ended with 8699 emails in a maildir (in theory that should be a
>> superset of the 5027 emails in my regular TUHS maildir. I will merge
>> them next.). Two dozens mails are obviously defective (can be repaired
>> manually maybe) and some more might be defective (needs deeper
>> checking). So, has anybody more ;)?
>
> Gah, the archive files from before 2002 are a nightmare.
yepp, it gets better with later archive files. In the first run I have
changed: 

1995-October.txt, 1995-November.txt, 1995-December.txt,
1996-March.txt, 1996-September.txt, 1996-November.txt,
1997-August.txt, 1997-September.txt, 1997-October.txt,
1997-November.txt, 1998-April.txt, 1998-February.txt,
1998-March.txt, 1998-May.txt, 1998-August.txt,
1998-November.txt, 1998-December.txt, 1999-January.txt,
1999-February.txt, 1999-March.txt, 1999-May.txt,
1999-June.txt, 1999-August.txt, 1999-September.txt, 
1999-November.txt, 1999-October.txt, 1999-December.txt,
2000-January.txt, 2000-February.txt, 2000-April.txt,
2000-May.txt, 2000-July.txt, 2000-June.txt,
2000-August.txt, 2000-October.txt, 2001-January.txt,
2001-February.txt, 2001-March.txt, 2001-April.txt,
2001-May.txt, 2002-October.txt


> My best guess on the proper message count is 8675. This is the number of
> blocks of non-blank lines which either start with "From " (the easy
> case) or, for the hard case, meet the following conditions:
>
> In a file dated 2001 or earlier
> First line contains a colon
> Contains at least one line starting with "Received:"
I started with an empty line followed by '^(Date|From|To|Message-Id|Received):'.
There is at least one match of a 'Date:' in the message's body and there
are cases where people appended emails incl. headers to their emails. So
a little bit more tweaking is needed. 


> There might still be a handful of messages this fails to split out. I
> would recommend interpreting files dated October 2001 or later as a
> strict MBOXO archive, and only doing special processing to files dated
> September 2001 or earlier (I haven't factored out my own script to be
> able to do anything other than count messages)
One other thing I haven't made my mind up about is date headers. Some
emails don't have a date header. I feel a bit uneasy about manipulating
the emails and add a date header. On the other hand an approximate date 
header would allow to sort the emails in the clients and give them a bit
more context. Any opinions on that?

Regards
hmw


From cym224 at gmail.com  Sun Jul  3 23:33:58 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 09:33:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607022116520.74094@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
 <CAC20D2N+5YZd2=6tiTSPnMrT4GBYr95Kaegr9RtsMKgnqwL-Tg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607011109160.83122@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <3924CC93-092A-4433-9A02-6E13CE35148E@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607021130440.78278@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <CAJfiPzy9DpOPWuHmOu79-C7fG6F074q9SVBhxquARVJqoTscPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607022116520.74094@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzwj8WCYAOk=q63bh7YLWhThnr7FiuS28e1_FgvDoz25HA@mail.gmail.com>

On 2 July 2016 at 21:18, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Jul 2016, Nemo wrote:
[...]
>> The MKS Toolkit for OS/2 along with gcc+emx gave a second-order
>> approximation.  (And Warp Connect had 'Net tools, even remote logins
>> with the former.)
>>
>> N.
>
> EMX is either the DJGPP/MinGW or the Cygwin of the OS/2 world, right?

EMX was the massive undertaking by Eberhard Mattes (then at Stuttgart) to
port UNIX stuff to DOS and then OS/2.  Besides gcc, he also ported (La)TeX,
called emtex.  emacs, and a bunch of GNU stuff.   Except for the file system
restrictions, one could have first-order approximation to UNIX;  later OS/2 file
systems had the option of case-sensitivity and an actual OS, hence a
second-order approximation.  I wrote a lot of stuff at home for compilation on
the dep't Sun.  (By the way, a reasonable OS/2 history may be found here:
http://www.os2museum.com)

Now my two favourite desk boxes are a G5 and an SB2500.

N.


From arnold at skeeve.com  Mon Jul  4 05:01:08 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Sun, 03 Jul 2016 13:01:08 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] 3Bs (was A Talk on Early Unix)
In-Reply-To: <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>
References: <201607011613.u61GDRtu023910@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <CAC20D2OHBhV3p0Rhf-oRsb6Msx9zAdN22kGjC9vuKjcaaj19jQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <2CC8E22C-6A08-4816-B8C4-B59A125AE70C@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160702160027.GK18756@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <201607031901.u63J18AX020238@freefriends.org>

Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> Did anyone else ever use/own the 3B1?
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_Unix_PC

I did! I spent many pleasant hours developing gawk and its documentation
on mine. There was a separate USENET network of 7300 and 3B1 owners (unixpc.*
heirarchy) which I was on.

With the Telebit modems, things moved REALLY fast.

Comp.sys.3b1 is still alive and occasionally sees activity.

Ah, the nostalgia... :-)

Arnold


From scj at yaccman.com  Mon Jul  4 05:40:04 2016
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 12:40:04 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <9dd14d6fe62f90cc56471cc42598de4c.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>
>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>
>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>>
>> Norman Wilson
>> Toronto ON
>>
>
> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
>
> -uso.
>

AT&T's original term for the 12th key on your phone was 'Octothorpe'.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/octothorpe
It pretty quickly became 'pound', but for anybody under the age of 35 it's
now 'hashtag'  (much to the dismay of music teachers...)



From dfawcus+lists-tuhs at employees.org  Mon Jul  4 08:07:53 2016
From: dfawcus+lists-tuhs at employees.org (Derek Fawcus)
Date: Sun, 3 Jul 2016 23:07:53 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] MS-DOS
In-Reply-To: <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <D64E62F3-EE85-462A-8617-657EAF6E3A6D@orthanc.ca>
 <7C35A731-84A0-4B9F-AEE6-8D9D1A06B315@cheswick.com>
Message-ID: <20160703220753.GA82243@cowbell.employees.org>

On Fri, Jul 01, 2016 at 08:47:01AM -0400, William Cheswick wrote:
> 
> Actually, MS-DOS was a runtime system, not an operating system, despite the last two letters of its name.
> This is a term of art lost to antiquity.
> Run time systems offered a minimum of features: a loader, a file system, a crappy, built-in shell,
> I/O for keyboards, tape, screens, crude memory management, etc. No multiuser, no network stacks, no separate processes (mostly). DEC had several (RT11, RSTS, RSX) and the line is perhaps a little fuzzy: they were getting operating-ish.

I seem to recall a whole bunch of DOS's for different systems in the early 80's,
where the term seemed to be used in the sense of a System for Operating a Disk.

DF


From grog at lemis.com  Mon Jul  4 15:08:00 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 15:08:00 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <20160630154926.GM2203@mcvoy.com>
References: <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160630154926.GM2203@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20160704050800.GF61337@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday, 30 June 2016 at  8:49:26 -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2016 at 11:32:08AM -0400, Dan Cross wrote:
>> Something I never understood about the IBM PC: even the 8088 machine was
>> fairly beefy compared to e.g. a PDP-11/20. The 6th Edition Unix kernel was
>> objectively pretty small and understandable; mini-Unix showed that that
>> sort of software could be used on a machine without an MMU. I've never
>> understood why IBM didn't just write a real OS in a high-level language
>> instead of saddling the world with MS-DOS. Perhaps it's naive of me, but
>> even if they didn't use Unix directly, it was an existence proof that such
>> a thing was possible. I suppose, again, it was less a technical issue and
>> more a business issue, or perhaps I'm underestimating the amount of work or
>> missing some of the technical complexities.
>
> I wonder if they just didn't know.  Unix was Bell Labs and
> Universities for the most part.  Was the timing such that they may
> not have been aware of Unix?  Or maybe they knew about Unix but
> thought it was for the vax?

Not directly related, but I don't know which other message in this
subthread is more relevant:

Don't forget the constraints on the PC design.  The IBM model number
was 5150: it was a last-ditch attempt to salvage the not very
successful 5100 series.  To do so they outsourced things that IBM
would normally have developed in-house.  And that meant taking
existing products, not creating new ones.  The success of the PC
caught IBM by surprise, like the 704 30 years earlier.

At the time IBM talked to Microsoft, Microsoft's OS plans were clear:
XENIX.  See the August 1980 (I think) issue of Byte, where there's a
long story about why XENIX is the correct choice of operating system.
You can be sure that Microsoft tried to sell that first.  But instead
they had to go out and buy QDOS from Seattle Computer Products.

And why?  Yes, the 8088 was a reasonably fast processor, so fast that
they could slow it down a little so that they could use the same
crystal to create the clock both for the CPU and the USART.  But the
base system had only 16 kB memory, only a little more than half the
size of the 6th Edition kernel.  Even without the issue of disks
(which could potentially have been worked around) it really wasn't big
enough for a multiprogramming OS.

From my point of view, I think the real shame is that Microsoft didn't
do a better job of their stated aim to make MS-DOS 2.0 more like
Unix.  We're still living with those issues today.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 norman at oclsc.org  Tue Jul  5 02:54:15 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2016 12:54:15 -0400
Subject: [TUHS]  OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
Message-ID: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Greg Lehey:

  And why?  Yes, the 8088 was a reasonably fast processor, so fast that
  they could slow it down a little so that they could use the same
  crystal to create the clock both for the CPU and the USART.  But the
  base system had only 16 kB memory, only a little more than half the
  size of the 6th Edition kernel.  Even without the issue of disks
  (which could potentially have been worked around) it really wasn't big
  enough for a multiprogramming OS.

=====

Those who remember the earliest UNIX (even if few of us have
used it) might disagree with that.  Neither the PDP-7 nor the
PDP-11/20 on which UNIX was born had memory management: a
context switch was a swap.  That would have been pretty slow
on floppies, so perhaps it wouldn't have been saleable, but
it was certainly possible.

In fact Heinz Lycklama revived the idea in the V6 era to
create LSX, a UNIX for the early LSI-11 which had no
memory management and a single ca. 300kiB floppy drive.
It had more memory than the 8088 system, though: 20kiW,
i.e. 40kiB.  Even so, Lycklama did quite a bit of work to
squeeze the kernel down, reduce the number of processes
and context switches, and so on.

Here's a link to one of his papers on the system:

https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1977/5085/00/50850237.pdf

I suspect it would have been possible to make a XENIX
that would have worked on that hardware.  Whether it
would have worked well enough to sell is another question.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Jul  5 04:13:30 2016
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 11:13:30 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>

QNX, which wasn't Unix compat at the time but sorta close, in the mid
1980's was very very small and ran just fine on a 80286.  If my memory
serves me correctly I had 4-10 people logged into that box on terminals.

QNX, at least until they put real posix conformance in it, was a really
tiny micro kernel with the rest of the os in processes.  It fit in a 
4K instruction cache with room to spare.

QNX, in my opinion, is the only really interesting and commercially
proven microkernel.

On Mon, Jul 04, 2016 at 12:54:15PM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Greg Lehey:
> 
>   And why?  Yes, the 8088 was a reasonably fast processor, so fast that
>   they could slow it down a little so that they could use the same
>   crystal to create the clock both for the CPU and the USART.  But the
>   base system had only 16 kB memory, only a little more than half the
>   size of the 6th Edition kernel.  Even without the issue of disks
>   (which could potentially have been worked around) it really wasn't big
>   enough for a multiprogramming OS.
> 
> =====
> 
> Those who remember the earliest UNIX (even if few of us have
> used it) might disagree with that.  Neither the PDP-7 nor the
> PDP-11/20 on which UNIX was born had memory management: a
> context switch was a swap.  That would have been pretty slow
> on floppies, so perhaps it wouldn't have been saleable, but
> it was certainly possible.
> 
> In fact Heinz Lycklama revived the idea in the V6 era to
> create LSX, a UNIX for the early LSI-11 which had no
> memory management and a single ca. 300kiB floppy drive.
> It had more memory than the 8088 system, though: 20kiW,
> i.e. 40kiB.  Even so, Lycklama did quite a bit of work to
> squeeze the kernel down, reduce the number of processes
> and context switches, and so on.
> 
> Here's a link to one of his papers on the system:
> 
> https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1977/5085/00/50850237.pdf
> 
> I suspect it would have been possible to make a XENIX
> that would have worked on that hardware.  Whether it
> would have worked well enough to sell is another question.
> 
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON

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


From dave at horsfall.org  Tue Jul  5 05:23:25 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 05:23:25 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <20160701013416.GD23682@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701013416.GD23682@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607050518280.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, John Cowan wrote:

> Indeed, the PDP-8 system I cut my teeth on swapped (infrequently) to 
> DECtape, which is essentially a floppy drive without random access.

DECtape was indeed random access; individual blocks could be addressed.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Jul  5 05:56:43 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 15:56:43 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607050518280.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <0f57f9d8248db61cba34372814d2f45e.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAC20D2OT2k6TqvdBiCzM8PoJ6Bs4YZKZ1BPPT_czJT0koGMk_g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zV9_vtMtZ65Cf-+qOAWYdHvpZ+-CXS9zz7Q5UaNDP5wFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W5RA0Eb90YT5t_23Q8bwj_Hi8pfmzsNpE0ujWLH-GnC6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <2c674075-db86-827b-fd97-30921757e9ae@aueb.gr>
 <CAJfiPzy+J=AWbhjrdxNBCLg=g0eMbeONwFDUeVTpd8uHjnsPZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOkr1zWVuxgeMDHO+6=-X7QzQRS2RR5y7VPjT_Ofmk+4CC44Zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2Puwdr=EM3OpPbbFVdROVku4826r_kJtGzEBR=gXuHWAQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160701013416.GD23682@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607050518280.87292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <44CE6475-F93B-482E-85AD-D731EB9EC99D@ronnatalie.com>

Yep, you could mount dectapes as filesystems, but you were not getting the greatest performance when you had to wait for it to rewind to update the superblock.

> On Jul 4, 2016, at 3:23 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 30 Jun 2016, John Cowan wrote:
> 
>> Indeed, the PDP-8 system I cut my teeth on swapped (infrequently) to 
>> DECtape, which is essentially a floppy drive without random access.
> 
> DECtape was indeed random access; individual blocks could be addressed.
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."



From clemc at ccc.com  Tue Jul  5 07:12:21 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clement T. Cole)
Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2016 17:12:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at Bell Labs)
In-Reply-To: <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>
References: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <7A53ECB0-4C55-49F0-B785-CCB3BF7D0BFF@ccc.com>

Thoth Thucks ....


Actually to give Mike Malcom created Thoth ney QNX was very slick.  I agree with Larry. It was very impressive at the time.  So between Thoth (which was Unix-similar) and Minix (which was V7 Unix API clone) I think it is safe to say there are reasonable existance proofs for saying V7 was quite possible on the 8086/8088 family. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 4, 2016, at 2:13 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> QNX, which wasn't Unix compat at the time but sorta close, in the mid
> 1980's was very very small and ran just fine on a 80286.  If my memory
> serves me correctly I had 4-10 people logged into that box on terminals.
> 
> QNX, at least until they put real posix conformance in it, was a really
> tiny micro kernel with the rest of the os in processes.  It fit in a 
> 4K instruction cache with room to spare.
> 
> QNX, in my opinion, is the only really interesting and commercially
> proven microkernel.
> 
>> On Mon, Jul 04, 2016 at 12:54:15PM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
>> Greg Lehey:
>> 
>>  And why?  Yes, the 8088 was a reasonably fast processor, so fast that
>>  they could slow it down a little so that they could use the same
>>  crystal to create the clock both for the CPU and the USART.  But the
>>  base system had only 16 kB memory, only a little more than half the
>>  size of the 6th Edition kernel.  Even without the issue of disks
>>  (which could potentially have been worked around) it really wasn't big
>>  enough for a multiprogramming OS.
>> 
>> =====
>> 
>> Those who remember the earliest UNIX (even if few of us have
>> used it) might disagree with that.  Neither the PDP-7 nor the
>> PDP-11/20 on which UNIX was born had memory management: a
>> context switch was a swap.  That would have been pretty slow
>> on floppies, so perhaps it wouldn't have been saleable, but
>> it was certainly possible.
>> 
>> In fact Heinz Lycklama revived the idea in the V6 era to
>> create LSX, a UNIX for the early LSI-11 which had no
>> memory management and a single ca. 300kiB floppy drive.
>> It had more memory than the 8088 system, though: 20kiW,
>> i.e. 40kiB.  Even so, Lycklama did quite a bit of work to
>> squeeze the kernel down, reduce the number of processes
>> and context switches, and so on.
>> 
>> Here's a link to one of his papers on the system:
>> 
>> https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings/afips/1977/5085/00/50850237.pdf
>> 
>> I suspect it would have been possible to make a XENIX
>> that would have worked on that hardware.  Whether it
>> would have worked well enough to sell is another question.
>> 
>> Norman Wilson
>> Toronto ON
> 
> -- 
> ---
> Larry McVoy                     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From wendellp at operamail.com  Tue Jul  5 10:17:01 2016
From: wendellp at operamail.com (Wendell P)
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2016 17:17:01 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff
Message-ID: <1467677821.3548319.656802617.25F4856C@webmail.messagingengine.com>

Since a few people here are Bell Labs veterans, I'd to ask if someone
can explain a bit about that place. Sometimes I hear about work done
there that I'd like to follow up on, but I have no idea where to start.

For starters, I assume that everybody had to write up periodical reports
on their work. Was that stuff archived and is it still accessible
someplace? What about software that got to the point that it actually
had users beyond the developers? I know that major commercial projects
like UNIX are tied up in licensing limbo, but does that apply to
absolutely everything made there?

There is the AT&T Archives and History Center in Warren, NJ. Is it worth
asking if they have old tech reports?

-- 
http://www.fastmail.com - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
                          love email again



From dds at aueb.gr  Tue Jul  5 15:32:51 2016
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2016 08:32:51 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff
In-Reply-To: <1467677821.3548319.656802617.25F4856C@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <1467677821.3548319.656802617.25F4856C@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <dd8d1fe4-0307-b8a3-3492-ee4393d3e7c0@aueb.gr>

The following book provides an interesting perspective on many of the 
questions you ask.

Narain Gehani. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel. Silicon Press, 
Summit, NJ, 2003.

Many of the Bell Labs technical reports related to Unix were also 
published in volume 2 of the Unix Programmer's Manual. Some also 
appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal.  Back issues of the 
latter used to be freely available online, but they now live behind the 
IEEE Xplore Digital Library pay-wall.  Two  issues of BSTJ devoted to 
Unix (volume 57 number 6 July-August 1978 and volume 63, number 8, 
October 1984) were also published in book form (titled "Unix System 
Readings and Applications") by Prentice-Hall in 1987.


On 05/07/2016 03:17, Wendell P wrote:
> Since a few people here are Bell Labs veterans, I'd to ask if someone
> can explain a bit about that place. Sometimes I hear about work done
> there that I'd like to follow up on, but I have no idea where to start.
>
> For starters, I assume that everybody had to write up periodical reports
> on their work. Was that stuff archived and is it still accessible
> someplace? What about software that got to the point that it actually
> had users beyond the developers? I know that major commercial projects
> like UNIX are tied up in licensing limbo, but does that apply to
> absolutely everything made there?
>
> There is the AT&T Archives and History Center in Warren, NJ. Is it worth
> asking if they have old tech reports?
>



From arnold at skeeve.com  Tue Jul  5 18:20:55 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2016 02:20:55 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff
In-Reply-To: <dd8d1fe4-0307-b8a3-3492-ee4393d3e7c0@aueb.gr>
References: <1467677821.3548319.656802617.25F4856C@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <dd8d1fe4-0307-b8a3-3492-ee4393d3e7c0@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <201607050820.u658KtEI002071@freefriends.org>

Many of the Computing Science Technical Reports used to be available
on line from Bell Labs. That (sadly) seems to no longer be the case.
Google points me to this mirror:

	https://rbn.im/bell-labs/cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr.html

Warren - maybe snarf all these for the archives too, while they can
still be gotten?

HTH,

Arnold

Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:

> The following book provides an interesting perspective on many of the 
> questions you ask.
>
> Narain Gehani. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel. Silicon Press, 
> Summit, NJ, 2003.
>
> Many of the Bell Labs technical reports related to Unix were also 
> published in volume 2 of the Unix Programmer's Manual. Some also 
> appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal.  Back issues of the 
> latter used to be freely available online, but they now live behind the 
> IEEE Xplore Digital Library pay-wall.  Two  issues of BSTJ devoted to 
> Unix (volume 57 number 6 July-August 1978 and volume 63, number 8, 
> October 1984) were also published in book form (titled "Unix System 
> Readings and Applications") by Prentice-Hall in 1987.
>
>
> On 05/07/2016 03:17, Wendell P wrote:
> > Since a few people here are Bell Labs veterans, I'd to ask if someone
> > can explain a bit about that place. Sometimes I hear about work done
> > there that I'd like to follow up on, but I have no idea where to start.
> >
> > For starters, I assume that everybody had to write up periodical reports
> > on their work. Was that stuff archived and is it still accessible
> > someplace? What about software that got to the point that it actually
> > had users beyond the developers? I know that major commercial projects
> > like UNIX are tied up in licensing limbo, but does that apply to
> > absolutely everything made there?
> >
> > There is the AT&T Archives and History Center in Warren, NJ. Is it worth
> > asking if they have old tech reports?


From wendellp at operamail.com  Wed Jul  6 01:28:55 2016
From: wendellp at operamail.com (Wendell P)
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2016 08:28:55 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff
In-Reply-To: <dd8d1fe4-0307-b8a3-3492-ee4393d3e7c0@aueb.gr>
References: <1467677821.3548319.656802617.25F4856C@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <dd8d1fe4-0307-b8a3-3492-ee4393d3e7c0@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <1467732535.3727245.657437225.2977054E@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Mon, Jul 4, 2016, at 10:32 PM, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:
> The following book provides an interesting perspective on many of the 
> questions you ask.
> 
> Narain Gehani. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel. Silicon Press, 
> Summit, NJ, 2003.

I have in fact contacted Gehani regarding this and he couldn't offer
much help. What surprises me is that so much was produced but nobody
knows where it all went.

Papers that were published in journals or given at conferences as easy
to find. I'm talking about internal documents that don't turn up in a
Google search.

>  Two  issues of BSTJ devoted to 
> Unix (volume 57 number 6 July-August 1978 and volume 63, number 8, 
> October 1984) were also published in book form (titled "Unix System 
> Readings and Applications") by Prentice-Hall in 1987.

They are downloadable:
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_attunixUNIpplicationsVolume11987_27266562
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_attunixUNIpplicationsVolume21987_25157701

-- 
http://www.fastmail.com - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
                          love email again



From wendellp at operamail.com  Thu Jul  7 07:30:11 2016
From: wendellp at operamail.com (Wendell P)
Date: Wed, 06 Jul 2016 14:30:11 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd:  Interactive C Environments
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2OeqWQoFEXhZUv6Q3=bc9nOzZG+kPVfVg5Z9DfhfSk-9w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20160702220145.GB3232@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAC20D2OeqWQoFEXhZUv6Q3=bc9nOzZG+kPVfVg5Z9DfhfSk-9w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1467840611.1583090.658884417.3CFE9DEC@webmail.messagingengine.com>

Thanks for reminding me about that one, Clem. I think I even have
Darnell's book somewhere.

I haven't decided what to do about batch interpreters for C. They aren't
interactive but there is still some overlap of concerns. I'll probably
post a list of them somewhere. I also have Al Stevens' Quincy,
Przemyslaw Podsiadly's SeeR,  and Herb Schildt's from "Building your own
C interpreter."


On Wed, Jul 6, 2016, at 12:22 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> From the The Unix Historical Society mailing list, I discovered your
> historical interest in C interpreters.   It looks like you are missing at
> least one, so I though I would introduce you all.
> 
> Paul/Wendell meet Peter Darnell  -- Pete wrote one an early C interpreter
> for his C programming book.   I'll leave it to you folks to discuss what
> he
> did, its current status et al.
> 
> Best Wishes,
> 
> Clem Cole  (old time UNIX and C guy)
> 
> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org>
> Date: Sat, Jul 2, 2016 at 6:01 PM
> Subject: [TUHS] Interactive C Environments
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
> 
> 
> All, I've been asked by Wendell to forward this query about C
> interpreters to the mailing list for him.
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Wendell P <wendellp at operamail.com> -----
> 
> I have a project at softwarepreservation.org to collect work done,
> mostly in the 1970s and 80s, on C interpreters.
> 
> http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c
> 
> One thing I'm trying to track down is Cin, the C interpreter in UNIX
> v10. I found the man page online and the tutorial in v2 of the Saunders
> book, but that's it. Can anyone help me to find files or docs?
> 
> BTW, if you have anything related to the other commercial systems
> listed, I'd like to hear. I've found that in nearly all cases, the
> original developers did not keep the files or papers.
> 
> Cheers,
> Wendell
> 
> ----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
http://www.fastmail.com - The professional email service



From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Thu Jul  7 07:43:14 2016
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 16:43:14 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: Interactive C Environments
In-Reply-To: <1467840611.1583090.658884417.3CFE9DEC@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <20160702220145.GB3232@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAC20D2OeqWQoFEXhZUv6Q3=bc9nOzZG+kPVfVg5Z9DfhfSk-9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <1467840611.1583090.658884417.3CFE9DEC@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZvmweUacfLEqXnEgyEd38qHRHg9rgKexDYs+CNQBm_SJg@mail.gmail.com>

This is a nice one: https://sourceforge.net/projects/eic/


On 7/6/16, Wendell P <wendellp at operamail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for reminding me about that one, Clem. I think I even have
> Darnell's book somewhere.
>
> I haven't decided what to do about batch interpreters for C. They aren't
> interactive but there is still some overlap of concerns. I'll probably
> post a list of them somewhere. I also have Al Stevens' Quincy,
> Przemyslaw Podsiadly's SeeR,  and Herb Schildt's from "Building your own
> C interpreter."
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 6, 2016, at 12:22 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
>> From the The Unix Historical Society mailing list, I discovered your
>> historical interest in C interpreters.   It looks like you are missing at
>> least one, so I though I would introduce you all.
>>
>> Paul/Wendell meet Peter Darnell  -- Pete wrote one an early C interpreter
>> for his C programming book.   I'll leave it to you folks to discuss what
>> he
>> did, its current status et al.
>>
>> Best Wishes,
>>
>> Clem Cole  (old time UNIX and C guy)
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org>
>> Date: Sat, Jul 2, 2016 at 6:01 PM
>> Subject: [TUHS] Interactive C Environments
>> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
>>
>>
>> All, I've been asked by Wendell to forward this query about C
>> interpreters to the mailing list for him.
>>
>> ----- Forwarded message from Wendell P <wendellp at operamail.com> -----
>>
>> I have a project at softwarepreservation.org to collect work done,
>> mostly in the 1970s and 80s, on C interpreters.
>>
>> http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c
>>
>> One thing I'm trying to track down is Cin, the C interpreter in UNIX
>> v10. I found the man page online and the tutorial in v2 of the Saunders
>> book, but that's it. Can anyone help me to find files or docs?
>>
>> BTW, if you have anything related to the other commercial systems
>> listed, I'd like to hear. I've found that in nearly all cases, the
>> original developers did not keep the files or papers.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Wendell
>>
>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>
> --
> http://www.fastmail.com - The professional email service
>
>


From wkt at tuhs.org  Thu Jul  7 10:28:45 2016
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 10:28:45 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] A Quarter Century of Unix ebook
Message-ID: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>

All, I've been working with Peter Salus (author of A Quarter Century of Unix)
to get the book published as an e-book. However, the current publishers have
been very incommunicative.

