From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Dec 8 15:03:00 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2025 15:03:00 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Test of TUHS list Message-ID: All, it's been quiet. I suspect that the list broke somehow. This is a test to see what happens when I send in an e-mail. Cheers, Warren From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Dec 8 15:13:01 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (George Michaelson via TUHS) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2025 15:13:01 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Test of TUHS list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You sent it while all the american residents are asleep. Lets sneak into the computer history museum and steal all the good bits. -G On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 3:11 PM Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > All, it's been quiet. I suspect that the list broke somehow. > This is a test to see what happens when I send in an e-mail. > > Cheers, Warren > From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Dec 8 15:18:01 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jason Bowen via TUHS) Date: Sun, 7 Dec 2025 23:18:01 -0600 (CST) Subject: [TUHS] Test of TUHS list In-Reply-To: <424d9522-454b-4e5a-be89-40c8a4b2a3e5@infinitecactus.com> References: <424d9522-454b-4e5a-be89-40c8a4b2a3e5@infinitecactus.com> Message-ID: Dec 7, 2025 23:15:35 Jason Bowen : > Dec 7, 2025 23:13:33 George Michaelson via TUHS : > >> You sent it while all the american residents are asleep. >> >> Lets sneak into the computer history museum and steal all the good bits. >> >> -G >> >> On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 3:11 PM Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: >> >>> All, it's been quiet. I suspect that the list broke somehow. >>> This is a test to see what happens when I send in an e-mail. >>> >>> Cheers, Warren >>> (left off the list) I would guess a decent number of us are still awake :) Which bit is best? From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 7 06:16:24 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (ron minnich via TUHS) Date: Sat, 6 Dec 2025 12:16:24 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] V4 in tv news Message-ID: https://youtu.be/IR-f07LN0-Y?si=vU3P5MLwIsMC84jV From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Dec 8 15:21:10 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2025 15:21:10 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Test of TUHS list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 08, 2025 at 03:03:00PM +1000, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > All, it's been quiet. I suspect that the list broke somehow. > This is a test to see what happens when I send in an e-mail. Looks like the mailman3 LMTP service failed to restart when I rebooted the server last week. It's running again now! Cheers & thanks for all the replies :-) Warren From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Dec 8 15:30:25 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Thalia Archibald via TUHS) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2025 05:30:25 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] V4 in tv news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Ron, I’m a PhD student at the University of Utah and have been researching the history of our V4 tape ever since the news broke. Incidentally, I made an extensive list of 36 news stories on the tape just today[0]. That same repo has all the sources I’ve been collecting, except for some I don’t have scans for yet. I found that it was delivered the Martin Newell[1], famously known for the Utah Teapot model, and a letter from Ken to Martin[2] was later found that places our delivery around June 1974. I’m still looking for our license agreement. If any of you know of good early UNIX sources, particularly around 1973–1974, please let me know! Thalia [0]: https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/users/utah/v4.md#News [1]: https://archive.org/details/unix_news_july-30-1975/page/n9/mode/1up [2]: https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/8f887ce324bc7dc7fc6de5eca09d4d028fe8f554/users/utah/1974-05-31_ken_letter.jpg > On Dec 6, 2025, at 13:16, ron minnich via TUHS wrote: > > https://youtu.be/IR-f07LN0-Y?si=vU3P5MLwIsMC84jV From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Dec 8 15:45:07 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Thalia Archibald via TUHS) Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2025 05:45:07 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Test of TUHS list In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9C1E0FFF-9955-4151-BFEE-90A4EA5D18A2@archibald.dev> On Dec 7, 2025, at 22:21, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > Looks like the mailman3 LMTP service failed to restart when > I rebooted the server last week. It's running again now! It looks like Ron’s recent message was stuck unsent for a day. It was sent 2025-12-06 20:16:24 UTC, according to its Date header, but I received it 2025-12-08 05:20:03 UTC. Thalia From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 9 06:08:04 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 06:08:04 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Unix Magic poster annotation project Message-ID: Hi all, I just found this e-mail in my inbox. It's really cute :-) Cheers, Warren ----- Forwarded message from David Rio Deiros ----- Hi Warren, I've been working on a project to document all the hidden references in Gary Overacre's Unix Magic poster. It's a simple interactive site where you can click on parts of the poster and read what each reference means. code: https://github.com/drio/unixmagic static site: https://unixmagic.net We've got about 40 annotations so far. Thought the TUHS community might enjoy it and maybe you have some insights about some of the references. Anyway, thank you for reading and have a wonderful day! -drd ----- End forwarded message ----- From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 9 12:41:41 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS) Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2025 21:41:41 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Unix Magic poster annotation project Message-ID: David Rio Deiros has conjured up a fun game. Regardless of what #39 signifies, the object isn't a skull. Skulls don't have ears. I doubt that it symbolizes /dev/null, for it is the source of a steady flow INTO null. On close examination, the face is cat-like, but there's already a cat elsewhere. In any event, the flowing substance must represent data. The wizard is surrounded with jars of spices that adjust the flavor of the data that is being vigorously processed in the shell. Some data comes (typed in?) from sources in the fingers of both hands, and some comes from the file system (#38). The man (#2) cuts hay with a scythe. As a complement, the unlabeled pot next to the tar mortar (#12) may hold paste. Was Gary Overacre clairvoyant? What besides SE Linux could be signified by the hook at the end of the long-handled utensil that rests in the seething cauldron? Whose initials are hidden in the ribbon's twist (#5)? It looks like another DMR may follow the second KT, It's harder to guess who comes after BWK--possibly R(H)M. Doug From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 01:16:02 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:16:02 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe Message-ID: Hello folks, Illness and work, both at the same time, prevented me from posting this a couple of months ago. I noted, when Apple released macOS 26 three months ago that it was called macOS Tahoe and I remembered that there was a processor specific release of 4.3 BSD back in 1988 that was officially referred to as "4.3BSD tahoe". I mention this only because, statistically, the chances of two Unix releases being given the same name must be slim, granted they were for different reasons, one referring to the platform it was to run on and the other because I guess Apple thought it was a nice name? I guess it could also be argued they didn't have the same name as one was "tahoe" and the other is "Tahoe" or that they did but that one being capitalized and one not is how the statistics were defeated. Have a safe rest of your week, everyone! Cameron From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 01:49:21 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Clem Cole via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 10:49:21 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: below On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 10:16 AM Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS wrote: > Hello folks, > > Illness and work, both at the same time, prevented me from posting this a > couple of months ago. > > I noted, when Apple released macOS 26 three months ago that it was called > macOS Tahoe and I remembered that there was a processor specific release of > 4.3 BSD back in 1988 that was officially referred to as "4.3BSD tahoe". > The target was Computer Consoles Inc.'s (CCI) Power 6/32 processor, which was codenamed Tahoe (after Lake Tahoe). > > I mention this only because, statistically, the chances of two Unix > releases being given the same name must be slim, granted they were for > different reasons, one referring to the platform it was to run on and the > other because I guess Apple thought it was a nice name? Different people, although both are named after the same place. In most (if not all) of the companies I have worked at, project code names are controlled by the Marketing group. The first nine releases of Mac OS X were codenamed after "Big Cats" [Cheetah 10.0 through Mountain Lion 10.8 ]. Starting with 10.9 [Maverick — the famous big-wave surfing spot near Half Moon Bay], Apple began using physical landmarks in California. I doubt that the people at Apple picking codenames knew that Lake Tahoe had already been used in the computer community, either by the CCI or by CRSG's specific release for the CCI's Power 6/32 (*a.k.a.