From tim.newsham at gmail.com  Fri Aug  1 05:44:53 2014
From: tim.newsham at gmail.com (Tim Newsham)
Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 09:44:53 -1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
Message-ID: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>

just for fun, you might want to run your
ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term

-- 
Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com


From dave at horsfall.org  Fri Aug  1 08:59:30 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 08:59:30 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408010857481.4064@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Thu, 31 Jul 2014, Tim Newsham wrote:

> just for fun, you might want to run your
> ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
> https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term

Gadzooks - that takes me back!  Curved screen and everything...

-- Dave


From dnied at tiscali.it  Fri Aug  1 19:00:43 2014
From: dnied at tiscali.it (Dario Niedermann)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 11:00:43 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>

Tim Newsham <tim.newsham at gmail.com> wrote:

> just for fun, you might want to run your
> ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
> https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term

Cool! I've been waiting for ages for something like the Cathode terminal emulator
to appear on Linux too. Cathode is Mac OS X only, unfortunately.
Homepage:   http://devio.us/~ndr/
Gopherhole: gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/


From akosela at andykosela.com  Sat Aug  2 01:13:20 2014
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 10:13:20 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
Message-ID: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>

On Friday, August 1, 2014, Dario Niedermann <dnied at tiscali.it> wrote:

> Tim Newsham <tim.newsham at gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> > just for fun, you might want to run your
> > ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
> > https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term
>
> Cool! I've been waiting for ages for something like the Cathode terminal
> emulator
> to appear on Linux too. Cathode is Mac OS X only, unfortunately.
> Homepage:   http://devio.us/~ndr/
> Gopherhole: gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/
>
>
I still prefer my old Digital VT terminal though.  Nothing will beat CRT
screen when it comes to low resolution text-only mode.

--Andy
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From milov at cs.uwlax.edu  Sat Aug  2 01:28:01 2014
From: milov at cs.uwlax.edu (=?utf-8?Q?Milo_Velimirovi=C4=87?=)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 10:28:01 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>


On Aug 1, 2014, at 10:13 AM, Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> On Friday, August 1, 2014, Dario Niedermann <dnied at tiscali.it> wrote:
> Tim Newsham <tim.newsham at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > just for fun, you might want to run your
> > ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
> > https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term
> 
> Cool! I've been waiting for ages for something like the Cathode terminal emulator
> to appear on Linux too. Cathode is Mac OS X only, unfortunately.
> Homepage:   http://devio.us/~ndr/
> Gopherhole: gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/
> 
> 
> I still prefer my old Digital VT terminal though.  Nothing will beat CRT screen when it comes to low resolution text-only mode.

With a keyboard that has the CTRL key in the location where $DEITY intended it to be.

 - MV

> 
> --Andy 
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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From mah at mhorton.net  Sat Aug  2 03:50:29 2014
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 10:50:29 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
Message-ID: <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>

Yes!

The Sun 5c US/UNIX Keyboard (USB) is widely available and reasonably  
priced, and many of them have Control and Esc where God put them!

I bought a lifetime supply (a pack of 5) on ebay several months ago.

Nobody else can stand to use my keyboard :)

Quoting Milo Velimirovi? <milov at cs.uwlax.edu>:


> With a keyboard that has the CTRL key in the location where $DEITY  
> intended it to be.
>
>  - MV



From b4 at gewt.net  Sat Aug  2 03:59:00 2014
From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 13:59:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1408011358070.56336@meaghan>

On Fri, 1 Aug 2014, Mary Ann Horton wrote:

> I bought a lifetime supply (a pack of 5) on ebay several months ago.
>

Hehe. ;)

> Nobody else can stand to use my keyboard :)
>

Really? Aside from the extra keys and a couple being in different 
locations I can't imagine anyone having too many issues!

> Quoting Milo Velimirovi? <milov at cs.uwlax.edu>:
>
>
>> With a keyboard that has the CTRL key in the location where $DEITY intended 
>> it to be.
>> 
>> - MV
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects


From tim.newsham at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 05:59:24 2014
From: tim.newsham at gmail.com (Tim Newsham)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 09:59:24 -1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1408011358070.56336@meaghan>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.11.1408011358070.56336@meaghan>
Message-ID: <CAGSRWbhy2KbJ0XvjXGi-x5Jf3=KNNZMW8iVh6TFyoAJtfsSRmQ@mail.gmail.com>

coincidentally both keyboard design and music
composition reached their pinnacle during my
formative years.
(... and editors!)

On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 7:59 AM, Cory Smelosky <b4 at gewt.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Aug 2014, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
>
>> I bought a lifetime supply (a pack of 5) on ebay several months ago.
>>
>
> Hehe. ;)
>
>
>> Nobody else can stand to use my keyboard :)
>>
>
> Really? Aside from the extra keys and a couple being in different locations
> I can't imagine anyone having too many issues!
>
>
>> Quoting Milo Velimirovi? <milov at cs.uwlax.edu>:
>>
>>
>>> With a keyboard that has the CTRL key in the location where $DEITY
>>> intended it to be.
>>>
>>> - MV
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
>
> --
> Cory Smelosky
> http://gewt.net Personal stuff
> http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs



-- 
Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com


From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug  2 06:11:02 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 06:11:02 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 1 Aug 2014, Mary Ann Horton wrote:

> The Sun 5c US/UNIX Keyboard (USB) is widely available and reasonably 
> priced, and many of them have Control and Esc where God put them!

Personally I've yet to think of a single use for Caps Lock and Num Lock.

Whenever I get stuck with a M$ keyboard (which seems to be most of them) I 
prise off a few irritating keys so that I don't hit the poxy things by 
mistake.

Best keyboard I ever used was the PC-101, with the runner-up being the one 
with the function keys down the LHS.  Can't remember the Sun keyboards, 
but they did have some pretty ghastly ones, such as the first one; it was 
so heavy that you could've used it as a lethal weapon.

-- Dave


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Aug  2 06:35:08 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 16:35:08 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> Personally I've yet to think of a single use for Caps Lock and Num Lock.

It was essential in the transition period when keyboards had acquired
upper and lower case but operating systems only understood upper case.
Since then it has been nothing but a nuisance.

> Whenever I get stuck with a M$ keyboard (which seems to be most of them) I 
> prise off a few irritating keys so that I don't hit the poxy things by 
> mistake.

The echt-MS keyboard I am using right now under Windows 7 has a driver
that lets me disable Caps Lock, and so I have done.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
We do, doodley do, doodley do, doodley do,
What we must, muddily must, muddily must, muddily must;
Muddily do, muddily do, muddily do, muddily do,
Until we bust, bodily bust, bodily bust, bodily bust.  --Bokonon


From dnied at tiscali.it  Sat Aug  2 07:32:46 2014
From: dnied at tiscali.it (Dario Niedermann)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 23:32:46 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <53dc077e.E3btd/HuiFAS2vF5%dnied@tiscali.it>

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> Personally I've yet to think of a single use for Caps Lock and Num Lock.
>
> Whenever I get stuck with a M$ keyboard (which seems to be most of them) I 
> prise off a few irritating keys so that I don't hit the poxy things by 
> mistake.

CapsLock has its use, it's just that on a typical PC keyboard the key is
unnecessarily large and easy to reach. But it's simple enough to swap it
with -say- Esc. I've been doing just that on X11, Linux console and
OpenBSD console.

See: X11: xmodmap(1); Linux: loadkeys(1), keymaps(5);
     OpenBSD: wsconsctl(8)


-- 
Gopherhole: gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/     Homepage: http://devio.us/~ndr/


From imp at bsdimp.com  Sat Aug  2 07:38:52 2014
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 15:38:52 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <53dc077e.E3btd/HuiFAS2vF5%dnied@tiscali.it>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <53dc077e.E3btd/HuiFAS2vF5%dnied@tiscali.it>
Message-ID: <F3B8BE1B-0611-4E41-9417-35C15DB418C1@bsdimp.com>


On Aug 1, 2014, at 3:32 PM, Dario Niedermann <dnied at tiscali.it> wrote:

> Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
>> Personally I've yet to think of a single use for Caps Lock and Num Lock.
>> 
>> Whenever I get stuck with a M$ keyboard (which seems to be most of them) I 
>> prise off a few irritating keys so that I don't hit the poxy things by 
>> mistake.
> 
> CapsLock has its use, it's just that on a typical PC keyboard the key is
> unnecessarily large and easy to reach. But it's simple enough to swap it
> with -say- Esc. I've been doing just that on X11, Linux console and
> OpenBSD console.
> 
> See: X11: xmodmap(1); Linux: loadkeys(1), keymaps(5);
>     OpenBSD: wsconsctl(8)

The one true key to the left of the ‘a’ key is Control. All other keyboards are heretical.

Warner

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From dnied at tiscali.it  Sat Aug  2 07:56:10 2014
From: dnied at tiscali.it (Dario Niedermann)
Date: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 23:56:10 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <F3B8BE1B-0611-4E41-9417-35C15DB418C1@bsdimp.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <53dc077e.E3btd/HuiFAS2vF5%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <F3B8BE1B-0611-4E41-9417-35C15DB418C1@bsdimp.com>
Message-ID: <53dc0cfa.dx7bEQGclTIq2+2A%dnied@tiscali.it>

Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:

> The one true key to the left of the ‘a’ key is Control. All other
> keyboards are heretical.

To each their own. As a Vi user, nothing beats having Esc on the
home row.


-- 
Gopherhole: gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/     Homepage: http://devio.us/~ndr/


From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug  2 11:49:02 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 11:49:02 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 1 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> > Personally I've yet to think of a single use for Caps Lock and Num 
> > Lock.
> 
> It was essential in the transition period when keyboards had acquired 
> upper and lower case but operating systems only understood upper case.

Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving MS-DOS a 
miss.

-- Dave


From tfb at tfeb.org  Sat Aug  2 13:27:50 2014
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 04:27:50 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>


On 2 Aug 2014, at 02:49, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> 
> Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving MS-DOS a 
> miss.

MS-DOS understood lowercase: it just didn't care in the common way.  Did filenames have case at all? I can't remember.  Interestingly, other than minority systems (Unix!) the modern standard for filenames seems to be to remember but not care about case: this is what the Mac does (with the default FS options) and I am pretty sure what Windows does too.  I've been bitten several times by Mac things which fail horribly because there's a README and a ReadMe in a tarball.

Did FORTRAN understand lowercase, always?  I suspect it didn't officially, until Fortran 90, although obviously many F77 compilers accepted lowercase.  More to the point for quite a long time, whether or not the system would accept lowercase, people actually *wrote* un uppercase and caps lock was probably useful for that.  Also COBOL I suspect, and probably SQL?  There was a lot of code written in those languages.

--tim

From grog at lemis.com  Sat Aug  2 13:37:03 2014
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 13:37:03 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
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Message-ID: <20140802033703.GZ30208@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday,  2 August 2014 at 11:49:02 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Fri, 1 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:
>
>>> Personally I've yet to think of a single use for Caps Lock and Num
>>> Lock.
>>
>> It was essential in the transition period when keyboards had acquired
>> upper and lower case but operating systems only understood upper case.
>
> Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving MS-DOS a
> miss.

While I'm not convinced I agree with John, this would have predated
CP/M.  After all it, and MS-DOS after it, *did* understand lower case.
And the CapSlock key was there on the earliest upper/lower case
keyboards I've seen.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
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From grog at lemis.com  Sat Aug  2 13:45:51 2014
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 13:45:51 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
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 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
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 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday,  2 August 2014 at  4:27:50 +0100, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
>
> On 2 Aug 2014, at 02:49, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving MS-DOS a
>> miss.
>
> MS-DOS understood lowercase: it just didn't care in the common way.
> Did filenames have case at all?

Only in the sense that all file names were upper case, and lower case
names were upshifted.

> Did FORTRAN understand lowercase, always?

No.  It was first implemented on the IBM 704, which had a 6 bit BCD
character set.  No lower case.

> I suspect it didn't officially, until Fortran 90, although obviously
> many F77 compilers accepted lowercase.  More to the point for quite
> a long time, whether or not the system would accept lowercase,
> people actually *wrote* un uppercase and caps lock was probably
> useful for that.  Also COBOL I suspect, and probably SQL?

Basically, until the introduction of ASCII, there weren't many systems
with lower case.  IBM had lower case characters with EBCDIC, but
didn't seem to use them.  I wrote code in FORTRAN and COBOL before the
introduction of lower-case, but later compilers I've seen for both
languages accepted lower case.

I think the real reason for the retention of upper case in these
languages was because it made people feel leet.  "We're computer
programmers, we write in upper case".  It's like the disregard for
normal punctuation that some style guides require( like putting spaces
on the wrong sides of parentheses, or omitting them where required ).

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 MUA reports
problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua
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From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug  2 14:28:41 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 14:28:41 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
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 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021421280.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Tim Bradshaw wrote:

> MS-DOS understood lowercase: it just didn't care in the common way.  
> Did filenames have case at all? I can't remember.  Interestingly, other 
> than minority systems (Unix!) the modern standard for filenames seems to 
> be to remember but not care about case: this is what the Mac does (with 
> the default FS options) and I am pretty sure what Windows does too.  
> I've been bitten several times by Mac things which fail horribly because 
> there's a README and a ReadMe in a tarball.

One of my irritations was "Makefile" and "makefile"; I could never 
remember which had priority.  I standardised on "Makefile", but oddly
enough "makefile" was/is popular; I prefer my metafiles to stand out.

-- Dave


From imp at bsdimp.com  Sat Aug  2 14:46:15 2014
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2014 22:46:15 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
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 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <1B054F7E-EA78-4AAF-A401-5126BCEE7605@bsdimp.com>


On Aug 1, 2014, at 9:27 PM, Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:

> 
> On 2 Aug 2014, at 02:49, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>> 
>> Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving MS-DOS a 
>> miss.
> 
> MS-DOS understood lowercase: it just didn't care in the common way.  Did filenames have case at all? I can't remember.  Interestingly, other than minority systems (Unix!) the modern standard for filenames seems to be to remember but not care about case: this is what the Mac does (with the default FS options) and I am pretty sure what Windows does too.  I've been bitten several times by Mac things which fail horribly because there's a README and a ReadMe in a tar ball.

MS-DOS was strictly upper case  (with lower case converted) until Win95 expanded the lengths and case restrictions (but case was preserved, but not significant). Mac followed the same convention, although today it depends on the filesystem options for case being significant or not (for some programs it matters, strangely enough).

> Did FORTRAN understand lowercase, always?  I suspect it didn't officially, until Fortran 90, although obviously many F77 compilers accepted lowercase.  More to the point for quite a long time, whether or not the system would accept lowercase, people actually *wrote* un uppercase and caps lock was probably useful for that.  Also COBOL I suspect, and probably SQL?  There was a lot of code written in those languages.

FORTRAN III and IV compilers for the PDP-11 RSX-11 / RSTS-E / RT-11 system accepted lowercase, but in the LST files it produced it always converted to upper case. But the terminals of the time had sensible caps locks keys that weren’t directly to the left of the ‘a’ key… and the few that did had the control key to the left of it rather than relegated to its “modern” place below the shift key...

Warner

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From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug  2 15:45:29 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 15:45:29 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140802033703.GZ30208@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
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 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140802033703.GZ30208@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021539350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> While I'm not convinced I agree with John, this would have predated 
> CP/M.  After all it, and MS-DOS after it, *did* understand lower case. 
> And the CapSlock key was there on the earliest upper/lower case 
> keyboards I've seen.

Now you're taking me back to the 2741 and ye olde 360/50...

The Teletype on the PDP-8 was upper-case, as was the 2741 with the APL 
goofball.  I never saw a Terminet.

-- Dave


From grog at lemis.com  Sat Aug  2 16:09:59 2014
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 16:09:59 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021539350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140802033703.GZ30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021539350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140802060959.GB30208@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday,  2 August 2014 at 15:45:29 +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> While I'm not convinced I agree with John, this would have predated
>> CP/M.  After all it, and MS-DOS after it, *did* understand lower case.
>> And the CapSlock key was there on the earliest upper/lower case
>> keyboards I've seen.
>
> Now you're taking me back to the 2741 and ye olde 360/50...

Heh.  I never used a 2741, just a 735, which I interfaced to a Z-80 in
the early 1980s.  Its native code was neither BCD nor EBCDIC, just two
tilt and 4 (I think) rotate bits that mapped to a position on the
ball.

> The Teletype on the PDP-8 was upper-case, as was the 2741 with the
> APL goofball.

Yes, that was my first machine too, with the cheaper ASR-33 without
lower case.

Does anybody who used the ASR-35 recall if it had a CapsLock key?

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 MUA reports
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From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug  2 16:17:14 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 16:17:14 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140802061214.GC13625@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021614170.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> > Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving 
> > MS-DOS a miss.
> 
> I was actually thinking about OS/8 and RT-11.

Ahh...  RT-11 and TECO...  Who here hasn't typed their name into it to see 
what it did?

I was thinking of home systems.

-- Dave


From tfb at tfeb.org  Sat Aug  2 19:24:46 2014
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 10:24:46 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <63E407A2-C677-4C73-A69F-02CDE5F68F36@tfeb.org>


On 2 Aug 2014, at 04:45, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> Only in the sense that all file names were upper case, and lower case
> names were upshifted.

Yes, that's what I meant: you could type at it in lowercase and it didn't care, it just translated to uppercase for you.  So you didn't need a caps lock key.

> 
> I think the real reason for the retention of upper case in these
> languages was because it made people feel leet.  "We're computer
> programmers, we write in upper case".  It's like the disregard for
> normal punctuation that some style guides require( like putting spaces
> on the wrong sides of parentheses, or omitting them where required ).

And actually that's the only reason for needing a caps lock key really: for systems which *had* no lowercase, then you wouldn't need a caps lock key because you couldn't *type* lowercase!

As a (possibly now dry) Lisp person, case was a very sensitive issue.  Lisp originated on systems without lowercase (indeed, on the IBM 704, of course, like all good things) and most implementations used uppercase symbols.  Common Lisp is fully case-sensitive (symbols can contain mixed case, and in fact can contain any character known to the implementation), but all the standard symbols are uppercase.  However by default the reader translates lowercase to uppercase for symbol names (not for strings of course), and you can also persuade the printer to *print* symbol names in lowercase except where that would be ambiguous, so the language looks as if it is case-insensitive lowercase-preferred, except it isn't at all.  Very much smoke and flame has been produced about this topic, especially among adherents of some of the more extreme sects (Lisp being more correctly thought of as a religion than a programming language).
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From cym224 at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 23:22:45 2014
From: cym224 at gmail.com (Nemo)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 09:22:45 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <CAJfiPzwPG12NM5WbJgDk4yDQxH-S8dfG0rPny=9itTHiW+_PSg@mail.gmail.com>

On 1 August 2014 23:27, Tim Bradshaw <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote (in part):
> I've been bitten several times by Mac things which fail horribly because there's a README
> and a ReadMe in a tarball.

As a side note, I run OS X on a case-sensitive fs and had only one
bother when an installation script had mixed case.

N.


From pechter at gmail.com  Sat Aug  2 23:35:36 2014
From: pechter at gmail.com (Bill Pechter)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 09:35:36 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021614170.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
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 <20140802061214.GC13625@mercury.ccil.org>
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Message-ID: <CALwkMd0BFD2yvP4DshjZHQf9_LH4gd1jC-kapA3NYBiVJe4JVA@mail.gmail.com>

RT11 was my first home system... Got to love those DEC employee purchase
PDT11/150's.
Slow as hell but the OS was miles beyond DOS and CP/M.

VT180 was next followed by an AT&T 6300 DOS/Xenix box.

Bo;;

--
  d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN.  Don't you wish you could still buy it now!
 pechter-at-gmail.com


On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 2:17 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:
>
> > > Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving
> > > MS-DOS a miss.
> >
> > I was actually thinking about OS/8 and RT-11.
>
> Ahh...  RT-11 and TECO...  Who here hasn't typed their name into it to see
> what it did?
>
> I was thinking of home systems.
>
> -- Dave
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
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From random832 at fastmail.us  Sat Aug  2 23:30:48 2014
From: random832 at fastmail.us (random832 at fastmail.us)
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 09:30:48 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408010857481.4064@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408010857481.4064@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <1406986248.2933921.148378166.2CF84C48@webmail.messagingengine.com>

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014, at 18:59, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Jul 2014, Tim Newsham wrote:
> 
> > just for fun, you might want to run your
> > ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
> > https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term
> 
> Gadzooks - that takes me back!  Curved screen and everything...

Of course, curved screens aren't that far back compared to the rest -
PCs had them into the early 2000s.


From milov at cs.uwlax.edu  Sun Aug  3 00:04:12 2014
From: milov at cs.uwlax.edu (Milo Velimirovic)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 09:04:12 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CALwkMd0BFD2yvP4DshjZHQf9_LH4gd1jC-kapA3NYBiVJe4JVA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140802061214.GC13625@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021614170.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALwkMd0BFD2yvP4DshjZHQf9_LH4gd1jC-kapA3NYBiVJe4JVA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <9CBA014A-550E-4445-99EB-3C25D549F24E@cs.uwlax.edu>

I've got a PDT11/150 and VT100.

I wonder where the 8" floppies went. Anyone willing to duplicate a bootable PDT11  RT11 floppy?

 - Milo

On Aug 2, 2014, at 8:35 AM, Bill Pechter wrote:

> RT11 was my first home system... Got to love those DEC employee purchase PDT11/150's.
> Slow as hell but the OS was miles beyond DOS and CP/M.
> 
> VT180 was next followed by an AT&T 6300 DOS/Xenix box.
> 
> Bo;;
> 
> --
>   d|i|g|i|t|a|l had it THEN.  Don't you wish you could still buy it now!
>  pechter-at-gmail.com
> 
> 
> On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 2:17 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:
> 
> > > Hadn't really noticed; I went straight from CP/M to Unix, giving
> > > MS-DOS a miss.
> >
> > I was actually thinking about OS/8 and RT-11.
> 
> Ahh...  RT-11 and TECO...  Who here hasn't typed their name into it to see
> what it did?
> 
> I was thinking of home systems.
> 
> -- Dave
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug  3 00:28:17 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 10:28:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Lisp is a family quarrel
In-Reply-To: <63E407A2-C677-4C73-A69F-02CDE5F68F36@tfeb.org>
References: <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <63E407A2-C677-4C73-A69F-02CDE5F68F36@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <20140802142816.GB15007@mercury.ccil.org>

Tim Bradshaw scripsit:

> And actually that's the only reason for needing a caps lock key really:
> for systems which *had* no lowercase, then you wouldn't need a caps
> lock key because you couldn't *type* lowercase!

As I said, it allows you to adjust to a mismatch: a keyboard that types
lower case by default, software that rejects lower case.

> (Lisp being more correctly thought of as a religion than a programming
> language).

	"Do you know the saying, Karhide is not a nation but a family
	quarrel?" I haven't, and suspect that Estraven made it up;
	it has his stamp.
		--Le Guin, _The Left Hand of Darkness_

Lisp, too, is a family quarrel.  Scheme is even more so than Common Lisp;
CL is a language, but Scheme is a family of languages, perhaps 80 of them.
The minimalist R5RS standard of 1998 was case-folding, like all standards
before it, but perhaps half of all implementations ignored this and were
case-sensitive.  In practice, case-folding implementations folded to lower
case, and where case was not folded, the standard identifiers were lower
case.  The latter position is a feature of the case-sensitive R6RS (2007)
and R7RS-small (2013) standards.  At present, case-sensitivity dominates
in the 40+ implementations that I use for test purposes by about two to one.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
After fixing the Y2K bug in an application:
        WELCOME TO <censored>
        DATE: MONDAK, JANUARK 1, 1900


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sun Aug  3 00:28:59 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 10:28:59 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> To each their own.

Indeed.

> As a Vi user, nothing beats having Esc on the home row.

A symptom of why I have always detested emacs and vi. With ^D, ^C,
and ^\, Unix has more than enough mystery chords to learn. Emacs
and vi raised that number to a high power--an interface at least
as arcane and disorganized as the DD card in OS 360--baroque
efflorescences totally out of harmony with the spirit of Unix.

(Perhaps one could liken learning vi to learning how to finger
the flute, but the flute pays off with beautiful music. To put the
worst face on vi, it "pays off" only by promoting frantic tinkering.)

A modern-day analog of the undisciplined exuberance of emacs and vi:
for a good time on linux try
        less --help | wc

Does comment on taste belong in a discussion of history? I think
so. Unix was born of a taste for achieving big power by small
means rather than by unbounded accumulation of facilities. But
evolution, including the evolution of Unix, does not work that
way. An interesting question is how the corrective of taste manages
ever to recenter the exuberance of evolution. The birth of Unix shows
it can happen. When will it happen again? Can one cite small-scale
examples that gained traction within the larger evolution of Unix?

Doug


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug  3 00:30:24 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 10:30:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021614170.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140802061214.GC13625@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021614170.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140802143024.GD15007@mercury.ccil.org>

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> Ahh...  RT-11 and TECO...  Who here hasn't typed their name into it to see 
> what it did?

In my case, it's trivial: it jumps to the start of the buffer (J) and then
crashes by trying to go to (O) the label "HN COWAN" and failing.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Where the wombat has walked, it will inevitably walk again.
   (even through brick walls!)


From lm at mcvoy.com  Sun Aug  3 00:00:35 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 07:00:35 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <20140802140035.GB19745@mcvoy.com>

On Sat, Aug 02, 2014 at 10:28:59AM -0400, Doug McIlroy wrote:
> A symptom of why I have always detested emacs and vi. 

EMACS - eight megs and constantly swapping :)

I like vi, there is a learning curve but what is better?  I tried emacs, it
was too much for my feeble brain.  

I used to carry around a version of xvi (a variant that did buffers so you
could split the screen and see two different parts of a file or two different
files).  I had hacked that so it used \n as a terminator (I think I wacked
things so that \n or \0 were considered terminators) and made it use mmap
to look at the file.  This meant I could fit a ~3MB file in the editor on
a 4MB machine.  It was a pretty big win at the time.

Then we got more memory and then vim came along and I've never looked back.

So Doug, ed?  Or what?  I know some people are fantastic in ed, I used to 
be OK especially when I was going in through a serial port but I can't see
using that for serious programming these days.  Maybe I'm lame.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sun Aug  3 01:38:54 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 11:38:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
Message-ID: <201408021538.s72Fcs7o021169@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> So Doug, ed?  Or what?

Yes, ed for small things. It loads instantly and works in the
current window without disturbing it. And it has been ingrained
in my fingers since Multics days.

But for heavy duty work, I use sam, in Windows as well as Linux.
Sam marries ed to screen editing much more cleanly than vi.
It has recursive global commands and infinite undo. Like qed
(whence came ed's syntax) and Larry's xvi it can work on
several files (or even several areas in one file) at once.


I would guess that a vi adept would miss having arrow keys
as well as the mouse, but probably not much else. Sam offers
one answer for my question about examples of taste reigning
in featurism during the course of Unix evolution.

Doug


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Aug  3 01:51:35 2014
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 15:51:35 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140802140035.GB19745@mcvoy.com>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <20140802140035.GB19745@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Larry McVoy wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 02, 2014 at 10:28:59AM -0400, Doug McIlroy wrote:
>> A symptom of why I have always detested emacs and vi.
>
> EMACS - eight megs and constantly swapping :)

I like my own version: "Enough Memory? A Concept Strange!"

(That said, I'm a heathen and use nano. Don't care for emacs and the only 
vi I can stand is Watcom's.)

-uso.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug  3 02:07:04 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 12:07:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
In-Reply-To: <201408021538.s72Fcs7o021169@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408021538.s72Fcs7o021169@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <20140802160704.GG15007@mercury.ccil.org>

Doug McIlroy scripsit:

> Yes, ed for small things. It loads instantly and works in the current
> window without disturbing it. And it has been ingrained in my fingers
> since Multics days.

I use ex exclusively, being willing to trade a little standardosity for
a little more user-friendliness.  I have no trouble switching to ed if
necessary (as when /usr is not mounted, though nowadays /usr is typically
on the root file system).  It is certainly ingrained in my fingers;
I'm using it to write this email.  I usually write scripts for ed rather
than ex, as I usually write shell scripts for a Posix shell, not for bash.

Very occasionally I switch to vi mode, mostly so I can use the % key
when editing Lisp, or to edit a highly repetitive line (try changing
"one one one one one one one one one" to "one one one one one two one
one one one" with ed/ex alone!)  The only vi commands I know are h, j,
k, l, x, i, %, and most importantly Q, which gets me back to ex mode.

My answer to "What's your IDE?" is "Console running a bunch of 'ex'
tabs and one shell tab for typing 'make'."


> But for heavy duty work, I use sam, in Windows as well as Linux.

I've tried to switch to sam several times, but so far without success.
The lack of arrow keys is annoying for close-up editing, and since I use
Windows as a terminal to hack remote Solaris or Linux systems, the lack
of -r in the Windows version of sam is very annoying.

> Sam marries ed to screen editing much more cleanly than vi.  It has
> recursive global commands and infinite undo. Like qed (whence came
> ed's syntax) and Larry's xvi it can work on several files (or even
> several areas in one file) at once.

Agreed on all points.  See esr's "A Tale of Five Editors" at
<http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch13s02.html> (be sure to
click the "Next" link for his analysis).  I contributed much of the sam
and acme/wily sections.  (I know you've read this, since you are quoted
in it, but others here may not have.)

> I would guess that a vi adept would miss having arrow keys as well
> as the mouse, but probably not much else. Sam offers one answer for
> my question about examples of taste reigning in featurism during the
> course of Unix evolution.

"Reining in", please (peeve, peeve)

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Adam [...] did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only
because it was forbidden. The mistake was not forbidding the serpent;
then he would have eaten the serpent. --Mark Twain


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug  3 02:07:58 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 12:07:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <20140802140035.GB19745@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>
Message-ID: <20140802160758.GH15007@mercury.ccil.org>

Steve Nickolas scripsit:

> (That said, I'm a heathen and use nano. Don't care for emacs and the
> only vi I can stand is Watcom's.)