Given that the potential readership may be small, Peter has suggested this:

> I think (a) just putting the bits somewhere where they could
> be sucked up would be fine; and (b) let folks make donations 
> to TUHS as payment.

However, as with all the Unix stuff, I'm still concerned about copyright
issues. So this is what I'm going to do. You will find a collection of
bits at this URL: http://minnie.tuhs.org/Z3/QCU/qcu.epub

In 24 hours I'll remove the link. After that, you can "do a Lions" on
the bits. I did the scanning, OCR'ing and proofing, so if you spot any
mistakes, let me know.

I'm not really interested in any payment for either the book or TUHS
itself. However, if you do feel generous, my e-mail address is also
my PayPal account.

Cheers, Warren


From jcea at jcea.es  Thu Jul  7 10:46:48 2016
From: jcea at jcea.es (Jesus Cea)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 02:46:48 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] A Quarter Century of Unix ebook
In-Reply-To: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <d65db1e9-d5af-7b0f-4044-d4c652f7530c@jcea.es>

On 07/07/16 02:28, Warren Toomey wrote:
> All, I've been working with Peter Salus (author of A Quarter Century of Unix)
> However, as with all the Unix stuff, I'm still concerned about copyright
> issues. So this is what I'm going to do. You will find a collection of
> bits at this URL: http://minnie.tuhs.org/Z3/QCU/qcu.epub

I just have spent 30 seconds perusing the epub and the content and
appearance are great. I only miss the index and the cover :-).

Fantastic work, Warren. Thanks.

-- 
Jesús Cea Avión                         _/_/      _/_/_/        _/_/_/
jcea at jcea.es - http://www.jcea.es/     _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
Twitter: @jcea                        _/_/    _/_/          _/_/_/_/_/
jabber / xmpp:jcea at jabber.org  _/_/  _/_/    _/_/          _/_/  _/_/
"Things are not so easy"      _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/    _/_/  _/_/
"My name is Dump, Core Dump"   _/_/_/        _/_/_/      _/_/  _/_/
"El amor es poner tu felicidad en la felicidad de otro" - Leibniz

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From grog at lemis.com  Thu Jul  7 12:20:20 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 12:20:20 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Microkernels (was: OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at Bell
	Labs))
In-Reply-To: <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>
References: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20160707022020.GB78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Monday,  4 July 2016 at 11:13:30 -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> QNX, in my opinion, is the only really interesting and commercially
> proven microkernel.

Tandem's Guardian was a microkernel, and a very successful one at
that.  At one point (mid-1980s) Guardian systems were running the
majority of the world's ATMs.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 reed at reedmedia.net  Thu Jul  7 13:32:13 2016
From: reed at reedmedia.net (Jeremy C. Reed)
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2016 22:32:13 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] A Quarter Century of Unix ebook
In-Reply-To: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.11.1607062229460.20704@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

I have a small errata for it that I collected over the years. I will 
send this to you maybe end of next week. (Part of my related research in 
another history book that I am still working on. Also I worked with the 
author to publish in print another one of his books.)


From grog at lemis.com  Thu Jul  7 15:02:42 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 15:02:42 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>
>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>
>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>
> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)

For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
French word for comma, and OED states:

   A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
   a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
   same value as the modern comma).

In modern context, it might apply equally to \\.
Clearly that has even more capacity to confuse.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
This message is digitally signed.  If your Microsoft mail program
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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Thu Jul  7 20:51:08 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 06:51:08 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Microkernels (was: OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at
 Bell Labs))
In-Reply-To: <20160707022020.GB78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>
 <20160707022020.GB78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20160707105108.GC24016@mercury.ccil.org>

Greg 'groggy' Lehey scripsit:

> Tandem's Guardian was a microkernel, and a very successful one at
> that.  

I doubt if anyone knew or knows that who didn't work there.  I did a
lot of TAL programming on those machines, and I had no clue about the
structure of the kernel.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
The work of Henry James has always seemed divisible by a simple dynastic
arrangement into three reigns: James I, James II, and the Old Pretender.
                --Philip Guedalla


From beebe at math.utah.edu  Thu Jul  7 22:21:20 2016
From: beebe at math.utah.edu (Nelson H. F. Beebe)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 06:21:20 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] A Quarter Century of Unix ebook
Message-ID: <CMM.0.96.0.1467894080.beebe@gamma.math.utah.edu>

Thanks, Warren, for the (brief) posting of the ePub file for Peter
Salus' fine book, A Quarter Century of Unix.

I have a printed copy of that book on my shelf, and here is a list of
the errata that I found in it when I read it in 2004 that might also
be present in the ePub version:

p. 23, line 7:
	deveoloped -> developed

p. 111, line 5:
	Dave Nowitz we'd do -> Dave Nowitz said we'd do

p. 142, line 7:
	collaboaration -> collaboration

p. 144, line -4 (i.e., 4 from bottom):
	reimplemeted -> reimplemented

p. 160, line 10:
	the the only -> the only

p. 196, line 17:
	develope JUNET -> develop JUNET

p. 221, running header:
	Berkley -> Berkeley

p. 222, line 11:
	Mellon Institue -> Mellon Institute

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
- Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB    Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu  -
- 155 S 1400 E RM 233                       beebe at acm.org  beebe at computer.org -
- Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA    URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ -
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From spedraja at gmail.com  Thu Jul  7 22:57:02 2016
From: spedraja at gmail.com (SPC)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 14:57:02 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] A Quarter Century of Unix ebook
In-Reply-To: <CMM.0.96.0.1467894080.beebe@gamma.math.utah.edu>
References: <CMM.0.96.0.1467894080.beebe@gamma.math.utah.edu>
Message-ID: <CACytpF_smfm87dBq4cKD2_qpkYDixmTWNKuiY9ZqD=ff1QByzA@mail.gmail.com>

Looks great. Thanks for the effort.


Gracias | Regards - Saludos | Greetings | Freundliche Grüße | Salutations
​
-- 
*Sergio Pedraja*
-- 
mobile: +34-699-996568
twitter: @sergio_pedraja | skype: Sergio Pedraja
--
http://plus.google.com/u/0/101292256663392735405
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiopedraja
-----
No crea todo lo que ve, ni crea que está viéndolo todo
-----
"El estado de una Copia de Seguridad es desconocido
hasta que intentas restaurarla" (- nixCraft)
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From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul  7 23:36:35 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 09:36:35 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] A Quarter Century of Unix ebook
In-Reply-To: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160707002845.GA7211@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2MC2w4Go_dW3tLDN32Hs0RM1bURsvPuhiOf4x2V7SB4_Q@mail.gmail.com>

Warren (and Peter) -- many thanks.

On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 8:28 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> All, I've been working with Peter Salus (author of A Quarter Century of
> Unix)
> to get the book published as an e-book. However, the current publishers
> have
> been very incommunicative.
>
> Given that the potential readership may be small, Peter has suggested this:
>
> > I think (a) just putting the bits somewhere where they could
> > be sucked up would be fine; and (b) let folks make donations
> > to TUHS as payment.
>
> However, as with all the Unix stuff, I'm still concerned about copyright
> issues. So this is what I'm going to do. You will find a collection of
> bits at this URL: http://minnie.tuhs.org/Z3/QCU/qcu.epub
>
> In 24 hours I'll remove the link. After that, you can "do a Lions" on
> the bits. I did the scanning, OCR'ing and proofing, so if you spot any
> mistakes, let me know.
>
> I'm not really interested in any payment for either the book or TUHS
> itself. However, if you do feel generous, my e-mail address is also
> my PayPal account.
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
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From cym224 at gmail.com  Thu Jul  7 23:43:05 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 09:43:05 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>

On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>>
>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>>
>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>>
>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
>
> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
> French word for comma, and OED states:
>
>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
>    same value as the modern comma).

On the other hand, the OED has the following.

slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /

solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
shilling-mark.

I would argue "solidus" is closer.

N.

>
> In modern context, it might apply equally to \\.
> Clearly that has even more capacity to confuse.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Fri Jul  8 00:11:31 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 10:11:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160707141130.GA19493@mercury.ccil.org>

Nemo scripsit:

> I would argue "solidus" is closer.

A solid argument, worth at least a shilling.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
It's like if you meet an really old, really rich guy covered in liver
spots and breathing with an oxygen tank, and you say, "I want to be
rich, too, so I'm going to start walking with a cane and I'm going to
act crotchety and I'm going to get liver disease. --Wil Shipley


From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Fri Jul  8 00:18:41 2016
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Thu, 07 Jul 2016 16:18:41 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
 |>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
 |>>
 |>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
 |>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
 |>>>
 |>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
 |>>
 |>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
 |>
 |> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
 |> French word for comma, and OED states:
 |>
 |>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
 |>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
 |>    same value as the modern comma).
 |
 |On the other hand, the OED has the following.
 |
 |slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
 |
 |solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
 |in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
 |shilling-mark.
 |
 |I would argue "solidus" is closer.

SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
To the contrary, the POSIX standard, says "Slash Character
(<slash>)" and then states "also known as solidus" in the
description, and ditto does so for reverse solidus.  Maybe this
will change over time to better reflect ISO 10646.

--steffen


From grog at lemis.com  Fri Jul  8 09:36:46 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 09:36:46 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Microkernels (was: OS for IBM PC (was: Algol68 vs. C at
 Bell Labs))
In-Reply-To: <20160707105108.GC24016@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <1467651263.29756.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <20160704181330.GM13274@mcvoy.com>
 <20160707022020.GB78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <20160707105108.GC24016@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20160707233646.GE78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at  6:51:08 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey scripsit:
>
>> Tandem's Guardian was a microkernel, and a very successful one at
>> that.
>
> I doubt if anyone knew or knows that who didn't work there.

I think so, though it wasn't high on the list of features.  Nor should
it be.  But the message system in particular (for communicating
between kernel processes) makes for a very interesting design.  Adding
networking was as simple as extending the message system beyond the
local cluster, and Tandem was running an internal world-wide network
by the early 1980s.  It makes an interesting (if not particularly
good) comparison with the Internet.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 grog at lemis.com  Fri Jul  8 09:47:22 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 09:47:22 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
Message-ID: <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>>> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
>>>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
>>>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.
>>>>>
>>>>> If that's too oblique for some of you, I can't help.
>>>>
>>>> I think the proper term is "Virgule" anyway. ;)
>>>
>>> For some definition of "proper".  But it's doubly ambiguous: it's the
>>> French word for comma, and OED states:
>>>
>>>    A thin sloping or upright line (/, |) occurring in mediæval MSS. as
>>>    a mark for the cæsura or as a punctuation-mark (frequently with the
>>>    same value as the modern comma).
>>
>> On the other hand, the OED has the following.
>>
>> slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
>>
>> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
>> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
>> shilling-mark.

This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
entry is interesting.

>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>
> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.

Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
those in the know.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 scj at yaccman.com  Fri Jul  8 15:40:47 2016
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2016 22:40:47 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <7c94ef6c9ee764ea94e3e79794c663d9.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>


>
>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>>
>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
>
> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
> those in the know.
>
> Greg
> --

What fun!  Having disposed of # and / and \, anybody want to find other
obscure names for the other operators?   Soon we could be as obscure as
Algol 68!



From grog at lemis.com  Fri Jul  8 17:06:12 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 17:06:12 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <7c94ef6c9ee764ea94e3e79794c663d9.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <7c94ef6c9ee764ea94e3e79794c663d9.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <20160708070612.GG78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 22:40:47 -0700, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
>
>>
>>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>>>
>>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
>>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
>>
>> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
>> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
>> those in the know.
>
> What fun!  Having disposed of # and / and \, anybody want to find
> other obscure names for the other operators?  Soon we could be as
> obscure as Algol 68!

That takes real talent.

You've made me locate my Report (not Revised Report).  It's
surprisingly dog-eared.  I'll go through it and see what I can find,
but for the moment section 2.2 seems appropriate.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 steffen at sdaoden.eu  Fri Jul  8 21:09:12 2016
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 13:09:12 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20160708110912._pmH11Mqe%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |>> On 7 July 2016 at 01:02, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |>>> On Friday,  1 July 2016 at 21:13:00 -0400, Steve Nickolas wrote:
 |>>>> On Fri, 1 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:
 |>>>>
 |>>>>> I suspect Yanks being pedantic about `slash' versus `forward slash'
 |>>>>> would give an Englishman a stroke.

 |>> On the other hand, the OED has the following.
 |>>
 |>> slash 5. A thin sloping line, thus /
 |>>
 |>> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
 |>> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
 |>> shilling-mark.

 |>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
 |>
 |> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
 |> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
 |
 |Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)

Copied and pasted from UnicodeData.txt.

 |solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not for
 |those in the know.

Maybe it helps that the German «Schrägstrich» will desert into
Slash («Herkunft: englisch slash, eigentlich = (harter, kurzer)
Schlag, Hieb, laut- und bewegungsnachahmend oder zu altfranzösisch
esclachier = (zer)teilen») and that a furtherly described
Schrägstrich will wind up in «Backslash» («Herkunft: englisch
backslash, aus: back = zurück und slash = Hieb, Schnitt»)

It gives me cause for concern that we replace a civil word like
«Schrägstrich» ("oblique bar") with something aggressive and
dismembering that slash seems to represent.  That may be a reason
for Linguists to promote solidus and ban the other words into the
commentary, one might think.

...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
created what became POSIX preferred slash instead -- i hope it is
not the proud of high skills in using (maybe light) sabers that
some people of the engineer community seem to foster.  But it
could be the sober truth.  Or, it could be a bug caused by
inconsideration.  And that seems very likely now.

--steffen


From norman at oclsc.org  Fri Jul  8 21:25:34 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Fri,  8 Jul 2016 07:25:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
Message-ID: <20160708112534.B13184422B@lignose.oclsc.org>

Steffen Nurpmeso:

  ...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
  created what became POSIX preferred slash instead -- i hope it is
  not the proud of high skills in using (maybe light) sabers that
  some people of the engineer community seem to foster.  But it
  could be the sober truth.  Or, it could be a bug caused by
  inconsideration.  And that seems very likely now.

====

It had nothing to do with engineers.  `Slash' for / has been
conventional American usage for as long as I can remember,
dating back well before POSIX or UNIX or the movie that made
a meme of light sabers.

It's unclear exactly how far back it dates.  The earliest
OED citation for `slash' as `A thin sloping line, thus /'
is dated 1961; but the cite is from Webster's 3rd.

Given the amount of violence prevalent in American metaphor,
it is hardly noteworthy.

Make American Language Violent Again (and I HATE MOSQUITOS*).

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

* If you don't know what this refers to, you probably don't
want to know.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Fri Jul  8 23:16:04 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 09:16:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160708112534.B13184422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20160708112534.B13184422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20160708131604.GD6943@mercury.ccil.org>

Norman Wilson scripsit:

> Make American Language Violent Again (and I HATE MOSQUITOS*).

As between mosquitoes and black flies, I'll take the former.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Economists were put on this planet to make astrologers look good.
        --Leo McGarry


From brantleycoile at me.com  Sat Jul  9 00:06:59 2016
From: brantleycoile at me.com (Brantley Coile)
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 10:06:59 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160708131604.GD6943@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <20160708112534.B13184422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <20160708131604.GD6943@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <23392DF5-DD3A-42B5-9FEB-432D17378D2D@me.com>

“Those gnats are dynomite!” — Monty Python (or should have been)

> On Jul 8, 2016, at 9:16 AM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> 
> Norman Wilson scripsit:
> 
>> Make American Language Violent Again (and I HATE MOSQUITOS*).
> 
> As between mosquitoes and black flies, I'll take the former.
> 
> -- 
> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> Economists were put on this planet to make astrologers look good.
>        --Leo McGarry



From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Jul  9 00:52:19 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:52:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
Message-ID: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen at sdaoden.eu> wrote:

> ...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
> created what became POSIX preferred slash instead
>
​I can not speak for anyone else.   But at the time when I was a part of
the /usr/group UNIX standards** mtgs  I personally do not believe I had
ever heard of the term "​solidus." Such a term maybe had been used in my
first form Latin classes from the 1960s, but by the 1980s  I had long ago
forgotten any/all of my Latin.  I certainly did not try to remember it as a
computer professional.

In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to the
asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the sound
made by them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from the console
TTY.  But slash was what we called the character that is now next to the
shift key on modern keyboards.   I do not remember ever using, much less
needed to refer to, the character "back slash" until the unfortunate crap
that the folks in Redmond forced on the industry.   Although interestingly
enough, the vertical bar or UNIX "pipe" symbol was used and discussed
freely in those days.   I find it interesting that Redmond-ism became the
unshifted character, not the vertical bar by the shear force of economics
of the PC.

Clem

** For those that do not know (my apologies to those that do) the 1985
/usr/group standards committee was the forerunner to IEEE P1003.  Which we
published as the first "official UNIX API standard agreed by the community"
(I still have a hardcopy).  But neither /usr/group nor USENIX had the
political authority to bring an official standard to FIPS, ANSI, ECMA, ISO
or like, while IEEE did.  So a few months before the last meeting, Jim
Issak petitioned IEEE for standards status, and the last meeting of the
/usr/group UNIX standards meeting was very short -- about 10 minutes.   We
voted to disband and then everyone in the room officially reformed a few
minutes later all signing in as IEEE P1003, later to be called POSIX.  For
further historical note, I was a "founding member" of both groups and the
editor of a number of early drafts (numbers 5-11 IIRC), as well as the
primary author of the Tape Format and Terminal I/O sections of P1003.1.
With Keith Bostic, I would later be part of the P1003.2 and pen the
original PAX compromise.  After that whole mess I was so disgusted with the
politics of the effort, I stopping going to the POSIX mtgs.

PPS While I did not work for them at the time, you can blame DEC for the
mess with the case/character sets in the POSIX & FIPS standards.   A number
of the compromises in the standard documents were forced by VMS, 7-bit
(case insensitivity) being the prime one.   While we did get in the
rational section of document that it was suggested/advised that systems
implementations and applications code be case insensitive and 8 bit clean
so that other character sets could be supported.  However the DEC folks
were firmly against anything more than 7-bit ASCII and supporting anything
in that character set. My memory is that the IBM folks were silent at the
time and just let the DEC guys carry the torch for 1960's 7-bit US English.
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Jul  9 00:59:02 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 10:59:02 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2N2b5SfQX8h5cYphDey4i0sQ=Lxv30Y=winpg5OoHRdYw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 10:52 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> We voted to disband and then everyone in the room officially reformed a
> few minutes later all signing in as IEEE P1003, later to be called POSIX.


​I should have added, the /usr/group UNIX standard document became "draft
0" of the IEEE P1003.1 after being put into "official" IEEE format, with
some magic macro work by Jim, John Quarterman, and myself.  Ah the wonders
of troff.​   And it was originally formatted on a Masscomp MC-500 which I
would bring to the IEEE meetings, which was considered a wonderment at that
time.   We could actually edit the document as we discussed it!!!   There
was no such thing as a laptop and the even the "Compaq Luggable" PC was
still a few years out.
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From cym224 at gmail.com  Sat Jul  9 01:47:39 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 11:47:39 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzyhGVEFnQA6ReAw0qZoA03hmQC9b7Vg_A8XjXqxK6ATdw@mail.gmail.com>

On 8 July 2016 at 10:52, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
> I do not remember ever using, much less needed to
> refer to, the character "back slash"

printf("I do not remember ever using, much less needed to\n\
 refer to, the character \"back slash\"\n");

And thank you for the very interesting historical notes.

N.


From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Sat Jul  9 02:27:04 2016
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 18:27:04 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160708162704.umC4YjzIl%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Hello.

Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
 |On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 7:09 AM, Steffen Nurpmeso <[1]steffen at sdaoden.\
 |eu[/1]> wrote:
 |
 |...and that actually makes me wonder why the engineers that
 |created what became POSIX preferred slash instead
 |
 |I can not speak for anyone else.   But at the time when I was a part \
 |of the /usr/group UNIX standards** mtgs  I personally do not believe \
 |I had ever 
 |heard of the term "solidus." Such a term maybe had been used in my fi\
 |rst form Latin classes from the 1960s, but by the 1980s  I had long a\
 |go forgotten 
 |any/all of my Latin.  I certainly did not try to remember it as a com\
 |puter professional.

Of course.  It doesn't even sound friendlier with its origins in
the Roman culture, as a name for money.  I wasn't consciously
aware of this once i've responded.

 |In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to t\
 |he asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the \
 |sound made by 
 |them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from the console T\
 |TY.  But slash was what we called the character that is now next to t\

That is something to remind.  The standard has two occurrences of
bang, in the shell syntax and for the Mail variable of the same name.
And yes, young, brilliant and highly educated men and women
explore new worlds.  So splat makes a lot of sense.

If seen from this angle it is even less enjoyable that Linguists
put more prominence on the correlation of slash and solidus.

 |he shift key 
 |on modern keyboards.   I do not remember ever using, much less needed\
 | to refer to, the character "back slash" until the unfortunate crap t\
 |hat the folks 
 |in Redmond forced on the industry.   Although interestingly enough, t\

You mean the word?  We don't have a word for this character in
German, as far as i know.  (But you surely used it for \n \t etc.)

 |he vertical bar or UNIX "pipe" symbol was used and discussed freely i\
 |n those days. 
 |  I find it interesting that Redmond-ism became the unshifted charact\
 |er, not the vertical bar by the shear force of economics of the PC.

This sentence prevented work and caused an interesting journey via
Wikipedia.  I am looking at a DEC VT52, from before Microsoft.
(I really like my current Apple (US) keyboard, after say twenty
years of sorrow in which i couldn't forget the robust metal
i think IBM keyboards that the administrators of the insurance my
father worked at used in their two-skyscraper-floors bunker.)

--steffen


From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Sat Jul  9 02:31:23 2016
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 18:31:23 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzyhGVEFnQA6ReAw0qZoA03hmQC9b7Vg_A8XjXqxK6ATdw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJfiPzyhGVEFnQA6ReAw0qZoA03hmQC9b7Vg_A8XjXqxK6ATdw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160708163123.btcC_iMoU%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |On 8 July 2016 at 10:52, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
 |> I do not remember ever using, much less needed to
 |> refer to, the character "back slash"
 |
 |printf("I do not remember ever using, much less needed to\n\
 | refer to, the character \"back slash\"\n");
 |
 |And thank you for the very interesting historical notes.

Fish.

--steffen


From norman at oclsc.org  Sat Jul  9 03:36:31 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 13:36:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
Message-ID: <1467999395.23197.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Clem Cole:

  I do not remember ever using, much less
  needed to refer to, the character "back slash" until the unfortunate crap
  that the folks in Redmond forced on the industry.

=====

Oh, come on.  You programmed in C.  You probably used
UNIX back when @ was the default kill character (though
I doubt you're odd enough still to use that kill character,
as I do).  You surely used troff, LaTeX, or both, and have
doubtless sworn at regular expressions more often than
most of the young Linux crowd have had chocolate bars.

I think you've just forgotten it out of PBSD (post-backlash
stress disorder, nothing to do with Berkeley).

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
UNIX\(tm old fart who swore at a regexp just yesterday


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sat Jul  9 04:00:23 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 14:00:23 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607081357001.53544@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> I find it interesting that Redmond-ism became the unshifted character, 
> not the vertical bar by the shear force of economics of the PC.

Beta documents suggest M$ wanted to switch the...switch character to dash 
(-) for 2.0 and use / for the path separator, but *IBM* insisted on 
keeping / and using \ for path separator...and what IBM wanted, IBM got.

That said I think one or two OEMs did in fact set the SWITCHAR to - and 
use / for a path separator anyway.

-uso.


From random832 at fastmail.com  Sat Jul  9 04:23:11 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Fri, 08 Jul 2016 14:23:11 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1468002191.3664013.660840929.6B8BA92D@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016, at 10:52, Clem Cole wrote:
> ​I can not speak for anyone else.   But at the time when I was a part
> of the /usr/group UNIX standards** mtgs  I personally do not believe I
> had ever heard of the term "​solidus." Such a term maybe had been used
> in my first form Latin classes from the 1960s, but by the 1980s  I had
> long ago forgotten any/all of my Latin.  I certainly did not try to
> remember it as a computer professional.
>
> In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to
> the asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the
> sound made by them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from
> the console TTY.  But slash was what we called the character that is
> now next to the shift key on modern keyboards.   I do not remember
> ever using, much less needed to refer to, the character "back slash"
> until the unfortunate crap that the folks in Redmond forced on the
> industry.