* Tahoe Processor). > > > I guess it could also be argued they didn't have the same name as one was > "tahoe" and the other is "Tahoe" or that they did but that one being > capitalized and one not is how the statistics were defeated. > Not really, since both are referring to Lake Tahoe. I suspect ignorance and indifference to the previous product name being associated with another processor firm's product codename. From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 01:57:37 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Larry McVoy via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 07:57:37 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20251209155737.GJ27513@mcvoy.com> On Tue, Dec 09, 2025 at 10:49:21AM -0500, Clem Cole via TUHS wrote: > ]. Starting with 10.9 [Maverick ??? the famous big-wave surfing spot near > Half Moon Bay], Apple began using physical landmarks in California. Not that it's important, but I fish out of Half Moon Bay regularly and go around Mavericks every time. It's a big reef that forces the waves to crest up, you are well served to go around it. In spite of that, I see idiots cross the reef all the time. Can't fix stupid I guess. -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 02:38:41 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Rob Pritchard via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 16:38:41 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, if the next MacOS release is called ‘Reno’ then we know their marketing teams are running out of ideas! > On 9 Dec 2025, at 15:16, Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS wrote: > > Hello folks, > > Illness and work, both at the same time, prevented me from posting this a couple of months ago. > > I noted, when Apple released macOS 26 three months ago that it was called macOS Tahoe and I remembered that there was a processor specific release of 4.3 BSD back in 1988 that was officially referred to as "4.3BSD tahoe". > > I mention this only because, statistically, the chances of two Unix releases being given the same name must be slim, granted they were for different reasons, one referring to the platform it was to run on and the other because I guess Apple thought it was a nice name? > > I guess it could also be argued they didn't have the same name as one was "tahoe" and the other is "Tahoe" or that they did but that one being capitalized and one not is how the statistics were defeated. > > Have a safe rest of your week, everyone! > > Cameron > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 03:15:40 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Al Kossow via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 09:15:40 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 12/9/25 7:16 AM, Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS wrote: > Hello folks, > > Illness and work, both at the same time, prevented me from posting this a couple of months ago. > > I noted, when Apple released macOS 26 three months ago that it was called macOS Tahoe and I remembered that there was a processor specific release of 4.3 BSD back in 1988 that was officially referred to as "4.3BSD tahoe". > Codenames get reused https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Tahoe I worked on an internal Apple RISC project called Jaguar which has nothing to do with MacOS 10.2 From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 06:46:01 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (christopher fujino via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 12:46:01 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm bet both Berkeley researchers and Apple product managers in Cupertino go skiing in Tahoe. On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 9:15 AM Al Kossow via TUHS wrote: > On 12/9/25 7:16 AM, Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS wrote: > > Hello folks, > > > > Illness and work, both at the same time, prevented me from posting this > a couple of months ago. > > > > I noted, when Apple released macOS 26 three months ago that it was > called macOS Tahoe and I remembered that there was a processor specific > release of 4.3 BSD back in 1988 that was officially referred to as "4.3BSD > tahoe". > > > > Codenames get reused > > https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Tahoe > > I worked on an internal Apple RISC project called Jaguar which has nothing > to do with MacOS 10.2 > > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 08:57:10 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Alan Coopersmith via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 14:57:10 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] XPG4, X/OPEN Curses, and SVID Issue 4 Physical Publication? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 10/24/25 10:57, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Good day everyone, I've recently added an X/OPEN Portability Guide > section and a photo of the first SVID issue to the standards section of > the wiki: https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=publications:standards > > I was wondering, does anyone here know if there were physically > published versions of XPG4, any X/OPEN Curses physical literature, > and/or published SVID Issue 4 copies? The latter I suspect is not very > likely as SVID Issue 4 concerns spun-off-USL SVR 4.2 I believe, which > didn't make the same splash earlier SVIDs did. I've only seen PDFs of > this Issue 4. I finally remembered to check our standards bookshelf when I was in the office today, and found printed copies of: - Docs with XPG4 branding: - CAE Specification: System Interfaces and Headers, Issue 4 - CAE Specification: Commands and Utilities, Issue 4 - CAE Specification: System Interface Definitions, Issue 4 - XPG3-XPG4 Base Migration Guide - X/Open Systems and Branded Products: XPG4 - Docs which didn't explictly have "XPG4" on the cover: - CAE Specification: Networking Services, Issue 4 - CAE Specification: X/Open Curses, Issue 4 While there were copies of earlier SVID generations, I didn't see Issue 4 there. I took quick pictures with my cell phone of the covers of each of these if you want them - they're not archival quality scans or anything, but it doesn't look like that's what you're going for on that wiki page. -- -Alan Coopersmith- alan.coopersmith at oracle.com Oracle Solaris Engineering - https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 11:46:43 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 01:46:43 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe Message-ID: Hello, folks, Thank you all for your comments on Tahoe and project names and I guess Lake Tahoe is on my bucket list because it looks beautiful. Rob's comment about Reno made me chuckle although I guess it's the wrong side of the state line for Apple to use although there is that famous saying, "Never say never!" Best regards, Cameron From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 12:53:52 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Erik E. Fair via TUHS) Date: Tue, 09 Dec 2025 18:53:52 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <21977.1765335232@cesium.clock.org> >From: =?utf-8?q?Cameron_Míċeál_Tyre_via_TUHS?= > >Hello, folks, > >Thank you all for your comments on Tahoe and project names and I guess Lake Tahoe is on my bucket list because it looks beautiful. > >Rob's comment about Reno made me chuckle although I guess it's the wrong side of the state line for Apple to use although there is that famous saying, "Never say never!" > >Best regards, > >Cameron Funny you should say "wrong side of the state line" - the wallpaper and other photos of Lake Tahoe that Apple likes to use (there's been one in MacOS for a decade or more, taken during wildfire smoke inundation) are taken from the east (Nevada) shoreline at Sand Harbor (Lake Tahoe Nevada state park) and Memorial point, along NV-28. I know because I've lived in Incline Village, NV (NE corner of Lake Tahoe) since 2002 and have been coming up to North Lake Tahoe (winter & summer) since I was a child. I'm quite familiar with the local landscape. So long as Apple's theme is "pretty/famous places in California", I don't expect they'll run out in the near term: they could use Point Reyes, Mount Shasta, Napa, Mount Lassen, Joshua Tree, Mammoth, Devil's Postpile, Bodie, Downieville, Portola, ... Erik Fair From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 13:39:02 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Larry McVoy via TUHS) Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2025 19:39:02 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20251210033902.GK27513@mcvoy.com> If you, or anyone, gets close enough to go to Lake Tahoe, I can take you out to the Pacific. I've kind of left tech behind, I put in my 30 years, and while I like tracking tech, I love fishing on the ocean. It's my retirement, it's complicated enough that it engages my engineer brain a bit but it is way easier than the problems I solved as an engineer. I can put you on fish, for sure. Halibut, rockies, lings, crabs, salmon when they let us fish for those (which is not often). I'm still chasing tuna, hauled them in on my friends boat, not gotten them on my boat. On Wed, Dec 10, 2025 at 01:46:43AM +0000, Cameron M????e??l Tyre via TUHS wrote: > Hello, folks, > > Thank you all for your comments on Tahoe and project names and I guess Lake Tahoe is on my bucket list because it looks beautiful. > > Rob's comment about Reno made me chuckle although I guess it's the wrong side of the state line for Apple to use although there is that famous saying, "Never say never!" > > Best regards, > > Cameron -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 10 17:06:14 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Arno Griffioen via TUHS) Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:06:14 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] Tahoe In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Dec 09, 2025 at 09:15:40AM -0800, Al Kossow via TUHS wrote: > Codenames get reused > > https://www.