From dave at horsfall.org Fri Mar 1 03:21:44 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 04:21:44 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters Message-ID: Just recollecting old memories: why did AT&T refer to "flags" as "keyletters" in its SysV documentation? Some sort of denial of Ed5/6/7/BSD's very existence? The one good they did was the TTY driver... -- Dave, who used to work for a SysVile shop From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 1 03:59:00 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Thu, 29 Feb 2024 17:59:00 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thursday, February 29th, 2024 at 9:21 AM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > Just recollecting old memories: why did AT&T refer to "flags" as > "keyletters" in its SysV documentation? Some sort of denial of > Ed5/6/7/BSD's very existence? > > The one good they did was the TTY driver... > > -- Dave, who used to work for a SysVile shop Curious Dave if you have a particular piece of documentation in mind? I'm mostly finding the term "keyletter" in SCCS manpages and pages related to the lp print system. This nomenclature appears to go back as far as Release 4.0 of SCCS/PWB on February 18, 1977, it is also used throughout the PIB regarding this release. Maybe a nomenclature practice by some of the USG/PWB-side folks that slowly crept in? Fwiw I generally see command-line bits as "options" throughout much documentation, with flag and option being used quite interchangeably, I don't get many hits at all in the 1983 System V manpage sources for "keyletter". - Matt G. From dave at horsfall.org Fri Mar 1 15:30:53 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 16:30:53 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 29 Feb 2024, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Curious Dave if you have a particular piece of documentation in mind? > I'm mostly finding the term "keyletter" in SCCS manpages and pages > related to the lp print system. This nomenclature appears to go back as > far as Release 4.0 of SCCS/PWB on February 18, 1977, it is also used > throughout the PIB regarding this release. You're right; it was SCCS, not SysV. Dunno what I was thinking... Thanks. -- Dave From g.branden.robinson at gmail.com Fri Mar 1 15:44:45 2024 From: g.branden.robinson at gmail.com (G. Branden Robinson) Date: Thu, 29 Feb 2024 23:44:45 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240301054445.6z667pf5ssy3562n@illithid> At 2024-03-01T04:21:44+1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: > Just recollecting old memories: why did AT&T refer to "flags" as > "keyletters" in its SysV documentation? Some sort of denial of > Ed5/6/7/BSD's very existence? Not exactly the same thing, but Lesk used the term to characterize the format specifiers in the Seventh Edition Volume 2 paper on tbl(1). Regards, Branden -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 833 bytes Desc: not available URL: From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Sat Mar 2 01:49:42 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 10:49:42 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters Message-ID: > why did AT&T refer to "flags" as "keyletters" in its SysV documentation? Bureaucracies beget bureaucratese--polysyllabic obfuscation, witness APPLICATION USAGE in place of BUGS. One might argue that replacing "flag" by "option", thus doubling the number of syllables, was a small step in that direction. In fact it was a deliberate attempt to discard jargon in favor of normal English usage. Doug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From usotsuki at buric.co Sat Mar 2 02:23:52 2024 From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 11:23:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 1 Mar 2024, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > One might argue that replacing "flag" by "option", thus doubling the number > of syllables, was a small step in that direction. In fact it was a > deliberate attempt to discard jargon in favor of normal English usage. I prolly got the term "switch" from IBM/Microsoft, but that's the term I'm used to (and my own implementations of Unix utilities do use the term in their error messages). -uso. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 2 02:56:40 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 08:56:40 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> > On Mar 1, 2024, at 7:49 AM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > > why did AT&T refer to "flags" as "keyletters" in its SysV documentation? > > Bureaucracies beget bureaucratese--polysyllabic obfuscation, witness APPLICATION USAGE in place of BUGS. > > One might argue that replacing "flag" by "option", thus doubling the number of syllables, was a small step in that direction. In fact it was a deliberate attempt to discard jargon in favor of normal English usage. Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. From pnr at planet.nl Sat Mar 2 04:14:31 2024 From: pnr at planet.nl (Paul Ruizendaal) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 19:14:31 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] RIP Niklaus Wirth, RIP John Walker Message-ID: Earlier this year two well known computer scientists passed away. On New Year’s Day it was Niklaus Wirth aged 90. A month later it was John Walker aged 75. Both have some indirect links to Unix. For Wirth the link is that a few sources claim that Plan 9 and the Go language are in part influenced by the design ideas of Oberon, the language and the OS. Maybe others on this list know more about those influences. For Walker, the link is via the company that he was running as a side-business before he got underway with AutoCAD: https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/marinchip/ In that business he was selling a 16-bit system for the S-100 bus, based around the TI9900 CPU (which from a programmer perspective is quite similar to a PDP11). For that system he wrote a Unix-like operating system around 1978-1980, called NOS/MT. He had never worked with Unix, but had spelled the BSTJ issues about it. It was fully written in assembler. The design was rather unique, maybe inspired by Heinz Lycklama’s “Satellite Processor” paper in BSTJ 57-6. It has a central microkernel that handles message exchange, process scheduling and memory management. Each system call is a message. However, the system call message is then passed on to a privileged “fat kernel” process that handles it. The idea was to provide multiprocessor and network transparency: the microkernel could decide to run processes on other boards in the same rack or on remote systems over a network. Also the kernel processes could be remote. Hence its name “Network Operating System / Multitasking” or “NOS/MT”. The system calls are pretty similar to Unix. The file system is implemented very similar to Unix (with i-nodes etc.), with some notable differences (there are file locking primitives and formatting a disk is a system call). File handles are not shareable, so special treatment for stdin/out/err is hardcoded. Scheduling and memory management are totally different -- unsurprising as in both cases it reflects the underlying hardware. Just as NOS/MT was getting into a usable state, John decided to pivot to packaged software including a precursor of what would become the AutoCAD package. What was there worked and saw some use in the UK and Denmark in the 1980’s -- there are emulators that can still run it, along with its small library of tools and applications. “NOS/MT was left in an arrested state” as John puts it. I guess it will remain one of those many “what if” things in computer history. From aek at bitsavers.org Sat Mar 2 04:40:21 2024 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 10:40:21 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] RIP Niklaus Wirth, RIP John Walker In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3d35b80f-18ca-9c89-093c-ee5d5aeccbb8@bitsavers.org> On 3/1/24 10:14 AM, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > there are emulators that can still run it, along with its small library of tools and applications. “NOS/MT was left in an arrested state” as John puts it. URL? I've never heard of a surviving copy From nobozo at gmail.com Sat Mar 2 04:41:47 2024 From: nobozo at gmail.com (Jon Forrest) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 10:41:47 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] RIP Niklaus Wirth, RIP John Walker In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <65e5dc7b-d893-4093-ac4d-5c7d2f300021@gmail.com> On 3/1/2024 10:14 AM, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > For Walker, the link is via the company that he was running as a > side-business before he got underway with AutoCAD: > https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/marinchip/ > > In that business he was selling a 16-bit system for the S-100 bus, > based around the TI9900 CPU (which from a programmer perspective is > quite similar to a PDP11). For that system he wrote a Unix-like > operating system around 1978-1980, called NOS/MT. He had never worked > with Unix, but had spelled the BSTJ issues about it. It was fully > written in assembler. I've mentioned that I worked at Ford Aerospace in the software tools group in 1977-1978. I had the desk next to John Nagle. One day John had a visitor who was talking about interesting stuff so I went over to see who it was. It was John Walker, and he was talking about what he was doing with the TI9900 chip. I don't remember what he said, but I do remember being quite impressed. More name dropping - I was walking the dog on the trail in back of my house the other day and I started talking to a guy about my age who was also walking his dog. He said he was a retired software guy, so I asked him where he had worked. He said that he was one of the founders, along with John Walker, of AutoCad! His name was Greg Lutz. Jon Forrest From paul.winalski at gmail.com Sat Mar 2 05:44:57 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2024 14:44:57 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/1/24, Steve Nickolas wrote: > On Fri, 1 Mar 2024, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > >> One might argue that replacing "flag" by "option", thus doubling the >> number >> of syllables, was a small step in that direction. In fact it was a >> deliberate attempt to discard jargon in favor of normal English usage. IBM did a similar thing in their use of the term "main storage" for what the whole rest of the industry calls "main memory". They felt that "memory" was too anthropomorphic. > I prolly got the term "switch" from IBM/Microsoft, but that's the term I'm > used to (and my own implementations of Unix utilities do use the term in > their error messages). The term "switch" for command line options is pretty much universal--it's not IBM specific and predates the existence of Microsoft by about two decades. Back in the 1950s when you ran one program at a time on a computer, there were toggle switches on the control panel that could be read by the running program. Combinations of these were in common use to select various options of program behavior. When operating systems came along, you couldn't pass the info to running programs by having the operator physically flip a switch on the console. I remember that IBM DOS/360 had a Job Control Language (JCL) statement "// UPSI" (UPSI = User Program Switch Indicators) that allowed one to set the "switches" as seen by the running user program. When interactive and timesharing systems came along, they supported command line options in place of the original switches. In DEC's operating systems for PDP-8 -10, and -11, these were originally a slash character followed by a single letter or digit. The slash was used because it resembles a toggle switch. Unix was using the slash as a directory separator in pathnames and so they used the hyphen to introduce command options instead. Microsoft's command line interface for the PC was modeled after DEC's RT-11 operating system and used slash for command options. When they implemented Unix-style directory paths, they had to use backslash as the separator because forward slash was already in use. -Paul W. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 2 10:33:04 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (silas poulson via TUHS) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 00:33:04 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> References: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: > On 1 Mar 2024, at 16:56, Bakul Shah via TUHS wrote: > Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense I always took it to be a semi descriptive joke, like “mouse”, with the sort of flag you wave. At least that’s what I assumed the origin was. Silas From pnr at planet.nl Sat Mar 2 18:54:25 2024 From: pnr at planet.nl (Paul Ruizendaal) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 09:54:25 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] RIP Niklaus Wirth, RIP John Walker Message-ID: <6D7244BF-B050-46B7-9115-9665D82F6A6D@planet.nl> > Al Kossow wrote: > > > there are emulators that can still run it, along with its small library of tools and applications. “NOS/MT was left in an arrested state” as John puts it. > > URL? > > I've never heard of a surviving copy Your best start is here: http://www.powertrancortex.com The UK Powertran Cortex was quite close to the Marinchip M9900 in capabilities and John’s software was ported to it. The website has an emulator and disk images for most of the user land and “MDEX” -- a simple executive that John wrote to bootstrap his software stack. This material survived in the hands of a few Powertran Cortex enthusiasts. They also had disks for NOS/MT (binaries + sysgen), but those were found after that website was made 10+ years ago. The Powertran Cortex design was also used to build an industrial control computer, the PP95. The UK company behind that did most of the porting work and had a complete M9900 system to do the work on. In 2018 the inventory of that company was found in a garage including that M9900 system. Also more disk images and manuals, including the NOS/MT User Manual. The disks included a few that contained reconstituted (partial) source code for NOS/MT. With a little help from John, I was able to reconstitute the remainder of the source code. All this is not online. I will contact you off list to see how this can be best preserved. Paul From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Mar 3 01:43:10 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Andrew Lynch via TUHS) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 15:43:10 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [TUHS] RIP Niklaus Wirth, RIP John Walker In-Reply-To: <6D7244BF-B050-46B7-9115-9665D82F6A6D@planet.nl> References: <6D7244BF-B050-46B7-9115-9665D82F6A6D@planet.nl> Message-ID: <640731257.131533.1709394190817@mail.yahoo.com> On Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 03:54:57 AM EST, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > Al Kossow wrote: > > > there are emulators that can still run it, along with its small library of tools and applications. “NOS/MT was left in an arrested state” as John puts it. > > URL? > > I've never heard of a surviving copy Your best start is here: http://www.powertrancortex.com The UK Powertran Cortex was quite close to the Marinchip M9900 in capabilities and John’s software was ported to it. The website has an emulator and disk images for most of the user land and “MDEX” -- a simple executive that John wrote to bootstrap his software stack. This material survived in the hands of a few Powertran Cortex enthusiasts. They also had disks for NOS/MT (binaries + sysgen), but those were found after that website was made 10+ years ago. The Powertran Cortex design was also used to build an industrial control computer, the PP95. The UK company behind that did most of the porting work and had a complete M9900 system to do the work on. In 2018 the inventory of that company was found in a garage including that M9900 system. Also more disk images and manuals, including the NOS/MT User Manual. The disks included a few that contained reconstituted (partial) source code for NOS/MT. With a little help from John, I was able to reconstitute the remainder of the source code. All this is not online. I will contact you off list to see how this can be best preserved. Paul Hi One of the builders on duodyne implemented a TMS9995 processor board similar to the powertrancortex but with IO and memory expansion options on the parallel bus.  Mostly reusing the Z80 8-bit memory and IO (for now) but not limited to it.  We were in contact with the original authors of powertrancortex mini-cortex and it was really great to get their perspective. The system runs Unix V6 for TMS9995 and MDEX.  Also, a TMS9995 debug monitor and I think a BASIC of some kind.  Don't know about NOS/MT since am not familiar with it but maybe it could be ported if the source is available. If anyone is interested here it is: duodyne/20 processor.TMS9995 at main · lynchaj/duodyne · GitHub I most use the Unix V6 since I am amazed at how well a legacy Unix runs on a retrocomputer type system.  I've seen MDEX run but really don't know enough about it to have an opinion either way. Thanks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aek at bitsavers.org Sun Mar 3 03:44:42 2024 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 09:44:42 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] RIP Niklaus Wirth, RIP John Walker In-Reply-To: <640731257.131533.1709394190817@mail.yahoo.com> References: <6D7244BF-B050-46B7-9115-9665D82F6A6D@planet.nl> <640731257.131533.1709394190817@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <21a2f7c5-7cf9-21f5-f6f7-f000589cd528@bitsavers.org> Marinchip from John Walker's website https://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/marinchip/ From paul.winalski at gmail.com Sun Mar 3 04:24:26 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 13:24:26 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> References: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: On 3/1/24, Bakul Shah via TUHS wrote: > > Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. I think the term "flag" for command line options comes from the way that those options are typically implemented in code. The command line options are usually used to set a boolean variable in the program that can be tested to see if the option was present. "Flag" as a synonym for a boolean variable in turn comes from the ordinary English verb "to flag", meaning "to mark or identify" -Paul W. From imp at bsdimp.com Sun Mar 3 04:35:52 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 11:35:52 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: References: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 2, 2024, 11:24 AM Paul Winalski wrote: > On 3/1/24, Bakul Shah via TUHS wrote: > > > > Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. > > I think the term "flag" for command line options comes from the way > that those options are typically implemented in code. The command > line options are usually used to set a boolean variable in the program > that can be tested to see if the option was present. > > "Flag" as a synonym for a boolean variable in turn comes from the > ordinary English verb "to flag", meaning "to mark or identify" > And the variables set were named Xflag. Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lars at nocrew.org Sun Mar 3 04:53:18 2024 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Sat, 02 Mar 2024 18:53:18 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: (silas poulson via TUHS's message of "Sat, 2 Mar 2024 00:33:04 +0000") References: <53862694-8313-42A9-8090-9B3A856B9B63@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: <7wy1b0a2jl.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> silas poulson wrote: > Bakul Shah wrote: >> Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense > I always took it to be a semi descriptive joke, like “mouse”, with the > sort of flag you wave. At this point we should recall the quote "cat came back from Berkeley waving flags", attributed to Rob Pike. From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Sun Mar 3 08:14:26 2024 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2024 17:14:26 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters Message-ID: <20240302221426.6DE6818C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Bakul Shah > Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. People on this list seem to forget that there were computers before UNIX. The _syntax_ of "-f" probably predates any UNIX; Multics used it extensively. See the "Introduction to Multics", MAC-TR-123, January 1974 (a little after UNIX V1, but I expect I could probably track it back further in time, if I cared to put in the effort); pg. 3-24. Interestingly, I looked though the CTSS manual, and CTSS did not seem to use this syntax for flag arguments: see, e.g., the SAVE command (section AH.3.03). The _name_ "flag" came in early on UNIX. (Multics called them "arguments"; see above, pg. 3-27, top line.) We can see this happen - see: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/du which calls the "-a" and "-s" "arguments"; but in: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/ld "-s", "-u", etc are called "flag arguments". Long enough ago that certainty about the etymology/rationale is probably now lost. Noel From gerberb at zenez.com Sun Mar 3 23:27:13 2024 From: gerberb at zenez.com (Boyd Lynn Gerber) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 06:27:13 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Floppy Disk Message-ID: Hello, A great article on the floppy disk. https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-floppy-disk -- Boyd Gerber 801 849-0213 ZENEZ 1042 East Fort Union #135, Midvale Utah 84047 From aaronscohen at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 03:38:20 2024 From: aaronscohen at gmail.com (Aaron) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 12:38:20 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: <20240302221426.6DE6818C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20240302221426.6DE6818C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> Having written the first versions of getopt(3), getopt(1), and associated man pages around 1979, I do not recall any real orthodoxy in the use of ‘options’ vs ‘flags.’ In general, ‘flags’ seemed to be reserved for single arguments in the form of ‘-x’ I wrote getopt, and rewrote many commands to use it because I got annoyed at trying to remember which commands required “-x -y -z” vs “-xyz”, and which flags required or allowed optional arguments. Aaron > On Mar 2, 2024, at 5:22 PM, jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote: > >  >> >> From: Bakul Shah > >> Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. > > People on this list seem to forget that there were computers before UNIX. > > The _syntax_ of "-f" probably predates any UNIX; Multics used it extensively. > See the "Introduction to Multics", MAC-TR-123, January 1974 (a little after > UNIX V1, but I expect I could probably track it back further in time, if I > cared to put in the effort); pg. 3-24. > > Interestingly, I looked though the CTSS manual, and CTSS did not seem to use > this syntax for flag arguments: see, e.g., the SAVE command (section AH.3.03). > > > The _name_ "flag" came in early on UNIX. (Multics called them "arguments"; > see above, pg. 3-27, top line.) We can see this happen - see: > > http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/du > > which calls the "-a" and "-s" "arguments"; but in: > > http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/ld > > "-s", "-u", etc are called "flag arguments". > > Long enough ago that certainty about the etymology/rationale is probably now > lost. > > Noel From lm at mcvoy.com Mon Mar 4 03:52:53 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 09:52:53 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> References: <20240302221426.6DE6818C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240303175253.GQ5304@mcvoy.com> I rewrote getopt() for BitKeeper because I wanted long options and wanted to allow optional args but also have required args. On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 12:38:20PM -0500, Aaron wrote: > Having written the first versions of getopt(3), getopt(1), and associated man pages around 1979, I do not recall any real orthodoxy in the use of ???options??? vs ???flags.??? In general, ???flags??? seemed to be reserved for single arguments in the form of ???-x??? > > I wrote getopt, and rewrote many commands to use it because I got annoyed at trying to remember which commands required ???-x -y -z??? vs ???-xyz???, and which flags required or allowed optional arguments. > > Aaron > > > > > On Mar 2, 2024, at 5:22???PM, jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote: > > > > ??? > >> > >> From: Bakul Shah > > > >> Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. > > > > People on this list seem to forget that there were computers before UNIX. > > > > The _syntax_ of "-f" probably predates any UNIX; Multics used it extensively. > > See the "Introduction to Multics", MAC-TR-123, January 1974 (a little after > > UNIX V1, but I expect I could probably track it back further in time, if I > > cared to put in the effort); pg. 3-24. > > > > Interestingly, I looked though the CTSS manual, and CTSS did not seem to use > > this syntax for flag arguments: see, e.g., the SAVE command (section AH.3.03). > > > > > > The _name_ "flag" came in early on UNIX. (Multics called them "arguments"; > > see above, pg. 3-27, top line.) We can see this happen - see: > > > > http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/du > > > > which calls the "-a" and "-s" "arguments"; but in: > > > > http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/ld > > > > "-s", "-u", etc are called "flag arguments". > > > > Long enough ago that certainty about the etymology/rationale is probably now > > lost. > > > > Noel -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From phil at ultimate.com Mon Mar 4 04:44:00 2024 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Sun, 03 Mar 2024 13:44:00 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] getopt In-Reply-To: <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> References: <20240302221426.6DE6818C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <202403031844.423Ii09D051940@ultimate.com> Aaron wrote: > Having written the first versions of getopt(3), getopt(1), and associated man pages around 1979 ... > I wrote getopt, and rewrote many commands to use it because I got > annoyed at trying to remember which commands required “-x -y -z” vs > “-xyz”, and which flags required or allowed optional arguments. For posterity, can you tell us more about where/when/how it happened? Where were you working, and on what project?? I found an acknowledgement of your work on p9 of the paper that starts at https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/AUUGN-V05.3.pdf#page=27 "Proposed Syntax Standard for UNIX* System Commands": Acknowledgments We are indebted to Jerry Vogel and Aaron Cohen: after evaluating the problem, we arrived at asolution very similar to the one they championed five years ago. References for the above proposal: Hemenway, K., & Armitage, H. (1984) Proposed Syntax Standard for UNIX System Commands. In Summer USENIX Conference. El Cerito, CA: Usenix Association. Proposed syntax standard for UNIX system commands K Hemenway, H Armitage - UNIX/world, 1984 From aaronscohen at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 05:28:48 2024 From: aaronscohen at gmail.com (Aaron) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 14:28:48 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: <20240303175253.GQ5304@mcvoy.com> References: <20240303175253.GQ5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: Unix has long benefited from the notion that everything can be improved! Sent from my iPhone > On Mar 3, 2024, at 12:53 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > > I rewrote getopt() for BitKeeper because I wanted long options and > wanted to allow optional args but also have required args. > >> On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 12:38:20PM -0500, Aaron wrote: >> Having written the first versions of getopt(3), getopt(1), and associated man pages around 1979, I do not recall any real orthodoxy in the use of ???options??? vs ???flags.??? In general, ???flags??? seemed to be reserved for single arguments in the form of ???-x??? >> >> I wrote getopt, and rewrote many commands to use it because I got annoyed at trying to remember which commands required ???-x -y -z??? vs ???-xyz???, and which flags required or allowed optional arguments. >> >> Aaron >> >> >> >>>> On Mar 2, 2024, at 5:22???PM, jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu wrote: >>> >>> ??? >>>> >>>> From: Bakul Shah >>> >>>> Use of "flag" for this purpose seems strange. "option" makes more sense. >>> >>> People on this list seem to forget that there were computers before UNIX. >>> >>> The _syntax_ of "-f" probably predates any UNIX; Multics used it extensively. >>> See the "Introduction to Multics", MAC-TR-123, January 1974 (a little after >>> UNIX V1, but I expect I could probably track it back further in time, if I >>> cared to put in the effort); pg. 3-24. >>> >>> Interestingly, I looked though the CTSS manual, and CTSS did not seem to use >>> this syntax for flag arguments: see, e.g., the SAVE command (section AH.3.03). >>> >>> >>> The _name_ "flag" came in early on UNIX. (Multics called them "arguments"; >>> see above, pg. 3-27, top line.) We can see this happen - see: >>> >>> http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/du >>> >>> which calls the "-a" and "-s" "arguments"; but in: >>> >>> http://squoze.net/UNIX/v1man/man1/ld >>> >>> "-s", "-u", etc are called "flag arguments". >>> >>> Long enough ago that certainty about the etymology/rationale is probably now >>> lost. >>> >>> Noel > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From rich.salz at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 07:24:11 2024 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 16:24:11 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Of flags and keyletters In-Reply-To: <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> References: <20240302221426.6DE6818C083@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> <9C2BE9BE-F241-416A-9966-820FB21FD5C0@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 12:38 PM Aaron wrote: > Having written the first versions of getopt(3), getopt(1), and associated > man pages around 1979 ... > I always thought that this was a brilliant piece of engineering. In less than 70 lines, it was a clever, but not obtuse, bit of code to handle the most common option/flag/switch usages that pervaded the Unix ecosystem at the time. Thanks for that! Source: https://www.linux.co.cr/unix-source-code/review/1985/1103.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From will.senn at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 11:30:47 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 19:30:47 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions Message-ID: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Hi All, I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for learning them? Thanks, Will -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrochkind at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 12:03:39 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 19:03:39 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or thereabouts: First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along later. awk came along way later. There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to hunt around for more documentation! (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the expression was compiled.) Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you edited files. ed was the only game in town. (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were documented on the sh man page.) Marc Rochkind On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: > Hi All, > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent > explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm > digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with > them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate > and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with > Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of > the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste > and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes > that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the > subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and > Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in > the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > > After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed > and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of > these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a > particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks > kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut > out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' > memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a > simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that > were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't > :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive > source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for > learning them? > > Thanks, > > Will > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Mon Mar 4 13:38:45 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 19:38:45 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Marc is right. I'll add that I grew up in terminal rooms, a bunch of kids connected to a VAX 780, like 40 or more. I have no idea how the kids ahead of me learned but I learned by looking at their terminal and going "what did you just do?". My real understanding of regex is from Henry Spencer's regex. On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:03:39PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or > thereabouts: > > First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along > later. awk came along way later. > > There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man > pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found > them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back > in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few > times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to > hunt around for more documentation! > > (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. > But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. > It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the > expression was compiled.) > > Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a > question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > > The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you > edited files. ed was the only game in town. > > (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were > documented on the sh man page.) > > Marc Rochkind > > On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31???PM Will Senn wrote: > > > Hi All, > > > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > > regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent > > explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm > > digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with > > them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate > > and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with > > Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of > > the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste > > and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes > > that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the > > subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and > > Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in > > the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > > Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > > > > After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed > > and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of > > these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a > > particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks > > kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut > > out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > > their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' > > memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a > > simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that > > were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't > > :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive > > source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for > > learning them? > > > > Thanks, > > > > Will > > > > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From rich.salz at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 14:18:11 2024 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Sun, 3 Mar 2024 23:18:11 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: I remember being given a copy of grep source and seeing a char pointer written as "p[-1]" and it was an like a thunderbolt of understanding about C pointers. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Mar 4 17:10:26 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Otto Moerbeek via TUHS) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 08:10:26 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:03:39PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or > thereabouts: > > First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along > later. awk came along way later. > > There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man > pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found > them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back > in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few > times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to > hunt around for more documentation! > > (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. > But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. > It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the > expression was compiled.) I like to add that there was also quite a large set of additional documentatiomn (Volume 2, Voilume 1 were the man pages), which includes "Advanced Editing on UNIX" giving many examples on the use of regexes in ed(1). I do remeber reading a lot from Volume 2, as CS students in Amsterdam we received printed and bound copies of both Volume 1 and 2. So in my case, "only man pages or source" is not true. Having paper versions was importent, because access to terminals for students was limited (until I became a teaching assistent, which came with privileges, including 24h access to terminals) -Otto > > Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a > question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > > The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you > edited files. ed was the only game in town. > > (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were > documented on the sh man page.) > > Marc Rochkind > > On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: > > > Hi All, > > > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > > regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent > > explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm > > digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with > > them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate > > and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with > > Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of > > the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste > > and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes > > that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the > > subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and > > Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in > > the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > > Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > > > > After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed > > and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of > > these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a > > particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks > > kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut > > out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > > their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' > > memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a > > simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that > > were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't > > :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive > > source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for > > learning them? > > > > Thanks, > > > > Will > > > > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * From dave.long at bluewin.ch Mon Mar 4 17:19:08 2024 From: dave.long at bluewin.ch (Dave Long) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 08:19:08 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: <84A1CCDB-15CD-4A67-949E-FC83A698E032@bluewin.ch> Did `learn` have a regex module? (my memory* does not suffice, and I didn't even manage to get google to tell me if it were learn(1) or learn(6), so please forgive the imprecision of this response) -Dave * although I do recall this was how I learned one of ed(1) or vi(1) > On 4 Mar 2024, at 08:10, Otto Moerbeek via TUHS wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:03:39PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > >> Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or >> thereabouts: >> >> First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along >> later. awk came along way later. >> >> There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man >> pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found >> them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back >> in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few >> times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to >> hunt around for more documentation! >> >> (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. >> But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. >> It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the >> expression was compiled.) > > I like to add that there was also quite a large set of additional > documentatiomn (Volume 2, Voilume 1 were the man pages), which > includes "Advanced Editing on UNIX" giving many examples on the use of > regexes in ed(1). > > I do remeber reading a lot from Volume 2, as CS students in Amsterdam > we received printed and bound copies of both Volume 1 and 2. So in my > case, "only man pages or source" is not true. Having paper versions > was importent, because access to terminals for students was limited > (until I became a teaching assistent, which came with privileges, > including 24h access to terminals) > > -Otto > >> >> Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a >> question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! >> >> The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you >> edited files. ed was the only game in town. >> >> (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were >> documented on the sh man page.) >> >> Marc Rochkind >> >> On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: >> >>> Hi All, >>> >>> I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for >>> regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent >>> explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm >>> digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with >>> them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate >>> and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with >>> Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of >>> the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste >>> and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes >>> that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the >>> subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and >>> Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in >>> the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix >>> Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... >>> >>> After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed >>> and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of >>> these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a >>> particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks >>> kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut >>> out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to >>> their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' >>> memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a >>> simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that >>> were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't >>> :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive >>> source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for >>> learning them? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> >>> Will >>> >> >> >> -- >> *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Mar 4 17:25:02 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Otto Moerbeek via TUHS) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 08:25:02 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 08:10:26AM +0100, Otto Moerbeek via TUHS wrote: > On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:03:39PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > > Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or > > thereabouts: > > > > First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along > > later. awk came along way later. > > > > There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man > > pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found > > them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back > > in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few > > times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to > > hunt around for more documentation! > > > > (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. > > But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. > > It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the > > expression was compiled.) > > I like to add that there was also quite a large set of additional > documentatiomn (Volume 2, Voilume 1 were the man pages), which > includes "Advanced Editing on UNIX" giving many examples on the use of > regexes in ed(1). > > I do remeber reading a lot from Volume 2, as CS students in Amsterdam > we received printed and bound copies of both Volume 1 and 2. So in my > case, "only man pages or source" is not true. Having paper versions > was importent, because access to terminals for students was limited > (until I became a teaching assistent, which came with privileges, > including 24h access to terminals) https://wolfram.schneider.org/bsd/7thEdManVol2/ shows the contens of Volume 2 (level ranges from introductionary tutorial to interals of the compiler) > > -Otto > > > > > Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a > > question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > > > > The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you > > edited files. ed was the only game in town. > > > > (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were > > documented on the sh man page.) > > > > Marc Rochkind > > > > On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: > > > > > Hi All, > > > > > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > > > regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent > > > explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm > > > digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with > > > them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate > > > and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with > > > Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of > > > the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste > > > and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes > > > that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the > > > subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and > > > Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in > > > the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > > > Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > > > > > > After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed > > > and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of > > > these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a > > > particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks > > > kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut > > > out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > > > their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' > > > memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a > > > simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that > > > were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't > > > :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive > > > source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for > > > learning them? > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Will > > > > > > > > > -- > > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * From arnold at skeeve.com Mon Mar 4 17:25:07 2024 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 00:25:07 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <84A1CCDB-15CD-4A67-949E-FC83A698E032@bluewin.ch> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <84A1CCDB-15CD-4A67-949E-FC83A698E032@bluewin.ch> Message-ID: <202403040725.4247P73R004962@freefriends.org> I learned regular expressions from Kernighan & Plauger's book "Software Tools". I was exposed to that book, Unix (v6 on a PDP-11) and C programming (via K&R's book) all at the same time. This was in the fall of 1980. "Software Tools" changed my life. Arnold Dave Long wrote: > Did `learn` have a regex module? (my memory* does not suffice, and > I didn't even manage to get google to tell me if it were learn(1) or > learn(6), so please forgive the imprecision of this response) > > -Dave > > * although I do recall this was how I learned one of ed(1) or vi(1) > > > On 4 Mar 2024, at 08:10, Otto Moerbeek via TUHS wrote: > > > > On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:03:39PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > > >> Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or > >> thereabouts: > >> > >> First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along > >> later. awk came along way later. > >> > >> There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man > >> pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found > >> them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back > >> in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few > >> times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to > >> hunt around for more documentation! > >> > >> (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. > >> But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. > >> It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the > >> expression was compiled.) > > > > I like to add that there was also quite a large set of additional > > documentatiomn (Volume 2, Voilume 1 were the man pages), which > > includes "Advanced Editing on UNIX" giving many examples on the use of > > regexes in ed(1). > > > > I do remeber reading a lot from Volume 2, as CS students in Amsterdam > > we received printed and bound copies of both Volume 1 and 2. So in my > > case, "only man pages or source" is not true. Having paper versions > > was importent, because access to terminals for students was limited > > (until I became a teaching assistent, which came with privileges, > > including 24h access to terminals) > > > > -Otto > > > >> > >> Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a > >> question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > >> > >> The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you > >> edited files. ed was the only game in town. > >> > >> (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were > >> documented on the sh man page.) > >> > >> Marc Rochkind > >> > >> On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: > >> > >>> Hi All, > >>> > >>> I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > >>> regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent > >>> explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm > >>> digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with > >>> them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate > >>> and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with > >>> Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of > >>> the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste > >>> and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes > >>> that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the > >>> subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and > >>> Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in > >>> the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > >>> Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > >>> > >>> After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed > >>> and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of > >>> these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a > >>> particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks > >>> kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut > >>> out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > >>> their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' > >>> memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a > >>> simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that > >>> were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't > >>> :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive > >>> source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for > >>> learning them? > >>> > >>> Thanks, > >>> > >>> Will > >>> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * > > From alec.muffett at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 17:51:55 2024 From: alec.muffett at gmail.com (Alec Muffett) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 07:51:55 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 4 Mar 2024, 03:38 Larry McVoy, wrote: > Marc is right. I'll add that I grew up in terminal rooms, a bunch of > kids connected to a VAX 780, like 40 or more. I have no idea how the > kids ahead of me learned but I learned by looking at their terminal > and going "what did you just do?". > > My real understanding of regex is from Henry Spencer's regex. > I have a similar story; I landed in Unix circa 1987 because the computer science students at UCL were all raving about Unix / the Pyramid (Did we pass unused cspyr accounts around the college nerd undergraduate underground? Nooooooo, we would never have done that, that would be "hacking…") and finally the physics department got some Suns too play with. I bought the Bourne book to navigate the basic shell utilities and of course there was source code (which we also weren't meant to have access to, etc etc) - but from my world "regexp" were a fuzzy concept defined by sed and grep (and various grep reimplementations) until Perl arrived and sedimented (crowned?) Henry's implementation. And that's why we call it PCRE. -a -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robpike at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 18:17:15 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 19:17:15 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: If that's really true, that you learned from Spencer's library, then you didn't learn the most important thing about them, which is the automata theory that guarantees their performance is always linear. Not to take anything away from Henry, who admitted at the time that it could be slow for bad expressions, but we're still paying the price for refusing to connect "regex" with the theory that created them, ignoring it in fact. Background: https://swtch.com/~rsc/regexp/regexp1.html -rob On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 2:38 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > Marc is right. I'll add that I grew up in terminal rooms, a bunch of > kids connected to a VAX 780, like 40 or more. I have no idea how the > kids ahead of me learned but I learned by looking at their terminal > and going "what did you just do?". > > My real understanding of regex is from Henry Spencer's regex. > > On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:03:39PM -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or > > thereabouts: > > > > First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along > > later. awk came along way later. > > > > There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The > man > > pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found > > them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us > back > > in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few > > times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need > to > > hunt around for more documentation! > > > > (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all > online. > > But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was > impossible. > > It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the > > expression was compiled.) > > > > Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a > > question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > > > > The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you > > edited files. ed was the only game in town. > > > > (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were > > documented on the sh man page.) > > > > Marc Rochkind > > > > On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31???PM Will Senn wrote: > > > > > Hi All, > > > > > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > > > regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent > > > explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so > I'm > > > digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated > with > > > them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something > appropriate > > > and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started > with > > > Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's > one of > > > the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal > taste > > > and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself > notes > > > that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the > > > subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, > and > > > Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about > them in > > > the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > > > Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > > > > > > After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, > sed > > > and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of > > > these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was > there a > > > particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that > folks > > > kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might > cut > > > out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > > > their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' > > > memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a > > > simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that > > > were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it > wasn't > > > :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the > definitive > > > source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for > > > learning them? > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > Will > > > > > > > > > -- > > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing > http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alec.muffett at gmail.com Mon Mar 4 18:43:48 2024 From: alec.muffett at gmail.com (Alec Muffett) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 08:43:48 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Mon, 4 Mar 2024, 08:27 Rob Pike, wrote [to Larry] Oh happy days. Hi Rob, loved the book. If that's really true, that you learned from Spencer's library, then you > didn't learn the most important thing about them, which is the automata > theory that guarantees their performance is always linear. Not to take > anything away from Henry, who admitted at the time that it could be slow > for bad expressions, but we're still paying the price for refusing to > connect "regex" with the theory that created them, ignoring it in fact. > I once got into a bunfight with a Googler on the topic of coding interview questions, on a related matter. He was promulgating a regular expression to correctly match/parse-out legitimate dotted-quad IPv4 addresses, including bounds-checking the octets to be in the range 0..255, and arguing that it since it was going to be run through a DFA that it was a sunk cost for efficiency and therefore perfect. The result looked like line noise, and he was perturbed that I said I would prefer to take a much simpler (NFA?) RE, parse out the ints and bounds-check them, just to reduce cognitive load and increase maintainability of code. We didn't really come to an agreement. -a -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Mar 4 20:21:16 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 02:21:16 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Mar 4 22:00:21 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?b?UGV0ZXIgV2VpbmJlcmdlciAo5rip5Y2a5qC8KSB2aWEgVFVIUw==?=) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 07:00:21 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: my recollection is that awk and sed were contemporaneous. On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 9:04 PM Marc Rochkind wrote: > > Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or thereabouts: > > First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along later. awk came along way later. > > There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The man pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many found them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all of us back in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the man page a few times to understand it, but at least that's all you had to read. No need to hunt around for more documentation! > > (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all online. But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions was impossible. It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on the fly as the expression was compiled.) > > Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > > The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how you edited files. ed was the only game in town. > > (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were documented on the sh man page.) > > Marc Rochkind > > On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: >> >> Hi All, >> >> I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my recent explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding of them, so I'm digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's deeply associated with them, so here we are. I went to the bookshelf to find something appropriate and as usual, I've traced to primary sources to some extent. I started with Mastering Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my personal taste and it's not quite as systematic as I would like (the author himself notes that his interests are less technical than authors preceding him on the subject). So, back to the shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and Kernighan & Pike's, The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in the context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... >> >> After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, grep, sed and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the wonderful nature of these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks go learn them? Was there a particularly good (succinct and accurate) source of information that folks kept handy? I'm imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut out the ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no stinkin' memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive enough that even a simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few examples... but if that were really the case, Friedl's book would have been a flop and it wasn't :). So seriously, if you remember that far back - what was the definitive source of your regex knowledge and what were the first motivators for learning them? >> >> Thanks, >> >> Will > > > > -- > My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com From ralph at inputplus.co.uk Mon Mar 4 22:05:23 2024 From: ralph at inputplus.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 12:05:23 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <202403040725.4247P73R004962@freefriends.org> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <84A1CCDB-15CD-4A67-949E-FC83A698E032@bluewin.ch> <202403040725.4247P73R004962@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <20240304120523.219C01FAA1@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Hi Arnold, > I learned regular expressions from Kernighan & Plauger's book > "Software Tools". I was exposed to that book, Unix (v6 on a PDP-11) > and C programming (via K&R's book) all at the same time. This was in > the fall of 1980. An excellent book. What I think you've not mentioned is that it implements regular expressions. Being inside the black box can aid understanding, including the performance of the matcher and the way the regexp is best written for a particular matcher. Kernighan and Pike's ‘The practice of programming’ also briefly implements some regexp functionality when talking about the power of notation. -- Cheers, Ralph. From arnold at skeeve.com Mon Mar 4 23:01:47 2024 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 06:01:47 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <20240304120523.219C01FAA1@orac.inputplus.co.uk> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <84A1CCDB-15CD-4A67-949E-FC83A698E032@bluewin.ch> <202403040725.4247P73R004962@freefriends.org> <20240304120523.219C01FAA1@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Message-ID: <202403041301.424D1ma3026176@freefriends.org> Hi Ralph. Ralph Corderoy wrote: > Hi Arnold, > > > I learned regular expressions from Kernighan & Plauger's book > > "Software Tools". I was exposed to that book, Unix (v6 on a PDP-11) > > and C programming (via K&R's book) all at the same time. This was in > > the fall of 1980. > > An excellent book. What I think you've not mentioned is that it > implements regular expressions. Being inside the black box can aid > understanding, including the performance of the matcher and the way the > regexp is best written for a particular matcher. Quite true. > Kernighan and Pike's ‘The practice of programming’ also briefly > implements some regexp functionality when talking about the power of > notation. What I didn't quite remember when I wrote the earlier note was that at the same time as I was learning C, Unix and software tools, I took a compiler course, using the first edition of the dragon book, which covered regular expressions, NFAs and DFAs. It all came together at the same time. Arnold From ads at salewski.email Mon Mar 4 23:17:07 2024 From: ads at salewski.email (Alan D. Salewski) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 08:17:07 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 3, 2024, at 20:30, Will Senn wrote: > Hi All, > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information for > regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? [...] > Thanks, > > Will I don't think I've seen in this thread mention of the 1968 CACM article by Ken Thompson: "Regular Expression Search Algorithm" Ken Thompson Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc., Murray Hill, New Jersey Communications of the ACM, Volume 11, Number 6, 1968-06 The abstract: A method for locating specific character strings embedded in character text is described and an implementation of this method in the form of a compiler is discussed. The compiler accepts a regular expression as source language and produces an IBM 7094 program as object language. The object program then accepts the text to be searched as input and produces a signal every time an embedded string in the text matches the given regular expression. Examples, problems, and solutions are also presented. -- a l a n d. s a l e w s k i ads at salewski.email salewski at att.net https://github.com/salewski From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Mar 5 00:25:00 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jan Schaumann via TUHS) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 09:25:00 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: Alec Muffett wrote: > I once got into a bunfight with a Googler on the topic of coding interview > questions, on a related matter. He was promulgating a regular expression to > correctly match/parse-out legitimate dotted-quad IPv4 addresses That seems an excellent illustration of "now they have two problems." (And now do IPv6.) If you need to pull IP addresses from text, the most liberal regex will generally be "good enough"; if you must be certain, feed the string to inet_aton(3). :-) -Jan From lm at mcvoy.com Tue Mar 5 00:34:59 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 06:34:59 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> <20240304033845.GB5304@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <20240304143459.GD5304@mcvoy.com> On Sun, Mar 03, 2024 at 07:38:45PM -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > Marc is right. I'll add that I grew up in terminal rooms, a bunch of > kids connected to a VAX 780, like 40 or more. I have no idea how the > kids ahead of me learned but I learned by looking at their terminal > and going "what did you just do?". > > My real understanding of regex is from Henry Spencer's regex. And this little implementation, I've used this one a lot. http://www.cs.yorku.ca/~oz/regex.bun From clemc at ccc.com Tue Mar 5 02:57:15 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 11:57:15 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: I've already had a chat with Will, but I wanted to add some other thoughts to the group as a whole: - As was pointed out by others, computer life (certainly not interactive computing) does not begin with UNIX (*i.e.* Interactive Text Editors have been around since the beginning of Interactive computing). I'll use Thomas Haigh and Paul Ceruzzi's text: "A New History of Modern computing" - which basically pegs that as CTSS. I don't know what the original editor was for CTSS. [if some one like Doug or Ken remembers, I'd be curious to know]. - Numerous editors show up on different systems, including STOPGAP on the MIT PDP6, eventually SOS, TECO, EMACs, *etc*., and most have some concept of a 'line of text' to distinguish from a 'card image.' - Common to all is some way to search or find text and some way to replace it - usually on a line of input. - One of them is Lampson and Deutsch's "quick editor" or QED for SDS. - Language theory was definitely a hot item by the mid-1960s and lots of papers discussing automaton and the like appear, including Ken's CACM 1968 article describing his reg-ex search algorithm implementation for the IBM 7094 [it should be findable with a search -- send me an email offline, I have a copy of a crappy scan but it is readable]. - Most editors like SOS, TECO and the like do not have support for reg-ex, but do have some way to do sophisticated searching (and replacement). - Ken wrote an implementation of QED for CTSS and included his search algorithm as an integral part of this new implementation. - When Ken writes the original UNIX editor, he bases it on the above. - UNIX builds up this idea of a pipeline, so building separate tools that connect together make sense and are natural. - When Rudd, Doug, Ken, Dennis, *et al* start to develop UNIX - they are building a system for *themselves.* - One member of the group (Lee McHahon) is using the g/re/p command to find things and gets the brilliant idea of a separate tool, grep(1) would be born. - The most important item here is that said team is a group of programmers, so it was logical that the system was useful and easy to understand by other programmers. Will asked how did people learn about Reg-Ex? The answer of course, it depends. But if you were to take college-level CS courses in the late 60s or the 70s, as Bakul mentioned (I also had a similar experience), if you were going to be taught about automata and simple language theory -- likely in your first data structures and algorithms class, as certainly by the time you took a compiler course. My memory is I learned basic automata theory in the first, but did not see the idea of regular expressions until compilers [in my case, this is all pre-dragon book]. For all of you later in the 70s, Aho and Ullman's classic text would have exposed it to you. FWIW: In the 2000's my daughter's college CS training, she never had to take a compiler or comparative languages course, but she was taught about reg-ex in her data structures course. The key is you were taught a bit about automata theory, but if you really started to study it, you look at things like the performance of the different algorithms. As Rob says, the key take away from learning about the reg-ex idea, is its linear performance. So, if you were trained in some of the formal CS ideas, *using reg-ex was not a huge lift*. It was natural. That said, if you were coming from other systems using things like SOS or Teco (like me), they offered search functions also but the expressions but no in the same way. It was a different way to do things, but people like me, quickly realized it was a lot more powerful and could do much more. *"Ah ha .. cool beans, apply something I already knew about in a way I had not seen before ... next item ..."* So there are a few things to realize from this. 1. Adding things like reg-ex to tools like sed(1) and awk(1) were natural follow-ons to things like grep(1) and ed(1). 2. If you were a CS person, it was not a big deal - just the more powerful "UNIX-way" as it were. But... 3. If you came from another world of computing (say DEC or a PC) where such tools were not exposed in a manner that was easy to build upon *and/or you had never been taught much of any core CS theory* [which is where Will cut his teeth], reg-ex might be astonishing. So I think its not a question of why -- it was just how UNIX did things. It was a natural way for a programmer to express something. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From will.senn at gmail.com Tue Mar 5 03:05:38 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 11:05:38 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: To close the loop a bit... I really appreciate the anecdotes and background. It's helpful to those of us who didn't live it. On the best resources front: The Unix Programmer's Manual for v7 contains: "A Tutorial Introduction to the UNIX Text Editor" by B. W. Kernighan - excellent coverage of Context Searching using a limited subset of regex. "Advanced Editing on UNIX" by B. W. Kernighan - lots of examples. "ed(1)" by authors of the manpages - super concise but thorough coverage of the regex rules (great followup to the tutorial). Articles: "Regular Expression Search Algorithm", by K. Thompson - an Algol-60 implementation of regex described in 4 pages... in 1968... I was 2 1/2. "Regular Expression Matching Can Be Simple and Fast", by Russ Cox - how can an article be both simple and deep? Great concision. Other Books: "The AWK Programming Language" by A. V. Aho, B. W. Kernighan, & P. J. Weinberger - the discussion on pp. 28-31, Regular Expressions, is the best I've seen. "Chapter 9. Regular Expresssions" in the XBD section of the SUS (IEEE Std 1003.1-2017) - Comprehensive presentation of the spec (good stuff, even if nobody perfectly implements it). There are plenty more, but with the tutorial, ed(1), and AWK book in hand, I think a beginner is covered. BTW, awk is awesome (particularly with the new csv additions) - I don't "need" the new unicode support, but it's nice. I didn't get awk, but when I figured out you could do this: awk '/SYS.*\(write\,/, /\)/' */* SYSCALL_DEFINE3(write, unsigned int, fd, const char __user *, buf,                size_t, count) in the kernel source, I was sold. I've never really wrapped my head around how to efficiently search over multiple lines, awk's range patterns... just make sense :). Even in it looks crazy, it works. ranges bounded by regexes... who'd of thunk it? Will On 3/3/24 8:03 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > Will, here's my recollection, when I got to UNIX in late 1972 or > thereabouts: > > First, there was ed. grep and sed were derived from ed, so came along > later. awk came along way later. > > There were only manual pages. You typed "man ed" and there it was. The > man pages were very accurate, very clear, and very authoritative. Many > found them too succinct, especially as UNIX got more popular, but all > of us back in the day found them perfect. Maybe you had to read the > man page a few times to understand it, but at least that's all you had > to read. No need to hunt around for more documentation! > > (Well, there was more documentation: The source code, which was all > online. But reading the ed source to understand regular expressions > was impossible. It was in assembler, and Ken was generating code on > the fly as the expression was compiled.) > > Also, it should be noted that ed produced a single error message: a > question mark. No wasting of teletype paper! > > The motivation for learning regular expressions was that that's how > you edited files. ed was the only game in town. > > (sh used a greatly restricted form of regular expressions, which were > documented on the sh man page.) > > Marc Rochkind > > On Sun, Mar 3, 2024 at 6:31 PM Will Senn wrote: > > Hi All, > > I was wondering, what were the best early sources of information > for regexes and why did folks need to know them to use unix? In my > recent explorations, I have needed to have a better understanding > of them, so I'm digging in... awk's my most recent thing and it's > deeply associated with them, so here we are. I went to the > bookshelf to find something appropriate and as usual, I've traced > to primary sources to some extent. I started with Mastering > Regular Expressions by Friedl, and I won't knock it (it's one of > the bestsellers in our field), but it's much to long for my > personal taste and it's not quite as systematic as I would like > (the author himself notes that his interests are less technical > than authors preceding him on the subject). So, back to the > shelves... Bourne's, The Unix Environment, and Kernighan & Pike's, > The Unix Programming Evironment both talk about them in the > context of grep, ed, sed, and awk. Going further back, the Unix > Programmer's Manual v7 - ed, grep, sed, awk... > > After digging around it seems like folks needed regexes for ed, > grep, sed and awk... and any other utility that leveraged the > wonderful nature of these handy expressions. Fine. Where did folks > go learn them? Was there a particularly good (succinct and > accurate) source of information that folks kept handy? I'm > imagining (based on what I've seen) that someone might cut out the > ed discussion or the grep pages of the manual and tape them to > their monitors, but maybe I'm stooopid and they didn't need no > stinkin' memory device for regexes - surely they're intuitive > enough that even a simpleton could pick them up after seeing a few > examples... but if that were really the case, Friedl's book would > have been a flop and it wasn't :). So seriously, if you remember > that far back - what was the definitive source of your regex > knowledge and what were the first motivators for learning them? > > Thanks, > > Will > > > > -- > /My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From phil at ultimate.com Tue Mar 5 04:38:54 2024 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 13:38:54 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: <202403041838.424IcsR8078692@ultimate.com> On the subject of learning how to use reg-exs: For the better part of a decade I worked on a VoIP system (whose first product plan was to replace the POTs network: the CTO had a candlestick phone (sans dial) in his cube attached to a VoIP ATA (everyone worked from a cube) to hilight that the telephone UI had gone from switchboard to dial to number pad, and was past due for replacement. The admin UI was a poor stepchild (the UX developer was explicitly excluded from work on it). To implement "dial plans" and call routing, the product had a screen with sed style match and replacements. My involvement with the product started in the second product plan: a multi-tenant conferencing system in a 1U box, first at a startup, after the startup was acquired by Alcatel, Alcatel became Alcatel-Lucent, and finally when ANOTHER startup purchased rights to maintain the code as critical to their operations. In that final setting, I ended up in a room with about 30 customer service representatives, none of whom I could easily imagine had ever C.S. course. I expressed my amazement at their ability to deal with the reg-ex interface, and apologized the fact that they had to deal with an interface with such sharp edges! From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Mar 5 04:40:40 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 18:40:40 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Lions' Commentary Revisions? Message-ID: I hope everyone's having a lovely tail end of whichever season is gracing your hemisphere. Had some surprise snow this morning up in the NW corner of the US, hoping it bodes well for a mild summer. I'm curious, is anyone aware of any attempts to revise John Lions's UNIX Commentary for versions beyond the Sixth Edition? Having finished my disassembly of the classic video game Dragon Quest this past year, I'm now doing some planning for a similar work and have considered practicing the art a little by doing some diffing of V6 and V7 and feeling out the process by putting down some revisions, that way I've got some of the flow and kinks worked out before I start on my own "Commentary on Dragon Quest" manuscript. I'd hate to double up on something someone else has already done though, so if V7 for instance has gotten this treatment, then perhaps focusing on PWB or the CB-UNIX kernel would minimize the potential rehashing. Also if anyone has any thoughts, suggestions, etc. from their own experiences working up very detailed source-level documentation of a large software product, I'd certainly be interested, as I know this is going to turn into quite the sprawling undertaking once I really get going, especially if I try and work in the differences between the Japanese and U.S. releases (of which there are many.) - Matt G. From rich.salz at gmail.com Tue Mar 5 04:43:26 2024 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 13:43:26 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 12:05 PM Will Senn wrote: > ranges bounded by regexes... who'd of thunk it? > Go read about the Rob Pike's sam editor (such as http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/sam/) and prepare to have your mind blown :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crossd at gmail.com Tue Mar 5 04:45:39 2024 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 13:45:39 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Lions' Commentary Revisions? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 1:41 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > I hope everyone's having a lovely tail end of whichever season is gracing your > hemisphere. Had some surprise snow this morning up in the NW corner of the US, > hoping it bodes well for a mild summer. > > I'm curious, is anyone aware of any attempts to revise John Lions's UNIX > Commentary for versions beyond the Sixth Edition? As I understand it, this was prohibited for 7th Edition and later by restrictions inserted into licenses for those versions. I don't know exactly how, as I'm not a lawyer. In terms of modern adaptations, there are commentaries for the Plan 9 (3rd Edition) source code that are similar to Lions, and the xv6 pedagogical system is accompanied by a similar commentary. - Dan C. From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Tue Mar 5 06:23:18 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 15:23:18 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Lions' Commentary Revisions? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> I'm curious, is anyone aware of any attempts to revise John Lions's UNIX >> Commentary for versions beyond the Sixth Edition? > As I understand it, this was prohibited for 7th Edition It would be OK now, for the 7th edition source has been released, free of the trade-secret constraint. On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 1:46 PM Dan Cross wrote: > On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 1:41 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > I hope everyone's having a lovely tail end of whichever season is > gracing your > > hemisphere. Had some surprise snow this morning up in the NW corner of > the US, > > hoping it bodes well for a mild summer. > > > > I'm curious, is anyone aware of any attempts to revise John Lions's UNIX > > Commentary for versions beyond the Sixth Edition? > > As I understand it, this was prohibited for 7th Edition and later by > restrictions inserted into licenses for those versions. I don't know > exactly how, as I'm not a lawyer. > > In terms of modern adaptations, there are commentaries for the Plan 9 > (3rd Edition) source code that are similar to Lions, and the xv6 > pedagogical system is accompanied by a similar commentary. > > - Dan C. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Mar 5 06:57:51 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Mon, 4 Mar 2024 12:57:51 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steffen at sdaoden.eu Tue Mar 5 07:05:27 2024 From: steffen at sdaoden.eu (Steffen Nurpmeso) Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2024 22:05:27 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] regex early discussions In-Reply-To: References: <13abd764-984a-4c9f-8e3e-b1eb7c624692@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240304210527.xG3S1Cp7@steffen%sdaoden.eu> Rich Salz wrote in : |On Mon, Mar 4, 2024 at 12:05 PM Will Senn wrote: |> ranges bounded by regexes... who'd of thunk it? |> | |Go read about the Rob Pike's sam editor (such as |http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/sam/) and prepare to have |your mind blown :) I wanted to point to that. --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt) From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Thu Mar 7 00:55:18 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 09:55:18 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined Message-ID: > When Rudd, Doug, Ken, Dennis, *et al* start to develop UNIX Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not one of those who "start[ed] to develop it". Doug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brantley at coraid.com Thu Mar 7 01:03:49 2024 From: brantley at coraid.com (Brantley Coile) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 10:03:49 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5C658CA4-7949-4A6F-9FFC-335E207BBB27@coraid.com> It all depends on how you define "started." Your contributions to it was done while it was still in the maternity ward of the hospital in which it was birthed. I would argue, at length if need be, but I suspect it's not needed, that you indeed "started to develop it." Did only Ken started it. Who was in the room when Ken outlined the file system? You're finger prints are all over everything from very, very early. From a quarter the way into the 21st century, you certainly appear to have started to develop it. Just my humble opinion. my disclaimer is that I've always held your contributions in very high regard. Brantley > On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:55 AM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > > When Rudd, Doug, Ken, Dennis, et al start to develop UNIX > > Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not one of those who "start[ed] to develop it". > > Doug From rminnich at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 02:42:58 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 08:42:58 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man Message-ID: [image: unnamed.png] CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a mistake. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: unnamed.png Type: image/png Size: 703466 bytes Desc: not available URL: From clemc at ccc.com Thu Mar 7 02:50:10 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 11:50:10 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: CCA - a.k.a. zimmerman emacs. ᐧ On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:43 AM ron minnich wrote: > [image: unnamed.png] > CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > > I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a mistake. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: unnamed.png Type: image/png Size: 703466 bytes Desc: not available URL: From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Thu Mar 7 02:53:52 2024 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 11:53:52 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined Message-ID: <20240306165352.6689418C082@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Douglas McIlroy > Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not one of > those who "start[ed] to develop it". http://doc.cat-v.org/unix/pipes/ Dennis wrote that "UNIX is a very conservative system. Only a handful of its ideas are genuinely new." (And quite right he was, too!) Among the ones that are new, pipes, although less important now than they used to be, were a major part of the constellation of things that drove its adoption, early on. And I can't see how pushing pipes was not "developing UNIX"! I'm afraid you'll just have to live with it! :-) Noel From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 02:53:38 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 11:53:38 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 11:43, ron minnich wrote: > [image: unnamed.png] > CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > > I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a mistake. > I assume "Unix 4.2" is meant to be 4.2BSD? Where is this taken from? Byte? -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: unnamed.png Type: image/png Size: 703466 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 7 02:57:13 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (John Floren via TUHS) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2024 08:57:13 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Henry Bent writes: > On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 11:43, ron minnich wrote: > > unnamed.png > > CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > > I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a mistake. > > I assume "Unix 4.2" is meant to be 4.2BSD? > > Where is this taken from? Byte? > > -Henry I'm the one who sent Ron the picture, unfortunately I don't know where it came from, I just saw it on Lars Brinkhoff's Mastodon page: https://mastodon.sdf.org/@larsbrinkhoff/111752938080610123 The confused gentleman sorta looks like if Wolfman Jack got a haircut and went into software dev. I assume Ron knows who he is and is just testing us. john From rminnich at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 03:07:06 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 09:07:06 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Message-ID: no, I really don't recall who it is , but ... I feel like I should know. On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 8:59 AM John Floren via TUHS wrote: > > Henry Bent writes: > > > On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 11:43, ron minnich wrote: > > > > unnamed.png > > > > CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > > > > I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a > mistake. > > > > I assume "Unix 4.2" is meant to be 4.2BSD? > > > > Where is this taken from? Byte? > > > > -Henry > > I'm the one who sent Ron the picture, unfortunately I don't know where > it came from, I just saw it on Lars Brinkhoff's Mastodon page: > https://mastodon.sdf.org/@larsbrinkhoff/111752938080610123 > > The confused gentleman sorta looks like if Wolfman Jack got a haircut > and went into software dev. I assume Ron knows who he is and is just > testing us. > > john > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crossd at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 03:06:55 2024 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 12:06:55 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:59 AM John Floren via TUHS wrote: > [snip] > The confused gentleman sorta looks like if Wolfman Jack got a haircut > and went into software dev. I assume Ron knows who he is and is just > testing us. John, I'm shocked that you would be so cavalier in your description of a young Ron Minnich. Shocked, I say. - Dan C. From lars at nocrew.org Thu Mar 7 03:41:04 2024 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2024 17:41:04 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> (John Floren via TUHS's message of "Wed, 06 Mar 2024 08:57:13 -0800") References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Message-ID: <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> John Floren wrote: > Henry Bent wrote: >> ron minnich wrote: >> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... >> Where is this taken from? Byte? > I'm the one who sent Ron the picture, unfortunately I don't know where > it came from, I just saw it on Lars Brinkhoff's Mastodon page: > https://mastodon.sdf.org/@larsbrinkhoff/111752938080610123 It's from here: https://archive.org/details/Unix_Review_1985_Dec.pdf/page/n21/mode/2up I found a copy of CCA Emacs, but there's a copyright owner and they didn't agree to put it online. From rminnich at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 03:50:11 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 09:50:11 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: but I'm convinced the person in the picture was .. someone ... I used to at least know of .... but who? I don't see the company selling CCA Emacs, advertising in byte, hiring male models. ("but why male models?") On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 9:47 AM Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > John Floren wrote: > > Henry Bent wrote: > >> ron minnich wrote: > >> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > >> Where is this taken from? Byte? > > I'm the one who sent Ron the picture, unfortunately I don't know where > > it came from, I just saw it on Lars Brinkhoff's Mastodon page: > > https://mastodon.sdf.org/@larsbrinkhoff/111752938080610123 > > It's from here: > https://archive.org/details/Unix_Review_1985_Dec.pdf/page/n21/mode/2up > > I found a copy of CCA Emacs, but there's a copyright owner and they > didn't agree to put it online. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Thu Mar 7 04:07:05 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 10:07:05 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 9:41 AM Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > John Floren wrote: > > Henry Bent wrote: > >> ron minnich wrote: > >> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > >> Where is this taken from? Byte? > > I'm the one who sent Ron the picture, unfortunately I don't know where > > it came from, I just saw it on Lars Brinkhoff's Mastodon page: > > https://mastodon.sdf.org/@larsbrinkhoff/111752938080610123 > > It's from here: > https://archive.org/details/Unix_Review_1985_Dec.pdf/page/n21/mode/2up > > I found a copy of CCA Emacs, but there's a copyright owner and they > didn't agree to put it online. > Who is the current owner? Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lars at nocrew.org Thu Mar 7 04:12:04 2024 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2024 18:12:04 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: (Warner Losh's message of "Wed, 6 Mar 2024 10:07:05 -0800") References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <7wa5nbs00b.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Warner Losh writes: > I found a copy of CCA Emacs, but there's a copyright owner and they > didn't agree to put it online. > > Who is the current owner? As far as I understand, Rocket Software. From fariborz.t at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 04:28:27 2024 From: fariborz.t at gmail.com (Skip Tavakkolian) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 10:28:27 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: References: <874jdj5mb3.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> <7wedcns1fz.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: Emacs is Not UNIX :-P On Wed, Mar 6, 2024, 10:07 AM Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 9:41 AM Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > >> John Floren wrote: >> > Henry Bent wrote: >> >> ron minnich wrote: >> >> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... >> >> Where is this taken from? Byte? >> > I'm the one who sent Ron the picture, unfortunately I don't know where >> > it came from, I just saw it on Lars Brinkhoff's Mastodon page: >> > https://mastodon.sdf.org/@larsbrinkhoff/111752938080610123 >> >> It's from here: >> https://archive.org/details/Unix_Review_1985_Dec.pdf/page/n21/mode/2up >> >> I found a copy of CCA Emacs, but there's a copyright owner and they >> didn't agree to put it online. >> > > Who is the current owner? > > Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brantley at coraid.com Thu Mar 7 04:33:22 2024 From: brantley at coraid.com (Brantley Coile) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 13:33:22 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined In-Reply-To: <20240306165352.6689418C082@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20240306165352.6689418C082@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <46A865A6-FE0C-4664-A745-FD46A8728D0D@coraid.com> Here here. bwc > On Mar 6, 2024, at 11:54 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: > >  >> >> From: Douglas McIlroy > >> Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not one of >> those who "start[ed] to develop it". > > http://doc.cat-v.org/unix/pipes/ > > Dennis wrote that "UNIX is a very conservative system. Only a handful of its > ideas are genuinely new." (And quite right he was, too!) Among the ones that > are new, pipes, although less important now than they used to be, were a major > part of the constellation of things that drove its adoption, early on. And I > can't see how pushing pipes was not "developing UNIX"! I'm afraid you'll just > have to live with it! :-) > > Noel > From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Thu Mar 7 05:53:50 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 14:53:50 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined In-Reply-To: <5C658CA4-7949-4A6F-9FFC-335E207BBB27@coraid.com> References: <5C658CA4-7949-4A6F-9FFC-335E207BBB27@coraid.com> Message-ID: Very kind words from Brantley and Clem. It's an interesting notion to regard Unix as gestational until it came out in public talks (1973) and was exported to universities. Maybe I could claim to have laid the groundwork for Unix by causing Multics to be written in PL/I, a language big and sprawling, like the project itself. That unintentionally provided plenty of stimulus for thinking small. Ken was absolutely on his own when he began to fiddle with building a tiny operating system on the GE 645. I heard about it only after the fact. After Multics, I ran interference to keep our once-burned higher management from frowning too much on further operating-system research. I was aware that Ken, Dennis and Rudd were discussing the subject down the hall from my office, but I did not participate in the discussions. At the same time, I was noodling over what would later be called shell pipelines; but I did not come up with the vivid term "pipe" or a halfway workable syntax for another three years. While these actions may have contributed to a welcoming environment for Unix, they in no way "started" it. Doug On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 10:03 AM Brantley Coile wrote: > It all depends on how you define "started." > > Your contributions to it was done while it was still in the maternity ward > of the hospital in which it was birthed. I would argue, at length if need > be, but I suspect it's not needed, that you indeed "started to develop it." > Did only Ken started it. Who was in the room when Ken outlined the file > system? You're finger prints are all over everything from very, very early. > > From a quarter the way into the 21st century, you certainly appear to have > started to develop it. > > Just my humble opinion. my disclaimer is that I've always held your > contributions in very high regard. > > Brantley > > > On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:55 AM, Douglas McIlroy < > douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote: > > > > > When Rudd, Doug, Ken, Dennis, et al start to develop UNIX > > > > Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not one of > those who "start[ed] to develop it". > > > > Doug > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From will.senn at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 06:06:11 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 14:06:11 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined In-Reply-To: References: <5C658CA4-7949-4A6F-9FFC-335E207BBB27@coraid.com> Message-ID: <19cdd531-4dc8-4b49-aa2b-51eec90d75d6@gmail.com> Pioneer, then - surely, you beat the rush :). On 3/6/24 1:53 PM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > Very kind words from Brantley and Clem. It's an interesting notion to > regard Unix as gestational until it came out in public talks (1973) > and was exported to universities. > > Maybe I could claim to have laid the groundwork for Unix by causing > Multics to be written in PL/I, a language big and sprawling, like the > project itself. That unintentionally provided plenty of stimulus for > thinking small. Ken was absolutely on his own when he began to fiddle > with building a tiny operating system on the GE 645. I heard about it > only after the fact. > > After Multics, I ran interference to keep our once-burned higher > management from frowning too much on further operating-system > research. I was aware that Ken, Dennis and Rudd were discussing the > subject down the hall from my office, but I did not participate in the > discussions. At the same time, I was noodling over what would later be > called shell pipelines; but I did not come up with the vivid term > "pipe"  or a halfway workable syntax for another three years. While > these actions may have contributed to a welcoming environment for > Unix, they in no way "started" it. > > Doug > > On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 10:03 AM Brantley Coile > wrote: > > It all depends on how you define "started." > > Your contributions to it was done while it was still in the > maternity ward of the hospital in which it was birthed. I would > argue, at length if need be, but I suspect it's not needed, that > you indeed "started to develop it." Did only Ken started it. Who > was in the room when Ken outlined the file system? You're finger > prints are all over everything from very, very early. > > From a quarter the way into the 21st century, you certainly appear > to have started to develop it. > > Just my humble opinion. my disclaimer is that I've always held > your contributions in very high regard. > > Brantley > > > On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:55 AM, Douglas McIlroy > wrote: > > > > > When Rudd, Doug, Ken, Dennis, et al start to develop UNIX > > > > Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not > one of those who "start[ed] to develop it". > > > > Doug > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 07:16:04 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 16:16:04 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] SVR2 on a PDP-11 Message-ID: Hello all, I have a distribution of SVR2 on the PDP-11 that I have managed to get booting into the initial root dump, but it is not clear to me how to proceed from there to format a /usr filesystem and setup for multi-user. The root dump boots on a simulated 11/70 with an RP06: -- sim> boot rp #0=unixgdtm UNIX/sysV: unixgdtm real mem = 3145728 bytes avail mem = 3068864 bytes INIT: SINGLE USER MODE -- I'm mostly a BSD person but I'm familiar enough with some later SysV systems. That being said, the initialization procedure here is completely foreign to me. I have cpio files for the entire system and I know in theory how to extract them, but I'm stuck at the basics of creating /usr, setting up /etc and the like. I have a fully extracted filesystem from the cpio files that I can browse but I can't find enough information in the manpages. I haven't managed to find any installation manuals or the like on Bitsavers, and I can't even manage to find a listing in the source of the expected disk partitions/sizes. I feel very much like I am stumbling in the dark here and would appreciate any pointers to how to proceed. Thanks! -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 7 07:45:11 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2024 21:45:11 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined In-Reply-To: References: <5C658CA4-7949-4A6F-9FFC-335E207BBB27@coraid.com> Message-ID: <4pgV5_iD_8o-bsF8_GfxuR5jG49CxGl-FALoO7a5G5k0Xwtaq39zkATBU8O-mIORXpt4U_kI_pLokc5f-qrQo2GP6JdI3N2Df_b8UUqhl9k=@protonmail.com> On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 11:53 AM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > After Multics, I ran interference to keep our once-burned higher management from frowning too much on further operating-system research. > > Doug This alone is an all-too-valuable skill that contributes to the cultural success of countless projects. Great ideas can too often die on the vine when the upper echelons have quite different opinions of where time and effort should be placed, and I am glad that in my own career I likewise work with understanding immediate supervisors and business analysts that go to bat for our needs and concerns. The importance of a supportive workplace culture in which work is genuinely valued and defended cannot be understated. - Matt G. From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 7 07:51:19 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2024 21:51:19 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] SVR2 on a PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 1:16 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > Hello all, > > I have a distribution of SVR2 on the PDP-11 that I have managed to get booting into the initial root dump, but it is not clear to me how to proceed from there to format a /usr filesystem and setup for multi-user. > > ... > > I haven't managed to find any installation manuals or the like on Bitsavers, and I can't even manage to find a listing in the source of the expected disk partitions/sizes. I feel very much like I am stumbling in the dark here and would appreciate any pointers to how to proceed. Thanks! > > -Henry First off I didn't know SVR2 made it to the PDP-11, I thought they cut it off after the initial System V release, is what you have AT&T or some derivative version? Second, this is the setup instructions for DEC processors for the initial release of System V which included the PDP-11/70: https://archive.org/details/unix-system-administrators-guide-5-0/04%20Setting%20Up%20The%20UNIX%20System%20%28DEC%29/ Additionally, here is the Operator's Guide which details bootstrapping the system among other things: https://archive.org/details/unix-system-operators-guide-release-5-0/mode/2up While not SVR2, hopefully the differences are minimal enough that you can use those. Good luck! Also regarding finding more documentation, sadly AT&T stripped out the /usr/doc materials with System V, so these critical pieces of documentation actually can't be found in a typical system distribution, rather, you had to get the paper copies. I'm not aware of any discovery of TROFF sources for any of this stuff past System III, I do have it on my long-term list to eventually synthesize copies of said documents from available scans so they can be more easily diff'd, but my current focus is much, much earlier. - Matt G. From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 07:55:23 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 6 Mar 2024 16:55:23 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] SVR2 on a PDP-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 16:51, segaloco wrote: > On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 1:16 PM, Henry Bent < > henry.r.bent at gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hello all, > > > > I have a distribution of SVR2 on the PDP-11 that I have managed to get > booting into the initial root dump, but it is not clear to me how to > proceed from there to format a /usr filesystem and setup for multi-user. > > > > ... > > > > I haven't managed to find any installation manuals or the like on > Bitsavers, and I can't even manage to find a listing in the source of the > expected disk partitions/sizes. I feel very much like I am stumbling in the > dark here and would appreciate any pointers to how to proceed. Thanks! > > > > -Henry > > First off I didn't know SVR2 made it to the PDP-11, I thought they cut it > off after the initial System V release, is what you have AT&T or some > derivative version? > > Second, this is the setup instructions for DEC processors for the initial > release of System V which included the PDP-11/70: > https://archive.org/details/unix-system-administrators-guide-5-0/04%20Setting%20Up%20The%20UNIX%20System%20%28DEC%29/ > > Additionally, here is the Operator's Guide which details bootstrapping the > system among other things: > https://archive.org/details/unix-system-operators-guide-release-5-0/mode/2up > > While not SVR2, hopefully the differences are minimal enough that you can > use those. Good luck! > > Also regarding finding more documentation, sadly AT&T stripped out the > /usr/doc materials with System V, so these critical pieces of documentation > actually can't be found in a typical system distribution, rather, you had > to get the paper copies. I'm not aware of any discovery of TROFF sources > for any of this stuff past System III, I do have it on my long-term list to > eventually synthesize copies of said documents from available scans so they > can be more easily diff'd, but my current focus is much, much earlier. > Thank you, this is a wonderful starting point. I often forget that sometimes archive.org will have documentation that is not duplicated in other sources, so this is a welcome reminder. I'll read through all of this and report back. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 7 09:29:16 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2024 23:29:16 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] SysV* on a PDP-11 Message-ID: Just to bring it full circle, after a bit of discussion it looks like what Henry is working with is the initial System V release for PDP-11/70, not some fabled PDP-11 SVR2, so the documentation I linked as well as some material on squoze.net concerning System V in SimH all apply directly. Subject adjusted accordingly. - Matt G. On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 1:55 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > On Wed, 6 Mar 2024 at 16:51, segaloco wrote: > >> On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 1:16 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >> >>> Hello all, >>> >>> I have a distribution of SVR2 on the PDP-11 that I have managed to get booting into the initial root dump, but it is not clear to me how to proceed from there to format a /usr filesystem and setup for multi-user. >>> >>> ... >>> >>> I haven't managed to find any installation manuals or the like on Bitsavers, and I can't even manage to find a listing in the source of the expected disk partitions/sizes. I feel very much like I am stumbling in the dark here and would appreciate any pointers to how to proceed. Thanks! >>> >>> -Henry >> >> First off I didn't know SVR2 made it to the PDP-11, I thought they cut it off after the initial System V release, is what you have AT&T or some derivative version? >> >> Second, this is the setup instructions for DEC processors for the initial release of System V which included the PDP-11/70: https://archive.org/details/unix-system-administrators-guide-5-0/04%20Setting%20Up%20The%20UNIX%20System%20%28DEC%29/ >> >> Additionally, here is the Operator's Guide which details bootstrapping the system among other things: https://archive.org/details/unix-system-operators-guide-release-5-0/mode/2up >> >> While not SVR2, hopefully the differences are minimal enough that you can use those. Good luck! >> >> Also regarding finding more documentation, sadly AT&T stripped out the /usr/doc materials with System V, so these critical pieces of documentation actually can't be found in a typical system distribution, rather, you had to get the paper copies. I'm not aware of any discovery of TROFF sources for any of this stuff past System III, I do have it on my long-term list to eventually synthesize copies of said documents from available scans so they can be more easily diff'd, but my current focus is much, much earlier. > > Thank you, this is a wonderful starting point. I often forget that sometimes archive.org will have documentation that is not duplicated in other sources, so this is a welcome reminder. I'll read through all of this and report back. > > -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 7 11:33:14 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 01:33:14 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Honor declined In-Reply-To: References: <5C658CA4-7949-4A6F-9FFC-335E207BBB27@coraid.com> <4pgV5_iD_8o-bsF8_GfxuR5jG49CxGl-FALoO7a5G5k0Xwtaq39zkATBU8O-mIORXpt4U_kI_pLokc5f-qrQo2GP6JdI3N2Df_b8UUqhl9k=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <52jXU50hSP6ccfPx2gI1k1Ju04FsT3pickaDTKJ-5z2HjDERY5d3Yh-qGt0Q9Vhh0Id12f59JeIkMF7PscJrDFQkRXOgfwZog-p7xP5O3Rg=@protonmail.com> On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 3:55 PM, Ken Thompson wrote: > On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 1:45 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > On Wednesday, March 6th, 2024 at 11:53 AM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > > > > After Multics, I ran interference to keep our once-burned higher management from frowning too much on further operating-system research. > > > > > > Doug > > > > This alone is an all-too-valuable skill that contributes to the cultural success of countless projects. Great ideas can too often die on the vine when the upper echelons have quite different opinions of where time and effort should be placed, and I am glad that in my own career I likewise work with understanding immediate supervisors and business analysts that go to bat for our needs and concerns. The importance of a supportive workplace culture in which work is genuinely valued and defended cannot be understated. > > > > - Matt G. > > unix was written in c, c was written in b, b was written in tmg,and doug wrote tmg. it is all his fault. > > Ken, your modesty is showing :) I feel the same way about big things I'm working on in my day job. No matter how much folks try to laud me as our architect, nothing I did would exist without what my supervisor years and years ago handed me to start with before he moved on to greener pastures. Invention will always be a group effort, I'm just so glad this particular group effort (re: UNIX) has and continues to have the impact that it does. A former manager (and respected colleague) would often say "I'm rubber, you're glue, what you bounce off me sticks to you." and it took me a little bit to appreciate what I thought he meant, but even longer to realize that saying encompassed the good as well. - Matt G. P.S. Hey Dave, I Bcc'd you, discussions with folks here often remind me of your good advice and management. Hope you're well, would love to hear from you if you see this! From jeffryrabramson at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 16:47:26 2024 From: jeffryrabramson at gmail.com (Jeffry R. Abramson) Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 01:47:26 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? Message-ID: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by floppy. When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at work and there was just a larger range of applications available. Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their primary home computing needs? Jeff From arnold at skeeve.com Thu Mar 7 19:09:57 2024 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 02:09:57 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <202403070909.42799vAR003680@freefriends.org> "Jeffry R. Abramson" wrote: > Thinking of looking for something simpler and was just wondering what > do other old timers use for their primary home computing needs? I run Ubuntu Mate. All the nice features of Ubuntu, plus a more normal UI and everything just works. In particular it handles current hardware (laptops, wifi, etc) fine, as well as knowing about network printers, generally without problems. I work with a bunch of terminal windows with Bash and gvim for editing, evince for viewing PDFs and a web browser. If you want a more do-it-yourself kind of feel, you might try some variant of Plan 9; the 9front fork is the most actively developed. Plan 9 has ben on my to-do list for a few decades now; maybe once I retire I'll actually get to it. :-) Be forewarned that there's a learning curve there, Plan 9 is most definitely NOT Unix. HTH, Arnold From marc.donner at gmail.com Thu Mar 7 21:04:25 2024 From: marc.donner at gmail.com (Marc Donner) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 06:04:25 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <202403070909.42799vAR003680@freefriends.org> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <202403070909.42799vAR003680@freefriends.org> Message-ID: For day-to-day (email, web, blah blah) I keep a relatively current MacOS box. In addition I keep a ‘toy data center’ - a set of four NUC machines running Ubuntu on which I keep my various system management projects and development projects. They are all headless, so I have a small hdmi display I plug in when I need to do release upgrades and other tasks that require a ‘console’. ===== nygeek.net mindthegapdialogs.com/home On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:10 AM wrote: > "Jeffry R. Abramson" wrote: > > > Thinking of looking for something simpler and was just wondering what > > do other old timers use for their primary home computing needs? > > I run Ubuntu Mate. All the nice features of Ubuntu, plus a more > normal UI and everything just works. In particular it handles > current hardware (laptops, wifi, etc) fine, as well as knowing about > network printers, generally without problems. I work with a bunch > of terminal windows with Bash and gvim for editing, evince for viewing > PDFs and a web browser. > > If you want a more do-it-yourself kind of feel, you might try some > variant of Plan 9; the 9front fork is the most actively developed. > Plan 9 has ben on my to-do list for a few decades now; maybe once > I retire I'll actually get to it. :-) Be forewarned that there's > a learning curve there, Plan 9 is most definitely NOT Unix. > > HTH, > > Arnold > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From benjamin.p.kallus.gr at dartmouth.edu Thu Mar 7 23:08:57 2024 From: benjamin.p.kallus.gr at dartmouth.edu (Ben Kallus) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 13:08:57 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: What about Linux is too bloated, in your opinion? Is it the kernel itself, or the programs that often go with it? If it's the former, OpenBSD may be a good choice. If it's the latter, I would look into a minimal distribution (e.g. Alpine, Void, arguably Arch) paired with a tiling window manager (e.g. Sway, dwm). -Ben -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ralph at inputplus.co.uk Thu Mar 7 23:16:17 2024 From: ralph at inputplus.co.uk (Ralph Corderoy) Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 13:16:17 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240307131617.C5CA9200AA@orac.inputplus.co.uk> Is this topic more suitable for the sibling COFF list? https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo -- Cheers, Ralph. From brantley at coraid.com Thu Mar 7 23:31:53 2024 From: brantley at coraid.com (Brantley Coile) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 08:31:53 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <917F9894-B482-4FED-9261-73B9A930E4BC@coraid.com> Primarily Plan 9. Currently using Mac OS X to run drawterm. I removed VGA from Plan 9 years ago. I'll be adding it back at some point, after which I'll switch mostly over to a Plan 9 terminal. But we also run almost everything else for testing. Brantley > On Mar 7, 2024, at 1:47 AM, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > > I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my > primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo > editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was > FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux > when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working > for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from > retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for > whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by > floppy. > > When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I > installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an > NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was > never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying > the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported > from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a > closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- > System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school > in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. > > I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user > community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at > work and there was just a larger range of applications available. > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? > > Jeff > > From lm at mcvoy.com Fri Mar 8 00:23:32 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 06:23:32 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240307142332.GH2252@mcvoy.com> First it was Slackware with ctwm, then I wanted more stuff to work out of the box and went to xubuntu. Been there for 20+ years. On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 01:47:26AM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my > primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo > editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was > FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux > when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working > for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from > retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for > whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by > floppy. > > When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I > installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an > NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was > never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying > the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported > from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a > closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- > System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school > in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. > > I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user > community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at > work and there was just a larger range of applications available. > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? > > Jeff > -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From usotsuki at buric.co Fri Mar 8 00:38:15 2024 From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 09:38:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my > primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo > editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was > FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux > when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working > for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from > retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for > whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by > floppy. My current daily driver is Debian 11 (because I don't have the room for a distro upgrade). Went back and forth between Debian and Windows since about 2005. I'd thought of trying to do my own rewrite of SVR4/4.2 for kicks, but I don't think I'd be able to daily-drive it and I wanted to start with an existing kernel - and getting started has proven to be about a pain. (I've proposed both Linux, with clang and musl, and NetBSD, with clang and its own libc, as the starting points.) > When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I > installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an > NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was > never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying > the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported > from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a > closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- > System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school > in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. No wonder, really, given the common ancestry. > I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user > community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at > work and there was just a larger range of applications available. > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? I think they've all gotten bloaty anymore. -uso. From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 8 00:45:37 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Michael Usher via TUHS) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 06:45:37 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <20240307142332.GH2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <20240307142332.GH2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <56a3bcc1-ed39-41d1-870c-d9855e776307@Spark> SImple, reliable and useful is the key. Mobile devices are iphone / ipad.  Fixed workstation is a hackintosh, but I'm thinking of buying an M3 mac mini.  My kids prefer a mix of Ubuntu or Windows. Home servers are a mixture - proxmox, opnsense, truenas core + scale, xcp-ng for some VMs for study (previously ESXi free tier).  Twenty years ago I was running gentoo with a nightly build.  But now I'm moving from Ubuntu over to Debian 12.  This is also my homelab -- I learn by trying new stuff. For my ex-father-in-law's business which I manage, I selected more easily supported platforms - Cisco for some routers, switches, phones and Call Manager Express + Unity, Ubiquiti for most of his APs, vmware for VMs (Apache, mySQL, mailcow...), pfsense, truenas core, lots of Ubuntu server and ArcaOS (OS2). — Michael Usher University of California, Santa Cruz On Mar 7, 2024 at 06:23 -0800, Larry McVoy , wrote: > First it was Slackware with ctwm, then I wanted more stuff to work out > of the box and went to xubuntu. Been there for 20+ years. > > On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 01:47:26AM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > > I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my > > primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo > > editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was > > FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux > > when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working > > for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from > > retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for > > whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by > > floppy. > > > > When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I > > installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an > > NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was > > never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying > > the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported > > from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a > > closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- > > System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school > > in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. > > > > I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user > > community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at > > work and there was just a larger range of applications available. > > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > > primary home computing needs? > > > > Jeff > > > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clemc at ccc.com Fri Mar 8 01:40:14 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 10:40:14 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: Like Marc Donner, my primary system, UNIX or otherwise, in which I'm typing this message, is a current late model MacPro (arm/Sonoma) - which I switched to Apple's UNIX flavor about 20+ years ago and have yet to look back. That said, I have almost every OS that runs on x86 from different Linux flavors and BSDs, plus lots of different I/O controllers for conversion in my basement. Further, I also have a number of historical (non-Intel or Arm-based) computers on my different ethernets. FWIW: I also have a ton of SCSI equipment that's either on a FreeBSD Box (most often), or I have a RATOC SCSI to USB2 controller cable that 'just works' on my Mac and/or any x86 laptop I have around. It is known to talk to the disks as well as recently discussed Archive Viper QIC drives. That said, I've never tried the USB to SCSI cable with a Linux -- only MacOS and Winders (I never needed to use it with anything else). Also, I have never tried that interface with 9-track, which is on the FreeBSD systems SCSI chain driven by an on-motherboard Adaptec PCI to SCSI. The only real issue I have had trying to use SCSI peripherals with MacOS is that traditional BSD is not included in the last N versions of the Apple developers tool kit, making a compilation of old tape-based C code a PITA. Still, if you install the controller and can manage to rebuild -- it all seems to work fine. Clem ᐧ ᐧ ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wangude at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 01:56:30 2024 From: wangude at gmail.com (Thomas Kellar) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 10:56:30 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hopefully people are not getting tired of this: Desktop is a 10 year old Dell running Windows 10 with Cygwin for access to servers Plus Old Chromebook which, I guess is an Android OS Servers are ALL Ubuntu. (Intel and AMD cores) Raspbian OS in Raspberry pis. I think that is Debian derived. As am ex-sysadmin I love command line stuff Thomas ᐧ > ᐧ > ᐧ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jcapp at anteil.com Fri Mar 8 02:03:41 2024 From: jcapp at anteil.com (Jim Capp) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 11:03:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <690043.1898.1709827421874.JavaMail.root@zimbraanteil> Hi Folks, I cut my UNIX teeth on Xenix in the early 80's and have been using some flavor of *nix ever since. I'm a CLI guy and we run hundreds of Linux vm hosts and guests at work. I've steered clear of M$oft for nearly my entire career. I weaned my wife off of M$oft 20 years ago and just recently moved her from Linux to an iMac. When I'm at home, its MacOS. $.02 Jim From: "Jeffry R. Abramson" To: tuhs at tuhs.org Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2024 1:47:26 AM Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by floppy. When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at work and there was just a larger range of applications available. Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their primary home computing needs? Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrochkind at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 02:12:52 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 09:12:52 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: To my way of thinking, the OS itself matters only if you're developing or supporting the OS, or doing development for that OS. Otherwise, the overwhelming criteria are what applications are available. I use Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop for my photography, and those are available only for MacOS and Windows. Because of very bad experiences with Apple as a developer of apps for the iPhone, I don't like anything Apple, so I use Windows for my desktop and laptop, and an Android phone. I often hear that there are Open Source equivalents for Lightroom and Photoshop, but the people saying that aren't serious photographers. If you don't require any particular applications, then, as I said, the OS doesn't matter, so Linux and FreeBSD are fine choices. I've long been impressed with how usable distros like Ubuntu have become over the years. On rare occasions, I need to run a UNIX/Linux program, and for that I used to use the MacOS command line back when I used a Mac, and now use Windows System for Linux, which runs Ubuntu. (Like everything else posted here, these are my opinions, likely not anyone else's.) Marc Rochkind On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 8:52 AM Clem Cole wrote: > Like Marc Donner, my primary system, UNIX or otherwise, in which I'm > typing this message, is a current late model MacPro (arm/Sonoma) - which I > switched to Apple's UNIX flavor about 20+ years ago and have yet to look > back. That said, I have almost every OS that runs on x86 from different > Linux flavors and BSDs, plus lots of different I/O controllers for > conversion in my basement. Further, I also have a number of historical > (non-Intel or Arm-based) computers on my different ethernets. FWIW: I > also have a ton of SCSI equipment that's either on a FreeBSD Box (most > often), or I have a RATOC SCSI to USB2 controller cable that 'just works' > on my Mac and/or any x86 laptop I have around. It is known to talk to the > disks as well as recently discussed Archive Viper QIC drives. That said, > I've never tried the USB to SCSI cable with a Linux -- only MacOS and > Winders (I never needed to use it with anything else). Also, I have never > tried that interface with 9-track, which is on the FreeBSD systems SCSI > chain driven by an on-motherboard Adaptec PCI to SCSI. The only real issue > I have had trying to use SCSI peripherals with MacOS is that traditional > BSD is not included in the last N versions of the Apple > developers tool kit, making a compilation of old tape-based C code a PITA. > Still, if you install the controller and can manage to rebuild -- it all > seems to work fine. > > Clem > ᐧ > ᐧ > ᐧ > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rminnich at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 02:33:15 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 08:33:15 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: my user-facing system is OSX on an m2, 96 G DRAM, 4T SSD. I have a system76, 40G DRAM, 4T NVME running linux for things needing linux. I have a USB Armory, 512M, running either a small Debian distro or Go on bare metal with Tamago. I have several systems that run TinyGo on bare metal. I have a boatload of IoT under development, nowadays, all RISC-V. They run a cut-down Linux with ONE init process, written in Go, that implements a version of the Plan 9 cpu command, called sidecore ( github.com/u-root/sidecore, first talk to be presented next month). As a result, most of the systems I have can run any distro I want, on a per-command basis, so in most cases the distro I run is called "make your choice". I can run any distro I want, with $HOME coming from $HOME, from OSX or Linux, and It Just Works. You Plan 9 folks have some idea what I mean, although sidecore actually does more. WIth Go and Rust, distros matter much less. Most C nowadays is not written in a portable way anyways -- see a bit of the full sad story here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1d0yK7g-J6oITgE-B_odadSw3nlBWGbMK7clt_TmXo7c/edit?usp=sharing -- so I've largely stopped using C at all. That, in turn, affects which systems I use for interactive work. So I guess the answer, in my case, is "whatever I need at the moment" -- since my UI is OSX, my build systems are OSX and Ubuntu, and my IoT are, on a command-by-command basis, "it depends." cpu (and sidecore) is one of those Plan 9 commands I could not live without, and Go made it possible to have it everywhere. It's even got an IANA number since last year -- 17010. On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 8:13 AM Marc Rochkind wrote: > To my way of thinking, the OS itself matters only if you're developing or > supporting the OS, or doing development for that OS. Otherwise, the > overwhelming criteria are what applications are available. I use Adobe > Lightroom and Photoshop for my photography, and those are available only > for MacOS and Windows. Because of very bad experiences with Apple as a > developer of apps for the iPhone, I don't like anything Apple, so I use > Windows for my desktop and laptop, and an Android phone. > > I often hear that there are Open Source equivalents for Lightroom and > Photoshop, but the people saying that aren't serious photographers. > > If you don't require any particular applications, then, as I said, the OS > doesn't matter, so Linux and FreeBSD are fine choices. I've long been > impressed with how usable distros like Ubuntu have become over the years. > > On rare occasions, I need to run a UNIX/Linux program, and for that I used > to use the MacOS command line back when I used a Mac, and now use Windows > System for Linux, which runs Ubuntu. > > (Like everything else posted here, these are my opinions, likely not > anyone else's.) > > Marc Rochkind > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 8:52 AM Clem Cole wrote: > >> Like Marc Donner, my primary system, UNIX or otherwise, in which I'm >> typing this message, is a current late model MacPro (arm/Sonoma) - which I >> switched to Apple's UNIX flavor about 20+ years ago and have yet to look >> back. That said, I have almost every OS that runs on x86 from different >> Linux flavors and BSDs, plus lots of different I/O controllers for >> conversion in my basement. Further, I also have a number of historical >> (non-Intel or Arm-based) computers on my different ethernets. FWIW: I >> also have a ton of SCSI equipment that's either on a FreeBSD Box (most >> often), or I have a RATOC SCSI to USB2 controller cable that 'just works' >> on my Mac and/or any x86 laptop I have around. It is known to talk to the >> disks as well as recently discussed Archive Viper QIC drives. That said, >> I've never tried the USB to SCSI cable with a Linux -- only MacOS and >> Winders (I never needed to use it with anything else). Also, I have never >> tried that interface with 9-track, which is on the FreeBSD systems SCSI >> chain driven by an on-motherboard Adaptec PCI to SCSI. The only real issue >> I have had trying to use SCSI peripherals with MacOS is that traditional >> BSD is not included in the last N versions of the Apple >> developers tool kit, making a compilation of old tape-based C code a PITA. >> Still, if you install the controller and can manage to rebuild -- it all >> seems to work fine. >> >> Clem >> ᐧ >> ᐧ >> ᐧ >> > > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrochkind at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 04:32:52 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 11:32:52 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: Minor correction to Thomas (but nothing is too minor for this list ;-) ): Chromebooks run ChromeOS, undoubtedly based on some form of Linux, as is Android. Marc On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 9:33 AM ron minnich wrote: > my user-facing system is OSX on an m2, 96 G DRAM, 4T SSD. I have a > system76, 40G DRAM, 4T NVME running linux for things needing linux. I have > a USB Armory, 512M, running either a small Debian distro or Go on bare > metal with Tamago. I have several systems that run TinyGo on bare metal. > > I have a boatload of IoT under development, nowadays, all RISC-V. They run > a cut-down Linux with ONE init process, written in Go, that implements a > version of the Plan 9 cpu command, called sidecore ( > github.com/u-root/sidecore, first talk to be presented next month). As a > result, most of the systems I have can run any distro I want, on a > per-command basis, so in most cases the distro I run is called "make your > choice". I can run any distro I want, with $HOME coming from $HOME, from > OSX or Linux, and It Just Works. You Plan 9 folks have some idea what I > mean, although sidecore actually does more. > > WIth Go and Rust, distros matter much less. Most C nowadays is not written > in a portable way anyways -- see a bit of the full sad story here: > https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1d0yK7g-J6oITgE-B_odadSw3nlBWGbMK7clt_TmXo7c/edit?usp=sharing > -- so I've largely stopped using C at all. That, in turn, affects which > systems I use for interactive work. > > So I guess the answer, in my case, is "whatever I need at the moment" -- > since my UI is OSX, my build systems are OSX and Ubuntu, and my IoT are, on > a command-by-command basis, "it depends." > > cpu (and sidecore) is one of those Plan 9 commands I could not live > without, and Go made it possible to have it everywhere. It's even got an > IANA number since last year -- 17010. > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 8:13 AM Marc Rochkind wrote: > >> To my way of thinking, the OS itself matters only if you're developing or >> supporting the OS, or doing development for that OS. Otherwise, the >> overwhelming criteria are what applications are available. I use Adobe >> Lightroom and Photoshop for my photography, and those are available only >> for MacOS and Windows. Because of very bad experiences with Apple as a >> developer of apps for the iPhone, I don't like anything Apple, so I use >> Windows for my desktop and laptop, and an Android phone. >> >> I often hear that there are Open Source equivalents for Lightroom and >> Photoshop, but the people saying that aren't serious photographers. >> >> If you don't require any particular applications, then, as I said, the OS >> doesn't matter, so Linux and FreeBSD are fine choices. I've long been >> impressed with how usable distros like Ubuntu have become over the years. >> >> On rare occasions, I need to run a UNIX/Linux program, and for that I >> used to use the MacOS command line back when I used a Mac, and now use >> Windows System for Linux, which runs Ubuntu. >> >> (Like everything else posted here, these are my opinions, likely not >> anyone else's.) >> >> Marc Rochkind >> >> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 8:52 AM Clem Cole wrote: >> >>> Like Marc Donner, my primary system, UNIX or otherwise, in which I'm >>> typing this message, is a current late model MacPro (arm/Sonoma) - which I >>> switched to Apple's UNIX flavor about 20+ years ago and have yet to look >>> back. That said, I have almost every OS that runs on x86 from different >>> Linux flavors and BSDs, plus lots of different I/O controllers for >>> conversion in my basement. Further, I also have a number of historical >>> (non-Intel or Arm-based) computers on my different ethernets. FWIW: I >>> also have a ton of SCSI equipment that's either on a FreeBSD Box (most >>> often), or I have a RATOC SCSI to USB2 controller cable that 'just works' >>> on my Mac and/or any x86 laptop I have around. It is known to talk to the >>> disks as well as recently discussed Archive Viper QIC drives. That said, >>> I've never tried the USB to SCSI cable with a Linux -- only MacOS and >>> Winders (I never needed to use it with anything else). Also, I have never >>> tried that interface with 9-track, which is on the FreeBSD systems SCSI >>> chain driven by an on-motherboard Adaptec PCI to SCSI. The only real issue >>> I have had trying to use SCSI peripherals with MacOS is that traditional >>> BSD is not included in the last N versions of the Apple >>> developers tool kit, making a compilation of old tape-based C code a PITA. >>> Still, if you install the controller and can manage to rebuild -- it all >>> seems to work fine. >>> >>> Clem >>> ᐧ >>> ᐧ >>> ᐧ >>> >> >> >> -- >> *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * >> > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Fri Mar 8 05:41:48 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 14:41:48 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? Message-ID: Because I sometimes use ArcMap, I run Windows. Cygwin plus the sam editor make me feel at home. The main signs of Microsoft are the desktop, Bing, File Explorer and Task Manager. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athornton at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 07:21:55 2024 From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 14:21:55 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: Daily driver is MacOS. Local network services, mostly Linux on amd64. Retrocomputing, mostly Linux on Raspberry Pi. On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:47 PM Jeffry R. Abramson < jeffryrabramson at gmail.com> wrote: > I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my > primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo > editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was > FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux > when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working > for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from > retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for > whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by > floppy. > > When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I > installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an > NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was > never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying > the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported > from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a > closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old pre- > System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school > in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. > > I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user > community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at > work and there was just a larger range of applications available. > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? > > Jeff > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave at horsfall.org Fri Mar 8 06:25:02 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 07:25:02 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: Started off with CP/M, then switched to BSD/OS (giving Windoze a miss) when I decided that I wanted a Unix box at home. When WinDriver bought them and shut them down, I switched to FreeBSD (which is still my server); I use an old MacBook Pro for web/graphics/etc, with multiple SSH windows into the server. No time for Penguin/OS; I don't like the way that it shoves all 3rd-party stuff into /usr/bin etc (those are system directories, but is typical of the rank amateurism of penguins), nor the attitude of the users who deny the very existence of non-Penguin POSIX systems that were around for decades beforehand. -- Dave From ake.nordin at netia.se Fri Mar 8 08:20:23 2024 From: ake.nordin at netia.se (=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=85ke_Nordin?=) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 23:20:23 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <42118abb-0e9f-4e1c-ba8e-0e9c38faa09c@netia.se> On 2024-03-07 07:47, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? Primarily OpenBSD. Some Raspberry Pi still runs their (Debian-based IIRC) Linux. The people that pay me so I can buy toys make me run Ubuntu LTS. Since I still need to work, that is what I use the most, but I can't say I'm particularly delighted by it. The reason for OpenBSD is primarily that I'm lazy, as it tends to Just Work(tm). Especially on the thinkpads that I happen to favor. I used to know a few of their devs, so it was easy for me to begin using it. -- Åke Nordin , resident Net/Lunix/telecom geek. Netia Data AB, Stockholm SWEDEN *46#7O466OI99# From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 08:25:51 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 15:25:51 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: What I use: Debian 6.0.10, Gnome 2.30.2, on VMware Player 3.1.6, on Windows 7. All on a ThinkPad X220. I don't so much recommend these specific versions of each of these tools, it's just that once I got something working and learned the ins and outs of all the system administration to keep the whole thing healthy, I wasn't willing to take on learning a bunch of new stuff for new versions, especially since I didn't particularly like the direction the look and feel of all the later versions, seemed to be going. I've flirted with Mate to take the place of Gnome 2, on later Linuxes, but those Linuxes needed later VMware versions, and so on, so I came back to what I had working. My advice for someone just trying to sort out what they want to use, is to get a configuration, whatever it is, that lets you work most of the time the way you want (something Unix'y, for me), but then have one "necessary evil" environment for those things you can't do any other way. Putting most of your preferred "world" under a virtual machine, running on a "not-great-but-still-supported-at-the-moment" OS, helps make your set-up more portable when you change host machines and operating systems, when your computer hardware wears out, or when you need a new computer for some other reason. On 03/07/2024 02:21 PM, Adam Thornton wrote: > Daily driver is MacOS. Local network services, mostly Linux on > amd64. Retrocomputing, mostly Linux on Raspberry Pi. > > On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:47 PM Jeffry R. Abramson > > wrote: > > I've been using some variant of Linux (currently Debian 12) as my > primary OS for daily activities (email, web, programming, photo > editing, etc.) for the past twenty years or so. Prior to that it was > FreeBSD for nearly ten years after short stints with Minix and Linux > when they first came out. At the time (early/mid 90's), I was working > for Bell Labs and had a ready supply of SCSI drives salvaged from > retired equipment. I bought a Seagate ST-01A ISA SCSI controller for > whatever 386/486 I owned at the time and installed Slackware floppy by > floppy. > > When I upgraded to a Pentium PC for home, Micron P90 I think, I > installed a PCI SCSI controller (Tekram DC-390 equipped with an > NCR53c8xx chip) to make use of my stash of drives. Under Linux it was > never entirely stable. I asked on Usenet and someone suggested trying > the other SCSI driver. This was the ncr driver that had been ported > from FreeBSD. My stability problems went away and I decided to take a > closer look at FreeBSD. It reminded me of SunOS from the good old > pre- > System V era along with the version of Unix I had used in grad school > in the late 70's/early 80's so I switched. > > I eventually reverted back to Linux because it was clear that the user > community was getting much larger, I was using it professionally at > work and there was just a larger range of applications available. > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? > > Jeff > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike.ab3ap at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 08:32:52 2024 From: mike.ab3ap at gmail.com (Mike Markowski) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:32:52 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 1:57 AM Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > ...Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? > > Jeff > Jeff and all, We started with FreeBSD in 1992 soon after getting married. My wife is a computer scientist (I'm EE) and we loaded 3.5" diskette after diskette and then she worked on finding a graphics card driver. :-) In more recent times we ran gentoo but that was ordeal to keep up to date. Like a water cooled VW, tinkering is almost a daily requirement. In recent years we use Ubuntu distribution and enjoy it. My wife likes the ease of maintenance and as an RF engr I enjoy the ease of acquiring tools, including compilers. Thanks, Clem, for pointing me to ifort a year or two ago! (1968 F-IV RF propagation code revived at https://udel.edu/~mm/itm/ in the retro computing section.) I also use Raspberry Pi 3's in PiDP 8/I (https://udel.edu/~mm/pidp8i/) and 11/70. I wonder how long till a R-Pi is enough for a work station... Mike Markowski -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pugs78 at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 09:14:12 2024 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 15:14:12 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? Message-ID: For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 09:24:22 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 16:24:22 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> I don't have any personal tales, but I remember that P.J. Plaugher's company, "Whitesmiths", C compiler was an early, and influential, non-AT&T C compiler. On 03/07/2024 04:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at > Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Mar 8 09:24:10 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 15:24:10 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them survive to the present day. Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 09:27:34 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 16:27:34 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> References: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <13a5158a-9657-e519-e88b-98f1d700c190@makerlisp.com> Oops, misspelled Mr. Plauger's name, pardon me, that's "P.J. Plauger". On 03/07/2024 04:24 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > I don't have any personal tales, but I remember that P.J. Plaugher's > company, "Whitesmiths", C compiler was an early, and influential, > non-AT&T C compiler. > > On 03/07/2024 04:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at >> Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > From dave at horsfall.org Fri Mar 8 09:39:20 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 10:39:20 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Warner Losh wrote: > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. > They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them > survive to the present day. That reminds me: there was the Hi-Tech C Compiler for the Z-80 (CP/M); it was full ANSI (unlike BDS C which barely supported C). -- Dave From pugs78 at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 09:44:49 2024 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 15:44:49 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <13a5158a-9657-e519-e88b-98f1d700c190@makerlisp.com> References: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> <13a5158a-9657-e519-e88b-98f1d700c190@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: I know of Plauger as a Kernighan co-author, so I did a search on AbeBooks and found - a lot of science fiction! Must investigate. On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 3:27 PM Luther Johnson wrote: > Oops, misspelled Mr. Plauger's name, pardon me, that's "P.J. Plauger". > > On 03/07/2024 04:24 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > > I don't have any personal tales, but I remember that P.J. Plaugher's > > company, "Whitesmiths", C compiler was an early, and influential, > > non-AT&T C compiler. > > > > On 03/07/2024 04:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at > >> Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Fri Mar 8 09:49:21 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 15:49:21 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 10:39:20AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Warner Losh wrote: > > > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. > > They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them > > survive to the present day. > > That reminds me: there was the Hi-Tech C Compiler for the Z-80 (CP/M); it > was full ANSI (unlike BDS C which barely supported C). Some people like to hate on BDS C, I'm not one of them. It was a very fast compiler compared to other C compilers (Turbo Pascal was a lot faster, I remain impressed with that speed to this day). My memory is BDS C did C just fine, but had a very non standard standard I/O library. I had relearn stdio when I got to Unix. But I never had a problem with it not compiling C. From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Mar 8 09:52:26 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 16:52:26 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. >> Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? >> > > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. > They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them > survive to the present day. > It's at bitsavers: https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar and https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C compilers :) Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 09:56:42 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 16:56:42 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: Speaking of the CP/M and later DOS world, Aztec C was a very competent C compiler. I recently put together a CP/M environment, and used the latest version I could find of Aztec C, and it did just what I wanted it to do. On 03/07/2024 04:49 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 10:39:20AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: >> On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Warner Losh wrote: >> >>> MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. >>> They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them >>> survive to the present day. >> That reminds me: there was the Hi-Tech C Compiler for the Z-80 (CP/M); it >> was full ANSI (unlike BDS C which barely supported C). > Some people like to hate on BDS C, I'm not one of them. It was a very > fast compiler compared to other C compilers (Turbo Pascal was a lot > faster, I remain impressed with that speed to this day). > > My memory is BDS C did C just fine, but had a very non standard standard > I/O library. I had relearn stdio when I got to Unix. But I never had a > problem with it not compiling C. > From will.senn at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 09:58:17 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:58:17 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <7fd60cbe-0dc7-4e31-8508-6d9164a01ecd@gmail.com> Started with MS-DOS 3.10b and some version of CP/M on a DEC Rainbow 100. Then more DOS and Windows. A bit of Linux in 1992/1993 (prior to the 1.0 kernel) - first Unix exposure. Then Windows and Linux (every so now and again) until 2005 when I went Mac full tilt. I would have stayed Mac, but man they're expensive and I so rarely have enough cash laying around to buy replacements. In 2008, I started using FreeBSD for SCM and other services and what with ZFS, it would have been nirvana, but the UI... When my 2012 MacBook Pro died, I almost cried... but I didn't replace it. Instead, I got a 10 year old IBM ThinkCentre m92p on ebay for $75 w/32GB of RAM and a fast Quad Processor and I ran Linux Mint on it for a year and after getting critical mass on things, thought I would make the switch to FreeBSD for everything, but that UI... and the fact that this program required Linux compatibility, that one wouldn't run, and so on... I've recently switched back to Mint and things are just... better. I miss boot environments and systemd's a travesty, but, stuff just working is pretty cool. Mint just works - it sooooo reminds me of Mac in that regard - darn near every application on the planet will run on it, if it's *nix friendly at all (and my one gotta have app - Acrobat Pro X, runs great under wine  - as do Minitab 16, Notepad++, Mavis Beacon, etc). I tried MX for a while cuz it's a pretty Debian, but Mint's got MX beat for ease of running stuff. Cinnamon as delivered on Mint is pretty seamless. Stuff like audio video apps work, the music player integrates so that when it's playing Cinnamon knows and stuff... Also, and apropos to the list, I can emulate any machine known to mankind, so far as I know. Yesterday I booted my Windows 3.11 instance and did some assembly stuff... simh, yup, Mips, yup, Commodore, yup, Apple IIe, yup :). Big fan. Will From grog at lemis.com Fri Mar 8 09:59:06 2024 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 10:59:06 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Thursday, 7 March 2024 at 15:49:21 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 10:39:20AM +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote: >> On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Warner Losh wrote: >> >>> MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. >>> They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them >>> survive to the present day. >> >> That reminds me: there was the Hi-Tech C Compiler for the Z-80 (CP/M); it >> was full ANSI (unlike BDS C which barely supported C). > > Some people like to hate on BDS C, I'm not one of them. It was a very > fast compiler compared to other C compilers +1. I started with BDS C in about 1980, when it came bundled with MINCE. It took me a long time before I used a real, standard C compiler. > My memory is BDS C did C just fine, but had a very non standard > standard I/O library. I had relearn stdio when I got to Unix. Yes, this matches my experience. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available URL: From rich.salz at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 10:08:12 2024 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 19:08:12 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sauer at technologists.com Fri Mar 8 10:15:12 2024 From: sauer at technologists.com (Charles H Sauer (he/him)) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 18:15:12 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1d208136-cf1b-4cbf-8401-aa0b95971372@technologists.com> On 3/7/2024 5:52 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh > wrote: > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon > wrote: > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history > of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and > Snyder at Bell.  Especially for x86.  Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 > port. They supported the popular micros of the time. Various > versions of them survive to the present day. > > > It's at bitsavers: > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar > > and > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ > > > are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C > compilers :) > > Warner See, also, https://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/CCompilerHistory.html & http://www.desmet-c.com/. When I only had PC/IX on an XT at my office and a PCjr at home, I mostly worked with C at home with DeSmet. I still have a couple of 5.25" 360K diskettes labeled C-Ware, which I think are DeSmet 2.4. Charlie -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer From mrochkind at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 10:24:11 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:24:11 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> <13a5158a-9657-e519-e88b-98f1d700c190@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: I got my first computer in 1981, when I was still at Bell Labs. A Zenith, as I recall, running CP/M 80. There was a C-like compiler, but it was a subset. I think that computer had a z80 chip, so it wasn't an x86. Then I got an IBM PC in 1982, with an 8088 (16-bit word, 8-bit bus), and I'm pretty sure the first real C compiler was Lattice C. Microsoft picked it up and called it Microsoft C. Then, maybe a couple of years later, they came out with their own C compiler, written in-house, I think. (As I recall, I got my Lattice C compiler, which was very expensive, for free for writing a review for BYTE Magazine, but I can't find the review in my office or online, so maybe I'm imagining that. Or maybe I never finished the review or they didn't print it.) I had an early Macintosh, too, and used Lightspeed C. I think it was essentially complete C. It was a whole IDE, incredibly fast, and I used it for commercial applications for the Mac. I continued to use that until Apple bought Next and revised their product line to use NextStep. Then I used what Apple had, but it was Objective-C (blend of Smalltalk and C) which is what you wrote NextStep apps in. I think we used Objective-C for Mac work until the early 1990s, when I stopped writing native Mac apps. Lots of missing details here, I'm sure. The August 1983 issue of BYTE Magazine was all about C, and has three articles reviewing C compilers for CP/M 86, the IBM PC, and CP/M 80. There's also an article called "The C Language and Models for Systems Programming" by two guys who know about that stuff, Stephen C. Johnson and Brian W. Kernighan. Here's a link to the issue: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1983-08 Marc On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:45 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > I know of Plauger as a Kernighan co-author, so I did a search on AbeBooks > and found - a lot of science fiction! Must investigate. > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 3:27 PM Luther Johnson < > luther.johnson at makerlisp.com> wrote: > >> Oops, misspelled Mr. Plauger's name, pardon me, that's "P.J. Plauger". >> >> On 03/07/2024 04:24 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: >> > I don't have any personal tales, but I remember that P.J. Plaugher's >> > company, "Whitesmiths", C compiler was an early, and influential, >> > non-AT&T C compiler. >> > >> > On 03/07/2024 04:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: >> >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C >> >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at >> >> Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >> >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? >> > >> >> -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrochkind at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 10:30:24 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:30:24 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <1d208136-cf1b-4cbf-8401-aa0b95971372@technologists.com> References: <1d208136-cf1b-4cbf-8401-aa0b95971372@technologists.com> Message-ID: Larry & Dave, thanks for jogging my memory. I'm pretty sure it was BDS C on that z80 Zenith computer. (See my longer post above.) I should add that around 1984 I got a copy of PC/IX for the IBM XT, directly from Interactive Systems in Santa Monica, where I knew a few people. That was true UNIX, System III, I think, and I used it for all of the examples for my book "Advanced UNIX Programming," which came out in 1985. It, of course, had a real Bell Labs C compiler. Marc On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:15 PM Charles H Sauer (he/him) < sauer at technologists.com> wrote: > On 3/7/2024 5:52 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh > > wrote: > > > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon > > wrote: > > > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history > > of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and > > Snyder at Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > > > > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 > > port. They supported the popular micros of the time. Various > > versions of them survive to the present day. > > > > > > It's at bitsavers: > > > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar > > > > and > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ > > > > > > are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C > > compilers :) > > > > Warner > > See, also, > https://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/CCompilerHistory.html & > http://www.desmet-c.com/. > > When I only had PC/IX on an XT at my office and a PCjr at home, I mostly > worked with C at home with DeSmet. I still have a couple of 5.25" 360K > diskettes labeled C-Ware, which I think are DeSmet 2.4. > > Charlie > > -- > voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com > fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ > Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter > : > CharlesHSauer > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Mar 8 10:30:59 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:30:59 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: > I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There > was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post > some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; > the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and > clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was > one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was > done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him > :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not > complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, > downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. > > [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 > [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf > [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C > [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 > Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and this is the backstory to them. Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heinz at osta.com Fri Mar 8 10:54:41 2024 From: heinz at osta.com (Heinz Lycklama) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 16:54:41 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <1d208136-cf1b-4cbf-8401-aa0b95971372@technologists.com> Message-ID: <78b06488-c8d1-41ef-9d06-9e75426cf4d0@osta.com> Marc is correct. All of ISC C compilers were based on Bell Labs C compilers, starting with a C compiler for the DEC VAX machine in 1978. Heinz On 3/7/2024 4:30 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > Larry & Dave, thanks for jogging my memory. I'm pretty sure it was BDS > C on that z80 Zenith computer. (See my longer post above.) > > I should add that around 1984 I got a copy of PC/IX for the IBM XT, > directly from Interactive Systems in Santa Monica, where I knew a few > people. That was true UNIX, System III, I think, and I used it for all > of the examples for my book "Advanced UNIX Programming," which came > out in 1985. It, of course, had a real Bell Labs C compiler. > > Marc > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:15 PM Charles H Sauer (he/him) > wrote: > > On 3/7/2024 5:52 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh > > wrote: > > > > > > > >     On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon >     > wrote: > > > >         For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early > history > >         of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, > Johnson, and > >         Snyder at Bell.  Especially for x86.  