I've used nano, and for that matter Windows Notepad, on occasion.
A proper carpenter knows the use of every tool.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
The peculiar excellence of comedy is its excellent fooling, and Aristophanes's
claim to immortality is based upon one title only: he was a master maker
of comedy, he could fool excellently.  Here Gilbert stands side by side
with him.  He, too, could write the most admirable nonsense.  There has
never been better fooling than his, and a comparison with him carries
nothing derogatory to the great Athenian. --Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way


From dds at aueb.gr  Sun Aug  3 02:04:14 2014
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 19:04:14 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <53DD0BFE.3000506@aueb.gr>

On 02/08/2014 17:28, Doug McIlroy wrote:
> Does comment on taste belong in a discussion of history? I think
> so. Unix was born of a taste for achieving big power by small
> means rather than by unbounded accumulation of facilities. But
> evolution, including the evolution of Unix, does not work that
> way. An interesting question is how the corrective of taste manages
> ever to recenter the exuberance of evolution. The birth of Unix shows
> it can happen. When will it happen again? Can one cite small-scale
> examples that gained traction within the larger evolution of Unix?

With modern facilities (hardware, libraries, distributed open source 
development) today's small-scale isn't the same as what it was.  If one 
considers the exuberant size compared to functionality of Node.js (11M 
binary), Emacs (10M), gdb (5.2M), mysql (3.1M), and vim (2.1M), here are 
some examples of smaller-scale programs that punch noticeably above 
their weight.

- git (1.4M) (as a distributed filesystem with rich metadata and 
versioning with configuration management thrown in as a bonus)
- tex (309K)
- curl (154K)
- sudo (121K)
- dot (7.7K plus 730K for its libraries)
- traceroute (53K)

Some libraries that deserve mentioning, when compared to libruby (2.3M), 
libxml2 (2.2M), and libpython2.6 (1.6M), are the following:

- libssl (431K)
- liblua (177K)
- C++ STL (816K for /usr/include/c++/4.8.2/bits/stl_*)

* Numbers are "ls -lh" output from a 2014.03 Amazon Linux AMI on which I 
had an open shell window.

I also think software package management systems are "small-scale", if 
one considers the functionality they offer through the thousands of 
packages they can install.


From ed at flat5.net  Sun Aug  3 02:07:10 2014
From: ed at flat5.net (Ed)
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 09:07:10 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
Message-ID: <p242lk9il46fkltjy7pipoob.1406995519672@email.android.com>

Arrow keys? Vi does arrow keys? But then I'd have to move my hand from home.
That's not vi.




--
Ed Skinner, ed at flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/

-------- Original message --------
From: Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> 
Date: 08/02/2014  8:38 AM  (GMT-07:00) 
To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org,lm at mcvoy.com 
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Unix taste 
 
> So Doug, ed?  Or what?

Yes, ed for small things. It loads instantly and works in the
current window without disturbing it. And it has been ingrained
in my fingers since Multics days.

But for heavy duty work, I use sam, in Windows as well as Linux.
Sam marries ed to screen editing much more cleanly than vi.
It has recursive global commands and infinite undo. Like qed
(whence came ed's syntax) and Larry's xvi it can work on
several files (or even several areas in one file) at once.


I would guess that a vi adept would miss having arrow keys
as well as the mouse, but probably not much else. Sam offers
one answer for my question about examples of taste reigning
in featurism during the course of Unix evolution.

Doug
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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From lm at mcvoy.com  Sun Aug  3 02:03:05 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 09:03:05 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <53DD0BFE.3000506@aueb.gr>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <53DD0BFE.3000506@aueb.gr>
Message-ID: <20140802160305.GA21360@mcvoy.com>

On Sat, Aug 02, 2014 at 07:04:14PM +0300, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:
> - git (1.4M) (as a distributed filesystem with rich metadata and
> versioning with configuration management thrown in as a bonus)

Looking at git like that is sort of like looking at the size of
a dynamically linked app.  Ya gotta add in libc and all the extensions
people use to make it not suck.


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug  3 02:47:48 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat,  2 Aug 2014 12:47:48 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140802164748.6D3BD18C0B2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>

    > A symptom of why I have always detested emacs and vi. With ^D, ^C, and
    > ^\, Unix has more than enough mystery chords to learn. Emacs and vi
    > raised that number to a high power--an interface at least as arcane and
    > disorganized as the DD card in OS 360--baroque efflorescences totally
    > out of harmony with the spirit of Unix.

I will agree that the Emacs user interface is not simple - although there are
levels, and one can start out e.g. without knowing the commands to move by
word, and get by with the commands to move by character - and of course
nowadays, the arrows, etc, keys on keyboards are bound to the appropriate
commands, for novices.

But it's a subtle debate; yes, it's not for everyone, but i) as an
application, not everyone has to use it (unlike a kernel), and ii) as the
editor is the principal tool which most programmers spend hours a day using,
it is not insensible to have a more complex but powerful tool which takes a
while to fully master. (Like playing a violin...)

Back on V6, we started using one written by someone at BBN (memory fails me as
to exactly who), and it improved my productivity immensely (with 'WYSIWG'
editing - i.e. you always see the current contents of the buffer, multiple
buffers, multiple windows, etc).

I had been using 'ed' (although I had access to Emacs on the ITS machines),
and although I was (and remain) fairly skilled at 'ed', the factors I just
listed are immense, IMO. Being able to see the code as I work on it really,
really helps (for me, at least).

But a lot of that is orthogonal to Emacs command interface; you can have
'WYSIWYG', multiple buffers, etc with a wholly different command interface,
and get much the same benefit. (E.g.  uSoft Word has most of those; real
WYSIWG [i.e. with multiple fonts], multiple files open at once, etc, etc.)

Does something like Word produce the same reaction for you? I don't use it
much, but my wife does (she's an engineer, and uses it to write papers), and
its complexity drives her crazy sometimes.


As for the size of Emacs, everyone needs to distinguish between GNU Emacs, and
Emacs-like editors. Just as GCC is a beast, but other C compilers are and were
much smaller, there are small Emacses out there.

Back on V6 (on a PDP-11, of course), it had to fit into 64KB; the one we used
didn't have the kind of extensibility common in them now, but it was still
a much better tool for me than 'ed'.

As I recall the performance was pretty good (albeit it chewed CPU time, since
it woke up on every character - Multics had an Emacs which tried to avoid
that, and only woke up on non-printing characters, and used system echoing for
the others). I don't know for sure (I don't have the source to hand at the
moment - that's one of the things I hope to recover if/when I can read those
backup tapes), but I suspect that it 'windowed' files (i.e. didn't read the
whole thing in); with the 65KB address space of the 11, that would be almost
inevitable.

I have been using another Emacs, Epsilon, for almost 30 years now; it started
as basically Emacs for MS-DOS, and later became Emacs for Windows, and it is
small and very fast. The Windows executable is about 250KB, and it loads a
'state file' (mostly interpreted 'compiled' intermediate code, written in
something that's 99.2% 'C', in which a lot of the editor is actually written)
of about 200K (for mine, which has a lot of extensions I wrote). It starts
fast, and runs blindingly fast. It also uses the file 'windowing' techniques,
and can handle much larger files than its address space (this dates back to
its MS-DOS days).

So Emacs != big (at least, not necessarily).


    > A modern-day analog of the undisciplined exuberance of emacs and vi:
    > for a good time on linux try

I basically agree with you on this; I want to go away and collect my thoughts
before responding, though.

	Noel


From BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu  Sun Aug  3 03:28:41 2014
From: BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu (Benjamin Huntsman)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 17:28:41 +0000
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <20140802140035.GB19745@mcvoy.com>,
 <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>
Message-ID: <5782C16A7C920E469B74E11B5608B8E7688C7FBA@Kriegler.ntdom.cupdx>

>> EMACS - eight megs and constantly swapping :)

>I like my own version: "Enough Memory? A Concept Strange!"

I thought it stood for Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift :)



From iking at killthewabbit.org  Sun Aug  3 04:51:12 2014
From: iking at killthewabbit.org (Ian King)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 11:51:12 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140802164748.6D3BD18C0B2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140802164748.6D3BD18C0B2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CAF65FFD-0F0F-4FB0-9F0C-DB57E9FE6C9C@killthewabbit.org>

On Aug 2, 2014, at 9:47 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>
> Does something like Word produce the same reaction for you? I don't  
> use it
> much, but my wife does (she's an engineer, and uses it to write  
> papers), and
> its complexity drives her crazy sometimes.
>

After writing my general exam in MS-Word,  I swore off it unless  
forced to use it (i.e. collaborative requirements).  When a stupid  
but ambitious application program thinks it's smarter than you are  
and tries to 'correct' your writing (I now call it 'autocorrupt'),  
it's time to change.  These days I write in EMACS and format with  
LaTeX, printing in PDF.  I can't imagine writing my dissertation with  
the turd called Word.

Unfortunately, I have to keep MS-Worst on the family computer,  
because the public schools require parents to purchase for-profit  
software to support our children's education.  (There are too many  
incompatibilities with Open Office et al. that trip up my less- 
computer-savvy family members for the open-source tools to be a  
useful alternative in an compulsory MS world.)  Fortunately, I get it  
for free through *my* school.

For programming, I used to use exclusively vi, but tried EMACS out of  
curiosity and found its UI to be a less constrained than vi's modal  
approach.  I use Gnu, FWIW.  -- Ian

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From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Aug  3 05:36:57 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 05:36:57 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408030521310.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Doug McIlroy wrote:

> A modern-day analog of the undisciplined exuberance of emacs and vi:
> for a good time on linux try
>         less --help | wc

Arrgghh!  Same on Mac and BSD systems.

> An interesting question is how the corrective of taste manages ever to 
> recenter the exuberance of evolution. The birth of Unix shows it can 
> happen. When will it happen again? Can one cite small-scale examples 
> that gained traction within the larger evolution of Unix?

Closest I can think of is public key crypto, strong hashes, etc.  Easy to 
explain in general terms, difficult to implement correctly, and had a heck 
of an influence.

-- Dave


From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Aug  3 05:50:00 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 05:50:00 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>
References: <201408021428.s72ESxh5020511@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <20140802140035.GB19745@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408021550080.32720@localhost>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408030547020.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Steve Nickolas wrote:

> > EMACS - eight megs and constantly swapping :)
> 
> I like my own version: "Enough Memory? A Concept Strange!"

Or the one seen in either ;login: or AUUGN:

EMACS - Editor too large

-- Dave


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug  3 07:18:21 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat,  2 Aug 2014 17:18:21 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140802211821.C8DC418C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Benjamin Huntsman <BHuntsman at mail2.cu-portland.edu>

    > I thought it stood for Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift :)

    > From: Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org>

    > EMACS - Editor too large

Those are both pretty funny!


BTW, Epsilon (that 250KB Emacs that I was raving about) not only runs under
Windows, it also runs under Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD, etc. Here:

    http://lugaru.com/

I can't say enough good things about it (hence my 30-year addiction to it).
If you want an Emacs clone that is very small; very fast; and wildly
extensible and modifiable (it comes with almost all the source), in C
(effectively); this is the one.

	Noel


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 09:44:38 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 18:44:38 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140802211821.C8DC418C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140802211821.C8DC418C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZsi2Fc0Pfz-n9d_dq9Rxo16Be1Fk5p1CrHT4oELHNMR=Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 2, 2014 4:19 PM, "Noel Chiappa" <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:

<snip>
> BTW, Epsilon (that 250KB Emacs that I was raving about) not only runs
under
> Windows, it also runs under Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD, etc. Here:
>
>     http://lugaru.com/
>
> I can't say enough good things about it (hence my 30-year addiction to
it).
> If you want an Emacs clone that is very small; very fast; and wildly
> extensible and modifiable (it comes with almost all the source), in C
> (effectively); this is the one.
>
>         Noel

That word, effectively, is an important one. Being so small, I expected the
editor to lack a scripting language. I was pleasantly surprised that it
does have one, and that it's a c derivative rather than lisp, a fine
language but not my favorite one. "Extensible and modifiable" doesn't
always mean the same thing to everyone, and well, you're a kernel hacker.

I must try this...
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sun Aug  3 10:15:27 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 20:15:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
Message-ID: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> "Reining in", please (peeve, peeve)

Ouch. Doubly so for the erstwhile curator of "spell".

(COuld "reigning in" somehow have been implanted by this
headline that I saw in The Economist a few days ago:
"The reign in Maine is easy to explain"?)

Doug


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Aug  3 10:30:23 2014
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 00:30:23 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
In-Reply-To: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408030029510.64450@localhost>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Doug McIlroy wrote:

>> "Reining in", please (peeve, peeve)
>
> Ouch. Doubly so for the erstwhile curator of "spell".
>
> (COuld "reigning in" somehow have been implanted by this
> headline that I saw in The Economist a few days ago:
> "The reign in Maine is easy to explain"?)

I wonder if it's similar to how nobody can spell "free rein" correctly.

-uso.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug  3 10:35:58 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 20:35:58 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
In-Reply-To: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <20140803003558.GK15007@mercury.ccil.org>

Doug McIlroy scripsit:

> (COuld "reigning in" somehow have been implanted by this
> headline that I saw in The Economist a few days ago:
> "The reign in Maine is easy to explain"?)

It's a pretty common malapropism nowadays; almost 6M Google hits.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
It's the old, old story.  Droid meets droid.  Droid becomes chameleon.
Droid loses chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back
again.  It's a classic tale.  --Kryten, Red Dwarf


From b4 at gewt.net  Sun Aug  3 10:38:50 2014
From: b4 at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 20:38:50 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
In-Reply-To: <20140803003558.GK15007@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <20140803003558.GK15007@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.11.1408022038260.56336@meaghan>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> Doug McIlroy scripsit:
>
>> (COuld "reigning in" somehow have been implanted by this
>> headline that I saw in The Economist a few days ago:
>> "The reign in Maine is easy to explain"?)
>
> It's a pretty common malapropism nowadays; almost 6M Google hits.
>
>

No love for "rayneing in"?

-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects


From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Aug  3 10:39:50 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 10:39:50 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408030029510.64450@localhost>
References: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408030029510.64450@localhost>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408031038040.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sun, 3 Aug 2014, Steve Nickolas wrote:

> I wonder if it's similar to how nobody can spell "free rein" correctly.

My favourite is "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing momentarily."  
Err, aren't they going to let us "deplane" first?

-- Dave


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug  3 10:48:00 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat,  2 Aug 2014 20:48:00 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140803004800.A747818C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: "A. P. Garcia" <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com>

    > Being so small, I expected the editor to lack a scripting language.

Well, there is a companion 'compiler' which converts extension source into
the intermediate form (byte-code) which is interpreted by the editor. But
it's even smaller (67KB!) and as fast as the editor itself.

    > I was pleasantly surprised that it does have one, and that it's a c
    > derivative ... "Extensible and modifiable" doesn't always mean the same
    > thing to everyone, and well, you're a kernel hacker.

Take a quick look at a source file, e.g. one of mine:

  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/cmd.e

and you'll see i) what it's like (except for a few new editing-specific
keywords, such as 'on <key>' in function definitions, it's pretty much C),
and ii) it will give you a sense of the kind of things one writes in it, and
how easy it is to do so.

The underlying run-time basically just provides buffer, display, etc
primitives, and pretty much all the actual editor commands are written in the
'extension' languge, even simple things like 'forward character' (^F), etc.
The complete manual is available online, the run-time system is described
here:

  http://www.lugaru.com/man/Primitives.and.EEL.Subroutines.html

Epsilon comes (as of a few versions back, I haven't bothered to upgrade) with
about 22K lines of source, which is the bulk of the actual editor; that turns
into about 190KB of intermediate code.

	Noel



From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug  3 10:56:41 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2014 20:56:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408031038040.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408030029510.64450@localhost>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408031038040.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140803005641.GL15007@mercury.ccil.org>

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> My favourite is "Ladies and gentlemen, we will be landing momentarily."

I assume from the spelling "favourite" and your question that you're
not North American.

> Err, aren't they going to let us "deplane" first?

I'm afraid not.  Americans and Canadians have been using "momentarily"
to mean "in a moment" as well as "for a moment" since 1869.  That should
be time enough to catch up with us, or catch us up, as the case may be.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
People go through the bother of Christmas because Christmas helps them
to understand why they go through the bother of living out their lives
the rest of the year. For one brief instant, we see human society as it
should and could be, a world in which business has become the exchanging
of presents and in which nothing is important except the happiness and
well-being of the ultimate consumer.  --Northrop Frye (1948)


From grog at lemis.com  Sun Aug  3 12:00:04 2014
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 12:00:04 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <9CBA014A-550E-4445-99EB-3C25D549F24E@cs.uwlax.edu>
References: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140802061214.GC13625@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021614170.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <CALwkMd0BFD2yvP4DshjZHQf9_LH4gd1jC-kapA3NYBiVJe4JVA@mail.gmail.com>
 <9CBA014A-550E-4445-99EB-3C25D549F24E@cs.uwlax.edu>
Message-ID: <20140803020004.GC30208@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday,  2 August 2014 at  9:04:12 -0500, Milo Velimirovic wrote:
> I've got a PDT11/150 and VT100.
>
> I wonder where the 8" floppies went. Anyone willing to duplicate a
> bootable PDT11 RT11 floppy?

Not really, but I have a couple of drives it you want them.  I gave my
PDP-11 away a couple of years ago.

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 MUA reports
problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua
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From grog at lemis.com  Sun Aug  3 12:18:18 2014
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 12:18:18 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] EMACS clones (was: Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun))
In-Reply-To: <20140803004800.A747818C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <20140802211821.C8DC418C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140803004800.A747818C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <20140802211821.C8DC418C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20140803021818.GD30208@eureka.lemis.com>

On Saturday,  2 August 2014 at 17:18:21 -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
>
> BTW, Epsilon (that 250KB Emacs that I was raving about) not only runs under
> Windows, it also runs under Linux, Mac OS, FreeBSD, etc. Here:
>
>     http://lugaru.com/

Ah, that name rings a bell: the werewolf.

Yes, I used Epsilon 30 years ago as well.  Unlike you, I couldn't get
away from it fast enough.  5 years later I installed GNU Emacs on
Xenix and never looked back.

I used Epsilon mainly because Mince (Mince Is Not Complete Emacs)
didn't work on MS-DOS, but the version I had wasn't compatible enough,
and even the scripting didn't make it work the way I wanted.

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 MUA reports
problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua
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From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Aug  3 16:47:07 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 16:47:07 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408031640280.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> Basically, until the introduction of ASCII, there weren't many systems 
> with lower case.  IBM had lower case characters with EBCDIC, but didn't 
> seem to use them.  I wrote code in FORTRAN and COBOL before the 
> introduction of lower-case, but later compilers I've seen for both 
> languages accepted lower case.

ISTR that the mighty 1403 printer had the "text train" - type TN, if 
memory serves.  It slowed down printing (not as many duplications) but you 
got lower case and a few more symbols.  You quickly learned to never leave 
a cup of coffee on the lid, because it lifted automatically...

> I think the real reason for the retention of upper case in these 
> languages was because it made people feel leet.  "We're computer 
> programmers, we write in upper case".  It's like the disregard for 
> normal punctuation that some style guides require( like putting spaces 
> on the wrong sides of parentheses, or omitting them where required ).

I had a boss once who had this annoying habit of writing "(\ blah\ )" in 
his Nroff documents.

-- Dave


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 17:40:54 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 03:40:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] unirubik port to unix v5 is complete
Message-ID: <CADxT5N6D9ZBj+5ZHYTtW6HffBXYZx9-V+5-duDeWpZ4_qe+yPQ@mail.gmail.com>

Hi folks,

I finally managed to get unirubik working on unix v5.

I thought you folks might be interested in looking at the changes I
had to make. It was a bit harder than the port to v6 but porting to v6
first did make things a bit easier.

I've included links to all three versions. unirubik.c.v5 needs gets.c

http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v7
http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v6
http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v5
http://www.maxhost.org/other/gets.c

The unirubik for v5 was considerably smaller than the other versions,
a mere 5492 bytes.

Mark


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Sun Aug  3 18:00:11 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 03:00:11 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140803004800.A747818C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140803004800.A747818C0A7@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZvOpCMM1--w8DOKgf-jekkLZ4ro1iTRT13zNeNg33HfYg@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 2, 2014 7:48 PM, "Noel Chiappa" <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:

<snip>
> Well, there is a companion 'compiler' which converts extension source into
> the intermediate form (byte-code) which is interpreted by the editor. But
> it's even smaller (67KB!) and as fast as the editor itself.
>
>     > I was pleasantly surprised that it does have one, and that it's a c
>     > derivative ... "Extensible and modifiable" doesn't always mean the
same
>     > thing to everyone, and well, you're a kernel hacker.
>
> Take a quick look at a source file, e.g. one of mine:
>
>   http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/cmd.e
>
> and you'll see i) what it's like (except for a few new editing-specific
> keywords, such as 'on <key>' in function definitions, it's pretty much C),
> and ii) it will give you a sense of the kind of things one writes in it,
and
> how easy it is to do so.
>
> The underlying run-time basically just provides buffer, display, etc
> primitives, and pretty much all the actual editor commands are written in
the
> 'extension' languge, even simple things like 'forward character' (^F),
etc.
> The complete manual is available online, the run-time system is described
> here:
>
>   http://www.lugaru.com/man/Primitives.and.EEL.Subroutines.html
>
> Epsilon comes (as of a few versions back, I haven't bothered to upgrade)
with
> about 22K lines of source, which is the bulk of the actual editor; that
turns
> into about 190KB of intermediate code.

the spirit of emacs without the bloat :-)
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug  3 21:49:52 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun,  3 Aug 2014 07:49:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: "A. P. Garcia" <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com>

    > the spirit of emacs without the bloat :-)

Exactly. I've often wondered what the heck exactly it is that GNU Emacs, GCC,
etc are all doing with those megabytes of code. (In part, probably all those
options: "Options. We've got lots of them. So many in fact, that you need two
strong people to carry the documentation around.", as that classic hack says.
But there's no way the options alone can explain it all.)

The thing is that it's not just aesthetics that makes large programs bad;
there are very good practical reasons why they are bad, too. The 'takes more
resources' isn't such a big deal today, because memory is massive, and
there's a ton of computing power to be thrown at things. (Although I'm always
amazed at how the active content in Web pages seems to run incredibly slowly
on all but the very latest and greatest machines. WTF are they doing?)

But more code = more material that someone new has to understand before they
can make some change (and long-lived code is always being changed/upgraded by
new people). And when people understand a system poorly, their changes tend
to be 'a bag on the side', and that's the kind of 'code cancer' that tends to
kill systems in the long run. More code also is also more places where there
can be bugs (especially when it's changed by someone who understands it
poorly, repeat previous comment).

Etc, etc. And those will never go away - human brain power is finite, and
unlike hardware, not expanding.

There's just no reason to have N megabytes of code when .N will do. (I've
often thought we ought to make new programmers serve an apprenticeship of a
year of two on a PDP-11 - to teach them to 'think small', and to realize you
_can_ do a lot in a small space.)

	Noel


From usotsuki at buric.co  Sun Aug  3 22:14:49 2014
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 12:14:49 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408031211520.7442@localhost>

On Sun, 3 Aug 2014, Noel Chiappa wrote:

>    > From: "A. P. Garcia" <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com>
>
>    > the spirit of emacs without the bloat :-)
>
> Exactly. I've often wondered what the heck exactly it is that GNU Emacs, GCC,
> etc are all doing with those megabytes of code. (In part, probably all those
> options: "Options. We've got lots of them. So many in fact, that you need two
> strong people to carry the documentation around.", as that classic hack says.
> But there's no way the options alone can explain it all.)

GNU is, and always has been, a waste of space.  I use it, but I think 
BSD's lean and mean approach is superior.

> The thing is that it's not just aesthetics that makes large programs bad;
> there are very good practical reasons why they are bad, too. The 'takes more
> resources' isn't such a big deal today, because memory is massive, and
> there's a ton of computing power to be thrown at things. (Although I'm always
> amazed at how the active content in Web pages seems to run incredibly slowly
> on all but the very latest and greatest machines. WTF are they doing?)

EVERYTHING runs incredibly slow.  Gates' law - the apparent speed of 
software halves every 18 months. :P

> But more code = more material that someone new has to understand before they
> can make some change (and long-lived code is always being changed/upgraded by
> new people). And when people understand a system poorly, their changes tend
> to be 'a bag on the side', and that's the kind of 'code cancer' that tends to
> kill systems in the long run. More code also is also more places where there
> can be bugs (especially when it's changed by someone who understands it
> poorly, repeat previous comment).
>
> Etc, etc. And those will never go away - human brain power is finite, and
> unlike hardware, not expanding.
>
> There's just no reason to have N megabytes of code when .N will do. (I've
> often thought we ought to make new programmers serve an apprenticeship of a
> year of two on a PDP-11 - to teach them to 'think small', and to realize you
> _can_ do a lot in a small space.)

QFT.

I actually do a lot of programming in an even tighter space: 64K Apple //e 
target.  Horrible machine for C, but it's a relatively simple machine to 
grok except for the disk controller =P

-uso.


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug  3 22:34:55 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun,  3 Aug 2014 08:34:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] unirubik port to unix v5 is complete
Message-ID: <20140803123455.7316E18C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com>

    > I thought you folks might be interested in looking at the changes I had
    > to make. It was a bit harder than the port to v6 but porting to v6
    > first did make things a bit easier.

To save me from poring over 'diff' output :-), what (at a high level) were
the changes you had to make to get it to run on v5?

	Noel


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Aug  4 02:26:34 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 12:26:34 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20140803162634.GB27404@mercury.ccil.org>

Noel Chiappa scripsit:

> Exactly. I've often wondered what the heck exactly it is that GNU Emacs, GCC,
> etc are all doing with those megabytes of code. 

GCC is parameterized for a lot more variability than actually exists
nowadays.  As for Emacs, it's traditional to call it bloated because of
all the Elisp code it ships with, but (as esr says in the paper I cited)
that's like calling the shell bloated because there are a lot of shell
scripts out there.  It's a category mistake.

> There's just no reason to have N megabytes of code when .N will
> do. (I've often thought we ought to make new programmers serve an
> apprenticeship of a year of two on a PDP-11 - to teach them to 'think
> small', and to realize you _can_ do a lot in a small space.)

That's basically just the kind of peeving that objects to the use of
computers as calculators and spelling checkers.  "What will Kids Today do
when a calculator isn't available?"  Well, what will they do when there
isn't any ink to dip their goose quills in?  If you're not an angel,
there is no real advantage to learning to dance on the head of a pin.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
                Clear all so!  `Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Aug  4 02:48:52 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun,  3 Aug 2014 12:48:52 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140803164852.2484618C0C2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org>

    > because of all the Elisp code it ships with

So why is /usr/bin/emacs 4.5 megabytes?

    > That's basically just the kind of peeving that objects to the use of
    > computers as calculators and spelling checkers.

I just gave several good reasons why large programs (well, technically,
systems) are bad. Are you saying those reasons are fallacious?

	Noel


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Aug  4 03:09:57 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 13:09:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140803164852.2484618C0C2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140803164852.2484618C0C2@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20140803170957.GC27404@mercury.ccil.org>

Noel Chiappa scripsit:

> I just gave several good reasons why large programs (well, technically,
> systems) are bad. Are you saying those reasons are fallacious?

No, they are simply costs.  Like all costs, the idea is not to eliminate
them tout court, but to decide whether they are worth paying for what
you get.  Poverty can have a very high marginal cost.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
"Hacking is the true football."  --F.W. Campbell (1863) in response to a
successful attempt to ban shin-kicking from soccer.  Today, it's biting.


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Mon Aug  4 06:55:59 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 16:55:59 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] changes for modern -> v7 -> v6 -> v5
Message-ID: <CADxT5N6veRAk8VSVbpPQaFbc=4VJacsPtj6EANA6=Brdr5s2Dw@mail.gmail.com>

    >> From: Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com>

    >> I thought you folks might be interested in looking at the changes I had
    >> to make. It was a bit harder than the port to v6 but porting to v6
    >> first did make things a bit easier.

> To save me from poring over 'diff' output :-), what (at a high level) were
> the changes you had to make to get it to run on v5?

 >       Noel

Briefly the differences were these:

modern to v7: remove all references to void
no vi on v7, v6, and v5 so using ed instead.
no conditional compilation so no way to make a truly universal version
which works on everything.

v7 to v6: use iolib instead of stdio: fopen -> copen, fclose ->
cclose, fgetc -> cgetc, fputc -> cputc
use int (no long or short in v6)
call to srand uses different argument
copen returns an int instead of a file pointer
no strcat in v6 so the function had to be added

v6 to v5: no iolib: fopen -> creat + open, copen -> open, cgetc ->
read, cputc -> write, cclose -> close
no scanf in v5 so I used the source for gets from v7 instead
getchar()  leaves a newline in the buffer so I added an extra call to
getchar() immediately before each call to gets

The size of the unirubik executable was 8K for modern Linux, 10K for
v7, 10K for v6, and 5492 bytes for v5.

Generally I was a lot slower trying to edit files with ed rather than
vi but I'm a lot better with ed now. There wasn't really much unix v5
code to look at and I found the v5 manual a bit spartan.

Mark


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Mon Aug  4 12:06:51 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 22:06:51 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] changes for modern -> v7 -> v6 -> v5
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N6veRAk8VSVbpPQaFbc=4VJacsPtj6EANA6=Brdr5s2Dw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6veRAk8VSVbpPQaFbc=4VJacsPtj6EANA6=Brdr5s2Dw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140804020649.GF27404@mercury.ccil.org>

Mark Longridge scripsit:

> Generally I was a lot slower trying to edit files with ed rather than
> vi but I'm a lot better with ed now. 

You could use Apout instead of a full emulator, which makes it easier to
develop using modern tools for old kernels.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled,
maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous
flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the
detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and
absurdly the gigantic tenebrous ultimate gods --the blind, voiceless,
mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep. (Lovecraft)


From norman at oclsc.org  Mon Aug  4 12:54:34 2014
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Sun,  3 Aug 2014 22:54:34 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS]  Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140804025434.A80F81DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>

Doug McIlroy:

  A symptom of why I have always detested emacs and vi. With ^D, ^C,
  and ^\, Unix has more than enough mystery chords to learn.

====

What is this ^C mystery chord?

Or can it be that I am actually more wedded to the past than
Doug, in that I still use DEL as my interrupt character?

And, for that matter, @ for kill (though in the modern world
one has to type @ often enough to require learning a different
modern-world mystery chord, ^V).