You never had to use it for escaping in C/Regex/Troff/etc?

>  Although interestingly enough, the vertical bar or UNIX "pipe" symbol
>  was used and discussed freely in those days.   I find it interesting
>  that Redmond-ism became the unshifted character, not the vertical bar
>  by the shear force of economics of the PC.

ASCII keyboards had \ unshifted long before the PC.  The ASR-33 didn't
have it (it didn't have pipe at all - backslash was on shift-L), but
every DEC keyboard I can find did, as did the ADM-3a, and incidentally
the Symbolics Lisp Machine's keyboard.

I had suspected the reason that [\] ended up as the unshifted characters
is because {|} were not available on uppercase-only keyboards, but I
can't find any uppercase terminals that had separate keys for them (the
ASR-33 had them on shift- KLM). I expect that's also why ^, on shift-N,
was used for pipes rather than the vertical bar in the earliest versions
of Unix that had them.

What terminals did you use, back in those days?

(Incidentally, I can find *literally no* pictures of a Teletype 37,
and no sufficiently high-quality closeups of a 38 to determine its
keyboard layout)


From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Jul  9 06:29:41 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 16:29:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAJfiPzyhGVEFnQA6ReAw0qZoA03hmQC9b7Vg_A8XjXqxK6ATdw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJfiPzyhGVEFnQA6ReAw0qZoA03hmQC9b7Vg_A8XjXqxK6ATdw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2NAdSv8GTZbrVK8WMHwfFLX7ugG-xvChtp=sU57GkV0_A@mail.gmail.com>

Good point....  shows how good my memory is... sigh...

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 11:47 AM, Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8 July 2016 at 10:52, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote (in part):
> > I do not remember ever using, much less needed to
> > refer to, the character "back slash"
>
> printf("I do not remember ever using, much less needed to\n\
>  refer to, the character \"back slash\"\n");
>
> And thank you for the very interesting historical notes.
>
> N.
>
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Jul  9 06:49:25 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 16:49:25 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <1468002191.3664013.660840929.6B8BA92D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468002191.3664013.660840929.6B8BA92D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PC6Tfgj_MNFGzYO=LQjX1vZk5QQZCZrpkCcK7zr26C1g@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:

> What terminals did you use, back in those days?


​
Hard copy (that I remember, but we have proven how poor memory can be):​

   - ​ASR/KSR 33s originally, we had one 37 but it was not on a system I
   used
   - IBM console's printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten (but with an APL
   ball)
   - Later Xerox DaisyWheel printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten
   - Later DEC Decwritter I and II

Glass TTY (not complete but for a quick memory dump)

   - Lear Siegler ADM3 (lots of them - many people made them as kits) and
   why we have hjkl as the movement keys in vi - the arrows were embossed on
   those key tops
   - PE "Fox" (CMU has a large lot deal and these became the standard there
   in the late 70s)
   - Triple Drip "Graphic Wonders" (man I miss these with a dedicated PDP11
   and an amazing keyboard --- best game platform I ever knew)
   - Tektronix 401x series (just about all models of them) but 4014 was
   used the most
   - DEC VT52
   - Eventually, VT-100, PT-100 and a number of other VT-100 knock offs
   - Eventually Tek 4025s (until the RT, one of the best keyboards - used
   in Magnolia BTW)
   - Heathkit H19 (still have mine that I built)
   - Eventually Wyse 100's, 99GTs and Wyse 60s -- later being the best Wyse
   (I still have one)
   - Ann Arbor Ambassador (my all time favorite - wish I still had one)
   - Too many different graphics terminals to remember
   - Numerous other "dumb terminals" who's brand names I have long
   forgotten.
   - although for some reason I remember the Kimtron KT-7 being a popular
   one - memory is they were dirt cheap at the time
   - Eventually later models of DEC terminals, but the keyboard always
   sucked and had those strange DEC private connectors on them, so I tried to
   avoid them.

Clem
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From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sat Jul  9 07:09:00 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 17:09:00 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2PC6Tfgj_MNFGzYO=LQjX1vZk5QQZCZrpkCcK7zr26C1g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468002191.3664013.660840929.6B8BA92D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <CAC20D2PC6Tfgj_MNFGzYO=LQjX1vZk5QQZCZrpkCcK7zr26C1g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008c01d1d95c$f3f9ad60$dbed0820$@ronnatalie.com>

I started on ADM-1 (upper case only but they did have cursor addressing) and ASR-33 teletypes.   I remember using all the backslash escapes to write my first C program while Mike Muuss looked on in the UGL at Hopkins.     Later we got HP terminals with upper and lower case.

 

Hopkins had a KSR37 in the EE department with a greek type box on it even.   It was stored in a closet dubbed (obviously) “The KSR Room.”    The pennywhistle modem I had lived there.   We used to place collect calls to the Pentagon TIP (we’d tell the operator we were calling a computer and if it beeped it accepted the charges).    Later they upgraded the printing with a Diablo-ish (daisy wheel) printer.    We had such printers over in various other labs I had access to (Psych department, etc.).

 

Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave poor tilde alone) and a few ADM-3’s and for some idiotic reason the department bought a couple of SWTPC implementations of the TVTypewriterII which were just awful.  Tektronix donated a bunch of stuff to us so we ended up with both 4014-ish things and some real raster Tek graphics terminals.

 

When I went over to BRL we primarily dealt with some VT52 clones which were preferred because they  put the control key next to the A which we liked.   Eventually, we got the Teletype 5620 the commercialization of the Blit/jerq DMD terminals.     By the time I left most of us had either Suns or SGIs on our desk though.

 

At home I had an ADM-3 followed by one of the VT-52 clones and also a ASR 37 that I got surplus (It had a Rocky Flats property tag on it).    When I moved to NJ I ditched them all and just used at terminal emulator on my DOS PC-AT for the longest time.    I actually had a 9600 SLIP line and a router to the Ethernet in my house (I used one of the RU subnet numbers).  

 

 

 

From: TUHS [mailto:tuhs-bounces at minnie.tuhs.org] On Behalf Of Clem Cole
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 4:49 PM
To: Random832
Cc: TUHS main list
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

 

 

On Fri, Jul 8, 2016 at 2:23 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:

What terminals did you use, back in those days?

 

​

Hard copy (that I remember, but we have proven how poor memory can be):​

*	​ASR/KSR 33s originally, we had one 37 but it was not on a system I used
*	IBM console's printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten (but with an APL ball)
*	Later Xerox DaisyWheel printers Model numbers I've ​forgotten
*	Later DEC Decwritter I and II

Glass TTY (not complete but for a quick memory dump)

*	Lear Siegler ADM3 (lots of them - many people made them as kits) and why we have hjkl as the movement keys in vi - the arrows were embossed on those key tops
*	PE "Fox" (CMU has a large lot deal and these became the standard there in the late 70s)
*	Triple Drip "Graphic Wonders" (man I miss these with a dedicated PDP11 and an amazing keyboard --- best game platform I ever knew)
*	Tektronix 401x series (just about all models of them) but 4014 was used the most
*	DEC VT52
*	Eventually, VT-100, PT-100 and a number of other VT-100 knock offs
*	Eventually Tek 4025s (until the RT, one of the best keyboards - used in Magnolia BTW)
*	Heathkit H19 (still have mine that I built)
*	Eventually Wyse 100's, 99GTs and Wyse 60s -- later being the best Wyse (I still have one)
*	Ann Arbor Ambassador (my all time favorite - wish I still had one)
*	Too many different graphics terminals to remember
*	Numerous other "dumb terminals" who's brand names I have long forgotten.
*	although for some reason I remember the Kimtron KT-7 being a popular one - memory is they were dirt cheap at the time
*	Eventually later models of DEC terminals, but the keyboard always sucked and had those strange DEC private connectors on them, so I tried to avoid them.

Clem

 

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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Jul  9 07:16:37 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 17:16:37 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <008c01d1d95c$f3f9ad60$dbed0820$@ronnatalie.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468002191.3664013.660840929.6B8BA92D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <CAC20D2PC6Tfgj_MNFGzYO=LQjX1vZk5QQZCZrpkCcK7zr26C1g@mail.gmail.com>
 <008c01d1d95c$f3f9ad60$dbed0820$@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <20160708211637.GB32610@mercury.ccil.org>

Ron Natalie scripsit:

> Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave
> poor tilde alone)

Not the terminal's fault.  It was just implementing ASCII-63, in which
ESC was up by DEL, in the current position of ~.  Other terminals did
ASCII-67, the current standard.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
A poetical purist named Cowan                   [that's me]
Once put the rest of us dowan.                  [on xml-dev]
"Your verse would be sweeter / If it only had metre
And rhymes that didn't force me to frowan."     [overpacked line!] --Michael Kay


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sat Jul  9 07:45:21 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 17:45:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160708211637.GB32610@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468002191.3664013.660840929.6B8BA92D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <CAC20D2PC6Tfgj_MNFGzYO=LQjX1vZk5QQZCZrpkCcK7zr26C1g@mail.gmail.com>
 <008c01d1d95c$f3f9ad60$dbed0820$@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160708211637.GB32610@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <00a801d1d962$07465fd0$15d31f70$@ronnatalie.com>

That may have been the origin, but Hazeltine persisted even in later versions of the terminal which implemented later ASCII and had a printing ~ at 126.    That's why the comment and associated code is in the terminal driver.  In order to print a ~ you had to send it twice.


-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at ccil.org] On Behalf Of John Cowan
Sent: Friday, July 8, 2016 5:17 PM
To: Ron Natalie
Cc: 'Clem Cole'; 'Random832'; 'TUHS main list'
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)

Ron Natalie scripsit:

> Hopkins actually had one of the “braindamaged Hazeltines” (leave poor 
> tilde alone)

Not the terminal's fault.  It was just implementing ASCII-63, in which ESC was up by DEL, in the current position of ~.  Other terminals did ASCII-67, the current standard.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
A poetical purist named Cowan                   [that's me]
Once put the rest of us dowan.                  [on xml-dev]
"Your verse would be sweeter / If it only had metre
And rhymes that didn't force me to frowan."     [overpacked line!] --Michael Kay



From grog at lemis.com  Sat Jul  9 10:03:46 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 10:03:46 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160708110912._pmH11Mqe%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <20160708110912._pmH11Mqe%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
Message-ID: <20160709000346.GH78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Friday,  8 July 2016 at 13:09:12 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
>>> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
>>>
>>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
>>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
>>
>> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
>> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not
>> for those in the know.
>
> Maybe it helps that the German «Schrägstrich» will desert into Slash
> («Herkunft: englisch slash, eigentlich???= (harter, kurzer) Schlag,
> Hieb, laut- und bewegungsnachahmend oder zu altfranzösisch
> esclachier???= (zer)teilen»

You don't quote your source, but the blue Duden (paraphrased for
non-German speakers) makes it clear that "Strich" comes from an Ablaut
form of "streichen", itself derived from the root "Strahl", originally
meaning "arrow".  So ultimately, it seems, you have the choice of
being struck or shot.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 treese at acm.org  Sat Jul  9 12:53:56 2016
From: treese at acm.org (Win Treese)
Date: Fri, 8 Jul 2016 22:53:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Interactive C Environments
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZvmweUacfLEqXnEgyEd38qHRHg9rgKexDYs+CNQBm_SJg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <20160702220145.GB3232@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <CAC20D2OeqWQoFEXhZUv6Q3=bc9nOzZG+kPVfVg5Z9DfhfSk-9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <1467840611.1583090.658884417.3CFE9DEC@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <CAFCBnZvmweUacfLEqXnEgyEd38qHRHg9rgKexDYs+CNQBm_SJg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2A9E2907-93BA-4937-BED1-7C5B6F91F44E@acm.org>

Back in the ‘80s and ‘90s, there was Saber-C, later renamed CodeCenter from Centerline Software.

These days some would call it an IDE for C on UNIX systems; it started out as an interpreted C environment for better debugging during development. It was quite good at the time, and was very helpful in finding some very nasty pointer bugs in various pieces of software.

Historical trivia: one of the co-authors of Saber-C and co-founder of the company was Steve Kaufer, who later founded and still runs TripAdvisor.

Best,
Win

> On Jul 6, 2016, at 5:43 PM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> This is a nice one: https://sourceforge.net/projects/eic/
> 
> 
> On 7/6/16, Wendell P <wendellp at operamail.com> wrote:
>> Thanks for reminding me about that one, Clem. I think I even have
>> Darnell's book somewhere.
>> 
>> I haven't decided what to do about batch interpreters for C. They aren't
>> interactive but there is still some overlap of concerns. I'll probably
>> post a list of them somewhere. I also have Al Stevens' Quincy,
>> Przemyslaw Podsiadly's SeeR,  and Herb Schildt's from "Building your own
>> C interpreter."
>> 
>> 
>> On Wed, Jul 6, 2016, at 12:22 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
>>> From the The Unix Historical Society mailing list, I discovered your
>>> historical interest in C interpreters.   It looks like you are missing at
>>> least one, so I though I would introduce you all.
>>> 
>>> Paul/Wendell meet Peter Darnell  -- Pete wrote one an early C interpreter
>>> for his C programming book.   I'll leave it to you folks to discuss what
>>> he
>>> did, its current status et al.
>>> 
>>> Best Wishes,
>>> 
>>> Clem Cole  (old time UNIX and C guy)
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org>
>>> Date: Sat, Jul 2, 2016 at 6:01 PM
>>> Subject: [TUHS] Interactive C Environments
>>> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
>>> 
>>> 
>>> All, I've been asked by Wendell to forward this query about C
>>> interpreters to the mailing list for him.
>>> 
>>> ----- Forwarded message from Wendell P <wendellp at operamail.com> -----
>>> 
>>> I have a project at softwarepreservation.org to collect work done,
>>> mostly in the 1970s and 80s, on C interpreters.
>>> 
>>> http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/interactive_c
>>> 
>>> One thing I'm trying to track down is Cin, the C interpreter in UNIX
>>> v10. I found the man page online and the tutorial in v2 of the Saunders
>>> book, but that's it. Can anyone help me to find files or docs?
>>> 
>>> BTW, if you have anything related to the other commercial systems
>>> listed, I'd like to hear. I've found that in nearly all cases, the
>>> original developers did not keep the files or papers.
>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Wendell
>>> 
>>> ----- End forwarded message -----
>> 
>> --
>> http://www.fastmail.com - The professional email service
>> 
>> 



From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Jul  9 23:22:55 2016
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2016 09:22:55 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
Message-ID: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

If 19961 is the oldest citation the OED can come up with, "slash"
really is a coinage of the computer age. Yet the character had
been in algebra books for centuries. The oral tradition that underlies
eqn would be the authority for a "solid" name. I suspect, though,
that regardless of what the algebra books called it, the name
would be "divided by".

This is sheer hypothesis, but I have always thought that \ got
onto printer chains and type balls as a crude drawing aid. Ditto
for |. Once the characters became available people began to find
uses for them.


From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Sun Jul 10 00:24:17 2016
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2016 16:24:17 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160709000346.GH78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <20160708110912._pmH11Mqe%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160709000346.GH78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20160709142417.U7LT2fm6A%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |On Friday,  8 July 2016 at 13:09:12 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |> Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
 |>> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
 |>>> Nemo <cym224 at gmail.com> wrote:
 |>>>> I would argue "solidus" is closer.
 |>>>
 |>>> SOLIDUS is the Unicode name, too, as is REVERSE SOLIDUS, giving
 |>>> SLASH and BACKSLASH as secondaries.
 |>>
 |>> Finally we have clarity!  From now on it's only (without shouting)
 |>> solidus and reverse solidus.  No confusion any more, at least not
 |>> for those in the know.
 |>
 |> Maybe it helps that the German «Schrägstrich» will desert into Slash
 |> («Herkunft: englisch slash, eigentlich???= (harter, kurzer) Schlag,
 |> Hieb, laut- und bewegungsnachahmend oder zu altfranzösisch
 |> esclachier???= (zer)teilen»
 |
 |You don't quote your source, but the blue Duden (paraphrased for
 |non-German speakers) makes it clear that "Strich" comes from an Ablaut
 |form of "streichen", itself derived from the root "Strahl", originally
 |meaning "arrow".  So ultimately, it seems, you have the choice of
 |being struck or shot.

Haha, very nice.  I wouldn't sign the "originally meaning" --
without knowing it seems more likely that this visualization of an
"arrow"-in-the-flight was itself based on the "beam"s of sunlight
(that fall through holes in a cloudy sky).  Nature-induced
visualizations are pretty common me thinks; e.g., Fritz Walter
describes a football goal of the young Uwe Seeler during world
championship 1958 with "Ein Strich.  Ein Blitz." ("A line/stroke.
A Lightning.").

I would really think that "Strich" (line, dash, stroke) of
"streichen" (hm, stroke) is derived from such.  We say things like
"Die Segel streichen" (Taking in the sails), "Der Wind streicht
durch die Bäume" (The wind sweeps through the trees) and such
things.  "Streichen" is documented as an Onomatopoeia, and,
funnily, the english Wikipedia article for this mentions "bang".

Slash is not that bad, we all come from a very dark and
substantial base, and i think at least subconsciously we take that
with us, and it is a problem even before it becomes conscious.
(Interestingly just today i heard a review of a book of Sacha
Batthyany, "Und was hat das mit mir zu tun?" (What has that got to
do with me?), but not (yet) english i think.)
And, not hundred years ago one could buy liquid human fat
("Axungia hominis") in pharmacies, and usage of dismembered parts
was pretty common, and by 1984 face creams still contained fat
extracted from placenta remains.   Not 150 years ago a preacher
wrote "the thumb of a thieve laid aside from or under the goods
provides fortune for the merchant".  In Cannes this year i heard
times are about cannibalism.  So slash is just as hip as it always
had been.  I will now go and slice some pieces of Austrian cheese.

--steffen


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Jul 10 01:59:51 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 11:59:51 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <20160709155951.GB1076@mercury.ccil.org>

Doug McIlroy scripsit:

> This is sheer hypothesis, but I have always thought that \ got
> onto printer chains and type balls as a crude drawing aid. Ditto
> for |. Once the characters became available people began to find
> uses for them.

<http://www.bobbemer.com/BACSLASH.HTM> tells us that \ was introduced
into ASCII by Bob Bemer in order to make \/ for 'or' and /\ for 'and'
available, primarily for the use of Algol 60.  It had not been available
in any manufacturer's character set before ASCII-63, as far as is known.
Unfortunately, none of the five existing Algol 60 implementations actually
support these sequences.

| was commonplace, however, as it has at least 15 mathematical uses:
see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_bar#Mathematics>.
As far as I know, it has always been used as 'or' on computers.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
If I have seen farther than others, it is because I am surrounded by dwarves.
        --Murray Gell-Mann


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Jul 10 02:38:13 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 12:38:13 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160709142417.U7LT2fm6A%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <20160708110912._pmH11Mqe%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160709000346.GH78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <20160709142417.U7LT2fm6A%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
Message-ID: <20160709163813.GC1076@mercury.ccil.org>

Steffen Nurpmeso scripsit:

> "Die Segel streichen" (Taking in the sails), 

"Striking the sails" in technical English.  All the nations around the
North and Baltic Seas exchanged their vocabularies like diseases, and if
we didn't have records of their earlier histories, we would know they
were related but we'd never figure out exactly how.  For example, it
can be shown that French bateau, German Boot, common Scandinavian båt,
Irish bád, Scottish Gaelic bàta, Scots boat, and the equivalents in
the various Frisian languages are none of them original native words:
they all were borrowed from English boat.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself.
I am large, I contain multitudes.
        --Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass


From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Jul 10 02:47:03 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 02:47:03 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607100243290.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 8 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> In those days many of us, including me, did (and still do) refer to the 
> asterisk as "splat" and the exclamation point as "bang"  from the sound 
> made by them when they printed yellow oiled paper @ 10 cps from the 
> console TTY. 

I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."

From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Jul 10 03:03:38 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 13:03:38 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607100243290.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607100243290.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20160709170337.GE1076@mercury.ccil.org>

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).

Thus forcing the rest of us to quote grep patterns like '^foo$' forever.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
An observable characteristic is not necessarily a functional requirement.
        --John Hudson


From milov at cs.uwlax.edu  Sun Jul 10 03:21:53 2016
From: milov at cs.uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 12:21:53 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160709170337.GE1076@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607100243290.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160709170337.GE1076@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <13C2C21D-C263-4171-8653-5A0D8686D00F@cs.uwlax.edu>


> On Jul 9, 2016, at 12:03 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
> 
> Dave Horsfall scripsit:
> 
>> I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).
> 
> Thus forcing the rest of us to quote grep patterns like '^foo$' forever.

It’s the $ that forces the quoting.



From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sun Jul 10 10:52:41 2016
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2016 20:52:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
Message-ID: <201607100052.u6A0qfaH004899@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> As far as I know, it [|] has always been used as 'or' on computers.

I was on the NPL (eventually PL/I) committee when IBM 'generously'
increased the 360 character set from 48 to 60. George Radin grabbed
| for OR, before IBM announced the character set. Previously
the customary use for | in logic was the "Scheffer stroke", which 
we now know as NAND. So "always" is ever since it became available. 
Was PL/I the first to adopt it?

Doug


From norman at oclsc.org  Sun Jul 10 11:41:08 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sat,  9 Jul 2016 21:41:08 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
Message-ID: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>

Dave Horsfall:

  I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).

====

I still remember--barely--when \136 was up-arrow, not carat!

I don't think pipe was ever only ^, but that ^ was a
synonym for | added to make it easier to use on older
upper-case terminals that had no |.  Those (remaining
few) who were there at the time can perhaps clarify.

I still habitually quote shell arguments containing ^,
even though I haven't used a shell that required that
since late 1984 (Rob had removed the special meaning
from /bin/sh before I arrived at Bell Labs).  On the
other hand, I still cannot be bothered to get used to
quoting arguments containing !; I just disable all
that history and editing bloatware whenever possible.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Jul 10 11:46:05 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 21:46:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Sat, 9 Jul 2016, Norman Wilson wrote:

> Dave Horsfall:
>
>  I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).
>
> ====
>
> I still remember--barely--when \136 was up-arrow, not carat!

Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think Radio 
Shack's did at least.

-uso.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Jul 10 11:51:19 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 21:51:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <201607100052.u6A0qfaH004899@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201607100052.u6A0qfaH004899@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <20160710015119.GA634@mercury.ccil.org>

Doug McIlroy scripsit:

> So "always" is ever since it became available. 

Yes, I meant that the meaning of | was never anything but "or" until it
came to be used as "pipe" (not only in shells but also in Perl and other
places), not that the representation of "or" has never been anything
but |.

> Was PL/I the first to adopt it?

I can't imagine anyone would do so until it was available.  The Algol
60 committee is a special case, with its distinction between publication
language, reference language, and implementation language.  The reference
language used ∨ (hence the proposed \/ convention); the existing
implementations use either "or" as a reserved word or else |.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
I come from under the hill, and under the hills and over the hills my paths
led. And through the air. I am he that walks unseen.  I am the clue-finder,
the web-cutter, the stinging fly. I was chosen for the lucky number.  --Bilbo


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Jul 10 11:52:46 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Jul 2016 21:52:46 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <20160710015245.GB634@mercury.ccil.org>

Steve Nickolas scripsit:

> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think
> Radio Shack's did at least.

PETSCII definitely did (see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETSCII>).

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Here lies the Christian, judge, and poet Peter,
Who broke the laws of God and man and metre.


From bqt at update.uu.se  Sun Jul 10 22:04:38 2016
From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 14:04:38 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.64.1468111965.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.64.1468111965.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <26a26c98-d521-e813-090b-42e199ff93e6@update.uu.se>

On 2016-07-10 02:52, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>  Steffen Nurpmeso scripsit:
>> > "Die Segel streichen" (Taking in the sails),
> "Striking the sails" in technical English.  All the nations around the
> North and Baltic Seas exchanged their vocabularies like diseases, and if
> we didn't have records of their earlier histories, we would know they
> were related but we'd never figure out exactly how.  For example, it
> can be shown that French bateau, German Boot, common Scandinavian båt,
> Irish bád, Scottish Gaelic bàta, Scots boat, and the equivalents in
> the various Frisian languages are none of them original native words:
> they all were borrowed from English boat.

Uh. I'm no language expert, but that seems rather stretched. English 
comes from Old English, which have a lot more in common with 
Scandinavian languages, and they are all Germanic languages. Which means 
they all share a common root.

What makes you say then that all the others borrowed it from English? I 
would guess/suspect that the term is older than English itself, and the 
similarity of the word in the different languages comes from the fact 
that it's old enough to have been around when all these languages were 
closer to the roots and each other. Boats have been around for much 
longer than the English language so I would suspect some term for them 
have been around for a long time too...

If you ask me, you all got most terms from the Vikings anyway, who were 
the first good seafarers... :-)
(I assume you know why Port and Starboard are named that way...)

	Johnny

-- 
Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                   ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt at softjar.se             ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol


From cym224 at gmail.com  Mon Jul 11 00:11:53 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 10:11:53 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzzRzFHeQLnyr16uR0fDqApc+vbFAF91j60QUJLHv-JPjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 9 July 2016 at 09:22, Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> If 19961 is the oldest citation the OED can come up with, "slash"
> really is a coinage of the computer age. Yet the character had
> been in algebra books for centuries. The oral tradition that underlies
> eqn would be the authority for a "solid" name. I suspect, though,
> that regardless of what the algebra books called it, the name
> would be "divided by".