Anyone have tales? > >         Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > > > >     MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the > Venix x86 > >     port. They supported the popular micros of the time. Various > >     versions of them survive to the present day. > > > > > > It's at bitsavers: > > > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar > > > > and > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ > > > > > > are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C > > compilers :) > > > > Warner > > See, also, > https://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/CCompilerHistory.html > & > http://www.desmet-c.com/. > > When I only had PC/IX on an XT at my office and a PCjr at home, I > mostly > worked with C at home with DeSmet. I still have a couple of 5.25" > 360K > diskettes labeled C-Ware, which I think are DeSmet 2.4. > > Charlie > > -- > voice: +1.512.784.7526       e-mail: sauer at technologists.com > fax: +1.512.346.5240         Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ > Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter > : > CharlesHSauer > > > > -- > /My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robpike at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 10:57:34 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 11:57:34 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean and pedagogically valuable. https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 -rob On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: > >> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There >> was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post >> some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; >> the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and >> clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was >> one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was >> done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him >> :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not >> complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, >> downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >> >> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >> > > Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and > this is the backstory to them. > > Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 8 11:08:10 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:08:10 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <8478FB11-64ED-43CE-90AD-6F2011282451@iitbombay.org> What is the history of Plan9's C compiler? Was it a from scratch implementation? > On Mar 7, 2024, at 4:57 PM, Rob Pike wrote: > > Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean and pedagogically valuable. > > https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 > > -rob > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh > wrote: >> >> >> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz > wrote: >>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >>> >>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >> >> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and this is the backstory to them. >> >> Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robpike at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 11:10:27 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 12:10:27 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <8478FB11-64ED-43CE-90AD-6F2011282451@iitbombay.org> References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> <8478FB11-64ED-43CE-90AD-6F2011282451@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: Yes. Ken wrote the first version for the National 32000 (maybe even 16000?) on the Sequent. He ported to the MIPS when we started Plan 9. -rob On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 12:08 PM Bakul Shah wrote: > What is the history of Plan9's C compiler? Was it a from scratch > implementation? > > On Mar 7, 2024, at 4:57 PM, Rob Pike wrote: > > Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean > and pedagogically valuable. > > > https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 > > -rob > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh wrote: > >> >> >> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: >> >>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There >>> was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post >>> some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; >>> the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and >>> clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was >>> one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was >>> done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him >>> :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not >>> complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, >>> downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >>> >>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >>> >> >> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and >> this is the backstory to them. >> >> Warner >> > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robpike at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 11:12:39 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 12:12:39 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> <8478FB11-64ED-43CE-90AD-6F2011282451@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: By the way, the unmatched portability of Plan 9 and Go stems from the way Ken structured that compiler. My talk at GopherCon about the Go assembler describes this architecture and why it worked so well. Others feel that by being unorthodox it is clearly bogus and we are jackasses, but such complainers only notice the difference and don't ask why the difference is there. -rob On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 12:10 PM Rob Pike wrote: > Yes. Ken wrote the first version for the National 32000 (maybe even > 16000?) on the Sequent. He ported to the MIPS when we started Plan 9. > > -rob > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 12:08 PM Bakul Shah wrote: > >> What is the history of Plan9's C compiler? Was it a from scratch >> implementation? >> >> On Mar 7, 2024, at 4:57 PM, Rob Pike wrote: >> >> Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very >> clean and pedagogically valuable. >> >> >> https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 >> >> -rob >> >> >> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh wrote: >> >>> >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: >>> >>>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. >>>> There was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can >>>> post some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] >>>> project; the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP >>>> and clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and >>>> was one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was >>>> done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him >>>> :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not >>>> complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, >>>> downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >>>> >>>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >>>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >>>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >>>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >>>> >>> >>> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and >>> this is the backstory to them. >>> >>> Warner >>> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeffryrabramson at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 11:15:43 2024 From: jeffryrabramson at gmail.com (Jeffry R. Abramson) Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 20:15:43 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: > What about Linux is too bloated, in your opinion? Is it the kernel > itself, or the programs that often go with it? If it's the former, > OpenBSD may be a good choice. If it's the latter, I would look into a > minimal distribution (e.g. Alpine, Void, arguably Arch) paired with a > tiling window manager (e.g. Sway, dwm). > > -Ben The bloated part? IMHO I would say systemd, pulseaudio, NetworkManager, KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon.  Even though Cinnamon is the desktop I use.  My wife's laptop finally died ie. Windows got so crudded up with stuff that Outlook couldn't send mail and I just refused to try and fix it.  I gave her my old PC with Debian and configured Cinnamon to look like Windows 7.  All she does with it is web and email so all I really had to do was setup Firefox and Evolution and tell her it was Windows. As far as the kernel goes, I rebuilt the stock kernel that Debian uses just for kicks.  It took 25 minutes on a 16-thread system with SSD storage, source tree plus build output occupies 26G, pretty bloaty.  I just refreshed most of my infrastructure and in the process switched from xfs/LVM to ZFS so it may be time to make the switch back to FreeBSD if I retain enough muscle memory. Jeff -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 8 11:22:03 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:22:03 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> <8478FB11-64ED-43CE-90AD-6F2011282451@iitbombay.org> Message-ID: Thanks! Yes, I love the way go and plan9 C compilers work. IMHO all new compilers should be written like that. I detest clang & llvm, especially when, for example, Freebsd make buildworld (from scratch) takes over an hour because of clang+llvm times. Surely llvm author(s) could've achieved all the flexibility llvm provide for various frontends in a different way? [FreeBSD is also at fault. I think it can be compiled with gcc but no other small and fast compilers like tcc] > On Mar 7, 2024, at 5:12 PM, Rob Pike wrote: > > By the way, the unmatched portability of Plan 9 and Go stems from the way Ken structured that compiler. My talk at GopherCon about the Go assembler describes this architecture and why it worked so well. Others feel that by being unorthodox it is clearly bogus and we are jackasses, but such complainers only notice the difference and don't ask why the difference is there. > > -rob > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 12:10 PM Rob Pike > wrote: >> Yes. Ken wrote the first version for the National 32000 (maybe even 16000?) on the Sequent. He ported to the MIPS when we started Plan 9. >> >> -rob >> >> >> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 12:08 PM Bakul Shah > wrote: >>> What is the history of Plan9's C compiler? Was it a from scratch implementation? >>> >>>> On Mar 7, 2024, at 4:57 PM, Rob Pike > wrote: >>>> >>>> Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean and pedagogically valuable. >>>> >>>> https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 >>>> >>>> -rob >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz > wrote: >>>>>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >>>>>> >>>>>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >>>>>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >>>>>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >>>>>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >>>>> >>>>> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and this is the backstory to them. >>>>> >>>>> Warner >>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jeffryrabramson at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 11:27:16 2024 From: jeffryrabramson at gmail.com (Jeffry R. Abramson) Date: Thu, 07 Mar 2024 20:27:16 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> <13a5158a-9657-e519-e88b-98f1d700c190@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <93bff23afe8639fef322a7a06ed311d939ddcb29.camel@gmail.com> In grad school in the early 80's I was developing instrumentation built around a CompuPro S-100 system running CP/M-86.  I used the Computer Innovations C compiler https://www.clipshop.ca/c86/intro.htm , wonder if I still have a copy on 8-inch floppies somewhere. On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 17:24 -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: > I got my first  computer in 1981, when I was still at Bell Labs. A > Zenith, as I recall, running CP/M 80. There was a C-like compiler, > but it was a subset. I think that computer had a z80 chip, so it > wasn't an x86. > > Then I got an IBM PC in 1982, with an 8088 (16-bit word, 8-bit bus), > and I'm pretty sure the first real C compiler was Lattice C. > Microsoft picked it up and called it Microsoft C. Then, maybe a > couple of years later, they came out with their own C compiler, > written in-house, I think. (As I recall, I got my Lattice C compiler, > which was very expensive, for free for writing a review for BYTE > Magazine, but I can't find the review in my office or online, so > maybe I'm imagining that. Or maybe I never finished the review or > they didn't print it.) > > I had an early Macintosh, too, and used Lightspeed C. I think it was > essentially complete C. It was a whole IDE, incredibly fast, and I > used it for commercial applications for the Mac. I continued to use > that until Apple bought Next and revised their product line to use > NextStep. Then I used what Apple had, but it was Objective-C (blend > of Smalltalk and C) which is what you wrote NextStep apps in. I think > we used Objective-C for Mac work until the early 1990s, when I > stopped writing native Mac apps. > > Lots of missing details here, I'm sure. > > The August 1983 issue of BYTE Magazine was all about C, and has three > articles reviewing C compilers for CP/M 86, the IBM PC, and CP/M 80. > There's also an article called "The C Language and Models for Systems > Programming" by two guys who know about that stuff,  Stephen C. > Johnson and Brian W. Kernighan. Here's a link to the > issue: https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1983-08 > > Marc > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:45 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > > I know of Plauger as a Kernighan co-author, so I did a search on > > AbeBooks and found - a lot of science fiction!  Must investigate. > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 3:27 PM Luther Johnson > > wrote: > > > Oops, misspelled Mr. Plauger's name, pardon me, that's "P.J. > > > Plauger". > > > > > > On 03/07/2024 04:24 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > > > > I don't have any personal tales, but I remember that P.J. > > > Plaugher's > > > > company, "Whitesmiths", C compiler was an early, and > > > influential, > > > > non-AT&T C compiler. > > > > > > > > On 03/07/2024 04:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: > > > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early > > > history of C > > > >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and > > > Snyder at > > > >> Bell.  Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > > >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > > > > > > > > -- > My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 8 11:48:26 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 01:48:26 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <78b06488-c8d1-41ef-9d06-9e75426cf4d0@osta.com> References: <1d208136-cf1b-4cbf-8401-aa0b95971372@technologists.com> <78b06488-c8d1-41ef-9d06-9e75426cf4d0@osta.com> Message-ID: Tom you mentioned non-Bell compilers, but also x86, so I can't resist pointing out: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/otherports/newp.pdf Among the handful of systems experimented with in these Bell Labs UNIX porting experiences is the 8086 which was being used for some sort of internal project at the time. I'm not aware of any artifacts (UNIX nor C) from that port, nor if any 32-bit and beyond x86 compiler technology out there derives from any of these efforts, but worth mentioning in the history of C touching Intel platforms. I do seem to recall some discussion here a while back that implied that the SGS suite may have had its genesis in some of these efforts. The internal Bell Labs version of Release 5.0 has SGS compilers for several BellMAC targets that I think descend from some of this work. I'd have to go looking for proof though so consider that anecdotal for now. - Matt G. On Thursday, March 7th, 2024 at 4:54 PM, Heinz Lycklama heinz at osta.com wrote: > Marc is correct. All of ISC C compilers were based > on Bell Labs C compilers, starting with a C compiler > for the DEC VAX machine in 1978. > > Heinz > > On 3/7/2024 4:30 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > >> Larry & Dave, thanks for jogging my memory. I'm pretty sure it was BDS C on that z80 Zenith computer. (See my longer post above.) >> I should add that around 1984 I got a copy of PC/IX for the IBM XT, directly from Interactive Systems in Santa Monica, where I knew a few people. That was true UNIX, System III, I think, and I used it for all of the examples for my book "Advanced UNIX Programming," which came out in 1985. It, of course, had a real Bell Labs C compiler. >> >> Marc >> >> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:15 PM Charles H Sauer (he/him) sauer at technologists.com wrote: >> >>> On 3/7/2024 5:52 PM, Warner Losh wrote: >>> >>>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh >>> mailto:imp at bsdimp.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon >>> mailto:pugs78 at gmail.com> wrote: >>>> >>>> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history >>>> of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and >>>> Snyder at Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >>>> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? >>>> >>>> MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 >>>> port. They supported the popular micros of the time. Various >>>> versions of them survive to the present day. >>>> >>>> It's at bitsavers: >>>> >>>> https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar >>>> https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar >>>> and >>>> https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ >>>> https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ >>>> >>>> are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C >>>> compilers :) >>>> >>>> Warner >>> >>> See, also, >>> https://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/CCompilerHistory.html & >>> http://www.desmet-c.com/. >>> >>> When I only had PC/IX on an XT at my office and a PCjr at home, I mostly >>> worked with C at home with DeSmet. I still have a couple of 5.25" 360K >>> diskettes labeled C-Ware, which I think are DeSmet 2.4. >>> >>> Charlie >>> >>> -- >>> voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com >>> fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer >> >> -- >> My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ggm at algebras.org Fri Mar 8 12:07:00 2024 From: ggm at algebras.org (George Michaelson) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 12:07:00 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Interesting post on BSD history (in the comments) Message-ID: Normally I wouldn't cross the beams like this but a comment thread John Nagle posted on this HN story is well written and for me was a great read. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39630457 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pugs78 at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 12:12:23 2024 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 18:12:23 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <1d208136-cf1b-4cbf-8401-aa0b95971372@technologists.com> <78b06488-c8d1-41ef-9d06-9e75426cf4d0@osta.com> Message-ID: Thanks, I had not seen that. More info about UNIX on UNIVAC than I'd seen before. Who did the C compiler for that? On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:49 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Tom you mentioned non-Bell compilers, but also x86, so I can't resist > pointing out: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/otherports/newp.pdf > > Among the handful of systems experimented with in these Bell Labs UNIX > porting experiences is the 8086 which was being used for some sort of > internal project at the time. I'm not aware of any artifacts (UNIX nor C) > from that port, nor if any 32-bit and beyond x86 compiler technology out > there derives from any of these efforts, but worth mentioning in the > history of C touching Intel platforms. I do seem to recall some discussion > here a while back that implied that the SGS suite may have had its genesis > in some of these efforts. The internal Bell Labs version of Release 5.0 > has SGS compilers for several BellMAC targets that I think descend from > some of this work. I'd have to go looking for proof though so consider > that anecdotal for now. > > - Matt G. > > > On Thursday, March 7th, 2024 at 4:54 PM, Heinz Lycklama heinz at osta.com > wrote: > > Marc is correct. All of ISC C compilers were based > on Bell Labs C compilers, starting with a C compiler > for the DEC VAX machine in 1978. > > Heinz > > On 3/7/2024 4:30 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > Larry & Dave, thanks for jogging my memory. I'm pretty sure it was BDS C > on that z80 Zenith computer. (See my longer post above.) > I should add that around 1984 I got a copy of PC/IX for the IBM XT, > directly from Interactive Systems in Santa Monica, where I knew a few > people. That was true UNIX, System III, I think, and I used it for all of > the examples for my book "Advanced UNIX Programming," which came out in > 1985. It, of course, had a real Bell Labs C compiler. > > Marc > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:15 PM Charles H Sauer (he/him) > sauer at technologists.com wrote: > > On 3/7/2024 5:52 PM, Warner Losh wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh mailto:imp at bsdimp.com > wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon mailto:pugs78 at gmail.com > wrote: > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history > of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and > Snyder at Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 > port. They supported the popular micros of the time. Various > versions of them survive to the present day. > > It's at bitsavers: > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar > and > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ > > are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C > compilers :) > > Warner > > See, also, > https://www.program-transformation.org/Transform/CCompilerHistory.html & > http://www.desmet-c.com/. > > When I only had PC/IX on an XT at my office and a PCjr at home, I mostly > worked with C at home with DeSmet. I still have a couple of 5.25" 360K > diskettes labeled C-Ware, which I think are DeSmet 2.4. > > Charlie > > -- > voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com > fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: > https://technologists.com/sauer/Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: > CharlesHSauer > > -- > My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stewart at serissa.com Fri Mar 8 12:13:27 2024 From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 21:13:27 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9714D544-38D7-4514-BDC2-293F9FCD1A75@serissa.com> Here’s a strange one. In 1981 or early 1982, Bill Duval at Xerox Systems Development Division had a C compiler which ran on the Alto and generated code for x86. Dan Swinehart and I used it to write the software for the PARC Etherphone, which ran on dual 8088 systems. No idea really whether it was a hobby project or what. I did hear a rumor that SDD was thinking of building x86 based systems, but I don’t know if they ever happened. (aside: Duval was one of those guys who used the 3 mouse buttons and the 5 key keyset as a chorded keyboard and never moved his hands.) -Larry From will.senn at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 12:26:17 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 20:26:17 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49a32002-2b34-42a8-a7a5-acad9f1c0570@gmail.com> I don't think anyone's mentioned it, but there was Watcom... now it's Open Watcom: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watcom_C/C%2B%2B Watcom is from Watfor which ran on the IBM 7040 back in the 60's. The C compiler was developed in the 80's and I saw it a lot in the early 90's along with Turbo C. Will On 3/7/24 5:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at > Bell.  Especially for x86.  Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? From peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 13:03:50 2024 From: peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com (Peter Yardley) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 14:03:50 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <49a32002-2b34-42a8-a7a5-acad9f1c0570@gmail.com> References: <49a32002-2b34-42a8-a7a5-acad9f1c0570@gmail.com> Message-ID: At NSWIT we used the Whitesmiths C cross compiler to produce code for some Intel 8085 development boards so we could get away from having the students write assembler. Can’t remember the exact date but it would have been 80s. We also used Xinu, Minix and Amoeba > On 8 Mar 2024, at 1:26 pm, Will Senn wrote: > > I don't think anyone's mentioned it, but there was Watcom... now it's Open Watcom: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watcom_C/C%2B%2B > > Watcom is from Watfor which ran on the IBM 7040 back in the 60's. The C compiler was developed in the 80's and I saw it a lot in the early 90's along with Turbo C. > > Will > > > On 3/7/24 5:14 PM, Tom Lyon wrote: >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > Peter Yardley peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com From jsg at jsg.id.au Fri Mar 8 13:15:19 2024 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 14:15:19 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 04:52:26PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote: > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 4:24 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > > > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > >> Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > >> > > > > MIT had several that were used for ka9q and at least the Venix x86 port. > > They supported the popular micros of the time. Various versions of them > > survive to the present day. > > > > It's at bitsavers: > > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/pc-ip/8086_C_19850820.tar > and > https://bitsavers.org/bits/MIT/trix/MIT_Compiler_Tape/ and tuhs Applications/Portable_CC/ > > are pointers to compilers from the early 80s. Obviously not ANSI-C > compilers :) > > Warner The compilers used for MIT Nu/TRIX were derived from PCC. SUMacC, the Stanford UNIX Macintosh C development environment reused that work, and one release announcement has: "ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The 68000 C compiler used by SUMacC is the Bell Labs (Johnson) portable C compiler, ported by Chris Terman of MIT and used in the MIT NU project and the Stanford SUN system. The assembler is by Mike Patrick, also of MIT. This same compiler / assembler / loader is used in many of the 68K UNIX boxes currently on the market. Many modifications and bug fixes have been applied by folks at Stanford, MIT, and Lucasfilm: Jeff Mogul, Bill Nowicki, John Seamons, Vaughan Pratt, Eric Ostrom, and a cast of thousands. Dave Johnson of Brown Univ. contributed the excellent macget/macput programs that make downloading painless. Among the many people contributing improvements, new example programs, and bug fixes are: Mike Schuster of CALTECH, Dan Winkler and Steve Engle of Harvard, Bill Schilit at Columbia, Joe Pallas and Steve Gross at Stanford, John Seamons at Lucasfilm, John Peterson at Utah, Ben Hyde of Intermetrics, Bruce Horn of Apple/Adobe, Van Jacobson at LBL, and many others. Thank you all!" Bill Croft in fa.info-mac 20 Nov 1984 https://groups.google.com/g/fa.info-mac/c/-TS9aotPoEA/m/h5U9LQ9yre4J From ggm at algebras.org Fri Mar 8 13:28:16 2024 From: ggm at algebras.org (George Michaelson) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 13:28:16 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Ben Golding, an Australian C compiler person once told me gnu/gcc wiped out his business. I think it certainly thinned out the ranks a bit. G -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Fri Mar 8 13:42:59 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 19:42:59 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: > > What about Linux is too bloated, in your opinion? Is it the kernel > > itself, or the programs that often go with it? If it's the former, > > OpenBSD may be a good choice. If it's the latter, I would look into a > > minimal distribution (e.g. Alpine, Void, arguably Arch) paired with a > > tiling window manager (e.g. Sway, dwm). > > > > -Ben > > The bloated part? IMHO I would say systemd, pulseaudio, NetworkManager, > KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon. ??Even though Cinnamon is the desktop I use. ??My > wife's laptop finally died ie. Windows got so crudded up with stuff > that Outlook couldn't send mail and I just refused to try and fix it. > ??I gave her my old PC with Debian and configured Cinnamon to look like > Windows 7. ??All she does with it is web and email so all I really had > to do was setup Firefox and Evolution and tell her it was Windows. > > As far as the kernel goes, I rebuilt the stock kernel that Debian uses > just for kicks. ??It took 25 minutes on a 16-thread system with SSD > storage, source tree plus build output occupies 26G, pretty bloaty. ??I > just refreshed most of my infrastructure and in the process switched > from xfs/LVM to ZFS so it may be time to make the switch back to > FreeBSD if I retain enough muscle memory. So I'm a SunOS guy, got there just after SunOS 4.0, contributed to 4.1, really contributed to 4.1.1 and 4.1.3. I loved SunOS. FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a while back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I know, I walked the code), FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand if you have installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. That "UI" for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install experience is _awful_. SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so dead it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an example from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux and the machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The installer was graphical and it was just easier to tab through the options than go find a mouse. I'd love it if BSD had kept up but it has not. Linux is way better. Yeah, all the bloat is annoying but we are not running on 64KB PDP-lls. L1 is that size, L2 and L3 are bigger. Main memory is many orders of magnitude bigger, I'm typing this on a 32GB memory laptop. It's fine. -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 13:57:39 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 20:57:39 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <724f8deb-1e73-2356-0350-83ec8bd17671@makerlisp.com> I believe the first Minix C compilers were based on the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, so that's another early source. On 03/07/2024 08:42 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: >> On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: >>> What about Linux is too bloated, in your opinion? Is it the kernel >>> itself, or the programs that often go with it? If it's the former, >>> OpenBSD may be a good choice. If it's the latter, I would look into a >>> minimal distribution (e.g. Alpine, Void, arguably Arch) paired with a >>> tiling window manager (e.g. Sway, dwm). >>> >>> -Ben >> The bloated part? IMHO I would say systemd, pulseaudio, NetworkManager, >> KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon. ??Even though Cinnamon is the desktop I use. ??My >> wife's laptop finally died ie. Windows got so crudded up with stuff >> that Outlook couldn't send mail and I just refused to try and fix it. >> ??I gave her my old PC with Debian and configured Cinnamon to look like >> Windows 7. ??All she does with it is web and email so all I really had >> to do was setup Firefox and Evolution and tell her it was Windows. >> >> As far as the kernel goes, I rebuilt the stock kernel that Debian uses >> just for kicks. ??It took 25 minutes on a 16-thread system with SSD >> storage, source tree plus build output occupies 26G, pretty bloaty. ??I >> just refreshed most of my infrastructure and in the process switched >> from xfs/LVM to ZFS so it may be time to make the switch back to >> FreeBSD if I retain enough muscle memory. > So I'm a SunOS guy, got there just after SunOS 4.0, contributed to 4.1, > really contributed to 4.1.1 and 4.1.3. I loved SunOS. > > FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a while > back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I know, I > walked the code), FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand > if you have installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. That "UI" > for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install experience > is _awful_. > > SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so dead > it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an example > from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux and the > machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The installer was > graphical and it was just easier to tab through the options than go > find a mouse. > > I'd love it if BSD had kept up but it has not. Linux is way better. > Yeah, all the bloat is annoying but we are not running on 64KB PDP-lls. > L1 is that size, L2 and L3 are bigger. Main memory is many orders of > magnitude bigger, I'm typing this on a 32GB memory laptop. It's fine. From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 13:58:17 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 20:58:17 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <724f8deb-1e73-2356-0350-83ec8bd17671@makerlisp.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <724f8deb-1e73-2356-0350-83ec8bd17671@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <080f1fe8-8b82-b95b-6c94-df3f84d4f311@makerlisp.com> Oops, wrong thread, sorry. On 03/07/2024 08:57 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > I believe the first Minix C compilers were based on the Amsterdam > Compiler Kit, so that's another early source. > > On 03/07/2024 08:42 PM, Larry McVoy wrote: >> On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: >>> On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: >>>> What about Linux is too bloated, in your opinion? Is it the kernel >>>> itself, or the programs that often go with it? If it's the former, >>>> OpenBSD may be a good choice. If it's the latter, I would look into a >>>> minimal distribution (e.g. Alpine, Void, arguably Arch) paired with a >>>> tiling window manager (e.g. Sway, dwm). >>>> >>>> -Ben >>> The bloated part? IMHO I would say systemd, pulseaudio, NetworkManager, >>> KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon. ??Even though Cinnamon is the desktop I use. ??My >>> wife's laptop finally died ie. Windows got so crudded up with stuff >>> that Outlook couldn't send mail and I just refused to try and fix it. >>> ??I gave her my old PC with Debian and configured Cinnamon to look like >>> Windows 7. ??All she does with it is web and email so all I really had >>> to do was setup Firefox and Evolution and tell her it was Windows. >>> >>> As far as the kernel goes, I rebuilt the stock kernel that Debian uses >>> just for kicks. ??It took 25 minutes on a 16-thread system with SSD >>> storage, source tree plus build output occupies 26G, pretty bloaty. ??I >>> just refreshed most of my infrastructure and in the process switched >>> from xfs/LVM to ZFS so it may be time to make the switch back to >>> FreeBSD if I retain enough muscle memory. >> So I'm a SunOS guy, got there just after SunOS 4.0, contributed to 4.1, >> really contributed to 4.1.1 and 4.1.3. I loved SunOS. >> >> FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a while >> back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I know, I >> walked the code), FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand >> if you have installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. That "UI" >> for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install experience >> is _awful_. >> >> SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so dead >> it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an example >> from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux and the >> machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The installer was >> graphical and it was just easier to tab through the options than go >> find a mouse. >> >> I'd love it if BSD had kept up but it has not. Linux is way better. >> Yeah, all the bloat is annoying but we are not running on 64KB PDP-lls. >> L1 is that size, L2 and L3 are bigger. Main memory is many orders of >> magnitude bigger, I'm typing this on a 32GB memory laptop. It's fine. > From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 13:58:45 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2024 20:58:45 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <099001ce-0184-39f3-6269-81ae2c997feb@makerlisp.com> I believe the first Minix C compilers were based on the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, so that's another early source. On 03/07/2024 08:28 PM, George Michaelson wrote: > Ben Golding, an Australian C compiler person once told me gnu/gcc > wiped out his business. I think it certainly thinned out the ranks a bit. > > G > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lars at nocrew.org Fri Mar 8 15:53:57 2024 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 05:53:57 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: (Tom Lyon's message of "Thu, 7 Mar 2024 15:14:12 -0800") References: Message-ID: <7wsf11qney.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Tom Lyon writes: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. I'm not sure to what extent the Snyder compiler was done at Bell. It's using a Yacc with a strange syntax, and when asked, Steve Johnson said he didn't recognize it. From dave at horsfall.org Fri Mar 8 16:28:22 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 17:28:22 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Mar 2024, Larry McVoy wrote: > So I'm a SunOS guy, got there just after SunOS 4.0, contributed to 4.1, > really contributed to 4.1.1 and 4.1.3. I loved SunOS. SunOS 4.1.4: pure bliss... But we know what happened next :-( > FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a while > back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I know, I walked > the code), FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand if you have > installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. That "UI" for partitioning the > disks, so arcane. The whole install experience is _awful_. Well, OK, in approx order :-) As a FreeBSD nut, consider yourself asked... User since, oh, when BSD/OS got borged, I guess. And I've seen worse UIs... Mind you, that SunOS installer was great! Now, hands up all those who partially overlapped root with swap etc (on any *nix box)... > SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so dead it > is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an example from > more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux and the machine I > was installing on didn't have a mouse. The installer was graphical and > it was just easier to tab through the options than go find a mouse. You like that abomination known as "systemd"? As for mice, I always kept a couple in the drawer (serial, RF, etc). > I'd love it if BSD had kept up but it has not. Linux is way better. > Yeah, all the bloat is annoying but we are not running on 64KB PDP-lls. > L1 is that size, L2 and L3 are bigger. Main memory is many orders of > magnitude bigger, I'm typing this on a 32GB memory laptop. It's fine. I'm typing this on a Mac 8GB laptop, into my FreeBSD 512MB (yes) server (it works; I can't afford anything better on my pension). Oh, I've also used OpenBSD, but since you practically need permission to even fart then I'd only recommend it as a firewall. It's all abut horses for courses: OpenBSD for a firewall, FreeBSD for its amazing ports, NetBSD to run on weird hardware, and a Mac for fun :-) The only reason that I have a Penguin (if I can just revive it) was to run stuff that doesn't seem to exist elsewhere; I haven't missed it... -- Dave From arnold at skeeve.com Fri Mar 8 19:33:48 2024 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 02:33:48 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <202403080933.4289XmvG010921@freefriends.org> Interestingly, they used Literate Programming to do so. The source is available, but IIRC there isn't a back end for x86_64. Rob Pike wrote: > Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean > and pedagogically valuable. > > https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 > > -rob > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: > > > >> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There > >> was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post > >> some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; > >> the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and > >> clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was > >> one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was > >> done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him > >> :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not > >> complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, > >> downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. > >> > >> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 > >> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf > >> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C > >> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 > >> > > > > Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and > > this is the backstory to them. > > > > Warner > > From wobblygong at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 19:45:40 2024 From: wobblygong at gmail.com (Wesley Parish) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 22:45:40 +1300 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <202403080933.4289XmvG010921@freefriends.org> References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> <202403080933.4289XmvG010921@freefriends.org> Message-ID: The first book on compilers I got that included the source code. It's been incorporated into lcc-win32, a neat little Win32 compiler suite that I have at times played with, mostly during the times I was actively maintaining a Windows-based community cybercaf. It's been upgraded to lcc-win64, so there is a back end for x86_64. Just not a *nix one. Wesley Parish On 8/03/24 22:33, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > Interestingly, they used Literate Programming to do so. > The source is available, but IIRC there isn't a back end > for x86_64. > > Rob Pike wrote: > >> Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean >> and pedagogically valuable. >> >> https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 >> >> -rob >> >> >> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh wrote: >> >>> >>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: >>> >>>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. There >>>> was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC can post >>>> some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] project; >>>> the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and >>>> clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software and was >>>> one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS C[3] was >>>> done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle from him >>>> :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is not >>>> complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, >>>> downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >>>> >>>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >>>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >>>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >>>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >>>> >>> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and >>> this is the backstory to them. >>> >>> Warner >>> From usotsuki at buric.co Fri Mar 8 21:23:48 2024 From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 06:23:48 -0500 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Fri, 8 Mar 2024, Dave Horsfall wrote: > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? Call me weird, but I still think the proper init system for any Linux distro should still and always be sysvinit or something else of that ilk. Too many people creating or maintaining Linux distros don't understand what Linux is, or WHY Linux is. -uso. From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Fri Mar 8 23:06:23 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 06:06:23 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> <202403080933.4289XmvG010921@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <2cc24390-21bd-a75d-c81b-2bc078612502@makerlisp.com> LCC is also the basis for "Pelle's C", a very nice and useful toolset. On 03/08/2024 02:45 AM, Wesley Parish wrote: > The first book on compilers I got that included the source code. > > It's been incorporated into lcc-win32, a neat little Win32 compiler > suite that I have at times played with, mostly during the times I was > actively maintaining a Windows-based community cybercaf. It's been > upgraded to lcc-win64, so there is a back end for x86_64. Just not a > *nix one. > > Wesley Parish > > On 8/03/24 22:33, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: >> Interestingly, they used Literate Programming to do so. >> The source is available, but IIRC there isn't a back end >> for x86_64. >> >> Rob Pike wrote: >> >>> Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very >>> clean >>> and pedagogically valuable. >>> >>> https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 >>> >>> >>> -rob >>> >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 11:31 AM Warner Losh wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 5:08 PM Rich Salz wrote: >>>> >>>>> I believe Snyder was an MIT Master's thesis, finished in 1975[1]. >>>>> There >>>>> was a fair amount of C and compiler work at MIT LCS, perhaps JNC >>>>> can post >>>>> some info. I think Snyder's compiler was used for the MIT PC/IP[2] >>>>> project; >>>>> the links at BitSavers imply they are related. PC/IP brought TCP and >>>>> clients to DOS 3 machines and was commercialized as FTP software >>>>> and was >>>>> one of the reasons for the creation of the MIT license[4]. BDS >>>>> C[3] was >>>>> done by an MIT drop-out, Leor Zolman. I bought my first motorcycle >>>>> from him >>>>> :) BDS C was used for the first implementations of MINCE (mince is >>>>> not >>>>> complete emacs -- those kinds of acronyms were popular) and Scribble, >>>>> downsized clones of emacs and Scribe, respectively. >>>>> >>>>> [1] http://www.lcs.mit.edu/publications/specpub.php?id=717 >>>>> [2] https://web.mit.edu/Saltzer/www/publications/pcip-1986.pdf >>>>> [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDS_C >>>>> [4] https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9263265 >>>>> >>>> Judging from what's at the bitsavers I posted, the source for pcip and >>>> this is the backstory to them. >>>> >>>> Warner >>>> From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Fri Mar 8 23:42:08 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 08:42:08 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 7 Mar 2024 at 18:14, Tom Lyon wrote: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > As a slightly separate addendum, I'm curious about the slightly later history of compilers for commercial UNIX distributions. Were these derived from the Bell/BSD sources or were they "clean room" approaches? I'm thinking of SunPRO, IBM XL C, the MIPS compiler, DEC GEM, etc. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From arnold at skeeve.com Sat Mar 9 00:00:44 2024 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 07:00:44 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202403081400.428E0iIH025985@freefriends.org> Henry Bent wrote: > On Thu, 7 Mar 2024 at 18:14, Tom Lyon wrote: > > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > > As a slightly separate addendum, I'm curious about the slightly later > history of compilers for commercial UNIX distributions. Were these derived > from the Bell/BSD sources or were they "clean room" approaches? I'm > thinking of SunPRO, IBM XL C, the MIPS compiler, DEC GEM, etc. > > -Henry I think the first MIPS compiler was PCC based and then later it was rewritten. I'm pretty sure the others were developed from scratch, but undoubtedly others here know for sure. Arnold From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 9 00:03:23 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (John Foust via TUHS) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 08:03:23 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <170990678456.1947684.3255210399998147395@minnie.tuhs.org> At 05:56 PM 3/7/2024, Luther Johnson wrote: >Speaking of the CP/M and later DOS world, Aztec C was a very competent C >compiler. I recently put together a CP/M environment, and used the >latest version I could find of Aztec C, and it did just what I wanted it >to do. There is an extensive web with the history of Aztec C. https://www.aztecmuseum.ca/ I don't see any Unix products there, but I have a vague memory of one of the compiler developers telling me about how they bootstrapped on a PDP. - John From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Mar 9 00:16:26 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 07:16:26 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 8, 2024, 6:42 AM Henry Bent wrote: > On Thu, 7 Mar 2024 at 18:14, Tom Lyon wrote: > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. >> Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? >> > > As a slightly separate addendum, I'm curious about the slightly later > history of compilers for commercial UNIX distributions. Were these derived > from the Bell/BSD sources or were they "clean room" approaches? I'm > thinking of SunPRO, IBM XL C, the MIPS compiler, DEC GEM, etc. > Almost positive SunPRO and XLc were rewrites. I base this on their unique pickiness on software I ported to them. I had to make several changes for each that Sun's old compiler, the VAX BSD 4.3 compiler and gcc 1.x didn't flag... The error messages also were radically different... and the generated code in the case of Sun was somewhat different... Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Sat Mar 9 00:42:01 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 06:42:01 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? No, I intensely dislike it when I have to deal with it. Which is almost never. Not a fan. From marc.donner at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 01:01:13 2024 From: marc.donner at gmail.com (Marc Donner) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 10:01:13 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: Let me remind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI ===== nygeek.net mindthegapdialogs.com/home On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 9:42 AM Larry McVoy wrote: > > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? > > No, I intensely dislike it when I have to deal with it. Which is almost > never. Not a fan. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Mar 9 01:28:07 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 08:28:07 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 8:43 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > > On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: > > > What about Linux is too bloated, in your opinion? Is it the kernel > > > itself, or the programs that often go with it? If it's the former, > > > OpenBSD may be a good choice. If it's the latter, I would look into a > > > minimal distribution (e.g. Alpine, Void, arguably Arch) paired with a > > > tiling window manager (e.g. Sway, dwm). > > > > > > -Ben > > > > The bloated part? IMHO I would say systemd, pulseaudio, NetworkManager, > > KDE, GNOME, Cinnamon. ??Even though Cinnamon is the desktop I use. ??My > > wife's laptop finally died ie. Windows got so crudded up with stuff > > that Outlook couldn't send mail and I just refused to try and fix it. > > ??I gave her my old PC with Debian and configured Cinnamon to look like > > Windows 7. ??All she does with it is web and email so all I really had > > to do was setup Firefox and Evolution and tell her it was Windows. > > > > As far as the kernel goes, I rebuilt the stock kernel that Debian uses > > just for kicks. ??It took 25 minutes on a 16-thread system with SSD > > storage, source tree plus build output occupies 26G, pretty bloaty. ??I > > just refreshed most of my infrastructure and in the process switched > > from xfs/LVM to ZFS so it may be time to make the switch back to > > FreeBSD if I retain enough muscle memory. > > So I'm a SunOS guy, got there just after SunOS 4.0, contributed to 4.1, > really contributed to 4.1.1 and 4.1.3. I loved SunOS. > > FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a while > back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I know, I > walked the code), FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand > if you have installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. That "UI" > for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install experience > is _awful_. > We must be using different installers. The defaults just work. But so what. Even if it was awful, it's the first 5 minutes of your experience... People don't use the installer, and with the VM images there's even less need to day to fixate on it. And to be fair, it isn't from the 80s. In the 80s, you booted a tape and got. stuck with whatever partitioning the disk driver had. In the 90s you used a calculator to figure out the labels to put on the drives as we started to get a diversity of disks. In the 2000s, everything was still text based, like FreeBSD's installer, but helped you partition things. It wasn't until the 2010s that the installers started to become graphical on a wide-spread basis. But try installing ZFS root. FreeBSD's installer just does the right thing setting it up. For Liunx, despite it's "awesome" graphics experience, I had 6 pages of instructions from the OpenZFS web site to do it. So while it looks nicer, for sure, there's still some UX issues to overcome. > SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so dead > it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an example > from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux and the > machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The installer was > graphical and it was just easier to tab through the options than go > find a mouse. > FreeBSD's installer doesn't need a mouse... And Linux installers have been hit or miss on this issue over the years (mostly a hit, but not always)... And despite all the pro-Linux Netcraft propaganda, FreeBSD is not dying. > I'd love it if BSD had kept up but it has not. Linux is way better. > Yeah, all the bloat is annoying but we are not running on 64KB PDP-lls. > L1 is that size, L2 and L3 are bigger. Main memory is many orders of > magnitude bigger, I'm typing this on a 32GB memory laptop. It's fine. > What's that? I can't hear you over the 800Gbps of traffic we're able to generate with FreeBSD but not Linux... In all fairness, Linux does a better job at moving lots of packets... My daily driver is MacOS for work. And FreeBSD laptop for personal. There are problems with FreeBSD (I'm looking at you wifi), but it works great. The Graphics issues have been solved, by and large. Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clemc at ccc.com Sat Mar 9 01:36:12 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 10:36:12 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: +1 ᐧ On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 10:01 AM Marc Donner wrote: > Let me remind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI > ===== > nygeek.net > mindthegapdialogs.com/home > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 9:42 AM Larry McVoy wrote: > >> > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? >> >> No, I intensely dislike it when I have to deal with it. Which is almost >> never. Not a fan. >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Sat Mar 9 01:42:13 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 07:42:13 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <20240308154213.GX2252@mcvoy.com> I'm gonna let this topic go or Warner and I will get into a pissing contest that nobody wants to hear. On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 10:36:12AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote: > +1 > ??? > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 10:01???AM Marc Donner wrote: > > > Let me remind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI > > ===== > > nygeek.net > > mindthegapdialogs.com/home > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 9:42???AM Larry McVoy wrote: > > > >> > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? > >> > >> No, I intensely dislike it when I have to deal with it. Which is almost > >> never. Not a fan. > >> > > -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From paul.winalski at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 01:44:08 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 10:44:08 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/7/24, Tom Lyon wrote: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > [topic of interest to COFF, as well, I think] DEC's Ultrix for VAX and MIPS used off-the-shelf Unix cc. I don't recall what they used for Alpha. The C compiler for VAX/VMS was written by Dave Cutler's team at DECwest in Seattle. The C front end generated intermediate language (IL) for Cutler's VAX Code Generator (VCG), which was designed to be a common back end for DEC's compilers for VAX/VMS. His team also licensed the Freiburghouse PL/I front end (commercial version of a PL/I compiler originally done for Multics) and modified it to generate VCG IL. The VCG was also the back end for DEC's Ada compiler. VCG was superseded by the GEM back end, which supported Alpha and Itanium. A port of GEM to x86 was in progress at the time Compaq sold off the Alpha technology (including GEM and its C and Fortran front ends) to Intel. From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Mar 9 01:45:40 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 08:45:40 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <20240308154213.GX2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308154213.GX2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: Nah, I 100% agree about systemd. But systemd is such an easy target... Warner On Fri, Mar 8, 2024, 8:42 AM Larry McVoy wrote: > I'm gonna let this topic go or Warner and I will get into a pissing > contest that nobody wants to hear. > > On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 10:36:12AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote: > > +1 > > ??? > > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 10:01???AM Marc Donner > wrote: > > > > > Let me remind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI > > > ===== > > > nygeek.net > > > mindthegapdialogs.com/home > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 9:42???AM Larry McVoy wrote: > > > > > >> > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? > > >> > > >> No, I intensely dislike it when I have to deal with it. Which is > almost > > >> never. Not a fan. > > >> > > > > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing > http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From will.senn at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 01:50:12 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 09:50:12 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308144201.GV2252@mcvoy.com> <20240308154213.GX2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <2bcb47c5-f883-4f6d-8cdd-a766eb69cf9a@gmail.com> Seems like. I think somebody was dissing FreeBSD in this here thread, too. Let's go there... or not. Coff, coff... On 3/8/24 9:45 AM, Warner Losh wrote: > Nah, I 100% agree about systemd. But systemd is such an easy target... > > Warner > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024, 8:42 AM Larry McVoy wrote: > > I'm gonna let this topic go or Warner and I will get into a pissing > contest that nobody wants to hear. > > On Fri, Mar 08, 2024 at 10:36:12AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote: > > +1 > > ??? > > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 10:01???AM Marc Donner > wrote: > > > > > Let me remind you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPRvc2UMeMI > > > ===== > > > nygeek.net > > > mindthegapdialogs.com/home > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 9:42???AM Larry McVoy wrote: > > > > > >> > You like that abomination known as "systemd"? > > >> > > >> No, I intensely dislike it when I have to deal with it.  > Which is almost > > >> never.  