I break with the past for character-erase, though: backspace,
not #.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Mon Aug  4 13:11:58 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Sun, 3 Aug 2014 20:11:58 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140804025434.A80F81DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20140804025434.A80F81DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <8C399A14-6407-469E-99F2-C59EC0429319@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 3, 2014, at 7:54 PM, Norman Wilson <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

> And, for that matter, @ for kill (though in the modern world
> one has to type @ often enough to require learning a different
> modern-world mystery chord, ^V).
> 
> I break with the past for character-erase, though: backspace,
> not #.

Do you still consider '^' the shell's inter-command pipe character?

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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Mon Aug  4 13:56:02 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 23:56:02 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Subject:   changes for modern -> v7 -> v6 -> v5
Message-ID: <201408040356.s743u23Y008576@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> no conditional compilation so no way to make a truly universal version
> which works on everything.

If cc -I is there, it should be able to do the tailoring.

Also conditional compilation of non-declaration statements can
be replaced by regular if statements that typically can be
optimized away (though the old C compilers may not do so).


Incidentally, I would say that the use of conditional compilation
is evidence that the code is NOT truly universal, but has to be
specially adapted to various environments.

Doug


From dave at horsfall.org  Mon Aug  4 17:04:23 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 17:04:23 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <8C399A14-6407-469E-99F2-C59EC0429319@orthanc.ca>
References: <20140804025434.A80F81DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <8C399A14-6407-469E-99F2-C59EC0429319@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408041657470.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sun, 3 Aug 2014, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:

> > I break with the past for character-erase, though: backspace, not #.

At one time, it was fashionable in Australia to claim that #/@ were 
"traditional" in some sense (probably because the DEC assembler used them 
as sigils), and when a US visitor came out he announced that most US sites 
switched away from them, to the sound of dropping jaws.

> Do you still consider '^' the shell's inter-command pipe character?

I was surprised when "chdir" became "cd", but I suppose it fits the 
philosophy of 2-letter commands.

-- Dave


From usotsuki at buric.co  Mon Aug  4 19:12:03 2014
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 09:12:03 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408041657470.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <20140804025434.A80F81DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>
 <8C399A14-6407-469E-99F2-C59EC0429319@orthanc.ca>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408041657470.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408040910370.82002@localhost>

On Mon, 4 Aug 2014, Dave Horsfall wrote:

> I was surprised when "chdir" became "cd", but I suppose it fits the
> philosophy of 2-letter commands.

Though surprisingly "md" and "rd" didn't come up with them, as later in 
MS-DOS.

-uso.


From tfb at tfeb.org  Mon Aug  4 23:59:33 2014
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 14:59:33 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <49065C0A-3844-4C31-A8AA-3BD6B71A9DC2@tfeb.org>

On 3 Aug 2014, at 12:49, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:

> Exactly. I've often wondered what the heck exactly it is that GNU Emacs, GCC,
> etc are all doing with those megabytes of code.

That's the wrong question.  On my laptop right now Emacs seems to be about 37M after running for a while but not weeks (total VM I think). The mail client I am writing this with is 118M (and some helpers apparently which might push it closer to 150).  The reminders application is 90.  The application I'm using to get these numbers is using more memory than Emacs.

Emacs was a very big application, once, but in terms of feature/byte it is now an extremely svelte thing compared with the bloated horrors that we use all the time.

(Non-GUI emacs is 6).

From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 00:53:23 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 09:53:23 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <49065C0A-3844-4C31-A8AA-3BD6B71A9DC2@tfeb.org>
References: <20140803114952.E1AF518C0B4@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <49065C0A-3844-4C31-A8AA-3BD6B71A9DC2@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZsn=080nDAtT2N26gdq9wuHFQUO8oJE3cri_LAFkKbbYA@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 4, 2014 9:00 AM, "Tim Bradshaw" <tfb at tfeb.org> wrote:
>
> On 3 Aug 2014, at 12:49, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
>
> > Exactly. I've often wondered what the heck exactly it is that GNU
Emacs, GCC,
> > etc are all doing with those megabytes of code.
>
> That's the wrong question.  On my laptop right now Emacs seems to be
about 37M after running for a while but not weeks (total VM I think). The
mail client I am writing this with is 118M (and some helpers apparently
which might push it closer to 150).  The reminders application is 90.  The
application I'm using to get these numbers is using more memory than Emacs.
>
> Emacs was a very big application, once, but in terms of feature/byte it
is now an extremely svelte thing compared with the bloated horrors that we
use all the time.
>
> (Non-GUI emacs is 6).

that's it. I'm taking away all your pdps and vaxen. you don't deserve them
anymore.  ;-)
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From scj at yaccman.com  Tue Aug  5 04:04:39 2014
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 11:04:39 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
Message-ID: <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

Remember that writing programs on terminals was a relative latecomer --
FORTRAN was designed for punched cards.  Their 6-bit character set has
"numbers" and "letters" (no case need apply).  The printers and other
supporting peripherals printed capital letters, probably because you could
get legibility with fewer dots that way and didn't have to worry about
descenders.

At Bell Labs (before Unix days) programmers wrote their programs on coding
sheets and handed them in to a room full of keypunchers.  They would punch
the program up on cards, and then a second person would repeat the process
using a verifier, a piece of hardware that took in a punched card, and had
a keyboard, and would verify that what the person typed in was what had
been punched on the card.  Then the punched and verified deck of cards was
returned to the programmer, who could submit it to the mainframe to run
it.

Although the coding sheet had little tick marks to indicate the column
positions, the keypunchers took advantage of FORTRAN syntax to simply
ignore spaces (they did know enough to respect blanks in Hollerith strings
and to start typing the program in the appropriate column).  Leaving the
blanks out not only made the process go faster, but also reduced the
number of false failures in verification, where the original keypuncher
and verifier disagreed on how many spaces should be inserted.

The model 33 Teletypes that were the most common terminal attached to Unix
in the early days had only a single case, as I recall, being primarily
used with paper tape with a character set closely related to the character
set used on punched cards (although with some features that eventually
become supported in ASCII).  Unix, however, interpreted the "letters" in
the character set as lower case by default, which was highly unusual at
that time, since there were almost no printers or terminals that would
print upper and lower case.


> On Saturday,  2 August 2014 at  4:27:50 +0100, Tim Bradshaw wrote:
>>
>> On 2 Aug 2014, at 02:49, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> Did FORTRAN understand lowercase, always?
>
> No.  It was first implemented on the IBM 704, which had a 6 bit BCD
> character set.  No lower case.
>




From tim.newsham at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 04:18:06 2014
From: tim.newsham at gmail.com (Tim Newsham)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 08:18:06 -1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSRWbhuNoRR2PNWmqXrYkm4xRqnnStRxEpTWph9vg-Apfd1Fw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 8:04 AM,  <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:
> Unix, however, interpreted the "letters" in
> the character set as lower case by default, which was highly
> unusual at that time, since there were almost no printers or
> terminals that would print upper and lower case.

years later those same rabble rousers would force
unicode on us :)

-- 
Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Tue Aug  5 04:28:52 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 14:28:52 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <20140804182852.GF28851@mercury.ccil.org>

scj at yaccman.com scripsit:

> capital letters, probably because you could
> get legibility with fewer dots that way and didn't have to worry about
> descenders.

According to legend, Teletype's own legibility studies showed the
opposite, that all lower case was far more legible in the presence poor
light, a weak ribbon, dirty paper, and other noise sourcess, but this was
overridden by management on the grounds that it would make it impossible
to spell "God" correctly.  Untrue, but amusing.

> The model 33 Teletypes that were the most common terminal attached to Unix
> in the early days had only a single case, as I recall, being primarily
> used with paper tape with a character set closely related to the character
> set used on punched cards (although with some features that eventually
> become supported in ASCII).  

The model 33 was released in 1963 and was one of the first devices to use
(the 1963 version of) ASCII.  System/360 was originally supposed to use
it, but the effort to make ASCII-compatible printers and card readers
in time for its release was a failure.

The Unix treatment of LF as newline shows, however, that you folks had
model 37 TTYs; the model 33 still required CR+LF for newline.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies!
Schliesst euer Aug vor heiliger Schau,
Denn er genoss vom Honig-Tau,
Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Tue Aug  5 04:29:54 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 14:29:54 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CAGSRWbhuNoRR2PNWmqXrYkm4xRqnnStRxEpTWph9vg-Apfd1Fw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAGSRWbhuNoRR2PNWmqXrYkm4xRqnnStRxEpTWph9vg-Apfd1Fw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140804182954.GG28851@mercury.ccil.org>

Tim Newsham scripsit:

> years later those same rabble rousers would force unicode on us :)

Hah!  Unix had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Unicode age.
Microsoft and Apple were well ahead on internationalization and mostly
still are.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Winter:  MIT, / Keio, INRIA, / Issue lots of Drafts.
So much more to understand! / Might simplicity return?
                (A "tanka", or extended haiku)


From scj at yaccman.com  Tue Aug  5 05:02:17 2014
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 12:02:17 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Unix style
In-Reply-To: <20140803003558.GK15007@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201408030015.s730FRbt025453@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <20140803003558.GK15007@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <2f4b5bcf2b5dfb35566a745b6f132c6d.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

To Doug's original point, I think "raining" features might be the best
metaphor...


> Doug McIlroy scripsit:
>
>> (COuld "reigning in" somehow have been implanted by this
>> headline that I saw in The Economist a few days ago:
>> "The reign in Maine is easy to explain"?)
>
> It's a pretty common malapropism nowadays; almost 6M Google hits.
>
> --
> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> It's the old, old story.  Droid meets droid.  Droid becomes chameleon.
> Droid loses chameleon, chameleon becomes blob, droid gets blob back
> again.  It's a classic tale.  --Kryten, Red Dwarf
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>




From tim.newsham at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 05:10:56 2014
From: tim.newsham at gmail.com (Tim Newsham)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 09:10:56 -1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140804182954.GG28851@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAGSRWbhuNoRR2PNWmqXrYkm4xRqnnStRxEpTWph9vg-Apfd1Fw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804182954.GG28851@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <CAGSRWbhMJkEdeP1ofcFNAUUAXNV2Mrqjf=8q7v56xKXy4nA6VA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 8:29 AM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>> years later those same rabble rousers would force unicode on us :)
>
> Hah!  Unix had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Unicode age.
> Microsoft and Apple were well ahead on internationalization and mostly
> still are.

I was referring to the bell labs guys who wrote linux and later plan9...

> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org

-- 
Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com


From scj at yaccman.com  Tue Aug  5 05:11:27 2014
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 12:11:27 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Subject:   changes for modern -> v7 -> v6 -> v5
In-Reply-To: <201408040356.s743u23Y008576@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408040356.s743u23Y008576@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <c0f73ff7b2159f33da79275f0f21f109.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>


>
> Incidentally, I would say that the use of conditional compilation
> is evidence that the code is NOT truly universal, but has to be
> specially adapted to various environments.
>

For the most part, I agree, but there are some exceptions.  For example,
bit fields in C/C++ are laid out using the byte ordering conventions of
the target machine.  This can make it nearly impossible to write low-level
code to drive, e.g., hardware or communication protocols without
conditional compilation.

Of course, you can always shift and mask.  The code becomes
incomprehensible, but identical for big- and little-endian.  For my money,
using bit fields leads to code that is clear and easy to debug, and the
obvious rationale of the conditional code makes it a winner.

Steve



From milov at cs.uwlax.edu  Tue Aug  5 05:13:05 2014
From: milov at cs.uwlax.edu (=?utf-8?Q?Milo_Velimirovi=C4=87?=)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 14:13:05 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CAGSRWbhMJkEdeP1ofcFNAUUAXNV2Mrqjf=8q7v56xKXy4nA6VA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAGSRWbhuNoRR2PNWmqXrYkm4xRqnnStRxEpTWph9vg-Apfd1Fw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804182954.GG28851@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAGSRWbhMJkEdeP1ofcFNAUUAXNV2Mrqjf=8q7v56xKXy4nA6VA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <096AF181-02F2-4FE9-9A79-06CA45292F8C@cs.uwlax.edu>


On Aug 4, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Tim Newsham <tim.newsham at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 8:29 AM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>>> years later those same rabble rousers would force unicode on us :)
>> 
>> Hah!  Unix had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Unicode age.
>> Microsoft and Apple were well ahead on internationalization and mostly
>> still are.
> 
> I was referring to the bell labs guys who wrote linux and later plan9...

LINUX? surely you jest... or your fingers have a mind of their own.


> 
>> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> 
> -- 
> Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

--
Milo Velimirović
Network Specialist - ITS Network Services
608.785.6618 Office -  608.386.2817 Cell
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA   43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W







From tim.newsham at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 05:21:00 2014
From: tim.newsham at gmail.com (Tim Newsham)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 09:21:00 -1000
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <096AF181-02F2-4FE9-9A79-06CA45292F8C@cs.uwlax.edu>
References: <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAGSRWbhuNoRR2PNWmqXrYkm4xRqnnStRxEpTWph9vg-Apfd1Fw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804182954.GG28851@mercury.ccil.org>
 <CAGSRWbhMJkEdeP1ofcFNAUUAXNV2Mrqjf=8q7v56xKXy4nA6VA@mail.gmail.com>
 <096AF181-02F2-4FE9-9A79-06CA45292F8C@cs.uwlax.edu>
Message-ID: <CAGSRWbhb8tp3okEB7v0qr=LDgHCJaymVRODRy2OQvcF4tfAENw@mail.gmail.com>

ack, slip of the keyboard.. no insult intended...

On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Milo Velimirović <milov at cs.uwlax.edu> wrote:
>
> On Aug 4, 2014, at 2:10 PM, Tim Newsham <tim.newsham at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 8:29 AM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:
>>>> years later those same rabble rousers would force unicode on us :)
>>>
>>> Hah!  Unix had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Unicode age.
>>> Microsoft and Apple were well ahead on internationalization and mostly
>>> still are.
>>
>> I was referring to the bell labs guys who wrote linux and later plan9...
>
> LINUX? surely you jest... or your fingers have a mind of their own.
>
>
>>
>>> John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
>>
>> --
>> Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
> --
> Milo Velimirović
> Network Specialist - ITS Network Services
> 608.785.6618 Office -  608.386.2817 Cell
> University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
> La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA   43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Tim Newsham | www.thenewsh.com/~newsham | @newshtwit | thenewsh.blogspot.com


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Tue Aug  5 05:46:27 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 15:46:27 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
Message-ID: <201408041946.s74JkR9R019005@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> Remember that writing programs on terminals was a relative latecomer --
> FORTRAN was designed for punched cards.

Remember that FORTRAN also was a latecomer. It was a shock 
to convert from the full character set of the Flexowriters at
Whirlwind to the rebarbative upper-case-only of the 704.

In that vein, there was a period when the Chicago Manual Style 
disparaged uppercase text, with an exception being made for
computer programs, which of course should be presented in           
upper case.

Doug


From jaapna at xs4all.nl  Tue Aug  5 06:15:22 2014
From: jaapna at xs4all.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 22:15:22 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <E1824AC8-9D6D-45B5-80FF-F97D147785C2@xs4all.nl>


On Aug 4, 2014, at 20:04, scj at yaccman.com wrote:

> The model 33 Teletypes that were the most common terminal attached to Unix
> in the early days had only a single case, as I recall, being primarily
> used with paper tape with a character set closely related to the character
> set used on punched cards (although with some features that eventually
> become supported in ASCII).  Unix, however, interpreted the "letters" in
> the character set as lower case by default, which was highly unusual at
> that time, since there were almost no printers or terminals that would
> print upper and lower case.

I vaguely remember the DEC LA 30(?) we had as a console to the
11/45.  It would only print Upper Case.

Related to this is the stty -lcase option that mapped lower case
char to upper (or the other way around, I forgot)

	jaap
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From norman at oclsc.org  Tue Aug  5 06:21:28 2014
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 16:21:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Larry McVoy:

  Looking at git like that is sort of like looking at the size of
  a dynamically linked app.  Ya gotta add in libc and all the extensions
  people use to make it not suck.

=====

In which case one should also add the size of the kernel, or at
least the code paths exercised by a given program.

Not to mention the layers of window systems, networking, desktops,
message buses, name-space managers, programs to emulate 40-year-old
terminal hardware, flashy icons, and so on.

I say all this to underscore Larry's point, not to dispute it.

Everything has gotten more complicated.  Some of the complexity
involves reasonable tradeoffs (the move toward replacing binary
interfaces with readable text where space and time are nowhere
near critical, like the /proc and /sys trees in modern Linux).
Some reflects the more-complex world we live in (networking).
But a lot of it seems, to my mind that felt really at home when
it first settled into UNIX in 1981, just plain tasteless.

There are certainly legitimate differences in aesthetic taste
involved, though.  I think taste becomes technically important
when it can be mapped onto real differences in how easily a
program can be understood, whether its innards or its external
interface; how easily the program can adapt to different tasks
or environments; and so on.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From dave at horsfall.org  Tue Aug  5 06:39:35 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2014 06:39:35 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <E1824AC8-9D6D-45B5-80FF-F97D147785C2@xs4all.nl>
References: <CAGSRWbhqtcW0t-M6JWuF3V+Pqd3PMNSBVcaEXK5tocPvbDmqGA@mail.gmail.com>
 <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <E1824AC8-9D6D-45B5-80FF-F97D147785C2@xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408050631220.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 4 Aug 2014, Jaap Akkerhuis wrote:

> Related to this is the stty -lcase option that mapped lower case char to 
> upper (or the other way around, I forgot)

Wait until you've used a VT-05 as the console; 72x20, upper case on 
display with few symbols (so Unix showed "{" as "\(" for example), a 
switch that told it to send lower case, and another switch that echoed 
locally (useful for passwords).

And the upper-case printers that overstruck "{" as "(\b-"....  Those poxy 
things were about as Unix-hostile as you could get.

-- Dave


From norman at oclsc.org  Tue Aug  5 06:46:44 2014
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2014 16:46:44 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
Message-ID: <1407185208.26695.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>

Tim Newsham:

  I was referring to the bell labs guys who wrote linux and later plan9...

=======

Which Bell Labs guys wrote Linux?

I assume you're not referring to Andy Tanenbaum, erstwhile teacher
of a certain famous Finn ...

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

PS: it's true that the Plan 9 folks at Bell Labs were early
champions of both Unicode and the UTF-8 encoding.  Source:
personal memory.


From dds at aueb.gr  Tue Aug  5 07:07:08 2014
From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 00:07:08 +0300
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <1407185208.26695.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1407185208.26695.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <53DFF5FC.6010600@aueb.gr>

On 04/08/2014 23:46, Norman Wilson wrote:
> PS: it's true that the Plan 9 folks at Bell Labs were early
> champions of both Unicode and the UTF-8 encoding.  Source:
> personal memory.

See the paper " Hello World or Καλημέρα κόσμε or こんにちは 世界" by Rob 
Pike & Ken Thompson

http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sys/doc/utf.html




From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 08:24:39 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 17:24:39 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 4, 2014 3:22 PM, "Norman Wilson" <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:

<snip>
> Everything has gotten more complicated.  Some of the complexity
> involves reasonable tradeoffs (the move toward replacing binary
> interfaces with readable text where space and time are nowhere
> near critical, like the /proc and /sys trees in modern Linux).
<snip>

To digress from the main topic, I realize that's just one example, but
here's a counterpoint to it:

We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build innovative
solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes that
'cat /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe that
pmap(1) is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1), truss(1),
dtrace(1M) and a host of other tools all make use of this same information.
It would be a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel,
convert it to text, and then have the userland components all write their
own (error prone) parsing routines to convert this information back into a
custom binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output format of
pmap without breaking other applications that depend on the contents of
/proc.

[ https://blogs.oracle.com/eschrock/entry/the_power_of_proc]
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug  5 08:23:25 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 15:23:25 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] /proc - linux vs solaris
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>

On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 05:24:39PM -0500, A. P. Garcia wrote:
> We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build innovative
> solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes that
> 'cat /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe that
> pmap(1) is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1), truss(1),
> dtrace(1M) and a host of other tools all make use of this same information.
> It would be a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel,
> convert it to text, and then have the userland components all write their
> own (error prone) parsing routines to convert this information back into a
> custom binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output format of
> pmap without breaking other applications that depend on the contents of
> /proc.

I come from SunOS background and have had more than a few /proc discussions
with Roger Faulkner (who I believed did the System V /proc at Bell Labs?).

I get the arguments above but I don't buy 'em.  linux really got /proc
right in terms of usefulness.  Digging binary blobs out of the kernel
and translating them sucks.  I've done, I've written kmem drivers for
ps, I understand how it works.  I far prefer the pure ascii model that
Linux has.

I also get that Linux turned /proc into /whatever/I/think/I/need/today
and that makes purists grit their teeth.  None the less, if you give
me a choice I'll take the linux way.  Want to see what files you have
open?

	ls -l /proc/$$/fd

Etc.  Really easy to poke around and figure stuff out as needed and no
rats nest of header files to decode the structures.

--lm


From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug  5 09:11:08 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 16:11:08 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] /proc - linux vs solaris
In-Reply-To: <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20140804231108.GM19745@mcvoy.com>

Seem like even Roger liked it:

https://lwn.net/lwn/1998/0226/sunproc.html

On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 03:23:25PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 05:24:39PM -0500, A. P. Garcia wrote:
> > We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build innovative
> > solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes that
> > 'cat /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe that
> > pmap(1) is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1), truss(1),
> > dtrace(1M) and a host of other tools all make use of this same information.
> > It would be a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel,
> > convert it to text, and then have the userland components all write their
> > own (error prone) parsing routines to convert this information back into a
> > custom binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output format of
> > pmap without breaking other applications that depend on the contents of
> > /proc.
> 
> I come from SunOS background and have had more than a few /proc discussions
> with Roger Faulkner (who I believed did the System V /proc at Bell Labs?).
> 
> I get the arguments above but I don't buy 'em.  linux really got /proc
> right in terms of usefulness.  Digging binary blobs out of the kernel
> and translating them sucks.  I've done, I've written kmem drivers for
> ps, I understand how it works.  I far prefer the pure ascii model that
> Linux has.
> 
> I also get that Linux turned /proc into /whatever/I/think/I/need/today
> and that makes purists grit their teeth.  None the less, if you give
> me a choice I'll take the linux way.  Want to see what files you have
> open?
> 
> 	ls -l /proc/$$/fd
> 
> Etc.  Really easy to poke around and figure stuff out as needed and no
> rats nest of header files to decode the structures.
> 
> --lm
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

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


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 11:26:09 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 20:26:09 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] /proc - linux vs solaris
In-Reply-To: <20140804231108.GM19745@mcvoy.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
 <20140804231108.GM19745@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZu+np5n1=e6BKwzOw45kCWhbPujEumLtqnwxDuYYiaBsQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 4, 2014 6:56 PM, "Larry McVoy" <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> Seem like even Roger liked it:
>
> https://lwn.net/lwn/1998/0226/sunproc.html

:-) There are a few different issues here. Linux exports a lot of
interesting info that Solaris doesn't. It's hard not to like that. Where
they put it, who cares. The unix filesystem hierarchy wasn't exactly
planned out by neat freaks.

> On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 03:23:25PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 05:24:39PM -0500, A. P. Garcia wrote:
> > > We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build
innovative
> > > solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes
that
> > > 'cat /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe
that
> > > pmap(1) is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1), truss(1),
> > > dtrace(1M) and a host of other tools all make use of this same
information.
> > > It would be a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel,
> > > convert it to text, and then have the userland components all write
their
> > > own (error prone) parsing routines to convert this information back
into a
> > > custom binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output format
of
> > > pmap without breaking other applications that depend on the contents
of
> > > /proc.
> >
> > I come from SunOS background and have had more than a few /proc
discussions
> > with Roger Faulkner (who I believed did the System V /proc at Bell
Labs?).
> >
> > I get the arguments above but I don't buy 'em.  linux really got /proc
> > right in terms of usefulness.

> Digging binary blobs out of the kernel
> > and translating them sucks.  I've done, I've written kmem drivers for
> > ps, I understand how it works.  I far prefer the pure ascii model that
> > Linux has.

Part of the argument was more or less that the binary model allows a richer
set of tools to be built on top of it, and that those tools provide a
better interface to the info. Does Solaris have a richer set of tools than
Linux in this regard? I think so, but I don't know how much of this is owed
to the difference between binary and text interfaces in /proc.

Last time I checked, Linix had no pcred(1), for example. top(1) doesn't
provide nearly as much info as prstat(1) -- for example, prstat -mL. Why
that is, I don't know. Plus, prstat is marginally less resource intensive.
Anything as sweet as (k)mdb in linux? Forget it. Maybe that's because Linus
was so resistant to having a debugger in the kernel for so long? DTrace?
Well, sort of -- a port of dtrace! But I'm really at an unfair disadvantage
here. *Why* Solaris has such better tools, you would know better than me. I
only know that it does. As for the second part, that writing the tools that
use the binary interface is unpleasant, again I have to defer to you. I've
never done that.

> > I also get that Linux turned /proc into /whatever/I/think/I/need/today
> > and that makes purists grit their teeth.  None the less, if you give
> > me a choice I'll take the linux way.  Want to see what files you have
> > open?
> >
> >       ls -l /proc/$$/fd

I think this would work in solaris, maybe linux too: pfiles $$

> > Etc.  Really easy to poke around and figure stuff out as needed and no
> > rats nest of header files to decode the structures.

Again, that's what the tools are for. If a tool doesn't give me the info I
need in Solaris, I guess I'm SOL. In Linux, *maybe* I'd have a chance of
finding it in /proc.  :-)
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From akosela at andykosela.com  Tue Aug  5 12:41:03 2014
From: akosela at andykosela.com (Andy Kosela)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 21:41:03 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALMnNGgrKMX8GFG7AB+zRi3RvNvmAEVyBdDMzjpvmW3xchpvEw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 5:24 PM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Aug 4, 2014 3:22 PM, "Norman Wilson" <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>
>> Everything has gotten more complicated.  Some of the complexity
>> involves reasonable tradeoffs (the move toward replacing binary
>> interfaces with readable text where space and time are nowhere
>> near critical, like the /proc and /sys trees in modern Linux).
> <snip>
>
> To digress from the main topic, I realize that's just one example, but
> here's a counterpoint to it:
>
> We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build innovative
> solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes that 'cat
> /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe that pmap(1)
> is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1), truss(1), dtrace(1M)
> and a host of other tools all make use of this same information. It would be
> a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel, convert it to
> text, and then have the userland components all write their own (error
> prone) parsing routines to convert this information back into a custom
> binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output format of pmap
> without breaking other applications that depend on the contents of /proc.
>
> [ https://blogs.oracle.com/eschrock/entry/the_power_of_proc]

Interestingly, we at FreeBSD got rid of /proc in favor of procstat(1)
and ptrace(2).  I am still not too sure if it was the Right Thing(r)
to do though.  The decision was more based on the premise that
procfs(4) was neglected in recent years than on anything else[0].

[0] http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Why-is-procfs-deprecated-in-favor-of-procstat-td4028960.html


From imp at bsdimp.com  Tue Aug  5 13:32:13 2014
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2014 21:32:13 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re: terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <CALMnNGgrKMX8GFG7AB+zRi3RvNvmAEVyBdDMzjpvmW3xchpvEw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMnNGgrKMX8GFG7AB+zRi3RvNvmAEVyBdDMzjpvmW3xchpvEw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5B476BA2-EA8F-4443-9DA9-A4AA231C28F4@bsdimp.com>


On Aug 4, 2014, at 8:41 PM, Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 5:24 PM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On Aug 4, 2014 3:22 PM, "Norman Wilson" <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
>> 
>> <snip>
>> 
>> 
>>> Everything has gotten more complicated.  Some of the complexity
>>> involves reasonable tradeoffs (the move toward replacing binary
>>> interfaces with readable text where space and time are nowhere
>>> near critical, like the /proc and /sys trees in modern Linux).
>> <snip>
>> 
>> To digress from the main topic, I realize that's just one example, but
>> here's a counterpoint to it:
>> 
>> We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build innovative
>> solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes that 'cat
>> /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe that pmap(1)
>> is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1), truss(1), dtrace(1M)
>> and a host of other tools all make use of this same information. It would be
>> a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel, convert it to
>> text, and then have the userland components all write their own (error
>> prone) parsing routines to convert this information back into a custom
>> binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output format of pmap
>> without breaking other applications that depend on the contents of /proc.
>> 
>> [ https://blogs.oracle.com/eschrock/entry/the_power_of_proc]
> 
> Interestingly, we at FreeBSD got rid of /proc in favor of procstat(1)
> and ptrace(2).  I am still not too sure if it was the Right Thing(r)
> to do though.  The decision was more based on the premise that
> procfs(4) was neglected in recent years than on anything else[0].
> 
> [0] http://freebsd.1045724.n5.nabble.com/Why-is-procfs-deprecated-in-favor-of-procstat-td4028960.html

FreeBSD also chose to export most nuggets of data from the kernel that are
covered by /proc in linux via sysctls. This is one reason that /proc suffered
atrophy in the system: nothing was really using it. One could debate at length
the relative merits of each, but the long-term viability of both in their respective
system I think shows more that the parts that people use are made to work,
with warts well known and tolerated, rather than any one form being purer than
the other.

Warner

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From dnied at tiscali.it  Tue Aug  5 19:48:50 2014
From: dnied at tiscali.it (Dario Niedermann)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 11:48:50 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] procfs on FreeBSD (WAS: Re:  Unix taste)
In-Reply-To: <CALMnNGgrKMX8GFG7AB+zRi3RvNvmAEVyBdDMzjpvmW3xchpvEw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALMnNGgrKMX8GFG7AB+zRi3RvNvmAEVyBdDMzjpvmW3xchpvEw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53e0a882.N3iwTZ4QkyuPoI/I%dnied@tiscali.it>

Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:

> Interestingly, we at FreeBSD got rid of /proc in favor of procstat(1)
> and ptrace(2).  I am still not too sure if it was the Right Thing(r)
> to do though.

It wasn't, IMO. It's a departure from "everything is a file".

A tenet which - if anything - should be more widely embraced, rather
than discarded (I'm looking at you, X11 !)

In fact, that's a major FreeBSD peeve of mine.