Out of curiosity, I consulted Cajori [1].  All sorts of notations were
used to denote division (including reversed letters) in antiquity
although fractions were commonly denoted by numerator above a
separating line and denominator below.  In 1659, Johann Heinrich Rahn
introduced the symbol ÷ (period above and below a minus sign, Unicode
00F7 -- apologies if the symbol does not display) for division, having
been previously used to indicate subtraction.   In 1684, G.W. Liebniz
introduced ':' for division.  Later authors used both solidus and
reverse-solidus to indicate division.  (Frustratingly, Cajori never
gives a name to the symbol '/'.)

Here is the start of Para. 240 (shades of Algol vs C): "There are
perhaps no symbols which are as completely observant of political
boundaries as are ÷ [Unicode 00F7] and : as symbols for division.  The
former belongs to Great Britain, the British dominions, and the United
States.  The latter belongs to Continental Europe and the
Latin-American countries."  In 1923, the US National Committee on
Mathematical Requirements recommended dropping ÷ (Unicode 00F7) in
favour of the symbol '/' (again nameless).

Bemer, an IBM engineer, argued that the Selectric type ball should be
designed to carry 64 characters required for ASCII, rather than the
typewriter standard 44
(http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/selectric).  The
suggestion was dismissed.  Knuth, in his TeXbook, refers to
"non-mathematical slashes" and entries for virgule and solidus say
"See slash".

[1] A History Of Mathematical Notations Vol I

N.


From chneukirchen at gmail.com  Mon Jul 11 00:38:49 2016
From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 16:38:49 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <13C2C21D-C263-4171-8653-5A0D8686D00F@cs.uwlax.edu> (Milo
 Velimirovic's message of "Sat, 9 Jul 2016 12:21:53 -0500")
References: <CAC20D2NBP_SsjYRspmv8zwmFxg__w2mCrJOG0OBsB+u6M+GUPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607100243290.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160709170337.GE1076@mercury.ccil.org>
 <13C2C21D-C263-4171-8653-5A0D8686D00F@cs.uwlax.edu>
Message-ID: <87lh19imme.fsf@gmail.com>

Milo Velimirovic <milov at cs.uwlax.edu> writes:

>> On Jul 9, 2016, at 12:03 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Dave Horsfall scripsit:
>> 
>>> I still remember when the pipe command was "^" (pointy hat).
>> 
>> Thus forcing the rest of us to quote grep patterns like '^foo$' forever.
>
> It’s the $ that forces the quoting.

Not in POSIX-compatible sh (works in tcsh even):

$ echo see$
see$

(Neither does ^ need quoting there.)

-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen at gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org


From ats at offog.org  Mon Jul 11 04:26:12 2016
From: ats at offog.org (Adam Sampson)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 19:26:12 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <20160708112534.B13184422B@lignose.oclsc.org> (Norman Wilson's
 message of "Fri, 8 Jul 2016 07:25:34 -0400 (EDT)")
References: <20160708112534.B13184422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <y2a37nhmjsr.fsf@cartman.at.offog.org>

norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) writes:

> It's unclear exactly how far back it dates.  The earliest OED citation
> for `slash' as `A thin sloping line, thus /' is dated 1961; but the
> cite is from Webster's 3rd.

A bit of searching finds earlier American examples in the context of
livestock brands. For example, from "Hot Irons: Heraldry of the Range",
1940:

  A crude sign at a dirt turnoff will have been "painted" with a hot
  iron, reading V-/ 8.

  You may or may not know that the V Bar Slash ranch house is eight
  miles down that trail [...]

Or in State v. Craig, New Mexico, 1922:

  The calves were then placed in a corral at the Webber ranch, and
  several days later were branded by appellant with A slash brand and
  then turned into the open pasture.

-- 
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org>                         <http://offog.org/>


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Jul 11 05:22:55 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 15:22:55 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)
In-Reply-To: <26a26c98-d521-e813-090b-42e199ff93e6@update.uu.se>
References: <mailman.64.1468111965.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <26a26c98-d521-e813-090b-42e199ff93e6@update.uu.se>
Message-ID: <20160710192255.GA7815@mercury.ccil.org>

Johnny Billquist scripsit:

> Uh. I'm no language expert, but that seems rather stretched. English
> comes from Old English, which have a lot more in common with
> Scandinavian languages, and they are all Germanic languages. Which
> means they all share a common root.

Absolutely.

> What makes you say then that all the others borrowed it from
> English? 

Because when words change, they change according to common patterns
specific to the language.  For example, a change between Old English (OE)
and Modern English (ModE) is that long-a has become long-o.  Consequently,
the descendants of OE bát, tá, ác are ModE boat, toe, oak.  In Scots,
which is also descended from OE, this change did not operate, and long-a
changed in the Great Vowel Shift along with long-a from other sources,
giving the Older Scots words bait, tae, eik.  However, current Scots
does not use bait, but rather boat, and we can see that because this
breaks the pattern it must be a borrowing from English.

Similarly, there are two Old Norse (ON) words for boat, bát(r) and beit.
The first is the ordinary word, the second is confined to skaldic poetry.
In the modern languages, we have båt (bátur in Icelandic and Faroese),
which is regularly descended from the first word.  But which ON word
is original?  The evidence is clear: beit is native, because words
with á in OE regularly correspond to ei in ON.  For example, OE gát
(ModE goat) corresponds to geit in ON (variously geit, ged, get in the
modern languages), and there are many other words following this pattern.
So native beit was displaced (except in poetry) by the OE word bát,
with the ON -r ending.

Because English is such a prolific borrower, such false relatives
appear within English itself as well.  Nothing looks more obvious than
a connection between the verb choose, which is as native as can be
(cf. archaic German kiesen, Danish kyse, Norwegian kjose), and the
noun choice.  But the "oi" in choice is a dead giveaway: no native word
contains it, and in fact choice is borrowed from French choix, from
the French verb choisir, which is itself borrowed from some Germanic
language, probably Frankish.  Similarly, the d in murderer tells us
that it is borrowed from late Latin or French, which borrowed it from a
Continental Germanic language: the native word, still used by Shakespeare,
was murtherer.

> (I assume you know why Port and Starboard are named that way...)

OE steor 'steering oar, rudder' + bord 'side of a ship'.  Parallel
formations gave us common Scandinavian styrbord from ON stjórnborði,
similarly Dutch stuurbord, German Steuerbord.  Larboard, the other side,
began life as Middle English ladde 'load' + bord, because it was the side
you loaded a ship from, and was altered under the influence of starboard.
Because the two were easily confused, port officially replaced it in the
19C, though it had been used in this meaning since the 16C.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
You annoy me, Rattray!  You disgust me! You irritate me unspeakably!
Thank Heaven, I am a man of equable temper, or I should scarcely be able
to contain myself before your mocking visage.  --Stalky imitating Macrea


From pete at dunnington.plus.com  Mon Jul 11 06:23:05 2016
From: pete at dunnington.plus.com (pete)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 22:23:05 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <630e0bac-c96a-5b2f-ecee-b95c0fb8ebf5@dunnington.plus.com>

On 09/07/2016 15:22, Doug McIlroy wrote:
> If 19961 is the oldest citation the OED can come up with, "slash"
> really is a coinage of the computer age. Yet the character had
> been in algebra books for centuries

1961 is about the time I was learning to type (in Britain), and I was 
taught it as "slash".  My mother - who was an excellent professional 
typist but never had any contact with computers - almost always referred 
to '/' as "slash".  The one exception I can recall is in the usage "... 
and/or ..." where it was sometimes spoken as "... and or or ..." 
(though often the first "or" was simply omitted).

-- 
Pete
Pete Turnbull


From mascheck at in-ulm.de  Mon Jul 11 07:10:50 2016
From: mascheck at in-ulm.de (Sven Mascheck)
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2016 23:10:50 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20160710211050.GA856565@lisa.in-ulm.de>

On Sat, Jul 09, 2016 at 09:41:08PM -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:

> I still habitually quote shell arguments containing ^,
> even though I haven't used a shell that required that
> since late 1984 (Rob had removed the special meaning
> from /bin/sh before I arrived at Bell Labs).

The 8th ed shell, derived from SVR2.  It underwent some
cleanup and got history,
http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/bourne/#version8 
before rc came later.
The 8th ed changes didn't make it into SVR3, I wonder why.


From peter at rulingia.com  Mon Jul 11 16:44:14 2016
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 16:44:14 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <20160709155951.GB1076@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201607091322.u69DMtSu001030@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20160709155951.GB1076@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20160711064414.GC27049@server.rulingia.com>

On 2016-Jul-09 11:59:51 -0400, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>| was commonplace, however, as it has at least 15 mathematical uses:
>see <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_bar#Mathematics>.
>As far as I know, it has always been used as 'or' on computers.

APL uses it for absolute value and modulo.

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From bqt at update.uu.se  Mon Jul 11 19:34:39 2016
From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 11:34:39 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1468202401.31852.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.1.1468202401.31852.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>

On 2016-07-11 04:00, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
 > Johnny Billquist scripsit:
>> > Uh. I'm no language expert, but that seems rather stretched. English
>> > comes from Old English, which have a lot more in common with
>> > Scandinavian languages, and they are all Germanic languages. Which
>> > means they all share a common root.
> Absolutely.
>
>> > What makes you say then that all the others borrowed it from
>> > English?
> Because when words change, they change according to common patterns
> specific to the language.  For example, a change between Old English (OE)
> and Modern English (ModE) is that long-a has become long-o.  Consequently,
> the descendants of OE bát, tá, ác are ModE boat, toe, oak.  In Scots,
> which is also descended from OE, this change did not operate, and long-a
> changed in the Great Vowel Shift along with long-a from other sources,
> giving the Older Scots words bait, tae, eik.  However, current Scots
> does not use bait, but rather boat, and we can see that because this
> breaks the pattern it must be a borrowing from English.

So the obvious question then becomes: Are you saying that Old English 
also borrowed the word from English?
(See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boat)

>> > (I assume you know why Port and Starboard are named that way...)
> OE steor 'steering oar, rudder' + bord 'side of a ship'.  Parallel
> formations gave us common Scandinavian styrbord from ON stjórnborði,
> similarly Dutch stuurbord, German Steuerbord.  Larboard, the other side,
> began life as Middle English ladde 'load' + bord, because it was the side
> you loaded a ship from, and was altered under the influence of starboard.
> Because the two were easily confused, port officially replaced it in the
> 19C, though it had been used in this meaning since the 16C.

Well, in Scandinavian the port side is called "babord", which comes from 
bare board, since that was the "clean" side, which you could dock on. No 
rudder to break... And it's from way before medieval times... But I'm 
pretty sure the term is from even before the Vikings were around.

	Johnny



From steffen at sdaoden.eu  Mon Jul 11 20:38:55 2016
From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:38:55 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)
In-Reply-To: <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>
References: <mailman.1.1468202401.31852.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>
Message-ID: <20160711103855.LRSRPiZyf%steffen@sdaoden.eu>

Johnny Billquist <bqt at update.uu.se> wrote:
 |On 2016-07-11 04:00, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
 |> Johnny Billquist scripsit:
 |>>> Uh. I'm no language expert, but that seems rather stretched. English

Me too, unfortunately.  I never learned old Greek, on German
Gymnasiums you now have to learn Latin instead of Greek, since
maybe after the last war, world war that is.

 |Well, in Scandinavian the port side is called "babord", which comes from 
 |bare board, since that was the "clean" side, which you could dock on. No 

For that the German word is "Backbord" -- and wether that is clean
depends: it seems to originate in "bak", related to "Backe", and
that is indeed "(ars)backe", which i won't translate unless
everybody has appropriate toilet support.

--steffen


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Jul 11 21:07:06 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 07:07:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)
In-Reply-To: <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>
References: <mailman.1.1468202401.31852.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>
Message-ID: <20160711110704.GB7815@mercury.ccil.org>

Johnny Billquist scripsit:

> So the obvious question then becomes: Are you saying that Old
> English also borrowed the word from English?

Now you're being silly.  It's obvious that "boat" is a cuckoo in the
Scots nest, and who could have laid it there but English?  Scots is shot
through with English borrowings, just as the Nordic languages are full
of Low German and English is full of Old Norse and French.

For an example of a Scots word that went the other way, consider OE
rád, which meant 'an event of riding'.  In Beowulf, the sea is called
(among other poetic things) the swanrád, the place of the swan's riding.
According to the sound-change I discussed before, this becomes ModE road,
which is now specialized to mean 'the place where people usually ride
(or used to)'.  In Scots, however, it took the meaning of a 'riding for
military purposes', and as the sound change predicts, its form is raid,
which was borrowed into English in the 19C (by Sir Walter Scott).

> (See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boat)

Etymonline is an excellent resource, but not entirely perfect, and it
happens to be wrong in this case about the related languages (which is
not its focus anyway).  The OED3 has the same story I gave you, with
some doubt about a few details; <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/b%C3%A5d>
agrees also.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and all other acyclic
graphs; you have a right to be here.  --DeXiderata by Sean McGrath


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Jul 11 21:21:23 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 07:21:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Boats (was: Slashes)
In-Reply-To: <20160711103855.LRSRPiZyf%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
References: <mailman.1.1468202401.31852.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>
 <20160711103855.LRSRPiZyf%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
Message-ID: <20160711112123.GC7815@mercury.ccil.org>

Steffen Nurpmeso scripsit:

>  |Well, in Scandinavian the port side is called "babord", which comes from 
>  |bare board, since that was the "clean" side, which you could dock on. 
> 
> For that the German word is "Backbord" -- and wether that is clean
> depends: it seems to originate in "bak", related to "Backe", 

Quite so, from Low German backbort or Dutch bakboord (seafaring terms
in Standard German mostly come from Low German).  The OE form is
bæcbord and the ON form is bakborði.  All of these words have have
everything to do with back and nothing to do with bare.  Whether they
refer to the helmsman's back or the back of the ship itself (that is,
the side away from the water when docked) is not clear.  The French word,
obviously borrowed from Norse (probably by way of Normand) is bâbord.
As I mentioned before, this was replaced by laddebord in Middle English.

By the way, I misspelled stéorbord in my previous post by leaving
off the accent.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Police in many lands are now complaining that local arrestees are insisting
on having their Miranda rights read to them, just like perps in American TV
cop shows.  When it's explained to them that they are in a different country,
where those rights do not exist, they become outraged.  --Neal Stephenson


From dot at dotat.at  Mon Jul 11 21:20:31 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 12:20:31 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111213240.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> >>
> >> solidus 2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6,
> >> in writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
> >> shilling-mark.
>
> This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
> entry is interesting.

Not quite.

"Shilling" comes from Germanic schilling and Gothic skilliggs.

The name solidus for / comes from the Roman coin solidus, as in the Lsd
notation where / separates the solidi from the denarii.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shilling
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=solidus

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
North Utsire: Variable, mainly southwesterly, 3 or 4. Slight or moderate.
Showers, fog patches. Moderate or good, occasionally very poor.


From cym224 at gmail.com  Mon Jul 11 21:54:54 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 07:54:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111213240.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111213240.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzw-G-uF-5Rya6qyibowb040AsCh3S1UJUAv3VEwjP30Sg@mail.gmail.com>

On 11 July 2016 at 07:20, Tony Finch <dot at dotat.at> wrote (in part):
> Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote (in part):
>> On Thursday,  7 July 2016 at 16:18:41 +0200, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
>>
>> This was, of course, also the origin of the word "shilling".  The OED
>> entry is interesting.
>
> Not quite.
>
> "Shilling" comes from Germanic schilling and Gothic skilliggs.
>
> The name solidus for / comes from the Roman coin solidus, as in the Lsd
> notation where / separates the solidi from the denarii.
>
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=shilling
> http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=solidus
>
> Tony.

Here is the full OED entry for solidus and the start of that for
shilling.  (Apologies to those whose displays do not show all the
glyphs used.)

solidus
Pl. solidi (ˈsɒlɪdaɪ); also 5–7 solidos.
[L., a substantival use of solidus (sc. nummus) solid a. The form
solidos is the L. acc. pl.]

1. a.1.a A gold coin of the Roman empire, originally worth about 25
denarii. †b.1.b A shilling.

   1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) II. 313 Gentil men hade rynges, and
oþere hadde solidy þat were hole and sownde.    1432–50 tr. Higden
(Rolls) VII. 301 Kynge William toke this yere of every hyde of grownde
in Ynglone vj. solidos of silver.    1487 in Paston Lett. III. App.
463, I bequeith to the reparacion of the stepull of the said churche
of Saint Albane xx. solidos.    1609 Bible (Douay) 1 Chron. xxix. 7
And they gaue‥of gold, fiue thousand talentes, and ten thousand
solidos.    1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Solidus, an entire or whole
piece of Gold-Coin, near the Value of our old Noble or Spur-Royal; but
it is now taken for a Shilling.    1860 C. R. Smith in Archæol. Cant.
III. 38 The solidi of the Eastern Empire were commonly imitated in
France under the Merovingian princes.    1885 Athenæum 24 Oct. 541/2
Mr. Webster exhibited‥a gold solidus of Constantius.

2. A sloping line used to separate shillings from pence, as 12/6, in
writing fractions, and for other separations of figures and letters; a
shilling-mark. Also attrib. Cf. oblique n. 5.

   1891 in Cent. Dict.    1898 G. Chrystal Introd. Algebra i. (1902) 3
The symbols / (solidus notation) and : (ratio notation) are equivalent
to ÷.    1905 F. H. Collins Author & Printer s.v.    1909 Athenæum 27
Mar. 379/1 The last‥have been quick to adopt the use of the solidus or
slanting line instead of the horizontal bar in writing fractions.
1923 N. Shaw Forecasting Weather i. 35 A solidus (/) such as occurs in
the combination ‘bc/r’ separates weather at the time of observation
from the preceding weather, bc/r thus indicating ‘fine or fair after
rain or drizzle’.    1947 [see non-linear a. b].    1971 Archivum
Linguisticum II. 4 Johnson/Jenkinson's ‘oblique dash’‥, which is
otherwise called a ‘solidus’ or ‘virgule’.


shilling
(ˈʃɪlɪŋ)

Forms: 1 scilling, scylling, (-ingc), 3 ssillinge, 3–6 schillinge, 4
ssyllyng, 4–5 schillyng(e, schelyng(e, shulleng(e, schullyng(e, 4–6
schiling, shill-, shyllyng(e, -inge, silling, 4–7 schilling, 5
schyllynge, shylynge, schilenge, silyn, 5–6 sheling, -yng(e,
shellyng(e, 6 scheling(e, schillengge, shealinge, shyllyn, syllyng, 4–
shilling.

[Common Teut.: OE. scilling masc. = OFris. skilling, skilleng,
schilling, MDu. schellingh (Du. schelling), OS. scilling (MLG.
schillink, schildink, mod.LG. schillink, schilling), OHG. scilling,
skillink, schilling (MHG., G. schilling), ON. skilling-r (Icel. also
skildingr, SW., Da. skilling), Goth. skilliggs:—OTeut. *skilliŋgo-z.
Adopted in OSlav. as skŭlęzĭ, in Sp., Pr., Fr. as escalin (13th c. F.
eskallin, mod.F. also schelling), It. scellino.
   The Teut. word is referred by some etymologists to the root *skell-
to resound, ring (see shill a. and v.1). Others assign it to the root
*skel- to divide (whence skill v., shale n., shell n., etc.); some
have conjectured that the word originally denoted one of the segments
of fixed weight into which an armlet of gold or silver was divided, so
that they might be detached for use as money. In the bilingual
documents of the 6th century, Goth. skilliggs corresponds to the L.
solidus; in mediæval Germany the Teut. and the Latin word were
commonly used to render each other, but in England the correspondence
appears to have been only occasionally recognized until Norman times.
The value of the ‘shilling’ in continental Teut. countries has varied
greatly; its relation to the penny and the pound has also varied,
though a widely accepted scale was 1 pound or libra = 20 shillings or
solidi = 240 pennies or denarii. See schelling, schilling1,
skilling2.]

1. a.1.a A former English money of account, from the Norman Conquest
of the value of 12d. or 1/20 of a pound sterling. Abbreviated s. (= L.
solidus: see solidus1), formerly also sh., shil.; otherwise denoted by
the sign /- after the numeral. No longer in official use after the
introduction of decimal coinage in 1971, but still occas. used to
denote five new pence.
   Before the Norman Conquest the value of the shilling varied in
different times and places. It was 5 pence in Wessex and 4 pence in
Mercia; the shilling of 12 pence mentioned in two passages c 1000 may
refer to the continental solidus.

[...remaining 100 lines omitted...]


From wkt at tuhs.org  Mon Jul 11 22:00:47 2016
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 22:00:47 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] And now ...
Message-ID: <20160711120047.GA7921@minnie.tuhs.org>

after the brief but illuminating detour on character sets and the
evolution of human languages, we now return you to the Unix Heritage
mailing list :-)

[ Please! ]

Cheers, Warren


From cym224 at gmail.com  Mon Jul 11 22:07:17 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 08:07:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] And now ...
In-Reply-To: <20160711120047.GA7921@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160711120047.GA7921@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzw0z6rcQXHvgu8Dne29hYyxYSA0LBD_pMOCsTbMTzL+SA@mail.gmail.com>

On 11 July 2016 at 08:00, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> after the brief but illuminating detour on character sets and the
> evolution of human languages, we now return you to the Unix Heritage
> mailing list :-)
>
> [ Please! ]
>
> Cheers, Warren

ACK but I cannot resist one last item:  UNIX in the OED.

Additions 1993

Unix, n. Computing.
(ˈjuːnɪks)
Also UNIX.

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

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

   1973 Bell Lab. Rec. LI. 200 Some of the concepts, especially for
file-handling, appeared in a time-shared operating system called UNIX,
which was designed and implemented at Bell Labs.    1978 Bell Syst.
Techn. Jrnl. LVII. 1991 C‥is sufficiently expressive and efficient to
have completely displaced assembly language programming on UNIX.
1983 Austral. Personal Computer Aug. 66/2 Xenix, the Microsoft
implementation of Unix disk operating systems for microcomputers.
1985 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 29 Oct. tm63/1 UNIX‥.For
computer programs‥. First use 12-14-1972.    1986 Trade Marks Jrnl. 5
Mar. 522/2 Unix‥Computer programmes, computing apparatus; [etc.]
1989 N.Y. Times 25 Oct. d1/4 A wider industry agreement on a single
Unix standard would also increase the possibility that Unix will be
widely adopted in the business computer market.


From dot at dotat.at  Mon Jul 11 22:09:44 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 13:09:44 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <20160710015119.GA634@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201607100052.u6A0qfaH004899@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20160710015119.GA634@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111303430.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>
> The Algol 60 committee is a special case, with its distinction between
> publication language, reference language, and implementation language.
> The reference language used ∨ (hence the proposed \/ convention); the
> existing implementations use either "or" as a reserved word or else |.

I am failing to remember where I have seen /\ and \/ used in the wild.

CPL's typeset descriptions have big mathematical conjunction and
disjunction operators. But I don't think I heard of composing them
out of slashes from the CPL literature.
http://comjnl.oxfordjournals.org/content/6/2/134.full.pdf+html

1960s BCPL manuals have a similar typographic convention to ALGOL 60.

The ALGOL 68 revised report defines all three of ∨| or for the
disjunction operator.

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Fair Isle: Cyclonic, becoming westerly, except in far north, 5 or 6. Moderate
or rough. Rain or showers, fog patches. Moderate or good, occasionally very
poor.

From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Jul 11 22:34:30 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 08:34:30 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111303430.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
References: <201607100052.u6A0qfaH004899@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20160710015119.GA634@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111303430.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <20160711123430.GD7815@mercury.ccil.org>

Tony Finch scripsit:

> I am failing to remember where I have seen /\ and \/ used in the wild.

I don't think anyone ever has used them; they were just a suggestion by
Bemer which induced him to lobby for \ in ASCII-63.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
The present impossibility of giving a scientific explanation is no proof
that there is no scientific explanation. The unexplained is not to be
identified with the unexplainable, and the strange and extraordinary
nature of a fact is not a justification for attributing it to powers
above nature.  --The Catholic Encyclopedia, s.v. "telepathy" (1913)


From schily at schily.net  Mon Jul 11 23:15:32 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 15:15:32 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111213240.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
References: <1467418363.24560.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607012112200.18366@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <20160707050242.GD78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <CAJfiPzxSvYj=H5Gz+D6mgVU-K19JKX5yetpA0h9enEGTnCGmOw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160707141841.mCXI4Ciil%steffen@sdaoden.eu>
 <20160707234722.GF78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111213240.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <57839bf4.MgtWCTJrKQZsnEMD%schily@schily.net>

Tony Finch <dot at dotat.at> wrote:

> "Shilling" comes from Germanic schilling and Gothic skilliggs.

The name Schilling comes from the knight Heinrich III. Schilling von Lahnstein (1166 - 
1221).


He had a shining armour...

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From bqt at update.uu.se  Tue Jul 12 01:13:01 2016
From: bqt at update.uu.se (Johnny Billquist)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 17:13:01 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Boats
In-Reply-To: <20160711110704.GB7815@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <mailman.1.1468202401.31852.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7f5fc443-492d-58cf-1bdb-38516ee29ba1@update.uu.se>
 <20160711110704.GB7815@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <2ef48f8a-2468-039d-6dee-fe2d37e7c021@update.uu.se>

On 2016-07-11 13:07, John Cowan wrote:
> Johnny Billquist scripsit:
>
>> So the obvious question then becomes: Are you saying that Old
>> English also borrowed the word from English?
>
> Now you're being silly.  It's obvious that "boat" is a cuckoo in the
> Scots nest, and who could have laid it there but English?  Scots is shot
> through with English borrowings, just as the Nordic languages are full
> of Low German and English is full of Old Norse and French.

Of course I was being silly. :-)
But I was having a hard time remaining serious under the circumstances.