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4.3BSD-Tahoe > > I worked on an internal Apple RISC project called Jaguar which has nothing > to do with MacOS 10.2 And of course 'Jaguar' was also the name of the ill-fated Atari game console from the early 90's, so that nicely proves the point ;) Bye, Arno. From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 16 07:55:54 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 16:55:54 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Posix ed weirdness Message-ID: The ed j command joins a sequence of lines into one line and sets dot to the result. Thus 2,4j combines three lines and sets dot to 2. Naturally one expects 2,2j to make no visible change to the file, but to set dot to 2. Indeed, that's what v7 did. But Posix decrees that j "does nothing" in this case and leaves dot at the value it had before the command. Does anyone know why the Posix committee chose to break both the original behavior and Kernighan's law: " 'Do nothing' gracefully"? Doug From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 16 08:19:26 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Clem Cole via TUHS) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 17:19:26 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Posix ed weirdness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Doug, Do you know what later AT&T Summit versions did? And/or SVID Clem On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 4:56 PM Douglas McIlroy via TUHS wrote: > The ed j command joins a sequence of lines into one line and sets dot > to the result. Thus > 2,4j > combines three lines and sets dot to 2. Naturally one expects > 2,2j > to make no visible change to the file, but to set dot to 2. > > Indeed, that's what v7 did. But Posix decrees that j "does nothing" in > this case and leaves dot at the value it had before the command. > > Does anyone know why the Posix committee chose to break both the > original behavior and Kernighan's law: " 'Do nothing' gracefully"? > > Doug > From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 16 11:18:29 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS) Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2025 20:18:29 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Posix ed weirdness In-Reply-To: <20251216001101.z77ydwf2woduxgdo@illithid> References: <20251216001101.z77ydwf2woduxgdo@illithid> Message-ID: > My guess is because that's what the "consensus" of implementations, or > at least those willing to pay for POSIX certification, was. Yes, that's roughly how malloc(0) got messed up. But the malloc(0) anomaly at least had a rationale: 0-length data structures were impermissible in bare C. I suspect there was more politics afoot in the committee. I doubt that many implementers would hit on the bizarre idea that deleting n-1 newlines should be special-cased for n=1. Curiously, Posix didn't foist the same special-case behavior onto ex. Doug On Mon, Dec 15, 2025 at 7:11 PM G. Branden Robinson wrote: > > Hi Doug, > > At 2025-12-15T16:55:54-0500, Douglas McIlroy via TUHS wrote: > > The ed j command joins a sequence of lines into one line and sets dot > > to the result. Thus > > 2,4j > > combines three lines and sets dot to 2. Naturally one expects > > 2,2j > > to make no visible change to the file, but to set dot to 2. > > > > Indeed, that's what v7 did. But Posix decrees that j "does nothing" in > > this case and leaves dot at the value it had before the command. > > > > Does anyone know why the Posix committee chose to break both the > > original behavior and Kernighan's law: " 'Do nothing' gracefully"? > > My guess is because that's what the "consensus" of implementations, or > at least those willing to pay for POSIX certification, was. > > $ uname -a > SunOS gcc-solaris10 5.10 Generic_Virtual sun4u sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise > $ cat ward > one > two > three > four > $ ed ward > 19 > p > four > p > four > 2,2j > p > four > > Regards, > Branden From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 17 01:26:54 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:26:54 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Posix ed weirdness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Doug, Thank you. I use ed all the time, on every machine/device I have, but I did not know it was possible to join more than two lines at a time and I never thought of trying. I guess the syntax would have been simpler if only two could be joined at one time, something like 2j to join line 2 and line 3. The very fact that the syntax to join line 2 and line 3 would be 2,3j cries out, "I can join more than two lines!", but I just never figured it out. Now I know! Best regards, Cameron -------- Original Message -------- On Monday, 12/15/25 at 21:56 Douglas McIlroy via TUHS wrote, in part: The ed j command joins a sequence of lines into one line and sets dot to the result. Thus 2,4j combines three lines and sets dot to 2. From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 17 10:49:20 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Rob Pike via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:49:20 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Posix ed weirdness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sam does it without special casing. -rob On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 2:27 AM Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS wrote: > Hi Doug, > > Thank you. I use ed all the time, on every machine/device I have, but I > did not know it was possible to join more than two lines at a time and I > never thought of trying. > > I guess the syntax would have been simpler if only two could be joined at > one time, something like 2j to join line 2 and line 3. The very fact that > the syntax to join line 2 and line 3 would be > 2,3j > cries out, "I can join more than two lines!", but I just never figured it > out. > > Now I know! > > Best regards, > > Cameron > > > > > > -------- Original Message -------- > On Monday, 12/15/25 at 21:56 Douglas McIlroy via TUHS > wrote, in part: > > The ed j command joins a sequence of lines into one line and sets dot > to the result. Thus > 2,4j > combines three lines and sets dot to 2. > From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 17 13:19:14 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 03:19:14 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Posix ed weirdness In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello Rob, Thank you. I've just been reading up on sam. Seems like I'll need to give it a try. Maybe that'll be my Christmas present to myself. An uninterrupted day learning a new editor. Best regards, Cameron -------- Original Message -------- On Wednesday, 12/17/25 at 00:50 Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: Sam does it without special casing. -rob From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 01:21:46 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jacob Ritorto via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 10:21:46 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? Message-ID: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> pdp11s are getting so popular these days that now seems a great time to perform the stunt of running SYSV well on them. Seems pretty normal to the adepts on the list who were there when it originally happened, but it’s kind of a niche mind-blow to newcomers that a PDP could run SYSV. But currently I think it’s missing networking. So a couple questions: Is it possible to build newer SYSV releases to run on pdp11? Like specifically SVr4? If not, is this feasible to achieve and would anyone be interested in a project to make that happen? If that can happen, the stock SVr4 networking code build might be a breeze. Apologies in advance if this has already been broached and completed and/or if this is a fool’s errand due to size constraints. And yes of course the easy thing to do is just run v6 or BSD. But then we miss out on the mind-blowing facet :) thx jake From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 01:41:05 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Arnold Robbins via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 08:41:05 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <202512171541.5BHFf5eD022558@freefriends.org> IIRC the