Not a fan. > > >> > > > > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy           Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cowan at ccil.org Sat Mar 9 02:09:07 2024 From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 11:09:07 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 2:42 PM Douglas McIlroy < douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote: Because I sometimes use ArcMap, I run Windows. > I run Windows because it's easy to get third-party maintenance for Windows or Mac, and Windows is easier to tune. Cygwin plus the sam editor make me feel at home. > Ditto, except I don't like TUI editors, so I use `ex` and drop into `vi' mode when I need to bounce on the % key when doing Lisp. The benefits of `sam -d` over `ex` aren't big enough to justify changing years of habit. The main signs of Microsoft are the desktop, Bing, File Explorer and Task > Manager. > I use both Edge/Bing and Chrome/Google depending on what's integrated with them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca Sat Mar 9 02:23:01 2024 From: stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca (Stuff Received) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 11:23:01 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> Message-ID: <796ab983-ca43-79d5-a98e-209ebaebc50c@riddermarkfarm.ca> On 2024-03-07 01:47, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote (in part): > Lately, I find myself getting tired of the bloat and how big and messy > and complicated it has all gotten. Thinking of looking for something > simpler and was just wondering what do other old timers use for their > primary home computing needs? > > Jeff > Unsure whether this is any simpler but, being retired, I have an M1 mini on my desk running MacOS and a T2000 downstairs in the spare bedroom running Solaris 11.3. S. From athornton at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 03:18:18 2024 From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 10:18:18 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Not early history, but Selfie, which contains a cheerily small implementation of a C subset called C*, is one of my favorite things. https://github.com/cksystemsteaching/selfie C* is described in https://github.com/cksystemsteaching/selfie/blob/main/grammar.md -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From whm at msweng.com Sat Mar 9 04:33:15 2024 From: whm at msweng.com (William H. Mitchell) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 11:33:15 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <61EFF186-2C9E-4FAB-9EE8-F2F15F1ADF22@msweng.com> Speaking of Hanson, I had the great privilege of taking a compilers class from him at the U of Arizona in the early 80s. We wrote a recursive descent C compiler, a linker, and a debugger. They were all "real", albeit with simplifications. Hanson wrote the DEC-10 C compiler that we students used. He wrote enough of an i/o library for our needs, with installments barely ahead of when we needed them. :) An interesting simplification Hanson used was that 'sizeof ' was 1. I still marvel at what a great lesson about C that is. (A YAGNI lesson, too, I suppose.) When the question of "What’s the best class you ever had?" comes up, my answer is, Dave Hanson’s 453. Hanson’s slides (and more) are in https://www2.cs.arizona.edu/~whm/csc453-fall1983-DRHanson.pdf. The slides start on 44. I also worked for both Hanson and later, Fraser. To this day I’m impressed that Fraser consistently resisted the temptation for choke me to death for being an idiot who thought he knew everything. The LCC book Rob cites below is surely a classic and, as written in its Foreword, the book is an example of a "literate program". --whm > On Mar 7, 2024, at 5:57 PM, Rob Pike wrote: > > Chris Fraser and Dave Hanson did LLC and wrote a book about it, very clean and pedagogically valuable. > > https://www.amazon.com.au/Retargetable-C-Compiler-Design-Implementation/dp/0805316701 > > -rob From whm at msweng.com Sat Mar 9 05:23:39 2024 From: whm at msweng.com (William H. Mitchell) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 12:23:39 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5CA7DF21-7A8A-40C5-B8F7-42F9DE45DD7F@msweng.com> A story that Steve Zimmerman once told--and I can’t remember if in-person at a Usenix, on a mailing list, or on Usenet--was that on some Chinese restaurant menu he found this item: "Sliced Children with Tomato Sauce". (Note: "children", not "chicken"!) For fun, Zimmerman tried to order it, asking to be sure it was in fact sliced children, not sliced chicken. The waiter carefully explained it was a typo, became very apologetic for disappointing him, etc. :) Every once in a while I look for that post but I’ve never found it. I wonder if anybody else from the recalls it from the 80s. Google says, 'No results found for "sliced children with tomato sauce".' FWIW, Here’s a search that turns up a few things related to CCA Emacs: https://groups.google.com/g/net.emacs/search?q=steve%20zimmerman%20cca%20emacs My recollection is that Zimmerman passed away while relatively young, but hopefully I’m wrong. I didn’t find him on LinkedIn just now. > On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:50 AM, Clem Cole wrote: > > CCA - a.k.a. zimmerman emacs. > ᐧ > > On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:43 AM ron minnich wrote: > > CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... > > I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a mistake. > > From halbert at halwitz.org Sat Mar 9 05:55:56 2024 From: halbert at halwitz.org (Dan Halbert) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 14:55:56 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <5CA7DF21-7A8A-40C5-B8F7-42F9DE45DD7F@msweng.com> References: <5CA7DF21-7A8A-40C5-B8F7-42F9DE45DD7F@msweng.com> Message-ID: <0bfa1109-c826-4bf2-ae9c-185546fecf9f@halwitz.org> Here you go. I search in groups.google.com, which indexes old Usenet posts: https://groups.google.com/g/net.jokes/c/GdEQWm_Ztj0/m/SoRDzqrLg64J Dan H. On 3/8/24 14:23, William H. Mitchell wrote: > A story that Steve Zimmerman once told--and I can’t remember if in-person at a Usenix, on a mailing list, or on Usenet--was that on some Chinese restaurant menu he found this item: "Sliced Children with Tomato Sauce". (Note: "children", not "chicken"!) For fun, Zimmerman tried to order it, asking to be sure it was in fact sliced children, not sliced chicken. The waiter carefully explained it was a typo, became very apologetic for disappointing him, etc. :) > > Every once in a while I look for that post but I’ve never found it. I wonder if anybody else from the recalls it from the 80s. > > Google says, 'No results found for "sliced children with tomato sauce".' > > FWIW, Here’s a search that turns up a few things related to CCA Emacs: https://groups.google.com/g/net.emacs/search?q=steve%20zimmerman%20cca%20emacs > > My recollection is that Zimmerman passed away while relatively young, but hopefully I’m wrong. I didn’t find him on LinkedIn just now. > >> On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:50 AM, Clem Cole wrote: >> >> CCA - a.k.a. zimmerman emacs. >> ᐧ >> >> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:43 AM ron minnich wrote: >> >> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... >> >> I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a mistake. >> >> From halbert at halwitz.org Sat Mar 9 05:57:23 2024 From: halbert at halwitz.org (Dan Halbert) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 14:57:23 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: <0bfa1109-c826-4bf2-ae9c-185546fecf9f@halwitz.org> References: <5CA7DF21-7A8A-40C5-B8F7-42F9DE45DD7F@msweng.com> <0bfa1109-c826-4bf2-ae9c-185546fecf9f@halwitz.org> Message-ID: Here is the whole post: z... at cca.uucp Jun 3, 1983, 9:23:42 AM to Nothing will ever top the entry I saw on the menu of the main restaurant in Darjeeling. The restaurant was quite ordinary, and so was most of the menu. But there was one entry in the middle of a bunch of others which caught my eye: Rice with sliced children, tomato sauce. I called the waiter over and tried to order it, and he explained that it was a misprint; it was supposed to read "chicken" instead of "children". I acted terribly disappointed, and the waiter became very apologetic. This was the same restaurant in Darjeeling that was frequently out of tea. On the road up to Darjeeling, there were all sorts of interesting billboards. On the approach to a narrow bridge, there was one proclaiming "Watch your Vechicles". A little farther on, there was one that said "Drink more coffee, it's good for you!" On 3/8/24 14:55, Dan Halbert wrote: > Here you go. I search in groups.google.com, which indexes old Usenet > posts: > > https://groups.google.com/g/net.jokes/c/GdEQWm_Ztj0/m/SoRDzqrLg64J > > Dan H. > > On 3/8/24 14:23, William H. Mitchell wrote: >> A story that Steve Zimmerman once told--and I can’t remember if >> in-person at a Usenix, on a mailing list, or on Usenet--was that on >> some Chinese restaurant menu he found this item: "Sliced Children >> with Tomato Sauce". (Note: "children", not "chicken"!)  For fun, >> Zimmerman tried to order it, asking to be sure it was in fact sliced >> children, not sliced chicken.  The waiter carefully explained it was >> a typo, became very apologetic for disappointing him, etc. :) >> >> Every once in a while I look for that post but I’ve never found it.  >> I wonder if anybody else from the recalls it from the 80s. >> >> Google says, 'No results found for "sliced children with tomato sauce".' >> >> FWIW, Here’s a search that turns up a few things related to CCA >> Emacs: >> https://groups.google.com/g/net.emacs/search?q=steve%20zimmerman%20cca%20emacs >> >> My recollection is that Zimmerman passed away while relatively young, >> but hopefully I’m wrong.  I didn’t find him on LinkedIn just now. >> >>> On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:50 AM, Clem Cole wrote: >>> >>> CCA - a.k.a. zimmerman emacs. >>> ᐧ >>> >>> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:43 AM ron minnich wrote: >>> >>> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... >>> >>> I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a >>> mistake. >>> >>> > From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Sat Mar 9 06:12:01 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 13:12:01 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] who was that unmasked man In-Reply-To: References: <5CA7DF21-7A8A-40C5-B8F7-42F9DE45DD7F@msweng.com> <0bfa1109-c826-4bf2-ae9c-185546fecf9f@halwitz.org> Message-ID: That reminds me of a restaurant, who posted, one day, that the soup of the day was "Beef Barely". On 03/08/2024 12:57 PM, Dan Halbert wrote: > Here is the whole post: > > z... at cca.uucp > Jun 3, 1983, 9:23:42 AM > to > Nothing will ever top the entry I saw on the menu of the main restaurant > in Darjeeling. The restaurant was quite ordinary, and so was most of > the menu. But there was one entry in the middle of a bunch of others > which caught my eye: > > Rice with sliced children, tomato sauce. > > I called the waiter over and tried to order it, and he explained that it > was a misprint; it was supposed to read "chicken" instead of "children". > I acted terribly disappointed, and the waiter became very apologetic. > > This was the same restaurant in Darjeeling that was frequently out of > tea. > > On the road up to Darjeeling, there were all sorts of interesting > billboards. On the approach to a narrow bridge, there was one > proclaiming "Watch your Vechicles". A little farther on, there was one > that said "Drink more coffee, it's good for you!" > > On 3/8/24 14:55, Dan Halbert wrote: >> Here you go. I search in groups.google.com, which indexes old Usenet >> posts: >> >> https://groups.google.com/g/net.jokes/c/GdEQWm_Ztj0/m/SoRDzqrLg64J >> >> Dan H. >> >> On 3/8/24 14:23, William H. Mitchell wrote: >>> A story that Steve Zimmerman once told--and I can’t remember if >>> in-person at a Usenix, on a mailing list, or on Usenet--was that on >>> some Chinese restaurant menu he found this item: "Sliced Children >>> with Tomato Sauce". (Note: "children", not "chicken"!) For fun, >>> Zimmerman tried to order it, asking to be sure it was in fact sliced >>> children, not sliced chicken. The waiter carefully explained it was >>> a typo, became very apologetic for disappointing him, etc. :) >>> >>> Every once in a while I look for that post but I’ve never found it. >>> I wonder if anybody else from the recalls it from the 80s. >>> >>> Google says, 'No results found for "sliced children with tomato >>> sauce".' >>> >>> FWIW, Here’s a search that turns up a few things related to CCA >>> Emacs: >>> https://groups.google.com/g/net.emacs/search?q=steve%20zimmerman%20cca%20emacs >>> >>> My recollection is that Zimmerman passed away while relatively >>> young, but hopefully I’m wrong. I didn’t find him on LinkedIn just >>> now. >>> >>>> On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:50 AM, Clem Cole wrote: >>>> >>>> CCA - a.k.a. zimmerman emacs. >>>> ᐧ >>>> >>>> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 11:43 AM ron minnich >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>> CCA EMACS? That's a name I have not heard in a long time ... >>>> >>>> I forgot if I'm not allowed to load images, sorry if I just made a >>>> mistake. >>>> >>>> >> > From grog at lemis.com Sat Mar 9 09:18:00 2024 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2024 10:18:00 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? (was: What do you currently use for your primary OS at home?) In-Reply-To: <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Thursday, 7 March 2024 at 19:42:59 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: >> On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: > > FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a > while back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I > know, I walked the code) OK, I'm asking. I've been there too, and I don't see any obvious and serious deficiencies. > FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand if you have > installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. /me raises. > That "UI" for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install > experience is _awful_. Agreed, some of the installation tools could do with improvement. But how often do you install FreeBSD? As I have already noted, I've been using it for 25 years or so, and in the early days I held classes on installing FreeBSD. By about 2000 they seemed a little pointless. In general, once it's there, it's there. You seem to be emphasizing the wrong part of the system. > SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so > dead it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an > example from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux > and the machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The > installer was graphical and it was just easier to tab through the > options than go find a mouse. Again, installation. How about *using* the system? And why should you need a *mouse* to install software? Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available URL: From will.senn at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 09:43:18 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 17:43:18 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? (was: What do you currently use for your primary OS at home?) In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: +1, installing FreeBSD takes me on average 5 minutes. 5 more to apply updates. With ZFS system restores take less than 5 and getting things configured the way I like them is another hour if it’s not a restore. GUI? KDE and Xfce work... not my faves, but better than Gnome for my taste. My only gripe with it is that I run a huge number of programs regularly and they slowly find their way into the package system. Zoom works, but only in the browser, Outlook works, sort of, rstudio kinda works, dotnet doesn’t work at all... These all work and work well on Linux. If they worked on FreeBSD, I would never need another environment. FreeBSD is sane when it comes to init. System-D is for some other use-case than mine, but I’ll put up with init madness if the next time I download a new dev tool, it just works... Will Sent from my iPhone > On Mar 8, 2024, at 5:18 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > >> On Thursday, 7 March 2024 at 19:42:59 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: >>> On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: >>> On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: >> >> FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a >> while back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I >> know, I walked the code) > > OK, I'm asking. I've been there too, and I don't see any obvious and > serious deficiencies. > >> FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand if you have >> installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. > > /me raises. > >> That "UI" for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install >> experience is _awful_. > > Agreed, some of the installation tools could do with improvement. But > how often do you install FreeBSD? As I have already noted, I've been > using it for 25 years or so, and in the early days I held classes on > installing FreeBSD. By about 2000 they seemed a little pointless. In > general, once it's there, it's there. You seem to be emphasizing the > wrong part of the system. > >> SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so >> dead it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an >> example from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux >> and the machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The >> installer was graphical and it was just easier to tab through the >> options than go find a mouse. > > Again, installation. How about *using* the system? And why should > you need a *mouse* to install software? > > Greg > -- > Sent from my desktop computer. > Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. > See complete headers for address and phone numbers. > This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program > reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 9 09:45:31 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 23:45:31 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? (was: What do you currently use for your primary OS at home?) In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Friday, March 8th, 2024 at 3:18 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > On Thursday, 7 March 2024 at 19:42:59 -0800, Larry McVoy wrote: > > > On Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 08:15:43PM -0500, Jeffry R. Abramson wrote: > > > > > On Thu, 2024-03-07 at 13:08 +0000, Ben Kallus wrote: > > > > FreeBSD and me got reconnected when Netflix wanted to hire me a > > while back. While the kernel may be OK (it's not, ask me how I > > know, I walked the code) > > > OK, I'm asking. I've been there too, and I don't see any obvious and > serious deficiencies. > > > FreeBSD is stuck in the 1980s. Raise your hand if you have > > installed FreeBSD in the last 20 years. > > > /me raises. > > > That "UI" for partitioning the disks, so arcane. The whole install > > experience is awful. > > > Agreed, some of the installation tools could do with improvement. But > how often do you install FreeBSD? As I have already noted, I've been > using it for 25 years or so, and in the early days I held classes on > installing FreeBSD. By about 2000 they seemed a little pointless. In > general, once it's there, it's there. You seem to be emphasizing the > wrong part of the system. > > > SunOS was a bug fixed BSD, so I really loved BSD. But BSD is so > > dead it is not even funny. Linux is light years ahead. Here is an > > example from more than 20 years ago. I was installing RedHat Linux > > and the machine I was installing on didn't have a mouse. The > > installer was graphical and it was just easier to tab through the > > options than go find a mouse. > > > Again, installation. How about using the system? And why should > you need a mouse to install software? > > Greg > -- > Sent from my desktop computer. > Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. > See complete headers for address and phone numbers. > This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program > reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php It's been a few years since I installed a Linux distro, but FreeBSD's installation process feels much more succinct, and agreed installation isn't something you'd be doing all the time. In a production environment, I'd rather have the thing scripted anyway, copy VMs, what have you. There's also something to be said for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Different strokes for different folks, if you're coming to UNIX from a Windows world, the graphical install processes of many Linux distros are probably right up your alley, but if you're a minimalist, it can feel like a bit much. I'd be much more concerned if I'm installing systems so often by hand that the quality of the installer is the make or break.... - Matt G. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 9 09:50:40 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (John Floren via TUHS) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 15:50:40 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? (was: What do you currently use for your primary OS at home?) In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Will Senn writes: [snip] > restore. GUI? KDE and Xfce work... not my faves, but better than Gnome > for my taste. My only gripe with it is that I run a huge number of [snip] Ok so I've always been confused by how often I see this come up... don't FreeBSD, and Debian, and Ubuntu, and Redhat, and OpenBSD, etc. all ship a huge variety of window managers and desktop environments right there in the package manager? I guess I haven't run Gnome in 15 years but everything else I ever want (fvwm, xfce, stumpwm, twm, KDE) is always available with a quick install command. I remember for a long time people would talk about how they were going to install Xubuntu or Kubuntu or Lubuntu because they didn't like the Gnome interface on Ubuntu... blow away your whole root partition rather than run "apt-get install kde"? john From mphuff at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 09:57:57 2024 From: mphuff at gmail.com (Michael Huff) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 14:57:57 -0900 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? (was: What do you currently use for your primary OS at home?) In-Reply-To: <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Message-ID: [reply is below, as top-posting is for godless heathens] On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 2:53 PM John Floren via TUHS wrote: > > Will Senn writes: > [snip] > > restore. GUI? KDE and Xfce work... not my faves, but better than Gnome > > for my taste. My only gripe with it is that I run a huge number of > [snip] > > Ok so I've always been confused by how often I see this come > up... don't FreeBSD, and Debian, and Ubuntu, and Redhat, and OpenBSD, > etc. all ship a huge variety of window managers and desktop environments > right there in the package manager? I guess I haven't run Gnome in 15 > years but everything else I ever want (fvwm, xfce, stumpwm, twm, KDE) is > always available with a quick install command. > > I remember for a long time people would talk about how they were going > to install Xubuntu or Kubuntu or Lubuntu because they didn't like the > Gnome interface on Ubuntu... blow away your whole root partition rather > than run "apt-get install kde"? > > john > I thought most desktops (specifically Xfce, GNOME, KDE) required Wayland and SystemD these days? Wouldn't that rule out *BSD? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From flexibeast at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 10:16:33 2024 From: flexibeast at gmail.com (Alexis) Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2024 11:16:33 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? In-Reply-To: (Michael Huff's message of "Fri, 8 Mar 2024 14:57:57 -0900") References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Message-ID: <87r0gkp8da.fsf@gmail.com> Michael Huff writes: > I thought most desktops (specifically Xfce, GNOME, KDE) required > Wayland and SystemD these days? Wouldn't that rule out *BSD? i'm not a user of any of those three myself, but as far as i'm aware, none of those three currently require Wayland. But GNOME is certainly pushing people towards use of Mutter (the GNOME Wayland compositor), while: > It is not clear yet which Xfce release will target a complete > Xfce Wayland transition (or if such a transition will happen at > all). Below is a list of larger tasks which would need to be > done in some way for such a transition to occur. -- https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/wayland_roadmap In terms of Wayland on *BSDs, there's active work being done to get the Wayland ecosystem working on OpenBSD: "Towards running a Wayland Compositor on OpenBSD" -- https://www.openbsd.org/papers/eurobsdcon2023-matthieu-wayland-openbsd.pdf The author of that talk, Matthieu Herrb, is an X dev: https://www.x.org/wiki/MatthieuHerrb/ Alexis. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 9 13:59:28 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2024 03:59:28 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Might Have a DMERT SCSI Disk, Need Help Preserving Message-ID: Hello everyone, I reach out in my time of need regarding a potential source of DMERT materials. I've recently come into possession of a hard disk unit from a 5ESS switch, presumably the 5ESS-2000 variant, part UN 375G: https://i.imgur.com/yQzY5Hs.jpeg The actual disk itself appears to be a Ultra320 SCSI disk, which I unfortunately do not have the tools to do anything with myself. After looking into various solutions, I'm not getting the warm fuzzies about finding the necessary hardware on my first shot, these sorts of hardware specifics are not my strong suit. The story I got is it is from a working system, so could possibly have artifacts, but at the same time, I've already sunk a little over $1,000 into getting this, I'm hesitant to drop more on hardware I'm not 100% confident is correct for the job. Does anyone have any recommendations, whether a service, hardware, anything, that I could use to try and get at what is on this disk? Even if it's just sending it off to someone along with enough storage for them to make me a dd image of the thing, I just feel so close yet so far on finally figuring out if I've managed to land a copy of DMERT. Thanks in advance for any advice, I'm really hoping that the end of this story is I find DMERT artifacts to get archived and preserved, that would be such a satisfying conclusion to all this 3B20/5ESS study as of late. I wish I had the resources to see the rest through myself but this is getting into an area I have quite a bit of trepidation regarding. What I don't want to do is inadvertently damage something by getting it wrong. - Matt G. From fair-tuhs at netbsd.org Sat Mar 9 14:22:21 2024 From: fair-tuhs at netbsd.org (Erik E. Fair) Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2024 20:22:21 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Might Have a DMERT SCSI Disk, Need Help Preserving In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <29986.1709958141@cesium.clock.org> A storage device data recovery service that has been around since 1985: "Drive Savers" https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/devices-supported/external-drive-data-recovery/ I have never used their services myself, but they advertised handling SCSI drives back in the day, and given their business, I doubt they throw away outmoded gear - can't hurt to call 'em and ask. I tried that imgur.com link and got a 404 - no image there. An Ultra320 SCSI drive should have either a 68-pin or 80-pin SCA connector on the back, and will be "low voltage differential" (LVD) - an Ultra80 or Ultra160 SCSI controller should be able to talk to that, i.e., the drive should be able to negotiate the link speed with the controller and downgrade appropriately. I might be able to cobble something together from the junk I keep too much of to try and read the drive if it will spin up and talk, but an outfit like Drive Savers will be much better equipped than I am. This might also be a job for the restoration folks at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. Erik Fair From kevin.bowling at kev009.com Sat Mar 9 14:27:14 2024 From: kevin.bowling at kev009.com (Kevin Bowling) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 21:27:14 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Might Have a DMERT SCSI Disk, Need Help Preserving In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 8:59 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > Hello everyone, I reach out in my time of need regarding a potential source of DMERT materials. I've recently come into possession of a hard disk unit from a 5ESS switch, presumably the 5ESS-2000 variant, part UN 375G: > > https://i.imgur.com/yQzY5Hs.jpeg > > The actual disk itself appears to be a Ultra320 SCSI disk, which I unfortunately do not have the tools to do anything with myself. After looking into various solutions, I'm not getting the warm fuzzies about finding the necessary hardware on my first shot, these sorts of hardware specifics are not my strong suit. The story I got is it is from a working system, so could possibly have artifacts, but at the same time, I've already sunk a little over $1,000 into getting this, I'm hesitant to drop more on hardware I'm not 100% confident is correct for the job. The later SCSI specs are pretty forgiving as far as backwards compatibility goes, a U320 drive will run fine on basically anything with 68-pins other than HVD which you aren't likely to encounter. U160 and up are alwasy LVD. There are some U320 PCIe cards but they seem to be pricey these days (on the order of $100). If you have a system with PCI (or PCI-X) you can pick up a capable card for $10. An internal cable with a built in terminator is about $15 and that is the only other thing you need. Typically you can just do a 'dd' of the drive to get a raw image from any fair modern UNIX. Then you can try 'binwalk' to see what the disk structure is like.. hard to say where to go from there without seeing the output of this. > > Does anyone have any recommendations, whether a service, hardware, anything, that I could use to try and get at what is on this disk? Even if it's just sending it off to someone along with enough storage for them to make me a dd image of the thing, I just feel so close yet so far on finally figuring out if I've managed to land a copy of DMERT. If you really need to outsource it, I have the requisite equipment. Might take me a couple weeks to turn around due to work pressures. > > Thanks in advance for any advice, I'm really hoping that the end of this story is I find DMERT artifacts to get archived and preserved, that would be such a satisfying conclusion to all this 3B20/5ESS study as of late. I wish I had the resources to see the rest through myself but this is getting into an area I have quite a bit of trepidation regarding. What I don't want to do is inadvertently damage something by getting it wrong. > > - Matt G. From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Mar 9 14:29:24 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 8 Mar 2024 21:29:24 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Might Have a DMERT SCSI Disk, Need Help Preserving In-Reply-To: <29986.1709958141@cesium.clock.org> References: <29986.1709958141@cesium.clock.org> Message-ID: I have an old x86 server that has FreeBSD running on it (an older version) with a Ultra320 adaptech controller in it (I think a 29320), and all the cabling etc that has one extra slot on the cable. It's 68 pin, not the 80 pin SCA. I sadly, got rid of my SCA adapters a while ago. I think setting the drive address is the only config you'd need. But a physical examination of the drive would help. I'm near Denver Colorado if that's convenient, but would be happy to ship stuff to help out. I've imaged dozens of drives. Warner On Fri, Mar 8, 2024 at 9:22 PM Erik E. Fair wrote: > A storage device data recovery service that has been around since 1985: > > "Drive Savers" > > > > https://drivesaversdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-services/devices-supported/external-drive-data-recovery/ > > I have never used their services myself, but they advertised handling SCSI > drives back in the day, and given their business, I doubt they throw away > outmoded gear - can't hurt to call 'em and ask. > > I tried that imgur.com link and got a 404 - no image there. > > An Ultra320 SCSI drive should have either a 68-pin or 80-pin SCA connector > on the back, and will be "low voltage differential" (LVD) - an Ultra80 or > Ultra160 SCSI controller should be able to talk to that, i.e., the drive > should be able to negotiate the link speed with the controller and > downgrade appropriately. I might be able to cobble something together from > the junk I keep too much of to try and read the drive if it will spin up > and talk, but an outfit like Drive Savers will be much better equipped than > I am. > > This might also be a job for the restoration folks at the Computer History > Museum in Mountain View, CA. > > Erik Fair > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Mar 9 19:53:28 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Harald Arnesen via TUHS) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2024 10:53:28 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? In-Reply-To: References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> Message-ID: <2aed1bdf-b55d-4e79-ac18-a261b60d870f@skogtun.org> Michael Huff [09/03/2024 00.57]: > I thought most desktops (specifically Xfce, GNOME, KDE) required Wayland > and SystemD these days?  Wouldn't that rule out *BSD? Not true at all. I run Xfce on Devuan Linux, Void Linux and FreeBSD - all without systemd. The two Linuxes are distributions that deliberately won't let you use Substance D, as I like to call it. I haven't Wayland installed either. -- Hilsen Harald From wobblygong at gmail.com Sat Mar 9 20:07:22 2024 From: wobblygong at gmail.com (Wesley Parish) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2024 23:07:22 +1300 Subject: [TUHS] What do you currently use for your primary OS at home? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6729ea82-e3ca-4409-a0ad-912f65df6d3a@gmail.com> I've used Microsoft products on many an occasion; I have to say, they did lift their game as time went on. I have used Windows 3.x, but generally the times I installed it on my 486 generally led to me erasing it for something less fragile. My current main box is Fedora, and before that it was Kubuntu, and before that it was Win 8.1 and before that Win 76.x - economics; those were the only machines I could then afford when my PCLinuxOS box died. I've played around with OpenSolaris, which was an eye-opener for someone who'd used Linux almost exclusively since I'd got my hands on Slackware 3.x on CDROM, before transitioning to Mandrake 9.0, and thence to PCLinuxOS. Though, Linux is still more robust than Windows - I've got a PC running MS Win10, which has shown me a blank white screen the last time I booted it, while the time Fedora had a display driver issue, I was able to update the system the following day and solved that issue in the process. Wesley Parish On 9/03/24 05:09, John Cowan wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024 at 2:42 PM Douglas McIlroy > wrote: > > > Because I sometimes use ArcMap, I run Windows. > > I run Windows because it's easy to get third-party maintenance for > Windows or Mac, and Windows is easier to tune. > > Cygwin plus the sam editor make me feel at home. > > > Ditto, except I don't like TUI editors, so I use `ex` and drop into > `vi' mode when I need to bounce on the % key when doing Lisp.  The > benefits of `sam -d` over `ex` aren't big enough to justify changing > years of habit. > > The main signs of Microsoft are the desktop, Bing, File Explorer > and Task Manager. > > > I use both Edge/Bing and Chrome/Google depending on what's integrated > with them. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com Sun Mar 10 01:34:39 2024 From: gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com (Gregg Levine) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2024 10:34:39 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? In-Reply-To: <2aed1bdf-b55d-4e79-ac18-a261b60d870f@skogtun.org> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> <2aed1bdf-b55d-4e79-ac18-a261b60d870f@skogtun.org> Message-ID: Hello! I agree with the other fellow. I've run Slackware Linux, their 11.0 release on an older Dell and it did not need that pest. I've also used KDE on it. And I've gotten Slackware 14.1 and Slackware 14.2 to work on an older Dell laptop, both apply. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again." On Sat, Mar 9, 2024 at 4:53 AM Harald Arnesen via TUHS wrote: > > Michael Huff [09/03/2024 00.57]: > > > I thought most desktops (specifically Xfce, GNOME, KDE) required Wayland > > and SystemD these days? Wouldn't that rule out *BSD? > > Not true at all. I run Xfce on Devuan Linux, Void Linux and FreeBSD - > all without systemd. The two Linuxes are distributions that deliberately > won't let you use Substance D, as I like to call it. > > I haven't Wayland installed either. > -- > Hilsen Harald > From tytso at mit.edu Sun Mar 10 03:25:44 2024 From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2024 12:25:44 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] FreeBSD kernel not OK? In-Reply-To: <87r0gkp8da.fsf@gmail.com> References: <9eb334edeb7568193000f8755704af7799169b17.camel@gmail.com> <789486d8dae3335166640461f7885bf9cf6043cf.camel@gmail.com> <20240308034259.GS2252@mcvoy.com> <87h6hg2scs.fsf@thufir.floren.lan> <87r0gkp8da.fsf@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240309172544.GA143836@mit.edu> On Sat, Mar 09, 2024 at 11:16:33AM +1100, Alexis wrote: > Michael Huff writes: > > > I thought most desktops (specifically Xfce, GNOME, KDE) required > > Wayland and SystemD these days? Wouldn't that rule out *BSD? > > i'm not a user of any of those three myself, but as far as i'm aware, none > of those three currently require Wayland. But GNOME is certainly pushing > people towards use of Mutter (the GNOME Wayland compositor), while: You *can* use Wayland, but all of these Desktop systems work quite well with X11. Development of X11 is essentially stopped, but the hardware interface for 2D graphics is stable, so that's not a problem. I'm still using X11 because there are some shortcomings still with Wayland. For example, support for mouse acceleartion isn't there, and that's a real issue for me when I'm trying to work while on a walkstation. As far as what I'm using, my home desktop system is runing Desktop on one screen. My other screen is switches back and forth between using ChromeOS (so I can connect to Gogle's corp systems when I'm working from home), and my laptop system, which is a 15" Macbook Air (MBA). I use the MBA because the Apple Silicon's battery life is amazing. I will run Linux in a VM using Parallels, and even running Linux in a VM, the barry lifetime is much better than, say, using a Dell XPS 13 laptop --- this with a display on the MBA, which is handy as my eyes have gotten older. This also allows me to do Linux kernel development for ARM as well as x86, which is certainly nice since ARM VM's on hyperscale cloud systems definitely has some appealing price/performance advantages. As far as Systemd is concerned, yes, it's kinda awful. On the other hand, it enables a certain amount of automation when you hot-plug devices or insert an SD Card. This kind of conveience and user experience is there with a MacOS, and while I *can* run "sudo mount" when I insert a device, it is nice to be able to just plug in a SSD or SD card, and have things Just Work(tm). And, it might not surprise you that the systemd developers essentially ripped off its design from MacOS. So yeah, I find systemd annoying, but at least for me, it rarely gets in my way, and the sort of thing that makes me annoyed when I'm trying to how things work on MacOS (which admittedly is relatively rare), is consistent with the kind of annoyance I've run into with Debian. So while I have not been fond of Systemd's design and archiecture, if I don't look close all that closely of the sausage factory, it's fine, or at least, no worse than MacOS. BTW, the integration between MacOS and Linux running under Parallels is pretty clean. I can run offlineimap and mutt using MacOS when I'm reading e-mail, but unfortunately, MacOS's postfix mailer is incompatible with MIT's authentication infrastructure, and I haven't been able to make it work. So when I need to actually reply to e-mail, or compose e-mails, I run mutt in Parallels VM, and the Maildir directory in my homedir in MacOS is shared with the Debian Linux running in the Parallels VMM, and postfix running there works just *fine*. I'm sure that I could eventually figure out how to overwrite the MacOS-provided Postfix with one that is approprately configured, but then it would get overwritten every time I upgrade MacOS, and running Postfix under Linux is pretty seamless. That's one of the advantages of running MacOS and Linux on the MBA; I get the best of both worlds. Cheers, - Ted P.S. And of course, things like TurboTax and Lightroom only run on MacOS or Windows --- and while I used to have a secondary laptop with Windows for those applications, with the MBA, I can use a single laptop for travelling and for applications not availabe on Linux or *BSD. From woods at robohack.ca Sun Mar 10 12:13:33 2024 From: woods at robohack.ca (Greg A. Woods) Date: Sat, 09 Mar 2024 18:13:33 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <9a5a5684-065b-8986-04b5-e2ddb5e080d1@makerlisp.com> <13a5158a-9657-e519-e88b-98f1d700c190@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: At Thu, 7 Mar 2024 17:24:11 -0700, Marc Rochkind wrote: Subject: [TUHS] Re: History of non-Bell C compilers? > > Then I got an IBM PC in 1982, with an 8088 (16-bit word, 8-bit bus), and > I'm pretty sure the first real C compiler was Lattice C. Microsoft picked > it up and called it Microsoft C. Then, maybe a couple of years later, they > came out with their own C compiler, written in-house, I think. (As I > recall, I got my Lattice C compiler, which was very expensive, for free for > writing a review for BYTE Magazine, but I can't find the review in my > office or online, so maybe I'm imagining that. Or maybe I never finished > the review or they didn't print it.) Oh, Lattice C! The one compiler I came to hate. It was rather buggy and had many incompatibilities and difficulties if one was already accustomed to using writing C on Unix. Microsoft C in its early days post-Lattice was somewhat less buggy, but still a bane to use, even on Xenix where the libraries were more "complete". I don't think the Mark Williams C compiler has been mentioned in this thread yet. It was of course the same one created for and used in their Coherent system, but it was also released for various systems including MS-DOS it was a pure joy to use. It was extremely compatible with Unix C of the day (having been created to build a Unix clone, and on a PDP-11 no less), and equally reliable, and came with many additional command-line tools that were similarly familiar. I wrote more about my experiences with some non-Unix compilers back a few years ago in a tangentially related thread: https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2020-May/021231.html -- Greg A. Woods Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack Planix, Inc. Avoncote Farms -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: OpenPGP Digital Signature URL: From damian at wildie.com Sun Mar 10 12:31:41 2024 From: damian at wildie.com (Damian Wildie) Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2024 12:31:41 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <18e2633a1be.e23b396c2490092.8635085910946708011@wildie.com> Does anyone know the history of Silicon Valley Software? Their C compiler was available on Cromemco's Cromix Plus. MC68000 "C" Compiler  V2.64                   16-Apr-87 (C) Copyright 1983, 1986 Silicon Valley Software, Inc. ---- On Fri, 08 Mar 2024 09:14:12 +1000 Tom Lyon wrote --- For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell.  Especially for x86.  Anyone have tales?Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athornton at gmail.com Sun Mar 10 13:14:25 2024 From: athornton at gmail.com (Adam Thornton) Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2024 20:14:25 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <61EFF186-2C9E-4FAB-9EE8-F2F15F1ADF22@msweng.com> References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> <61EFF186-2C9E-4FAB-9EE8-F2F15F1ADF22@msweng.com> Message-ID: Oh! Yeah, I had a class with Dave Hanson my first year of grad school at Princeton, and it was excellent. We commiserated a little while after that when Richard Stevens passed. *C Interfaces and Implementations* has done a lot to structure how I think in the decades since. Adam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pnr at planet.nl Tue Mar 12 03:12:58 2024 From: pnr at planet.nl (Paul Ruizendaal) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2024 18:12:58 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? Message-ID: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981. This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the menagerie of 8 and 16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code which executed through a small interpreter. This by itself was hardly new of course, but it had some unique features. It generated code in overlays, so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it defined only one data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that interpreter somewhere. This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and my understanding is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual Basic. I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7). I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell compilers. It could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix licensee after all and at the time busy doing ports. On the other hand, Charles Simonyi would certainly have been capable of creating his own from scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C, the latter of which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0. Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler? Paul Notes: http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0%2C10801%2C76413%2C00.html http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg From mrochkind at gmail.com Tue Mar 12 06:44:29 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2024 14:44:29 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: Since it came up in this thread, here's my review of Coherent in BYTE Magazine (1985): https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf Marc On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 11:13 AM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at > Bell. > > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi > and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981. > > This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the > menagerie of 8 and 16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code > which executed through a small interpreter. This by itself was hardly new > of course, but it had some unique features. It generated code in overlays, > so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it defined only one > data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that > allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that > interpreter somewhere. > > This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and > my understanding is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual > Basic. I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix > native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7). > > I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell > compilers. It could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix > licensee after all and at the time busy doing ports. On the other hand, > Charles Simonyi would certainly have been capable of creating his own from > scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C, the latter of > which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0. > > Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler? > > Paul > > Notes: > http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm > > https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0%2C10801%2C76413%2C00.html > http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Tue Mar 12 07:25:18 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2024 15:25:18 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Fwd: non-Bell C compiler In-Reply-To: <202403110824.42B8Ociv054561@critter.freebsd.dk> References: <202403110824.42B8Ociv054561@critter.freebsd.dk> Message-ID: Perspective from a friend... Warner ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Poul-Henning Kamp Date: Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 2:24 AM Subject: non-Bell C compiler To: I noticed the "non-bell C" thread on TUHS and can add a data point from datamuseum.dk: The Danish Company "Christian Rovsing A/S" evidently had a C-compiler for their CR80 mini computer, and my guess is that they created it in order to qualify for DoD contracts in the POSIX regime. Example C source: https://datamuseum.dk/aa//cr80/80/802c73092.html Listing file from the compiler: https://datamuseum.dk/aa//cr80/ef/ef65339dc.html Listing file from the assembler: http://datamuseum.dk/aa/cr80/32/32ef5456f.html Listing from the linker: https://datamuseum.dk/aa//cr80/17/170304129.html So far we have not spotted the actual compiler anywhere in the media we have read. Mention of C being used for project delivery: http://datamuseum.dk/aa/cr80/1c/1c0b47f0e.html And btw: That one is from a CDC disc-pack which a father+son team has read by building a SMD-USB converter. That project may be interesting in the TUHS domain as well: https://github.com/Datamuseum-DK/pico-smd-controller -- Poul-Henning Kamp | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20 phk at FreeBSD.ORG | TCP/IP since RFC 956 FreeBSD committer | BSD since 4.3-tahoe Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From phil at ultimate.com Tue Mar 12 08:21:37 2024 From: phil at ultimate.com (Phil Budne) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2024 18:21:37 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> References: <20240307234921.GO2252@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <202403112221.42BMLbd0091200@ultimate.com> On Thu, 7 Mar 2024 Larry McVoy wrote: > My memory is BDS C did C just fine, but had a very non standard standard > I/O library. I had relearn stdio when I got to Unix. But I never had a > problem with it not compiling C. Early on (originally?) a question asked was "what non-AT&T origin compilers were used to compile Unix. Two non-AT&T compilers I remember wrangling with on U in the 1980's were Green Hills (on the Encore Multimax), and another compiler on some early flavor of ROMP or Power based IBM workstation. Maybe it was xlc? I remember one of them was unaware that case labels are valid ANYWHERE inside of a switch statement (the feature Duff applied so cleverly), something I discovered trying to bring up cfront (the original C++/C-with-classes compiler, that output C). On BDS C, I remember chatting with Leor Zolman: he was looking to contract someone to port BDS (Brain Damage Systems) C to the PC, but it was written in assembly language, so it wasn't a particularly attractive job. I don't recall him having a _particularly_ high opinion of the code, but I could be misremembering. From peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com Tue Mar 12 08:28:29 2024 From: peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com (Peter Yardley) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 09:28:29 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: I used the DEC VMS C compiler extensively while I was at NSWIT. I ported a lot of Berkley (I think) C code to VMS. Some of their VLSI design suite, KIC etc. There weren’t a lot of changes to make, the compiler and library was pretty K&R from what I remember. The usual small header issues applied. VMS IO is a bit different from UNIX IO but they had a mode (stream I think) that meant minimal changes to UNIX code. http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/lang/c/AI-L370C-TE_Guide_to_VAX_C_V2.3_Mar1987.pdf It did help that the code I was working with was pretty damn good. I learn C porting KIC to VMS. > On 12 Mar 2024, at 7:44 AM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > Since it came up in this thread, here's my review of Coherent in BYTE Magazine (1985): > > https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf > > Marc > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 11:13 AM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981. > > This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the menagerie of 8 and 16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code which executed through a small interpreter. This by itself was hardly new of course, but it had some unique features. It generated code in overlays, so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it defined only one data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that interpreter somewhere. > > This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and my understanding is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual Basic. I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7). > > I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell compilers. It could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix licensee after all and at the time busy doing ports. On the other hand, Charles Simonyi would certainly have been capable of creating his own from scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C, the latter of which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0. > > Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler? > > Paul > > Notes: > http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm > https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0%2C10801%2C76413%2C00.html > http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg > > > -- > My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com Peter Yardley peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com From peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com Tue Mar 12 08:28:29 2024 From: peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com (Peter Yardley) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 09:28:29 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: I used the DEC VMS C compiler extensively while I was at NSWIT. I ported a lot of Berkley (I think) C code to VMS. Some of their VLSI design suite, KIC etc. There weren’t a lot of changes to make, the compiler and library was pretty K&R from what I remember. The usual small header issues applied. VMS IO is a bit different from UNIX IO but they had a mode (stream I think) that meant minimal changes to UNIX code. http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/lang/c/AI-L370C-TE_Guide_to_VAX_C_V2.3_Mar1987.pdf It did help that the code I was working with was pretty damn good. I learn C porting KIC to VMS. > On 12 Mar 2024, at 7:44 AM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > Since it came up in this thread, here's my review of Coherent in BYTE Magazine (1985): > > https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf > > Marc > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 11:13 AM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. > > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981. > > This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the menagerie of 8 and 16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code which executed through a small interpreter. This by itself was hardly new of course, but it had some unique features. It generated code in overlays, so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it defined only one data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that interpreter somewhere. > > This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and my understanding is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual Basic. I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7). > > I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell compilers. It could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix licensee after all and at the time busy doing ports. On the other hand, Charles Simonyi would certainly have been capable of creating his own from scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C, the latter of which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0. > > Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler? > > Paul > > Notes: > http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm > https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0%2C10801%2C76413%2C00.html > http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg > > > -- > My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com Peter Yardley peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com From rminnich at gmail.com Tue Mar 12 10:30:19 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Mon, 11 Mar 2024 17:30:19 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: One of the neatest compilers I worked with was Eric Biederman's romcc. "romcc is a C compiler which produces binaries which do not rely on RAM, but instead only use CPU registers." We used romcc for 15 years or so. It was critical to getting DRAM and Hypertransport topology working on the Opteron. Remember: at power-on/reset, RAM is dead, dead, dead, and getting it going on newer systems is (literally) billions of instructions. So, no ram. The only "ram" romcc had were the general purpose registers. Later, eric added support for the SIMD registers, and "memory" grew a few hundred bytes. No memory, no stack: 100% inlining. romcc knew how to use puddle arithmetic and all the other tricks. It was amazing. It is a full ANSI C compiler (as of 2006 ANSI C) in 25KLOC code, in one file: https://github.com/wt/coreboot/blob/master/util/romcc/romcc.c The story of its creation, as told to me by the Linux NetworX CTO ca 2004: Eric worked at Linux NetworX at the time, and they were shipping LinuxBIOS-based systems. Everyone working with Opteron was suffering with assembly. Eric vanished for 30 days, and on the 31st day returned from the mountain (or his apartment I guess) with romcc, and It Was Good. Really good. The code we wrote for Opteron Hypertransport was far better than AMDs; they even admitted it to us later. We could even run with empty Socket 0; they could not. Last I checked, it still builds and 100 or so regression tests work just fine. On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 3:28 PM Peter Yardley < peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com> wrote: > I used the DEC VMS C compiler extensively while I was at NSWIT. I ported a > lot of Berkley (I think) C code to VMS. Some of their VLSI design suite, > KIC etc. There weren’t a lot of changes to make, the compiler and library > was pretty K&R from what I remember. The usual small header issues applied. > VMS IO is a bit different from UNIX IO but they had a mode (stream I > think) that meant minimal changes to UNIX code. > > > http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/dec/vax/lang/c/AI-L370C-TE_Guide_to_VAX_C_V2.3_Mar1987.pdf > > It did help that the code I was working with was pretty damn good. I learn > C porting KIC to VMS. > > > On 12 Mar 2024, at 7:44 AM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > > > Since it came up in this thread, here's my review of Coherent in BYTE > Magazine (1985): > > > > https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf > > > > Marc > > > > On Mon, Mar 11, 2024 at 11:13 AM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > > > > > For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C > > > compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at > Bell. > > > Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? > > > Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > > > An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi > and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981. > > > > This compiler was intended to provided a uniform environment for the > menagerie of 8 and 16-bit computers of the era. It compiled to a byte code > which executed through a small interpreter. This by itself was hardly new > of course, but it had some unique features. It generated code in overlays, > so that it could run a code base larger than 64KB (but it defined only one > data segment). It also defined a small set of “system” commands, that > allowed for uniform I/O. I still have the implementation spec for that > interpreter somewhere. > > > > This compiler was used for the first versions of Multiplan and Word, and > my understanding is that the byte code engine was later re-used in Visual > Basic. I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix > native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7). > > > > I am not sure to what extent this compiler was independent of the Bell > compilers. It could well be that it was based on PCC, Microsoft was a Unix > licensee after all and at the time busy doing ports. On the other hand, > Charles Simonyi would certainly have been capable of creating his own from > scratch. I do know that this compiler preceded Lattice C, the latter of > which was distributed by Microsoft as Microsoft C 1.0. > > > > Maybe others know more about this Simonyi/Brodie compiler? > > > > Paul > > > > Notes: > > http://www.memecentral.com/mylife.htm > > > https://web.archive.org/web/20080905231519/http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/appdev/story/0%2C10801%2C76413%2C00.html > > http://seefigure1.com/images/xenix/xenix-timeline.jpg > > > > > > -- > > My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com > > Peter Yardley > peter.martin.yardley at gmail.com > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rsc at swtch.com Tue Mar 12 22:55:02 2024 From: rsc at swtch.com (Russ Cox) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 08:55:02 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand Message-ID: Hi all (and TUHS), The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with WARNING The author of this routine has been writing random-number generators for many years and has never been known to write one that worked. My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: rand: mov r1,-(sp) mov ranx,r1 mpy $13077.,r1 add $6925.,r1 mov r1,r0 mov r0,ranx bic $100000,r0 mov (sp)+,r1 rts pc Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the original generator, perhaps with different constants. Thanks! Best, Russ [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 [2] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s [3] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stewart at serissa.com Tue Mar 12 23:31:18 2024 From: stewart at serissa.com (Larry Stewart) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 09:31:18 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Wed Mar 13 00:37:36 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 10:37:36 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand Message-ID: > The author of this routine has been writing > random-number generators for many years and has > never been known to write one that worked. It sounds like Ken to me. Although everybody had his own favorite congruential random number generator, some worse than others, I believe it was Ken who put one in the math library. The very fact that rand existed, regardless of its quality, enabled a lovely exploit. When Ken pioneered password cracking by trying every word in word lists at hand, one of the password files he found plenty of hits in came from Berkeley. He told them and they responded by assigning random passwords to everybody. That was a memorable error. Guessing that the passwords were generated by a simple encoding of the output of rand, Ken promptly broke 100% of the newly "hardened" password file. Doug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Mar 13 00:55:22 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 10:55:22 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: On Tue, 12 Mar 2024 at 08:02, Marc Rochkind wrote: > Since it came up in this thread, here's my review of Coherent in BYTE > Magazine (1985): > > https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf > This is an impressively thorough review from an end-user perspective, and I am sorry that it was buried so far back in that issue of Byte! Though I suppose this was from the era when Byte was jam-packed with informative reviews. Did you continue to use Coherent, or do you have any thoughts on the article in hindsight? -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pnr at planet.nl Wed Mar 13 01:42:08 2024 From: pnr at planet.nl (Paul Ruizendaal) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 16:42:08 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: > On 11 Mar 2024, at 18:12, Paul Ruizendaal wrote: > > On Thu, Mar 7, 2024, 4:14 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > >> For no good reason, I've been wondering about the early history of C >> compilers that were not derived from Ritchie, Johnson, and Snyder at Bell. >> Especially for x86. Anyone have tales? >> Were any of those compilers ever used to port UNIX? > > An unusual one would be the “revenue bomb” compiler that Charles Simonyi and Richard Brodie did at Microsoft in 1981. > > [snip] > > I think the compiler also had a Xenix port, maybe it even was Xenix native (and at this time, Xenix would still essentially have been V7). I was pointed to the book “Writing Solid Code”, Microsoft Press ISBN 1-55615-551-4. In the foreword it says: "The system we used to develop Multiplan was pretty sophisticated for PC development in those days. We wrote the core product in C - most programs then were written in assembly or Pascal. We did our editing and compilation on a PDP-11 running Unix. The C code was compiled into p-code and downloaded to the target machines. We had to build p-code interpreters for each microprocessor in use at that time. By the end of 1983, we had interpreters working for the 8080/Z80, the 6502, the Z8000, the 68000, the 9900, and the 8086.” So the Simonyi compiler was Xenix/Unix native. The specs for its p-code interpreter can be found here: https://forums.atariage.