> For an example of a Scots word that went the other way, consider OE
> rád, which meant 'an event of riding'.  In Beowulf, the sea is called
> (among other poetic things) the swanrád, the place of the swan's riding.
> According to the sound-change I discussed before, this becomes ModE road,
> which is now specialized to mean 'the place where people usually ride
> (or used to)'.  In Scots, however, it took the meaning of a 'riding for
> military purposes', and as the sound change predicts, its form is raid,
> which was borrowed into English in the 19C (by Sir Walter Scott).
>
>> (See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=boat)
>
> Etymonline is an excellent resource, but not entirely perfect, and it
> happens to be wrong in this case about the related languages (which is
> not its focus anyway).  The OED3 has the same story I gave you, with
> some doubt about a few details; <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/b%C3%A5d>
> agrees also.

So you're staying that the Old English "bat" according to Etymonline is 
incorrect? So are you then saying that the Old English word was "boat"?
Because what you said was that "boat" was the original word, and all 
other derivations are in fact borrowed from English.

The Old English word should be easy to verify...

	Johnny



From cubexyz at gmail.com  Tue Jul 12 08:52:33 2016
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 18:52:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
Message-ID: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>

Ok, I hope this question isn't too off-topic...

I was looking through the X10R3 source tree trying to find the
earliest paint program for X. I wasn't able to see anything that
looked like a paint program.

Xpaint might be the oldest, wikipedia says the first version appeared in 1989.

Searching for xpaint on tuhs returned no matches, but I saw that
4.3BSD-Tahoe had some old X programs but nothing listed there seemed
to be a paint program.

Maybe xgedit? It's listed as a "simple graphic editor for the X window
system", but I don't know if it really qualifies as a paint program.

Mark


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Jul 12 09:04:18 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 19:04:18 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>

There might have been a simpler icon editor.   My memory of the early X stuff is pretty hazy.

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 6:52 PM, Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ok, I hope this question isn't too off-topic...
> 
> I was looking through the X10R3 source tree trying to find the
> earliest paint program for X. I wasn't able to see anything that
> looked like a paint program.
> 
> Xpaint might be the oldest, wikipedia says the first version appeared in 1989.
> 
> Searching for xpaint on tuhs returned no matches, but I saw that
> 4.3BSD-Tahoe had some old X programs but nothing listed there seemed
> to be a paint program.
> 
> Maybe xgedit? It's listed as a "simple graphic editor for the X window
> system", but I don't know if it really qualifies as a paint program.
> 
> Mark



From schily at schily.net  Tue Jul 12 09:05:27 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 01:05:27 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <57842637.1PLgeVHTn7o+HAl7%schily@schily.net>

Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Ok, I hope this question isn't too off-topic...
>
> I was looking through the X10R3 source tree trying to find the
> earliest paint program for X. I wasn't able to see anything that
> looked like a paint program.
>
> Xpaint might be the oldest, wikipedia says the first version appeared in 1989.

Island paint exists since aprox. 1986, I am not sure if/when it has been ported 
from SunView to X.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Jul 12 09:05:58 2016
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 16:05:58 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <20160711230558.GA11903@mcvoy.com>

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 07:04:18PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> There might have been a simpler icon editor.   My memory of the early X stuff is pretty hazy.

My memory of early X stuff is porting it to everything.  Masscomps, Suns,
IBM RTs.  Port, port, port.  


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Jul 12 09:08:10 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 19:08:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <20160711230558.GA11903@mcvoy.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160711230558.GA11903@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <59E70961-4BE6-480F-BCC8-9C0DCE8E416A@ronnatalie.com>

I was a server guy.   I did one of the first cfb drivers for a 24 bit (RasterOps) framebuffer.   Did some extension work for HP, wrote two servers for IBM (on the i860 no less) and one for Dome Imaging.

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 7:05 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 07:04:18PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>> There might have been a simpler icon editor.   My memory of the early X stuff is pretty hazy.
> 
> My memory of early X stuff is porting it to everything.  Masscomps, Suns,
> IBM RTs.  Port, port, port.  



From random832 at fastmail.com  Tue Jul 12 09:36:27 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 19:36:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <1468280187.3163923.663400993.1AD400EB@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016, at 19:04, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> There might have been a simpler icon editor.   My memory of the early X
> stuff is pretty hazy.

"bitmap" has a copyright (MIT) date of 1985. It does appear to be geared
to icon editing, the manpage says it has trouble with sizes greater than
99x99.


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Jul 12 09:56:33 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 19:56:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <1468280187.3163923.663400993.1AD400EB@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
 <1468280187.3163923.663400993.1AD400EB@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <AB9306B8-02DC-4997-894C-FBB0F61DD0E3@ronnatalie.com>

Yes, that sounds like the thing I’m remembering.

> On Jul 11, 2016, at 7:36 PM, Random832 <random832 at fastmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016, at 19:04, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>> There might have been a simpler icon editor.   My memory of the early X
>> stuff is pretty hazy.
> 
> "bitmap" has a copyright (MIT) date of 1985. It does appear to be geared
> to icon editing, the manpage says it has trouble with sizes greater than
> 99x99.



From stewart at serissa.com  Tue Jul 12 11:17:38 2016
From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart)
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2016 21:17:38 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] earliest paint program for X
In-Reply-To: <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
References: <CADxT5N7AzHvzfmFc5xjgQAxovVjP-P1Numn=qPsa7cvVwaa1hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <8799ADBE-5EEC-4226-AB19-EED7C8AF8473@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <8A92DEE7-DCF9-4FF3-B53F-E2572A318B90@serissa.com>

Not for X, but there was a bitmap editor called Markup on the Xerox Alto by 1976.

See http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/blampson/15a-AltoHandbook/15a-AltoHandbook.pdf for the user’s guide.

-Larry



From tfb at tfeb.org  Wed Jul 13 03:53:02 2016
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 18:53:02 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
Message-ID: <5E25E523-D712-4C31-884C-6CCE3CC9EE9C@tfeb.org>

On 10 Jul 2016, at 02:46, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:

> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think Radio Shack's did at least.

I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that the Xerox Lisp machines had caret as up arrow, and they certainly had left arrow for underscore.  They persisted into the late 80s when I used them.  I'm not sure what appeared on the keyboards, which may have been more modern than the character set used by the system, since the same hardware was sold with different software on it.

From ron at ronnatalie.com  Wed Jul 13 04:05:56 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Tue, 12 Jul 2016 14:05:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <5E25E523-D712-4C31-884C-6CCE3CC9EE9C@tfeb.org>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <5E25E523-D712-4C31-884C-6CCE3CC9EE9C@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <3A3AEFA5-8B6B-472D-85F1-1636646418D9@ronnatalie.com>

We had teletypes that went both ways.    Some had the arrows and some had the caret/underscore.

> On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:53 PM, Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
> 
> On 10 Jul 2016, at 02:46, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
> 
>> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think Radio Shack's did at least.
> 
> I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that the Xerox Lisp machines had caret as up arrow, and they certainly had left arrow for underscore.  They persisted into the late 80s when I used them.  I'm not sure what appeared on the keyboards, which may have been more modern than the character set used by the system, since the same hardware was sold with different software on it.



From wes.parish at paradise.net.nz  Wed Jul 13 19:24:54 2016
From: wes.parish at paradise.net.nz (Wesley Parish)
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 21:24:54 +1200 (NZST)
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <3A3AEFA5-8B6B-472D-85F1-1636646418D9@ronnatalie.com>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <5E25E523-D712-4C31-884C-6CCE3CC9EE9C@tfeb.org>
 <3A3AEFA5-8B6B-472D-85F1-1636646418D9@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <1468401894.578608e6809bb@www.paradise.net.nz>

IIRC, Steven Kaisler's book "The Design of Operating Systems for Small Computer
Systems" used the up-arrow as the pseudocode's pointer symbol. Did Pascal do
that as well, or was that only on some of the Pascal dialects?

Wesley Parish

Quoting Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com>:

> We had teletypes that went both ways. Some had the arrows and some had
> the caret/underscore.
> 
> > On Jul 12, 2016, at 1:53 PM, Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
> > 
> > On 10 Jul 2016, at 02:46, Steve Nickolas <usotsuki at buric.co> wrote:
> > 
> >> Some 8-bit computers used up arrow for ^ even into the 80s, I think
> Radio Shack's did at least.
> > 
> > I'm fairly (but not completely) sure that the Xerox Lisp machines had
> caret as up arrow, and they certainly had left arrow for underscore.
> They persisted into the late 80s when I used them. I'm not sure what
> appeared on the keyboards, which may have been more modern than the
> character set used by the system, since the same hardware was sold with
> different software on it.
> 
>  



"I have supposed that he who buys a Method means to learn it." - Ferdinand Sor,
Method for Guitar

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on." -- Samuel Goldwyn


From schily at schily.net  Wed Jul 13 20:09:25 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Wed, 13 Jul 2016 12:09:25 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes (was: MS-DOS)
In-Reply-To: <1468401894.578608e6809bb@www.paradise.net.nz>
References: <20160710014108.926234422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607092144540.71155@frieza.hoshinet.org>
 <5E25E523-D712-4C31-884C-6CCE3CC9EE9C@tfeb.org>
 <3A3AEFA5-8B6B-472D-85F1-1636646418D9@ronnatalie.com>
 <1468401894.578608e6809bb@www.paradise.net.nz>
Message-ID: <57861355.zayySoCsKkvmVBHt%schily@schily.net>

Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz> wrote:

> IIRC, Steven Kaisler's book "The Design of Operating Systems for Small Computer
> Systems" used the up-arrow as the pseudocode's pointer symbol. Did Pascal do
> that as well, or was that only on some of the Pascal dialects?

The original Pascal did it, but the up-arrow was not available oon EBCDIC, so we 
used @ on the Pascal that did come with CMS for the /360.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From dds at aueb.gr  Thu Jul 14 23:18:43 2016
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:18:43 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
Message-ID: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>

I remember hearing that originally the Unix shell had control structures 
(e.g. if, while, case) implemented through external commands.  However, 
I can't see this reflected in the source code.  The 7th Edition Bourne 
shell has these commands built-in (usr/src/cmd/sh/cmd.c), while the 6th 
Edition (usr/source/s2/sh.c) seems to lack them completely.

The only external command I found was glob, which performed wildcard 
expansion.

Am I missing something?  Was this implemented in a version that was 
never released?  If so, does anyone know how this implementation worked? 
  (Nested commands might require holding some sort of globally 
accessible stack.)


From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul 14 23:23:04 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 09:23:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>

Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by
external commands in some early shell's

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:

> I remember hearing that originally the Unix shell had control structures
> (e.g. if, while, case) implemented through external commands.  However, I
> can't see this reflected in the source code.  The 7th Edition Bourne shell
> has these commands built-in (usr/src/cmd/sh/cmd.c), while the 6th Edition
> (usr/source/s2/sh.c) seems to lack them completely.
>
> The only external command I found was glob, which performed wildcard
> expansion.
>
> Am I missing something?  Was this implemented in a version that was never
> released?  If so, does anyone know how this implementation worked?  (Nested
> commands might require holding some sort of globally accessible stack.)
>
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From mah at mhorton.net  Fri Jul 15 00:12:57 2016
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 07:12:57 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <57879DE9.2070903@mhorton.net>

I thought the V6 Mashey shell didn't have anything built in, but there 
were external commands such as goto that would seek the open file 
descriptor to a location matching a label, which would be a comment 
(beginning with a colon, which was a no-op command.)  There would also 
have been an "if" command or option to goto or something.

On 07/14/2016 06:23 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by 
> external commands in some early shell's
>
> On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 9:18 AM, Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr 
> <mailto:dds at aueb.gr>> wrote:
>
>     I remember hearing that originally the Unix shell had control
>     structures (e.g. if, while, case) implemented through external
>     commands.  However, I can't see this reflected in the source
>     code.  The 7th Edition Bourne shell has these commands built-in
>     (usr/src/cmd/sh/cmd.c), while the 6th Edition (usr/source/s2/sh.c)
>     seems to lack them completely.
>
>     The only external command I found was glob, which performed
>     wildcard expansion.
>
>     Am I missing something?  Was this implemented in a version that
>     was never released?  If so, does anyone know how this
>     implementation worked?  (Nested commands might require holding
>     some sort of globally accessible stack.)
>
>

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From dds at aueb.gr  Fri Jul 15 00:38:38 2016
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 17:38:38 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <20160714141112.M89671@kw.igs.net>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <20160714141112.M89671@kw.igs.net>
Message-ID: <d3d6e904-11f8-cb84-44a8-f3dcb0f623b9@aueb.gr>

On 14/07/2016 17:11, schoedel at kw.igs.net wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:18:43 +0300, Diomidis Spinellis wrote
>> I remember hearing that originally the Unix shell had control structures
>> (e.g. if, while, case) implemented through external commands.  However,
>>  I can't see this reflected in the source code.  The 7th Edition
>> Bourne shell has these commands built-in (usr/src/cmd/sh/cmd.c), while
>> the 6th Edition (usr/source/s2/sh.c) seems to lack them completely.
>
> http://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/source/s1/if.c
> http://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/source/s1/goto.c

Thank you!  So:
- if(1) gets as arguments an expression to evaluate and the command to 
execute if the expression is true, and
- goto(1) changes the seek offset of the shared standard input file 
descriptor to match the label's position in the file.
This is a much simpler implementation that what I thought would be the 
case, but, true to the spirit of Unix, remarkably effective.


From schoedel at kw.igs.net  Fri Jul 15 00:11:35 2016
From: schoedel at kw.igs.net (schoedel at kw.igs.net)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 10:11:35 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <20160714141112.M89671@kw.igs.net>

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:18:43 +0300, Diomidis Spinellis wrote
> I remember hearing that originally the Unix shell had control structures
> (e.g. if, while, case) implemented through external commands.  However,
>  I can't see this reflected in the source code.  The 7th Edition 
> Bourne shell has these commands built-in (usr/src/cmd/sh/cmd.c), while 
> the 6th Edition (usr/source/s2/sh.c) seems to lack them completely.

http://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/source/s1/if.c
http://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/source/s1/goto.c

-- 
Kevin Schoedel <schoedel at kw.igs.net> VA3TCS



From chneukirchen at gmail.com  Fri Jul 15 00:48:04 2016
From: chneukirchen at gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:48:04 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Slashes
In-Reply-To: <20160711123430.GD7815@mercury.ccil.org> (John Cowan's message of
 "Mon, 11 Jul 2016 08:34:30 -0400")
References: <201607100052.u6A0qfaH004899@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <20160710015119.GA634@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607111303430.17030@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
 <20160711123430.GD7815@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <87d1mgi8d7.fsf@gmail.com>

John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> writes:

> Tony Finch scripsit:
>
>> I am failing to remember where I have seen /\ and \/ used in the wild.
>
> I don't think anyone ever has used them; they were just a suggestion by
> Bemer which induced him to lobby for \ in ASCII-63.

It's used now in logic languages like Prolog and proof assistants like
Coq or TLA+.

-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen at gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Fri Jul 15 01:46:54 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 11:46:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <20160714154654.GC14912@mercury.ccil.org>

Diomidis Spinellis scripsit:

> The 7th Edition Bourne shell has these commands built-in
> (usr/src/cmd/sh/cmd.c), while the 6th Edition (usr/source/s2/sh.c)
> seems to lack them completely.

Between the 6e shell and the Bourne shell there was the Mashey, or PWB,
shell, which was the first to have them built in.  So if they existed,
they were probably separate commands on 6e-ish systems that didn't reach
the outside world.  It's important to remember that the whole terminology
of editions and releases didn't apply within Bell Labs itself.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
"The serene chaos that is Courage, and the phenomenon of Unopened
Consciousness have been known to the Great World eons longer than Extaboulism."
"Why is that?" the woman inquired.
"Because I just made that word up", the Master said wisely.
        --Kehlog Albran, The Profit


From random832 at fastmail.com  Fri Jul 15 02:30:38 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 12:30:38 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <20160714154654.GC14912@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <20160714154654.GC14912@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <1468513838.2418680.666379473.68194039@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016, at 11:46, John Cowan wrote:
> Between the 6e shell and the Bourne shell there was the Mashey, or PWB,
> shell, which was the first to have them built in.  So if they existed,
> they were probably separate commands on 6e-ish systems that didn't reach
> the outside world.  It's important to remember that the whole terminology
> of editions and releases didn't apply within Bell Labs itself.

They're present in 6e, they're just not in the shell source code because
they don't require any special support from the shell.


From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul 15 08:32:27 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 08:32:27 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150831440.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:

[...]

> The only external command I found was glob, which performed wildcard
> expansion.

Well, "test" (and "[") are still external commands...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul 15 08:36:56 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 08:36:56 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by
> external commands in some early shell's

And on the Mac and FreeBSD, they still are (as well as being builtins).

At one time they were shell scripts e.g. "exit 0" for "true".

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From peter at rulingia.com  Fri Jul 15 08:49:39 2016
From: peter at rulingia.com (Peter Jeremy)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 08:49:39 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>

On 2016-Jul-15 08:36:56 +1000, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:
>> Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by
>> external commands in some early shell's

I was always amused by AT&T adding a multi-kB copyright notice to what
had previously been an empty file.

>And on the Mac and FreeBSD, they still are (as well as being builtins).

FreeBSD provides a convenient list of what commands are (currently) builtin
to the provided shells and available externally:
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?builtin

-- 
Peter Jeremy
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From corey at lod.com  Fri Jul 15 08:47:23 2016
From: corey at lod.com (Corey Lindsly)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 15:47:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20160714224724.1ADC140B9@lod.com>

> 
> At one time they were shell scripts e.g. "exit 0" for "true".
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
> 

Indeed. Here's what they look like in Solaris 8 .. /usr/bin/true is just 
comments.

lod# cat /usr/bin/true
#!/usr/bin/sh
#       Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
#         All Rights Reserved

#       THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
#       The copyright notice above does not evidence any
#       actual or intended publication of such source code.

#ident  "@(#)true.sh    1.6     93/01/11 SMI"   /* SVr4.0 1.4   */


lod# cat /usr/bin/false
#!/usr/bin/sh
#       Copyright (c) 1984, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 AT&T
#         All Rights Reserved

#       THIS IS UNPUBLISHED PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODE OF AT&T
#       The copyright notice above does not evidence any
#       actual or intended publication of such source code.

#ident  "@(#)false.sh   1.6     93/01/11 SMI"   /* SVr4.0 1.3   */
exit 255


lod# uname -a
SunOS lod 5.8 Generic_108528-05 sun4u sparc SUNW,UltraAX-i2
lod# 


--corey



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Fri Jul 15 09:10:57 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 19:10:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <0A01A2D5-ADB2-43C4-807A-04B3D12F2B70@ronnatalie.com>


> On Jul 14, 2016, at 6:36 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:
> 
>> Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by
>> external commands in some early shell's
> 
> And on the Mac and FreeBSD, they still are (as well as being builtins).
> 
> At one time they were shell scripts e.g. "exit 0" for "true".

Actually, one of the UNIX releases had NO EXECUTABLE CODE in /bin/true.   The default is to return the true.
There was 20 lines of copyright/rights notice in commends.

From rochkind at basepath.com  Fri Jul 15 09:27:21 2016
From: rochkind at basepath.com (Marc Rochkind)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 17:27:21 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
Message-ID: <CAOkr1zUXY2EvHG01UEx+y6MEz_OtrH1=dmJAFzv0D5EgB3qCMA@mail.gmail.com>

Thought I'd mention here that the OP was asking about the original shell,
and that the Mashey and Bourne shells were much newer than that.

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016 at 4:49 PM, Peter Jeremy <peter at rulingia.com> wrote:

> On 2016-Jul-15 08:36:56 +1000, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> >On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:
> >> Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by
> >> external commands in some early shell's
>
> I was always amused by AT&T adding a multi-kB copyright notice to what
> had previously been an empty file.
>
> >And on the Mac and FreeBSD, they still are (as well as being builtins).
>
> FreeBSD provides a convenient list of what commands are (currently) builtin
> to the provided shells and available externally:
> https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?builtin
>
> --
> Peter Jeremy
>
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From ag4ve.us at gmail.com  Fri Jul 15 09:56:58 2016
From: ag4ve.us at gmail.com (shawn wilson)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 19:56:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>

On Jul 14, 2016 7:01 PM, "Peter Jeremy" <peter at rulingia.com> wrote:
>
> On 2016-Jul-15 08:36:56 +1000, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> >On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:

> >And on the Mac and FreeBSD, they still are (as well as being builtins).
>
> FreeBSD provides a convenient list of what commands are (currently)
builtin
> to the provided shells and available externally:
> https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?builtin
>

Bash man page does as well along with command -v (and hash IIRC) letting
you know.

I've always been curious though - what was the reason behind implementing
/bin/[ ? IDK any shell where this isn't implemented - I always assumed it's
a POSIX compatibility stopgap older systems needed to stay compliant with
their shipped shell.
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From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul 15 11:04:45 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:04:45 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151050240.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, shawn wilson wrote:

> I've always been curious though - what was the reason behind 
> implementing /bin/[ ? IDK any shell where this isn't implemented - I 
> always assumed it's a POSIX compatibility stopgap older systems needed 
> to stay compliant with their shipped shell.

To implement:

    [ blah ]

when it wasn't a built-in (there were few built-ins in those days).

I have no idea why it's still there...  A Posix requirement, along with 
really unsafe functions?

By the way, on both Mac and FreeBSD (I can't be bothered checking my
Penguin box) "true" and "false" are binaries (and aren't even linked).

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From usotsuki at buric.co  Fri Jul 15 11:22:15 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 21:22:15 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151050240.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151050240.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607142121420.90753@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016, Dave Horsfall wrote:

> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, shawn wilson wrote:
>
>> I've always been curious though - what was the reason behind
>> implementing /bin/[ ? IDK any shell where this isn't implemented - I
>> always assumed it's a POSIX compatibility stopgap older systems needed
>> to stay compliant with their shipped shell.
>
> To implement:
>
>    [ blah ]
>
> when it wasn't a built-in (there were few built-ins in those days).
>
> I have no idea why it's still there...  A Posix requirement, along with
> really unsafe functions?
>
> By the way, on both Mac and FreeBSD (I can't be bothered checking my
> Penguin box) "true" and "false" are binaries (and aren't even linked).
>
>

$ file $(which true) $(which false)
/bin/true:  ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), 
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.26, 
BuildID[sha1]=0x347aaa1fa815d6689723e6f8aa0f7207566b6aba, stripped
/bin/false: ELF 32-bit LSB executable, Intel 80386, version 1 (SYSV), 
dynamically linked (uses shared libs), for GNU/Linux 2.6.26, 
BuildID[sha1]=0x821c6a0a4331413fb4b562b623c6bd5ca0a707f6, stripped

-uso.


From cym224 at gmail.com  Fri Jul 15 11:41:05 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 21:41:05 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <0A01A2D5-ADB2-43C4-807A-04B3D12F2B70@ronnatalie.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <0A01A2D5-ADB2-43C4-807A-04B3D12F2B70@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzybH06js78PLbaTUhChUm8QW3zfyfQogmZ6zfxR8OEVDw@mail.gmail.com>

On 14 July 2016 at 19:10, Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com> wrote:
[...]
> Actually, one of the UNIX releases had NO EXECUTABLE CODE in /bin/true.   The default is to return the true.
> There was 20 lines of copyright/rights notice in commends.

https://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/so/2015/02/mso2015020010.pdf


From random832 at fastmail.com  Fri Jul 15 12:25:31 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 22:25:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1468549531.1418457.666827937.6487308D@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016, at 19:56, shawn wilson wrote:
> I've always been curious though - what was the reason behind
> implementing /bin/[ ? IDK any shell where this isn't implemented - I
> always assumed it's a POSIX compatibility stopgap older systems needed
> to stay compliant with their shipped shell.

It's required because it might be executed by non-shell programs.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap01.html#tag_17_06

My Mac even has /usr/bin/cd.

The "special builtins" which aren't required to exist as binaries are:  
  break : continue .  eval exec exit export readonly return set shift
times trap unset


From arnold at skeeve.com  Fri Jul 15 12:25:27 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2016 20:25:27 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151050240.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151050240.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <201607150225.u6F2PRVd026389@freefriends.org>

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, shawn wilson wrote:
>
> > I've always been curious though - what was the reason behind 
> > implementing /bin/[ ? IDK any shell where this isn't implemented - I 
> > always assumed it's a POSIX compatibility stopgap older systems needed 
> > to stay compliant with their shipped shell.
>
> To implement:
>
>     [ blah ]
>
> when it wasn't a built-in (there were few built-ins in those days).
>
> I have no idea why it's still there...  A Posix requirement, along with 
> really unsafe functions?

Consider

	execlp("[", "-f", "/some/file", "]", NULL);

Then [ and test need to live in the filesystem.

Arnold


From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Jul 15 13:59:46 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:59:46 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <1468549531.1418457.666827937.6487308D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468549531.1418457.666827937.6487308D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151354040.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Random832 wrote:

> My Mac even has /usr/bin/cd.

After which, of course, the shell returns to where it was...  Or does
it do a getcwd() after each command or something?

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From random832 at fastmail.com  Fri Jul 15 14:09:13 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 00:09:13 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151354040.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468549531.1418457.666827937.6487308D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151354040.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <1468555753.1445420.666884353.7756931D@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jul 14, 2016, at 23:59, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Random832 wrote:
> 
> > My Mac even has /usr/bin/cd.
> 
> After which, of course, the shell returns to where it was...  Or does
> it do a getcwd() after each command or something?

The existence of cd as a real command is a bit silly (Ubuntu doesn't
seem to bother with it), but it is technically required by the standard.