last official System V release that ran on the PDP-11 was S5R2, but I don't remember for sure. S5R3 had STREAMS networking. S5R4 had real demand paged virtual memory and also, I think, socket support. Lack of address space will definitely be an issue; you'll have to look at overlays or some such, which I think 2.11 BSD does. But I bet you'll have fun! :-) Arnold Jacob Ritorto via TUHS wrote: > pdp11s are getting so popular these days that now seems a great time to perform the stunt of running SYSV well on them. Seems pretty normal to the adepts on the list who were there when it originally happened, but it’s kind of a niche mind-blow to newcomers that a PDP could run SYSV. > > But currently I think it’s missing networking. > > So a couple questions: > Is it possible to build newer SYSV releases to run on pdp11? Like specifically SVr4? > If not, is this feasible to achieve and would anyone be interested in a project to make that happen? > If that can happen, the stock SVr4 networking code build might be a breeze. > > Apologies in advance if this has already been broached and completed and/or if this is a fool’s errand due to size constraints. And yes of course the easy thing to do is just run v6 or BSD. But then we miss out on the mind-blowing facet :) > > thx > jake From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 01:49:17 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Larry McVoy via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 07:49:17 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <202512171541.5BHFf5eD022558@freefriends.org> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <202512171541.5BHFf5eD022558@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <20251217154917.GC26336@mcvoy.com> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 08:41:05AM -0700, Arnold Robbins via TUHS wrote: > IIRC the last official System V release that ran on the PDP-11 was > S5R2, but I don't remember for sure. > > S5R3 had STREAMS networking. I don't believe that's correct. SCO's S5R3 did not, I had to port it. > S5R4 had real demand paged virtual memory and also, I think, socket support. > > Lack of address space will definitely be an issue; you'll have to look > at overlays or some such, which I think 2.11 BSD does. > > But I bet you'll have fun! :-) > > Arnold > > Jacob Ritorto via TUHS wrote: > > > pdp11s are getting so popular these days that now seems a great time to perform the stunt of running SYSV well on them. Seems pretty normal to the adepts on the list who were there when it originally happened, but it???s kind of a niche mind-blow to newcomers that a PDP could run SYSV. > > > > But currently I think it???s missing networking. > > > > So a couple questions: > > Is it possible to build newer SYSV releases to run on pdp11? Like specifically SVr4? > > If not, is this feasible to achieve and would anyone be interested in a project to make that happen? > > If that can happen, the stock SVr4 networking code build might be a breeze. > > > > Apologies in advance if this has already been broached and completed and/or if this is a fool???s errand due to size constraints. And yes of course the easy thing to do is just run v6 or BSD. But then we miss out on the mind-blowing facet :) > > > > thx > > jake -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 03:40:53 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Charles H Sauer (he/him) via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:40:53 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <20251217154917.GC26336@mcvoy.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <202512171541.5BHFf5eD022558@freefriends.org> <20251217154917.GC26336@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <5bd8f7f0-3e32-46e6-bd06-6eae610a4785@technologists.com> On 12/17/2025 9:49 AM, Larry McVoy via TUHS wrote: > On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 08:41:05AM -0700, Arnold Robbins via TUHS wrote: >> IIRC the last official System V release that ran on the PDP-11 was >> S5R2, but I don't remember for sure. >> >> S5R3 had STREAMS networking. > > I don't believe that's correct. SCO's S5R3 did not, I had to port it. Strange -- I thought all SVR3 had STREAMS. I'm pretty sure Dell's SVR3 had STREAMS, as provided by ISC. Heinz probably could be definitive. -- voice: +1.512.784.7526 e-mail: sauer at technologists.com fax: +1.512.346.5240 Web: https://technologists.com/sauer/ Facebook/Google/LinkedIn/mas.to: CharlesHSauer From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 04:47:33 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Ron Natalie via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 18:47:33 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <20251217154917.GC26336@mcvoy.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <202512171541.5BHFf5eD022558@freefriends.org> <20251217154917.GC26336@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: I know for the BSD-ish networking on the PDP-11, it took one of the 8 kernel data segments to map mbufs. The top one is already reserved for the user struct/stack. The problem was that we were running out of address space even before putting TCP/IP into the kernel. We had to overlay the text pages. This is workable on the split I/D (23, 24, 44,45,55,70) but it killed off the idea of using those without it (11/34, 40, 60) for running networked UNIX. This was about the time I started recycling the PDP-11s into internet routers running the BRL-GATEWAY software. Eventually, even the 11-70’s succumbed to this. It was overkill, but I had them lying around. I also recycled one into being a control processor for the Denelcor HEP I/O system. The BRL-GATEWAY was my own invention running on a little pidgeon operating system called LOS (the little operating system). I did this when the MIT C Gateway lacked the features we needed and Noel Chiappa was at the time exiled to the Bahamas or something. -Ron I did get the BRL UNIX system (thanks guys) from McKusick’s repository for my PiDP-11 sitting on my desk. I suspect the LOS operating system and the accompanying router code has been lost to antiquity. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Larry McVoy via TUHS" To arnold at skeeve.com Cc tuhs at tuhs.org Date 12/17/2025 10:49:17 AM Subject [TUHS] Re: update pdp11 system five? >On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 08:41:05AM -0700, Arnold Robbins via TUHS wrote: >> IIRC the last official System V release that ran on the PDP-11 was >> S5R2, but I don't remember for sure. >> >> S5R3 had STREAMS networking. > >I don't believe that's correct. SCO's S5R3 did not, I had to port it. > >> S5R4 had real demand paged virtual memory and also, I think, socket support. >> >> Lack of address space will definitely be an issue; you'll have to look >> at overlays or some such, which I think 2.11 BSD does. >> >> But I bet you'll have fun! :-) >> >> Arnold >> >> Jacob Ritorto via TUHS wrote: >> >> > pdp11s are getting so popular these days that now seems a great time to perform the stunt of running SYSV well on them. Seems pretty normal to the adepts on the list who were there when it originally happened, but it???s kind of a niche mind-blow to newcomers that a PDP could run SYSV. >> > >> > But currently I think it???s missing networking. >> > >> > So a couple questions: >> > Is it possible to build newer SYSV releases to run on pdp11? Like specifically SVr4? >> > If not, is this feasible to achieve and would anyone be interested in a project to make that happen? >> > If that can happen, the stock SVr4 networking code build might be a breeze. >> > >> > Apologies in advance if this has already been broached and completed and/or if this is a fool???s errand due to size constraints. And yes of course the easy thing to do is just run v6 or BSD. But then we miss out on the mind-blowing facet :) >> > >> > thx >> > jake > >-- >--- >Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 05:09:28 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Clem Cole via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:09:28 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> Message-ID: below On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 10:22 AM Jacob Ritorto via TUHS wrote: > pdp11s are getting so popular these days that now seems a great time to > perform the stunt of running SYSV well on them. That will be a great deal of work, more in a minute. > Seems pretty normal to the adepts on the list who were there when it > originally happened, but it’s kind of a niche mind-blow to newcomers that a > PDP could run SYSV. > Be careful, System V Release 1 (SVR1) ran on both DEC PDP-11 and VAX-11/780; the PDP-11 was the reference architecture, while a VAX-11/780 port was also offered as an different UNIX implementation from 4.1BSD [the new memory management code for the Vax, was considered much cleaner - I believe much that came from the early Reisner Vax porting effort]. SVR2 (second release): The official "porting base" / reference architecture was the DEC VAX-11/780. With SVR2, AT&T's USG was shifting focus away from the PDP-11 as the target platform, though legacy code likely remained. That said, I don't remember a PDP-11 release for SRV2 SVR3 (third release): The official "porting base" / reference architecture was the WE 32000-based (called the 3B2, IIRC). With SVR3. Stream-based networking using the Transport Layer Interface (TLI) was added, but an IP/TCP stack was not provided. A number of folks such as Lachman offered them SVR4 (fourth release): The official "porting