-- 
Dario Niedermann.              Also on the Internet at:

gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/ , http://devio.us/~ndr/


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Aug  5 21:55:43 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2014 06:55:43 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] /proc - linux vs solaris
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZu+np5n1=e6BKwzOw45kCWhbPujEumLtqnwxDuYYiaBsQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
 <20140804231108.GM19745@mcvoy.com>
 <CAFCBnZu+np5n1=e6BKwzOw45kCWhbPujEumLtqnwxDuYYiaBsQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZtXXHK8X44QMjTpFRh+uG790mBE+4Wbim_5EgZqVzdmRw@mail.gmail.com>

After sleeping on this, I realized that with DTrace, the extra goodies
exported by linux in /proc may be superfluous. Which would just mean that a
nice innovation was perhaps trumped by a more powerful one.

However, some of the missing commands in linux-ptools should be trivial to
add, and it's somewhat curious that no one has (pcred, pfiles). The one
possible exception to this is prstat.
 On Aug 4, 2014 8:26 PM, "A. P. Garcia" <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> On Aug 4, 2014 6:56 PM, "Larry McVoy" <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> >
> > Seem like even Roger liked it:
> >
> > https://lwn.net/lwn/1998/0226/sunproc.html
>
> :-) There are a few different issues here. Linux exports a lot of
> interesting info that Solaris doesn't. It's hard not to like that. Where
> they put it, who cares. The unix filesystem hierarchy wasn't exactly
> planned out by neat freaks.
>
> > On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 03:23:25PM -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > > On Mon, Aug 04, 2014 at 05:24:39PM -0500, A. P. Garcia wrote:
> > > > We in Solaris designed /proc as a tool for developers to build
> innovative
> > > > solutions, not an end-user interface. The Linux community believes
> that
> > > > 'cat /proc/self/maps' is the best user interface, while we believe
> that
> > > > pmap(1) is right answer. The reason for this is that mdb(1),
> truss(1),
> > > > dtrace(1M) and a host of other tools all make use of this same
> information.
> > > > It would be a waste of time to take binary information in the kernel,
> > > > convert it to text, and then have the userland components all write
> their
> > > > own (error prone) parsing routines to convert this information back
> into a
> > > > custom binary form. Plus, we can change the options and output
> format of
> > > > pmap without breaking other applications that depend on the contents
> of
> > > > /proc.
> > >
> > > I come from SunOS background and have had more than a few /proc
> discussions
> > > with Roger Faulkner (who I believed did the System V /proc at Bell
> Labs?).
> > >
> > > I get the arguments above but I don't buy 'em.  linux really got /proc
> > > right in terms of usefulness.
>
> > Digging binary blobs out of the kernel
> > > and translating them sucks.  I've done, I've written kmem drivers for
> > > ps, I understand how it works.  I far prefer the pure ascii model that
> > > Linux has.
>
> Part of the argument was more or less that the binary model allows a
> richer set of tools to be built on top of it, and that those tools provide
> a better interface to the info. Does Solaris have a richer set of tools
> than Linux in this regard? I think so, but I don't know how much of this is
> owed to the difference between binary and text interfaces in /proc.
>
> Last time I checked, Linix had no pcred(1), for example. top(1) doesn't
> provide nearly as much info as prstat(1) -- for example, prstat -mL. Why
> that is, I don't know. Plus, prstat is marginally less resource intensive.
> Anything as sweet as (k)mdb in linux? Forget it. Maybe that's because Linus
> was so resistant to having a debugger in the kernel for so long? DTrace?
> Well, sort of -- a port of dtrace! But I'm really at an unfair disadvantage
> here. *Why* Solaris has such better tools, you would know better than me. I
> only know that it does. As for the second part, that writing the tools that
> use the binary interface is unpleasant, again I have to defer to you. I've
> never done that.
>
> > > I also get that Linux turned /proc into /whatever/I/think/I/need/today
> > > and that makes purists grit their teeth.  None the less, if you give
> > > me a choice I'll take the linux way.  Want to see what files you have
> > > open?
> > >
> > >       ls -l /proc/$$/fd
>
> I think this would work in solaris, maybe linux too: pfiles $$
>
> > > Etc.  Really easy to poke around and figure stuff out as needed and no
> > > rats nest of header files to decode the structures.
>
> Again, that's what the tools are for. If a tool doesn't give me the info I
> need in Solaris, I guess I'm SOL. In Linux, *maybe* I'd have a chance of
> finding it in /proc.  :-)
>
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From tfb at tfeb.org  Tue Aug  5 22:06:31 2014
From: tfb at tfeb.org (Tim Bradshaw)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2014 13:06:31 +0100
Subject: [TUHS] /proc - linux vs solaris
In-Reply-To: <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <99D0780C-AB35-4C06-9BD7-542A0A8BE89A@tfeb.org>

On 4 Aug 2014, at 23:23, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> I get the arguments above but I don't buy 'em.  linux really got /proc
> right in terms of usefulness.  Digging binary blobs out of the kernel
> and translating them sucks.  I've done, I've written kmem drivers for
> ps, I understand how it works.  I far prefer the pure ascii model that
> Linux has.

I agree with this, with one caveat: there are things which exist in /proc which should be in a standard format (extensible if need be) but are not.  I forget the particular example but I've written patches for, I think, node.js which essentially came down to "add yet another special case for /proc/<whatever>", when there was just no reason that the thing should not have been in a standard format in the first place.

Certainly as a user of Solaris and Linux, Linux's /proc is just far more useful (though I like pmap).

From sdaoden at yandex.com  Tue Aug  5 22:37:55 2014
From: sdaoden at yandex.com (Steffen Nurpmeso)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 14:37:55 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] /proc - linux vs solaris
In-Reply-To: <99D0780C-AB35-4C06-9BD7-542A0A8BE89A@tfeb.org>
References: <1407183693.25672.for-standards-violators@oclsc.org>
 <CAFCBnZvoZ2DFmvCAKExbV1ysxwjRGqQC7RXBObjA7tb+LYbZKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140804222325.GK19745@mcvoy.com>
 <99D0780C-AB35-4C06-9BD7-542A0A8BE89A@tfeb.org>
Message-ID: <20140805133755.GnDHUfub%sdaoden@yandex.com>

 |> I get the arguments above but I don't buy 'em.  linux really got /proc
 |> right in terms of usefulness.  Digging binary blobs out of the kernel

 |I agree with this, with one caveat: there are things which \
 |exist in /proc which should be in a standard format (extensible \
 |if need be) but are not.  I forget the particular example \

Whereas unprofessional i missed the most any documentation; if
i recall correctly (i think i do) in at least the 2.4 series there
was a PROCFSENTRY() (or quite similar) macro which well did what
it says and i still don't understand why there was no, and may it
be optional, and may the final usage of it be optional in
addition, documentational string argument for this.  That is
i found, and again found some years ago when i first installed
Linux on this Notebook and tried to get the fans controlled, that
it is completely intransparent; how easy would it be if each entry
in proc had a xy.txt that simply expands to the the content of the
mentioned string argument?  Like it was it took hours to get the
fans right.  How nice it was once i switched over to (then Free)
BSD, which documents not not nil (as in [1]).

  [1] <http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?sysctl+7+NetBSD-current>

--steffen


From arnold at skeeve.com  Tue Aug  5 23:13:31 2014
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 07:13:31 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140804182852.GF28851@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <53db573b.rwfkVi3XCkWueUYL%dnied@tiscali.it>
 <CALMnNGiu3T00XPWiYUie0ySKiUL2NWNe86F0BTyW7ZmizVBEyw@mail.gmail.com>
 <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <20140804182852.GF28851@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <201408051313.s75DDVYJ008783@freefriends.org>

John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> The Unix treatment of LF as newline shows, however, that you folks had
> model 37 TTYs; the model 33 still required CR+LF for newline.

I think I'd trust the memory of the Bell Labs guys here. The tty driver
(and stty(1)) had options for translating LF to CR+LF on output and
CR to LF on input.  I've seen mention here and in other places of Model 33
too many times to believe that it was really a Model 37.  :-)

Thanks,

Arnold


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Wed Aug  6 00:20:33 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2014 10:20:33 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <201408051313.s75DDVYJ008783@freefriends.org>
References: <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <20140804182852.GF28851@mercury.ccil.org>
 <201408051313.s75DDVYJ008783@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <20140805142033.GA1551@mercury.ccil.org>

arnold at skeeve.com scripsit:

> I think I'd trust the memory of the Bell Labs guys here. The tty driver
> (and stty(1)) had options for translating LF to CR+LF on output and
> CR to LF on input.  I've seen mention here and in other places of Model 33
> too many times to believe that it was really a Model 37.  :-)

That shows that they did have Model 33s, as was confirmed for me in
private mail.  At first there were only a few Model 37s, but they
did exist; after nroff, they became more common.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all.  There are
no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that
they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --The Hobbit


From arnold at skeeve.com  Wed Aug  6 00:46:21 2014
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 08:46:21 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140805142033.GA1551@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <C0049BBF-F842-4942-AC4F-ABCD131A0DC4@cs.uwlax.edu>
 <20140801105029.58656ubc05nkkh2d@webmail.mhorton.net>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408020558350.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140801203508.GF13476@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408021146300.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <70C2F527-099F-4BE8-BBFB-CBCAAAEB40C0@tfeb.org>
 <20140802034551.GA30208@eureka.lemis.com>
 <a2660c1c487bcd938c343c49f017bbf8.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <20140804182852.GF28851@mercury.ccil.org>
 <201408051313.s75DDVYJ008783@freefriends.org>
 <20140805142033.GA1551@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <201408051446.s75EkLTD020396@freefriends.org>

John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> arnold at skeeve.com scripsit:
>
> > I think I'd trust the memory of the Bell Labs guys here. The tty driver
> > (and stty(1)) had options for translating LF to CR+LF on output and
> > CR to LF on input.  I've seen mention here and in other places of Model 33
> > too many times to believe that it was really a Model 37.  :-)
>
> That shows that they did have Model 33s, as was confirmed for me in
> private mail.  At first there were only a few Model 37s, but they
> did exist; after nroff, they became more common.

Interesting that they had both - I don't remember hearing about the 37
but that doesn't mean much. :-)

Thanks,

Arnold


From clemc at ccc.com  Wed Aug  6 01:24:51 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Tue, 5 Aug 2014 11:24:51 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] changes for modern -> v7 -> v6 -> v5
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N6veRAk8VSVbpPQaFbc=4VJacsPtj6EANA6=Brdr5s2Dw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N6veRAk8VSVbpPQaFbc=4VJacsPtj6EANA6=Brdr5s2Dw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2PcbuFUaKw+qYyJEGUOrZ8reWbyyZ_mqziJbKc8U0=oYw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 4:55 PM, Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com> wrote:

> no vi on v7, v6, a


​For v6 go to the original BSD tape (aka 1BSD) and for V7, 2BSD.​
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From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Wed Aug  6 12:56:07 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 22:56:07 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
Message-ID: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> Interesting that they had both - I don't remember hearing about the 37
> but that doesn't mean much. :-)

The only model 33 on any PDP11 in Bell Labs research was the console.
Otherwise all terminals were ASCII devices. Model 37's predated Unix.

doug


From arnold at skeeve.com  Wed Aug  6 16:45:31 2014
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:45:31 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
Message-ID: <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>

Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:

> > Interesting that they had both - I don't remember hearing about the 37
> > but that doesn't mean much. :-)
>
> The only model 33 on any PDP11 in Bell Labs research was the console.
> Otherwise all terminals were ASCII devices. Model 37's predated Unix.
>
> doug

So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?

Thanks for the info.

Arnold


From dave at horsfall.org  Wed Aug  6 17:47:14 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 17:47:14 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?

Nope; it was 5-bit Baudot (technically ITA2).  Upper case only, and there 
were codes to shift between letters and figures.  Grep thee the net for 
"ASR33".

-- Dave


From jaapna at xs4all.nl  Wed Aug  6 19:09:15 2014
From: jaapna at xs4all.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 11:09:15 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <9C829BCC-3F25-46C4-A131-DAAE78F8DF0B@xs4all.nl>


> 
>> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
> 
> Nope; it was 5-bit Baudot (technically ITA2).  Upper case only, and there 
> were codes to shift between letters and figures.  Grep thee the net for 
> "ASR33".

I've used an ASR33 with an PDP-8-E, an ASR33 with an opto coupler
to some tymeshare services and an ASR35 as a console to an PDP-8-I
but theses where all ASCII.  According to wikipedia "A companion
Model 32 used the more established five-level Baudot code."
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletype_Model_33>.

More teletype history at <http://www.pdp8online.com/asr33/asr33.shtml>

And have a look at the picture of Ken & ennis with two 33's
<http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/picture.html> and comments
from dmr. Note te ASCII keyboard.

	jaap

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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Wed Aug  6 23:22:57 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 09:22:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>

arnold at skeeve.com scripsit:

> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?

The keyboard could send all of ASCII except lower-case letters, grave,
braces, and vertical bar (i.e. excluding x60 to x7E).  The high-order
bit was always set.  Using the paper tape reader and punch, you could
transmit arbitrary 8-bit characters.

It was the model 32 that was Baudot.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Dream projects long deferred usually bite the wax tadpole.
        --James Lileks


From usotsuki at buric.co  Wed Aug  6 23:44:50 2014
From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 13:44:50 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.2.02.1408061344240.72547@localhost>

On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> arnold at skeeve.com scripsit:
>
>> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
>
> The keyboard could send all of ASCII except lower-case letters, grave,
> braces, and vertical bar (i.e. excluding x60 to x7E).  The high-order
> bit was always set.  Using the paper tape reader and punch, you could
> transmit arbitrary 8-bit characters.

Sounds like an Apple ][+ keyboard.

-uso.


From reed at reedmedia.net  Thu Aug  7 01:26:22 2014
From: reed at reedmedia.net (Jeremy C. Reed)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 10:26:22 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> > So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
> 
> The keyboard could send all of ASCII except lower-case letters, grave,
> braces, and vertical bar (i.e. excluding x60 to x7E).  The high-order
> bit was always set.  Using the paper tape reader and punch, you could
> transmit arbitrary 8-bit characters.

I guess it was common to use the Teletype Model 33 independently without 
any video display. (I read that it could accommodate a modem too.) Did 
it automatically print to paper everything typed to keyboard in 
real-time?  Or maybe only when LINE FEED or RE-TURN key was pressed?

How would RUB OUT be used when using the sh shell? (I tried looking 
through the code and manual for some old 32V and previous versions but 
didn't see code for it yet.)

When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?

Were the early Unix versions case insensitive? (Like could I run "DaTe" 
from shell?) If not, how to get the model-33 to work with it?

What about the model-33 printer? Did it print lowercase?

How was the "HERE IS" key programmed? Was it used in Unix?

What was the "REPT" key used for?

I also noticed there wasn't any tilde key. So I looked at some old Unix 
code and didn't see tilde used for home directory until 1980 csh. But 
how was tilde entered for previous uses? (Maybe I just overlooked on 
keyboard.)

Was there any concept of intra-line editing when using a model-33 -- but 
without seeing what is being typed or having it print over (and over) 
same line content? (I should assume that intra-line editing can only 
happen on video terminals.)

(My book in progress explains a lot about the history of ex/vi but 
the earliest version I have is 1.1 which included the support for 
intra-line editing and even visual mode for HP 2645 and LSI ADM-3A 
cursor-addressible terminals. I am hoping my book can also introduce the 
basic usage concepts for readers who have no familiarity with the 
hardware around then. One of the TUHS list participants and termcap/vi 
developer already told me some about the hjkl arrow keys, for example.)


From aps at ieee.org  Thu Aug  7 02:15:28 2014
From: aps at ieee.org (Armando Stettner)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 09:15:28 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <D18CC440-8ADA-4ECA-A8F3-5A9ED2B314A1@ieee.org>

My answers, embedded though I'm sure millions will reply.  From my recollection....

  aps



Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
> Date: August 6, 2014 at 8:26:22 AM PDT
> To: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> 
> On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:
> 
>>> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
>> 
>> The keyboard could send all of ASCII except lower-case letters, grave,
>> braces, and vertical bar (i.e. excluding x60 to x7E).  The high-order
>> bit was always set.  Using the paper tape reader and punch, you could
>> transmit arbitrary 8-bit characters.
> 
> I guess it was common to use the Teletype Model 33 independently without 
> any video display. (I read that it could accommodate a modem too.) Did 
> it automatically print to paper everything typed to keyboard in 
> real-time?  Or maybe only when LINE FEED or RE-TURN key was pressed?

The 33 was capable of full-duplex so this depended upon what it was talking to (or how it was optioned).  Teletype did have an OEM acoustically coupled modem on 33's (and 32's??).  In the "barebones" version, they were current-loop machines (make-brake contacts to represent the 1's and 0's for the code).  There was also an OEM option for RS232.


> How would RUB OUT be used when using the sh shell? (I tried looking 
> through the code and manual for some old 32V and previous versions but 
> didn't see code for it yet.)

When you pressed RUBOUT, the 'deleted' character was printed on the paper by the system to which the 33 was connected and removed from the butter (pointer moved backwards, etc.).


> When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?

I first experienced this with the CSH but maybe there were others before.


> Were the early Unix versions case insensitive? (Like could I run "DaTe" 
> from shell?) If not, how to get the model-33 to work with it?

I recall that there was an STTY command that would allow case to be ignored.  Remember, the shell would look for a file name in a set of directories (later, $PATH) for the file name to fork/exec.

> What about the model-33 printer? Did it print lowercase?

I do not believe so.

> How was the "HERE IS" key programmed? Was it used in Unix?

32's and 33's were focused on Telex and TWX services.  Hence the "HERE IS" (popular with Telex or TWX call initiations) and REPT (I can't recall its meaning but, geez, looks like a request to repeat last transmission or indicating that what follows is a repeat transmission).


> What was the "REPT" key used for?

See above.


> I also noticed there wasn't any tilde key. So I looked at some old Unix 
> code and didn't see tilde used for home directory until 1980 csh. But 
> how was tilde entered for previous uses? (Maybe I just overlooked on 
> keyboard.)

I thought the tilde (~) was used in the C language.  I remember seeing tildes as home directories in V7 or certainly in CSH.  Again, my recollections...

> Was there any concept of intra-line editing when using a model-33 -- but 
> without seeing what is being typed or having it print over (and over) 
> same line content? (I should assume that intra-line editing can only 
> happen on video terminals.)

As implied before, I don't recall any intraline editing (beyond backspacing or erasing-the-last-character commands for those "glass tty's" that could support it) until CSH.

> (My book in progress explains a lot about the history of ex/vi but 
> the earliest version I have is 1.1 which included the support for 
> intra-line editing and even visual mode for HP 2645 and LSI ADM-3A 
> cursor-addressible terminals. I am hoping my book can also introduce the 
> basic usage concepts for readers who have no familiarity with the 
> hardware around then. One of the TUHS list participants and termcap/vi 
> developer already told me some about the hjkl arrow keys, for example.)
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
> 


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Thu Aug  7 02:37:01 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 12:37:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <20140806163700.GA29307@mercury.ccil.org>

Jeremy C. Reed scripsit:

> I guess it was common to use the Teletype Model 33 independently without 
> any video display. 

Yes, it was.  The first video terminal I ever saw was the DEC VT05.

> Did it automatically print to paper everything typed to keyboard in 
> real-time?  Or maybe only when LINE FEED or RE-TURN key was pressed?

No.  It was a full-duplex device, so echoing was normally provided by
the remote system, just like today.

> How would RUB OUT be used when using the sh shell? (I tried looking 
> through the code and manual for some old 32V and previous versions but 
> didn't see code for it yet.)

RUB OUT transmitted the character DEL (0x7F), which was the default
"intr" character (typically ^C today).

> When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?

With @ and #, from the beginning.

> Were the early Unix versions case insensitive? (Like could I run "DaTe" 
> from shell?) If not, how to get the model-33 to work with it?

The stty settings iuclc and olcuc lowercased input and uppercased output,
and they still work today.  If you tried to log in in all upper case,
login would downcase your username and turn on these settings, a feature
not present today.

> What about the model-33 printer? Did it print lowercase?

No.  IIRC, it printed lower case as upper case, but I may be wrong.

> How was the "HERE IS" key programmed? Was it used in Unix?

I think it was done in the hardware of the teletype.  By default it
sent a string of NUL characters.

> What was the "REPT" key used for?

It was a shift key which, when held down, caused other keys to be
repeated.  The Model 33 did not provide auto-repeating keys.

> I also noticed there wasn't any tilde key. So I looked at some old Unix 
> code and didn't see tilde used for home directory until 1980 csh. But 
> how was tilde entered for previous uses? (Maybe I just overlooked on 
> keyboard.)

None of `, ~, {, |, or } were present on the keyboard.  If there was
a way to type them to Unix, I don't know what it was.

> Was there any concept of intra-line editing when using a model-33 -- but 
> without seeing what is being typed or having it print over (and over) 
> same line content? (I should assume that intra-line editing can only 
> happen on video terminals.)

On DEC OSes, the RUBOUT key echoed as \, and you had to count them to
see what you had, or push ^R to get the line re-echoed cleanly.  The
modern uses of ^R, ^U, ^O, and ^Z on Windows all come from DEC.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
All "isms" should be "wasms".   --Abbie


From milov at cs.uwlax.edu  Thu Aug  7 02:49:42 2014
From: milov at cs.uwlax.edu (=?utf-8?Q?Milo_Velimirovi=C4=87?=)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 11:49:42 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <84A989CE-4465-4A90-987C-13D0DA71C5F7@cs.uwlax.edu>

I used v6 on an 11/45 -- my comments refer to my recollections from the mid-late 1970s.

On Aug 6, 2014, at 10:26 AM, Jeremy C. Reed <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:
> 
>>> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
>> 
>> The keyboard could send all of ASCII except lower-case letters, grave,
>> braces, and vertical bar (i.e. excluding x60 to x7E).  The high-order
>> bit was always set.  Using the paper tape reader and punch, you could
>> transmit arbitrary 8-bit characters.
> 
> I guess it was common to use the Teletype Model 33 independently without 
> any video display. (I read that it could accommodate a modem too.) Did 
> it automatically print to paper everything typed to keyboard in 
> real-time?  Or maybe only when LINE FEED or RE-TURN key was pressed?

What video? I don't recall ever seeing a TTY have video displays.
Terminals could operate in either Full Duplex or Half Duplex. The former required every character to be echoed in order to be printed. In HDX mode every character typed was both sent down the wire and printed.

Yes, some TTYs had an attached acoustic coupler and/or a paper tape reader-punch.

> 
> How would RUB OUT be used when using the sh shell? (I tried looking 
> through the code and manual for some old 32V and previous versions but 
> didn't see code for it yet.)

It wasn't really used. Most often rubout was used on systems where a "text" would be prepared offline and punched on paper tape as it was being typed. Hitting rubout would punch holes in all positions on the tape effectively obliterating  whatever had been typed. Once the offline text was complete the tape could be transmitted to a host for further processing. This was the Automatic Send part of the ASR-33. I recall doing this in the early 70s at a community college I went to -- but this wasn't connected to a UNIX system.

> 
> When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?
From the beginning if you count @ and #
> 
> Were the early Unix versions case insensitive? (Like could I run "DaTe" 
> from shell?) If not, how to get the model-33 to work with it?

How early are asking about. V6 was case sensitive. The ASR-33 was folded to lower case on input by default.

> 
> What about the model-33 printer? Did it print lowercase?

Upper case only as previous posters have mentioned.

> 
> How was the "HERE IS" key programmed? Was it used in Unix?

No idea; I never saw it used.

> 
> What was the "REPT" key used for?
ditto.
> 
> I also noticed there wasn't any tilde key. So I looked at some old Unix 
> code and didn't see tilde used for home directory until 1980 csh. But 
> how was tilde entered for previous uses? (Maybe I just overlooked on 
> keyboard.)
probably as \- I'd have to look at the terminal driver code.
> 
> Was there any concept of intra-line editing when using a model-33 -- but 
> without seeing what is being typed or having it print over (and over) 
> same line content? (I should assume that intra-line editing can only 
> happen on video terminals.)

Not really. You had @ and # and that was about it. You could always manually advance the paper in the TTY if things got to smudged up from overprinting.

> 
> (My book in progress explains a lot about the history of ex/vi but 
> the earliest version I have is 1.1 which included the support for 
> intra-line editing and even visual mode for HP 2645 and LSI ADM-3A 
> cursor-addressible terminals. I am hoping my book can also introduce the 
> basic usage concepts for readers who have no familiarity with the 
> hardware around then. One of the TUHS list participants and termcap/vi 
> developer already told me some about the hjkl arrow keys, for example.)

--
Milo Velimirović
Network Specialist - ITS Network Services
608.785.6618 Office -  608.386.2817 Cell
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA   43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W







From scj at yaccman.com  Thu Aug  7 03:53:18 2014
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 10:53:18 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140806163700.GA29307@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <20140806163700.GA29307@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <668acfc4769a91693e47afd7cd878e81.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

While on this thread, I have to share my favorite Model 37 TYY story.

The Model 37 was a mechanical marvel--under the hood it was filled with
levers and cams and all manner of strange mechanisms.  Dennis Ritchie had
one at home long after most of the rest of us had moved on to glass
teletypes.  It mostly worked, although as it aged the mechanical systems
got a bit rickety and had a tendency to insert an extra blank character
into the line you were typing, especially if you were typing fast.

The last straw for Dennis happened late one evening when he was doing the
usual housekeeping after compiling a large program:
    rm *.o
(after all, disc space was very limited in those days) and he got back the
message:
    .o not found



From mah at mhorton.net  Thu Aug  7 04:26:16 2014
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 11:26:16 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <20140806112616.88371tyymackmn9k@webmail.mhorton.net>

Quoting "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net>:


> When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?

I don't think sh ever did line editing, unless sh is a link to bash or ksh.
I first saw this in csh around 1978, ed-style.  David Korn added EMACS
editing to ksh in the early 80s, and Alan Hewitt wrote a mini-vi version
which Korn also included.  Once I had access to vi in the shell, I switched
from csh to ksh and never went back.

> How was the "HERE IS" key programmed? Was it used in Unix?

HERE IS was intended for two teletypes connected to each other via modem.
There was a short ID string hardcoded somehow into the teletype - I think
the limit was 8 or 16 characters, and if not null, typically was a short
ID of whose teletype it was (e.g. the organization name or site in the org.)
If you press HERE IS, it was as if you had typed those characters.
More interesting was that if one side of the link sent the ASCII ENQ
(enquiry, control E) character, the other side would respond with its
HERE IS string.

You were supposed to type a message offline onto paper tape (editing
with the "back space" button on the tape punch, which rewound the tape
reel one character so the most recent char was ready to be punched again)
and then type RUB OUT, which obliterated the typo.)  Then you would put
the tape in the reader, dial the number of another teletype, and press
Start on the tape reader.  Your tape would read and be transmitted to the
other side.  Sort of a primitive email system, it was widely used by news
media.  There was even a "Telex" network of these things - the Wikipedia
entry for Telex has some background and a few vintage photos.

I think if you put an ENQ at the beginning of your tape, the other side
would identify itself, so you were sure it went to the right place.
Of course, the tape kept reading, so you'd better have several NULL
characters after the ENQ.

I never tried this, my ASR33 days were spent dialing up computers, not
other teletypes.   I actually bought one of these things as a college  
sophomore so I could access the computer center from my dorm room!   
UNIX didn't
use HERE IS.

   Mary Ann



From mah at mhorton.net  Thu Aug  7 04:48:22 2014
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 11:48:22 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <20140806112616.88371tyymackmn9k@webmail.mhorton.net>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <20140806112616.88371tyymackmn9k@webmail.mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <20140806114822.12005ji4e536vjw6@webmail.mhorton.net>

I just discovered that Wikipedia has a nice article "teleprinter" that  
goes into detail about these devices.

About "HERE IS" they state this:
Some teleprinters had a "Here is" key, which transmitted a fixed  
sequence 20 or 22 characters, programmable by breaking tabs off a  
drum. This sequence could also be transmitted automatically upon  
receipt of an ENQ (control E) signal, if enabled.[19][20] This was  
commonly used to identify a station; the operator could press the key  
to send the station identifier to the other end, or the remote station  
could trigger its transmission by sending the ENQ character,  
essentially asking "who are you?".

Quoting Mary Ann Horton <mah at mhorton.net>:

> Quoting "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net>:
>
>
>> When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?
>
> I don't think sh ever did line editing, unless sh is a link to bash or ksh.
> I first saw this in csh around 1978, ed-style.  David Korn added EMACS
> editing to ksh in the early 80s, and Alan Hewitt wrote a mini-vi version
> which Korn also included.  Once I had access to vi in the shell, I switched
> from csh to ksh and never went back.
>
>> How was the "HERE IS" key programmed? Was it used in Unix?
>
> HERE IS was intended for two teletypes connected to each other via modem.
> There was a short ID string hardcoded somehow into the teletype - I think
> the limit was 8 or 16 characters, and if not null, typically was a short
> ID of whose teletype it was (e.g. the organization name or site in the org.)
> If you press HERE IS, it was as if you had typed those characters.
> More interesting was that if one side of the link sent the ASCII ENQ
> (enquiry, control E) character, the other side would respond with its
> HERE IS string.
>
> You were supposed to type a message offline onto paper tape (editing
> with the "back space" button on the tape punch, which rewound the tape
> reel one character so the most recent char was ready to be punched again)
> and then type RUB OUT, which obliterated the typo.)  Then you would put
> the tape in the reader, dial the number of another teletype, and press
> Start on the tape reader.  Your tape would read and be transmitted to the
> other side.  Sort of a primitive email system, it was widely used by news
> media.  There was even a "Telex" network of these things - the Wikipedia
> entry for Telex has some background and a few vintage photos.
>
> I think if you put an ENQ at the beginning of your tape, the other side
> would identify itself, so you were sure it went to the right place.
> Of course, the tape kept reading, so you'd better have several NULL
> characters after the ENQ.
>
> I never tried this, my ASR33 days were spent dialing up computers, not
> other teletypes.   I actually bought one of these things as a  
> college sophomore so I could access the computer center from my dorm  
> room!  UNIX didn't
> use HERE IS.
>
>   Mary Ann
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>




From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Thu Aug  7 05:44:23 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 14:44:23 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <668acfc4769a91693e47afd7cd878e81.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <20140806163700.GA29307@mercury.ccil.org>
 <668acfc4769a91693e47afd7cd878e81.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZu0K_fOdWcEHmRXyFo-NM6wQLzZUjs==0b8fK+b3oowhQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 6, 2014 12:54 PM, <scj at yaccman.com> wrote:
>
> While on this thread, I have to share my favorite Model 37 TYY story.
>
> The Model 37 was a mechanical marvel--under the hood it was filled with
> levers and cams and all manner of strange mechanisms.  Dennis Ritchie had
> one at home long after most of the rest of us had moved on to glass
> teletypes.  It mostly worked, although as it aged the mechanical systems
> got a bit rickety and had a tendency to insert an extra blank character
> into the line you were typing, especially if you were typing fast.
>
> The last straw for Dennis happened late one evening when he was doing the
> usual housekeeping after compiling a large program:
>     rm *.o
> (after all, disc space was very limited in those days) and he got back the
> message:
>     .o not found

ouch.