From rudi.j.blom at gmail.com  Fri Jul 15 14:29:40 2016
From: rudi.j.blom at gmail.com (Rudi Blom)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:29:40 +0700
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
Message-ID: <CAMYpm87dLfSh=GzYMJQZFS8b8jqiQ6YJRFMLFdQFZWvO5rKY8A@mail.gmail.com>

Just for the fun of it results on a few UNIX versions

Intel - SCO UNIX 3.2V4.2
/bin/true:		empty file
/bin/false:		contains "exit 255"

> file $(which true) $(which false)

Alpha - Digital Unix 4.0G
/usr/bin/true:	COFF format alpha dynamically linked, demand paged
executable or object module stripped - version 3.11-10
/usr/bin/false:	COFF format alpha dynamically linked, demand paged
executable or object module stripped - version 3.11-10

Alpha - Tru64 V5.1B
/usr/bin/true:	COFF format alpha dynamically linked, demand paged
executable or object module stripped - version 3.13-14
/usr/bin/false:	COFF format alpha dynamically linked, demand paged
executable or object module stripped - version 3.13-14

Itanium - HP-UX 11i B.11.23 & HP-UX 11i B.11.31
/sbin/true:		ELF-32 executable object file - IA64
/sbin/false:	ELF-32 executable object file - IA64


From dot at dotat.at  Fri Jul 15 19:00:54 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 10:00:54 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607150952520.25696@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Clem Cole wrote:
>
> > Could you be confusing the fact the true and false were implemented by
> > external commands in some early shell's
>
> And on the Mac and FreeBSD, they still are (as well as being builtins).
> At one time they were shell scripts e.g. "exit 0" for "true".

This isn't a BSDism: POSIX requires that most built-in commands also exist
as executables on the PATH. The exceptions are the "special built-in
commands" which manipulate the shell command language state, e.g. break
and set.

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_14

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Humber, Thames, Dover: West or southwest 4 or 5, increasing 6 at times. Slight
or moderate. Mainly fair. Good.


From schily at schily.net  Fri Jul 15 20:13:26 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:13:26 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <CAOkr1zUXY2EvHG01UEx+y6MEz_OtrH1=dmJAFzv0D5EgB3qCMA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAOkr1zUXY2EvHG01UEx+y6MEz_OtrH1=dmJAFzv0D5EgB3qCMA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5788b746.+OOj4M6/GG0BI1CY%schily@schily.net>

Marc Rochkind <rochkind at basepath.com> wrote:

> Thought I'd mention here that the OP was asking about the original shell,
> and that the Mashey and Bourne shells were much newer than that.

BTW: last Year there was a talk from Stephen Bourne af BSDcon where he 
explained how the Bourne Shell started. It seems that Mashey, Bourne and csh 
all started with the Thompson Shell code.

...and from a todays view, the time between 1970 anf 1976 is a short time 
compared to the fact that the Bourne Shell now exists since 40 years.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From norman at oclsc.org  Fri Jul 15 22:27:18 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 08:27:18 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
Message-ID: <1468585644.26769.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Random832:

  The existence of cd as a real command is a bit silly (Ubuntu doesn't
  seem to bother with it), but it is technically required by the standard.

===

Just for the record, Fedora 21 supplies /bin/cd, as part
of package bash-4.3.42-1.  Interestingly, it is a shell
script:

lu$ cat /bin/cd
#!/bin/sh
builtin cd "$@"
lu$ 

As has been said here, it's hard to see the functional point.

Others have remarked on the continued life of /bin/true and
/bin/false.  There are some who use those as shells in /etc/passwd
for logins that should never actually be allowed to do anything
directly.  I have no strong personal feeling about that, I'm just
reporting.

And to be fair (as has also already been displayed here), the
copyright notice inserted in the once-empty /bin/true was hundreds
of bytes long, not thousands.  Let us call out silliness, but let
us not make it out as any sillier than it actually is.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
UNIX old fart and amateur pedant


From chet.ramey at case.edu  Fri Jul 15 23:55:16 2016
From: chet.ramey at case.edu (Chet Ramey)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 09:55:16 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151354040.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1468549531.1418457.666827937.6487308D@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151354040.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <5ba2b3df-0975-7215-b39d-fa8539d88f29@case.edu>

On 7/14/16 11:59 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, Random832 wrote:
> 
>> My Mac even has /usr/bin/cd.
> 
> After which, of course, the shell returns to where it was...  Or does
> it do a getcwd() after each command or something?

Consider something like `find . -type d -exec cd {} \;' to test for
directory search permission.  That's the only use I've ever seen advocated.


-- 
``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://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Jul 16 02:47:52 2016
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 12:47:52 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
Message-ID: <201607151647.u6FGlqvW037575@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

Gerard Holzmann took the true and false commands as
the jumping-off point for "Code Inflation", an
installment of his "Reliable Code" blog and column
in IEE Software. An informative, but depressing, read:
http://spinroot.com/gerard/pdf/Code_Inflation.pdf

Doug


From wkt at tuhs.org  Sat Jul 16 08:56:17 2016
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 08:56:17 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Help with a Unix-ish project?
Message-ID: <20160715225617.GB30146@minnie.tuhs.org>

Hi all, I'm working on a Unix-related project, and I thought I'd ask if
anybody here might help.

There's a pared-down Unix-like system, xv6, which is inspired by 6th Edition
Unix and the Lions Commentary. Its purpose is to teach OS principles.
The website and book are here:
https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2014/xv6.html
https://pdos.csail.mit.edu/6.828/2014/xv6/book-rev8.pdf

Unfortunately, while the kernel is nice, they don't provide much of
a run-time environment, so it feels too much of a toy to use. I had the
idea of porting a small set of libraries and commands over to get it to
the point where it feels a bit like 7th Edition.

I've made a start by using the Minix 2.0 libraries and commands, see
https://github.com/DoctorWkt/xv6-minix2 and the NOTES file. I now realise
that bringing up a libc plus associated commands will involve a fair bit of
work.

So, if anybody is interested in helping, let me know.

Thanks in advance, Warren


From random832 at fastmail.com  Sat Jul 16 11:32:42 2016
From: random832 at fastmail.com (Random832)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 21:32:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Help with a Unix-ish project?
In-Reply-To: <20160715225617.GB30146@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160715225617.GB30146@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <1468632762.1363402.667765737.350D807F@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016, at 18:56, Warren Toomey wrote:
> Unfortunately, while the kernel is nice, they don't provide much of
> a run-time environment, so it feels too much of a toy to use. I had the
> idea of porting a small set of libraries and commands over to get it to
> the point where it feels a bit like 7th Edition.
> 
> I've made a start by using the Minix 2.0 libraries and commands, see
> https://github.com/DoctorWkt/xv6-minix2 and the NOTES file. I now realise
> that bringing up a libc plus associated commands will involve a fair bit
> of
> work.

https://github.com/DoctorWkt/xv6-minix2/commit/f6159743fd9d7dd13a1a4c2285a16629176931da

Wouldn't it be easier to simply change the xv6 stat structure itself,
and possibly the filesystem structure as well?


From wkt at tuhs.org  Sat Jul 16 11:44:49 2016
From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey)
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 11:44:49 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Help with a Unix-ish project?
In-Reply-To: <1468632762.1363402.667765737.350D807F@webmail.messagingengine.com>
References: <20160715225617.GB30146@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <1468632762.1363402.667765737.350D807F@webmail.messagingengine.com>
Message-ID: <20160716014449.GA9414@minnie.tuhs.org>

On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 09:32:42PM -0400, Random832 wrote:
> Wouldn't it be easier to simply change the xv6 stat structure itself,
> and possibly the filesystem structure as well?

Yes, but the xv6 book from MIT is something that I can't change, and I
want to keep their goals of a minimalist OS.

I've just committed a change where the syscall is now called _Fstat(),
and I've written a fstat() function to convert the minimal struct stat
into a more POSIX stat structure.

I don't want to use this list as the discussion area for the project.
I'll set another one up and we can move the conversation there.

Cheers, Warren


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sat Jul 16 11:56:58 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2016 21:56:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Help with a Unix-ish project?
In-Reply-To: <20160716014449.GA9414@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <20160715225617.GB30146@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <1468632762.1363402.667765737.350D807F@webmail.messagingengine.com>
 <20160716014449.GA9414@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <10C565C0-73B9-41A6-A438-875E52AA54CE@ronnatalie.com>

BRL modified our kernel to support both the V6 and V7 file systems.   Yes there were indeed two versions of stat with hacky-conversions between the two.
We already had the kludge of “JHU Ownership” which allowed the V6 systems to work in an instrucitonal situation with more than 256 users.
If your GID >=200, your “effective” uid was the combination of the UID and GID.


> On Jul 15, 2016, at 9:44 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jul 15, 2016 at 09:32:42PM -0400, Random832 wrote:
>> Wouldn't it be easier to simply change the xv6 stat structure itself,
>> and possibly the filesystem structure as well?
> 
> Yes, but the xv6 book from MIT is something that I can't change, and I
> want to keep their goals of a minimalist OS.
> 
> I've just committed a change where the syscall is now called _Fstat(),
> and I've written a fstat() function to convert the minimal struct stat
> into a more POSIX stat structure.
> 
> I don't want to use this list as the discussion area for the project.
> I'll set another one up and we can move the conversation there.
> 
> Cheers, Warren



From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Jul 16 16:26:51 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 16:26:51 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Shell control through external commands
In-Reply-To: <201607150225.u6F2PRVd026389@freefriends.org>
References: <4fcf31ef-50af-10b5-0c34-ad647ed10a4e@aueb.gr>
 <CAC20D2Mho6xh+LPucpXmt7QjJge+qc59LYaF+wfhrm3QVOLpWg@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607150835460.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20160714224939.GA35271@server.rulingia.com>
 <CAH_OBieVFzPn93L8=_fmbUycZ7UmYdXiopC0vgei6RGDZp0mHw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBie_6gFy+BqkCMj+sr0NqTMNOQxvgWf6SQnHMJpn7DAytA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAH_OBidB9EsULxX1+nY=Mg4SJ20OqCa+6eBk2KOPU-S_81hihw@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607151050240.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <201607150225.u6F2PRVd026389@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607161616040.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> Consider
> 
> 	execlp("[", "-f", "/some/file", "]", NULL);
> 
> Then [ and test need to live in the filesystem.

Ah yes, of course...  Thanks.

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Jul 17 02:54:37 2016
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 02:54:37 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>

Time to start a new thread :-)

Back when Unix was really Unix and dinosaurs strode the earth, login names 
were restricted to just 8 characters, so you had to be inventive when 
signing up lots of students every term (ObUS: semester).

A wonderful Japanese girl, Eriko Kinoshita, applied for an account on some 
box somewhere.  Did I mention that login names defaulted to the first 8 
characters of the surname?

Understandably annoyed, Plan B for assigning logins was applied, which was
the first name followed by the first letter of the surname.

Sigh...

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."


From paosborne at gmail.com  Sun Jul 17 09:04:56 2016
From: paosborne at gmail.com (Paul Osborne)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 00:04:56 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <CABoOk8bovORuXn7w2aazhHDffW-V_oNqVUahDhNfXVJcq=7noA@mail.gmail.com>

Heh. At a previous site around 20 years ago we used initial letters of
names generated automatically with a number following so at one point had:

kunt2 Chinese student who didn't raise an issue until 2. 5 years into his
course, we changed that one and put in a rude word filter on login checks.

jc8 so the student was nicknamed "digger" who was not happy so we naturally
refused to change his login as the name had stuck.

we3 - who was quite proud of that one I was told.

Am sure there were many more.

Cheers

Paul

On 16 Jul 2016 11:56, "Dave Horsfall" <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> Time to start a new thread :-)
>
> Back when Unix was really Unix and dinosaurs strode the earth, login names
> were restricted to just 8 characters, so you had to be inventive when
> signing up lots of students every term (ObUS: semester).
>
> A wonderful Japanese girl, Eriko Kinoshita, applied for an account on some
> box somewhere.  Did I mention that login names defaulted to the first 8
> characters of the surname?
>
> Understandably annoyed, Plan B for assigning logins was applied, which was
> the first name followed by the first letter of the surname.
>
> Sigh...
>
> --
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will
> suffer."
>
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From treese at acm.org  Sun Jul 17 12:56:57 2016
From: treese at acm.org (Win Treese)
Date: Sat, 16 Jul 2016 22:56:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <D127E24A-E585-4915-B86B-328EE2EAB1E7@acm.org>

This is a rambling story of slight relevance about login names, but otherwise not historically consequential.

At MIT's Project Athena in the mid-80s, we had a bunch of VAXstation 100s, which was DEC's bitmapped display, of which you could hook up two to a VAX 11/750. The X Window System[1] was under development then, but not ready for real usage. (The VAXen were all running 4.2BSD, for what it's worth.)

So someone had the idea to use them for new student registration at the beginning of the semester, since widespread student access was being rolled out to all 4,000 undergrads. A registration program on the 750 talked to the master server with all the login information.

The process was pretty simple. The student entered name and ID number[2]. The registration program suggested a username consisting of:
    first initial, middle initial, up to six characters of last name
which the student could accept, or request a different name. (As far as I remember, there was no filtering on chosen names, and I don't think there was much of a problem with possibly-offensive ones.) The only rule was that the name couldn't already be in use. 

If the name was already in use, the server sent back the string "noid" (for "No ID available") to indicate the problem. The first deployed version of the registration code did not, however, recognize this as an error condition.

As far as we could tell, on of the first time there was a collision on names, the registration program suggested "noid" as the username. And the student accepted it, thus becoming noid at athena.mit.edu for the remainder of his/her undergraduate career.

Of course, the next problem with this was that the registration program could get stuck trying "noid", but it got fixed fairly quickly.

I still remember feeling a touch of panic when I noticed the first name "Athena" on a list of incoming students, since the system was not treating mailing list names as unavailable for usernames. But, of course, all of the mailing lists were also addresses like athena at athena.mit.edu (that was the staff mailing list). That also got fixed pretty quickly.

By the way, xclock was originally written to keep the screensaver from kicking in on the registration VS100s.

 - Win

[1] Flames about X not necessary. 
[2] Security review also not necessary now.

> On Jul 16, 2016, at 12:54 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> Time to start a new thread :-)
> 
> Back when Unix was really Unix and dinosaurs strode the earth, login names 
> were restricted to just 8 characters, so you had to be inventive when 
> signing up lots of students every term (ObUS: semester).
> 
> A wonderful Japanese girl, Eriko Kinoshita, applied for an account on some 
> box somewhere.  Did I mention that login names defaulted to the first 8 
> characters of the surname?
> 
> Understandably annoyed, Plan B for assigning logins was applied, which was
> the first name followed by the first letter of the surname.
> 
> Sigh...
> 
> -- 
> Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."



From tfb at tfeb.org  Sun Jul 17 16:39:50 2016
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 07:39:50 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <06DBD12E-1C6A-4234-B72C-2E8A405D5587@tfeb.org>

Much later than this I worked on a contract somewhere which had this algorithm: I was 'bradshat'.


From rudi.j.blom at gmail.com  Sun Jul 17 18:06:46 2016
From: rudi.j.blom at gmail.com (Rudi Blom)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 15:06:46 +0700
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
Message-ID: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>

One gets used to login names. In the 80ish I got 'rubl' and I'm still using it.

Of course in this age of the World Wild Web that may make me easily
trackable. Nothing to hide though :-)


From grog at lemis.com  Sun Jul 17 18:16:35 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 18:16:35 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160717081635.GG78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at 15:06:46 +0700, Rudi Blom wrote:
> One gets used to login names. In the 80ish I got 'rubl' and I'm still using it.

And I wanted greg@, but it was taken.  So I ended up with grog@, and
I've had that for nearly 30 years.  More background at
http://www.lemis.com/grog/grog.php

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Jul 17 21:42:56 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 07:42:56 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6CA5E27F-6BA1-4C3C-8D2A-F339AF7CD559@ronnatalie.com>

I always thought Jay Lepreau’s use of just “j” was the perfect minimalism.

I endeavored to be just “ron” at any place I worked.    In the early Windows domain days it turned out you couldn’t have a user and a machine with the same name.    My machine was just “R”.



From norman at oclsc.org  Sun Jul 17 22:05:22 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 08:05:22 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
Message-ID: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>

Gr[aeiou]g Lehey:

  And I wanted greg@, but it was taken.  So I ended up with grog@, and
  I've had that for nearly 30 years.

=====

I was !norman for some years, but when I left Bell
Labs for the real world 26 years ago, I was forced
to switch to norman at .

That was part of the price I paid for trading suburban
New Jersey for downtown Toronto.  On the whole it was
a more-than-satisfactory trade, and emerging to the
real world broadened my perspectives in many areas,
but being stuck with Hideous Naming was certainly a
minor disadvantage.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
research!norman no more


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Jul 17 22:32:06 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 08:32:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <5021A77C-1906-4A65-96E2-372AE85EAC14@ronnatalie.com>

The one amusing thing with my user name (this was back in the JHU eight letter usernames) is I came in to the machine room where we had a log book of all the times the system went down (normally/abnormally) and what you did to bring it back up (this was in the old icheck/dcheck days before FSCK).    It was common when you came in look through the book to see what went bump in the night, so to say.

I found the entry:   “Took the system down.  First nine characters of the accounting file were corrupted.”

I’m saying to myself, “I think I might know how that happened.”   The system manager says “We figured you did.   The characters were your username followed by a colon.”




From grog at lemis.com  Mon Jul 18 08:59:36 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 08:59:36 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <6CA5E27F-6BA1-4C3C-8D2A-F339AF7CD559@ronnatalie.com>
References: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <6CA5E27F-6BA1-4C3C-8D2A-F339AF7CD559@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <20160717225936.GJ78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at  7:42:56 -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> I always thought Jay Lepreau???s use of just ???j??? was the perfect minimalism.

My favourite was Dmitry Kohmanyuk of the Ukrainian TLD (at least 20
years ago): d at ua.  I can't see any way of getting less than that.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 grog at lemis.com  Mon Jul 18 09:09:03 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 09:09:03 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20160717230903.GK78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at  8:05:22 -0400, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Gr[aeiou]g Lehey:
>
>   And I wanted greg@, but it was taken.  So I ended up with grog@, and
>   I've had that for nearly 30 years.
>
> =====
>
> I was !norman for some years, but when I left Bell
> Labs for the real world 26 years ago, I was forced
> to switch to norman at .

You've uncovered an inaccuracy in my statement.  grog was the login,
of course, not primarily the email address, which was indeed !grog as
late as 1995.  Unlike you, I never regretted the change away from
UUCP.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 brantleycoile at me.com  Mon Jul 18 10:37:44 2016
From: brantleycoile at me.com (Brantley Coile)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 20:37:44 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <20160717225936.GJ78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <6CA5E27F-6BA1-4C3C-8D2A-F339AF7CD559@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160717225936.GJ78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <98A91201-114D-4636-BD2F-1992CA581017@me.com>

Tom Duff suggested to me that, when I discovered "bwc" was taken at Bell Labs, I should use "b".  I was "brantley" instead. Should have listened to TD. 

Sent from my iPad

> On Jul 17, 2016, at 6:59 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Sunday, 17 July 2016 at  7:42:56 -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>> I always thought Jay Lepreau???s use of just ???j??? was the perfect minimalism.
> 
> My favourite was Dmitry Kohmanyuk of the Ukrainian TLD (at least 20
> years ago): d at ua.  I can't see any way of getting less than that.
> 
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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


From scj at yaccman.com  Mon Jul 18 14:06:27 2016
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 21:06:27 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <20160717230903.GK78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <20160717230903.GK78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <9a8ab85cdfb2b6ad42477ff146f10538.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

My login name story has many fewer characters.  At Bell Labs, it was
common for people to use their initials as their login name.  Dennis was
dmr, I was scj, Mike Lesk was mel, etc.  (Ken was an exception--he was
ken).  When Bjarne Stroustrup joined the company, he chose the login name
bs.  Several of us tried to tactfully suggest that this might not be the
best choice, but he stuck with it...



From lm at mcvoy.com  Mon Jul 18 14:09:21 2016
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2016 21:09:21 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <9a8ab85cdfb2b6ad42477ff146f10538.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <20160717230903.GK78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <9a8ab85cdfb2b6ad42477ff146f10538.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <20160718040921.GJ14094@mcvoy.com>

On Sun, Jul 17, 2016 at 09:06:27PM -0700, scj at yaccman.com wrote:
> My login name story has many fewer characters.  At Bell Labs, it was
> common for people to use their initials as their login name.  Dennis was
> dmr, I was scj, Mike Lesk was mel, etc.  (Ken was an exception--he was
> ken).  When Bjarne Stroustrup joined the company, he chose the login name
> bs.  Several of us tried to tactfully suggest that this might not be the
> best choice, but he stuck with it...

I've been lm@ for a long time.  The ones I liked the best were lm at sun.com
and lm at cs.stanford.edu.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From ches at cheswick.com  Mon Jul 18 20:42:28 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 06:42:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <9a8ab85cdfb2b6ad42477ff146f10538.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <20160717120522.951EE4422B@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <20160717230903.GK78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <9a8ab85cdfb2b6ad42477ff146f10538.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <764FC5A1-5F2D-4007-996F-89DFE17945BC@cheswick.com>

I heard that Bob Morris was asked for his initials, he said “rm”, they insisted on a middle initial,
which he didn’t have, so he supplied “h”, hence “rhm”.

This looks right: wikipedia does not mention a middle name, and Fred Grampp used to tell stories such as:

	They asked me for a social security number.

	I told them I dont’ give that out.

	They said, “Sir, I need a number.”

	He replied, “Okay, 123456789.”

	“No, sir, that number is no good…”

It’s definitely something Bob would do, but I can’t imagine that 1127 would have some rules about
this. 

As for me, I had been known for 20 years as “BC.”  When I got to the labs, Barbara Chambers
had beaten me to letters, hence “ches”.



From ches at cheswick.com  Mon Jul 18 20:51:31 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 06:51:31 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <98A91201-114D-4636-BD2F-1992CA581017@me.com>
References: <CAMYpm85mZM_quAvZGL89OmGXGV4CMf5N-k_kyshM-dqC-Dbm9w@mail.gmail.com>
 <6CA5E27F-6BA1-4C3C-8D2A-F339AF7CD559@ronnatalie.com>
 <20160717225936.GJ78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <98A91201-114D-4636-BD2F-1992CA581017@me.com>
Message-ID: <03AC6053-983C-421D-A511-C214BA749B21@cheswick.com>

Rob Pike and Dave Presotto arrived at Google well after its founding, and had to choose login names.
They chose “r” and “p”.  The Googlers were concerned about bugs, and r and p said they would fix any
that were found.  Apparently there were about three bugs that needed repair.


> On 17Jul 2016, at 8:37 PM, Brantley Coile <brantleycoile at me.com> wrote:
> 
> Tom Duff suggested to me that, when I discovered "bwc" was taken at Bell Labs, I should use "b".  I was "brantley" instead. Should have listened to TD. 



From dot at dotat.at  Mon Jul 18 22:24:05 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 13:24:05 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <CABoOk8bovORuXn7w2aazhHDffW-V_oNqVUahDhNfXVJcq=7noA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CABoOk8bovORuXn7w2aazhHDffW-V_oNqVUahDhNfXVJcq=7noA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607181315350.25696@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

Paul Osborne <paosborne at gmail.com> wrote:

> Heh. At a previous site around 20 years ago we used initial letters of
> names generated automatically with a number following so at one point had:

We have a similar scheme which has been running (with minor changes) for
about 40 years, with a throughput of about 250,000 people in the last 20
years (the era of bulk user registration). A while back I wrote a note
about some of the reasons it works well, but I didn't mention that if
someone ends up with an unfortunate username, we can (modulo language
barriers) blame the parents...

http://www-uxsup.csx.cam.ac.uk/~fanf2/hermes/doc/misc/crsids.pdf

We also allocate unique permanent Unix UIDs for everyone. This numbering
started in 1982, and with some foresight my (mostly retired) colleagues
decided to start numbering at 100, to allow space for system IDs.
Unfortunately nowadays a few of my older colleagues have UIDs that clash
with preallocated system UIDs on some recent Linux distributions.

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Viking, North Utsire: Variable 2 or 3, becoming southerly or southwesterly 4
or 5. Slight, occasionally moderate in north. Rain at times. Moderate or good.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Jul 18 23:21:48 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 09:21:48 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607181315350.25696@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
References: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1607170234350.65801@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CABoOk8bovORuXn7w2aazhHDffW-V_oNqVUahDhNfXVJcq=7noA@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607181315350.25696@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>
Message-ID: <20160718132148.GJ27255@mercury.ccil.org>

Tony Finch scripsit:

> We have a similar scheme which has been running (with minor changes) for
> about 40 years, with a throughput of about 250,000 people in the last 20
> years (the era of bulk user registration). A while back I wrote a note
> about some of the reasons it works well, but I didn't mention that if
> someone ends up with an unfortunate username, we can (modulo language
> barriers) blame the parents...

That works provided that web sites that use email addresses as user
identifiers (a common and IMO laudable practice) don't start to filter
for "rude" expressions in them.

I like your section 2.9, which I can now (like Dr. Johnson and the chapter
on snakes) repeat verbatim.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
How comes city and country to be filled with drones and rogues, our highways
with hackers, and all places with sloth and wickedness?
                --W. Blith, Eng. Improver Improved, 1652


From david at kdbarto.org  Tue Jul 19 00:06:31 2016
From: david at kdbarto.org (David)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 07:06:31 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <mailman.79.1468802270.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
References: <mailman.79.1468802270.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
Message-ID: <7E906B78-BBA7-4D15-95AD-F89E22EC8F44@kdbarto.org>

Back when it was all UUCP, a friend setup his own system, bang.

He then used his initials as his login, bam.

So when asked for his email address he answered

	bang bang bang bam

Bret was a funny guy.

	David



From norman at oclsc.org  Tue Jul 19 00:35:14 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 10:35:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login (and host) names
Message-ID: <1468852517.22016.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Google was not the first place Rob and Dave had fun with names.

At one point, Rob had a duplicate entry in /etc/passwd,
with login name r, password empty, normal userid/groupid/home
directory, special shell.  The shell program checked whether
it was running on a particular host and a particular hardwired
serial line: if yes, it ran the program that started the Research
version of the window system for our bitmapped terminals;
otherwise it just exited.  The idea seemed to be to let him
log in quickly in his office.