base" / reference architecture was the Intel 386/486 family > > But currently I think it’s missing networking. > It depends on which flavor of System V you start. > > So a couple questions: > Is it possible to build newer SYSV releases to run on pdp11? The SVR1 boot tape (which you can find in the wild, although the provenance might be shady. I've never seen a PDP-11 boot tape for any of later release (SVR2/3/4) > Like specifically SVr4? > Not out of the box. Your first big hurdle is going to be a PDP-11 compiler, much less one that self-hosts [modern C compiler will not fit in the 64K (even with 64K data/64K text for the separate I/D processors). > If not, is this feasible to achieve and would anyone be interested in a > project to make that happen? > If that can happen, the stock SVr4 networking code build might be a breeze. > I doubt it will be a breeze. As others have pointed out, 2.11BSD uses the DEC overlay code from the DEC PDP-11/V7 release, and managed to cram a much larger kernel into memory. But note that their IP/TCP stack runs in a separate address space (supervisor mode). > > Apologies in advance if this has already been broached and completed > and/or if this is a fool’s errand due to size constraints. And yes of > course the easy thing to do is just run v6 or BSD. But then we miss out on > the mind-blowing facet :) > Well, of course, V5/V6/V7 will all "just work". If you are willing to give up a networking API, you can also run SVR1. But if you really want a more modern take on UNIX on a PDP-11, 2.11BSD runs exceptionally well and has a reasonably present group of people who are creating bug fixes. But I will warn you: Steven Schultz (who leads this effort) makes it clear that the goal is not to recreate 4.2/4.3/4.4 on the PDP-11. Instead, 2.11BSD is to allow a modicum of modern tools to run there still. You can look for it at: 2.11BSD Clem From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 05:25:15 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Erik E. Fair via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:25:15 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <9076.1765999515@cesium.clock.org> If you can't make TCP/IP & Ethernet work in an old PDP-11, there's always UUCP & BerkNet! yes, I'm serial, Erik From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 05:27:14 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Larry McVoy via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:27:14 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> Message-ID: <20251217192714.GE26336@mcvoy.com> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 02:09:28PM -0500, Clem Cole via TUHS wrote: > With SVR3. Stream-based networking using the Transport Layer Interface > (TLI) was added, but an IP/TCP stack was not provided. A number of folks > such as Lachman offered them So far as I know, Lachman didn't write their stack, they bought it from Convergent. The internet says it was a joint development but my memory is Lachman bought a working stack. The only other STREAMS based TCP/IP stack I'm aware of is the Mentat one that was done for Sun, after some Sun VP, Larry somebody, paid Lachman a ton of money for theirs only to discover that the performance absolutely sucked. I did a little digging, Mentat made their own implementation of STREAMS because the Sys V one really sucked. I'm a little vague on the details but I think STREAMS queued at each layer so all the overhead was taking it off one layer's queue and putting it on a different layer's queue. Is anyone aware of a STREAMS TCP/IP besides the Lachman/Convergent and the Mentat ones? And in defense of Dennis' streams that USG morphed into STREAMS, he intended it for tty interfaces, not for networking. Ttys were slow enough that the queuing was fine. --lm From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 05:28:05 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Al Kossow via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 11:28:05 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <9076.1765999515@cesium.clock.org> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <9076.1765999515@cesium.clock.org> Message-ID: <905e41b9-f445-f76f-756f-f702e0991ca2@bitsavers.org> On 12/17/25 11:25 AM, Erik E. Fair via TUHS wrote: > If you can't make TCP/IP & Ethernet work in an old PDP-11, there's always UUCP & BerkNet! > >     yes, I'm serial, > >     Erik Or fix the code on an Excelan card to speak modern TCP From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 05:54:30 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Clem Cole via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:54:30 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <20251217192714.GE26336@mcvoy.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <20251217192714.GE26336@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: below On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 2:27 PM Larry McVoy wrote: > > Is anyone aware of a STREAMS TCP/IP besides the Lachman/Convergent and > the Mentat ones? > Those were the two most popular/. IICR Mentat was also used by HP. Also, I was under the impression that Doug Comer's stack was once stuffed into the TLI, and that BBN may have also developed/ported their stack to streams. > > And in defense of Dennis' streams that USG morphed into STREAMS, he > intended it for tty interfaces, not for networking. Ttys were slow > enough that the queuing was fine. > Yep, it was a nice trick to replace the early idea of "line disciplines." As with the monokernel vs. microkernel debate, using streams as a networking API might have solved some interesting issues. I once had a nice discussion with Denis about it, which was a classic theory vs. practice style discussion. That said, in practice, because the System V streams code performed so poorly, especially when a BSD socket stack was the comparison. Since almost all of the user code that did networking expected the sockets API, nobody felt that taking the time to make a TLI-based TCP/IP stack that was as performant as the traditional sockets was of any value. Remember that Metcalfe's law never talks about >>how<< you get connected, only that you are connected. SVR4, of course, offered both APIs, and I never saw any commercial code base that used the TLI. From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 06:48:03 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Johan Helsingius via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:48:03 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <9076.1765999515@cesium.clock.org> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <9076.1765999515@cesium.clock.org> Message-ID: <896ea40f-d547-46bc-9b98-96cd9b171fe0@Julf.com> Now you have made me want to set up UUCP between two Raspberry Pis. Just because. Julf On 17/12/2025 8:25 pm, Erik E. Fair via TUHS wrote: > If you can't make TCP/IP & Ethernet work in an old PDP-11, there's always UUCP & BerkNet! > > yes, I'm serial, > > Erik From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 07:12:35 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warner Losh via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 14:12:35 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 8:22 AM Jacob Ritorto via TUHS wrote: > pdp11s are getting so popular these days that now seems a great time to > perform the stunt of running SYSV well on them. Seems pretty normal to the > adepts on the list who were there when it originally happened, but it’s > kind of a niche mind-blow to newcomers that a PDP could run SYSV. > > But currently I think it’s missing networking. > > So a couple questions: > Is it possible to build newer SYSV releases to run on pdp11? Like > specifically SVr4? > Nope. The only extant version of system V that runs on the PDP-11 is r1. > If not, is this feasible to achieve and would anyone be interested in a > project to make that happen? > No. It's too big and requires demand paging. There's some nuance in this answer, but nobody has ported the R1 support code forward and the time I looked at it suggested there'd be a lot of work. If that can happen, the stock SVr4 networking code build might be a breeze. > Not really. If you look at 2.11BSD you'll see that to put the BSD Networking stack into it had to use both separate I&D space, but also needed to use one of the 'extra' priv levels to effectively run most of the BSD stack in an extra privileged process. Warner > Apologies in advance if this has already been broached and completed > and/or if this is a fool’s errand due to size constraints. And yes of > course the easy thing to do is just run v6 or BSD. But then we miss out on > the mind-blowing facet :) > > thx > jake From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 18 15:16:02 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Heinz Lycklama via TUHS) Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 21:16:02 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] update pdp11 system five? In-Reply-To: <5bd8f7f0-3e32-46e6-bd06-6eae610a4785@technologists.com> References: <9340A8B4-5AAB-4F85-9500-EDE1B1BDA0B7@gmail.com> <202512171541.5BHFf5eD022558@freefriends.org> <20251217154917.GC26336@mcvoy.com> <5bd8f7f0-3e32-46e6-bd06-6eae610a4785@technologists.com> Message-ID: <695bfa03-8b99-405c-8d32-d3cda6942661@osta.com> ISC did provide Streams, but I really cannot recall with which release. On 12/17/2025 9:40 AM, Charles H Sauer (he/him) via TUHS wrote: > On 12/17/2025 9:49 AM, Larry McVoy via TUHS wrote: >> On Wed, Dec 17, 2025 at 08:41:05AM -0700, Arnold Robbins via TUHS wrote: >>> IIRC the last official System V release that ran on the PDP-11 was >>> S5R2, but I don't remember for sure. >>> >>> S5R3 had STREAMS networking. >> >> I don't believe that's correct.  