Another Model 37 classic:

"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
[ http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/odd.html]
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From jaapna at xs4all.nl  Thu Aug  7 06:16:39 2014
From: jaapna at xs4all.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 22:16:39 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <D18CC440-8ADA-4ECA-A8F3-5A9ED2B314A1@ieee.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <D18CC440-8ADA-4ECA-A8F3-5A9ED2B314A1@ieee.org>
Message-ID: <636A0831-8B9B-480B-A369-F0381ACE09BA@xs4all.nl>


>> 
>> When did the sh shell provide intra-line editing?
> 
> I first experienced this with the CSH but maybe there were others before.

If I remember correctly traditionally there were the kill and erase
(#, @) characters, later on Berkeley added thinks like ^W (rub out
last word) and similar stuff.  This was all handle by the terminal
driver in the kernel (saved context switches).  Later people started
to move the edit operations to the CLI applications and libraries
like "readline", the terminal driver runs in cbreak (or whatever
it was called) mode.

	jaap

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From ron at ronnatalie.com  Thu Aug  7 06:32:10 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 16:32:10 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <636A0831-8B9B-480B-A369-F0381ACE09BA@xs4all.nl>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <D18CC440-8ADA-4ECA-A8F3-5A9ED2B314A1@ieee.org>
 <636A0831-8B9B-480B-A369-F0381ACE09BA@xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <54D6D9D8-9C5F-4EDF-AE1F-CD7CE6AC4F33@ronnatalie.com>

Cooked mode (or ICANON for later drivers) did the ERASE, KILL, (and later) WERASE.

The later TCSH, KSH, BRL 5R2 version of the (with editing turned on) Bourne Shell, etc... ran the shell in raw (-icanon) mode to do fancier editing including moving the cursor back over already entered text and to insert/delete at the cursor.



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Thu Aug  7 06:36:52 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 16:36:52 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZu0K_fOdWcEHmRXyFo-NM6wQLzZUjs==0b8fK+b3oowhQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <20140806163700.GA29307@mercury.ccil.org>
 <668acfc4769a91693e47afd7cd878e81.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
 <CAFCBnZu0K_fOdWcEHmRXyFo-NM6wQLzZUjs==0b8fK+b3oowhQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <19F2A1A7-9D19-490E-B7C8-372DF6C84B65@ronnatalie.com>

Actually, I had a Model 37 (ASR) in my house for a while (originally property of Rocky Flats Weapons Center).    It had a big NEWLINE key on it and it's one of the few terminals where you didn't have to turn on cr/nl mapping.    It also dealt with all those ESC-8 and ESC-9 characters and the like that nroff put out by default.   It also put had a big green PROCEED light that came on with DSR or CD on the serial interface.    Mine didn't have the greek type box that you switched in and out with SHIFT IN / SHIFT OUT characters and yes, an unprogrammed HERE IS drum.

One neat feature about the RUBOUT (or DELETE) character is that it was "all ones" in binary.    The way you'd correct errors in off-line generated paper tape was to backspace the punch and then hit rubout.   The input device would subsequently ignore any such characters.



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Thu Aug  7 06:38:21 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 16:38:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <668acfc4769a91693e47afd7cd878e81.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <20140806132257.GA23663@mercury.ccil.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408060901510.22474@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
 <20140806163700.GA29307@mercury.ccil.org>
 <668acfc4769a91693e47afd7cd878e81.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>
Message-ID: <23AB4AB5-C2EA-40A7-9B81-FE1F80E4154B@ronnatalie.com>

At the University of Maryland all the teletypes were given unique "site id's" encoded on the here-is drum.   The UNIVAC port multiplexors would send ENQ to them to get the site id to record in the login sequence on EXEC 8,



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Thu Aug  7 06:43:48 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2014 16:43:48 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <03371903-E2C1-4D31-9C83-28612E6BD16D@ronnatalie.com>


On Aug 6, 2014, at 3:47 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> 
>> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
> 
> Nope; it was 5-bit Baudot (technically ITA2).  Upper case only, and there 
> were codes to shift between letters and figures.  Grep thee the net for 
> "ASR33".

Nonsense.   The Model 33 as ASCII but Upper Case only.   It definitely was not Baudot.
The Baudot version of the same thing was a model 28.   

From mah at mhorton.net  Thu Aug  7 07:40:44 2014
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 14:40:44 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] terminal - just for fun
In-Reply-To: <03371903-E2C1-4D31-9C83-28612E6BD16D@ronnatalie.com>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <03371903-E2C1-4D31-9C83-28612E6BD16D@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <20140806144044.122624z5sscy9h3w@webmail.mhorton.net>

On the model 33 (ASCII) teletype, control G, the BEL character, rang a  
metal bell inside the box, and it went "ding".

I had a friend who came across an older, Baudot teletype (I think he  
said it was a model 27.)  It also had a BEL character.  He said  
instead of going "ding", it went "splat", and a printed character  
appeared on the paper in the shape of a bell!

Quoting Ronald Natalie <ron at ronnatalie.com>:

>
> On Aug 6, 2014, at 3:47 AM, Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
>>
>>> So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
>>
>> Nope; it was 5-bit Baudot (technically ITA2).  Upper case only, and there
>> were codes to shift between letters and figures.  Grep thee the net for
>> "ASR33".
>
> Nonsense.   The Model 33 as ASCII but Upper Case only.   It  
> definitely was not Baudot.
> The Baudot version of the same thing was a model 28.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>




From norman at oclsc.org  Thu Aug  7 08:19:11 2014
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Wed,  6 Aug 2014 18:19:11 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140806221911.3437F1DE37E@lignose.oclsc.org>

Lyndon Nerenberg:

  Do you still consider '^' the shell's inter-command pipe character?

======

No.  By the time I first used UNIX, | was well-established as
the official pipeline character; ^ was just a quirky synonym.
I had the impression somehow that ^ was there just to make
life easier on the Model 33 Teletype, which had no | key.

Digging into old manuals, ^ and | appear simultaneously, in
sh(1) in the Fourth Edition.  Pipelines first appeared in
3/e, though with a clumsier syntax (not supported by
any current shell I know): where we would now type
	ls | wc
the original syntax was
	ls > wc >
The trailing > was required to tell the shell to make a pipeline
of the two commands, rather than to redirect output to a file
named wc.  One could of course redirect the final command's
output to a file as well:
	ls > wc > filecount

Even clumsier: where we would now type
	ls | pr -h 'Look at all these files!'
the 3/e shell expected
	ls > "pr -h 'Look at all these files!'" >
because its parser bound > to only the single following word.

The original syntax could be reversed too:
	wc < ls <
The manual implies this was required if the pipeline's
ultimate input came from a file.  Maybe someone with more
energy than I have right now can dig out the source code
and see.

I was originally going to use an example like
	who | grep 'r.*' | wc -l
but the old-style version would be anachronistic.  There
was no grep yet in 3/e, and wc took no arguments.
	
I do still have the habit of quoting ^ in command arguments,
but that's still necessary on a few current systems; e.g.
/bin/sh on Solaris 10.  Fortunately, that makes it easier
to remember to quote ! as well, something required by the
clumsy command-history mechanism some people like but I don't.
(I usually turn off history but occasionally it gets turned on
by accident anyway.)

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From norman at oclsc.org  Thu Aug  7 08:24:31 2014
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Wed,  6 Aug 2014 18:24:31 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste (Re:  terminal - just for fun)
Message-ID: <20140806222431.5C7471DE37E@lignose.oclsc.org>

Davwe Horsfall:

  I was surprised when "chdir" became "cd", but I suppose it fits the 
  philosophy of 2-letter commands.

======

Don't forget that the original spelling, in the PDP-7 UNIX that
had no published manual, was ch.

The 1/e manual spells it chdir.  I remember that in one of
Dennis's retrospective papers, he remarks on the change, and
says he can't remember why.

I once asked in the UNIX room if anyone could recall why ch
changed to chdir.  Someone, I forget who, suggested it was
because the working directory was the only thing that could
be changed: no chmod or chown in the PDP-7 days.  I don't know
whether that's true.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Thu Aug  7 15:05:19 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2014 01:05:19 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] alloc.s is missing from unix v5
Message-ID: <CADxT5N6cR-DVh-199+YEb2Z5d21-1dd5tcAO9gnDRL3wR0EhwA@mail.gmail.com>

Ok, I was trying to understand exactly what the alloc(III) subroutine
does in unix version 5 and I've discovered that the source code for it
appears to be missing.

In Unix v6 there is a file in the TUHS archives
V6/usr/source/s4/alloc.s so I assume there should be a
V5/usr/source/s4/alloc.s as well but I can't find it anywhere.

In v5 the command "ar t /lib/libc.a" lists the files in the c library
and that includes alloc.o so there should be a source file somewhere.

Mark


From dave at horsfall.org  Thu Aug  7 16:44:43 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2014 16:44:43 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Baudot/ASCII (was Re:  terminal - just for fun)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <201408060256.s762u7Ni007007@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>
 <201408060645.s766jV9p004639@freefriends.org>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408061744510.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408071639550.56292@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Wed, 6 Aug 2014, Dave Horsfall wrote:

> > So the model-33 wasn't ASCII?
> 
> Nope; it was 5-bit Baudot (technically ITA2).  Upper case only, and 
> there were codes to shift between letters and figures.  Grep thee the 
> net for "ASR33".

Eek!  For some reason I was thinking of Amateur RTTY (I happen to be an 
Amateur "ham" radio operator).  Computers are mostly used now, with both 
Baudot and ASCII, both FSK and AFSK, but you do see the occasional 
die-hard using a boat-anchor.

-- Dave (vk2kfu)


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Thu Aug  7 22:30:12 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu,  7 Aug 2014 08:30:12 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] alloc.s is missing from unix v5
Message-ID: <20140807123012.9CE2B18C0DE@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com>

    > In Unix v6 there is a file in the TUHS archives
    > V6/usr/source/s4/alloc.s
    > ..
    > In v5 the command "ar t /lib/libc.a" lists the files in the c library
    > and that includes alloc.o

Well, at least you have the binary. Dis-assembly time! :-)

    > so there should be a source file somewhere.

Ha-ha-ha-ha-HAH! You _are_ an optimist!


I'm not joking about the dis-assembly. Not to worry, it's not too bad (I had
to do it to retrieve the source for the V6 RL bootstraps - and you've got
symbols too), and you've got the V6 alloc.s to guide you - with luck, it did
not get re-written between V5 and V6, and you may have minimal (no?) changes
to deal with?

I don't know which debugger V5 has (db or cdb); if neither, you can spin up a
V6 and do the disassembly there.

Do "db alloc.o > alloc.s" and then type '0?<RETURN>' followed by a whole
bunch of RETURNs. (You can do plain 'db alloc.o' first, to see about how many
CR's you need.) Next do a "nm alloc.o" to get as many symbols as you can.

At that point, I would extract your prototype alloc.s from the emulated
machine so you can use a real editor to work on it. (You should have a way
to get files in and out of the simulated machine; that was one of the
first things I did with my V6 work:

  http://www.chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/V6Unix.html

although if you're using SIMH I don't know if that has a way to import
files - a big advantage to using Ersatz-11, although one I didn't know
about when I picked it.)

You may need to go back and do a "xxx/" {with appropriate value for "xxx"}
plus a few CR's to get static constants, but at that point you should have
all the raw data you need to re-create the V5 alloc.s. Obviously, start
by having your proto-allocV5.s in one window, and compare with the
allocV6.s in another... like I said, you may luck out.

The final step, of course, is 'as alloc.s', and then 'cmp a.out alloc.o'.

	Noel


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Fri Aug  8 12:12:55 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Thu, 07 Aug 2014 22:12:55 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
Message-ID: <201408080212.s782CtwK007175@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

Thanks, Norman, for reminding me of the actual pipe syntax in v3.
This reinforces the title of one history item on Dennis's
website: "Why Ken had to invent |".

I'd suppressed all memory of the fact that in the pipeline
        ... > cmd > ...
cmd had to be a single token. That was certainly not the intent
of my original proposal. It is understandable, though, as a
minimal hack to the existing shell syntax and its parser, which
accepted occurrences of <token and >token anywhere in a command.

The single-token rule meant that, if you wanted to supply an
option to wc in the pipeline
        ls > wc >
you couldn't write
        ls > wc -l >
as one would expect, but instead had to write
        ls > "wc -l" >
Yet a quoted "wc -l" as a bare command or (I suspect) as the
first command in a pipeline would lead to "command not found".
What a mess!

Soon after, Ken was inspired to invent the | operator, lest
he should have to describe an ugly duckling in public at an
upcoming symposium in London.

Is it possible that the ugliness of the token hack was the
precipitating factor that gave us the sublime | ?  But for
the hack, perhaps we'd still be writing
        ls > wc >

Doug


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Fri Aug  8 13:27:50 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Thu,  7 Aug 2014 23:27:50 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
Message-ID: <20140808032750.BB40D18C0FB@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Doug McIlroy <doug at cs.dartmouth.edu>

    > Yet a quoted "wc -l" as a bare command or (I suspect) as the first
    > command in a pipeline would lead to "command not found".

I don't know about earlier versions of Unix, but FWLIW on V6 it does indeed
barf in both of these cases (just tried it).

	Noel


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Sun Aug 10 00:37:04 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 10:37:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] unix v5 limitations
Message-ID: <CADxT5N4cYkw_p9n=_v02TexgkB2TKMKf+Dqgbzz_i79kB3tgyg@mail.gmail.com>

Firstly, I should mention I'm using simh to simulate Unix version 5.

Well I tried to reorganize the files in unix v5. Mainly I wanted more
room on rk0 so I figured I'd create a new drive and put all the source
from /usr/source/s1 on it.

The first problem I had was I couldn't just cp over all the
/usr/source/s1 files to the new drive because of "Arg list too long"
so I figured I would just create an archive file called all.a which
would include all the files in /usr/source/s1 and copy that over.

But then I got "phase error" when I tried to keep adding files to the
archive (I had to do this in stages, e.g. ar r all.a /usr/source/s1/a*
then ar u all.a /usr/source/s1/b* etc). Phase error seemed to occur
when the archive got larger than around 160,000 bytes. So I ended up
creating 3 archive files to keep from getting "phase error".

I was wondering does anyone understand what the limits are for the cp
and ar commands?

Mark


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Sun Aug 10 00:43:42 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 10:43:42 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source
Message-ID: <CADxT5N4wZqC06Atki0qPTHYGdZJRoMwqAuw+8cV7rzKP6YuT6w@mail.gmail.com>

Ok, I was just thinking that we have a lack of Unix version 5 (and
older) source code but since the Unix v5 era was the era of
teletypewriters perhaps there could be a stockpile of old teletype
printouts somewhere. Assuming they didn't run out of paper all the
time there would have been an automatic record generated of everything
Thompson and Ritchie did. Some of those printouts must have been kept
somewhere.

Mark


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug 10 00:54:24 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 10:54:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N4wZqC06Atki0qPTHYGdZJRoMwqAuw+8cV7rzKP6YuT6w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4wZqC06Atki0qPTHYGdZJRoMwqAuw+8cV7rzKP6YuT6w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140809145424.GB13364@mercury.ccil.org>

Mark Longridge scripsit:

> Ok, I was just thinking that we have a lack of Unix version 5 (and
> older) source code but since the Unix v5 era was the era of
> teletypewriters perhaps there could be a stockpile of old teletype
> printouts somewhere. Assuming they didn't run out of paper all the
> time there would have been an automatic record generated of everything
> Thompson and Ritchie did. Some of those printouts must have been kept
> somewhere.

In my (non-Bell-Labs) experience, most of that paper went straight into
a large trash can standing next to the terminal, unless there was some
reason to save a particular stretch of it.  (TTY paper was unpaginated
rolls of yellow paper, but later devices like the DECwriter used
fan-folded line printer paper.)

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


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sun Aug 10 01:04:39 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2014 11:04:39 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] unix v5 limitations
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N4cYkw_p9n=_v02TexgkB2TKMKf+Dqgbzz_i79kB3tgyg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4cYkw_p9n=_v02TexgkB2TKMKf+Dqgbzz_i79kB3tgyg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140809150439.GC13364@mercury.ccil.org>

Mark Longridge scripsit:

> The first problem I had was I couldn't just cp over all the
> /usr/source/s1 files to the new drive because of "Arg list too long"
> so I figured I would just create an archive file called all.a which
> would include all the files in /usr/source/s1 and copy that over.

That is not a cp error: it is the kernel reporting that the limited
amount of space in userland reserved for command arguments on an exec()
has been exceeded.  It can still happen in modern systems if directories
are exceedingly large.

> But then I got "phase error" when I tried to keep adding files to the
> archive 

"Phase error" means that a file has been modified while "ar" is working
on it.  The most common reason (which doesn't seem to be relevant in
this case) is that "ar" is trying to archive the archive.

> ar u all.a /usr/source/s1/b*

If that worked, then "cp /usr/source/s1/b* ." would work too.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
I am expressing my opinion.  When my honorable and gallant friend is
called, he will express his opinion.  This is the process which we
call Debate.                   --Winston Churchill


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug 10 01:32:02 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat,  9 Aug 2014 11:32:02 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] unix v5 limitations
Message-ID: <20140809153202.AB1CE18C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com>

    > The first problem I had was I couldn't just cp over all the
    > /usr/source/s1 files to the new drive because of "Arg list too long"

John Cowan nailed this; as an aside, I don't know about V5, but in vanilla V6
the entire argument list had to fit into one disk buffer (I would assume V5 is
the same).

The PWB changes to v6 included a rewrite of exec() to accumulate the argument
list in swap space, so it could be much longer; the maximum length was a
parameter, NCARGS, which was set to 5120 (10 blocks) by default.

       Noel



From dave at horsfall.org  Sun Aug 10 05:42:09 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 05:42:09 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source
In-Reply-To: <20140809145424.GB13364@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CADxT5N4wZqC06Atki0qPTHYGdZJRoMwqAuw+8cV7rzKP6YuT6w@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140809145424.GB13364@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408100537190.86321@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Sat, 9 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> In my (non-Bell-Labs) experience, most of that paper went straight into 
> a large trash can standing next to the terminal, unless there was some 
> reason to save a particular stretch of it.  (TTY paper was unpaginated 
> rolls of yellow paper, but later devices like the DECwriter used 
> fan-folded line printer paper.)

And of course the silverfish were very happy.  Does microfiche have a 
lifetime?

> Barry thirteen gules and argent on a canton azure fifty mullets of five
> points of the second,  six, five, six, five, six, five, six, five, and six.
>         --blazoning the U.S. flag

Love it!  One of my interests is blazoning.

-- Dave


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Mon Aug 11 02:36:03 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 12:36:03 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] rebuilding the unix v5 man pages
Message-ID: <CADxT5N6mgMTjtHWfiyT9Nhh9TPe+x7ZsQRk9SUeD3cYzShbR4A@mail.gmail.com>

Since there's a pdf of the unix v5 man pages I figured I might as well
recreate all the necessary files to have man pages in v5.

There's a very simple thompson shell script that I used from v6 to create man:

if X$2 != X"" nroff man0/naa man$1/$2.$1
if X$2 = X"" nroff man0/naa man1/$1.1

I borrowed the assembly language source from v6 to recreate nroff for
v5. After that it was just a matter of matching the date from various
files in v4 and v6. If the date was exactly the same for a given man
page file I just copied it straight into v5. If the date was different
then I used the version in v6 and just edited it until it matched what
was shown in the v5 manual pdf.

It should also help me figure out a lot of the differences between v5
and v6. When it's all done I'll put the disk images and configuration
files on archive.org and post the URL here.

I developed a sort of philosophy for adding stuff to unix v5 which
goes beyond the  v5root.tar.gz files donated by Dennis Ritchie:

No changing of cc or as.
No changing of the kernel code beyond recompiling the existing v5 code.
No changing of the existing device drivers (adding new ones is OK).
No backporting of iolib or stdio into v5.
No changing libc.
Adding userland programs is OK as long as the above rules are followed.

Mark


From mascheck at in-ulm.de  Mon Aug 11 09:05:16 2014
From: mascheck at in-ulm.de (Sven Mascheck)
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 01:05:16 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] unix v5 limitations
In-Reply-To: <20140809153202.AB1CE18C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140809153202.AB1CE18C0AC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20140810230516.GA402137@lisa.in-ulm.de>

On Sat, Aug 09, 2014 at 11:32:02AM -0400, Noel Chiappa wrote:
> John Cowan nailed this; as an aside, I don't know about V5, but in vanilla V6
> the entire argument list had to fit into one disk buffer (I would assume V5 is
> the same).

V4 to V6 had this limit of 512 bytes. It's documented in exec(2),
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V4/man/man2/exec.2
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/man/man2/exec.2
and the code is in sys1.c, e.g. E2BIG,
http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/sys/ken/sys1.c

> The PWB changes to v6 included a rewrite of exec() to accumulate the argument
> list in swap space, so it could be much longer; the maximum length was a
> parameter, NCARGS, which was set to 5120 (10 blocks) by default.

V7 then also implemented NCARGS (sys/param.h).

I can't read assembler and tried to find the limit in a running V1
http://code.google.com/p/unix-jun72/
with a script which just echoes its arguments, and found
- command line (script or interactive) not longer than 255 characters
- single argument not longer than about 82 characters  (how this might have come off?)
Exceeding this lead to data corruption or kernel crash.

Early exec(2) reads
V1: The arguments are placed as high as possible incore: just below 60000(8).
V3: The arguments are placed as high as possible in core: just below 57000(8).
and I wonder if it's possible to determine limits from this.

Sven

(I was interested in ARG_MAX in general and collected my experiences on
 http://www.in-ulm.de/~mascheck/various/argmax/)


From norman at oclsc.org  Thu Aug 14 14:34:18 2014
From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson)
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 00:34:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
Message-ID: <20140814043418.394291DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>

Doug McIlroy:

  The single-token rule meant that, if you wanted to supply an
  option to wc in the pipeline
          ls > wc >
  you couldn't write
          ls > wc -l >
  as one would expect, but instead had to write
          ls > "wc -l" >
  Yet a quoted "wc -l" as a bare command or (I suspect) as the
  first command in a pipeline would lead to "command not found".
  What a mess!

======

Then as now, a quoted "wc -l" would be taken by the shell
to be a single world, so

	"wc -l" file

would be a request to find a file named "wc -l" (without
the quotes but with the embedded blank) somewhere in the
search path, and execute it with argv[0] = "wc -l" and
argv[1] = "file".  But the shell's parser bound only the
word following > or < to the operator, so the command had
to be quoted (if it had arguments) to make it a single word.

So in the old syntax, if you needed to quote an argument
of a command that was part of a pipeline but not at the
head, you'd have to embed quotes within quotes; e.g.

	ls > "grep '[0-9]'" >

Decidedly a quick hack, just like the original implementation
of fork(2) (which was, approximately, swap the current process
out, but keep the in-core copy, and give one of the two a new
process ID and process-table entry).  Though unlike the original
fork, the original pipeline syntax was rough enough to be
worth fixing early on.

As a side note, when I was writing my earlier message, I was
going to construct an example using wc -l, until I checked the
manual and discovered that when pipelines were invented wc
didn't yet take options.  I also thought about an example
using grep, except grep hadn't appeared yet either.  Pipelines
(especially once they were attractive and convenient to use)
made a bigger difference than we remember in how commands
worked and which commands were useful.

And of course Doug gets at least as much credit as Ken for
changing our lives with all that.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Thu Aug 14 14:49:32 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2014 23:49:32 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] Unix taste
In-Reply-To: <20140814043418.394291DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>
References: <20140814043418.394291DE382@lignose.oclsc.org>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZuPWxUZ1qkWRi2LYCo5vznBnJbGRyRPkW_qWPj9MY8xHQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 13, 2014 11:36 PM, "Norman Wilson" <norman at oclsc.org> wrote:
>
<snip>
> Pipelines
> (especially once they were attractive and convenient to use)
> made a bigger difference than we remember in how commands
> worked and which commands were useful.
>
> And of course Doug gets at least as much credit as Ken for
> changing our lives with all that.

What I remember reading is that once Dr. McIlroy conceived it, he wouldn't
let it go until one day Thompson announced that he was going to implement
it.

I'm curious whether he's familiar with the powershell spin on pipes and
what he thinks of it. Knowing he's something of a minimalist and a
curmudgeon, I suspect he doesn't fancy it much, but I personally think it's
a brilliant evolution of the concept. (With all due respect, of course. I
have nothing but admiration for the man.)
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From brian at zickzickzick.com  Sat Aug 16 04:04:27 2014
From: brian at zickzickzick.com (Brian Zick)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 11:04:27 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
Message-ID: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>

Howdy folks -

So I'm mostly a lurker here and love the history and the way things used to
be done. But being born in '91 I pretty much missed all of it, although I
did grow up with 80s machines in the house.

There is one thing that I would love to do, and may seem a curious thing to
most, but I think about it from time to time, and it's enticing. But I'm
not sure where one would get started.

Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and find an
old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something), set up a
phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then actually use it to
connect to other computers?

I know it's not really practical today - but is it possible?

Brian Zick
zickzickzick.com

     .:/
  ,,///;,   ,;/
 o:::::::;;///
>::::::::;;\\\
  ''\\\\\'' ';\
     \



On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 8:13 AM, Andy Kosela <akosela at andykosela.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Friday, August 1, 2014, Dario Niedermann <dnied at tiscali.it> wrote:
>
>> Tim Newsham <tim.newsham at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > just for fun, you might want to run your
>> > ancient unix in simh using this terminal:
>> > https://github.com/Swordifish90/cool-old-term
>>
>> Cool! I've been waiting for ages for something like the Cathode terminal
>> emulator
>> to appear on Linux too. Cathode is Mac OS X only, unfortunately.
>> Homepage:   http://devio.us/~ndr/
>> Gopherhole: gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/
>>
>>
> I still prefer my old Digital VT terminal though.  Nothing will beat CRT
> screen when it comes to low resolution text-only mode.
>
> --Andy
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
>
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From brian at zickzickzick.com  Sat Aug 16 04:52:09 2014
From: brian at zickzickzick.com (Brian Zick)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 11:52:09 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca>
wrote:

>
> On Aug 15, 2014, at 11:04 AM, Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com> wrote:
>
> > Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and find
> an old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something), set up a
> phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then actually use it to
> connect to other computers?
> >
> > I know it's not really practical today - but is it possible?
>
> Certainly it's possible.  Although you would really only be able to do it
> with an ASCII terminal.  A DECwriter would work fine.  For a Teletype
> beast, you would need to make sure it used ASCII.  But lacking lower case,
> I think you would find it too painful to use, even though all the current
> versions of UNIX (and Linux) I'm aware of still seem to support the
> necessary case conversion in the tty drivers.
>

​Hmm. So for a TTY that old there would probably be no option for
lowercase. That does sound a little painful, especially if I wanted to edit
modern programs..​


> Your biggest obstacle might be finding a host machine that still has a
> modem attached that you could dial in to :-)
>

​So perhaps I could simplify it and attach to a machine sitting next to the
TTY - which then in theory could connect to the outside world via the usual
means. I wonder, has anyone tried something like this?
​

> And, of course, everyone KNOWS the entire universe runs in terminals that
> support ANSI escape sequences for colour and cursor positioning.  Who needs
> termcap?  (I'm looking at you, git. And clang.)  So you might find setting
> TERM=dumb isn't quite enough.
>
> Also, ed(1) is a wonderful editor on a hardcopy terminal.  Unless you run
> it on Linux, which KNOWS the whole world runs on 24 line terminal windows,
> and therefore ed needs to pause its output.


​I usually use vim, but before learning vim I learned ed and used it for
about a 2 month space for editing config files and things, so that should
hopefully be the easy part. :-)​


Brian Zick
zickzickzick.com

     .:/
  ,,///;,   ,;/
 o:::::::;;///
>::::::::;;\\\
  ''\\\\\'' ';\
     \
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From ed at flat5.net  Sat Aug 16 05:05:49 2014
From: ed at flat5.net (Ed Skinner)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:05:49 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
 <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53EE5A0D.4050209@flat5.net>

A hybrid would be interesting, say a TTY with a Raspberry PI pulling 
data from Reuters.com and printing the text ala a "news wire" feed.
An RSS feed would be better than processing the whole page but Reuters 
doesn't seem to have one or I couldn't find it.
cnn.com/rss reveals lots of possibilities, however.
This could be fun (and smell like oil and ozone)!
Ed S.