I think that by the time I arrived at Bell Labs he'd stopped
using it, because it no longer worked, because we no longer
ran serial lines directly from computers to offices--everyone
was connected via serial-port Datakit instead.

While I was there, senior management bought a Cray X-MP/24 for
the research group.  (Thank you for using AT&T.)  Since it too
was accessible via Datakit (using a custom hardware interface
built by Alan Kaplan, but that's another story), it had to have
a hostname.  It was either Dave or Rob, I forget which, who
suggested 3k, because (a) it was a supercomputer, so `big bang'
seemed to fit; (b) it was Arno Penzias, then VP for Research,
who got us the money, so `big bang' and 3K radiation seemed
even more appropriate; and, most important, (c) it was fun to
see whether a hostname beginning with a digit broke anything.

So far as I recall, nothing broke.  Some people who were
involved with TCP/IP networking at the labs were frightened
about it; I don't remember whether that Cray was ever connected
to an IP network so I don't know whether anything went wrong
there.  Of course such names are not a problem today, but
in those long-lost days when nobody worried much about buffer
overflows either, such bugs were much more common.  Weren't they?

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From norman at oclsc.org  Tue Jul 19 00:35:26 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 10:35:26 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
Message-ID: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Just to be clear: I don't pine at all for UUCP.

I do still think it's a mistake that e-mail addresses and
domain names run backwards from the way directories and
filenames run.  That's what I miss about !norman vs
norman at .

But it's all a Beta-vs-VHS matter these days, like a lot
of unfortunate design decisions that have become standard
over the years.  Like git winning out over hg, which is
sort of like the VAX/VMS command language winning out over
the Bourne shell.  (To toss another pebble into the pond
to see what the ripples look like, rather in the manner
of Rob and Dave.)

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From mah at mhorton.net  Tue Jul 19 00:44:20 2016
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 07:44:20 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <578CEB44.9020509@mhorton.net>

It does seem counter-intuitive that email addresses go right-to-left 
like postal addresses rather than left-to-right like phone numbers. But 
these days with auto-complete, I can type the first couple of characters 
of an email address and the correct one pops up.  That would never work 
with com.whatever

When they were both in use at the same time, email routers had to deal 
with ambiguity.  Greg Chesson gave his email address as 
research!greg at Berkeley and that only worked from the ARPANET and systems 
running pathalias.

     Mary Ann

On 07/18/2016 07:35 AM, Norman Wilson wrote:
> Just to be clear: I don't pine at all for UUCP.
>
> I do still think it's a mistake that e-mail addresses and
> domain names run backwards from the way directories and
> filenames run.  That's what I miss about !norman vs
> norman at .
>
> But it's all a Beta-vs-VHS matter these days, like a lot
> of unfortunate design decisions that have become standard
> over the years.
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON



From mah at mhorton.net  Tue Jul 19 00:46:39 2016
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 07:46:39 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Of login (and host) names
In-Reply-To: <1468852517.22016.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1468852517.22016.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <578CEBCF.5080507@mhorton.net>

When we were running the UUCP Zone, 3Com wanted to register 3com.com 
through us.  ISI balked at it, saying the RFC said domains had to start 
with a letter.  It turned out the original code decided if it was an IP 
address or a domain name by looking at whether the first character was a 
letter or digit.  We pushed back, it was allowed, and the code (and 
eventually RFC) was fixed.  UUCP, of course, didn't have that issue.

     Mary Ann

On 07/18/2016 07:35 AM, Norman Wilson wrote:
>
> While I was there, senior management bought a Cray X-MP/24 for
> the research group.  (Thank you for using AT&T.)  Since it too
> was accessible via Datakit (using a custom hardware interface
> built by Alan Kaplan, but that's another story), it had to have
> a hostname.  It was either Dave or Rob, I forget which, who
> suggested 3k, because (a) it was a supercomputer, so `big bang'
> seemed to fit; (b) it was Arno Penzias, then VP for Research,
> who got us the money, so `big bang' and 3K radiation seemed
> even more appropriate; and, most important, (c) it was fun to
> see whether a hostname beginning with a digit broke anything.
>
> So far as I recall, nothing broke.  Some people who were
> involved with TCP/IP networking at the labs were frightened
> about it; I don't remember whether that Cray was ever connected
> to an IP network so I don't know whether anything went wrong
> there.  Of course such names are not a problem today, but
> in those long-lost days when nobody worried much about buffer
> overflows either, such bugs were much more common.  Weren't they?
>
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Jul 19 00:55:22 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 10:55:22 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <578CEB44.9020509@mhorton.net>
References: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <578CEB44.9020509@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <B5C5E271-A4C4-48B7-BF27-8E5F06AB3BB6@ronnatalie.com>

One of my great stories from the early internet days was I received an email from another site that had a from line of:
    From:  Hi There! Will Martin of AMSAA Here <will at amsaa.mil>

I responded by setting mine to:
    From:  Hi There!  Ron Natalie of BRL Here <ron at brl.mil>

Of course, I promptly forgot about it.    Amusingly it got written up in a HUMAN-NETS discussion of signature lines but it also croaked a few people who had imperfect RFC822 vs. UUCP handlers because of the !.



From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Tue Jul 19 01:15:16 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:15:16 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login (and host) names
In-Reply-To: <1468852517.22016.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1468852517.22016.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <20160718151516.GL27255@mercury.ccil.org>

Norman Wilson scripsit:

> So far as I recall, nothing broke.  Some people who were
> involved with TCP/IP networking at the labs were frightened
> about it; I don't remember whether that Cray was ever connected
> to an IP network so I don't know whether anything went wrong
> there.  Of course such names are not a problem today, 

ISTR that {net,comp}.bugs.4bsd gave some news software a headache.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
In the sciences, we are now uniquely privileged to sit side by side
with the giants on whose shoulders we stand.  --Gerald Holton


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Tue Jul 19 01:44:12 2016
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 11:44:12 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
Message-ID: <201607181544.u6IFiCsP024841@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>

> I heard that Bob Morris was asked for his initials, he said “rm”, they insisted on a middle initial, which he didn’t have, so he supplied “h”, hence “rhm”.

True in principle, but when it happened and who "they" were, is lore
beyond my ken. I presume it was before he joined Bell Labs. At the
labs, interoffice communications typically used initials, so the 
DMR, JFO, RHM convention was well established. Only the affectation
of lower-case only was new--and that was the fault of unicase Model
33. Who wanted to SHOUT EVERYTHING they wrote, or litter it with escapes?

doug


From schily at schily.net  Tue Jul 19 01:50:28 2016
From: schily at schily.net (Joerg Schilling)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 17:50:28 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <201607181544.u6IFiCsP024841@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
References: <201607181544.u6IFiCsP024841@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Message-ID: <578cfac4.Odr1gCgePaC5B/O8%schily@schily.net>

Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> DMR, JFO, RHM convention was well established. Only the affectation
> of lower-case only was new--and that was the fault of unicase Model
> 33. Who wanted to SHOUT EVERYTHING they wrote, or litter it with escapes?

In the 1970s, I had a VT50a at home 12 lines @ 80 cols upper case only.
I used it with a self make 300 baud modem and later got a lower case character 
ROM to sold un top of the upper case character ROM.

So there is more than just one upper case only terminal.

Jörg

-- 
 EMail:joerg at schily.net                  (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
       joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
 URL:  http://cdrecord.org/private/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/schilytools/files/'


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Jul 19 04:03:11 2016
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:03:11 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <578cfac4.Odr1gCgePaC5B/O8%schily@schily.net>
References: <201607181544.u6IFiCsP024841@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <578cfac4.Odr1gCgePaC5B/O8%schily@schily.net>
Message-ID: <2EC3A31B-D82A-411E-ACBB-B77328036874@ronnatalie.com>

> 
> In the 1970s, I had a VT50a at home 12 lines @ 80 cols upper case only.
> I used it with a self make 300 baud modem and later got a lower case character 
> ROM to sold un top of the upper case character ROM.

The most annoying terminal I ever used was a HeathKit thing that not only wouldn’t display lowercase letters, it didn’t just display the upper case version of the character.
If you sent it a lower case letter, it printed gibberish.   It was a good thing that the UNIX TTY driver LCASE mode output uppercase.

The thing also had a keyboard of identical keys and the assembler was given stickers for each letter to stick to each one.




From usotsuki at buric.co  Tue Jul 19 04:12:07 2016
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 14:12:07 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <2EC3A31B-D82A-411E-ACBB-B77328036874@ronnatalie.com>
References: <201607181544.u6IFiCsP024841@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
 <578cfac4.Odr1gCgePaC5B/O8%schily@schily.net>
 <2EC3A31B-D82A-411E-ACBB-B77328036874@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.02.1607181411040.2763@frieza.hoshinet.org>

On Mon, 18 Jul 2016, Ronald Natalie wrote:

> The most annoying terminal I ever used was a HeathKit thing that not 
> only wouldn’t display lowercase letters, it didn’t just display the 
> upper case version of the character. If you sent it a lower case letter, 
> it printed gibberish.  It was a good thing that the UNIX TTY driver 
> LCASE mode output uppercase.

Reminds me of the Apple ][+.  You send it lowercase, it outputs the ascii 
value mod 64, so you get gibberish...

-uso.

From steve at quintile.net  Tue Jul 19 04:07:22 2016
From: steve at quintile.net (Steve Simon)
Date: Mon, 18 Jul 2016 19:07:22 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <2F25D8BE-6BA8-440A-B91C-5C2A4438D84C@quintile.net>

what fun we had in the early 1980s when the uk universities ran coloured book networking, that used arpanet style names but in the reverse order. I was ssimon at uk.ac.leeds-poly.ee.pe.

formulating valid routed paths with % could be taxing...

-Steve


> On 18 Jul 2016, at 15:35, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
> 
> Just to be clear: I don't pine at all for UUCP.
> 
> I do still think it's a mistake that e-mail addresses and
> domain names run backwards from the way directories and
> filenames run.  That's what I miss about !norman vs
> norman at .
> 
> But it's all a Beta-vs-VHS matter these days, like a lot
> of unfortunate design decisions that have become standard
> over the years.  Like git winning out over hg, which is
> sort of like the VAX/VMS command language winning out over
> the Bourne shell.  (To toss another pebble into the pond
> to see what the ripples look like, rather in the manner
> of Rob and Dave.)
> 
> Norman Wilson
> Toronto ON



From dot at dotat.at  Tue Jul 19 19:50:50 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 10:50:50 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <2F25D8BE-6BA8-440A-B91C-5C2A4438D84C@quintile.net>
References: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2F25D8BE-6BA8-440A-B91C-5C2A4438D84C@quintile.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607191048470.25696@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

Steve Simon <steve at quintile.net> wrote:
>
> formulating valid routed paths with % could be taxing...

This is a good summary of the state of the world of email (from the uk.ac
point of view) in 1990

https://stuff.mit.edu/afs/athena/reference/net-directory/documents/JANET-Mail-Gateways.ps

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
Fisher, German Bight: West or southwest 3 or 4, backing southeast 4 or 5
later. Smooth or slight. Fog patches developing later. Moderate or good,
occasionally very poor later.


From aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk  Tue Jul 19 22:41:36 2016
From: aaron at aaronsplace.co.uk (Aaron Jackson)
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2016 13:41:36 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <7E906B78-BBA7-4D15-95AD-F89E22EC8F44@kdbarto.org>
References: <mailman.79.1468802270.30583.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
 <7E906B78-BBA7-4D15-95AD-F89E22EC8F44@kdbarto.org>
Message-ID: <87wpkhhkan.fsf@finger.aaronsplace.co.uk>

When it comes to setting up UUCP today (purely for the fun of it), what
choices do you have? Is it limited to SDF Public Unix?

Aaron.

David writes:

> Back when it was all UUCP, a friend setup his own system, bang.
>
> He then used his initials as his login, bam.
>
> So when asked for his email address he answered
>
> 	bang bang bang bam
>
> Bret was a funny guy.
>
> 	David



From blake at mcbride.name  Fri Jul 22 12:31:24 2016
From: blake at mcbride.name (Blake McBride)
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 21:31:24 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Rand E Editor for Linux
Message-ID: <CABwHSOtiJcBX2rZzO7WdhXD0PrhONzfNGsUtCwzqNWBt3RtoLQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

I updated the Rand E Editor to build on modern Linux.  It's at:
https://github.com/blakemcbride/Rand-E-Editor

Blake McBride
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From arnold at skeeve.com  Fri Jul 22 14:55:35 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2016 22:55:35 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Rand E Editor for Linux
In-Reply-To: <CABwHSOtiJcBX2rZzO7WdhXD0PrhONzfNGsUtCwzqNWBt3RtoLQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CABwHSOtiJcBX2rZzO7WdhXD0PrhONzfNGsUtCwzqNWBt3RtoLQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201607220455.u6M4tZ70015230@freefriends.org>

Blake McBride <blake at mcbride.name> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I updated the Rand E Editor to build on modern Linux.  It's at:
> https://github.com/blakemcbride/Rand-E-Editor
>
> Blake McBride

Wow!  That's quite cool.  Another 'old' screen editor is at

	se-editor.org

Arnold


From meillo at marmaro.de  Fri Jul 22 17:48:21 2016
From: meillo at marmaro.de (markus schnalke)
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 09:48:21 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Rand E Editor for Linux
In-Reply-To: <201607220455.u6M4tZ70015230@freefriends.org>
References: <CABwHSOtiJcBX2rZzO7WdhXD0PrhONzfNGsUtCwzqNWBt3RtoLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <201607220455.u6M4tZ70015230@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <1bQVC1-2kw-00@marmaro.de>

[2016-07-21 22:55] arnold at skeeve.com
>
> Another 'old' screen editor is at
>
> 	se-editor.org

Thanks a lot!


meillo


From arnold at skeeve.com  Fri Jul 22 21:09:20 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2016 05:09:20 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Rand E Editor for Linux
In-Reply-To: <1bQVC1-2kw-00@marmaro.de>
References: <CABwHSOtiJcBX2rZzO7WdhXD0PrhONzfNGsUtCwzqNWBt3RtoLQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <201607220455.u6M4tZ70015230@freefriends.org>
 <1bQVC1-2kw-00@marmaro.de>
Message-ID: <201607221109.u6MB9Kbk013484@freefriends.org>

Several of the Georgia Tech Software Tools Subsystems tools
were ported to C in the mid-80's ; I've made them available on
Github; see www.github.com/arnoldrobbins.

They're mainly of historical interest.

Thanks,

Arnold

markus schnalke <meillo at marmaro.de> wrote:

> [2016-07-21 22:55] arnold at skeeve.com
> >
> > Another 'old' screen editor is at
> >
> > 	se-editor.org
>
> Thanks a lot!
>
>
> meillo


From cym224 at gmail.com  Sun Jul 24 22:56:24 2016
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2016 08:56:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] lpr with symlink
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzzyp1YGhJ2N6g--2Sy9B6H1pToCfPZ-QC+NT=JaARaTDA@mail.gmail.com>

I recently noticed that lpr has a symlink option ("-s") on Solaris but
not on Apple.  Is there anything here historically except prudence and
small drives?

N.


From tfb at tfeb.org  Tue Jul 26 22:45:25 2016
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:45:25 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: <2F25D8BE-6BA8-440A-B91C-5C2A4438D84C@quintile.net>
References: <1468852530.22085.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <2F25D8BE-6BA8-440A-B91C-5C2A4438D84C@quintile.net>
Message-ID: <656090BB-BF5B-42D6-AF5F-8751A15B7D9A@tfeb.org>

On 18 Jul 2016, at 19:07, Steve Simon <steve at quintile.net> wrote:

> what fun we had in the early 1980s when the uk universities ran coloured book networking, that used arpanet style names but in the reverse order. I wasssimon at uk.ac.leeds-poly.ee.pe.

I have a possibly-invented memory that the CS department at Edinburgh (and probably others) ended up being called DCS because cs is a valid top-level domain, and so the horrid sendmail magic which worked out whether addresses needed to be turned around (and, I suppose, knew all the TLDs -- it certainly had a huge table of things) would get confused by uk.ac.ed.cs and send things to Czechoslovakia (as then was).

From gdmr at inf.ed.ac.uk  Tue Jul 26 23:07:51 2016
From: gdmr at inf.ed.ac.uk (George Ross)
Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2016 14:07:51 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Of login names
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 26 Jul 2016 13:45:25 BST."
 <656090BB-BF5B-42D6-AF5F-8751A15B7D9A@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <201607261307.u6QD7ptv010134@farg.inf.ed.ac.uk>

> I have a possibly-invented memory that the CS department at Edinburgh (and
> probably others) ended up being called DCS because cs is a valid top-level
> domain, and so the horrid sendmail magic which worked out whether addresses
> needed to be turned around (and, I suppose, knew all the TLDs -- it
> certainly had a huge table of things) would get confused by uk.ac.ed.cs and
> send things to Czechoslovakia (as then was).

No, that's a genuine memory, though I don't remember whether it was just a
worry or whether things actually got lost.  Electrical Engineering (aka "ee")
was another similarly affected.  I still have books on my shelf with a
sticker in them with my coloured-book "cs" address listed.

--
gdmr at uk.ac.ed.cs, then gdmr at uk.ac.ed.dcs then gdmr at dcs.ed.ac.uk (which
still works), then eventually gdmr at inf.ed.ac.uk.

George D M Ross MSc PhD CEng MBCS CITP, University of Edinburgh,
School of Informatics, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9AB
Mail: gdmr at inf.ed.ac.uk   Voice: 0131 650 5147   Fax: 0131 650 6899
PGP: 1024D/AD758CC5  B91E D430 1E0D 5883 EF6A  426C B676 5C2B AD75 8CC5

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.

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From cubexyz at gmail.com  Thu Jul 28 06:28:19 2016
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:28:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
Message-ID: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi folks,

My root partition for Unix v6 is almost full and /dev/rk0 only has 83 blocks.

The trouble is I wanted to compile bc.y and I think it needs around
300 blocks of temporary space. I was wondering if there was a way to
set up Unix v6 so that it could use one of the other drives for tmp
space. I tried to set up a link using ln but it seems I can't link
across filesystems.

The exact error is "26: Intermediate file error".

I managed to rearrange things so that /dev/rk0 had over 300 blocks of
free space and it fixed the problem, but I'm curious if there was
another solution.

Mark


From pechter at gmail.com  Thu Jul 28 06:31:29 2016
From: pechter at gmail.com (William Pechter)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:31:29 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>

Mark Longridge wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> My root partition for Unix v6 is almost full and /dev/rk0 only has 83 blocks.
>
> The trouble is I wanted to compile bc.y and I think it needs around
> 300 blocks of temporary space. I was wondering if there was a way to
> set up Unix v6 so that it could use one of the other drives for tmp
> space. I tried to set up a link using ln but it seems I can't link
> across filesystems.
>
> The exact error is "26: Intermediate file error".
>
> I managed to rearrange things so that /dev/rk0 had over 300 blocks of
> free space and it fixed the problem, but I'm curious if there was
> another solution.
>
> Mark
Ah the good old days before BSD's symlinks.
Only thing I can think of is add another drive or partition and mount it
as /tmp.


Bill




From norman at oclsc.org  Thu Jul 28 06:41:05 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:41:05 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
Message-ID: <1469652072.20272.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

William Pechter:

  Only thing I can think of is add another drive or partition and mount it
  as /tmp.

=====

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON
mount >> ln -s


From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul 28 06:57:47 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 16:57:47 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>

That is exactly how its was done.   In fact, DEC made a Solid State Disk
(out of RAM) just for UNIX that people used to use for /tmp.


Also to be fair, Dennis did symlinks before 4.2.   They were part of the V8
I believe.  I remember talking to him and Steve Bourne about them and ideas
in the FS.  Dennis's basic thesis was that while UNIX had a typed file
system, he & Ken intentionally kept the number of types very very small.
 The problem he was afraid of what that too many systems had ended up so
many different ways to handle things.    Just keep everything as a ASCII
text file and let the user space deal with it.   Symlinks, or "late name
binding" for the FS was a mixed bag.    Just as Dennis predicted, Solaris
was an example of an implementation that went symlink happy.

I created Conditionally Dependant Symlinks (CDSL) which I think only showed
up in Masscomp's RTU, Stellix and Tru64.   The were not only late binding,
but added the concept of a user settable context.   Very handy when trying
to create a "single system image" from multiple system.   I miss them today
from Linux clusters and even put them back into one of my systems.   B


Also, around the same time that Dennis added symlinks, Apollo's Aegis (aka
Domain) guys came up with a cool idea where you can run application code
from a link - extensible types.    I remember talking to Dennis and Ken
about them at a SOSP IIRC, and toyed with putting them into one of the
Locus UNIX Kernels.   We proposed it for HP-UX and Tru64, but never got
funded to try it, although I think / believe others did some where else.



On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 4:31 PM, William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mark Longridge wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > My root partition for Unix v6 is almost full and /dev/rk0 only has 83
> blocks.
> >
> > The trouble is I wanted to compile bc.y and I think it needs around
> > 300 blocks of temporary space. I was wondering if there was a way to
> > set up Unix v6 so that it could use one of the other drives for tmp
> > space. I tried to set up a link using ln but it seems I can't link
> > across filesystems.
> >
> > The exact error is "26: Intermediate file error".
> >
> > I managed to rearrange things so that /dev/rk0 had over 300 blocks of
> > free space and it fixed the problem, but I'm curious if there was
> > another solution.
> >
> > Mark
> Ah the good old days before BSD's symlinks.
> Only thing I can think of is add another drive or partition and mount it
> as /tmp.
>
>
> Bill
>
>
>
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From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul 28 07:01:36 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 17:01:36 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2MAjpiW3Cg4e0syi+EO9fkDuAjc7oBK1L_rne-PTkD6kg@mail.gmail.com>

BTW: Mark if you are running on a simulator, just create an extra drive in
the RK05 driver, put 4280 blocks on it and mount it on /tmp in /etc/rc when
you go multi-user.     You should be all set, and you will be running like
many/most V6 and V7 systems in years gone by.

On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 4:57 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> That is exactly how its was done.   In fact, DEC made a Solid State Disk
> (out of RAM) just for UNIX that people used to use for /tmp.
>
>
> Also to be fair, Dennis did symlinks before 4.2.   They were part of the
> V8 I believe.  I remember talking to him and Steve Bourne about them and
> ideas in the FS.  Dennis's basic thesis was that while UNIX had a typed
> file system, he & Ken intentionally kept the number of types very very
> small.    The problem he was afraid of what that too many systems had ended
> up so many different ways to handle things.    Just keep everything as a
> ASCII text file and let the user space deal with it.   Symlinks, or "late
> name binding" for the FS was a mixed bag.    Just as Dennis predicted,
> Solaris was an example of an implementation that went symlink happy.
>
> I created Conditionally Dependant Symlinks (CDSL) which I think only
> showed up in Masscomp's RTU, Stellix and Tru64.   The were not only late
> binding, but added the concept of a user settable context.   Very handy
> when trying to create a "single system image" from multiple system.   I
> miss them today from Linux clusters and even put them back into one of my
> systems.   B
>
>
> Also, around the same time that Dennis added symlinks, Apollo's Aegis (aka
> Domain) guys came up with a cool idea where you can run application code
> from a link - extensible types.    I remember talking to Dennis and Ken
> about them at a SOSP IIRC, and toyed with putting them into one of the
> Locus UNIX Kernels.   We proposed it for HP-UX and Tru64, but never got
> funded to try it, although I think / believe others did some where else.
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 4:31 PM, William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Mark Longridge wrote:
>> > Hi folks,
>> >
>> > My root partition for Unix v6 is almost full and /dev/rk0 only has 83
>> blocks.
>> >
>> > The trouble is I wanted to compile bc.y and I think it needs around
>> > 300 blocks of temporary space. I was wondering if there was a way to
>> > set up Unix v6 so that it could use one of the other drives for tmp
>> > space. I tried to set up a link using ln but it seems I can't link
>> > across filesystems.
>> >
>> > The exact error is "26: Intermediate file error".
>> >
>> > I managed to rearrange things so that /dev/rk0 had over 300 blocks of
>> > free space and it fixed the problem, but I'm curious if there was
>> > another solution.
>> >
>> > Mark
>> Ah the good old days before BSD's symlinks.
>> Only thing I can think of is add another drive or partition and mount it
>> as /tmp.
>>
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>
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From pechter at gmail.com  Thu Jul 28 07:10:39 2016
From: pechter at gmail.com (William Pechter)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 17:10:39 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>

Clem Cole wrote:
> That is exactly how its was done.   In fact, DEC made a Solid State 
> Disk (out of RAM) just for UNIX that people used to use for /tmp.
>
Are you referring to the slick little ML11-A  (I think it was an -A when 
I installed it at NY Telephone on
West Street, next to the World Trade Center...

I seem to remember it being used as an RS04 (or similar) fixed head disk 
replacement for swap -- but
it could've been used for temp.

Funny seeing a fault light on a Massbus controller'd box of mostly MK11 
memory.
IIRC it had write-lock as well.

Neat idea and I wish someone would come up with a really large SSD with 
a writelock for archival storage
of my stuff.  No head crashes and if I could disable the possibility of 
accidental writing...

Bill

-- 
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/



From norman at oclsc.org  Thu Jul 28 07:18:03 2016
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 17:18:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
Message-ID: <1469654287.23225.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Clem Cole:

  Also to be fair, Dennis did symlinks before 4.2.   They were part of the V8
  I believe.

=======

I'm pretty sure they came from Berkeley nevertheless.  I don't know
the exact order of events, but the 8th Edition kernel was essentially
that from one of the later 4.1x BSDs, hacked in 1127 to remove sockets
and FFS (were they even there yet), then to add Dennis's stream I/O
system, Tom Killian's original /proc, and Peter Weinberger's neta
network-file-system client.  Perhaps a few other hooks as well.
Symlinks were already there, and although we made some limited careful
use of them, made nobody very happy because they made such a big
irregular lump in so many things: file system no longer a tree,
difference between stat and lstat, and so on.