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=887196 https://forums.atariage.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=887197 From paul.winalski at gmail.com Wed Mar 13 02:23:37 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 12:23:37 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/12/24, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > That was a memorable > error. Guessing that the passwords were generated by > a simple encoding of the output of rand, Ken promptly > broke 100% of the newly "hardened" password file. To do that wouldn't you need to know the seed value that was used? Or did this version of rand() always generate the same sequence of pseudo-random numbers? One problem with random password generation is to avoid generating passwords that are or contain naughty words. VAX/VMS version 4.0 added an option for random password generation. They had a very extensive list of naughty words in many different languages to filter the random passwords. During beta test they got a bug report from a high school. The naughty words text file was world-readable and students were amusing themselves by reading it. At release the file was protected so that only privileged users could read it. -Paul W. From kenbob at gmail.com Wed Mar 13 02:32:30 2024 From: kenbob at gmail.com (Ken Thompson) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 09:32:30 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: i wrote the generator. dmr or rhm wrote the comment. it came about after one of the first drafts of a graphical pool game. the balls were points and the test was the bouncing off the edge of the pool table. the balls were placed at "random" places on the table, they were started with "random" directions and "random" velocities. frictionless it ran forever. after many minutes, from a mess of dots, they form a line, later a couple lines, later several points, and finally after a large fraction of an hour, all the balls would converge on a single dot. that version of the program was saved with the name "wierd" (spelling on purpose). i have no idea if it exists now. On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 7:38 AM Douglas McIlroy < douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote: > > The author of this routine has been writing > > random-number generators for many years and has > > never been known to write one that worked. > > It sounds like Ken to me. Although everybody had his > own favorite congruential random number generator, > some worse than others, I believe it was Ken who put > one in the math library. > > The very fact that rand existed, regardless of its quality, > enabled a lovely exploit. When Ken pioneered password > cracking by trying every word in word lists at hand, one > of the password files he found plenty of hits in came from > Berkeley. He told them and they responded by assigning > random passwords to everybody. That was a memorable > error. Guessing that the passwords were generated by > a simple encoding of the output of rand, Ken promptly > broke 100% of the newly "hardened" password file. > > Doug > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.winalski at gmail.com Wed Mar 13 02:41:17 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 12:41:17 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: On 3/11/24, Peter Yardley wrote: > I used the DEC VMS C compiler extensively while I was at NSWIT. I ported a > lot of Berkley (I think) C code to VMS. Some of their VLSI design suite, KIC > etc. There weren’t a lot of changes to make, the compiler and library was > pretty K&R from what I remember. The usual small header issues applied The developers of the original DEC VMS C compiler took great pains to be K&R-friendly by default. There was a strict ANSI C option available. There later was a later, C89 compiler produced by Dave Cutler's DECwest engineering team in Seattle. I think it ran on Unix as well as VMS. It enforced the C89 standard very strictly--no option for relaxations or extensions and no K&R compatibility. One customer described it as the Rush Limbaugh of C compilers--extremely conservative and you can't argue with it. > VMS IO is a bit different from UNIX IO Understatement of the century. :-) > but they had a mode (stream I think) > that meant minimal changes to UNIX code. VMS's device-independent I/O layer is called Record Management Services (RMS) and as its name implies it is record-oriented. They did eventually add a stream mode to RMS, but that didn't happen until well into the 1990s. When DEC C for VMS first came out (ca. 1980) there was no stream mode in RMS. The C RTL had to implement stream I/O as a layer on top of RMS. It's fairly easy to build record-oriented I/O on top of stream I/O but it's very difficult to do it the other way around. At first release the VMS C RTL's I/O had a lot of buggy edge conditions. It took them several releases to get the I/O working properly. Circa 1985 there was a port of the Bourne shell to VAX/VMS. It of course needed pipes, and I wrote a pipe pseudo-device driver for VMS. It supported both stream and record read and write operations. -Paul W. From ches at cheswick.com Wed Mar 13 02:47:12 2024 From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 12:47:12 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] NSFW passwords In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <06861AF4-AB7E-451A-9C0B-AB1A24C3B23D@cheswick.com> Ron Harden’s insult generator solved the NSFW passphrase problem. It is available at https://cheswick .com/insults > On Mar 12, 2024, at 12:23 PM, Paul Winalski wrote: > > One problem with random password generation is to avoid generating > passwords that are or contain naughty words. VAX/VMS version 4.0 > added an option for random password generation. They had a very > extensive list of naughty words in many different languages to filter > the random passwords. During beta test they got a bug report from a > high school. The naughty words text file was world-readable and > students were amusing themselves by reading it. At release the file > was protected so that only privileged users could read it. From mrochkind at gmail.com Wed Mar 13 03:17:55 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 11:17:55 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 8:55 AM Henry Bent wrote: > ...Did you continue to use Coherent, or do you have any thoughts on the > article in hindsight? > > -Henry > I definitely didn't continue to use Coherent. As I recall, I installed each of the 3 systems successively on my XT (Pick, Coherent, and THEOS). That was about the time I got PC/IX from Interactive Systems (true System III), and that's what I went with. At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run PC-DOS under PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. Rather, it just swapped back and forth. (Guessing a bit there.) What Coherent and some other very early UNIX clones missed was the idea of open source, which came along later. This is what allowed Linux to thrive when others went by the wayside. But, nobody knew how to make any money from open source (and maybe still don't), so that would have been a problem back then. As for my thoughts on the article: Reading it recently, it seems OK. I have no idea how one ought to go about reviewing an operating system. Certainly loading one up and playing with it for a couple of hours doesn't tell much. Using one exclusively for a long time doesn't tell one anything, either. I think reviews work better for movies, books, hotels, cameras, and things like that. Marc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rsc at swtch.com Wed Mar 13 04:08:26 2024 From: rsc at swtch.com (Russ Cox) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 14:08:26 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Someone asked off-list for a C translation of the PDP-11 assembly code. I believe the equivalent modern C would be: unsigned int ranx; void srand(unsigned int seed) { ranx = seed; } int rand(void) { ranx = 13077*ranx + 6925; return ranx & 32767; } Best, Russ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsg at jsg.id.au Wed Mar 13 09:05:20 2024 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:05:20 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:55:02AM -0400, Russ Cox wrote: > Hi all (and TUHS), > > The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with > > WARNING The author of this routine has been writing > random-number generators for many years and has > never been known to write one that worked. > > My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. > But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. > I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, > but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and > perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? > > Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first > Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, > the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand > in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. > The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full > library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives > until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: > > rand: > mov r1,-(sp) > mov ranx,r1 > mpy $13077.,r1 > add $6925.,r1 > mov r1,r0 > mov r0,ranx > bic $100000,r0 > mov (sp)+,r1 > rts pc matches V5: https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s3/rand.s Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5root.tar.gz > > Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine > a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, > but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. > >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the > original generator, perhaps with different constants. > > Thanks! > > Best, > Russ > > [1] > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 > [2] > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s > [3] > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s From steve at quintile.net Wed Mar 13 09:08:42 2024 From: steve at quintile.net (Steve Simon) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 23:08:42 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? Message-ID: <2CDB1534-4A22-40E8-9987-9BA8F629DD37@quintile.net> The zorland c compiler from zortech, x86 pc compiler from a small uk company. i used it to write my final year project at college in 1988. sadly i couldn’t use the interdata running v7 as i was doing image processing and needed to access an ISA framestore card. i built a motion compensated video standards converter, and thanks to the 80287 i managed something like 6 hours per frame. i think zortech claimed they wrote one of the first c++ compilers (rather than using c++). -Steve From rminnich at gmail.com Wed Mar 13 11:09:41 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 18:09:41 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There used to be an urban legend about multiply overflow and the PDP 11. This would’ve been circa 1976. Someone from DEC told us that on a multiply overflow, the contents of the destination register would be “kind of” random. I was never able to verify that claim. But that might explain this code. On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 16:05 Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:55:02AM -0400, Russ Cox wrote: > > Hi all (and TUHS), > > > > The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with > > > > WARNING The author of this routine has been writing > > random-number generators for many years and has > > never been known to write one that worked. > > > > My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. > > But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. > > I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, > > but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and > > perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? > > > > Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first > > Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, > > the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand > > in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. > > The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full > > library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives > > until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: > > > > rand: > > mov r1,-(sp) > > mov ranx,r1 > > mpy $13077.,r1 > > add $6925.,r1 > > mov r1,r0 > > mov r0,ranx > > bic $100000,r0 > > mov (sp)+,r1 > > rts pc > > matches V5: > https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s3/rand.s > Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5root.tar.gz > > > > > > Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine > > a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, > > but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. > > >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the > > original generator, perhaps with different constants. > > > > Thanks! > > > > Best, > > Russ > > > > [1] > > > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 > > [2] > > > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s > > [3] > > > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rsc at swtch.com Wed Mar 13 11:22:53 2024 From: rsc at swtch.com (Russ Cox) Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2024 21:22:53 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 12:23 PM Paul Winalski wrote: > On 3/12/24, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > > > That was a memorable > > error. Guessing that the passwords were generated by > > a simple encoding of the output of rand, Ken promptly > > broke 100% of the newly "hardened" password file. > > To do that wouldn't you need to know the seed value that was used? Or > did this version of rand() always generate the same sequence of > pseudo-random numbers? Any LCG-based version of rand (including, say, java.lang.Math.random) always generates the same periodic sequence of numbers; the seed only controls where in the sequence you start (you start where the seed appears). Worse, any LCG-based rand truncated to k bits is itself just a periodic sequence of the 2^k possible truncations. The trivial k=1 case of this is that if you look at the bottom bit of successive rand outputs on any of these generators, it is always alternating between even and odd, no matter what constants you pick. (Almost. If you pick bad constants you could get all even or all odd instead.) I don't know what the simple BSD encoding was, but those two facts combined mean that an example of an encoding that would be easily broken would be to pick a fixed-length sequence of letters drawn from "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456"[rand()&31]. That would just produce the same 32-character permutation over and over again, so there would only be 32 possible passwords, depending only on where in the sequence you start. Best, Russ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clemc at ccc.com Thu Mar 14 00:37:28 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:37:28 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: @Marc On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind wrote: > At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run PC-DOS under > PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. Rather, it just swapped back > and forth. (Guessing a bit there.) > Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC built VPIX in cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for PC/IX. I always bought a copy with it, but it may have been an option. LCC did DOS/Merge originally as part of the AIX work for IBM and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp IIRC. Both Merge and VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine for DOS 3.3 programs. The issue tended to be Win and DOS graphics-based programs/games that played fast and loose, bypassing the DOS OS interface and accessing the HW directly. For instance, I never got the flight simulator (Air War over Germany) for Dad's WWII plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to run under either (i.e., only under DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that mode, Dad said the simulator flew a lot like how he remembered it). Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of work in the core OS. Heinz would have to fill us in here. The version of the 386 port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel only had the kernel changes to allow the VM support for VPIX to be linked in, but it was not there. IICR (and I'm not sure I am) is that Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had to replace a couple of kernel modules. It certainly would work on the AT&T and Intel versions. ᐧ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrochkind at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 01:28:02 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:28:02 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: @Clem Cole , I don't remember what it was. But, the XT had an 8088, so certainly no 386 technology was involved. Marc On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:38 AM Clem Cole wrote: > @Marc > > On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind wrote: > >> At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run PC-DOS under >> PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. Rather, it just swapped back >> and forth. (Guessing a bit there.) >> > Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC built VPIX in > cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for PC/IX. I always bought a copy > with it, but it may have been an option. LCC did DOS/Merge originally as > part of the AIX work for IBM and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp > IIRC. Both Merge and VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine > for DOS 3.3 programs. The issue tended to be Win and DOS graphics-based > programs/games that played fast and loose, bypassing the DOS OS interface > and accessing the HW directly. For instance, I never got the flight > simulator (Air War over Germany) for Dad's WWII plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to > run under either (i.e., only under DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that > mode, Dad said the simulator flew a lot like how he remembered it). > > Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of work in the > core OS. Heinz would have to fill us in here. The version of the 386 > port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel only had the kernel changes to allow > the VM support for VPIX to be linked in, but it was not there. IICR (and > I'm not sure I am) is that Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had to > replace a couple of kernel modules. It certainly would work on the AT&T > and Intel versions. > ᐧ > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Thu Mar 14 01:33:56 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:33:56 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 9:28 AM Marc Rochkind wrote: > @Clem Cole , > > I don't remember what it was. But, the XT had an 8088, so certainly n > o 386 technology was involved. > Venix could also run DOS. There is a kernel module (well .o) that handles it... Warner Marc > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:38 AM Clem Cole wrote: > >> @Marc >> >> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind >> wrote: >> >>> At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run PC-DOS under >>> PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. Rather, it just swapped back >>> and forth. (Guessing a bit there.) >>> >> Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC built VPIX in >> cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for PC/IX. I always bought a copy >> with it, but it may have been an option. LCC did DOS/Merge originally as >> part of the AIX work for IBM and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp >> IIRC. Both Merge and VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine >> for DOS 3.3 programs. The issue tended to be Win and DOS graphics-based >> programs/games that played fast and loose, bypassing the DOS OS interface >> and accessing the HW directly. For instance, I never got the flight >> simulator (Air War over Germany) for Dad's WWII plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to >> run under either (i.e., only under DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that >> mode, Dad said the simulator flew a lot like how he remembered it). >> >> Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of work in the >> core OS. Heinz would have to fill us in here. The version of the 386 >> port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel only had the kernel changes to allow >> the VM support for VPIX to be linked in, but it was not there. IICR (and >> I'm not sure I am) is that Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had to >> replace a couple of kernel modules. It certainly would work on the AT&T >> and Intel versions. >> ᐧ >> > > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sauer at technologists.com Thu Mar 14 01:50:06 2024 From: sauer at technologists.com (Charles H Sauer (he/him)) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:50:06 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] PC/IX, VPIX, DOS/merge, etc. [was Re: History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: Heinz would certainly be more definitive than me regarding the ISC products, but ... o IIRC, the name "PC/IX" was only used for the PC/XT release - PC/IX was my first hands on access to Unix - VPIX was bundled with PC/IX version - I used VPIX minimally, don't remember much about it - when I got a PC/AT for my office, I switched to Xenix because it took advantage of the 286 - there are various copies of PC/IX available, e.g., https://winworldpc.com/product/pc-ix/10, also subsequent ISC 386 products there, pursuing is buried deep on my todo list o Dell SVR3 was based on Interactive UNIX for 386, but eschewed VPIX in favor of DOS/Merge from LCC (https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2008/01/10/a-brief-history-of-dell-unix/) o Dell SVR4 was independent of both ISC & LCC except that it included DOS/merge - the Dell SVR4 that I've made available for ancient hardware, 86Box and VirtualBox runs DOS/merge acceptably in my minimal testing Charlie On 3/13/2024 10:33 AM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 9:28 AM Marc Rochkind > wrote: > > @Clem Cole , > > I don't remember what it was. But, the XT had an 8088, so certainly n > > o 386 technology was involved. > > > Venix could also run DOS. There is a kernel module (well .o) that > handles it... > > Warner > > Marc > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:38 AM Clem Cole > wrote: > > @Marc > > On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind > > wrote: > > At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run > PC-DOS under PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. > Rather, it just swapped back and forth. (Guessing a bit there.) > > Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC > built VPIX in cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for PC/IX. > I always bought a copy with it, but it may have been an option. >  LCC did DOS/Merge originally as part of the AIX work for IBM > and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp IIRC.  Both Merge and > VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine for DOS 3.3 > programs.  The issue tended to be Win and DOS graphics-based > programs/games that played fast and loose, bypassing the DOS OS > interface and accessing the HW directly.  For instance, I never > got the flight simulator (Air War over Germany) for Dad's WWII > plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to run under either (i.e., only under > DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that mode, Dad said the > simulator flew a lot like how he remembered it). > > Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of work > in the core OS.   Heinz would have to fill us in here.  The > version of the 386 port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel only had > the kernel changes to allow the VM support for VPIX to be linked > in, but it was not there.   IICR (and I'm not sure I am) is that > Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had to replace a couple > of kernel modules.  It certainly would work on the AT&T and > Intel versions. > ᐧ > > > > -- > /My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com > / > -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer From clemc at ccc.com Thu Mar 14 01:53:16 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 11:53:16 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: <12CFE503-ACC8-44B5-BA41-28DB5450E521@planet.nl> Message-ID: Thanks. Fair enough. You mentioned PC/IX as *ISC's System III* I'm not sure I ever ran ISC's System III port—only the V.3 port - which was the basis for their ATT, Intel, and IBM work and later sold directly. I'm fairly sure ISC also called that port PC/IX, but they might have added something to say with 386 in the name—I've forgotten. [Heinz probably can clarify here]. Anyway, this is likely the source of my thinking. FWIW: The copy of PC/IX for the 386 (which I still have on a system I have not booted in ages) definitely has VPIX. ᐧ On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 11:28 AM Marc Rochkind wrote: > @Clem Cole , > > I don't remember what it was. But, the XT had an 8088, so certainly no 386 > technology was involved. > > Marc > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:38 AM Clem Cole wrote: > >> @Marc >> >> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind >> wrote: >> >>> At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run PC-DOS under >>> PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. Rather, it just swapped back >>> and forth. (Guessing a bit there.) >>> >> Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC built VPIX in >> cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for PC/IX. I always bought a copy >> with it, but it may have been an option. LCC did DOS/Merge originally as >> part of the AIX work for IBM and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp >> IIRC. Both Merge and VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine >> for DOS 3.3 programs. The issue tended to be Win and DOS graphics-based >> programs/games that played fast and loose, bypassing the DOS OS interface >> and accessing the HW directly. For instance, I never got the flight >> simulator (Air War over Germany) for Dad's WWII plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to >> run under either (i.e., only under DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that >> mode, Dad said the simulator flew a lot like how he remembered it). >> >> Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of work in the >> core OS. Heinz would have to fill us in here. The version of the 386 >> port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel only had the kernel changes to allow >> the VM support for VPIX to be linked in, but it was not there. IICR (and >> I'm not sure I am) is that Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had to >> replace a couple of kernel modules. It certainly would work on the AT&T >> and Intel versions. >> ᐧ >> > > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rminnich at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 02:41:46 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 09:41:46 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: by the way, I realize that random number urban legend sounds ridiculous, in light of how hardware design is done today, but those of you who did hardware design in those days (guilty!), and had access to -11 schematics and boards, might wonder if it's not possible. There was a habit, in those days, for performance reasons, of subbing transparent latches for flip-flops to gain a little time. An engineer I knew at Amdahl said that was a pretty hot topic there. Certainly, the technique of design for testability was not really in wide use in the -11 days. Gordon Bell's book "Computer Design" is particularly instructive. E.g., how did you verify the floating point on your new machine? Put an older machine next to a new machine, do lots of computation, see if there is disagreement, you've found a bug in the new machine, right? Maybe. Sometimes, you discover the older machine had a bug the newer one did not ... happened more than once, including on the 360 to 370 transition. On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM ron minnich wrote: > There used to be an urban legend about multiply overflow and the PDP 11. > > This would’ve been circa 1976. Someone from DEC told us that on a multiply > overflow, the contents of the destination register would be “kind of” > random. I was never able to verify that claim. But that might explain this > code. > > On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 16:05 Jonathan Gray wrote: > >> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:55:02AM -0400, Russ Cox wrote: >> > Hi all (and TUHS), >> > >> > The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with >> > >> > WARNING The author of this routine has been writing >> > random-number generators for many years and has >> > never been known to write one that worked. >> > >> > My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. >> > But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. >> > I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, >> > but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and >> > perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? >> > >> > Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first >> > Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, >> > the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand >> > in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. >> > The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full >> > library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives >> > until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: >> > >> > rand: >> > mov r1,-(sp) >> > mov ranx,r1 >> > mpy $13077.,r1 >> > add $6925.,r1 >> > mov r1,r0 >> > mov r0,ranx >> > bic $100000,r0 >> > mov (sp)+,r1 >> > rts pc >> >> matches V5: >> https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s3/rand.s >> Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5root.tar.gz >> >> >> > >> > Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine >> > a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, >> > but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. >> > >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the >> > original generator, perhaps with different constants. >> > >> > Thanks! >> > >> > Best, >> > Russ >> > >> > [1] >> > >> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 >> > [2] >> > >> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s >> > [3] >> > >> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rminnich at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 03:17:45 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:17:45 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Got the name wrong: Computer Engineering: A DEC View of Hardware Systems Design On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 9:41 AM ron minnich wrote: > by the way, I realize that random number urban legend sounds ridiculous, > in light of how hardware design is done today, but those of you who did > hardware design in those days (guilty!), and had access to -11 > schematics and boards, might wonder if it's not possible. There was a > habit, in those days, for performance reasons, of subbing transparent > latches for flip-flops to gain a little time. An engineer I knew at Amdahl > said that was a pretty hot topic there. Certainly, the technique of design > for testability was not really in wide use in the -11 days. Gordon Bell's > book "Computer Design" is particularly instructive. > > E.g., how did you verify the floating point on your new machine? Put an > older machine next to a new machine, do lots of computation, see if there > is disagreement, you've found a bug in the new machine, right? Maybe. > Sometimes, you discover the older machine had a bug the newer one did not > ... happened more than once, including on the 360 to 370 transition. > > On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM ron minnich wrote: > >> There used to be an urban legend about multiply overflow and the PDP 11. >> >> This would’ve been circa 1976. Someone from DEC told us that on a >> multiply overflow, the contents of the destination register would be “kind >> of” random. I was never able to verify that claim. But that might explain >> this code. >> >> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 16:05 Jonathan Gray wrote: >> >>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:55:02AM -0400, Russ Cox wrote: >>> > Hi all (and TUHS), >>> > >>> > The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with >>> > >>> > WARNING The author of this routine has been writing >>> > random-number generators for many years and has >>> > never been known to write one that worked. >>> > >>> > My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. >>> > But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. >>> > I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, >>> > but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and >>> > perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? >>> > >>> > Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first >>> > Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, >>> > the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand >>> > in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. >>> > The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full >>> > library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives >>> > until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: >>> > >>> > rand: >>> > mov r1,-(sp) >>> > mov ranx,r1 >>> > mpy $13077.,r1 >>> > add $6925.,r1 >>> > mov r1,r0 >>> > mov r0,ranx >>> > bic $100000,r0 >>> > mov (sp)+,r1 >>> > rts pc >>> >>> matches V5: >>> https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s3/rand.s >>> Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5root.tar.gz >>> >>> >>> > >>> > Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine >>> > a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, >>> > but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. >>> > >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the >>> > original generator, perhaps with different constants. >>> > >>> > Thanks! >>> > >>> > Best, >>> > Russ >>> > >>> > [1] >>> > >>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 >>> > [2] >>> > >>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s >>> > [3] >>> > >>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s >>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 06:12:41 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:12:41 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 Message-ID: Hi all, I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation 5, seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fair-tuhs at netbsd.org Thu Mar 14 06:23:46 2024 From: fair-tuhs at netbsd.org (Erik E. Fair) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 13:23:46 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <16117.1710361426@cesium.clock.org> Henry, I think you're going to be a whole lot happier with NetBSD or OpenBSD on 32-bit Sun SPARC hardware than trying to coax SunOS into a usable state for the modern, unfortunately rather hostile, Internet. However, I think you're also going to want to make use of the cross-compilation tools provided, i.e., build software on [ugh] fast x86 or ARM hardware rather than wait for the old SPARCs to grind through it. I hope you have cheap electic power service where you are - old Suns run warm and use a lot more electricity per cycle than modern processors. The other way: emulation on modern power-efficient hardware, e.g., with qemu. Erik From robpike at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 06:25:25 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 07:25:25 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Norm Schryer wrote a (nearly?) exhaustive floating-point tester that he ran when a new CPU arrived, always with wrong results. Doug McIlroy probably knows more about it than I do, who only observed it from afar. -rob On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 4:18 AM ron minnich wrote: > Got the name wrong: Computer Engineering: A DEC View of Hardware Systems > Design > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 9:41 AM ron minnich wrote: > >> by the way, I realize that random number urban legend sounds ridiculous, >> in light of how hardware design is done today, but those of you who did >> hardware design in those days (guilty!), and had access to -11 >> schematics and boards, might wonder if it's not possible. There was a >> habit, in those days, for performance reasons, of subbing transparent >> latches for flip-flops to gain a little time. An engineer I knew at Amdahl >> said that was a pretty hot topic there. Certainly, the technique of design >> for testability was not really in wide use in the -11 days. Gordon Bell's >> book "Computer Design" is particularly instructive. >> >> E.g., how did you verify the floating point on your new machine? Put an >> older machine next to a new machine, do lots of computation, see if there >> is disagreement, you've found a bug in the new machine, right? Maybe. >> Sometimes, you discover the older machine had a bug the newer one did not >> ... happened more than once, including on the 360 to 370 transition. >> >> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM ron minnich wrote: >> >>> There used to be an urban legend about multiply overflow and the PDP 11. >>> >>> This would’ve been circa 1976. Someone from DEC told us that on a >>> multiply overflow, the contents of the destination register would be “kind >>> of” random. I was never able to verify that claim. But that might explain >>> this code. >>> >>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 16:05 Jonathan Gray wrote: >>> >>>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:55:02AM -0400, Russ Cox wrote: >>>> > Hi all (and TUHS), >>>> > >>>> > The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with >>>> > >>>> > WARNING The author of this routine has been writing >>>> > random-number generators for many years and has >>>> > never been known to write one that worked. >>>> > >>>> > My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. >>>> > But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. >>>> > I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, >>>> > but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and >>>> > perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? >>>> > >>>> > Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first >>>> > Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, >>>> > the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand >>>> > in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. >>>> > The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full >>>> > library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives >>>> > until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: >>>> > >>>> > rand: >>>> > mov r1,-(sp) >>>> > mov ranx,r1 >>>> > mpy $13077.,r1 >>>> > add $6925.,r1 >>>> > mov r1,r0 >>>> > mov r0,ranx >>>> > bic $100000,r0 >>>> > mov (sp)+,r1 >>>> > rts pc >>>> >>>> matches V5: >>>> https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s3/rand.s >>>> Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5root.tar.gz >>>> >>>> >>>> > >>>> > Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine >>>> > a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, >>>> > but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. >>>> > >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the >>>> > original generator, perhaps with different constants. >>>> > >>>> > Thanks! >>>> > >>>> > Best, >>>> > Russ >>>> > >>>> > [1] >>>> > >>>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 >>>> > [2] >>>> > >>>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s >>>> > [3] >>>> > >>>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s >>>> >>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clemc at ccc.com Thu Mar 14 06:34:27 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:34:27 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Prof Kahan's Floating Point Test Program - the original from his and his students in his computer arithmetic seminar wrote during my days at UCB: https://www.netlib.org/paranoia/ Kahan was always miffed at how bad the different floating point units were - (Seymour was notorious for being fast but not very precise on most of his FP units). Here is an updated FORTRAN 90 version: https://people.math.sc.edu/Burkardt/f_src/paranoia/paranoia.html ᐧ On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 4:25 PM Rob Pike wrote: > Norm Schryer wrote a (nearly?) exhaustive floating-point tester that he > ran when a new CPU arrived, always with wrong results. Doug McIlroy > probably knows more about it than I do, who only observed it from afar. > > -rob > > > On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 4:18 AM ron minnich wrote: > >> Got the name wrong: Computer Engineering: A DEC View of Hardware Systems >> Design >> >> On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 9:41 AM ron minnich wrote: >> >>> by the way, I realize that random number urban legend sounds ridiculous, >>> in light of how hardware design is done today, but those of you who did >>> hardware design in those days (guilty!), and had access to -11 >>> schematics and boards, might wonder if it's not possible. There was a >>> habit, in those days, for performance reasons, of subbing transparent >>> latches for flip-flops to gain a little time. An engineer I knew at Amdahl >>> said that was a pretty hot topic there. Certainly, the technique of design >>> for testability was not really in wide use in the -11 days. Gordon Bell's >>> book "Computer Design" is particularly instructive. >>> >>> E.g., how did you verify the floating point on your new machine? Put an >>> older machine next to a new machine, do lots of computation, see if there >>> is disagreement, you've found a bug in the new machine, right? Maybe. >>> Sometimes, you discover the older machine had a bug the newer one did not >>> ... happened more than once, including on the 360 to 370 transition. >>> >>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 6:09 PM ron minnich wrote: >>> >>>> There used to be an urban legend about multiply overflow and the PDP 11. >>>> >>>> This would’ve been circa 1976. Someone from DEC told us that on a >>>> multiply overflow, the contents of the destination register would be “kind >>>> of” random. I was never able to verify that claim. But that might explain >>>> this code. >>>> >>>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 16:05 Jonathan Gray wrote: >>>> >>>>> On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 08:55:02AM -0400, Russ Cox wrote: >>>>> > Hi all (and TUHS), >>>>> > >>>>> > The Third Edition rand(III) page [1] ends with >>>>> > >>>>> > WARNING The author of this routine has been writing >>>>> > random-number generators for many years and has >>>>> > never been known to write one that worked. >>>>> > >>>>> > My understanding is that Ken wrote the rand implementation. >>>>> > But I'm curious about the origin of this warning. >>>>> > I had assumed that Ken wrote it as a combination warning+joke, >>>>> > but Rob suggested that to him it didn't sound like Ken and >>>>> > perhaps Doug or Dennis had written it. Does anyone remember? >>>>> > >>>>> > Separately, I am trying to find out what the very first >>>>> > Unix rand implementation was. In the TUHS archives, >>>>> > the incomplete V2 sources contain a reference to srand >>>>> > in cmd/bas0.s [2], but there is no definition in the tree. >>>>> > The V3 man pages list it, but as far as I can tell full >>>>> > library sources do not appear in the TUHS archives >>>>> > until the V6 snapshot. The V6 rand [3] is: >>>>> > >>>>> > rand: >>>>> > mov r1,-(sp) >>>>> > mov ranx,r1 >>>>> > mpy $13077.,r1 >>>>> > add $6925.,r1 >>>>> > mov r1,r0 >>>>> > mov r0,ranx >>>>> > bic $100000,r0 >>>>> > mov (sp)+,r1 >>>>> > rts pc >>>>> >>>>> matches V5: >>>>> https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s3/rand.s >>>>> Distributions/Research/Dennis_v5/v5root.tar.gz >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> > >>>>> > Perhaps this is the original rand as well? It is hard to imagine >>>>> > a much simpler one, other than perhaps removing the addition, >>>>> > but doing so would create a sequence of only odd numbers. >>>>> > >From the man page description it sounds like this has to be the >>>>> > original generator, perhaps with different constants. >>>>> > >>>>> > Thanks! >>>>> > >>>>> > Best, >>>>> > Russ >>>>> > >>>>> > [1] >>>>> > >>>>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V3/man/man3/rand.3 >>>>> > [2] >>>>> > >>>>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V2/cmd/bas0.s >>>>> > [3] >>>>> > >>>>> https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V6/usr/source/s3/rand.s >>>>> >>>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.bowling at kev009.com Thu Mar 14 06:49:15 2024 From: kevin.bowling at kev009.com (Kevin Bowling) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 13:49:15 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 1:13 PM Henry Bent wrote: > Hi all, > > I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation 5, > seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a > modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right > place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made > significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - > for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute > to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? > > -Henry > The sun-rescue list has some 4.x traffic. http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org There are some discord communities that are fairly active SGI discord: https://discord.gg/bYbWBEFcG2 (has active channels for other companies) Sun discord: https://discord.gg/NwBMkfGD -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 06:59:02 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:59:02 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 16:49, Kevin Bowling wrote: > > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 1:13 PM Henry Bent wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation 5, >> seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a >> modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right >> place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made >> significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - >> for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute >> to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? >> >> -Henry >> > > The sun-rescue list has some 4.x traffic. > http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org > > There are some discord communities that are fairly active > > SGI discord: > https://discord.gg/bYbWBEFcG2 (has active channels for other companies) > > Sun discord: > https://discord.gg/NwBMkfGD > Thank you, I just subscribed to sun-rescue. I have greybeard syndrome about Discord - I just don't trust that it's going to be a useful resource. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From will.senn at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 07:27:13 2024 From: will.senn at gmail.com (Will Senn) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:27:13 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3/13/24 3:12 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > Hi all, > > I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation > 5, seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and > supporting a modern computing environment.  I know that TUHS isn't > really the right place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere > that is?  I've made significant progress in some areas and spent a lot > of cycles to get there - for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running > - so I'd like to contribute to a community if one exists.  Is there a > modern equivalent of sun-managers? > > -Henry Not an answer to the question, but on a tangent... I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning to see how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so OpenIndiana's a bust)... but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least for hobbyists (only get release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to date 'release' was 11.4 in 2018). So, when I saw your post on SunOS 4, I thought I'd tool around and see if it was easy to get rolling as a VM, turns out things have come a long way on that front: https://defcon.no/sysadm/playing-with-sunos-4-1-4-on-qemu/ OpenWindows 3... wow... works great on my Mint instance. Now, if I could just remember how commands work on SunOS :). Will -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 07:31:02 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 17:31:02 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:27, Will Senn wrote: > On 3/13/24 3:12 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > > Hi all, > > I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation 5, > seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a > modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right > place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made > significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - > for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute > to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? > > -Henry > > Not an answer to the question, but on a tangent... > > I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning to > see how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so > OpenIndiana's a bust)... but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least > for hobbyists (only get release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to > date 'release' was 11.4 in 2018). So, when I saw your post on SunOS 4, I > thought I'd tool around and see if it was easy to get rolling as a VM, > turns out things have come a long way on that front: > > https://defcon.no/sysadm/playing-with-sunos-4-1-4-on-qemu/ > > OpenWindows 3... wow... works great on my Mint instance. Now, if I could > just remember how commands work on SunOS :). > Thanks Will! You may also be interested in https://john-millikin.com/running-sunos-4-in-qemu-sparc as another resource about running SunOS 4 in QEMU. I have considered moving my setup to QEMU, especially as it would be very easy to create a hard drive image since I am using a SCSI2SD board, but there is something about running these things on the original hardware that is difficult to leave behind. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 07:56:49 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 17:56:49 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: TME - most recently https://osdn.net/projects/nme/ - in theory does what you want. Its setup and use is a bit idiosyncratic, and I have found that it is unhappy running on OSs other than NetBSD, but if you get it running it just works. I've used it to set up installations of SunOS 3 and 4 on sun2, sun3, and sun4 architectures. -Henry On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:49, wrote: > I’m looking for a “Sun OS 3.5” emulation running where I can attach a SCSI > emulator to it and get the full OS installed. > I’ve got tape images but I haven’t found the process to emulate how it > used to work. > > From the initial boot prompt, you extracted them to the “swap partition” > and then started the install and it would prompt you for the next tape when > needed. > So, I guess we’d need an emulated tape or something, etc. I have all > the tar’s (all the way back to Sun OS 1 or so) but have been frustrated > trying to make some progress. > > Earl > > > On Mar 13, 2024, at 5:31 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > > On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:27, Will Senn wrote: > >> On 3/13/24 3:12 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >> >> Hi all, >> >> I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation 5, >> seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a >> modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right >> place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made >> significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - >> for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute >> to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? >> >> -Henry >> >> Not an answer to the question, but on a tangent... >> >> I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning to >> see how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so >> OpenIndiana's a bust)... but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least >> for hobbyists (only get release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to >> date 'release' was 11.4 in 2018). So, when I saw your post on SunOS 4, I >> thought I'd tool around and see if it was easy to get rolling as a VM, >> turns out things have come a long way on that front: >> >> https://defcon.no/sysadm/playing-with-sunos-4-1-4-on-qemu/ >> >> OpenWindows 3... wow... works great on my Mint instance. Now, if I could >> just remember how commands work on SunOS :). >> > > Thanks Will! You may also be interested in > https://john-millikin.com/running-sunos-4-in-qemu-sparc as another > resource about running SunOS 4 in QEMU. I have considered moving my setup > to QEMU, especially as it would be very easy to create a hard drive image > since I am using a SCSI2SD board, but there is something about running > these things on the original hardware that is difficult to leave behind. > > -Henry > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 08:09:25 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 18:09:25 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The emulation of proper tape drive records is present in TME - see this fragment from the setup file that I have to install SunOS 2: ## power up the machine: ## # uncomment this line to automatically power up the machine when # tmesh starts: # command tape0 load sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/01 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/02 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/03 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/04 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/05 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/06 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/07 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/08 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/09 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/10 command mainbus0 power up Let me know if you need more of a walkthrough, I'd have to get NetBSD running in a VM as I haven't worked with this in a long time, but I'm sure it still works. -Henry On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 18:04, wrote: > I had old instructions to do this but getting TME running was a bit > quirky. And the package had lost most of it’s support. > (I did just go out and find that some folks have somewhat resurrected it…) > > I have the install manual for 3.5 ( > http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sun/sunos/3.5/800-2089-10A_Release_3.5_Manual_for_the_Sun_Workstation_198711.pdf > ) > And did find this about TME Now ( https://pkgsrc.se/wip/tme ) > And these instructions (which from the link before this page indicated as > of 2019 they still worked > http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredette/tme/sun3-150-nbsd.html ) > > That would get me “close” if I could somehow write to an emulated SCSI > device.. or the SD card that supported it… etc. Blue SCSI, Green SCSI, Pi > SCSI, etc. I don’t care which (would prefer something that would let me use > a “real” drive… SSD or similar is fine… rather than SD card). I do have an > image that gets me “somewhat” booting with a SCSI2SD but the additional > drive mounts are wrong in the fstab/mtab so I can’t get it fully to boot…. > > If I can figure out the process, I’ll make images and share them (for all > the early Sun OS’s) and write up a web page and post it to archive.org so > nobody has to go thru this again :-) > > Earl > > On Mar 13, 2024, at 5:56 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > > TME - most recently https://osdn.net/projects/nme/ - in theory does what > you want. Its setup and use is a bit idiosyncratic, and I have found that > it is unhappy running on OSs other than NetBSD, but if you get it running > it just works. I've used it to set up installations of SunOS 3 and 4 on > sun2, sun3, and sun4 architectures. > > -Henry > > On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:49, wrote: > >> I’m looking for a “Sun OS 3.5” emulation running where I can attach a >> SCSI emulator to it and get the full OS installed. >> I’ve got tape images but I haven’t found the process to emulate how it >> used to work. >> >> From the initial boot prompt, you extracted them to the “swap partition” >> and then started the install and it would prompt you for the next tape when >> needed. >> So, I guess we’d need an emulated tape or something, etc. I have all >> the tar’s (all the way back to Sun OS 1 or so) but have been frustrated >> trying to make some progress. >> >> Earl >> >> >> On Mar 13, 2024, at 5:31 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >> >> On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:27, Will Senn wrote: >> >>> On 3/13/24 3:12 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation 5, >>> seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a >>> modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right >>> place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made >>> significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - >>> for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute >>> to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? >>> >>> -Henry >>> >>> Not an answer to the question, but on a tangent... >>> >>> I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning >>> to see how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so >>> OpenIndiana's a bust)... but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least >>> for hobbyists (only get release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to >>> date 'release' was 11.4 in 2018). So, when I saw your post on SunOS 4, I >>> thought I'd tool around and see if it was easy to get rolling as a VM, >>> turns out things have come a long way on that front: >>> >>> https://defcon.no/sysadm/playing-with-sunos-4-1-4-on-qemu/ >>> >>> OpenWindows 3... wow... works great on my Mint instance. Now, if I could >>> just remember how commands work on SunOS :). >>> >> >> Thanks Will! You may also be interested in >> https://john-millikin.com/running-sunos-4-in-qemu-sparc as another >> resource about running SunOS 4 in QEMU. I have considered moving my setup >> to QEMU, especially as it would be very easy to create a hard drive image >> since I am using a SCSI2SD board, but there is something about running >> these things on the original hardware that is difficult to leave behind. >> >> -Henry >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 08:23:03 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 18:23:03 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: <54A3AD3C-1296-41EB-8D7B-E940AF2740CD@baugh.org> References: <54A3AD3C-1296-41EB-8D7B-E940AF2740CD@baugh.org> Message-ID: I don't know about the PiSCSI in particular. For the SCSI2SD, if you have the drive properly defined in the controller you can just use dd to write the image to the SD card at the offset where the drive is defined. If the drive is the first thing on the card, dd if=image of=drive conv=notrunc will do what you want. -Henry On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 18:12, wrote: > I’ll have to see about pulling stuff out this weekend and maybe move > forward. > > Still am missing one part — how to get an external SCSI emulator to the > point where I can get a disk image to it. > > Is there a way to move the disk created in TME onto an emulator?? (BTW, > I’ll probably be using the PiSCSI for this, since I want to have multiple > images out there, as well as a SD drive so I don’t chance losing stuff > after getting it all set up. > > Earl > > On Mar 13, 2024, at 6:09 PM, Henry Bent wrote: > > The emulation of proper tape drive records is present in TME - see this > fragment from the setup file that I have to install SunOS 2: > > ## power up the machine: > ## > # uncomment this line to automatically power up the machine when > # tmesh starts: > # > command tape0 load sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/01 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/02 > sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/03 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/04 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/05 > sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/06 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/07 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/08 > sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/09 sunos-2.0-sun2/tape1/10 > command mainbus0 power up > > Let me know if you need more of a walkthrough, I'd have to get NetBSD > running in a VM as I haven't worked with this in a long time, but I'm sure > it still works. > > -Henry > > On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 18:04, wrote: > >> I had old instructions to do this but getting TME running was a bit >> quirky. And the package had lost most of it’s support. >> (I did just go out and find that some folks have somewhat resurrected >> it…) >> >> I have the install manual for 3.5 ( >> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/sun/sunos/3.5/800-2089-10A_Release_3.5_Manual_for_the_Sun_Workstation_198711.pdf >> ) >> And did find this about TME Now ( https://pkgsrc.se/wip/tme ) >> And these instructions (which from the link before this page indicated as >> of 2019 they still worked >> http://people.csail.mit.edu/fredette/tme/sun3-150-nbsd.html ) >> >> That would get me “close” if I could somehow write to an emulated SCSI >> device.. or the SD card that supported it… etc. Blue SCSI, Green SCSI, Pi >> SCSI, etc. I don’t care which (would prefer something that would let me use >> a “real” drive… SSD or similar is fine… rather than SD card). I do have an >> image that gets me “somewhat” booting with a SCSI2SD but the additional >> drive mounts are wrong in the fstab/mtab so I can’t get it fully to boot…. >> >> If I can figure out the process, I’ll make images and share them (for all >> the early Sun OS’s) and write up a web page and post it to archive.org so >> nobody has to go thru this again :-) >> >> Earl >> >> On Mar 13, 2024, at 5:56 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >> >> TME - most recently https://osdn.net/projects/nme/ - in theory does what >> you want. Its setup and use is a bit idiosyncratic, and I have found that >> it is unhappy running on OSs other than NetBSD, but if you get it running >> it just works. I've used it to set up installations of SunOS 3 and 4 on >> sun2, sun3, and sun4 architectures. >> >> -Henry >> >> On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:49, wrote: >> >>> I’m looking for a “Sun OS 3.5” emulation running where I can attach a >>> SCSI emulator to it and get the full OS installed. >>> I’ve got tape images but I haven’t found the process to emulate how it >>> used to work. >>> >>> From the initial boot prompt, you extracted them to the “swap partition” >>> and then started the install and it would prompt you for the next tape when >>> needed. >>> So, I guess we’d need an emulated tape or something, etc. I have all >>> the tar’s (all the way back to Sun OS 1 or so) but have been frustrated >>> trying to make some progress. >>> >>> Earl >>> >>> >>> On Mar 13, 2024, at 5:31 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >>> >>> On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 17:27, Will Senn wrote: >>> >>>> On 3/13/24 3:12 PM, Henry Bent wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi all, >>>> >>>> I've been working quite a bit recently with SunOS 4 on a SPARCstation >>>> 5, seeing what I can coax out of it in terms of building and supporting a >>>> modern computing environment. I know that TUHS isn't really the right >>>> place for this, but can someone point me to somewhere that is? I've made >>>> significant progress in some areas and spent a lot of cycles to get there - >>>> for instance, I have GCC 3.4.6 up and running - so I'd like to contribute >>>> to a community if one exists. Is there a modern equivalent of sun-managers? >>>> >>>> -Henry >>>> >>>> Not an answer to the question, but on a tangent... >>>> >>>> I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning >>>> to see how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so >>>> OpenIndiana's a bust)... but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least >>>> for hobbyists (only get release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to >>>> date 'release' was 11.4 in 2018). So, when I saw your post on SunOS 4, I >>>> thought I'd tool around and see if it was easy to get rolling as a VM, >>>> turns out things have come a long way on that front: >>>> >>>> https://defcon.no/sysadm/playing-with-sunos-4-1-4-on-qemu/ >>>> >>>> OpenWindows 3... wow... works great on my Mint instance. Now, if I >>>> could just remember how commands work on SunOS :). >>>> >>> >>> Thanks Will! You may also be interested in >>> https://john-millikin.com/running-sunos-4-in-qemu-sparc as another >>> resource about running SunOS 4 in QEMU. I have considered moving my setup >>> to QEMU, especially as it would be very easy to create a hard drive image >>> since I am using a SCSI2SD board, but there is something about running >>> these things on the original hardware that is difficult to leave behind. >>> >>> -Henry >>> >>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From flexibeast at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 09:28:53 2024 From: flexibeast at gmail.com (Alexis) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 10:28:53 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: (Henry Bent's message of "Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:59:02 -0400") References: Message-ID: <87h6h93e4q.fsf@gmail.com> Henry Bent writes: > Thank you, I just subscribed to sun-rescue. I have greybeard > syndrome > about Discord - I just don't trust that it's going to be a > useful resource. i'm dismayed by the extent to which so many IT communities have moved to Discord[a] for documentation and tribal knowledge: "Discord, or the Death of Lore" -- http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/5509 "Why you shouldn't trust Discord" -- https://cadence.moe/blog/2020-06-06-why-you-shouldnt-trust-discord Alexis. [a] As distinct from _Discourse_, which i generally like as a discussion/forum platform, and which i wish more IT communities were using instead of Discord. From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 09:39:33 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 19:39:33 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: <87h6h93e4q.fsf@gmail.com> References: <87h6h93e4q.fsf@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 19:29 Alexis wrote: > Henry Bent writes: > > > Thank you, I just subscribed to sun-rescue. I have greybeard > > syndrome > > about Discord - I just don't trust that it's going to be a > > useful resource. > > i'm dismayed by the extent to which so many IT communities have > moved to Discord[a] for documentation and tribal knowledge: Perhaps I should elaborate. The communities I came of age with were Usenet and mailing lists. While not perfect, they were the (almost) universally recognized central repositories of group knowledge, especially if you did not want to pay for support from a manufacturer. Now, I find that there is a fragmentation happening. There are those of us who still cling to mailing lists - like this one! - and those who are willing to navigate the realms of increasingly compartmentalized other forms of community, Discord included. The fact that there is not a recognized central repository of unpaid support for a product, like sun-managers, I find to be frustrating. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 14 10:33:06 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:33:06 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? Message-ID: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Did some reading today, curious on the current state of things with AT&T's UNIX copyright genealogy. The series of events as I understand it are: AT&T partners with Novell for the Univel initiative. Novell then acquires System V and USL from AT&T. Novell sells UNIX System V's source to SCO, but as the courts have ruled, not the copyright. Novell gets purchased by Microfocus. Microfocus gets purchased by OpenText Corporation. Does this make OpenText the current copyright holders of the commercial UNIX line from AT&T. What got me looking a bit closer into this is curiosity regarding how the opening of Solaris and the CDDL may impact publication of UNIX code between System III and SVR4. I then felt the need to refresh on who might be the current copyright holder and this is where the trail has lead me. My understanding too is that Sun's release under the CDDL set the precedent that other sub-licencees of System V codebases are also at liberty to relicense their codebases, but this may be reading too far into it. There's also the concern that the ghost of SCO will continue to punish anyone else who tries with costly-but-doomed-to-fail litigation. Have there been any happenings lately with regards to getting AT&T UNIX post-PDP-11 opened up more in the world? Reading up a bit on OpenText's business, they don't seem like they're invested in the OS world, seems that their primary sector is content management. Granted, there's certainly under-the-radar trading of bits and pieces, but it would be nice to have some more certainty about what can happen out in the open. - Matt G. From alan.coopersmith at oracle.com Thu Mar 14 10:40:19 2024 From: alan.coopersmith at oracle.com (Alan Coopersmith) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 17:40:19 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <72bf032c-a945-4b9d-b0da-2d8e535b5311@oracle.com> On 3/13/24 14:27, Will Senn wrote: > I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning to see > how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so OpenIndiana's a > bust)... You might not find Solaris much more to your liking then, since Solaris 11.0 and later only include the GNOME desktop. (Solaris 2.6 through 10 also had CDE, and Solaris 1.0 through 8 also had OpenWindows.) In Solaris 11.4, it's GNOME 3 - up to GNOME 41 in SRU 66. OpenIndiana went with MATE instead of GNOME 3, and I believe has some other desktop choices as well. The Tribblix distro of illumos offers a choice of Xfce, Mate, OpenCDE, or Enlightenment on top of the same core OS derived from OpenSolaris. > but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least for hobbyists (only get > release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to date 'release' was 11.4 in > 2018). There's also the "CBE" release from 2022 to allow people building open source to build & test on a somewhat newer base: https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/post/announcing-the-first-oracle-solaris-114-cbe It's roughly equivalent to a beta build of Solaris 11.4 SRU 42. (Solaris 11.4 issues "Support Repository Updates" or SRUs around once a month, so the SRU number is basically the count of the number of months after August 2018 that a given SRU was released.) But yeah, if you want to stay up to date, you need a support contract. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at oracle.com Oracle Solaris Engineering - https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris From flexibeast at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 10:44:45 2024 From: flexibeast at gmail.com (Alexis) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 11:44:45 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: (Henry Bent's message of "Wed, 13 Mar 2024 19:39:33 -0400") References: <87h6h93e4q.fsf@gmail.com> Message-ID: <87zfv11w1u.fsf@gmail.com> Henry Bent writes: > Now, I find that there is a fragmentation happening. There are > those > of us > who still cling to mailing lists - like this one! - and those > who > are > willing to navigate the realms of increasingly compartmentalized > other > forms of community, Discord included. The fact that there is not > a > recognized central repository of unpaid support for a product, > like > sun-managers, I find to be frustrating. i basically agree. i won't dwell on this too much further because i recognise that i'm going off-topic, list-wise, but: i think part of the problem is related to different people having different preferences around the interfaces they want/need for discussions. What's happened is that - for reasons i feel are typically due to a lock-in-oriented business model - many discussion systems don't provide different interfaces/'views' to the same underlying discussions. Which results in one community on platform X, another community on platform Y, another community on platform Z .... Whereas, for example, the 'Rocksolid Light' BBS/forum software provides a Web-based interface to an underlying NNTP-based system, such that people can use their NNTP clients to engage in forum discussions. i wish this sort of approach was more common. Alexis. From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Mar 14 10:51:09 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:51:09 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: <72bf032c-a945-4b9d-b0da-2d8e535b5311@oracle.com> References: <72bf032c-a945-4b9d-b0da-2d8e535b5311@oracle.com> Message-ID: On Wednesday, March 13th, 2024 at 5:40 PM, Alan Coopersmith wrote: > The Tribblix distro of illumos offers a choice of > Xfce, Mate, OpenCDE, or Enlightenment on top of the same core OS derived from > OpenSolaris. > > -- > -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at oracle.com > Oracle Solaris Engineering - https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris Of the illumos distros I've tried the past few years, Tribblix felt quite concise and easy to get started with, and ran leaner than the others I tried. Peter Tribble was also quite quick to respond when I had some questions about a few things. I'd recommend it to folks who do want to give things a spin in that realm, but I've stepped outside the x86 stream these days to aarch64. Still, if you're running an x86 type CPU or SPARC, might be worth a spin! - Matt G. From mrochkind at gmail.com Thu Mar 14 12:13:56 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 20:13:56 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: Don't know the answer to your question, but last I knew the trademark (not the copyright) was transferred to The Open Group. They came up with a set of rules for what UNIX is and, as I understand it, for example, Linux is not a UNIX-like system, it is a UNIX system. (The Open Group isn't interested in implementations of the UNIX standard, only the standard itself.) Things change, and my information is a few years old. For all I know Elon Musk owns it all now. ;-) Marc On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 6:34 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Did some reading today, curious on the current state of things with AT&T's > UNIX copyright genealogy. The series of events as I understand it are: > > AT&T partners with Novell for the Univel initiative. > > Novell then acquires System V and USL from AT&T. > > Novell sells UNIX System V's source to SCO, but as the courts have ruled, > not the copyright. > > Novell gets purchased by Microfocus. > > Microfocus gets purchased by OpenText Corporation. > > Does this make OpenText the current copyright holders of the commercial > UNIX line from AT&T. > > What got me looking a bit closer into this is curiosity regarding how the > opening of Solaris and the CDDL may impact publication of UNIX code between > System III and SVR4. I then felt the need to refresh on who might be the > current copyright holder and this is where the trail has lead me. > > My understanding too is that Sun's release under the CDDL set the > precedent that other sub-licencees of System V codebases are also at > liberty to relicense their codebases, but this may be reading too far into > it. There's also the concern that the ghost of SCO will continue to punish > anyone else who tries with costly-but-doomed-to-fail litigation. Have > there been any happenings lately with regards to getting AT&T UNIX > post-PDP-11 opened up more in the world? Reading up a bit on OpenText's > business, they don't seem like they're invested in the OS world, seems that > their primary sector is content management. Granted, there's certainly > under-the-radar trading of bits and pieces, but it would be nice to have > some more certainty about what can happen out in the open. > > - Matt G. > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Thu Mar 14 12:25:27 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 20:25:27 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 13, 2024, 8:14 PM Marc Rochkind wrote: > Don't know the answer to your question, but last I knew the trademark (not > the copyright) was transferred to The Open Group. They came up with a set > of rules for what UNIX is and, as I understand it, for example, Linux is > not a UNIX-like system, it is a UNIX system. > Only some distributions... only a few have gone to the hassle of being certified... and usually on only on or two architectures. (The Open Group isn't interested in implementations of the UNIX standard, > only the standard itself.) > > Things change, and my information is a few years old. For all I know Elon > Musk owns it all now. ;-) > Last I checked, no. Of course by that measure, Unix isn't UNIX anymore... Warner Marc > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 6:34 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > >> Did some reading today, curious on the current state of things with >> AT&T's UNIX copyright genealogy. The series of events as I understand it >> are: >> >> AT&T partners with Novell for the Univel initiative. >> >> Novell then acquires System V and USL from AT&T. >> >> Novell sells UNIX System V's source to SCO, but as the courts have ruled, >> not the copyright. >> >> Novell gets purchased by Microfocus. >> >> Microfocus gets purchased by OpenText Corporation. >> >> Does this make OpenText the current copyright holders of the commercial >> UNIX line from AT&T. >> >> What got me looking a bit closer into this is curiosity regarding how the >> opening of Solaris and the CDDL may impact publication of UNIX code between >> System III and SVR4. I then felt the need to refresh on who might be the >> current copyright holder and this is where the trail has lead me. >> >> My understanding too is that Sun's release under the CDDL set the >> precedent that other sub-licencees of System V codebases are also at >> liberty to relicense their codebases, but this may be reading too far into >> it. There's also the concern that the ghost of SCO will continue to punish >> anyone else who tries with costly-but-doomed-to-fail litigation. Have >> there been any happenings lately with regards to getting AT&T UNIX >> post-PDP-11 opened up more in the world? Reading up a bit on OpenText's >> business, they don't seem like they're invested in the OS world, seems that >> their primary sector is content management. Granted, there's certainly >> under-the-radar trading of bits and pieces, but it would be nice to have >> some more certainty about what can happen out in the open. >> >> - Matt G. >> > > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From usotsuki at buric.co Thu Mar 14 13:40:24 2024 From: usotsuki at buric.co (Steve Nickolas) Date: Wed, 13 Mar 2024 23:40:24 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Mar 2024, Marc Rochkind wrote: > Don't know the answer to your question, but last I knew the trademark (not > the copyright) was transferred to The Open Group. They came up with a set > of rules for what UNIX is and, as I understand it, for example, Linux is > not a UNIX-like system, it is a UNIX system. (The Open Group isn't > interested in implementations of the UNIX standard, only the standard > itself.) Only those distros that paid them for the right to be called such. -uso. From cowan at ccil.org Thu Mar 14 18:31:58 2024 From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 04:31:58 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:33 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: Does this make OpenText the current copyright holders of the commercial > UNIX line from AT&T. > If they haven't sold (or given away) the rights. Copyright can only be abandoned by an explicit act of the owner, not by mere neglect. My understanding too is that Sun's release under the CDDL set the precedent > that other sub-licencees of System V codebases are also at liberty to > relicense their codebases, > Very unlikely (which is lawyerese for "Not a chance"). The terms of the AT&T master license to Sun aren't public knowledge, but it probably limited Sun to distributing Solaris 2.0+ in binary form (with the usual exceptions around contractors, etc.). To distribute Solaris in source form would require Sun to license the rights needed to do so from the copyright owner. It's not clear to me just who Sun licensed them from, thanks to the Novell-SCO dispute. At any rate, Sun got what they considered sufficient title for the Solaris 11 release under the CDDL But that would not allow any other licensee of AT&T or its successors in title to do the same thing without a separate license from the owner. Whatever the precise terms of the Sun-Novell license, it would grant rights to Sun and nobody else. If Acme Films licenses the right to make a movie of _Passionate Unix_, a book owned by Yoyodyne Publishing, then another movie licensee of Yoyodyne wouldn't get the rights, based on *their* movie license, to publish the original book. (In practice Acme would insist that Yoyodyne not license the movie rights to anyone else.) IANAI; TINLA. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tytso at mit.edu Thu Mar 14 23:49:45 2024 From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 09:49:45 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: <87zfv11w1u.fsf@gmail.com> References: <87h6h93e4q.fsf@gmail.com> <87zfv11w1u.fsf@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20240314134945.GC143836@mit.edu> On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 11:44:45AM +1100, Alexis wrote: > > i basically agree. i won't dwell on this too much further because i > recognise that i'm going off-topic, list-wise, but: > > i think part of the problem is related to different people having > different preferences around the interfaces they want/need for > discussions. What's happened is that - for reasons i feel are > typically due to a lock-in-oriented business model - many discussion > systems don't provide different interfaces/'views' to the same > underlying discussions. Which results in one community on platform X, > another community on platform Y, another community on platform Z > .... Whereas, for example, the 'Rocksolid Light' BBS/forum software > provides a Web-based interface to an underlying NNTP-based system, > such that people can use their NNTP clients to engage in forum > discussions. i wish this sort of approach was more common. This is a bit off-topic, and so if we need to push this to a different list (I'm not sure COFF is much better?), let's do so --- but this is a conversation which is super-improtant to have. If not just for Unix heritage, but for the heritage of other collecvtive systems-related projects, whether they be open source or proprietary. A few weeks ago, there were people who showed up on the git mailing list requesting that discussion of the git system move from the mailing list to using a "forge" web-based system, such as github or gitlab. Their reason was that there were tons of people who think e-mail is so 1970's, and that if we wanted to be more welcoming to the up-and-coming programmers, we should meet them were they were at. The obvious observations of how github was proprietary, and locking up our history there might be contra-indicated was made, and the problem with gitlab is that it doesn't have a good e-mail gateway, and while we might be disenfranchising the young'uns by not using some new-fangled web interface, disenfranchising the existing base of expertise was even worse idea. The best that we have today is lore.kernel.org, which is used by both the Linux Kernel and the git development communities. It uses public-inbox to archive the mailing list traffic, and it can be accessed via threaded e-mail interface, as well as via NNTP. There are also tools for subscribing to messages that match a filtering criteria, as well as tools for extracting patches plus code review sign-offs into a form that can be easily consumed by git. Of course none of this is a substitute for hiring a technical writer working with keye developers to create architecture documentation so that when a key developer retires (or gets hit by a bus) that critical knowledge doesn't get lost. This requires real investment, and while some communities might have a large corporate-funded foundation who might be able to fund that sort of thing, one of the things we've found is that there are real limits to the sort of documentation work that can be done by volunteers. (For example, right now the Linux kernel documentation maintainer is also the owner and editor for the Linux Weekly News, and Jon is keenly aware of the limits of what he can do in his copious spare time. And none of us is getting any younger....) So it's a real problem, and I think it's one that needs a lot more conversation, both within various open source projects, and perhaps between different projects to exchange some techniques for better preserving lore. After all, it would be great if we could make things easier for the next generation's *-Heritage-Society. :-) - Ted From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Mar 15 01:50:57 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 09:50:57 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 6:33 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Did some reading today, curious on the current state of things with AT&T's > UNIX copyright genealogy. The series of events as I understand it are: > > AT&T partners with Novell for the Univel initiative. > > Novell then acquires System V and USL from AT&T. > Substantially all the assets. However, what does that mean? In this case, I think it does include copyright. > Novell sells UNIX System V's source to SCO, but as the courts have ruled, > not the copyright. > Which puts, some say, the ancient Unix license grants at risk. However, I'd contend that Novell knew of the grant and did nothing, so might be barred by estoppel from asserting it at a later date. While copyright law generally doesn't work like this, were one to create a defense of copyright abuse for someone popping up years after the apparent copyright holder granted permission, a defense of estoppel would be good in this case where Novell knew, or should have known, this was going on, but did nothing to fight the fraud of granting a license w/o rights. > Novell gets purchased by Microfocus. > > Microfocus gets purchased by OpenText Corporation. > > Does this make OpenText the current copyright holders of the commercial > UNIX line from AT&T. > It would depend a lot, like we found in the SCO litigation, what exactly was transferred, what the contracts say, and how any ambiguity in said contracts is adjudicated. This many years after the fact, such litigation may be tricky to undertake. > What got me looking a bit closer into this is curiosity regarding how the > opening of Solaris and the CDDL may impact publication of UNIX code between > System III and SVR4. I then felt the need to refresh on who might be the > current copyright holder and this is where the trail has lead me. > At the time, though I have no reference for it, Sun bought a paid-up license from AT&T and part of that purchase included the right to distribute the source code in the way they did. This was a special deal Sun cut with AT&T. Sun also had to renegotiate scores of 3rd party contracts to include enough of the system to be viable. I recall reading this in the press, as well as hearing about it from friends at Sun. Years later, over drinks, I heard about it from Glen Weinberg who was my VP. He'd be instrumental in pulling it together. Not exactly a firsthand written source, but someone that would know... Also, though, that was over a decade ago, wine was involved, so I might be misremembering the details, but I'm sure of the main thrust... I also found: So how is it Sun is permitted to open source Unix outright while IBM is sued for more than US$5 billion in damages? Sun is mum on particulars, but it has said it licensed additional rights in a 2003 deal in which it paid SCO US$9.3 million. at https://www.zdnet.com/article/sun-poised-to-take-open-source-solaris-step/ dated in 2005. > My understanding too is that Sun's release under the CDDL set the > precedent that other sub-licencees of System V codebases are also at > liberty to relicense their codebases, but this may be reading too far into > it. I have never, ever once heard that. There's no precedent here: It's all what the contracts say. Since Sun paid cash money (or maybe stock) to AT&T, that's a new, special contract. I don't think this is implied even a tiny bit: there's no contract that permits it. > There's also the concern that the ghost of SCO will continue to punish > anyone else who tries with costly-but-doomed-to-fail litigation. Ah, that's different... Though SCO's rights as a revenue collector, but not rights hold, were established, so it's unlikely they will... Their latest litigation isn't based on their Unix IP. > Have there been any happenings lately with regards to getting AT&T UNIX > post-PDP-11 opened up more in the world? So we have Berkeley Unix: V32, which formed the basis for 3BSD, had a preliminary ruling that AT&T lost its copyrights to at least V32, the Vax 7th Edition port they did, due to the fact that (a) they didn't mark the source as copyright and (b) they widely distributed it. This preliminary ruling was never made final, as the case was settled. But it was the result of a very extensive record that was established by the litigants. But, if you talk to some of the old CSRG folks, they'll tell you that frees up BSD. In addition, the settlement of the case put to bed the issue in the BSD world by AT&T explicitly licensing some files and Berkeley creating 4.4BSD-lite. So from that perspective, that bit of post PDP-11 Unix is on solid legal ground. Everything else? Apart from Lucent licensing the 8th, 9th and 10th Edition Unix permissively, there's very little. You can find the sources online, if you really want. You can study them and write commentary about them: that's black letter law on fair use. You can't, however, build a new system based on them, since a commercial use would venture outside of fair use (potentially: abandonware has never been litigated so there's a somewhat high legal risk you might be infringing on the rights. Novel copyright legal theories are a dime a dozen and rarely ultimately successful). > Reading up a bit on OpenText's business, they don't seem like they're > invested in the OS world, seems that their primary sector is content > management. Granted, there's certainly under-the-radar trading of bits and > pieces, but it would be nice to have some more certainty about what can > happen out in the open. > People have worked the back channels to try to even find the right person to talk to, so far to no good effect. They were primarily interested in clearing up the legal ambiguity surrounding the Ancient Unix Licenses, but even that narrow ask has gone nowhere to date (at least publicly, I'm not privy to what might be still private). The main problem with any of this is that all the companies that took System V made changes to customize it for their hardware. That means even if OpenText is the successor of interest for the Unix Copyrights, and even if you could get someone there interested in granting a super-permissive license on all that material (putting aside for the moment what, exactly, was copyrighted and transferred) for no financial benefit for OpenText (only the risk of a counter suit from someone else who, though backroom deals not disclosed to the public, who thinks they own the rights). Even if you get through all that, none of the System V system would be opened up because the licensees of those systems also have rights to what they produced and without their permission, you would not have rights to distribute things permissively. At best, it would semi-legitimize some of the available to download tapes that one can find on the internet that purport to be verbatim copies of the source from AT&T. Though much of the later work was done by third parties and consortia, so even if AT&T successor in interest gave the nod, those other parties might not have granted AT&T the right to do this. So I'm not optimistic we'll ever see any further opening up of Ancient Unix, which is now even older than the 7th edition was when the Ancient Unix License was released. Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 15 02:50:46 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:50:46 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Thursday, March 14th, 2024 at 8:50 AM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > At the time, though I have no reference for it, Sun bought a paid-up license from AT&T and part of that purchase included the right to distribute the source code in the way they did. This was a special deal Sun cut with AT&T. > > ... > > I also found: > > > So how is it Sun is permitted to open source Unix outright while IBM is sued for more than US$5 billion in damages? Sun is mum on particulars, but it has said it licensed additional rights in a 2003 deal in which it paid SCO US$9.3 million. > > at https://www.zdnet.com/article/sun-poised-to-take-open-source-solaris-step/ dated in 2005. > That makes sense given the collaborative efforts between USL and Sun on SVR4 actually. On Thursday, March 14th, 2024 at 8:50 AM, Warner Losh wrote: > > > The main problem with any of this is that all the companies that took System V made changes to customize it for their hardware. > > ... > > Though much of the later work was done by third parties and consortia, so even if AT&T successor in interest gave the nod, those other parties might not have granted AT&T the right to do this. > > Warner That's a good point, like many long-standing codebases, System V code is littered with little "this is copyright this subcontractor, this is copyright that contributor, etc." and big thorough license descriptions sitting at the top of source files weren't in vogue at the time so it offers confusion over ownership with little paths to clarity. Maybe a happy middle ground would be a 4.4BSD-Lite-ish approach to System V in which anything demonstrated to be exact program text that is not out in the open in the form of Research or illumos code can be scrubbed from, say, SVR4, and that fragmentary codebase could then fly under the research license or CDDL or what have you. As you mention though, what company wants to devote their resources to a revenue-less project like that? It'd be swell if some sort of publicly funded organization like the Library of Congress, Smithsonian Institution, or equivalents in other locales could take up that mantle on this and other software preservation efforts. That's something I think about often in my retro video game disassembly work, it'd be nice to preserve these historically significant applications and systems as a formal career rather than just hobby stuff. But right, where's the revenue stream to convince anyone to do that, especially the legal hurdles involved? Lawyers ain't cheap... - Matt G. From stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca Fri Mar 15 04:38:03 2024 From: stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca (Stuff Received) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 14:38:03 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On 2024-03-13 23:40, Steve Nickolas wrote: > On Wed, 13 Mar 2024, Marc Rochkind wrote: > >> Don't know the answer to your question, but last I knew the trademark >> (not >> the copyright) was transferred to The Open Group. They came up with a set >> of rules for what UNIX is and, as I understand it, for example, Linux is >> not a UNIX-like system, it is a UNIX system. (The Open Group isn't >> interested in implementations of the UNIX standard, only the standard >> itself.) > > Only those distros that paid them for the right to be called such. Not quite -- they do to pass the Single Unix Spec tests. From dave at horsfall.org Fri Mar 15 05:24:23 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 06:24:23 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] early unix rand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 13 Mar 2024, Clem Cole wrote: > Prof Kahan's Floating Point Test Program - the original from his and his > students in his computer arithmetic seminar wrote during my days at UCB: > https://www.netlib.org/paranoia/ I remember that well; it crashed a colleague's Xenix box... -- Dave From imp at bsdimp.com Fri Mar 15 05:51:59 2024 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 13:51:59 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 12:38 PM Stuff Received wrote: > On 2024-03-13 23:40, Steve Nickolas wrote: > > On Wed, 13 Mar 2024, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > > >> Don't know the answer to your question, but last I knew the trademark > >> (not > >> the copyright) was transferred to The Open Group. They came up with a > set > >> of rules for what UNIX is and, as I understand it, for example, Linux is > >> not a UNIX-like system, it is a UNIX system. (The Open Group isn't > >> interested in implementations of the UNIX standard, only the standard > >> itself.) > > > > Only those distros that paid them for the right to be called such. > > Not quite -- they do to pass the Single Unix Spec tests. > Only the people that pay for the certification get to claim certified results. The Single Unix Spec is about 20 years old at this point, though. There's been two soon to be three major revisions to Unix since then. It doesn't matter if they pass w/o payment. That confers no rights to use the name Unix. Otherwise, FreeBSD, NetBSD and I think OpenBSD would all be able to use the name 'Unix'. They've all passed some variation of the Unix tests over the years... Warner -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tamelingdaniel at gmail.com Fri Mar 15 06:13:01 2024 From: tamelingdaniel at gmail.com (Daniel Tameling) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 21:13:01 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Mar 14, 2024 at 02:38:03PM -0400, Stuff Received wrote: > On 2024-03-13 23:40, Steve Nickolas wrote: > > On Wed, 13 Mar 2024, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > > > > Don't know the answer to your question, but last I knew the > > > trademark (not > > > the copyright) was transferred to The Open Group. They came up with a set > > > of rules for what UNIX is and, as I understand it, for example, Linux is > > > not a UNIX-like system, it is a UNIX system. (The Open Group isn't > > > interested in implementations of the UNIX standard, only the standard > > > itself.) > > > > Only those distros that paid them for the right to be called such. > > Not quite -- they do to pass the Single Unix Spec tests. > > People here might enjoy this first hand account of making MacOS fit for the certification: https://www.quora.com/What-goes-into-making-an-OS-to-be-Unix-compliant-certified 2 representive quotes: "I was the tech lead at Apple for making Mac OS X pass UNIX certification, and it was done to get Apple out of a $200M lawsuit filed by The Open Group, for use of the UNIX™ trademark in advertising. The lawsuit was filed because the owner of Mac OS X Server kept putting “UNIX” on the web site, and all other marketing collateral for the Server product." "If I were asked to do the same thing for Linux, it likely would take five years, and two dozen people. Linux is pretty balkanize, has a lot of kingdom building, and you have to pee on everything to make it smell like Linux. I could do the same in FreeBSD in about a year and a half, with a dozen co-conspirators to run the changes through." -- Kind regards, Daniel From earl.baugh at gmail.com Fri Mar 15 06:23:39 2024 From: earl.baugh at gmail.com (Earl Baugh) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 16:23:39 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] SunOS 4 in 2024 In-Reply-To: <72bf032c-a945-4b9d-b0da-2d8e535b5311@oracle.com> References: <72bf032c-a945-4b9d-b0da-2d8e535b5311@oracle.com> Message-ID: <055B3269-D5F9-4A55-B6FF-0FD7A3CD6E63@gmail.com> Another reason why it’s fun use the older OS’s. For old Sun HW, I don’t believe SunView can be beat. It was always very performant for me, and met the basic goals of a window manager that I needed. (I’m not one that needs a huge amount of customization..) Earl > On Mar 13, 2024, at 8:40 PM, Alan Coopersmith wrote: > > On 3/13/24 14:27, Will Senn wrote: >> I recently saw that Solaris 11.4 SRU66 was released and had a yearning to see how things in Solaris land were doing (can't stand Gnome so OpenIndiana's a bust)... > > You might not find Solaris much more to your liking then, since Solaris 11.0 > and later only include the GNOME desktop. (Solaris 2.6 through 10 also had > CDE, and Solaris 1.0 through 8 also had OpenWindows.) In Solaris 11.4, it's > GNOME 3 - up to GNOME 41 in SRU 66. > > OpenIndiana went with MATE instead of GNOME 3, and I believe has some other > desktop choices as well. The Tribblix distro of illumos offers a choice of > Xfce, Mate, OpenCDE, or Enlightenment on top of the same core OS derived from > OpenSolaris. > >> but with Oracle's Solaris, it's a mess at least for hobbyists (only get release patches, so I'm guessing the most up to date 'release' was 11.4 in 2018). > > There's also the "CBE" release from 2022 to allow people building open source > to build & test on a somewhat newer base: > https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/post/announcing-the-first-oracle-solaris-114-cbe > > It's roughly equivalent to a beta build of Solaris 11.4 SRU 42. (Solaris 11.4 > issues "Support Repository Updates" or SRUs around once a month, so the SRU > number is basically the count of the number of months after August 2018 that > a given SRU was released.) > > But yeah, if you want to stay up to date, you need a support contract. > > -- > -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at oracle.com > Oracle Solaris Engineering - https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris > From chet.ramey at case.edu Fri Mar 15 07:09:17 2024 From: chet.ramey at case.edu (Chet Ramey) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 17:09:17 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Is OpenText Corporation the Current System V Copyright Holder? In-Reply-To: References: <9oGrJHb6s-fL1f5PDMKtnl-JN1Rea-AeDxEgkFiqJgAWEt7v6WUauLschmaq0ESqCnyAXwepvx7DKq9W6u3VRb8J5I8GJF7VmIpl87cy3-A=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <8b94da15-3ea0-4131-9f7c-fb1fcc064ea4@case.edu> On 3/14/24 4:13 PM, Daniel Tameling wrote: > People here might enjoy this first hand account of making MacOS fit > for the certification: > > https://www.quora.com/What-goes-into-making-an-OS-to-be-Unix-compliant-certified Terry Lambert and Len Lattanzi (Len was the one I primarily dealt with). He never did admit why he sent so many small posix-mode fixes, but I appreciated them. This was mid-2004. Chet -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU chet at case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: OpenPGP_signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 203 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: From heinz at osta.com Fri Mar 15 13:34:09 2024 From: heinz at osta.com (Heinz Lycklama) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 20:34:09 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] History of non-Bell C compilers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: VP/ix ran on both System III and UNIX System V/386 Release 3.2. I do still have a copy of the VP/ix Environment documentation and the diskettes for the software. I have the "Introduction to the VP/ix Environment" for further reference for interested folks. Also found some information about VP/ix on these web pages:     1. https://virtuallyfun.com/2020/11/29/fun-with-vp-ix-under-interactive-unix-system-v-386-3-0-and-86box/     2. https://techmonitor.ai/technology/interactive_systems_is_adding_to_vpix_with_a_little_help_from_its_friends     3. https://manualzz.com/doc/7267897/interactive-unix-system-v-386-r3.2-v4.1---release It's been a long time since I looked at this. Heinz On 3/13/2024 8:53 AM, Clem Cole wrote: > Thanks.  Fair enough.  You mentioned PC/IX as /ISC's System III/ > > I'm not sure I ever ran ISC's System III port—only the V.3 port - > which was the basis for their ATT, Intel, and IBM work and later sold > directly. I'm fairly sure ISCalso called that port PC/IX, but they > might have added something to say with 386 in the name—I've forgotten. > [Heinz probably can clarify here]. Anyway, this is likely the source > of my thinking. FWIW: The copy of PC/IX for the 386 (which I still > have on a system I have not booted in ages) definitely has VPIX. > ᐧ > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 11:28 AM Marc Rochkind > wrote: > > @Clem Cole , > > I don't remember what it was. But, the XT had an 8088, so > certainly no 386 technology was involved. > > Marc > > On Wed, Mar 13, 2024 at 8:38 AM Clem Cole wrote: > > @Marc > > On Tue, Mar 12, 2024 at 1:18 PM Marc Rochkind > wrote: > > At a trade show, I bought a utility that allowed me to run > PC-DOS under PC/IX. I'm sure it wasn't a virtual machine. > Rather, it just swapped back and forth. (Guessing a bit > there.) > > Hmm ... you sure it was not either VPIX or DOS/Merge -- ISC > built VPIX in cooperation with the Phoenix Tech folks for > PC/IX. I always bought a copy with it, but it may have been an > option.   LCC did DOS/Merge originally as part of the AIX work > for IBM and would become a core part of OS/2 Warp IIRC. Both > Merge and VPIX had some rough edges but certainly worked fine > for DOS 3.3 programs. The issue tended to be Win and DOS > graphics-based programs/games that played fast and loose, > bypassing the DOS OS interface and accessing the HW directly.  > For instance, I never got the flight simulator (Air War over > Germany) for Dad's WWII plane (P-47 Thunderbolt) to run under > either (i.e., only under DOS directly on the HW. FWIW: In that > mode, Dad said the simulator flew a lot like how he remembered > it). > > Both Merge and VPIX used the 386 VM support and a bunch of > work in the core OS.   Heinz would have to fill us in here. > The version of the 386 port ISC delivered to AT&T and Intel > only had the kernel changes to allow the VM support for VPIX > to be linked in, but it was not there.   IICR (and I'm not > sure I am) is that Merge could run on PC/IX also, but you had > to replace a couple of kernel modules.  