On 8/15/2014 11:52 AM, Brian Zick wrote:
>
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca
> <mailto:lyndon at orthanc.ca>> wrote:
>
>
>     On Aug 15, 2014, at 11:04 AM, Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com
>     <mailto:brian at zickzickzick.com>> wrote:
>
>      > Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out,
>     and find an old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or
>     something), set up a phone line and modem and get a roll of paper,
>     and then actually use it to connect to other computers?
>      >
>      > I know it's not really practical today - but is it possible?
>
>     Certainly it's possible.  Although you would really only be able to
>     do it with an ASCII terminal.  A DECwriter would work fine.  For a
>     Teletype beast, you would need to make sure it used ASCII.  But
>     lacking lower case, I think you would find it too painful to use,
>     even though all the current versions of UNIX (and Linux) I'm aware
>     of still seem to support the necessary case conversion in the tty
>     drivers.
>
>
> ​Hmm. So for a TTY that old there would probably be no option for
> lowercase. That does sound a little painful, especially if I wanted to
> edit modern programs..​
>
>     Your biggest obstacle might be finding a host machine that still has
>     a modem attached that you could dial in to :-)
>
>
> ​So perhaps I could simplify it and attach to a machine sitting next to
> the TTY - which then in theory could connect to the outside world via
> the usual means. I wonder, has anyone tried something like this?
> ​
>
>     And, of course, everyone KNOWS the entire universe runs in terminals
>     that support ANSI escape sequences for colour and cursor
>     positioning.  Who needs termcap?  (I'm looking at you, git. And
>     clang.)  So you might find setting TERM=dumb isn't quite enough.
>
>     Also, ed(1) is a wonderful editor on a hardcopy terminal.  Unless
>     you run it on Linux, which KNOWS the whole world runs on 24 line
>     terminal windows, and therefore ed needs to pause its output.
>
>
> ​I usually use vim, but before learning vim I learned ed and used it for
> about a 2 month space for editing config files and things, so that
> should hopefully be the easy part. :-)​
>
>
> Brian Zick
> zickzickzick.com <http://zickzickzick.com/>
>
>       .:/
>    ,,///;,   ,;/
>   o:::::::;;///
>>::::::::;;\\\
>    ''\\\\\'' ';\
>       \
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>


-- 
Ed Skinner, ed at flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Aug 16 05:08:07 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 15:08:07 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140815190806.GA16978@mercury.ccil.org>

Brian Zick scripsit:

> Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and find an
> old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something), set up a
> phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then actually use it to
> connect to other computers?

The trick would be to find a computer that not only has dialable modems
(there are several such ISPs out there, like AOL, EarthLink, and NetZero),
but also allows callers access to a command line.  Normally you get
only PPP service, which just allows you to send and receive IP packets,
of no use to a TTY.

But there may be some hobbyist systems out there with dialup access.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Original line from The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold:
"Only on Barrayar would pulling a loaded needler start a stampede toward one."
English-to-Russian-to-English mangling thereof: "Only on Barrayar you risk to
lose support instead of finding it when you threat with the charged weapon."


From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Sat Aug 16 05:13:45 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:13:45 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <53EE5A0D.4050209@flat5.net>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
 <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
 <53EE5A0D.4050209@flat5.net>
Message-ID: <C27B2794-D473-4396-B8DE-A073E5453E36@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 15, 2014, at 12:05 PM, Ed Skinner <ed at flat5.net> wrote:

> A hybrid would be interesting, say a TTY with a Raspberry PI pulling data fromReuters.com and printing the text ala a "news wire" feed.
> An RSS feed would be better than processing the whole page but Reuters doesn't seem to have one or I couldn't find it.
> cnn.com/rss reveals lots of possibilities, however.
> This could be fun (and smell like oil and ozone)!
> Ed S.

Could we make an auto-feed for the MHRS[1] weekend RTTY news transmissions?   They probably have the biggest collection of working and *in* *production* mills on the planet :-)

--lyndon (VE0WX / CFG7344)

[1] http://radiomarine.org

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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Sat Aug 16 05:16:22 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:16:22 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <20140815190806.GA16978@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140815190806.GA16978@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <3469E144-B81A-437A-B688-6D0414B3784A@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 15, 2014, at 12:08 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> But there may be some hobbyist systems out there with dialup access.

world.std.com

The first, and (probably) the last.
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From clemc at ccc.com  Sat Aug 16 07:07:28 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:07:28 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
 <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2NCHZboBC5TkF3_W3eSDGS93RDzS_XH_NDrVA4CbHoq5g@mail.gmail.com>

Brian,

The easiest thing is set up a BSD box of any flavor (I have a FreeBSD box
that used to have modems on it).   Then grab a USB to RS-232C cable if it
does not have a serial ports on it already.   Make sure there is a
getty/login configured for the port and your are set.   At that point you
can directly attach the terminal to the cable.    No need for the modem.

You will get the user effect, accept for the sounds of the modem connecting
and dealing with dialing itself.  If you wanted those, you could of course
put the terminal on a modem and connect the BSD system to a modem. Then
either use to two POTS lines if you want to spend money from the TPC.
Actually thinking about, you could also set up a POTS line emulator (which
if you google you can make one pretty easily).

Funny, just this AM, I put into the the electronics recycling box at work 4
telebit "Worldblazer" modems and a POTS line emulator (and a bunch of other
old junk).   I've been clean out my basement and I knew I would never use
those again.

Clem


On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 2:52 PM, Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com> wrote:

>
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Aug 15, 2014, at 11:04 AM, Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and
>> find an old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something), set
>> up a phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then actually use it
>> to connect to other computers?
>> >
>> > I know it's not really practical today - but is it possible?
>>
>> Certainly it's possible.  Although you would really only be able to do it
>> with an ASCII terminal.  A DECwriter would work fine.  For a Teletype
>> beast, you would need to make sure it used ASCII.  But lacking lower case,
>> I think you would find it too painful to use, even though all the current
>> versions of UNIX (and Linux) I'm aware of still seem to support the
>> necessary case conversion in the tty drivers.
>>
>
> ​Hmm. So for a TTY that old there would probably be no option for
> lowercase. That does sound a little painful, especially if I wanted to edit
> modern programs..​
>
>
>> Your biggest obstacle might be finding a host machine that still has a
>> modem attached that you could dial in to :-)
>>
>
> ​So perhaps I could simplify it and attach to a machine sitting next to
> the TTY - which then in theory could connect to the outside world via the
> usual means. I wonder, has anyone tried something like this?
> ​
>
>> And, of course, everyone KNOWS the entire universe runs in terminals that
>> support ANSI escape sequences for colour and cursor positioning.  Who needs
>> termcap?  (I'm looking at you, git. And clang.)  So you might find setting
>> TERM=dumb isn't quite enough.
>>
>> Also, ed(1) is a wonderful editor on a hardcopy terminal.  Unless you run
>> it on Linux, which KNOWS the whole world runs on 24 line terminal windows,
>> and therefore ed needs to pause its output.
>
>
> ​I usually use vim, but before learning vim I learned ed and used it for
> about a 2 month space for editing config files and things, so that should
> hopefully be the easy part. :-)​
>
>
> Brian Zick
> zickzickzick.com
>
>      .:/
>   ,,///;,   ,;/
>  o:::::::;;///
> >::::::::;;\\\
>   ''\\\\\'' ';\
>      \
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sat Aug 16 07:47:26 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:47:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
Message-ID: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com>

    > Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and
    > find an old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something),
    > set up a phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then
    > actually use it to connect to other computers?

Well, although I used ASR33's for two years (attached to an 11/20 running
RSTS :-), it was a long time ago (I was 15/16 :-), and they aren't something
I _really_ know about, but ... Here are some issues you need to watch out for:


First, I think most Teletypes used what is called '20mA current loop' serial
line electrical interface standard (although some of the later ones could use
'EIA' - the now-usual, although fast disappearing, serial line electrical
interface standard). They are logically (i.e. at the framing level) the same,
but the voltages/etc are different.

The only Teletype I see listed (in a _very_ quick search, don't take this for
gospel) that used EIA is the Model 37.  So if you get a Teletype Model 33 or
35, and want to plug it into a computer, either the computer is going to have
to have an _old_ serial line interface (e.g. DL-11A/C, on a PDP-11), or you're
going to have to locate a 20mA/EIA converter (I've never seen such a thing,
but I expect they existed).

And if you want to plug it into a modem... all modems I ever heard of are EIA
(at least, the ones you could plug terminals into - e.g. in most PC modem
cards, the serial interface is entirely internal to the card).


Second, most of those Teletypes were 110 baud (mechanical hardware
limitation).

So that means that first, if you plug into a computer, your serial interface
has to be able to go that slow. Second, if you're dialing up, you need to find
a dial-up port that supports 110 baud. (I would be seriously amazed if any are
left...)


Of course, if you go with a DecWriter, some of these issues go away, but be
careful: some older DecWriters were 20mA too, and the speeds were almost as
slow on many (probably 300 baud, but I don't know much about DecWriters).
Sorry to be so much cold water, but...

As for finding one... I suggest eBay. There's a broken ASR33 there at the
moment - if you're _really_ serious, might be worth buying as a parts
source. But if you wait, I'm pretty sure one will eventually float by...

	Noel


From imp at bsdimp.com  Sat Aug 16 07:53:14 2014
From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 15:53:14 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <2D2618D8-DF9C-4DFF-8A53-D3F135566844@bsdimp.com>


On Aug 15, 2014, at 3:47 PM, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
> Of course, if you go with a DecWriter, some of these issues go away, but be
> careful: some older DecWriters were 20mA too, and the speeds were almost as
> slow on many (probably 300 baud, but I don't know much about DecWriters).
> Sorry to be so much cold water, but...

DECwriters were quite slow. The ones I used (which I think were actually DECwriter II)
did 300, 150 and 110 baud (there was a push button to select. They did indeed
have EIA and 20mA versions, but the difference was a single board inside which
was easy to swap out for the other part. Even when it wasn’t easy, I worked
with a group of people that used one as their line printer with a fairly simple
transistor translator circuit (since that was a lot cheaper than the correct
board). But no matter how you slice it, 300 baud is slow. We likely wasted
way more time waiting for printouts than we saved for the “free” DECwriter
that we got…

Warner

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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Aug 16 08:01:04 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 18:01:04 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <20140815220103.GE16978@mercury.ccil.org>

Noel Chiappa scripsit:

> First, I think most Teletypes used what is called '20mA current loop' serial
> line electrical interface standard (although some of the later ones could use
> 'EIA' - the now-usual, although fast disappearing, serial line electrical
> interface standard). They are logically (i.e. at the framing level) the same,
> but the voltages/etc are different.

Current loop to EIA RS-232 (which is the relevant standard) converters
are readily available, saith Google.  There are also RS-232 to USB
converters for the other end.

> So that means that first, if you plug into a computer, your serial interface
> has to be able to go that slow. Second, if you're dialing up, you need to find
> a dial-up port that supports 110 baud. (I would be seriously amazed if any are
> left...)

I dialed up The World's local dialup line for my area, and heard a large
variety of tones including Bell 103-compatible FSK, which is 300 baud.
I suspect that anything that can do Bell 103 can fall back to Bell 101,
which was 110 baud.  I admit to never trying it.

Note that it's 110 baud because there are a start bit and two stop bits,
so it's really 10 cps.  300 baud has only one of each, hence 30 cps.

> Of course, if you go with a DecWriter, some of these issues go away, but be
> careful: some older DecWriters were 20mA too, and the speeds were almost as
> slow on many (probably 300 baud, but I don't know much about DecWriters).

The LA36, the only one I ever used personally, was 30 cps, ergo 300 baud.
(Note that it buffered and could print faster to catch up after a long
carriage return.) There was also an LA120 at 120cps.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
        "Not to know The Smiths is not to know K.X.U."  --K.X.U.


From ckeck at texoma.net  Sat Aug 16 07:55:48 2014
From: ckeck at texoma.net (ckeck at texoma.net)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 21:55:48 GMT
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
Message-ID: <201408152155.s7FLtl5U009925@smtp.texoma.net>

Rats :( :( :(

Did they have power supplies, and did they still work?

On Fri, 15 Aug 2014, Clem Cole wrote:

> Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:07:28 -0400
> From: Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com>
> To: Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com>
> Cc: "tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org" <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Teletype
[...]
>
> Funny, just this AM, I put into the the electronics recycling box at work 4
> telebit "Worldblazer" modems and a POTS line emulator (and a bunch of other
> old junk).   I've been clean out my basement and I knew I would never use
> those again.
>


---------------------------------------------
This message was sent using Endymion MailMan.
http://www.endymion.com/products/mailman/




From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Sat Aug 16 11:56:34 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 18:56:34 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <20140815220103.GE16978@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <20140815220103.GE16978@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <98D923C0-FF06-46A7-AA0E-0460670AB361@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 15, 2014, at 3:01 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> There was also an LA120 at 120cps.

Ah yes!  The APL terminal of choice at the U of Alberta for the APL hacks.  Late nights in the terminal rooms in GSB ... (and the mystery room on the 4th floor of CAB).

--lyndon

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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Sat Aug 16 12:12:01 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 19:12:01 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <98D923C0-FF06-46A7-AA0E-0460670AB361@orthanc.ca>
References: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <20140815220103.GE16978@mercury.ccil.org>
 <98D923C0-FF06-46A7-AA0E-0460670AB361@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <7EF44A63-6E9F-4DAC-9C30-308AA0A1D10E@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 15, 2014, at 6:56 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca> wrote:

> Ah yes!  The APL terminal of choice at the U of Alberta for the APL hacks.  Late nights in the terminal rooms in GSB ... (and the mystery room on the 4th floor of CAB).

Actually, the hardcopy terminal room on the 3rd floor of GSB was filled with dog slow DECwriters, now that I think about it.  Next door was a room full of CRT something or others, all wired to the Amdahl running MTS, so curses was just another curse. There was also one terminal room full of Courier 3270 clones (wonderful terminals, with indestructible keyboards) also wired to the MTS Amdahl/470.

Funny how the MTS line editor resembled ed(1) so much :-)

--lyndon
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From dnied at tiscali.it  Sat Aug 16 20:25:29 2014
From: dnied at tiscali.it (Dario Niedermann)
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 12:25:29 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
 <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53ef3199.U/4aYGyleAsJcFSa%dnied@tiscali.it>

Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca>
> wrote:
>
[...]
>> Also, ed(1) is a wonderful editor on a hardcopy terminal. Unless
>> you run it on Linux, which KNOWS the whole world runs on 24 line
>> terminal windows, and therefore ed needs to pause its output.

I'm not seeing the >> message from Lyndon Nerenberg on the ML, anyway I
just wanted to report that GNU Ed 1.6 doesn't pause output on this Linux
system, so there must be something in your local configuration that's
getting Ed to behave that way.

(Typed this with GNU Ed 1.6 on Slackware 14)


-- 
Dario Niedermann.              Also on the Internet at:

gopher://retro-net.org/1/dnied/ , http://devio.us/~ndr/


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sun Aug 17 00:35:05 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 10:35:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
Message-ID: <20140816143505.6A05618C13C@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org>

    >> if you're dialing up, you need to find a dial-up port that supports
    >> 110 baud.

    > I dialed up The World's local dialup line for my area, and heard a
    > large variety of tones including Bell 103-compatible FSK, which is 300
    > baud. I suspect that anything that can do Bell 103 can fall back to
    > Bell 101, which was 110 baud.

There are two more things one needs to have for the port to support 110: i)
the serial interface needs to support 110 (even if the modem is integrated
with the serial hardware on one board, the serial hardware might not do 110),
and ii) the software needs to be willing to go 110.

I don't know anything about how contemporary dial-up ports work, so maybe
there's some side-channel from the modem to the interface which allows the
software to find out directly what speed the modem is using. However, 'back in
the day' with multi-speed ports, there was no such mechanism (the RS-232
interface spec didn't provide for speed indication), and one had to hit BREAK
and the serial line device driver would see that, and try the next speed in a
list. You can still see this in the big table of terminal types in getty.c,
e.g.:

  /* table '0'-1-2 300,150,110 */

which tried 300, 150, 110. So if the software isn't looking for 110...

	Noel


From ecelis at sdf.org  Sun Aug 17 06:42:17 2014
From: ecelis at sdf.org (Ernesto Celis)
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 15:42:17 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <20140815190806.GA16978@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140815190806.GA16978@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408161538250.19029@faeroes.freeshell.org>

On Fri, 15 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 14:08:07
> From: John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org>
> To: Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com>
> Cc: "tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org" <tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org>
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Teletype
> 
> Brian Zick scripsit:
> 
> > Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and find an
> > old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something), set up a
> > phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then actually use it to
> > connect to other computers?
> 
> The trick would be to find a computer that not only has dialable modems
> (there are several such ISPs out there, like AOL, EarthLink, and NetZero),
> but also allows callers access to a command line.  Normally you get
> only PPP service, which just allows you to send and receive IP packets,
> of no use to a TTY.
> 
> But there may be some hobbyist systems out there with dialup access.

I also lurk mostly on this ML, but this thread puled my attention.

I run a FreeBSD box as home server, also I own an USRobotics modem which
I've been thinking about connect to the home server and use it to dial
in to get acces to my shell, sort of fallback. I'm moving to a new home,
maybe this could be an interesting thing to do now that I have to mount
my setup in a new place.
> 
> 

-- 
Ernesto Celis de la Fuente
SDF Public Access UNIX System

C*Net 1-333-1106
+1 206-299-2120 ext.1106
http://ecelis.sdf.org
gopher://sdf.org/1/users/ecelis


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sun Aug 17 07:28:05 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 17:28:05 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <7EF44A63-6E9F-4DAC-9C30-308AA0A1D10E@orthanc.ca>
References: <20140815214726.EA12118C14B@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
 <20140815220103.GE16978@mercury.ccil.org>
 <98D923C0-FF06-46A7-AA0E-0460670AB361@orthanc.ca>
 <7EF44A63-6E9F-4DAC-9C30-308AA0A1D10E@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <FB4507A2-7525-4E59-B0DC-33D8CF287019@ronnatalie.com>

U of M had the Teletype room which had teletypes (ASR 33's) with integral dataphones.     These got replaced with the LA36 decwriters most of which had APL character sets as well.   Upstairs was the Hazeltine room full of a half dozen Hazeltines that used ~ as the graphic escape (causing the HAZEL stty mode...leave poor tilde alone!) and one Tektronics storage scope monster.

My first C program was on one of JHU's teletypes complete with \( and \) for it being upper case only lacked the { } characters.



From matthew.hoskins at njit.edu  Sat Aug 16 07:23:41 2014
From: matthew.hoskins at njit.edu (Hoskins, Matthew E.)
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2014 17:23:41 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NCHZboBC5TkF3_W3eSDGS93RDzS_XH_NDrVA4CbHoq5g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
 <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NCHZboBC5TkF3_W3eSDGS93RDzS_XH_NDrVA4CbHoq5g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+LU+SKEdjgUU98LsL4=qB+-hp9eRy=A1K5DQwFoLRiGT3j2Ug@mail.gmail.com>

I have a decwriter la120 which similar to Clem Cole's suggestion is
connected to a Raspberry Pi via a usb2rs232 adapter.   (Yes, i have a wifi
la120.)

Its works pretty well, just add a getty in inittab on the /dev/usbTTY0 and
bingo.  (Yes you will miss the modem connect sounds)


On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 5:07 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> Brian,
>
> The easiest thing is set up a BSD box of any flavor (I have a FreeBSD box
> that used to have modems on it).   Then grab a USB to RS-232C cable if it
> does not have a serial ports on it already.   Make sure there is a
> getty/login configured for the port and your are set.   At that point you
> can directly attach the terminal to the cable.    No need for the modem.
>
> You will get the user effect, accept for the sounds of the modem
> connecting and dealing with dialing itself.  If you wanted those, you could
> of course put the terminal on a modem and connect the BSD system to a
> modem. Then either use to two POTS lines if you want to spend money from
> the TPC.   Actually thinking about, you could also set up a POTS line
> emulator (which if you google you can make one pretty easily).
>
> Funny, just this AM, I put into the the electronics recycling box at work
> 4 telebit "Worldblazer" modems and a POTS line emulator (and a bunch of
> other old junk).   I've been clean out my basement and I knew I would never
> use those again.
>
> Clem
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 2:52 PM, Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:27 AM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On Aug 15, 2014, at 11:04 AM, Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> > Would it still be possible today for someone like me to go out, and
>>> find an old teletype terminal (an old ASR or DECwriter or something), set
>>> up a phone line and modem and get a roll of paper, and then actually use it
>>> to connect to other computers?
>>> >
>>> > I know it's not really practical today - but is it possible?
>>>
>>> Certainly it's possible.  Although you would really only be able to do
>>> it with an ASCII terminal.  A DECwriter would work fine.  For a Teletype
>>> beast, you would need to make sure it used ASCII.  But lacking lower case,
>>> I think you would find it too painful to use, even though all the current
>>> versions of UNIX (and Linux) I'm aware of still seem to support the
>>> necessary case conversion in the tty drivers.
>>>
>>
>> ​Hmm. So for a TTY that old there would probably be no option for
>> lowercase. That does sound a little painful, especially if I wanted to edit
>> modern programs..​
>>
>>
>>> Your biggest obstacle might be finding a host machine that still has a
>>> modem attached that you could dial in to :-)
>>>
>>
>> ​So perhaps I could simplify it and attach to a machine sitting next to
>> the TTY - which then in theory could connect to the outside world via the
>> usual means. I wonder, has anyone tried something like this?
>> ​
>>
>>> And, of course, everyone KNOWS the entire universe runs in terminals
>>> that support ANSI escape sequences for colour and cursor positioning.  Who
>>> needs termcap?  (I'm looking at you, git. And clang.)  So you might find
>>> setting TERM=dumb isn't quite enough.
>>>
>>> Also, ed(1) is a wonderful editor on a hardcopy terminal.  Unless you
>>> run it on Linux, which KNOWS the whole world runs on 24 line terminal
>>> windows, and therefore ed needs to pause its output.
>>
>>
>> ​I usually use vim, but before learning vim I learned ed and used it for
>> about a 2 month space for editing config files and things, so that should
>> hopefully be the easy part. :-)​
>>
>>
>> Brian Zick
>> zickzickzick.com
>>
>>      .:/
>>   ,,///;,   ,;/
>>  o:::::::;;///
>> >::::::::;;\\\
>>   ''\\\\\'' ';\
>>      \
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
>
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Aug 18 03:33:53 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 13:33:53 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
Message-ID: <20140817173353.F24EF18C109@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Ernesto Celis <ecelis at sdf.org>

    > I own an USRobotics modem which I've been thinking about connect to the
    > home server and use it to dial in to get acces to my shell

Just out of curiousity, what are you going to dial in _with_? :-)

	Noel


From brian at zickzickzick.com  Mon Aug 18 15:54:08 2014
From: brian at zickzickzick.com (Brian Zick)
Date: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 22:54:08 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2NCHZboBC5TkF3_W3eSDGS93RDzS_XH_NDrVA4CbHoq5g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAEvOwxW=G+g3dtSGaN=P7QmovgOygfANxacmcUo9Devn6v6B1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <99C03A20-7BC3-44CA-946D-6CFD56B9346F@orthanc.ca>
 <CAEvOwxVxq1D_qD2W5Mzpybo8VoL-z+F7CV_QSQr32s4+8hn85A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAC20D2NCHZboBC5TkF3_W3eSDGS93RDzS_XH_NDrVA4CbHoq5g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEvOwxXqz66O=rC6yMEnWUAmPOqxnuCPO_GM_=9OG9KAsFacNQ@mail.gmail.com>

It turns out,I was really asking two related questions: can I use a
teletype today, and can I dial-in using a modem using the teletype. And the
answer to both looks like yes, but just using a teletype looks easier than
trying to dial-in like in former days.

On Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 2:07 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> The easiest thing is set up a BSD box of any flavor (I have a FreeBSD box
> that used to have modems on it).   Then grab a USB to RS-232C cable if it
> does not have a serial ports on it already.   Make sure there is a
> getty/login configured for the port and your are set.   At that point you
> can directly attach the terminal to the cable.    No need for the modem.
>


I have an old G5 Mac Pro that should do great for this job. My dad is also
a NetBSD hacker going way back (actually he has a thing for running NetBSD
on old Amigas), so I can also get some help from him with the BSD bit if I
need it.

On eBay I was able to find an old Teletype Model 43, which appears to be an
ASCII terminal and is supposed to have an RS232 port. Nice. This model was
apparently also used by the distinguished Bill Gates back in the day. Also
it has an impressively large "return" key.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rare-Teletype-Model-43-Ships-Worldwide/191271387173
http://comley.us/browse.php?&action=show&artefactID=1007

It'a $174 dollars with about $40 for shipping, so hopefully I'll be able to
swing that before someone else buys it. :-) Maybe I'll be able to get one
of my coworkers to go in on it with me. The idea is really enticing.

The fun of trying to do something in this now novel way is really great. I
was thinking I might try using it for my email. The news-ticker idea also
seems great, although honestly I get most of my news from HN or Digg (which
may or may not be the best place to get news from), so I would be more
likely to set those up. The other thing I was thinking: I have an old phone
hooked up through XMPP (which I use as my home phone) and I could use a TTY
as the caller ID, with a little clever programming.

I'm really excited that this not only seems possible but nearly in reach.

Brian Zick
zickzickzick.com

     .:/
  ,,///;,   ,;/
 o:::::::;;///
>::::::::;;\\\
  ''\\\\\'' ';\
     \
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From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Mon Aug 18 23:56:36 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2014 09:56:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] Teletype
Message-ID: <20140818135636.CF91818C120@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Brian Zick <brian at zickzickzick.com>

    > The fun of trying to do something in this now novel way is really
    > great. I was thinking I might try using it for my email. The
    > news-ticker idea also seems great

I suspect you'll find that the charm wears off pretty quickly, if you try and
use it for Real Stuff, day in, and day out. There's a reason this technology
is not used any more! :-)

    > I'm really excited that this not only seems possible but nearly in
    > reach.

I share you enthusiasm for the fun of computer archaeology. (Thanks to Milo,
I now have an 11/84 that I'm in the process of trying to get up.) Good luck!

	Noel


From cubexyz at gmail.com  Fri Aug 22 13:42:50 2014
From: cubexyz at gmail.com (Mark Longridge)
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 23:42:50 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
Message-ID: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>

Hi folks,

I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp
appeared in Unix v7. It would be interesting to know if one could pass
a file from one Unix v5 machine to another without having to store it
on a magnetic tape.

There's some reference to a mysterious "Spider Interface" in the Unix
v5 manual. It seems to have something to do with DR-11B (which is a
general purpose direct memory access interface to the PDP-11 Unibus).

There's also reference to the "Spider line-printer" :)

Mark


From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Fri Aug 22 23:27:03 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:27:03 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
Message-ID: <20140822132703.282FC18C123@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com>

    > I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp appeared
    > in Unix v7. 

In general, no, but I know of a number of networked Unixes prior to V6.

ISTR that there were a number of Unixes attached to the ARPANET; I know at
least one (at UIllinois) was - that was a V6 machine.

There were several different TCP/IP implementations done under V6; the
UIllinois guys did one (in C), BBN did one (by Jack Haverty, who ported one
done in assembler by IIRC SRI), and one was done at MIT (by Liza Martin, in
C). I don't think any of them saw significant deployment.

	Noel


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Fri Aug 22 23:32:29 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:32:29 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140822132703.282FC18C123@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140822132703.282FC18C123@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <DE3F9558-D0C7-4DD1-9F35-EF8B7C1200E7@ronnatalie.com>

BRL backported the BSD port into our primarily version six UNIX kernel.   It took some shenanigans with overlays in the kernel to get it to work,.   Prior to that on the 11/70's we had been getting buy with just running the kernel in split I/D mode (the JHU / BRL boot loader was still one of the more interesting ones in my opinoin.   I like the BSD ones that "trapped" into the kernel to get it going, the JHU one placed the instruction to switch the processor mode right at high memory so that when the PC rolled over to zero it would be in the new mode).

Prior to UUCP we had some "kermit-ish" point to point feeds over the serial lines and we also bridged between our DEC 10 at JHU and the 11/45 running UNIX.   Similar links were set up between some of our LSI 11 UNIX/MINIUNIX systems.



From ron at ronnatalie.com  Fri Aug 22 23:35:06 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 09:35:06 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140822132703.282FC18C123@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
References: <20140822132703.282FC18C123@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
Message-ID: <82CE5CF0-E2C1-498B-AAB4-AD8AEE2943F8@ronnatalie.com>

Prior to TCP, we also had our own homegrown ARPAnet V6 code in the kernel.    We actually got to pick up some systems when the ARPANET NCP switched to long leaders were our UIllinios ANTS system wasn't going to support.     At the same time we had the early BRLNET which essentially was a system to forward BUF structures and the associated data between machines both over a PCL-11 parallel link and some "high" speed DQ-11 serial links.    This gave us some rudimentary file sharing between our systems.



From crossd at gmail.com  Sat Aug 23 01:18:23 2014
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:18:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>

Unix was on the ARPAnet circa 1975 (if not earlier):
http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc681

V6 was "released" in May 1975, and that document was also published in May
1975 and says that the software had been running for about a month, so it's
entirely possible that the ARPAnet Unix work was done before V6 (or perhaps
they were an early test site: I don't know what the policies were around
that).  It's been many years since I've read RFC681 closely and from my
quick skim just now, I don't think they say what version of Unix they're
running.  It's clear from the RFC that they had been running Unix for more
than a month given the description of their site, and if I had to hazard a
guess I'd say they were running V5; perhaps heavily patched.  I idly wonder
if any of that work has survived; it would be interesting to see an
ARPAnet/NCP implementation for early Unix.

But to address your question yes, Unix was certainly networked well before
UUCP emerged in V7.

        - Dan C.



On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp
> appeared in Unix v7. It would be interesting to know if one could pass
> a file from one Unix v5 machine to another without having to store it
> on a magnetic tape.
>
> There's some reference to a mysterious "Spider Interface" in the Unix
> v5 manual. It seems to have something to do with DR-11B (which is a
> general purpose direct memory access interface to the PDP-11 Unibus).
>
> There's also reference to the "Spider line-printer" :)
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
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From crossd at gmail.com  Sat Aug 23 01:20:14 2014
From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:20:14 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAEoi9W745HV2jgKQgGh0qYKhQxt1wYF9QLq7_FfHYarZXgd_sw@mail.gmail.com>

(And upon slightly closer inspection of the RFC's header, it appears that
it was *written* in March of 1975, though Postel didn't post it until May
of that year.  That certainly predates the V6 release by a few months, so
it seems probable that they were, in fact, running either V5 [possibly with
patches] or a pre-release of V6.)