One thing 8/e did differently from Berkeley was that ls by default
hid symlinks rather than trotting them out proudly.  If f was a
symlink, ls -l f showed the state of the target file, not that of
the link; one had to do ls -lL f to see the symlink itself.
That reflected a general feeling that symlinks should be neither
seen nor heard unless necessary.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul 28 10:47:32 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem cole)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 20:47:32 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <1469654287.23225.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1469654287.23225.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <E99C35C3-EA27-453A-95F3-B4D9775FF72C@ccc.com>

Certainly 4.2 was were most people found them and the UNIX community at large saw them and I do not wAnt to disparage my siblings at Berkeley for the fine work done there. 


 But particularly since Dennis has passed I hate seeing history get forgotten/rewritten.  I can tell you I personally I remember talking to Dennis and Steve Bourne about the idea of late binding for nami pre-BSD 3x UNIX days  - late 1979 is my guess might have been a little later.  Dennis would have been messing with them in a post V7 systems.  I would have been at Tek @ the time.  Joy probable would have seen them as a summer intern at the labs and talked to him about it then.  

You are right the BSD 4.2 made the world know about them but like a number of things in BSD (such as networking) it was in some cases a (better) integration of ideas others had played with before. 




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

> On Jul 27, 2016, at 5:18 PM, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
> 
> I'm pretty sure they came from Berkeley nevertheless


From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul 28 10:49:27 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem cole)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 20:49:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9A62D3AA-2905-44A6-B9F1-73644935AA70@ccc.com>

Yep.  We used it for both but discovered it tended to be better for our system as a /tmp because we tried really hard to keep the 11/70 from swapping in those days. 

Clem

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

> On Jul 27, 2016, at 5:10 PM, William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Clem Cole wrote:
>> That is exactly how its was done.   In fact, DEC made a Solid State Disk (out of RAM) just for UNIX that people used to use for /tmp.
> Are you referring to the slick little ML11-A  (I think it was an -A when I installed it at NY Telephone on
> West Street, next to the World Trade Center...
> 
> I seem to remember it being used as an RS04 (or similar) fixed head disk replacement for swap -- but
> it could've been used for temp.
> 
> Funny seeing a fault light on a Massbus controller'd box of mostly MK11 memory.
> IIRC it had write-lock as well.
> 
> Neat idea and I wish someone would come up with a really large SSD with a writelock for archival storage
> of my stuff.  No head crashes and if I could disable the possibility of accidental writing...
> 
> Bill
> 
> -- 
> Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
> pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/
> 


From clemc at ccc.com  Thu Jul 28 11:03:33 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem cole)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 21:03:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4316C91F-D35F-46D0-9AE8-955780BC5A32@ccc.com>

Bill - below

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

> On Jul 27, 2016, at 5:10 PM, William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Neat idea and I wish someone would come up with a really large SSD with a writelock for archival storage
> of my stuff.  No head crashes and if I could disable the possibility of accidental writing...

I had to laugh.   A few months back I was working with a very bright 20 something engineers (from one of my alma mater's ) who is working on our new Xpoint memory technology.   I had to explain to him some of these new behaviors / inventions were how things like core memory worked as well as showing him some info on the ML11 with exactly these type of features.   He had no idea.  

While I'm not part of the the Xpoint team I have no idea what will end up as exposed features in final product  or how people configure them but it's interesting to watch some ideas that stopping being fashionable or maybe economical be (re)discovered. 

What is new is old and old is now new😎

Clem

From pechter at gmail.com  Thu Jul 28 11:03:50 2016
From: pechter at gmail.com (William Pechter)
Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2016 21:03:50 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix v6 problem with /tmp
In-Reply-To: <9A62D3AA-2905-44A6-B9F1-73644935AA70@ccc.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <5799234F.80108@gmail.com> <9A62D3AA-2905-44A6-B9F1-73644935AA70@ccc.com>
Message-ID: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>

Clem cole wrote:
> Yep.  We used it for both but discovered it tended to be better for our system as a /tmp because we tried really hard to keep the 11/70 from swapping in those days. 
>
> Clem
>
> Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. 

That gave the AT&T folks (and Regional Bells) a major improvement over
the RS04 (and less of a maintenance problem) and the Computer Special
Systems folks at DEC had a way to use less than perfect MK11 memory
since the embedded internal ML11 disk controller mapped out bad blocks
in NVRAM  so it looked like a clean disk. I remember stories about a 3x
improvement in some of the 11/70's jobs,

I don't know what apps were on the box.  Might have been COSMOS or
something else.

When I saw the Windows Ready Boost and Intel Turbo memory I really
flashed (ugh pun not intended) to the day I installed the early
ML11... Nothing new in the OS business that wasn't done in the old
days.  Unfortunately, there's very little love for history in the industry.
My college major was history... so I love the connected nature of the
designs.  It's all an evolution.


Bill
>> On Jul 27, 2016, at 5:10 PM, William Pechter <pechter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Clem Cole wrote:
>>> That is exactly how its was done.   In fact, DEC made a Solid State Disk (out of RAM) just for UNIX that people used to use for /tmp.
>> Are you referring to the slick little ML11-A  (I think it was an -A when I installed it at NY Telephone on
>> West Street, next to the World Trade Center...
>>
>> I seem to remember it being used as an RS04 (or similar) fixed head disk replacement for swap -- but
>> it could've been used for temp.
>>
>> Funny seeing a fault light on a Massbus controller'd box of mostly MK11 memory.
>> IIRC it had write-lock as well.
>>
>> Neat idea and I wish someone would come up with a really large SSD with a writelock for archival storage
>> of my stuff.  No head crashes and if I could disable the possibility of accidental writing...
>>
>> Bill
>>
>> -- 
>> Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
>> pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/
>>



From michael at kjorling.se  Thu Jul 28 21:23:30 2016
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 11:23:30 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>
 <9A62D3AA-2905-44A6-B9F1-73644935AA70@ccc.com>
 <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>

On 27 Jul 2016 21:03 -0400, from pechter at gmail.com (William Pechter):
> When I saw the Windows Ready Boost and Intel Turbo memory I really
> flashed (ugh pun not intended) to the day I installed the early
> ML11... Nothing new in the OS business that wasn't done in the old
> days.  Unfortunately, there's very little love for history in the industry.

I remember when this newfangled thing called "the cloud" started
becoming _the_ thing that was being talked about recently, and I kept
asking myself how on Earth that's anything new. Large timeshared
systems fell out of favor basically when local systems with adequate
storage and processing capabilities became affordable, and now large
timeshared systems - under a different name, mind you, because history
does not repeat itself, it rhymes - have become favorable again
(despite the fact that essentially _any_ desktop system today has
processing capabilities not entirely dissimilar to a supercomputer of
twenty years ago). But this time, very often it's _actually_ _someone
else's computer_; it's not just sitting in some other department
within the company. I'll admit, it's awfully convenient at times, but
it's hardly something _new_.

Now all that's really missing is that stationwagon loaded with tapes
for regular large-scale data transfer, and with some of the
discussions going on in the last few years I wouldn't be the least bit
surprised if sneakernet has seen a rebound at least in some places.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
                 “People who think they know everything really annoy
                 those of us who know we don’t.” (Bjarne Stroustrup)


From dot at dotat.at  Thu Jul 28 22:18:42 2016
From: dot at dotat.at (Tony Finch)
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 13:18:42 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <5799234F.80108@gmail.com> <9A62D3AA-2905-44A6-B9F1-73644935AA70@ccc.com>
 <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com> <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.11.1607281310190.13539@grey.csi.cam.ac.uk>

Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se> wrote:
>
> Now all that's really missing is that stationwagon loaded with tapes
> for regular large-scale data transfer, and with some of the
> discussions going on in the last few years I wouldn't be the least bit
> surprised if sneakernet has seen a rebound at least in some places.

https://aws.amazon.com/importexport/disk/ :-)

Tony.
-- 
f.anthony.n.finch  <dot at dotat.at>  http://dotat.at/  -  I xn--zr8h punycode
South Fitzroy: Northerly 5 to 7. Moderate or rough. Fair. Good.

From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Thu Jul 28 23:57:40 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 09:57:40 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <5799234F.80108@gmail.com>
 <9A62D3AA-2905-44A6-B9F1-73644935AA70@ccc.com>
 <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
Message-ID: <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>

Michael Kjörling scripsit:

> But this time, very often it's _actually_ _someone
> else's computer_; it's not just sitting in some other department
> within the company. 

Nothing new about that either:  "service bureaus" have been around a
long time, notably for APL\360.

> Now all that's really missing is that stationwagon loaded with tapes

Now replaced by the Fedexed hard drive.  Xkcd estimates that if they did
nothing else, Fedex would be able to transmit 14 petabits per second.
Companies dealing in big data often use this internally, and IIRC you
can donate content to the Internet Archive by sending them a disk.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
At times of peril or dubitation,
Perform swift circular ambulation,
With loud and high-pitched ululation.


From mascheck at in-ulm.de  Fri Jul 29 09:16:39 2016
From: mascheck at in-ulm.de (Sven Mascheck)
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 01:16:39 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] environments/universes (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20160728231639.GA299581@lisa.in-ulm.de>

On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 04:57:47PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> I created Conditionally Dependant Symlinks (CDSL) which I think only showed
> up in Masscomp's RTU, Stellix and Tru64.   The were not only late binding,
> but added the concept of a user settable context.   Very handy when trying
> to create a "single system image" from multiple system.

How did you implement it?

> Also, around the same time that Dennis added symlinks, Apollo's Aegis (aka
> Domain) guys came up with a cool idea where you can run application code
> from a link - extensible types.    I remember talking to Dennis and Ken
> about them at a SOSP IIRC, and toyed with putting them into one of the
> Locus UNIX Kernels.   We proposed it for HP-UX and Tru64, but never got
> funded to try it, although I think / believe others did some where else.

I just wonder if and how the following are related to the above two.

Sequent Dynix "universes" (idea picked up by Siemens Sinix) puts several
targets in one symlink. Example:

  ln -c ucb=.bin att=/usr/att/bin   /bin

and the actual resolving (and usage of different default PATHs)
is controlled by an environment variable, as far as I know
(s.a. http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/universes/)

HP-UX 9 "context dependent files" (as early alternative to NFS) make use of
the set uid bit on directories and work like this,

  # mkdir /etc/inittab
  # chmod +H /etc/inittab
  # touch /etc/inittab+/node1 /etc/inittab+/default

By accessing /etc/inittab, node1 will see the file node1, other systems
will see default (s.a. http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/permissions/)


> [...]
> You are right the BSD 4.2 made the world know about them but like
> a number of things in BSD (such as networking) it was in some
> cases a (better) integration of ideas others had played with before.

F.i. #! also got widely known in 4.2BSD but was suggested by DMR before 8th ed.

-Sven


From arnold at skeeve.com  Fri Jul 29 13:05:05 2016
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2016 21:05:05 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] environments/universes (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160728231639.GA299581@lisa.in-ulm.de>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160728231639.GA299581@lisa.in-ulm.de>
Message-ID: <201607290305.u6T355aq009962@freefriends.org>

Sven Mascheck <mascheck at in-ulm.de> wrote:

> Sequent Dynix "universes" (idea picked up by Siemens Sinix) puts several
> targets in one symlink. Example:
>
>   ln -c ucb=.bin att=/usr/att/bin   /bin
>
> and the actual resolving (and usage of different default PATHs)
> is controlled by an environment variable, as far as I know
> (s.a. http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/universes/)

Pyramid did something similar, also called universes, in the mid-80s.
I think they used a system call and corresponding command to set
the visible universe either to BSD or System V. I don't remember the
details as to how exactly it worked.

I *think* this was before Dynix, but I'm not sure.

We had a Pyramid when I was working at Georgia Tech. DMR visited one time
and spoke; I remember him saying that he thought what Pyramid had done
was an awful idea... :-) (They were interesting machines. It was RISC,
with loadable microcode... About the same speed as a Vax 780 but half
the price.)

Arnold


From clemc at ccc.com  Fri Jul 29 23:55:45 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 09:55:45 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] environments/universes (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160728231639.GA299581@lisa.in-ulm.de>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160728231639.GA299581@lisa.in-ulm.de>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2P-Hj50Gqqkpe-Y0kp3VTr7KYJQ3KuSkfzh8=B6CerFpw@mail.gmail.com>

​below​

On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 7:16 PM, Sven Mascheck <mascheck at in-ulm.de> wrote:

> On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 04:57:47PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> > I created Conditionally Dependant Symlinks (CDSL) which I think only
> showed
> > up in Masscomp's RTU, Stellix and Tru64.   The were not only late
> binding,
> > but added the concept of a user settable context.   Very handy when
> trying
> > to create a "single system image" from multiple system.
>
> How did you implement it?
>

​Details are little fuzzy on some of the corner cases.  If I thought about
it, I bet they all come back.   But basically bit crumbs in the u_area
containing the "context" and then only trick was parsing the string in
nami/lookup, so you could have N actions depending on the value of the
context.     i.e.   path with embedded context string and grabbed another
special character (which if I recall we used the @ to deliminate followed
by a null then context1-> replacement1<null>context2->replacement2<null>
.... contextN->nth replacement<null>   which was originally linearly
searched since the original use (universes) had a small number of contexts.


When realized how useful they were @ LCC, and started to add support for
clusters and the node name became one of the contexts, we had to get a bit
smarter.   Tru64 and the unreleased HP-UX implementation did some hashing
and cleanup.  I've forgotten if that was done before or after the Intel
Paragon implementation.

BSD symlink semantics was then left alone, although I think I remember I
hacked the set/read code to handle the special char -- again IIR for set to
translate foo at bar to be foo@@bar and read the opposite.

Obviously you have a new failure of of the context did not match and an
open question of how to set/get the different contexts which varied.   For
universes
(which
​like Pyramid and others, Masscomp ​
RTU also
​provided
), my recollection
​ was
a new command hacked into the shells
​ and we had a general set/get variable services that predates the system
variable stuff of the BSDs and later Unix (that was modeled on VMS given
the Masscomp folks were sometimes ex-VMS kernel developers).

​
For the original work at LCC (which is what went into HP-UX and the Paragon
IIRC) , we had a new system service
​ for contexts and I've forgotten how that worked; but it was different
from the Masscomp or later BSD style scheme​
.

As for m​
y memory of Tru64
​ (which only used CDSL's for handling node dependant info)​;
 the node name was set independently
​ using yet another scheme (which I've now forgotten), but
was already in the u_area
​ so we could just look aside.​

Clem
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Jul 30 00:14:47 2016
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:14:47 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] environments/universes (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <201607290305.u6T355aq009962@freefriends.org>
References: <CADxT5N6Vxxw9GivitVF1LjzAHP6ac3dvHF4gCs83TNzup3OEUA@mail.gmail.com>
 <57991A21.5030404@gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NymVJ=fxcwBUk3ObU_iwc+FieOXLpnt-d=PJwJuzdAeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <20160728231639.GA299581@lisa.in-ulm.de>
 <201607290305.u6T355aq009962@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2Mb1=nxgGTrdWCPx-tOEqg+4XoL2scBVZmrdxFmNqMQag@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 11:05 PM, <arnold at skeeve.com> wrote:

> DMR visited one time
> and spoke; I remember him saying that he thought what Pyramid had done
> was an awful idea... :-)
>

​He was right technically/theoretically, but wrong in practice for economic
reasons.

​
Yes, I remember talking to him about the idea at dinner at a USENIX.
​  And I understood and agree the crude and somewhat confusing nature of
the solution.

​T​
he basic argument behind them was practicality of porting code from the
different flavors
​ (much less being "finger ROM" compatible for users like me)​
.  At this time System III/V and BSD were very much on divergent paths.
Larger firms like DEC and HP-UX took a stand being either BSD or System V
flavored (Sun started one way, sold there soul, then started to add all the
BSD stuff back into SVR4).
​AT&T was making such a ruckus about "Consider it Standard" - but remember
dmr never used ISV code, he wrote his own.

So the problem was that s
maller firms like Masscomp, P
​yra​
​
mid
​, Sequent did not have the leverage that HP, IBM or DEC thought they had
with the ISVs​ (they did originally but time would change as Alpha/Tru64
proved).   Being technically correct was not "good enough" - being
economically for the ISVs and End users was important.  Universes brought
the price of porting code way down, because it allowed the AT&T "standard"
or sort of be true, but still allowing a smaller firm to how their
own extensions/differentiation and provide the "comforts" of BSD.

In the end, it did not matter to the ISVs and why the UNIX "systems"
vendors eventually failed.  It was all about volume and the left UNIX for
Winders when that that system could support their codes and became more
economical.    I remember having the conversation with one of the DEC EVPs
explaining why even the Digitial Equipment Corp could not keep the ISVs on
Alpha/Tru64.  Being only technically correct/great was not a recipe for
financial success of a firm.

​Anyway, he's not here to defend his technical position, but I do think dmr
understood why it was the way it was.​  As you said, he did not like it.

Clem
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From grog at lemis.com  Sat Jul 30 17:56:41 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 17:56:41 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
 <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>

On Thursday, 28 July 2016 at  9:57:40 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Michael Kjörling scripsit:
>>
>> Now all that's really missing is that stationwagon loaded with tapes
>
> Now replaced by the Fedexed hard drive.  Xkcd estimates that if they did
> nothing else, Fedex would be able to transmit 14 petabits per second.
> Companies dealing in big data often use this internally, and IIRC you
> can donate content to the Internet Archive by sending them a disk.

Hard disk drives are yesterday's criterion.  Now it's microSDXC cards.
Physical volume 0.165 ml, up to 200 GB.  I've seen claims that my
station wagon has a cargo volume of 2,752 l, though that seems on the
high side.  That corresponds to about 16,670,000 cards or 3.3 EB.
Take that on a 20 minute drive, and you end up with a link bandwidth
of about 22 Pb/s.

Who needs FedEx?  Of course, the link bandwidth is no longer the
bottleneck.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org 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 ches at cheswick.com  Sat Jul 30 21:41:39 2016
From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick)
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 07:41:39 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
 <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <AE8CA14F-7551-4618-80C7-835832DBD4B1@cheswick.com>


> On 30Jul 2016, at 3:56 AM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> 
> Take that on a 20 minute drive, and you end up with a link bandwidth
> of about 22 Pb/s.

Of course, those cards take time to fill and empty, which should be part of the bandwidth
computation.

I was astonished to learn that one of those pinky-sized micro-SD cards has 33 circuit boards
in it, stacked in a staggered formation.  32 have memory, one a fairly powerful CPU.



From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Jul 31 00:15:37 2016
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 10:15:37 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
 <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <20160730141537.GA12724@mercury.ccil.org>

Greg 'groggy' Lehey scripsit:

> Who needs FedEx?  

Well, latency counts for something too, as does radius: if I want to
send bulk data from New York to London (a very normal thing to do),
your station wagon isn't going to count for much.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Pour moi, les villes du Silmarillion ont plus de realite que Babylone.
                --Christopher Tolkien, as interviewed by Le Monde


From michael at kjorling.se  Sun Jul 31 01:30:36 2016
From: michael at kjorling.se (Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=)
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 15:30:36 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself
In-Reply-To: <20160730141537.GA12724@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
 <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <20160730141537.GA12724@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20160730153036.GI3375@yeono.kjorling.se>

On 30 Jul 2016 10:15 -0400, from cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan):
>> Who needs FedEx?  
> 
> Well, latency counts for something too, as does radius: if I want to
> send bulk data from New York to London (a very normal thing to do),
> your station wagon isn't going to count for much.

You could, however, get an economy class flight ticket and load up
your suitcase with either HDDs or SDXCs (I suspect SDXCs would be
better per amount of data from the perspective of both volume and
weight, and would take better to handling). Given FedEx's prices,
_once you have the infrastructure set up_ (which you'll need whether
you have someone travel with the media, by air or by stationwagon, or
FedEx it), that _might_ even compare favorably in terms of bytes
transferred per second per dollar. (Now that's a measurement of
throughput I don't think I've seen before; B/s/$.) Of course, you'd
need someone who can babysit the suitcase, which potentially adds to
the cost, but the stationwagon traditionally hasn't been self-driving
either, and most of a transatlantic flight isn't active time on part
of the person travelling with the suitcase so you could go with an
overnight flight and allow the person to sleep.

If you want to reduce the risk of the bag getting handled roughly or
lost in handling, reduce the above to carry-on luggage; it will still
provide a quite respectable throughput.

If carry-on allows 10 kg (it's been quite a while since I flew
commercially) and a SDXC card that can store 200 GB weighs 5 grams
(seems a reasonable back-of-the-napkin estimate), that would allow
approximately 200 GB * 2,000 = 400 TB transferred in say ten hours
flight time, for a 40 TB/h ~ 11 GB/s (90 Gb/s) throughput,
disregarding the time to write to and read from the media (which
applies equally with a stationwagon or FedEx). If the ticket costs
$500, that's roughly 200 Mb/s per dollar (and remember, we are only
relying on carry-on here). What's more, it is relatively trivially
parallelizable at an approximately linear increase in cost, and can be
scaled according to need at each time. If you can live with the risk
of rough handling, the throughput per dollar approximately quadruples
(700-900 Mb/s/$) given a 20 kg per person maximum checked-in baggage
weight.

It might not be the absolute cheapest approach, but it seems rather
hard to beat in terms of throughput per dollar for bulk data transfer,
especially if you already have someone who would travel anyway and can
be convinced to take a company-approved suitcase in return for having
their ticket paid for.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
                 “People who think they know everything really annoy
                 those of us who know we don’t.” (Bjarne Stroustrup)


From grog at lemis.com  Sun Jul 31 09:28:03 2016
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 09:28:03 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <AE8CA14F-7551-4618-80C7-835832DBD4B1@cheswick.com>
References: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
 <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <AE8CA14F-7551-4618-80C7-835832DBD4B1@cheswick.com>
Message-ID: <20160730232803.GN86883@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday, 30 July 2016 at  7:41:39 -0400, William Cheswick wrote:
>
>> On 30Jul 2016, at 3:56 AM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>>
>> Take that on a 20 minute drive, and you end up with a link bandwidth
>> of about 22 Pb/s.
>
> Of course, those cards take time to fill and empty, which should be
> part of the bandwidth computation.

It's certainly part of the overall bandwidth computation, but not of
the link bandwidth.  That was my point.

Greg
--
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From scj at yaccman.com  Sun Jul 31 09:50:56 2016
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 16:50:56 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
In-Reply-To: <20160730232803.GN86883@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <579959F6.3050803@gmail.com>
 <20160728112330.GP3375@yeono.kjorling.se>
 <20160728135739.GA14303@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20160730075641.GT78278@eureka.lemis.com>
 <AE8CA14F-7551-4618-80C7-835832DBD4B1@cheswick.com>
 <20160730232803.GN86883@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <7f91cda35ceb8c56e22764b18cc282d1.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

A "standard" 80-column punched card held 80 12-bit columns, or 120 bytes.
1000 cards stacked up took roughly a foot, to get 120,000 bytes
So to store a megabyte would take about 8 1/3 feet of cards.
A gigabyte would be over a mile and a half high.
A terabyte would be over 1500 miles high (half the width of the USA)
A petabyte stack would be over six times the distance to the moon...

Exponential growth may seem like business as normal today, but in reality,
it boggles the mind...

Steve


>>
>> Of course, those cards take time to fill and empty, which should be
>> part of the bandwidth computation.





From rudi.j.blom at gmail.com  Sun Jul 31 14:25:05 2016
From: rudi.j.blom at gmail.com (Rudi Blom)
Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2016 11:25:05 +0700
Subject: [TUHS] History repeating itself (was: Unix v6 problem with /tmp)
Message-ID: <CAMYpm87L17V5bOhHbQKKQ=QMbhv8t_x4+D252F=2gCY8GrwLpQ@mail.gmail.com>

> Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2016 15:30:36 +0000
> From: Michael Kjörling <michael at kjorling.se>
> To: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] History repeating itself
> Message-ID: <20160730153036.GI3375 at yeono.kjorling.se>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
>
> On 30 Jul 2016 10:15 -0400, from cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan):
>>> Who needs FedEx?
>>
>> Well, latency counts for something too, as does radius: if I want to
>> send bulk data from New York to London (a very normal thing to do),
>> your station wagon isn't going to count for much.
>
> You could, however, get an economy class flight ticket and load up
> your suitcase with either HDDs or SDXCs (I suspect SDXCs would be
> better per amount of data from the perspective of both volume and
> weight, and would take better to handling). Given FedEx's prices,
> _once you have the infrastructure set up_ (which you'll need whether
> you have someone travel with the media, by air or by stationwagon, or
> FedEx it), that _might_ even compare favorably in terms of bytes
> transferred per second per dollar. (Now that's a measurement of
> throughput I don't think I've seen before; B/s/$.) Of course, you'd
> need someone who can babysit the suitcase, which potentially adds to
> the cost, but the stationwagon traditionally hasn't been self-driving
> either, and most of a transatlantic flight isn't active time on part
> of the person travelling with the suitcase so you could go with an
> overnight flight and allow the person to sleep.
>
> If you want to reduce the risk of the bag getting handled roughly or
> lost in handling, reduce the above to carry-on luggage; it will still
> provide a quite respectable throughput.
>
> ... ...
>
> It might not be the absolute cheapest approach, but it seems rather
> hard to beat in terms of throughput per dollar for bulk data transfer,
> especially if you already have someone who would travel anyway and can
> be convinced to take a company-approved suitcase in return for having
> their ticket paid for.
>
> --
> Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael at kjorling.se
>                  “People who think they know everything really annoy
>                  those of us who know we don’t.” (Bjarne Stroustrup)
>

To setup the 'infrastructure might be the tricky part. Many years ago
I flew from Montreal to Amsterdam and had two stacks of 5-1/4"
diskettes with me. No papers, confiscated in Amsterdam.

Cheers,
Rudi