It certainly would > work on the AT&T and Intel versions. > ᐧ > > > > -- > /My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com/ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrochkind at gmail.com Fri Mar 15 13:45:29 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 21:45:29 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent Message-ID: In another thread there's been some discussion of Coherent. I just came across this very detailed history, just posted last month. There's much more to it than I knew. https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-mark-williams-company Marc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heinz at osta.com Fri Mar 15 15:16:02 2024 From: heinz at osta.com (Heinz Lycklama) Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2024 22:16:02 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Interesting little history about Coherent. They were one of a few companies building UNIX-like systems from scratch without using UNIX source code in the early 1980's. Robert Schwartz represented the Mark Williams Company on the /usr/group standards effort resulting in the /usr/group Standard in 1984. Robert was very insistent that members of the /usr/group standards group did not have to be UNIX source licensees. Heinz On 3/14/2024 8:45 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > In another thread there's been some discussion of Coherent. I just > came across this very detailed history, just posted last month. > There's much more to it than I knew. > > https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-mark-williams-company > > Marc > From robpike at gmail.com Fri Mar 15 17:00:12 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 18:00:12 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> References: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Message-ID: Another detail. There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen, and we (127) were asked to find ways to test, absent their source, whether they had just stolen our source and built the binaries. It was soon concluded that there were enough details different to definitively say that at least most of the work was done in a clean room, as advertised, but the piece I liked best is that their PPT(1) program (ASCII art showing a paper tape rendering the argument text) did not include the original, and just discovered, bug that mispunched, if I remember right, the letter 'R'. -rob On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 4:16 PM Heinz Lycklama wrote: > Interesting little history about Coherent. They were > one of a few companies building UNIX-like systems > from scratch without using UNIX source code in the > early 1980's. Robert Schwartz represented the Mark > Williams Company on the /usr/group standards > effort resulting in the /usr/group Standard in 1984. > Robert was very insistent that members of the > /usr/group standards group did not have to be > UNIX source licensees. > > Heinz > > On 3/14/2024 8:45 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: > > In another thread there's been some discussion of Coherent. I just > > came across this very detailed history, just posted last month. > > There's much more to it than I knew. > > > > https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-mark-williams-company > > > > Marc > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crossd at gmail.com Fri Mar 15 23:03:24 2024 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:03:24 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 3:00 AM Rob Pike wrote: > Another detail. There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen, and we (127) were asked to find ways to test, absent their source, whether they had just stolen our source and built the binaries. It was soon concluded that there were enough details different to definitively say that at least most of the work was done in a clean room, as advertised, but the piece I liked best is that their PPT(1) program (ASCII art showing a paper tape rendering the argument text) did not include the original, and just discovered, bug that mispunched, if I remember right, the letter 'R'. Along those lines, Dennis Ritchie wrote up a summary of the event on USENET; apparently in 1998 (I had no idea it was this late): https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/_ZaYeY46eb4/m/5B41Uym6d4QJ COHERENT (version 4) was my introduction to Unix (or Unix-like) systems. I bought it from an ad in the back of "Computer Shopper" or one of those things; my first inkling that it was rather different from actual Unix was that the `lc` command they had picked up (probably from York or Toronto) was not present on SunOS or 4.3BSD. Similarly, the manual was rather different: it didn't have the usual sectioned Unix manual, but rather an alphabetical "Lexicon" and chapters discussing specific topics (editors, UUCP, etc); in retrospect I thought their manual and its format was rather nice; it was certainly well-written and beautifully typeset. Regardless of that, I pretty quickly left COHERENT behind for NetBSD. COHERENT was an early casualty of Linux's success, and I don't think it ever occupied much more than a niche, but it was an interesting system. I've booted it a few times under emulation out of nostalgia. I had a very small hand in the opening of their sources. I knew that Stephen Ness had archived copies, at the request of Bob Swartz, and I wrote to him about the system overall and ended with something like, "if those sources are available, I'd love to see them." He responded that due to my message, he'd corresponded with Swartz, who had agreed to release the sources under the 3 clause BSD license. Incidentally, Robert Swartz was the father of the late Aaron Swartz. - Dan C. > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 4:16 PM Heinz Lycklama wrote: >> >> Interesting little history about Coherent. They were >> one of a few companies building UNIX-like systems >> from scratch without using UNIX source code in the >> early 1980's. Robert Schwartz represented the Mark >> Williams Company on the /usr/group standards >> effort resulting in the /usr/group Standard in 1984. >> Robert was very insistent that members of the >> /usr/group standards group did not have to be >> UNIX source licensees. >> >> Heinz >> >> On 3/14/2024 8:45 PM, Marc Rochkind wrote: >> > In another thread there's been some discussion of Coherent. I just >> > came across this very detailed history, just posted last month. >> > There's much more to it than I knew. >> > >> > https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-mark-williams-company >> > >> > Marc >> > >> From crossd at gmail.com Fri Mar 15 23:43:08 2024 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 09:43:08 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 9:03 AM Dan Cross wrote: > > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 3:00 AM Rob Pike wrote: > > Another detail. There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen, and we (127) were asked to find ways to test, absent their source, whether they had just stolen our source and built the binaries. It was soon concluded that there were enough details different to definitively say that at least most of the work was done in a clean room, as advertised, but the piece I liked best is that their PPT(1) program (ASCII art showing a paper tape rendering the argument text) did not include the original, and just discovered, bug that mispunched, if I remember right, the letter 'R'. > > Along those lines, Dennis Ritchie wrote up a summary of the event on > USENET; apparently in 1998 (I had no idea it was this late): > https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/_ZaYeY46eb4/m/5B41Uym6d4QJ Sorry, just to clarify: I meant I had no idea Dennis's posting about the event happened so late; by 1998 USENET was basically overrun by spam. Obviously, the inspection trip had happened much earlier. - Dan C. From mrochkind at gmail.com Sat Mar 16 00:10:31 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 08:10:31 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Message-ID: I have already posted this in another thread (on non-BTL C compilers), but it's more relevant here. My 1985 review of Coherent for BYTE Magazine: https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf I see that I went into some detail. For example: "Of the 77 requests in the Version 7 nroff. only 31 are present in Coherent (the most useful 31. however)." And this, although I'm sure there were incompatibilities I didn't uncover: "Coherent has all the Version 7 system calls except nice (which sets a process's priority). and they seem to be used in the same way. It should be easy to port C programs between Coherent and UNIX Version 7." On the whole my review was very positive. Marc On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 7:43 AM Dan Cross wrote: > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 9:03 AM Dan Cross wrote: > > > > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 3:00 AM Rob Pike wrote: > > > Another detail. There was lawyerly concern about the code being > stolen, and we (127) were asked to find ways to test, absent their source, > whether they had just stolen our source and built the binaries. It was soon > concluded that there were enough details different to definitively say that > at least most of the work was done in a clean room, as advertised, but the > piece I liked best is that their PPT(1) program (ASCII art showing a paper > tape rendering the argument text) did not include the original, and just > discovered, bug that mispunched, if I remember right, the letter 'R'. > > > > Along those lines, Dennis Ritchie wrote up a summary of the event on > > USENET; apparently in 1998 (I had no idea it was this late): > > > https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/_ZaYeY46eb4/m/5B41Uym6d4QJ > > Sorry, just to clarify: I meant I had no idea Dennis's posting about > the event happened so late; by 1998 USENET was basically overrun by > spam. Obviously, the inspection trip had happened much earlier. > > - Dan C. > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.winalski at gmail.com Sat Mar 16 00:40:42 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 10:40:42 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 3:00 AM Rob Pike wrote: > Another detail. There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen > > There were similar issues at DEC when we ported VAX Fortran to Ultrix. Especially with the port of the VMS linker, the piece of the project I worked on. We had a member of the Ultrix team writing the code to convert VMS object file debug information to a.out STABs, but other than that the team doing the port stayed clear of the Ultrix sources. -Paul W. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tytso at mit.edu Sat Mar 16 01:42:00 2024 From: tytso at mit.edu (Theodore Ts'o) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 11:42:00 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: <4999eb0b-e0e5-4a79-b14f-77d17995f454@osta.com> Message-ID: <20240315154200.GC324770@mit.edu> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 08:10:31AM -0600, Marc Rochkind wrote: > I have already posted this in another thread (on non-BTL C compilers), but > it's more relevant here. My 1985 review of Coherent for BYTE Magazine: > > https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf It's interesting that it says that $495 for Coherent was a good deal. (That's over $1700 in 2024 dollars.) On the other hand, in 1984, the New York Times reported that IBM had "cut the price of the PC/XT" to $2,520 for a machine with 256k RAM, a single disk drive, and a monochrome display. (That's over $7400 in 2024 dollars.) It's amazing how much hardware and software has gotten cheaper in the past four decades! - Ted From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Sat Mar 16 07:23:44 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:23:44 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent Message-ID: > There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen. Not always misplaced. There was a guy in Boston who sold Unix look-alike programs. A quick look at the binary revealed perfect correlation with our C source. Coincidentally, DEC had hired this person as a consultant in connection with cross-licensing negotiations with AT&T. Socializing at the end of a day's negotiations, our lawyer somehow managed to turn the conversation to software piracy. He discussed a case he was working on, and happened to have some documents about it in his briefcase. He pulled out a page disassembled binary and a page of source code and showed them to the consultant. After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary was obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the lawyer asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The consultant did not attend the following day's meeting. Doug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Sat Mar 16 08:27:52 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 15:27:52 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240315222752.GB6396@mcvoy.com> On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 05:23:44PM -0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen. > > Not always misplaced. There was a guy in Boston who sold Unix look-alike > programs. A quick look at the binary revealed perfect correlation with our > C source. Coincidentally, DEC had hired this person as a consultant in > connection with cross-licensing negotiations with AT&T. Socializing at > the end of a day's negotiations, our lawyer somehow managed to turn the > conversation to software piracy. He discussed a case he was working on, > and happened to have some documents about it in his briefcase. He pulled > out a page disassembled binary and a page of source code and showed them to > the consultant. > > After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary was > obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the lawyer > asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The consultant > did not attend the following day's meeting. Oh come on, you can leave that juicy story there. What happened next? -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From dave at horsfall.org Sat Mar 16 08:28:08 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:28:08 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 15 Mar 2024, Douglas McIlroy wrote: [...] > After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary > was obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the > lawyer asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The > consultant did not attend the following day's meeting. Does anyone remember the case of the program that was literally bug-compatible? That's mostly because the source had been pirated; the bug was obscure enough that it was unlikely to have been reproduced independently... -- Dave From mrochkind at gmail.com Sat Mar 16 09:00:09 2024 From: mrochkind at gmail.com (Marc Rochkind) Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:00:09 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "... literally bug-compatible ..." When I used to work for the phone company.... wait, I mean Bell Labs ... I was in a department (under Rudd Canaday!) that was building an application to print phone books, so I got to learn a little about that side of the business. The Bells would deliberately put in bogus listings to see if the non-Bell phone books were stealing their data. (In the one case I was told about, they were not. The Bell company had no idea how they were getting the data.) Marc On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 4:28 PM Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Fri, 15 Mar 2024, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > [...] > > > After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary > > was obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the > > lawyer asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The > > consultant did not attend the following day's meeting. > > Does anyone remember the case of the program that was literally > bug-compatible? That's mostly because the source had been pirated; the > bug was obscure enough that it was unlikely to have been reproduced > independently... > > -- Dave > -- *My new email address is mrochkind at gmail.com * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rich.salz at gmail.com Sat Mar 16 09:16:54 2024 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2024 09:16:54 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > > . The Bells would deliberately put in bogus listings to see if the > non-Bell phone books were stealing their data. > This was common practice among map publishers, called a trap street. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave at horsfall.org Sat Mar 16 15:24:05 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2024 16:24:05 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: [ Slowly going OT ] On Sat, 16 Mar 2024, Rich Salz wrote: > This was common practice among map publishers, called a trap street. Yep; I've seen one myself. A dead-end (where someone I knew lived, just right behind where I used to), suddenly vanished from one edition; one complaint later, and it reappeared in the next edition. -- Dave From dave at horsfall.org Mon Mar 18 21:14:00 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 11:14:00 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 Message-ID: Evenin' all... I have a vague recollection that /dev/tty8 was the console in Edition 5 (we only used it briefly until Ed 6 appeared), but cannot find a reference to it; lots of stuff about Penguin/OS though... Something to do with 0-7 being the mux, so "8" was left (remember that /dev/tty and /dev/console didn't exist back then), mayhaps? Thanks. -- Dave From ron at ronnatalie.com Mon Mar 18 21:22:20 2024 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 11:22:20 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: /dev/tty existed in Version 6 for sure. It wasn't the console but rather a magic device that mapped to the processes "controlling terminal." Just checked the V5 and V6 sources in the archive. /dev/tty indeed showed up there. The driver is in dmr/sys.c. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Dave Horsfall" To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" Date 3/18/2024 7:13:45 AM Subject [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 >Evenin' all... > >I have a vague recollection that /dev/tty8 was the console in Edition 5 >(we only used it briefly until Ed 6 appeared), but cannot find a reference >to it; lots of stuff about Penguin/OS though... > >Something to do with 0-7 being the mux, so "8" was left (remember that >/dev/tty and /dev/console didn't exist back then), mayhaps? > >Thanks. > >-- Dave From crossd at gmail.com Mon Mar 18 22:28:05 2024 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:28:05 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 5:24 PM Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > > There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen. > > Not always misplaced. There was a guy in Boston who sold Unix look-alike programs. A quick look at the binary revealed perfect correlation with our C source. Coincidentally, DEC had hired this person as a consultant in connection with cross-licensing negotiations with AT&T. Socializing at the end of a day's negotiations, our lawyer somehow managed to turn the conversation to software piracy. He discussed a case he was working on, and happened to have some documents about it in his briefcase. He pulled out a page disassembled binary and a page of source code and showed them to the consultant. > > After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary was obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the lawyer asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The consultant did not attend the following day's meeting. Fantastic story, and talk about a true "Perry Mason" moment for the lawyer. I'm sure it was also fertile material for stories at cocktail parties for the rest of his days. - Dan C. From clemc at ccc.com Mon Mar 18 23:57:24 2024 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 13:57:24 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Dave -- As Ron pointed /dev/ty was part of UNIX early in the game. I'm pretty sure it was in V5 but it might even go back to V3 or V4. To your point on naming the first serial mux for the PDP-11 was the DH11/DM11, a 16 port [full 'system unit' in the backplate]. The single hex-height DZ board did not appear from DEC until 1977 at the earliest (although my memory is that it was late 78). The DZ11 is an eight-port mux (with short pinned modem control and no DMA - both causing issues). If you remember, the original 1979 AT&T V7 release tape does not even have a driver for the DZ ( it's in the v7 addendum, which came out 6-9 months later). I don't know, but maybe tty8 was just simply that the DC11s had originally been to the first eight serial ports, and the first DL/KL was tty8 I'm not sure why I think this ... my hazy memory is that DC11 was 0-7, the DLs 8-15, and DHs started 16 That memory may be because when I set up the the Teklabs 11/70 with 6 Able DH/DMs [which were 16 ports in a hex board each], I used that convention to remember which board controlled which port. ᐧ ᐧ ᐧ On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 7:14 AM Dave Horsfall wrote: > Evenin' all... > > I have a vague recollection that /dev/tty8 was the console in Edition 5 > (we only used it briefly until Ed 6 appeared), but cannot find a reference > to it; lots of stuff about Penguin/OS though... > > Something to do with 0-7 being the mux, so "8" was left (remember that > /dev/tty and /dev/console didn't exist back then), mayhaps? > > Thanks. > > -- Dave > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Tue Mar 19 00:13:04 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 14:13:04 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] The Mark Williams Company and Coherent In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes. The lawyer was walking on air when he got back to the office to tell about it. If I may digress into a personal story, somewhat pre-Unix. (I was nine years old.) I remember my father showing exactly the same excitement when he returned from testifying as an expert witness for the plaintiff in a near-electrocution case that left the victim paralyzed. A visitor touring a substation had pointed to something to ask what it was, and got hit with a 33,000-volt arc. The defense lawyer tried to discredit the expert, a professor who formerly had been an electrical engineer for a utility company. Lawyer: Have you ever designed a 33,000-volt indoor substation? Prof: I have. Lawyer, changing tactics after an unexpected answer: Do you recognize this book? Prof: I do. Some discussion describing the book, an inventory of utility facilities, for the benefit of the jury. Lawyer, with a hint of triumph: The inventory shows that your former employer has no such substation. Prof: Yes, after a few years we decided it was too dangerous and decommissioned it. ... Lawyer, showing a photo of the busbar that arced: Wouldn't someone have to stretch unusually high to get near to it? Prof: No. That picture was taken exactly [some measurement like 2'3"] from the floor. Lawyer: Do you mean to tell me you know where the picture was taken from, without having been present when it was taken? Prof, pointing to a blown-up engineering drawing on the courtroom wall: This horizontal pipe is seen end-on in the photo. It is dimensioned as being 2'3" from the floor. The plaintiff won. Doug On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 8:28 AM Dan Cross wrote: > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 5:24 PM Douglas McIlroy > wrote: > > > > > There was lawyerly concern about the code being stolen. > > > > Not always misplaced. There was a guy in Boston who sold Unix look-alike > programs. A quick look at the binary revealed perfect correlation with our > C source. Coincidentally, DEC had hired this person as a consultant in > connection with cross-licensing negotiations with AT&T. Socializing at the > end of a day's negotiations, our lawyer somehow managed to turn the > conversation to software piracy. He discussed a case he was working on, > and happened to have some documents about it in his briefcase. He pulled > out a page disassembled binary and a page of source code and showed them to > the consultant. > > > > After a little study, the consultant confidently opined that the binary > was obviously compiled from that source. "Would it surprise you," the > lawyer asked, "if I told you that this is yours and that is ours?" The > consultant did not attend the following day's meeting. > > Fantastic story, and talk about a true "Perry Mason" moment for the > lawyer. I'm sure it was also fertile material for stories at cocktail > parties for the rest of his days. > > - Dan C. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul.winalski at gmail.com Tue Mar 19 00:58:22 2024 From: paul.winalski at gmail.com (Paul Winalski) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 14:58:22 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 9:57 AM Clem Cole wrote: > The DZ11 is an eight-port mux (with short pinned modem control and no DMA > - both causing issues). > I'm pretty sure that when we beta tested the VAX-11/780 in the summer of 1977 it had a DZ11. We only had a few LA36 printing terminals on it so we never saw any issues with it. Not so when I started work at DEC in 1980. The VAX-11/780 I worked on had IIRC three DZ11a supporting 24 terminals. The lack of DMA was a big issue. We had to run our VT52s no faster than 300 baud or it brought the system to its knees. -Paul W. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Tue Mar 19 01:20:44 2024 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 15:20:44 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240318152039.GN13814@mcvoy.com> On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 10:58:04AM -0400, Paul Winalski wrote: > On Mon, Mar 18, 2024 at 9:57???AM Clem Cole wrote: > > > The DZ11 is an eight-port mux (with short pinned modem control and no DMA > > - both causing issues). > > > > I'm pretty sure that when we beta tested the VAX-11/780 in the summer of > 1977 it had a DZ11. We only had a few LA36 printing terminals on it so we > never saw any issues with it. Not so when I started work at DEC in 1980. > The VAX-11/780 I worked on had IIRC three DZ11a supporting 24 terminals. > The lack of DMA was a big issue. We had to run our VT52s no faster than > 300 baud or it brought the system to its knees. I was one of about 40 students working on a terminal hooked to a 780. I put up with it for a semester and then bought a 4mhz 128KB Z80 CPM machine. It was not that fast but it was all mine. I was more productive on the Z80. I got a $2000 loan to buy it. Taught me that I really really hated to owe the bank. From dave at horsfall.org Tue Mar 19 05:36:10 2024 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 19:36:10 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 18 Mar 2024, Ron Natalie wrote: > /dev/tty existed in Version 6 for sure. It wasn't the console but > rather a magic device that mapped to the processes "controlling > terminal." I was referring to /dev/tty8, not /dev/tty... -- Dave From ron at ronnatalie.com Tue Mar 19 06:08:32 2024 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 20:08:32 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: <20240318152039.GN13814@mcvoy.com> References: <20240318152039.GN13814@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: The other problem with the DZ is it was one interrupt per character if I recall. Thte DH you could get multiple (output) characters per interrupt. Greatly decreased the load on the system. I do remember the KL kernel prints were not interrupt driven so the system pretty much froze while the kernel printfs were being output. There was a comment on the code saying this was “Not for idle chit chat.” From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Mar 19 06:17:46 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 20:17:46 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, March 18th, 2024 at 12:36 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Mon, 18 Mar 2024, Ron Natalie wrote: > > > /dev/tty existed in Version 6 for sure. It wasn't the console but > > rather a magic device that mapped to the processes "controlling > > terminal." > > > I was referring to /dev/tty8, not /dev/tty... > > -- Dave ttys(V) in the Sixth Edition indicates the first digit of an /etc/ttys entry indicates a terminal line is active on init and the second indicates the final character of the /dev/ttyx entry[1]. Looking at both the Fifth and Sixth Edition /etc/ttys in the archive[2][3], both only have a 1 in the first column of entry 8, corresponding with /dev/tty8. >From the setup document distributed with the Sixth Edition[4]: "The same goes for the character devices. Here the names are arbitrary except that devices meant to be used for teletype access should be named /dev/ttyX, where X is any character. The files tty8 (console), mem, kmem, null are already correctly configured." >From all of this it appears that by convention, tty8 was indeed the default console /dev entry, although this could be changed by editing the conf and ttys entries followed by regeneration of the system. This would change in the Seventh Edition with the rearrangement of the ttys file to indicate longer /dev entry names and the establishment of a specific /dev/console entry. - Matt G. [1] - https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/man/man5/ttys.5 [2] - https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/etc/ttys [3] - https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/etc/ttys [4] - https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V6/usr/doc/start/start From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Mar 19 06:22:15 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 20:22:15 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: <20240318152039.GN13814@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Monday, March 18th, 2024 at 1:08 PM, Ron Natalie wrote: > The other problem with the DZ is it was one interrupt per character if I > recall. > Thte DH you could get multiple (output) characters per interrupt. > Greatly decreased the load on the system. > > I do remember the KL kernel prints were not interrupt driven so the > system pretty much froze while the kernel printfs were being output. > There was a comment on the code saying this was “Not for idle chit > chat.” Yep, synchronous code that writes a character at a time to the transmit register then spins on a status bit awaiting transmit complete, or something like that. I adapted the V6 kernel printf to a RISC-V board I was working on the past year to have a trustworthy print mechanism, only caveat being the transmitter status register was a dirty filthy liar and wouldn't flip the bit on transmit, so just had to put a delay, which it turns out all of the BSDs currently also do for Ti 16550-family UARTs as well. - Matt G. From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Mar 19 08:40:20 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2024 22:40:20 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Of /dev/tty8 In-Reply-To: References: <20240318152039.GN13814@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: On Mar 18, 2024, at 1:21 PM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > only caveat being the transmitter status register was a dirty filthy liar and wouldn't flip the bit on transmit, so just had to put a delay, which it turns out all of the BSDs currently also do for Ti 16550-family UARTs as well. NatSemi (later Ti) 16550s have a 16 byte fifo in each direction. Any delays would be in getc(), putc(), used for system console io, not general serial io. Ignoring any code for brokenness! The early 16660 versions had a bug preventing use of the fifo but this was fixed ages ago. At least this is what I remember decades later! From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Sun Mar 24 01:38:19 2024 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 15:38:19 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history Message-ID: > "BI" fonts can, it seems, largely be traced to the impact > of PostScript There was no room for BI on the C/A/T. It appeared in troff upon the taming of the Linotron 202, just after v7 and five years before PostScript. > Seventh Edition Unix shipped a tc(1) command to help > you preview your troff output with that device before you > spent precious departmental money sending it to the > actual typesetter. Slight exaggeration. It wasn't money, It was time and messing with film cartridges, chemicals, and wet prints. You could buy a lot of typesetter film and developer for the price of a 4014. Doug -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ches at cheswick.com Sun Mar 24 02:03:42 2024 From: ches at cheswick.com (William Cheswick) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 16:03:42 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The Unix room text-to-speech device used to announce: "Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often." > On Mar 23, 2024, at 11:37 AM, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > Slight exaggeration. It wasn't money, It was time and messing > with film cartridges, chemicals, and wet prints. You could buy a > lot of typesetter film and developer for the price of a 4014. > From g.branden.robinson at gmail.com Sun Mar 24 02:37:06 2024 From: g.branden.robinson at gmail.com (G. Branden Robinson) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 16:37:06 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20240323163654.pzf75hrzykhabyw7@illithid> [looping the groff list back in] At 2024-03-23T11:37:51-0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > "BI" fonts can, it seems, largely be traced to the impact > > of PostScript > > There was no room for BI on the C/A/T. It appeared in > troff upon the taming of the Linotron 202, just after v7 > and five years before PostScript. Thanks, Doug! I'm pleased to be corrected here. > > Seventh Edition Unix shipped a tc(1) command to help you preview > > your troff output with that device before you spent precious > > departmental money sending it to the actual typesetter. > > Slight exaggeration. It wasn't money, It was time and messing > with film cartridges, chemicals, and wet prints. You could buy a > lot of typesetter film and developer for the price of a 4014. The scars on my waist from crashing dot-com startup "belt-tightening" must be showing...the great thing about recurring expenses, no matter how small, is that you can issue edicts about them and Be Seen To Be Doing Something... One source says that the Tektronix 4014 listed (at some point during its sales life) at $8,450, though the Computer Museum of Amsterdam has much higher estimates (albeit without tying their dollar figures to a calendar year, which increases the fuzz even more). Still, USD 8,450 in 1979 is over USD 36,000 today.[1] Do you happen to remember _when_ the CSRC got its 4014? About what year? Did Joe Ossanna have access to one early enough to use it in aid of troff development? (I don't see a man page for tc(1) in the Sixth Edition manual.) Something else I'm not clear on is whether staff had Teletype terminals in their personal offices (before the Blit), or if people _had_ to go to the Unix room to use the system. (Steve Johnson has a wonderful story of how DMR faithfully used a Model 37 at home long after its vogue years until mechanical wear combined with the Unix CLI's unforgiving nature finally proved too much even for him...)[2] Even after reading many reminiscences of (1)127 life, including Kernighan's recent memoir, I admit that my fanciful reconstructions of it are likely as naturalistic as that time Banksy took over the Simpsons' couch gag to depict daily life in Korean animation studios... As always I appreciate your patience with the febrile notions of a guy who Wasn't There. Regards, Branden [1] https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/ [2] https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/tuhs at tuhs.org/message/ESWNMKHN2P2H54GRFSWYPOXQ4GJIPSCY/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 833 bytes Desc: not available URL: From norman at oclsc.org Sun Mar 24 03:08:13 2024 From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 17:08:13 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Bill Cheswick: >The Unix room text-to-speech device used to announce: > >"Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often." Since we're all nerds here, I feel compelled to correct this. The actual announcement was Help! Please add goo! The suffix was applied to a different message: Please add toner. You won't have to very often. `Goo' was some sort of pre-mix that needed frequent topping up. Hence `you won't have to very often,' to remind you which was which. Other messages included Please add paper. Printer check lamp is lit. What do you want to do about it? Service check lamp is lit. You're in big trouble now! All these messages were designed by Tom Killian, who wrote the local code that controlled the 202. Norman Wilson Toronto ON From robpike at gmail.com Sun Mar 24 06:56:29 2024 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 20:56:29 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Don't forget the Imagen's Where is the paper tray? in a mechanical exasperated intonation. -rob On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 4:08 AM Norman Wilson wrote: > Bill Cheswick: > > >The Unix room text-to-speech device used to announce: > > > >"Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often." > > Since we're all nerds here, I feel compelled to correct this. > > The actual announcement was > > Help! Please add goo! > > The suffix was applied to a different message: > > Please add toner. You won't have to very often. > > `Goo' was some sort of pre-mix that needed frequent topping up. > Hence `you won't have to very often,' to remind you which was which. > > Other messages included > > Please add paper. > Printer check lamp is lit. What do you want to do about it? > Service check lamp is lit. You're in big trouble now! > > All these messages were designed by Tom Killian, who wrote the > local code that controlled the 202. > > Norman Wilson > Toronto ON > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rich.salz at gmail.com Sun Mar 24 08:53:28 2024 From: rich.salz at gmail.com (Rich Salz) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 22:53:28 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 24, 2024, 7:56 AM Rob Pike wrote: > Don't forget the Imagen's > What, no Dover "call key operator"? :) (It was a Xerox product based on their 9700 copier.) > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From paul at mcjones.org Sun Mar 24 09:05:50 2024 From: paul at mcjones.org (Paul McJones) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 23:05:50 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: <171123441022.817627.11524835891647187739@minnie.tuhs.org> References: <171123441022.817627.11524835891647187739@minnie.tuhs.org> Message-ID: <1C5F751B-9E41-4E47-8303-5E4875387EF3@mcjones.org> > From: Rich Salz > >> Don't forget the Imagen's >> > > What, no Dover "call key operator"? :) (It was a Xerox product based on > their 9700 copier.) Actually, it was based on a Xerox 7000: "The Dover is strip-down [sic] Xerox 7000 Reduction Duplicator. All optical system, electronics, contact relays, top harness, control console and related components are eliminated from the Xerox 7000. The paper feeder, paper transports, engines, solenoid, paper path sensing switches and related components are not disturbed. …" http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/xerox/dover/dover.pdf -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sgsearle at gmail.com Sun Mar 24 09:51:57 2024 From: sgsearle at gmail.com (Stephen G Searle) Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2024 23:51:57 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] Free Books Message-ID: Hi Everyone, I’m cleaning the office and I have the following free books available first-come, first-served (just pay shipping). “Solaris Internals.” Richard McDougall and Jim Mauro. 2007 Second Edition. 1020pp hardbound. (2 copies) “Sun Performance and Tuning - Java and the Internet.“ Adrian Cockcroft and Richard Pettit. 1998 Second Edition. 587pp softbound. “DTrace - Dynamic Tracing in Oracle Solaris, MacOSX, and FreeBSD.” Brendan Gregg and Jim Mauro. 2011. 1115 pp softbound. (2 copies) “Oracle Database 11g Release 2 High Availability.” Scott Jesse, Bill Burton, & Bryan Vongray. 2011 Second Edition. 515pp softbound. “Oracle Solaris 11 System Administration - The Complete Reference.” Michael Jang, Harry Foxwell, Christine Tran, & Alan Formy-Duval. 2013. 582pp softbound. (12 copies). NOTE, this is an older edition not the one covering 11.2. “Strategies for Real-Time System Specification.” Derek Hatley & Imtiaz Pirbhai. 1988. 386pp hardbound. “Mathematica.” Stephen Wolfram. 1991 Second Edition. 961pp hardbound. (Anyone want to save this from the landfill?) Please send me mail off-list with your name and address and I’ll let you know shipping cost. I expect to have additional books later this year. Regards, Stephen From jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com Sun Mar 24 10:13:50 2024 From: jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com (Jason Stevens) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:13:50 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC Message-ID: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC 8086 uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me wondering is there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced to work with a DOS Extender.. I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site is now offline. But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? Thanks! From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Sun Mar 24 10:17:31 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:17:31 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> Message-ID: <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> I think it's a better than even chance that the C compilers in the first versions of SCO and ISC Unix were based on PCC, you might look there. On 03/23/2024 05:13 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: > I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC 8086 > uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me wondering is > there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? > > While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be > kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced to work > with a DOS Extender.. > > I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site is now > offline. But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? > > Thanks! > > From sauer at technologists.com Sun Mar 24 10:20:26 2024 From: sauer at technologists.com (Charles H Sauer (he/him)) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:20:26 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: Yes, I'm all but certain that ISC SVR3 used pcc (unless Heinz contradicts). Dell SVR4 definitely had pcc, as well as 3(!) gcc versions https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2008/01/10/a-brief-history-of-dell-unix/ On 3/23/2024 7:17 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > I think it's a better than even chance that the C compilers in the first > versions of SCO and ISC Unix were based on PCC, you might look there. > > On 03/23/2024 05:13 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: >> I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC 8086 >> uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me wondering is >> there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? >> >> While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be >> kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced to >> work >> with a DOS Extender.. >> >> I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site >> is now >> offline.  But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? >> >> Thanks! >> >> > -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Sun Mar 24 10:25:31 2024 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:25:31 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <28a2daa5-466b-0b79-d416-0e1bec179bca@makerlisp.com> As PCC (original version, not 2.0 or any of the Research Unix versions after) was the compiler for BSD right up through 4.3, maybe some of the early 386 BSDs used PCC too. On 03/23/2024 05:17 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > I think it's a better than even chance that the C compilers in the first > versions of SCO and ISC Unix were based on PCC, you might look there. > > On 03/23/2024 05:13 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: >> I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC >> 8086 >> uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me >> wondering is >> there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? >> >> While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be >> kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced >> to work >> with a DOS Extender.. >> >> I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site >> is now >> offline. But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? >> >> Thanks! >> >> > > From sauer at technologists.com Sun Mar 24 10:27:06 2024 From: sauer at technologists.com (Charles H Sauer (he/him)) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 00:27:06 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <28a2daa5-466b-0b79-d416-0e1bec179bca@makerlisp.com> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> <28a2daa5-466b-0b79-d416-0e1bec179bca@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <6df6471f-979d-48ec-b6e4-a82ce714748a@technologists.com> AIX for 386 also was likely pcc. On 3/23/2024 7:25 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: > As PCC (original version, not 2.0 or any of the Research Unix versions > after) was the compiler for BSD right up through 4.3, maybe some of the > early 386 BSDs used PCC too. > > On 03/23/2024 05:17 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: >> I think it's a better than even chance that the C compilers in the first >> versions of SCO and ISC Unix were based on PCC, you might look there. >> >> On 03/23/2024 05:13 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: >>> I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC >>> 8086 >>> uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me >>> wondering is >>> there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? >>> >>> While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be >>> kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced >>> to work >>> with a DOS Extender.. >>> >>> I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site >>> is now >>> offline.  But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> >> >> > -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/Twitter: CharlesHSauer From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Mar 24 12:00:36 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 02:00:36 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> Message-ID: On Saturday, March 23rd, 2024 at 5:13 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: > I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC 8086 > uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me wondering is > there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? > > While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be > kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced to work > with a DOS Extender.. > > I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site is now > offline. But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? > > Thanks! A cursory glance at the SVR4/386 SGS reveals some pcc fingerprints in the compiler bits at /usr/src/cmd/sgs/cg For instance the machine-dependent bits are shunted off to files including local.c and local2.c, within these files exist similar entrypoints like lineid and zzzcode and arrays like rnames and ccbranches. This is comparing with the version of pcc in V7. I wasn't there so can't speak with authority but it does look like there is still pcc DNA as of SVR4/386. Looking a bit further forward, this compiler seems to still be in use as of 1997's UnixWare aka "SVR5". - Matt G. From heinz at osta.com Sun Mar 24 12:34:52 2024 From: heinz at osta.com (Heinz Lycklama) Date: Sun, 24 Mar 2024 02:34:52 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> <257e33f8-1ab9-37a1-cd7b-072ed20b5528@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: Definitely PCC based. We used that for all of our ports of the UNIX system to different computer system architectures. Heinz On 3/23/2024 5:20 PM, Charles H Sauer (he/him) wrote: > Yes, I'm all but certain that ISC SVR3 used pcc (unless Heinz > contradicts). Dell SVR4 definitely had pcc, as well as 3(!) gcc > versions > https://notes.technologists.com/notes/2008/01/10/a-brief-history-of-dell-unix/ > > On 3/23/2024 7:17 PM, Luther Johnson wrote: >> I think it's a better than even chance that the C compilers in the first >> versions of SCO and ISC Unix were based on PCC, you might look there. >> >> On 03/23/2024 05:13 PM, Jason Stevens wrote: >>> I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC >>> 8086 >>> uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me >>> wondering is >>> there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? >>> >>> While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, >>> it'd be >>> kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced >>> to work >>> with a DOS Extender.. >>> >>> I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site >>> is now >>> offline.  But surely there must have been another one between >>> 1988/2007? >>> >>> Thanks! >>> >>> >> > From arnold at skeeve.com Mon Mar 25 18:47:03 2024 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 08:47:03 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> Message-ID: <202403250846.42P8kfQe020428@freefriends.org> Jason Stevens wrote: > I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site is now > offline. A mirror of that work is available at https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/pcc-revived. It's current as of the last time the main site was still online, back in the fall of 2023. Magnusson has more than once said he's working to get things back online, but nothing has happened yet. I check weekly. FWIW, Arnold From jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com Mon Mar 25 19:07:14 2024 From: jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com (Jason Stevens) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 09:07:14 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC Message-ID: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B6@SGMCEXCH> Not that I'm looking for drama but any idea what happened? Such a shame it just evaporated. ____ | From: arnold at skeeve.com | To: tuhs at tuhs.org;jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com | Cc: | Sent: March 25, 2024 08:46 AM | Subject: Re: [TUHS] 386 PCC | | | Jason Stevens wrote: | | > I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, | although the site is now | > offline. | | A mirror of that work is available at | https://github.com/arnoldrobbins/pcc-revived. | It's current as of the last time the main site was | still online, | back in the fall of 2023. | | Magnusson has more than once said he's working to get | things back | online, but nothing has happened yet. I check weekly. | | FWIW, | | Arnold | From angus at fairhaven.za.net Mon Mar 25 19:17:25 2024 From: angus at fairhaven.za.net (Angus Robinson) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 09:17:25 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC In-Reply-To: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> References: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B2@SGMCEXCH> Message-ID: Is this it ? https://web.archive.org/web/20071017025542/http://pcc.ludd.ltu.se/ Kind Regards, Angus Robinson On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 2:13 AM Jason Stevens < jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: > I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of those MIT PCC 8086 > uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it had me wondering is > there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? > > While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT PC/IP was fun, it'd be > kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient could be forced to work > with a DOS Extender.. > > I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, although the site is now > offline. But surely there must have been another one between 1988/2007? > > Thanks! > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com Mon Mar 25 19:32:14 2024 From: jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com (Jason Stevens) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 09:32:14 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] 386 PCC Message-ID: <7D65B884BDE2EE11A8F800155D08821210B7@SGMCEXCH> yeah that was the one that id' first mentioned. Although I was more so interested in when/where the 386 PCC came from Seems at best all those sources are locked away. ____ | From: Angus Robinson | To: Jason Stevens | Cc: TUHS main list | Sent: March 25, 2024 09:17 AM | Subject: Re: [TUHS] 386 PCC | | | Is this it ? | | https://web.archive.org/web/20071017025542/http://pcc.l | udd.ltu.se/ | | Kind Regards, | Angus Robinson | | | On Sun, Mar 24, 2024 at 2:13?AM Jason Stevens < | jsteve at superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: | | | I'd been on this whole rabbithole exploration thing of | those MIT PCC 8086 | uploads that have been on the site & on bitsavers, it | had me wondering is | there any version of PCC that targeted the 386? | | While rebuilding all the 8086 port stuff, and MIT | PC/IP was fun, it'd be | kind of interesting to see if anything that ancient | could be forced to work | with a DOS Extender.. | | I know there was the Anders Magnusson one in 2007, | although the site is now | offline. But surely there must have been another one | between 1988/2007? | | Thanks! | | | | From andrew at humeweb.com Tue Mar 26 05:16:19 2024 From: andrew at humeweb.com (Andrew Hume) Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:16:19 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] the Courier font family and nroff history In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <86CB6E4C-A3E4-4DE6-88CE-1BFBC408CC86@humeweb.com> i work with tom, and he claims that he (tom) did the imagen messaging stuff. i sill don’’t know who did the 202 handler code, even tho i was the designated main handler of the paper and goo for the 202. > On Mar 23, 2024, at 10:08 AM, Norman Wilson wrote: > > Bill Cheswick: > >> The Unix room text-to-speech device used to announce: >> >> "Ding ding ding. Please add goo. This doesn’t happen very often." > > Since we're all nerds here, I feel compelled to correct this. > > The actual announcement was > > Help! Please add goo! > > The suffix was applied to a different message: > > Please add toner. You won't have to very often. > > `Goo' was some sort of pre-mix that needed frequent topping up. > Hence `you won't have to very often,' to remind you which was which. > > Other messages included > > Please add paper. > Printer check lamp is lit. What do you want to do about it? > Service check lamp is lit. You're in big trouble now! > > All these messages were designed by Tom Killian, who wrote the > local code that controlled the 202. > > Norman Wilson > Toronto ON From rminnich at gmail.com Fri Mar 29 05:44:31 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:44:31 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] .globl directive -- is this a 35-bit constant? Message-ID: ACPI has 4-byte identifiers (guess why!), but I just wondered, writing some assembly: is it globl, not global, or glbl, because globl would be a one-word constant on the PDP-10 (5 7-bit bytes)? Not entirely off track, netbsd at some point (still does?) ran on the PDP-10. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pugs78 at gmail.com Fri Mar 29 05:48:30 2024 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:48:30 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] .globl directive -- is this a 35-bit constant? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But they had RADIX 50, which would've allowed global. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_RADIX_50 On Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 12:44 PM ron minnich wrote: > ACPI has 4-byte identifiers (guess why!), but I just wondered, writing > some assembly: > is it globl, not global, or glbl, because globl would be a one-word > constant on the PDP-10 (5 7-bit bytes)? > > Not entirely off track, netbsd at some point (still does?) ran on the > PDP-10. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rminnich at gmail.com Fri Mar 29 05:55:43 2024 From: rminnich at gmail.com (ron minnich) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:55:43 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] .globl directive -- is this a 35-bit constant? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: yeah I know, but my vague memory is that the 7-bit bytes started to be preferred. But yeah, it's probably a co-inky-dink, as the three stooges would say. On Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 12:48 PM Tom Lyon wrote: > But they had RADIX 50, which would've allowed global. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_RADIX_50 > > On Thu, Mar 28, 2024 at 12:44 PM ron minnich wrote: > >> ACPI has 4-byte identifiers (guess why!), but I just wondered, writing >> some assembly: >> is it globl, not global, or glbl, because globl would be a one-word >> constant on the PDP-10 (5 7-bit bytes)? >> >> Not entirely off track, netbsd at some point (still does?) ran on the >> PDP-10. >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Fri Mar 29 05:57:05 2024 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 19:57:05 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] .globl directive -- is this a 35-bit constant? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 28 Mar 2024 at 15:44, ron minnich wrote: Not entirely off track, netbsd at some point (still does?) ran on the PDP-10. Did it actually get all the way to booting? I remember the effort but I believe that its abandonment reflected the difficulty of working with a 36 bit word in a modern operating system environment. -Henry > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Mar 29 06:59:49 2024 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Thu, 28 Mar 2024 20:59:49 -0000 Subject: [TUHS] .globl directive -- is this a 35-bit constant? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <-13YF6AYi-bCPeVZIGwdZ4X9AxH2HtZ_oOzHOoaarkMi3tULcsRWeqd2AJ_S6FomRNk2dWpcsQSYUyKFww-_xhm17hD_QH_NR2Mu5Jp9a1s=@protonmail.com> On Thursday, March 28th, 2024 at 12:44 PM, ron minnich wrote: > ACPI has 4-byte identifiers (guess why!), but I just wondered, writing some assembly:is it globl, not global, or glbl, because globl would be a one-word constant on the PDP-10 (5 7-bit bytes)? > > Not entirely off track, netbsd at some point (still does?) ran on the PDP-10. Note any page references below are in reference to the linked PDF, not the original document page numbers. Many facts folks here know better than I, but being through for completeness, as(I) derives syntactically from PAL-11R. Section 8.2 of the May 1971 PAL-11R manual[1] describes the .GLOBL directive (p. 35). Looking forward just a bit, .GLOBL survives into MACRO-11 in June 1972[2], described in section 6.10 (p. 89). Looking then over the fence to MACRO-10 as of June 1972[3], I couldn't find a reference to a .GLOBL or comparably named pseudo-op, with the table being found in Appendix A(pp. 111-112). There are plenty of pseudo-ops ranging in name lengths from two (e.g. IF) to nine (e.g. UNIVERSAL) characters, it doesn't seem there was any strong preference in character length for psuedo-ops in MACRO-10. I found some references to a "PAL-10" online but could not locate a manual, but the references I did see indicated this may be referring to a cross-assembler for PDP-8. Taking one more look back to the MACRO-9 assembler for PDP-9, circa November 1968[4], this assembler does have a .GLOBL pseudo-op defined in section 3.9 (pp. 38-39). It seems .GLOBL skipped PDP-10. I'm sure further analysis could pinpoint the earliest PDP assembler to utilize ".GLOBL" but from the looks of things it never touched the PDP-10, at least in the native assembler. - Matt G. P.S. As an aside, I use the cc65 toolkit for 6502 projects I tinker on, it's in some ways modeled after the UNIX cc/as/ld environment but exhibits enough differences that I sometimes wonder what they were thinking. I don't mean too much criticism, it's a free tool I get to use all I want, and I'm grateful for that, but a relevant instance here is that there is no .globl. Rather the pseudo-op is ".export", and there are several things like that where it could've been nice and even with how the standard UNIX commands and syntax work, but missed the mark by just that much. I fear given that cc65 has been around for a while, any attempts I'd make to wrangle the syntax and CLI options to be closer to UNIX would be unwelcome as so much code is already extant with the differences. On the flip side, if I produce my own fork and write my code against that fork, nobody else will be able to use my code without it :( [1] - http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/dos-batch/DEC-11-ASDB-D_PAL-11R_Assembler_Programmers_Manual_May71.pdf [2] - http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/dos-batch/DEC-11-OMACA-A-D_DOS_MACRO-11_Assembler_Programmers_Manual_Jun72.pdf [3] - http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS10/1973_Assembly_Language_Handbook/02_1973AsmRef_macro.pdf [4] - http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp9/DEC-9A-AMZA-D_MACRO9.pdf