On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com> wrote:

> Unix was on the ARPAnet circa 1975 (if not earlier):
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc681
>
> V6 was "released" in May 1975, and that document was also published in May
> 1975 and says that the software had been running for about a month, so it's
> entirely possible that the ARPAnet Unix work was done before V6 (or perhaps
> they were an early test site: I don't know what the policies were around
> that).  It's been many years since I've read RFC681 closely and from my
> quick skim just now, I don't think they say what version of Unix they're
> running.  It's clear from the RFC that they had been running Unix for more
> than a month given the description of their site, and if I had to hazard a
> guess I'd say they were running V5; perhaps heavily patched.  I idly wonder
> if any of that work has survived; it would be interesting to see an
> ARPAnet/NCP implementation for early Unix.
>
> But to address your question yes, Unix was certainly networked well before
> UUCP emerged in V7.
>
>         - Dan C.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 21, 2014 at 11:42 PM, Mark Longridge <cubexyz at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi folks,
>>
>> I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp
>> appeared in Unix v7. It would be interesting to know if one could pass
>> a file from one Unix v5 machine to another without having to store it
>> on a magnetic tape.
>>
>> There's some reference to a mysterious "Spider Interface" in the Unix
>> v5 manual. It seems to have something to do with DR-11B (which is a
>> general purpose direct memory access interface to the PDP-11 Unibus).
>>
>> There's also reference to the "Spider line-printer" :)
>>
>> Mark
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>>
>
>
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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Aug 23 01:57:01 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 11:57:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>

Dan Cross scripsit:

> Unix was on the ARPAnet circa 1975 (if not earlier):
> http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc681

#     filedes = open( "/dev/net/harv",2 );
#     if( filedes < 0 )
#        printf(" harvard is dead");
#     else
#        while( (nbytes=read(filedes,buf,80)) > 0 )
#           write( 0,buf,nbytes );                                   

If only this code still worked on modern Unixes!  The socket API is
fine, but there really was no need to break good old open, at least
for client-side operations.  Plan 9 got it right here, as usual.

#  In this light Bell was approached to see what their reaction
#  would be to an ARPA network wide liscense,  they  said  they were
#  open  to suggestions in that area.  So should enough people
#  become interested, perhaps a less expensive fee can be
#  negotiated.                                                        

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
    --John Greenleaf Whittier, "Maud Muller"

To which Bret Harte added in "Mrs. Judge Jenkins":

More sad are these we daily see:
"It is, but hadn't ought to be".

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
The whole of Gaul is quartered into three halves.
        --Julius Caesar


From ron at ronnatalie.com  Sat Aug 23 02:06:50 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:06:50 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>

I hate the socket interface, at least once you use it's goofy interface on UNIX, it works mostly like a file descriptor.
The sucky one is Windows which has a socket interface but it's file read and write calls are completely incompatible.



From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Sat Aug 23 02:35:36 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 12:35:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
Message-ID: <20140822163536.65EBD18C133@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: Dan Cross <crossd at gmail.com>

    > Unix was on the ARPAnet circa 1975 (if not earlier):
    > http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc681

Good catch; I didn't know of that document. There is a later, more extensive
document (set) about it, "A Network Unix System for the ARPANET", but that's
from several years later, and doesn't include anything about the history of
the implementation.

    > it's entirely possible that the ARPAnet Unix work was done before V6
    > ...
    > if I had to hazard a guess I'd say they were running V5; perhaps
    > heavily patched.

The RFC says this (translated to lower case since the all-upper made my
eyes hurt :-):

  FOr further information concerning the different I/O calls the reader is
  directed to The Unix Programmer's Manual, Fifth Edition, K. Thompson,
  D. M. Ritchie, June 1974.

which I think makes it pretty definitive...

      Noel


From mah at mhorton.net  Sat Aug 23 01:09:55 2014
From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 08:09:55 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>

At Bell Labs, PWB (1, I think, which was V6-based) had a sophisticated 
RJE engine that could submit jobs to the GE mainframe and get the output 
back (hence the GECOS field in /etc/passwd.) This was also used to 
submit jobs to be printed using the opr (off-line print) command.

At Berkeley, in 1978 we originally had a "cross-over cable" (basically a 
null modem, my lousy soldering job) in our patch panel, to allow two 
UNIX boxes to cat files across - not even Kermit, as I recall.

Shortly thereafter in 1978, Eric Schmidt (yes, that Eric Schmidt) wrote 
Berknet, which was similar to UUCP but didn't use modems, it ran over 
null modem serial line interconnections.  It ran on V6, V7, and the Vax.

For a few years, the Berknet link between ucbvax (which had a modem and 
was on UUCP) and ingvax (which was on the ARPANET) was the gateway 
between the UUCP and Usenet networks and the ARPANET.

On 08/21/2014 08:42 PM, Mark Longridge wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp
> appeared in Unix v7. It would be interesting to know if one could pass
> a file from one Unix v5 machine to another without having to store it
> on a magnetic tape.
>
> There's some reference to a mysterious "Spider Interface" in the Unix
> v5 manual. It seems to have something to do with DR-11B (which is a
> general purpose direct memory access interface to the PDP-11 Unibus).
>
> There's also reference to the "Spider line-printer" :)
>
> Mark
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs



From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug 23 04:01:02 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 04:01:02 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230355540.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>

Does ACSnet (Australian Computer Science Network) count?  It ran over 
leased lines, supporting remote login and file transfer, back around the 
70s.  Definitely V6, because of the 11/40s at the time.  A commercial 
offshoot was MHSnet, which for all I know is still available.

-- Dave (dave:csu40)


From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug 23 04:11:42 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 04:11:42 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Ronald Natalie wrote:

> I hate the socket interface, at least once you use it's goofy interface 
> on UNIX, it works mostly like a file descriptor.

In a previous slavery we had a simple socket library; the application did 
little more than say whether it was a client or a server etc.  I wish I 
could steal that code now...

> The sucky one is Windows which has a socket interface but it's file read 
> and write calls are completely incompatible.

Well, we mustn't imitate Unix, must we?

-- Dave


From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Aug 23 03:51:05 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 10:51:05 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>

On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 04:11:42AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> 
> > I hate the socket interface, at least once you use it's goofy interface 
> > on UNIX, it works mostly like a file descriptor.
> 
> In a previous slavery we had a simple socket library; the application did 
> little more than say whether it was a client or a server etc.  I wish I 
> could steal that code now...

lmbench has one:

/*
 * Get a TCP socket, bind it, figure out the port,
 * and advertise the port as program "prog".
 *
 * XXX - it would be nice if you could advertise ascii strings.
 */
int
tcp_server(int prog, int rdwr)

/*
 * Unadvertise the socket
 */
int
tcp_done(int prog)

/*
 * Accept a connection and return it
 */
int
tcp_accept(int sock, int rdwr)

/*
 * Connect to the TCP socket advertised as "prog" on "host" and
 * return the connected socket.
 *
 * Hacked Thu Oct 27 1994 to cache pmap_getport calls.  This saves
 * about 4000 usecs in loopback lat_connect calls.  I suppose we
 * should time gethostbyname() & pmap_getprot(), huh?
 */
int
tcp_connect(char *host, int prog, int rdwr)

void
sock_optimize(int sock, int flags)

int
sockport(int s)

I swiped all that code and we use it in bitkeeper.

        sock = tcp_server(0, port, 0);
        if (sock == -1) exit(1);
        verbose((stderr, "started server on port %d\n", sockport(sock)));

        while (1) {
                if ((nsock = tcp_accept(sock)) < 0) continue;
                peer = peeraddr(nsock);
                verbose((stderr, "connection from %s\n", peer));
                fin = fdopen(nsock, "r");
                fout = fdopen(nsock, "w");
                info_cmds(fin, fout, dashx);
                fclose(fin);
                fclose(fout);
                verbose((stderr, "%s is done\n", peer));
        }

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


From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu  Sat Aug 23 05:00:02 2014
From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 15:00:02 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] TUHS Digest, Vol 115, Issue 29
Message-ID: <201408221900.s7MJ027c011476@coolidge.cs.dartmouth.edu>

> I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp

Right from the time Unix came up on the PDP-11 it was
networked in the sense that it had dial-in and dial-out
modems. Fairly early on, when Unixes appeared in other
Bell Labs locations, Charlie Roberts provided a program
for logging into another machine. It had an escape for
file transfer, so it covered the basic functionality
of rsh and ftp. It was not included in distributions,
however, and its name escapes me. Maybe scj can add
further details.

Doug


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Aug 23 05:24:47 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 15:24:47 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <20140822192447.GG19006@mercury.ccil.org>

Larry McVoy scripsit:

> lmbench has one:

I have a similar library for Perl, taken from the Perl 4 man page.
(I finally got around to removing the &s from the procedure names.)
But the point is that it should work with the regular open() system
call, such that calling open("/dev/tcp/<host>/80", O_RDWR) should open
host "<host>" on port 80, and something like "serv(80, cookie)"
should copy a string into cookie such that open(cookie, O_RDWR) would
accept a connection.  Unfortunately, C makes it very hard to
override the meaning of global function names cleanly.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Even a refrigerator can conform to the XML Infoset, as long as it has
a door sticker saying "No information items inside".  --Eve Maler


From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Sat Aug 23 05:32:57 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 15:32:57 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140822193257.GH19006@mercury.ccil.org>

Dave Horsfall scripsit:

> Well, we mustn't imitate Unix, must we?

I shall dub Windows "WIUB", for "WIUB Imitates Unix, Badly".  (Cf.
LIAR, the compiler for MIT Scheme, whose name means "LIAR Imitates
Apply Recursively".)

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
    him with a Cshell!  Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner


From dave at horsfall.org  Sat Aug 23 06:37:59 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 06:37:59 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230628010.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Larry McVoy wrote:

> > In a previous slavery we had a simple socket library; the application 
> > did little more than say whether it was a client or a server etc.  I 
> > wish I could steal that code now...
> 
> lmbench has one:

Yeah, that's pretty much what we did.  Conceptually, the client said 
"please connect me to Sydney's pogo stick server", and the server said "I 
am the Sydney pogo stick server".  Networking as it ought to be (none of 
this business about the right phase of the moon and looking for a few 
all-too-scarce virgins etc).  The config stuff was initially in flat 
files, and it was my job to convert the lot to OpenLDAP lookups.

-- Dave


From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Aug 23 06:16:35 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 13:16:35 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230628010.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230628010.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140822201635.GH17854@mcvoy.com>

On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 06:37:59AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > > In a previous slavery we had a simple socket library; the application 
> > > did little more than say whether it was a client or a server etc.  I 
> > > wish I could steal that code now...
> > 
> > lmbench has one:
> 
> Yeah, that's pretty much what we did.  Conceptually, the client said 
> "please connect me to Sydney's pogo stick server", and the server said "I 
> am the Sydney pogo stick server".  

If anyone wants the stuff we use, the stuff mentioned above, I can put it
up on the web.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From lm at mcvoy.com  Sat Aug 23 12:30:39 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:30:39 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230659490.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAEoi9W50tqYzWHjvvfYTyxg2q6iqdczpSsLdb_Vg7tNBj6FXMQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140822155701.GB19006@mercury.ccil.org>
 <7C276A71-2110-41C8-8BF7-3529321B11DC@ronnatalie.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230405450.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140822175105.GH784@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230628010.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
 <20140822201635.GH17854@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408230659490.42071@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140823023039.GX784@mcvoy.com>

On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 07:01:40AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > If anyone wants the stuff we use, the stuff mentioned above, I can put 
> > it up on the web.
> 
> Pretty please!  For private use only, of course.

You'all can use it anywhere you like.

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/tcp.shar

It's not that big a deal (other than 20 years of bug fixes :)

Somewhere I have a bigger deal, at least I think it is, I made a library
to talk to Sun RPC servers in parallel.  I called it rpc vectors and Ron
Minnich used it to put a bunch of nfs servers together, he called that
bigfoot.  Paper below, if someone wants that code I can ship that too.
It was pretty neat, back in the days of 10Mbit ethernet I was querying
thousands of machines in a single call.  The code dealt with the fact
that you had to start eating the replies before you were done sending
the question :)

http://wenku.baidu.com/view/797c4ac62cc58bd63186bd1c.html

or for old school people

http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/bitmover/lm/papers/bigfoot.ps

The code was pretty small, pretty clever, it's a shame it didn't catch on.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From tuhs at cuzuco.com  Sat Aug 23 13:08:46 2014
From: tuhs at cuzuco.com (Brian Walden)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 23:08:46 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
Message-ID: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>

Doug McIlroy wrote:
> > I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp
> 
> Right from the time Unix came up on the PDP-11 it was
> networked in the sense that it had dial-in and dial-out
> modems. Fairly early on, when Unixes appeared in other
> Bell Labs locations, Charlie Roberts provided a program
> for logging into another machine. It had an escape for
> file transfer, so it covered the basic functionality
> of rsh and ftp. It was not included in distributions,
> however, and its name escapes me. Maybe scj can add
> further details.
> 
> Doug

Are you thinking of the cu (call unix) command? But that was included in v7,
and don't think it was part of uucp. The escape was  ~   So a ~. to hangup,
~%put to send a file to the remote and ~%take to get one, and  ~~ to send a ~

later on, there was a ct (call terminal) command, expecting a terminal at the end
of phone line instead of another machine.


From mascheck at in-ulm.de  Sun Aug 24 04:02:40 2014
From: mascheck at in-ulm.de (Sven Mascheck)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 20:02:40 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
Message-ID: <20140823180240.GA920759@lisa.in-ulm.de>

Doug McIlroy wrote:
> Right from the time Unix came up on the PDP-11 it was
> networked in the sense that it had dial-in and dial-out
> modems. Fairly early on, when Unixes appeared in other
> Bell Labs locations, Charlie Roberts provided a program
> for logging into another machine. It had an escape for
> file transfer, so it covered the basic functionality
> of rsh and ftp. It was not included in distributions,
> however, and its name escapes me.

That's why you recorded it in this great article
"A Research UNIX Reader: Annotated Excerpts from the Programmer's
 Manual, 1971-1986",  www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/reader.pdf

"The members of the research group had no desire to isolate
 themselves from the rest of the Bell Labs computing community.
 Nor could they at first justify the purchase of equipment such as
 line printers and tape drives, which cost more than their whole
 computer. Thus, besides dial-up access, which was a sine qua non,
 communication with other machines was a necessity. A 2000bps link
 provided remote job entry to the GECOS system at the Bell Labs
 computer center (opr, Thompson, v2). GECOS guru Charlie Roberts
 contributed tss to exploit the link for remote login and interactive
 file transfer (v2)."

Sven


From clemc at ccc.com  Sun Aug 24 05:32:45 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 15:32:45 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>

Years before cu/ct show up in the AT&T distributions, we* at CMU/EE Dept
we created a program called "connect" that had similar functionality.

BEGIN - old guy's memories ....

In the mid 70s the CS Dept "Front End" was two PDP-11's that all the serial
ports in the CS offices and terminal rooms were connected too, and they
were switched the PDP-10s, C.mmp and CM* over DR-11Bs IIRC.    EE & CS were
in a different buildings and we had not yet created the "distributed
front-end" out of LSI11's (we did that in EE actually later when we started
to playing with 3Meg ethernet).

We did have a couple of serial lines to the other building and had to share
them.   Since we wanted to use the UNIX system as a our own timesharing
system independent of CS, but still get to the CS machines over those
shared lines, "connect" was created so we could share the very few serial
connections to CS "front-end" and then we expanded it to be what we used to
support the microprocessor lab.

Another thing I remember from those days is that DEC DH11's serial ports
were expensive (DZ's did not exist and Able Computer did not yet exist).
 We also had DL/KL11's - which had nasty interrupt behavior.  With the
development of the CS Front End CMU had it's own RS-232C interface for the
Unibus called an ASLI - Asynchronous Line Interface - which were similar
too KL11s but had some other improvements (I've forgotten what was
different - should try to find Jim Teetor who I think was the creator).
 I have memories of some of first serial driver learnings chasing issues
with the ASLI.   I've complete forgotten the details now, but having come
over from the IBM/TSS and CMU's version of TOPS-10, I remember thinking is
was strange but so cool that driver was in a HLL not assembler.

END - old guy's memories ....


* "we" - Dan Klein, Tron McConnell, Ted Kowalski and I all hacked on it at
different times.   Frankly, I really do not remember who did what.
Obviously it it ran on V6 and Ted's V6++ system, but I don't think it ever
ran on V5.  I'm pretty sure Ted took it back to Summit after his OYOC year,
so I do not think cu had been done there yet.


On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:08 PM, Brian Walden <tuhs at cuzuco.com> wrote:

> Doug McIlroy wrote:
> > > I was wondering if Unix had any form of networking before uucp
> >
> > Right from the time Unix came up on the PDP-11 it was
> > networked in the sense that it had dial-in and dial-out
> > modems. Fairly early on, when Unixes appeared in other
> > Bell Labs locations, Charlie Roberts provided a program
> > for logging into another machine. It had an escape for
> > file transfer, so it covered the basic functionality
> > of rsh and ftp. It was not included in distributions,
> > however, and its name escapes me. Maybe scj can add
> > further details.
> >
> > Doug
>
> Are you thinking of the cu (call unix) command? But that was included in
> v7,
> and don't think it was part of uucp. The escape was  ~   So a ~. to hangup,
> ~%put to send a file to the remote and ~%take to get one, and  ~~ to send
> a ~
>
> later on, there was a ct (call terminal) command, expecting a terminal at
> the end
> of phone line instead of another machine.
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Sun Aug 24 14:59:03 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 21:59:03 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com>

On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 03:32:45PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> BEGIN - old guy's memories ....

I see your old guy memories and "raise" my sort of old guy memories.
This is a bell labs blit story.  It relies heavily on 7 bit clean stuff.
I'm not entirely sure this ever worked reliably but here is what we did.

I was a grad student at UW Madison and shared an office with another guy.  We
had a serial line to the computing center across the street.  We had a blit,
loved it.  We wanted two.

I found an 8051 (or whatever version had a programable prom and 3
serial ports).  I wrote the code that used the 8th bit to say whether
it was my blit or my office mate's blit.  Burned the proms into two
of those, convinced the lab to let me put one on the other end and
presto!  Two blits running side by side, two happy TA's.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From csmelosky at gewt.net  Sat Aug 23 08:12:59 2014
From: csmelosky at gewt.net (Cory Smelosky)
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 18:12:59 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
Message-ID: <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>

On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Mary Ann Horton wrote:

>
[snip]
> Shortly thereafter in 1978, Eric Schmidt (yes, that Eric Schmidt) wrote 
> Berknet, which was similar to UUCP but didn't use modems, it ran over null 
> modem serial line interconnections.  It ran on V6, V7, and the Vax.
>

How does that Berknet differ from the Berknet in...4.0/4.1BSD?  I've seen 
what I THINK was ethernet code there...but I couldn't be sure as I 
couldn't even decipher the addressing scheme. ;)

I've been meaning to ask about Berknet, anyway.  One of my side projects 
is to get it operational.

> For a few years, the Berknet link between ucbvax (which had a modem and was 
> on UUCP) and ingvax (which was on the ARPANET) was the gateway between the 
> UUCP and Usenet networks and the ARPANET.
>

-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects


From clemc at ccc.com  Mon Aug 25 08:46:23 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 18:46:23 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
Message-ID: <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>

4.1 did not have Ethernet support from UCB. only Berknet.   the original ip stack with Ethernet support for 4.1 was done at BBN.   the interface is classic unix using the open call.    similar to the MIT ChaosNet stack

CMU had a new os for the TripleDrip PERQ called Accent. it had a number of interesting concepts such as ports.    

Joy took the BBN stack and created Berkeley sockets as a reaction to Accent's networking scheme.  this would become 4.1A/B/C and eventually 4.2




btw.   CMU responded to 4.2 by taking the ideas from Accent and rewriting then and splicing them into BSD kernel to create Mach.      Which lives today as the core of both Mac OSx and iOS

Clem

> On Aug 22, 2014, at 6:12 PM, Cory Smelosky <csmelosky at gewt.net> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
>> 
> [snip]
>> Shortly thereafter in 1978, Eric Schmidt (yes, that Eric Schmidt) wrote Berknet, which was similar to UUCP but didn't use modems, it ran over null modem serial line interconnections.  It ran on V6, V7, and the Vax.
> 
> How does that Berknet differ from the Berknet in...4.0/4.1BSD?  I've seen what I THINK was ethernet code there...but I couldn't be sure as I couldn't even decipher the addressing scheme. ;)
> 
> I've been meaning to ask about Berknet, anyway.  One of my side projects is to get it operational.
> 
>> For a few years, the Berknet link between ucbvax (which had a modem and was on UUCP) and ingvax (which was on the ARPANET) was the gateway between the UUCP and Usenet networks and the ARPANET.
> 
> -- 
> Cory Smelosky
> http://gewt.net Personal stuff
> http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs


From clemc at ccc.com  Mon Aug 25 09:00:21 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 19:00:21 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
 <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>
Message-ID: <BE6173A6-BBE9-432B-ACC7-068FDBE9BA0B@ccc.com>

btw: the addressing scheme in Berknet is pretty simple.  it's mupltiplexing an 9600 baud rs232c connection point to point without full connectivity (like uucp).   although IIRC the sender did not have to specify the path.   Berknet figured it out for you - but I might be confusing a different network scheme from those days.  there were so many

Cl

> On Aug 24, 2014, at 6:46 PM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> 4.1 did not have Ethernet support from UCB. only Berknet.   the original ip stack with Ethernet support for 4.1 was done at BBN.   the interface is classic unix using the open call.    similar to the MIT ChaosNet stack
> 
> CMU had a new os for the TripleDrip PERQ called Accent. it had a number of interesting concepts such as ports.    
> 
> Joy took the BBN stack and created Berkeley sockets as a reaction to Accent's networking scheme.  this would become 4.1A/B/C and eventually 4.2
> 
> 
> 
> 
> btw.   CMU responded to 4.2 by taking the ideas from Accent and rewriting then and splicing them into BSD kernel to create Mach.      Which lives today as the core of both Mac OSx and iOS
> 
> Clem
> 
>>> On Aug 22, 2014, at 6:12 PM, Cory Smelosky <csmelosky at gewt.net> wrote:
>>> 
>>> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Mary Ann Horton wrote:
>> [snip]
>>> Shortly thereafter in 1978, Eric Schmidt (yes, that Eric Schmidt) wrote Berknet, which was similar to UUCP but didn't use modems, it ran over null modem serial line interconnections.  It ran on V6, V7, and the Vax.
>> 
>> How does that Berknet differ from the Berknet in...4.0/4.1BSD?  I've seen what I THINK was ethernet code there...but I couldn't be sure as I couldn't even decipher the addressing scheme. ;)
>> 
>> I've been meaning to ask about Berknet, anyway.  One of my side projects is to get it operational.
>> 
>>> For a few years, the Berknet link between ucbvax (which had a modem and was on UUCP) and ingvax (which was on the ARPANET) was the gateway between the UUCP and Usenet networks and the ARPANET.
>> 
>> -- 
>> Cory Smelosky
>> http://gewt.net Personal stuff
>> http://gimme-sympathy.org Projects
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Mon Aug 25 09:07:38 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 18:07:38 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
 <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZtT1Uuk6JHBNb_zmW-EcqEF5FC+3FA56k3T5viDBKqtcw@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 24, 2014 5:47 PM, "Clem Cole" <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> btw.   CMU responded to 4.2 by taking the ideas from Accent and rewriting
then and splicing them into BSD kernel to create Mach.      Which lives
today as the core of both Mac OSx and iOS

And of course, before that, nextstep/openstep... and, well, hurd.  ;-)
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From clemc at ccc.com  Mon Aug 25 09:43:02 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 19:43:02 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZtT1Uuk6JHBNb_zmW-EcqEF5FC+3FA56k3T5viDBKqtcw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
 <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>
 <CAFCBnZtT1Uuk6JHBNb_zmW-EcqEF5FC+3FA56k3T5viDBKqtcw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5A64394E-B9DD-449F-BB49-220F66A547D0@ccc.com>

next used Mach.  you're right next brought it into Apple

> On Aug 24, 2014, at 7:07 PM, "A. P. Garcia" <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> On Aug 24, 2014 5:47 PM, "Clem Cole" <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> > btw.   CMU responded to 4.2 by taking the ideas from Accent and rewriting then and splicing them into BSD kernel to create Mach.      Which lives today as the core of both Mac OSx and iOS
> 
> And of course, before that, nextstep/openstep... and, well, hurd.  ;-)
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From ron at ronnatalie.com  Tue Aug 26 00:21:24 2014
From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ronald Natalie)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 10:21:24 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZtT1Uuk6JHBNb_zmW-EcqEF5FC+3FA56k3T5viDBKqtcw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
 <F8579C7E-E3C0-4341-8F9C-D0419D212374@ccc.com>
 <CAFCBnZtT1Uuk6JHBNb_zmW-EcqEF5FC+3FA56k3T5viDBKqtcw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <467F1D0B-A60B-4198-9099-F441D3FEAE6F@ronnatalie.com>


On Aug 24, 2014, at 7:07 PM, A. P. Garcia <a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> On Aug 24, 2014 5:47 PM, "Clem Cole" <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:
> 
> > btw.   CMU responded to 4.2 by taking the ideas from Accent and rewriting then and splicing them into BSD kernel to create Mach.      Which lives today as the core of both Mac OSx and iOS
> 
> And of course, before that, nextstep/openstep... and, well, hurd.  ;-)
> 
> 
Amusingly, when we got our first NeXT machines I was just poking around working on it and inadvertently typed "bg" to /bin/sh.

I got back "Job Control not Enabled."

Hey, that error message sounds familiar.   So I typed "set -J" 

"Job Control Enabled."

Hey, this is one my shells.    It has made it to NeXt via Mach via Doug Gwyn's System V on BSD tapes.

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From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug 26 00:45:51 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 07:45:51 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
Message-ID: <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 08:42:53AM -0600, emanuel stiebler wrote:
> On 2014-08-23 22:59, Larry McVoy wrote:
> > On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 03:32:45PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> >> BEGIN - old guy's memories ....
> >
> > I see your old guy memories and "raise" my sort of old guy memories.
> > This is a bell labs blit story.  It relies heavily on 7 bit clean stuff.
> > I'm not entirely sure this ever worked reliably but here is what we did.
> >
> > I was a grad student at UW Madison and shared an office with
> another guy.  We
> > had a serial line to the computing center across the street.  We
> had a blit,
> > loved it.  We wanted two.
> 
> Any chance, you still have any software for the BLIT?

Nope, all we were doing was muxing a serial line and that was 8051 assembler.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Aug 26 01:22:28 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 10:22:28 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZsY4Asv7EYB20QAxQLP1hkf-Ydbf3tVM4o35j7qLR1qcw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 9:45 AM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 08:42:53AM -0600, emanuel stiebler wrote:
>> On 2014-08-23 22:59, Larry McVoy wrote:
>> > On Sat, Aug 23, 2014 at 03:32:45PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
>> >> BEGIN - old guy's memories ....
>> >
>> > I see your old guy memories and "raise" my sort of old guy memories.
>> > This is a bell labs blit story.  It relies heavily on 7 bit clean stuff.
>> > I'm not entirely sure this ever worked reliably but here is what we did.
>> >
>> > I was a grad student at UW Madison and shared an office with
>> another guy.  We
>> > had a serial line to the computing center across the street.  We
>> had a blit,
>> > loved it.  We wanted two.
>>
>> Any chance, you still have any software for the BLIT?
>
> Nope, all we were doing was muxing a serial line and that was 8051 assembler.

still a useful little device today, at 1-2 dollars each...


From arnold at skeeve.com  Tue Aug 26 01:49:56 2014
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 09:49:56 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>

> Any chance, you still have any software for the BLIT?

See http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/att/5620/5620_faq.html

for information and software.

Warren, maybe that software should make its way into the
TUHS archives too?

I too used a blit for a while. It sure could easily kill a vax/780.
But I really liked it. :-)

Arnold


From arnold at skeeve.com  Tue Aug 26 05:20:52 2014
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:20:52 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>
 <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
Message-ID: <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>

> On 2014-08-25 09:49, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:
> > I too used a blit for a while. It sure could easily kill a vax/780.

emanuel stiebler <emu at e-bbes.com> wrote:
> Sorry, what do you mean by that?

We had a vax 11/780, with serial lines to various peoples' offices.
BSD 4.1 at the time IIRC, later 4.2.  The whole ICS dept. at Ga Tech
was using it - faculty and grad students and lab staff (which I was one
of). The load average was constantly in the single digits.

Now add a few blits, where each physical terminal is doing the load of
4-6 virtual ones (using pseudo-ttys) - a shell on each pty and commands
running on each pty.  Bingo! The load average shoots way up.

So, the blit itself wasn't at fault.  All the people taking advantage
of what it could let them do, was.  At some point they wanted the lab
staff to stop using them because of this...

Arnold


From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Tue Aug 26 06:00:45 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:00:45 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org> <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
 <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 25, 2014, at 12:20 PM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> Now add a few blits, where each physical terminal is doing the load of
> 4-6 virtual ones (using pseudo-ttys) - a shell on each pty and commands
> running on each pty.  Bingo! The load average shoots way up.
> 
> So, the blit itself wasn't at fault.  All the people taking advantage
> of what it could let them do, was.  At some point they wanted the lab
> staff to stop using them because of this...

Not just the blit.  When the Telebit Trailblazer modems came out I was one of the first Canadian resellers.  Demoing those beasts was a tricky proposition.  I would haul one out to a customer site, wire it up to a serial port, then dial up to our office system and let the beast loose.

They made a great torture test for mid/late-80s tty drivers (and RS-232 hardware interfaces).  Simply 'cu'ing to the office over the modem link, then 'cat'ing a 100 K text file over the link would reliably take a 3B2 to its knees.  After the first couple of demo's – which invariably brought the local staff out of their offices to ask of the machine had crashed – I learned to schedule these over the lunch hour, or after office hours :-)

It was quite astounding to see the wide range of performance impacts this had on various systems.  3B* systems would tip over and die, except for the (built by Convergent Tech) 3B1.

Suns with VME-based serial cards performed quite well.  If anyone remembers 'ncc' on the UUCP network, it was a 3/280 with the 16(+?)-port  VME serial expansion board, a Telebit rackmount chassis populated with eight modem cards, and another eight Convergent NGEN workstations cabled up to do file transfer.  Even with all the Telebits running UUCP flat out at full speed, you couldn't tell it from the interactive response time on the terminals.

I also used to own an NBI UNIX system.  This was an interesting little beast.  It was a QBUS machine in a deskside tower case that really wanted to be a VAX, but it had on a 68010 processor.  It ran a very generic port of 4.2BSD (complete with the Pascal interpreter/compiler!).  The machine came with the QBUS equivalent of the VAX DH11 serial board, but there was a bug in NBI's driver for the board.  I lifted the DH11 driver from the UCB 4.2 tape, changed the name of one struct, compiled and linked a new kernel, and suddenly it, too, was capable of sustaining several high speed Telebit UUCP links.  (That machine was called 'canada' for anyone still keeping track.)

Fun times :-)

-- {alberta,pyramid,uwvax}!ncc!lyndon

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From emu at e-bbes.com  Tue Aug 26 05:01:26 2014
From: emu at e-bbes.com (emanuel stiebler)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:01:26 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>
Message-ID: <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>

On 2014-08-25 09:49, arnold at skeeve.com wrote:

> I too used a blit for a while. It sure could easily kill a vax/780.

Sorry, what do you mean by that?



From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Tue Aug 26 06:55:28 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:55:28 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
Message-ID: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>

The recent UUCP network conversation has me wondering ... is anyone collecting/curating the UUCP maps that represented the way we communicated (outside the ARPANET) from the time of Chesson's paper until the death of comp.mail.maps?  Brian Reid's postscript maps were a work of genius; the hand-drawn ASCII maps that predated those are even more wonderful bits of Internet history, let alone art.

--lyndon

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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Tue Aug 26 07:06:49 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 17:06:49 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>
 <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
 <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
 <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <20140825210648.GA21853@mercury.ccil.org>

Lyndon Nerenberg scripsit:

> It was quite astounding to see the wide range of performance impacts
> this had on various systems.  3B* systems would tip over and die,
> except for the (built by Convergent Tech) 3B1.

That surely had to do with how many characters the TTY board could cope
with before it had to interrupt the CPU.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing
on my shoulders.  --Hal Abelson


From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Tue Aug 26 07:14:43 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 14:14:43 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140825210648.GA21853@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org> <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
 <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
 <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825210648.GA21853@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <BB6111D6-E85A-41C1-9C9B-AFAC27E805FD@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 25, 2014, at 2:06 PM, John Cowan <cowan at mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> That surely had to do with how many characters the TTY board could cope
> with before it had to interrupt the CPU.

There was the size of the serial chip's hardware buffer (before kicking the device driver with a hardware interrupt), and the driver itself kicking the kernel via a software interrupt when the driver's buffers were getting full.

--lyndon

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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Tue Aug 26 07:17:05 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 14:17:05 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <BB6111D6-E85A-41C1-9C9B-AFAC27E805FD@orthanc.ca>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org> <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
 <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
 <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825210648.GA21853@mercury.ccil.org>
 <BB6111D6-E85A-41C1-9C9B-AFAC27E805FD@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <88B7EEC1-E731-40C0-8878-2DF38ED4E59B@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 25, 2014, at 2:14 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca> wrote:

> There was the size of the serial chip's hardware buffer (before kicking the device driver with a hardware interrupt), and the driver itself kicking the kernel via a software interrupt when the driver's buffers were getting full.

What mattered was how the driver handed off the data from the bottom end of the driver code to the kernel.  Some drivers were better than others.  In most cases (of the serial ports), the culprit was the device driver.

--lyndon

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From jaapna at xs4all.nl  Tue Aug 26 07:22:02 2014
From: jaapna at xs4all.nl (Jaap Akkerhuis)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 23:22:02 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>


On Aug 25, 2014, at 22:55, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca> wrote:

>  Brian Reid's postscript maps were a work of genius; the hand-drawn ASCII maps that predated those are even more wonderful bits of Internet history, let alone art.

Brian told me the other day that he still as an archive of all the
maps.

	jaap


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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Tue Aug 26 07:56:58 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 14:56:58 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
Message-ID: <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 25, 2014, at 2:22 PM, Jaap Akkerhuis <jaapna at xs4all.nl> wrote:

> Brian told me the other day that he still as an archive of all the
> maps.

Then we should see about getting them to Warren for the archives.  They are a part of "internet" history that should never be lost. (Along with the code for pathalias.)


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From lyndon at orthanc.ca  Tue Aug 26 08:21:08 2014
From: lyndon at orthanc.ca (Lyndon Nerenberg)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 15:21:08 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <3AD6DC6D-943C-4659-929C-E46EF14FA68D@orthanc.ca>


On Aug 25, 2014, at 2:56 PM, Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon at orthanc.ca> wrote:

> Then we should see about getting them to Warren for the archives.  They are a part of "internet" history that should never be lost. (Along with the code for pathalias.)

And perhaps a bit more importantly, does he still have the raw data that drove creating the maps?  It would be very interesting to see and compare those byte counts against today's internet. (I'm also very curious to see the relative flow between the hubs, and how data fanned out from them.)

I remember when the newsgroup traffic on Usenet hit 5 MB/day.  I think that was the third "death of the net" predicted event.  Then someone stepped up and explained (in a newsgroup) how to work your way through the entire mess, using very optimized applications of rn and kill files :-)  Where is Henry Spencer these days, anyway?!

--lyndon

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From cowan at mercury.ccil.org  Tue Aug 26 08:36:17 2014
From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 18:36:17 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>

Lyndon Nerenberg scripsit:

> Then we should see about getting them to Warren for the archives.
> They are a part of "internet" history that should never be lost. (Along
> with the code for pathalias.)

Pathalias is distributed as part of Smail 3 in the pd/pathalias directory.
It is version 10 with a few changes.  Smail is currently available at
<ftp://ftp.planix.com/pub/Smail/smail-BETA.tar.gz>.  It was also in
Ubuntu up through 8.10 Intrepid, and as such should be available in
Ubuntu old release archives, probably accessible with some pain.

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Long-short-short, long-short-short / Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs / (Masculine rhyme):
One sentence (two stanzas) / Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who / Don't have the time.     --robison who's at texas dot net


From dave at horsfall.org  Tue Aug 26 09:57:50 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 09:57:50 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <3AD6DC6D-943C-4659-929C-E46EF14FA68D@orthanc.ca>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <3AD6DC6D-943C-4659-929C-E46EF14FA68D@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408260952170.64007@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 25 Aug 2014, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:

> I remember when the newsgroup traffic on Usenet hit 5 MB/day.  I think 
> that was the third "death of the net" predicted event.  Then someone 
> stepped up and explained (in a newsgroup) how to work your way through 
> the entire mess, using very optimized applications of rn and kill files 
> :-)  Where is Henry Spencer these days, anyway?!

For me, the death happened when thanks to the "cancel wars" the newsgroup 
ctl.cancel had the highest volume; at that moment I shut down our NNTP 
feed and went to mailing lists.

Knowing utzoo!henry (and I did meet him when he was visiting Australia) I 
have no doubt that he's around somewhere.

-- Dave


From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug 26 10:43:01 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 17:43:01 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 06:36:17PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Lyndon Nerenberg scripsit:
> 
> > Then we should see about getting them to Warren for the archives.
> > They are a part of "internet" history that should never be lost. (Along
> > with the code for pathalias.)
> 
> Pathalias is distributed as part of Smail 3 in the pd/pathalias directory.

Good old pathalias.  I've got a story for you there, Clem (he's Masscomp
right?) might get a grin out of it.

I was sys admin for 20 users on a Masscomp machine that had a 40MB disk.
We were at the end of a dog leg in UUCP, ...!uwvax!geophys!geowhiz!$user,
and could easily see the appeal in user at host.whatever.

When I ran pathalias it generated a 2MB (or more) sized file.  Way too big
for our disk.

So I walked across the street to talk to my alg prof (Udi Manber, he was
A9, ran search at google, he's a smart cookie, I was not).  He listened
to the problem and quickly said "You've got time best cast and space
worst case" and described how you would change the system to do a lookup
for each host in turn (the furthest host returns the next closer host
and so on).  That gets you space best case, time worst case.  I got it,
I saw how to write that code, and I say thanks and head out the door.
"Not so fast" says Udi.  "What would be really interesting is if you
could approximate both space and time best case".  Which lead to about
a 6 month (or more) programming effort on my part (it's a graph problem
and a dynamic programming problem) and a paper for IEEE.

The fun part about that project was that Udi was all theory and I was all
practice.  I was reading the maps in and building the graph on a microvax
with not a lot of ram, might have been 4MB, might have been less.  For
some reason that escapes me I had to sort them and I used qsort() and it
took overnight.  I went to Udi and told him about it and he asked what
sort I was using and I said qsort().  "Oh, that explains it, you need to
use a radix sort".  Stupid me slinks out to figure what a radix sort was,
did so, implemented it, it got slower!  WTF, right?

So I poked around, this was my first journey into performance debugging,
vmstat was a useful tool then (and now).  I eventually discovered that
the machine was swapping like crazy and I poked some more.  After much 
poking I decided I was fragmented and it was malloc()s fault.  Wrote my
own malloc that allocated 400K at a time and did all my strdup()s into
there.  Sort time, with qsort, when from overnight to 20 minutes.  Go
practice, eh?

I like to think that while Udi taught me all about the theory (and he did,
I flunked his class at least twice before I passed), I taught him about 
practice.  VM != real memory for example.

He's also the guy who watched me jump every time xclock chimed on the hour
and asked why?  I told him it sounded exactly the same as the beep on my
radar detector (I was a kid, I drove way too fast).  After that every time
in chimed and I jumped he'd laugh and say "you're hacking too fast" :)

--lm

P.S.  Is Honeyman still around?  I haven't seen him in years, we met in
person at usenix and he promptly dragged me outside to smoke a spliff.
Fun guy, last I heard he was running a research lab in Michigan.  Oh, yeah.
Googled, he's still there.


From dave at horsfall.org  Tue Aug 26 11:40:14 2014
From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:40:14 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org> <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408261138040.64007@aneurin.horsfall.org>

On Mon, 25 Aug 2014, Larry McVoy wrote:

> P.S.  Is Honeyman still around?  I haven't seen him in years, we met in 
> person at usenix and he promptly dragged me outside to smoke a spliff. 
> Fun guy, last I heard he was running a research lab in Michigan.  Oh, 
> yeah. Googled, he's still there.

Please, not "Honeyman" but "honeyman."  He never could find his shift key, 
and must've used a custom keyboard for the "!" character.

-- Dave


From a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com  Tue Aug 26 12:24:16 2014
From: a.phillip.garcia at gmail.com (A. P. Garcia)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 21:24:16 -0500
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CAFCBnZtn28hP5rWc+1qDEQW0pjWsSssCXKG8opKeyvh0nA5NWw@mail.gmail.com>

On Aug 25, 2014 7:52 PM, "Larry McVoy" <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 06:36:17PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> > Lyndon Nerenberg scripsit:
> >
> > > Then we should see about getting them to Warren for the archives.
> > > They are a part of "internet" history that should never be lost.
(Along
> > > with the code for pathalias.)
> >
> > Pathalias is distributed as part of Smail 3 in the pd/pathalias
directory.
>
> Good old pathalias.  I've got a story for you there, Clem (he's Masscomp
> right?) might get a grin out of it.
>
> I was sys admin for 20 users on a Masscomp machine that had a 40MB disk.
> We were at the end of a dog leg in UUCP, ...!uwvax!geophys!geowhiz!$user,
> and could easily see the appeal in user at host.whatever.
>
> When I ran pathalias it generated a 2MB (or more) sized file.  Way too big
> for our disk.
>
> So I walked across the street to talk to my alg prof (Udi Manber, he was
> A9, ran search at google, he's a smart cookie, I was not).  He listened
> to the problem and quickly said "You've got time best cast and space
> worst case" and described how you would change the system to do a lookup
> for each host in turn (the furthest host returns the next closer host
> and so on).  That gets you space best case, time worst case.  I got it,
> I saw how to write that code, and I say thanks and head out the door.
> "Not so fast" says Udi.  "What would be really interesting is if you
> could approximate both space and time best case".  Which lead to about
> a 6 month (or more) programming effort on my part (it's a graph problem
> and a dynamic programming problem) and a paper for IEEE.
>
> The fun part about that project was that Udi was all theory and I was all
> practice.  I was reading the maps in and building the graph on a microvax
> with not a lot of ram, might have been 4MB, might have been less.  For
> some reason that escapes me I had to sort them and I used qsort() and it
> took overnight.  I went to Udi and told him about it and he asked what
> sort I was using and I said qsort().  "Oh, that explains it, you need to
> use a radix sort".  Stupid me slinks out to figure what a radix sort was,
> did so, implemented it, it got slower!  WTF, right?
>
> So I poked around, this was my first journey into performance debugging,
> vmstat was a useful tool then (and now).  I eventually discovered that
> the machine was swapping like crazy and I poked some more.  After much
> poking I decided I was fragmented and it was malloc()s fault.  Wrote my
> own malloc that allocated 400K at a time and did all my strdup()s into
> there.  Sort time, with qsort, when from overnight to 20 minutes.  Go
> practice, eh?
>
> I like to think that while Udi taught me all about the theory (and he did,
> I flunked his class at least twice before I passed), I taught him about
> practice.  VM != real memory for example.
>
> He's also the guy who watched me jump every time xclock chimed on the hour
> and asked why?  I told him it sounded exactly the same as the beep on my
> radar detector (I was a kid, I drove way too fast).  After that every time
> in chimed and I jumped he'd laugh and say "you're hacking too fast" :)
>
> --lm

but...what was the final size of the file?
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug 26 12:17:55 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 19:17:55 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <CAFCBnZtn28hP5rWc+1qDEQW0pjWsSssCXKG8opKeyvh0nA5NWw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
 <CAFCBnZtn28hP5rWc+1qDEQW0pjWsSssCXKG8opKeyvh0nA5NWw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20140826021755.GT7039@mcvoy.com>

> but...what was the final size of the file?

It was tiny.  I don't remember but instead of A!B!C!D!E!.... for every 
destination it was a backpointer for each node.  You compute it easily,
it's O(2N) where N is the number of nodes vs mucho bigger because of all
the repeated dog leg stuff.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From grog at lemis.com  Tue Aug 26 12:19:58 2014
From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:19:58 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] pathalias (was: UUCP Maps)
In-Reply-To: <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
Message-ID: <20140826021958.GI62149@eureka.lemis.com>

On Monday, 25 August 2014 at 18:36:17 -0400, John Cowan wrote:
> Lyndon Nerenberg scripsit:
>
>> Then we should see about getting them to Warren for the archives.
>> They are a part of "internet" history that should never be lost. (Along
>> with the code for pathalias.)
>
> Pathalias is distributed as part of Smail 3 in the pd/pathalias directory.

For those of you using FreeBSD (aren't you all?), it's in
/usr/ports/mail/pathalias.

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 MUA reports
problems, please read http://tinyurl.com/broken-mua
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From cjsvance at gmail.com  Tue Aug 26 12:36:48 2014
From: cjsvance at gmail.com (Christopher Vance)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:36:48 +1000
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <20140826021755.GT7039@mcvoy.com>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
 <CAFCBnZtn28hP5rWc+1qDEQW0pjWsSssCXKG8opKeyvh0nA5NWw@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140826021755.GT7039@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <CA+Z8kA4NpRWXnEGhGzCwgNj-KuhA6dRPAFuoG9xY7RgTyhqu9A@mail.gmail.com>

I looked after the Australia map long after it became boring and unused. I
think it was already an afterthought when I picked it up.

I guess that's what happens when you like collating lists of things.


On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> > but...what was the final size of the file?
>
> It was tiny.  I don't remember but instead of A!B!C!D!E!.... for every
> destination it was a backpointer for each node.  You compute it easily,
> it's O(2N) where N is the number of nodes vs mucho bigger because of all
> the repeated dog leg stuff.
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>



-- 
Christopher Vance
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From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug 26 13:26:54 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 20:26:54 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>
 <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
 <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
 <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
Message-ID: <20140826032654.GD7039@mcvoy.com>

On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 01:00:45PM -0700, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> It was quite astounding to see the wide range of performance impacts
> this had on various systems.  3B* systems would tip over and die, except
> for the (built by Convergent Tech) 3B1.

Sheesh, you people keep bringing up stuff from my past.  My buddy Rob
Netzer (used to be a prof at Brown, now works on BitKeeper with me)
had one of those 3B1s.  Neat machine.  Sort of like a desktop VAX.

We were roommates so we both got to use it, my dim memory is I bought one
too but that might be wrong.  What I do know is that we had a compiler
class together where the prof for the class had written a lex/yacc equiv,
we had to come up with a grammar for a subset of Ada and implement it.
Only problem was that the system was an IBM 360 or something miserable
like that.

So Rob went to the prof and said if we write our own lex/yacc equiv can
we do it on our own system?  The prof said yes and that was the brief
moment in time where I vaguely understood the difference between recursive
decent parsers and LL(1) and LR(1) (just kidding, I never really got it
other than recursive decent is what I'd write not knowing any better.
I think at one point maybe I got the difference but Rob is light years
ahead of me).

Anyhoo, we wrote an Ada compiler on the 3B1.  It didn't do everything,
I think we punted on late binding and some other stuff, but it did a
surprisingly large subset of Ada.  It opened my mind to what could be
accomplished in a semester.  Industry closed my mind to that because
I learned that all the shortcuts we took wouldn't work in industry.
But still.  A couple of guys made a compiler in a semester.  Kinda
Unix like.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From lm at mcvoy.com  Tue Aug 26 14:37:23 2014
From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy)
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 21:37:23 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408261138040.64007@aneurin.horsfall.org>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
 <alpine.BSF.2.00.1408261138040.64007@aneurin.horsfall.org>
Message-ID: <20140826043723.GA13525@mcvoy.com>

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 11:40:14AM +1000, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Mon, 25 Aug 2014, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > P.S.  Is Honeyman still around?  I haven't seen him in years, we met in 
> > person at usenix and he promptly dragged me outside to smoke a spliff. 
> > Fun guy, last I heard he was running a research lab in Michigan.  Oh, 
> > yeah. Googled, he's still there.
> 
> Please, not "Honeyman" but "honeyman."  He never could find his shift key, 
> and must've used a custom keyboard for the "!" character.
> 
> -- Dave

I thought he was honey at somewhere but whatever.  If he wants to nerd out about
the case in his name do I get nerd out that I was lm at sun.com and lm at sgi.com?
Doug forwarded some mail, Rob is r at google.com, I was shorter but that's 
a pretty cool email address.  
-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 


From arnold at skeeve.com  Tue Aug 26 16:17:07 2014
From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 00:17:07 -0600
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <20140826032654.GD7039@mcvoy.com>
References: <201408230308.s7N38kId012165@cuzuco.com>
 <CAC20D2P7O7Au2MyYNwTORCwWF=Td+iSvb+JRLGdbmfmbOTYQXA@mail.gmail.com>
 <20140824045903.GL11080@mcvoy.com> <53FB4B6D.5070404@e-bbes.com>
 <20140825144550.GM31814@mcvoy.com>
 <201408251549.s7PFnurr017969@freefriends.org>
 <53FB8806.7090906@e-bbes.com>
 <201408251920.s7PJKqCr032295@freefriends.org>
 <76ACA801-864E-44E8-A283-6EDCE157ACEC@orthanc.ca>
 <20140826032654.GD7039@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <201408260617.s7Q6H71P027911@freefriends.org>

Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 01:00:45PM -0700, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> > It was quite astounding to see the wide range of performance impacts
> > this had on various systems.  3B* systems would tip over and die, except
> > for the (built by Convergent Tech) 3B1.
>
> Sheesh, you people keep bringing up stuff from my past.  My buddy Rob
> Netzer (used to be a prof at Brown, now works on BitKeeper with me)
> had one of those 3B1s.  Neat machine.  Sort of like a desktop VAX.

I had one too. (Also a trailblazer and then a worldblazer.) The 3B1 ran
SVR2; the BSD networking was available as an add-on with the ethernet
card.

I spent many happy hours working on that box, developing gawk and its
documentation; it was slow enough that you could see algorithmic
differences, e.g. standard diff vs. GNU diff.

It had one of those great AT&T keyboards (as did the blit).  The UI
wasn't anything special to write home about though.

For a while there was a separate 3b1.* set of newsgroups and an
archive of stuff at Ohio State; there remains a comp.sys.3b1 group
that still has some activity as new people try to revive some of
these machines and others who had them help out. Someone was writing
an emulator, but I don't think it ever got finished.

Ah, the memories .... :-)

Arnold


From jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com  Tue Aug 26 16:44:03 2014
From: jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com (Jason Stevens)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 14:44:03 +0800
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
Message-ID: <0F0B9BFC06289346B88512B91E55670D2F64@EXCHANGE>

The 3b1 emulator now kind of boot!..

There is some issues with stuff, but for the most part, it works

http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=4149



-----Original Message-----
From: arnold at skeeve.com [mailto:arnold at skeeve.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, August 26, 2014 2:17 PM
To: lyndon at orthanc.ca; lm at mcvoy.com
Cc: rob at bolabs.com; tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp

Larry McVoy <lm at mcvoy.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 01:00:45PM -0700, Lyndon Nerenberg wrote:
> > It was quite astounding to see the wide range of performance impacts
> > this had on various systems.  3B* systems would tip over and die, except
> > for the (built by Convergent Tech) 3B1.
>
> Sheesh, you people keep bringing up stuff from my past.  My buddy Rob
> Netzer (used to be a prof at Brown, now works on BitKeeper with me)
> had one of those 3B1s.  Neat machine.  Sort of like a desktop VAX.

I had one too. (Also a trailblazer and then a worldblazer.) The 3B1 ran
SVR2; the BSD networking was available as an add-on with the ethernet
card.

I spent many happy hours working on that box, developing gawk and its
documentation; it was slow enough that you could see algorithmic
differences, e.g. standard diff vs. GNU diff.

It had one of those great AT&T keyboards (as did the blit).  The UI
wasn't anything special to write home about though.

For a while there was a separate 3b1.* set of newsgroups and an
archive of stuff at Ohio State; there remains a comp.sys.3b1 group
that still has some activity as new people try to revive some of
these machines and others who had them help out. Someone was writing
an emulator, but I don't think it ever got finished.

Ah, the memories .... :-)

Arnold
_______________________________________________
TUHS mailing list
TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs


From reed at reedmedia.net  Wed Aug 27 02:36:56 2014
From: reed at reedmedia.net (Jeremy C. Reed)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:36:56 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408261023490.21577@t1.m.reedmedia.net>

On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Cory Smelosky wrote:

> How does that Berknet differ from the Berknet in...4.0/4.1BSD?  I've 
> seen what I THINK was ethernet code there...but I couldn't be sure as 
> I couldn't even decipher the addressing scheme. ;)
>
> I've been meaning to ask about Berknet, anyway.  One of my side 
> projects is to get it operational.

I have read most (if not all) of the berknet docs and a lot of the code. 
The docs and code referenced a rcs, rcsq, and rcslog as some tools that 
could be ran without a personal account on a remote system. I didn't 
recognize rcsq, but also these references pre-dated Tichy's alternative 
to SCCS by a year or so.

Then I realized this is "remote computer system link" used something 
like: rcsq to see queued jobs no sent yet for CDC 6400; rcslog to see 
history of jobs sent that day; and rcsrm to delete a job not sent yet. 
Basic concepts similar to berknet (netq, netlog, netrm).
(The clue I found was in 
http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/1979/ERL-79-16.pdf)

I know the Cyber 6400 was used there (some of my interviewees told me 
about it). Does anyone know if Berknet's design was inspired by this 
"rcs"?  Where can I learn more about it? (as searching for "rcs" is 
difficult)

I don't see any ethernet code in Berknet. The author had a summer job at 
XEROX PARC I think in the middle of his Berknet project and discussed 
the low-level network concepts with Boggs. Later, they considered an 
LNI, an early token ring (if I understand correctly), device, and DMC-11 
link, but I don't think berknet was ever extended for those or used 
using ethernet.

Note that extending Berknet probably didn't make sense. It was all 
batched with all the systems known to each system hardcoded, compiled 
in. Smallest jobs sent first from the queue to neighboring system which 
would send the job to next as if it was queued locally until it arrived 
to desired system.  So retrieving an email (box) or doing a remote copy, 
you would have to wait for the jobs to get ran. The speed on the 1200 
baud links was only around 50 characters per second. (I think at best on 
9600 baud links was around 600 characters per second but normally 350 
cps.) In addition, berknet had hardcoded restrictions limiting 100,000 
characters per single job. (It was later extended to 500,000 characters 
for some machines, then all machines while still limiting only 200,000 
characters max size jobs during day time.) (I never used berknet only 
read code and docs and did some interviews with users.) It was quite 
limited compared to the new real-time tools and near 3Mb network that 
started being developed and used there a couple years later.

By the way, the early berknet had a symlink to the batch remote copy 
netcp called "rcp" which predated Joy's real-time remote file copy, rcp, 
by a few years. The early version also included a trivial "sendmail" to 
remotely send mail over the batch berknet to another berknet system (by 
running "mail" on the remote system later). It predated Allman's 
unrelated intelligent mailer by around two years. The Berknet tool was 
replaced and renamed with "sendberkmail".



From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu  Wed Aug 27 02:56:42 2014
From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 12:56:42 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
Message-ID: <20140826165642.359EA18C0FC@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>

    > From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net>

    > Later, they considered an LNI, an early token ring (if I understand
    > correctly), device

Yes. See:

  http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/history/RingMIT.txt

for more - that's a pre-print version of an article just published in the
_IEEE Annals of the History of Computing_; slight differences with the final
version, but nothing significant.

Thumbnail: There were two versions; V1 was 1MBit/second, produced in very
limited numbers (~10 or so) at MIT, most used there, although IIRC correctly
at pair (at least - one would be of no use :-) went to UCLA (I remember flying
out to LA to help them get them going). V2 was 10Mbit/second, produced as a
commercial product by Proteon in cooperation with MIT, large numbers sold.

	Noel


From scj at yaccman.com  Wed Aug 27 04:34:17 2014
From: scj at yaccman.com (scj at yaccman.com)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 11:34:17 -0700
Subject: [TUHS] UUCP Maps
In-Reply-To: <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
References: <4E5EF9AB-6F41-4EB7-B48E-C502C8D87DC0@orthanc.ca>
 <A153B584-9594-453A-BA82-D6A59036132B@xs4all.nl>
 <4C1F271F-A4CC-4DCA-BD6E-7220ECA3AD82@orthanc.ca>
 <20140825223617.GB10994@mercury.ccil.org>
 <20140826004301.GQ7039@mcvoy.com>
Message-ID: <92a47b1b3e69f7f5bc6ee82736f33455.squirrel@webmail.yaccman.com>

> On Mon, Aug 25, 2014 at 06:36:17PM -0400, John Cowan wrote:
>
> Good old pathalias.  I've got a story for you there, Clem (he's Masscomp
> right?) might get a grin out of it.
>

A great story.  It reminds me of a quote I first heard from Andy Koenig:
"What's the difference between theory and practice?  Well, in theory there
isn't any, and in practice there is."



From clemc at ccc.com  Wed Aug 27 09:20:01 2014
From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole)
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 2014 19:20:01 -0400
Subject: [TUHS] networking on unix before uucp
In-Reply-To: <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408261023490.21577@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
References: <CADxT5N4L0YXSB0uqWeb6w87KJF+=0Mc7Nhb=Q_g+j8Q8-bQ7kg@mail.gmail.com>
 <53F75D43.4030108@mhorton.net>
 <alpine.DFB.2.11.1408221811070.817@meaghan.gimme-sympathy.org>
 <alpine.NEB.2.02.1408261023490.21577@t1.m.reedmedia.net>
Message-ID: <CAC20D2MOhHuMoOYRp6W6wkT5WozMZN5uY2iZs5zdw8HgKFFD8w@mail.gmail.com>

​below​


On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 12:36 PM, Jeremy C. Reed <reed at reedmedia.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 22 Aug 2014, Cory Smelosky wrote:
>  Does anyone know if Berknet's design was inspired by this
> "rcs"?  Where can I learn more about it? (as searching for "rcs" is
> ​ ​
> difficult)
>
​You'd have to ask Eric.   It was certainly there and the CDC box was used
a good bit before the Vaxen showed up, particular in EE for things like
SPICE, SPLICE, et al.

>
> I don't see any ethernet code in Berknet.

​There would not be any.   As I said, it pre-dated any Ethernet HW at UCB.
  It ran over 9600 bit RS-232C links (usually on a DZ11).​




> they considered an
> LNI, an early token ring (if I understand correctly), device,

​Yes - that is right.   It was a UCI/MIT device -- predates the Proteon
Ring products and Apollo's Ring.​




> and DMC-11
> link, but I don't think berknet was ever extended for those or used
> using ethernet.
>
​Correct​




>
>
> By the way, the early berknet had a symlink to the batch remote copy
> netcp called "rcp" which predated Joy's real-time remote file copy, rcp,
> by a few years.

​right.​





>  The early version also included a trivial "sendmail" to
> remotely send mail over the batch berknet to another berknet system (by
> running "mail" on the remote system later). It predated Allman's
> unrelated intelligent mailer by around two years. The Berknet tool was
> replaced and renamed with "sendberkmail".


​It was built using Kurt Shoen's "delivermail" which is in 4.1 (and was
what Eric would rewrite - see below).

The historical (hysterical) ​reason was this.

Eric was the main guy behind the 11/70 that the Ingress project had (ing70
on the Berknet) in Cory Hall. In Evans, was Ernie (and later ucbvax).   The
Internet connection was owned by the Ingress Group on a long interface pair
to an IMP at LBL.    UCB did not have its own IMP as CMU, MIT, Stanford
did.   The UUCP network came into Evans via Ernie, but Internet via Ing70.
  So the UCB mail system had to send the messages over the BerkNet to
proper host for import/export from campus.

Similarly, folks in other departments as they joined the Berknet had
private and strange mail interfaces.
Originally, different folks in different departments had been hacking mail,
delivermail etc al to handle different header formats.   Eric was a DB guy,
do he wrote a DB production language to walk headers because it was having
to deal with so much dead mail from unparsable messages that would get sent
to Ingress by the Berknet and then not be able to be delivered.

I have always contended that if he has left the SMTP connection out of
sendmail and called the BBN smtpd, to do import/export the way many other
UNIX MTAs did and left sendmail and as purely a middleware layer that
canonnicalized header, it would have been a different world.    Because it
was also the smtpd, people used it ever though most did not have the N
header problem we had at UCB.


The rest is history.
Clem
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