SCO's S5R3 did not, I had to port it. > > Strange -- I thought all SVR3 had STREAMS. I'm pretty sure Dell's SVR3 > had STREAMS, as provided by ISC. Heinz probably could be definitive. > From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Dec 19 00:11:40 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS) Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2025 09:11:40 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] sequence of groff's preprocessors in man page vs bug tracker Message-ID: In the same semi-serious vein as the original observation, I suggest that the preprocessors be listed in reverse topological order of execution precedence. In general this will bring the more important preprocessors to the top of the list. Unfortunately, it is not an unambiguous recipe; it does not settle the relative order of preprocessors that never interact, e.g. chem and grap. And, although it gathers the precedence rules in one place, the reverse order may cause some cognitive dissonance. Doug From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 06:14:03 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Matt Day via TUHS) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 13:14:03 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Rob Ricci updated today on his Mastodon page: > The attempt to read the UNIX V4 tape is underway! > I'm told "there is data" but I honestly don't know what that means yet. -- https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115747843169814700 The process is being filmed by a TV news crew and some footage is already available. On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: > https://phanpy.social/#/hachyderm.io/s/115504720323483804 > > From mastodon: > > > Rob Ricci > ricci at discuss.systems > > While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX > v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 > > Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: > gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E > > > We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 11:53:30 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 02:53:30 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ aap On 19/12/25, Matt Day via TUHS wrote: > Rob Ricci updated today on his Mastodon page: > > The attempt to read the UNIX V4 tape is underway! > > I'm told "there is data" but I honestly don't know what that means yet. > -- https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115747843169814700 > The process is being filmed by a TV news crew and some footage is already > available. > > > On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: > > > https://phanpy.social/#/hachyderm.io/s/115504720323483804 > > > > From mastodon: > > > > > > Rob Ricci > > ricci at discuss.systems > > > > While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX > > v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 > > > > Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: > > gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E > > > > > > We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 12:04:31 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Thalia Archibald via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 02:04:31 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1B35FD60-29DC-4AF2-9F3B-7C4F8DC7944E@archibald.dev> Very exciting day at the CHM archives! As you already found, I uploaded it at https://archive.org/details/utah_unix_v4_raw. Looking forward to booting it on my PiDP-11! Thalia From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 12:41:42 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 02:41:42 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello Angelo, Thank you and everyone else who has been involved so far. Christmas came early! A couple of screenshots of me rumbling around in the extracted files. I should be in bed so this is all I did. It is 2:40 am here. https://ibb.co/fYFX8NsR The ed binary, file created June 10 1974, 14:37 https://ibb.co/BKKwybZ3 The first 40 lines of source code of the C compiler These images will auto-delete in one month. Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! Cameron On Saturday, December 20th, 2025 at 1:53 AM, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > > > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > aap From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 12:50:18 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 03:50:18 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's booting too! added info to the readme. =uboot k unix login: root # ls bin dev etc lib mnt tmp unix usr # aap On 20/12/25, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > aap > > On 19/12/25, Matt Day via TUHS wrote: > > Rob Ricci updated today on his Mastodon page: > > > The attempt to read the UNIX V4 tape is underway! > > > I'm told "there is data" but I honestly don't know what that means yet. > > -- https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115747843169814700 > > The process is being filmed by a TV news crew and some footage is already > > available. > > > > > > On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: > > > > > https://phanpy.social/#/hachyderm.io/s/115504720323483804 > > > > > > From mastodon: > > > > > > > > > Rob Ricci > > > ricci at discuss.systems > > > > > > While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX > > > v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 > > > > > > Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: > > > gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E > > > > > > > > > We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 14:28:04 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Matt Day via TUHS) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 21:28:04 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Cool, thanks Angelo.. I got it running easily thanks to your efforts. At a glance it looks like Fifth Edition to me... all the files are timestamped June 10 - 12, 1974. Commands present include col, dd, diff, eqn, glob, lpr, msh, neqn, pwd, spell, and tee -- according to https://dspinellis.github.io/unix-history-man/man1.html those commands first appeared in Fifth Edition and were not present in Fourth. On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 6:53 PM Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > aap > > On 19/12/25, Matt Day via TUHS wrote: > > Rob Ricci updated today on his Mastodon page: > > > The attempt to read the UNIX V4 tape is underway! > > > I'm told "there is data" but I honestly don't know what that means yet. > > -- https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115747843169814700 > > The process is being filmed by a TV news crew and some footage is already > > available. > > > > > > On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: > > > > > https://phanpy.social/#/hachyderm.io/s/115504720323483804 > > > > > > From mastodon: > > > > > > > > > Rob Ricci > > > ricci at discuss.systems > > > > > > While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing > #UNIX > > > v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 > > > > > > Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: > > > gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E > > > > > > > > > We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > > > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 14:35:45 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Matt Day via TUHS) Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2025 21:35:45 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Correction: the commands present in Angelo's copy of the v4 tape include: dd, diff, glob, lpr, msh, pwd, tee Not present in Angelo's copy of the v4 tape: col, eqn, neqn, spell Present in Fifth Edition: all of the above, according to https://dspinellis.github.io/unix-history-man/man1.html On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 9:28 PM Matt Day wrote: > Cool, thanks Angelo.. I got it running easily thanks to your efforts. > > At a glance it looks like Fifth Edition to me... all the files are > timestamped June 10 - 12, 1974. Commands present include col, dd, diff, > eqn, glob, lpr, msh, neqn, pwd, spell, and tee -- according to > https://dspinellis.github.io/unix-history-man/man1.html those commands > first appeared in Fifth Edition and were not present in Fourth. > > On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 6:53 PM Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS > wrote: > >> I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ >> >> aap >> >> On 19/12/25, Matt Day via TUHS wrote: >> > Rob Ricci updated today on his Mastodon page: >> > > The attempt to read the UNIX V4 tape is underway! >> > > I'm told "there is data" but I honestly don't know what that means >> yet. >> > -- https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115747843169814700 >> > The process is being filmed by a TV news crew and some footage is >> already >> > available. >> > >> > >> > On Thu, Nov 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: >> > >> > > https://phanpy.social/#/hachyderm.io/s/115504720323483804 >> > > >> > > From mastodon: >> > > >> > > >> > > Rob Ricci >> > > ricci at discuss.systems >> > > >> > > While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing >> #UNIX >> > > v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 >> > > >> > > Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: >> > > gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E >> > > >> > > >> > > We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum >> > > >> > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 14:59:18 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Thalia Archibald via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 04:59:18 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7EDB2F32-8677-4A8A-8A9E-A7EB4B5CCED9@archibald.dev> On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 9:28 PM Matt Day wrote: > At a glance it looks like Fifth Edition to me... all the files are > timestamped June 10 - 12, 1974. We received the tape in June 1974, due to delay in printing more documentation. The documentation we received must have been for V4, since the label says to “see manual for format”, written later by Jay Lepreau, the OS researcher in whose documents it was found. Furthermore, the blue embossed label on the side says UNIX V4 DIST, which I presume was put there by Bell Labs. https://archive.org/details/thompson_to_newell_1974-05-31 UNIX wasn’t versioned as we know it today. In the early days, when you wanted to cut a tape, you’d ask Ken if it was a good day—whether the system was relatively bug-free—and copy off the research machine. The manuals were versioned and you got whatever the last one was. The V5 manual is dated June 1974 (anyone know a better date?), same as our tape. I suspect the next manual was finished days or weeks after this was sent, so this may perhaps be the most extreme drift in an extant copy of UNIX between the manual features and the shipped features. The Dennis_v5 distribution on TUHS is dated 21 March 1975, just two months away from the May 1975 release of the V6 manual. (Which explains why I found it so close to V6 when I studied it.) The Utah “V4” is a much cleaner V5 than the V5 we have. I’ve had been saying It’s probably V5 minus a tiny bit, which turned out to be quite true. Thalia From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 17:15:59 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Matt Day via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 00:15:59 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: <7EDB2F32-8677-4A8A-8A9E-A7EB4B5CCED9@archibald.dev> References: <7EDB2F32-8677-4A8A-8A9E-A7EB4B5CCED9@archibald.dev> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 9:59 PM Thalia Archibald wrote: > The V5 manual is dated June 1974 (anyone know a better date?), same as our tape. The V5 man page for sort(1) is dated 6/11/74: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v5man/man1/sort The Utah tape's usr/source/s2/sort.c is dated 6/10/1974 and lacks support for the -b and -t flags that are documented in the 6/11/74 man page. The Fifth Edition UNIX Programmer's Manual (Dennis_v5) includes these man pages, but these commands are missing from the Utah tape: - eqn(1) dated 2/22/74 - neqn(1) dated 4/30/74 - spell(1) dated 2/26/74 - col(6) dated 5/20/74 (this list is probably incomplete) Thank you, Thalia! On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 9:59 PM Thalia Archibald wrote: > On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 9:28 PM Matt Day wrote: > > At a glance it looks like Fifth Edition to me... all the files are > > timestamped June 10 - 12, 1974. > > We received the tape in June 1974, due to delay in printing more > documentation. > The documentation we received must have been for V4, since the label says > to > “see manual for format”, written later by Jay Lepreau, the OS researcher in > whose documents it was found. Furthermore, the blue embossed label on the > side > says UNIX V4 DIST, which I presume was put there by Bell Labs. > https://archive.org/details/thompson_to_newell_1974-05-31 > > UNIX wasn’t versioned as we know it today. In the early days, when you > wanted to > cut a tape, you’d ask Ken if it was a good day—whether the system was > relatively > bug-free—and copy off the research machine. The manuals were versioned and > you > got whatever the last one was. > > The V5 manual is dated June 1974 (anyone know a better date?), same as our > tape. > I suspect the next manual was finished days or weeks after this was sent, > so > this may perhaps be the most extreme drift in an extant copy of UNIX > between the > manual features and the shipped features. > > The Dennis_v5 distribution on TUHS is dated 21 March 1975, just two months > away > from the May 1975 release of the V6 manual. (Which explains why I found it > so > close to V6 when I studied it.) The Utah “V4” is a much cleaner V5 than > the V5 > we have. I’ve had been saying It’s probably V5 minus a tiny bit, which > turned > out to be quite true. > > Thalia > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 19:09:16 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 09:09:16 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, December 19th, 2025 at 17:53, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > aap Some observations: - In this init(1), /etc/getty is called as the only member of a single member array "com". In the current V5, /etc/getty is instead provided as the only execution target for dfork. The V5 manual adds that a line in /etc/ttys indicates the specifiable program in this array. The V6 manual removes again this idea of /etc/getty being one of many possible targets in a table, making this a more V5-ish init(1) than the current V5 copy. Additionally, the V4 manual indicates that init(1) still pulls TTYs from an internal table. This init(1) is using /etc/ttys. Finally, utmp is still in /tmp in this tape, whereas V6 sees it moved to /etc, as is the case in the current V5. - The copy of wc(1) present matches the V5 manual page in that it includes a number of options. - Stty(1) here also is more V5-ish in that it does not implement the hup options nor erase, kill, or ek. Just a few, but some areas marking this as matching V5 well. Probably tail end of calling it "V4" at all. - Matt G. V4->V5 /usr/man diff - https://gitlab.com/segaloco/mandiff/-/compare/v4...v5?from_project_id=44843539 V5->V6 /usr/man diff - https://gitlab.com/segaloco/mandiff/-/compare/v5...v6?from_project_id=44843539 From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 22:14:51 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 14:14:51 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] V4 in tv news In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8e513be1-2841-45ee-ad1f-c01e65d841c2@aueb.gr> On 08-Dec-25 07:30, Thalia Archibald via TUHS wrote: […] > If any of you know of good early UNIX sources, particularly > around 1973–1974, please let me know! Consider the late Michael Sean Mahoney's project to create a history of Unix based on interviews with the system's developers. Mahoney, who died in 2008, was a Professor of the History of Science at Princeton University. His site seems to be down, but I have archived the project at https://github.com/dspinellis/oral-history-of-unix/ and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2525530. Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 22:41:17 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 12:41:17 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found Message-ID: The first model year for the Ford Mustang is commonly described as 1964½ even though the vehicles were given 1965 VIN codes. This was because they appeared in the early half of 1964. Perhaps V...½ would be a good way of referencing some physical UNIX distributions, e.g. V4½ to describe a distribution that is neither fully V4 nor V5. Using the ½ as opposed to a .5 would hint, just like the earliest Ford Mustangs, that "we" gave the moniker, not "them". Best regards, Cameron Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone -------- Original Message -------- On Saturday, 12/20/25 at 04:59 Thalia Archibald via TUHS wrote: On Fri, Dec 19, 2025 at 9:28 PM Matt Day wrote: > At a glance it looks like Fifth Edition to me... all the files are > timestamped June 10 - 12, 1974. We received the tape in June 1974, due to delay in printing more documentation. The documentation we received must have been for V4, since the label says to “see manual for format”, written later by Jay Lepreau, the OS researcher in whose documents it was found. Furthermore, the blue embossed label on the side says UNIX V4 DIST, which I presume was put there by Bell Labs. https://archive.org/details/thompson_to_newell_1974-05-31 UNIX wasn’t versioned as we know it today... Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 20 22:46:24 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 13:46:24 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: nice observations. Just a quick glance at numbers revealed around 4.1k lines of diffs between matching ken/*.c and dmr/*.c files between nsys and v4, and 1.1k between v4 and v5. Most changes are about the register keyword however, and prefixing these variables with 'r'. De-registerifying the v4 kernel would allow for a fairer comparison to nsys. It would also be a good step towards adding pipe support into the nsys kernel, which it is unfortunately lacking. That would make it an actually usable complete UNIX kernel i believe. aap On 20/12/25, segaloco wrote: > On Friday, December 19th, 2025 at 17:53, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > > > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > > > aap > > Some observations: > > - In this init(1), /etc/getty is called as the only member of a single > member array "com". In the current V5, /etc/getty is instead provided > as the only execution target for dfork. The V5 manual adds that a > line in /etc/ttys indicates the specifiable program in this array. > The V6 manual removes again this idea of /etc/getty being one of many > possible targets in a table, making this a more V5-ish init(1) than > the current V5 copy. Additionally, the V4 manual indicates that > init(1) still pulls TTYs from an internal table. This init(1) is > using /etc/ttys. Finally, utmp is still in /tmp in this tape, whereas > V6 sees it moved to /etc, as is the case in the current V5. > > - The copy of wc(1) present matches the V5 manual page in that it > includes a number of options. > > - Stty(1) here also is more V5-ish in that it does not implement the hup > options nor erase, kill, or ek. > > Just a few, but some areas marking this as matching V5 well. Probably > tail end of calling it "V4" at all. > > - Matt G. > > V4->V5 /usr/man diff - https://gitlab.com/segaloco/mandiff/-/compare/v4...v5?from_project_id=44843539 > V5->V6 /usr/man diff - https://gitlab.com/segaloco/mandiff/-/compare/v5...v6?from_project_id=44843539 From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 01:37:17 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Al Kossow via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 07:37:17 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2a10d342-7059-88e2-0100-6ae415764057@bitsavers.org> The two bad blocks on the image have been fixed, so I've pushed that .tap file to http://bitsavers.org/bits/ATT/U-Utah_V4_tape along with a contents.txt of what all the blocks were. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 04:13:58 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Thalia Archibald via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 18:13:58 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: <2a10d342-7059-88e2-0100-6ae415764057@bitsavers.org> References: <2a10d342-7059-88e2-0100-6ae415764057@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: <2CEE6D4C-B21A-4025-A104-111ECF351019@archibald.dev> On Dec 20, 2025, at 07:37, Al Kossow via TUHS wrote: > The two bad blocks on the image have been fixed, so > I've pushed that .tap file to > http://bitsavers.org/bits/ATT/U-Utah_V4_tape > along with a contents.txt of what all the blocks > were. Thank you, Al! For this and the whole event yesterday! How did you fix the blocks? Did you use the analog waveform? Yufeng Gao got in touch with me and has also recovered those blocks. He did it first by eyeballing the ASCII, then by hacking readtape to dump the CRC and LRC of each block and fixing a mistake in one of them. His matches yours. Thalia From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 04:45:35 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Al Kossow via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 10:45:35 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: <2CEE6D4C-B21A-4025-A104-111ECF351019@archibald.dev> References: <2a10d342-7059-88e2-0100-6ae415764057@bitsavers.org> <2CEE6D4C-B21A-4025-A104-111ECF351019@archibald.dev> Message-ID: On 12/20/25 10:13 AM, Thalia Archibald via TUHS wrote: > How did you fix the blocks? Did you use the analog waveform? I didn't do the work, I just used what was posted on the cctlk discord this morning From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 10:17:35 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Adam Thornton via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:17:35 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: "cubic" exists both here and on the v7 I have. There don't seem to be sources, though, at least not in the obvious places. I went looking online, and didn't find much besides Patashnik's 1980 paper (the acknowledgements there are a lovely rogues' gallery of exactly who'd you'd expect). I think (based on the oral history interview) that cubic here is probably a Ken program. I was playing with it, but trying to keep the board state in my head rather than on paper (which was a mistake) and was intrigued by the fact that it found a forced loss for me and laid it out for me. My question is, do the sources to "cubic" exist anywhere? Adam From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 10:24:27 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jim Capp via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 19:24:27 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] V4 in tv news In-Reply-To: <8e513be1-2841-45ee-ad1f-c01e65d841c2@aueb.gr> References: <8e513be1-2841-45ee-ad1f-c01e65d841c2@aueb.gr> Message-ID: <76DF071F-D3B5-4383-9C78-13A44BE644BF@anteil.com> > On Dec 20, 2025, at 7:15 AM, Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS wrote: > >  > > On 08-Dec-25 07:30, Thalia Archibald via TUHS wrote: > […] >> If any of you know of good early UNIX sources, particularly >> around 1973–1974, please let me know! > Consider the late Michael Sean Mahoney's project to create a history of Unix based on interviews with the system's developers. Mahoney, who died in 2008, was a Professor of the History of Science at Princeton University. His site seems to be down, but I have archived the project at https://github.com/dspinellis/oral-history-of-unix/ and https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2525530. > > Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr This is awesome! From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 10:42:23 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Adam Thornton via TUHS) Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2025 17:42:23 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] V4 in tv news In-Reply-To: <8e513be1-2841-45ee-ad1f-c01e65d841c2@aueb.gr> References: <8e513be1-2841-45ee-ad1f-c01e65d841c2@aueb.gr> Message-ID: Thanks for doing that. I was one of Prof. Mahoney's grad students. On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 5:21 AM Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS wrote: > > > On 08-Dec-25 07:30, Thalia Archibald via TUHS wrote: > […] > > If any of you know of good early UNIX sources, particularly > > around 1973–1974, please let me know! > Consider the late Michael Sean Mahoney's project to create a history of > Unix based on interviews with the system's developers. Mahoney, who > died in 2008, was a Professor of the History of Science at Princeton > University. His site seems to be down, but I have archived the project > at https://github.com/dspinellis/oral-history-of-unix/ and > https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2525530. > > Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 12:05:55 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Thalia Archibald via TUHS) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 02:05:55 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Send me your UNIX license agreements! Message-ID: <75C561BD-210A-4601-B8AC-350B7BB3FB9A@archibald.dev> Hi everyone, I am collecting old UNIX license agreements to be able to establish the dates of early installations. So far, I have licenses for Regents of the University of California (1973-12-01), KU Nijmegen (1974-12-01), University of Manitoba (1975-02-01), and KU Leuven (1977-09-01), as well as 1982 license specimens found by segaloco and others from the ‘80s. https://archive.org/details/@archibits/lists/1/unix-licenses?sort=date https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/licenses/README.md They did not track license dates at Bell Labs, so this is the next-best way to determine that. Before we found documentation on the receipt of the Utah UNIX V4 tape, I narrowed down when we could have received it from tracking down software agreements for institutions around Utah in Ken’s list of licensees. It’s also interesting to see the evolution of licenses. https://github.com/thaliaarchi/unix-history/blob/main/lists/README.md If you have UNIX software agreements that are public or I could publish, please send them my way! I’m also looking for first-hand accounts of such dates. Thalia From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Dec 21 15:20:22 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Yufeng Gao via TUHS) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2025 05:20:22 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: <2a10d342-7059-88e2-0100-6ae415764057@bitsavers.org> <2CEE6D4C-B21A-4025-A104-111ECF351019@archibald.dev> Message-ID: > From: Thalia Archibald > Yufeng Gao got in touch with me and has also recovered those blocks. He did it > first by eyeballing the ASCII, then by hacking readtape to dump the CRC and LRC > of each block and fixing a mistake in one of them. His matches yours. Indeed. Forgot to CC the TUHS list in my email, my apologies. Details are as follows: CRC and LRC of the two bad blocks are: Block 4281: CRC=341, LRC=290 Block 4367: CRC=302, LRC=445 Verifying that the CRC and LRC of the fixed records indeed match: $ crc good_4281.bin CRC=341 LRC=290 $ crc good_4367.bin CRC=302 LRC=445 > From: Al Kossow > I didn't do the work, I just used what was posted on the cctlk discord this morning I was the one who posted it on the CCMP Discord (in #general). I attached the CRCs and LRCs as well as a program to verify them in my email to Thalia. Sincerely, Yufeng From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 00:54:04 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:54:04 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <322782d7-3dc7-40a0-a3c7-f7b5a6d5c499@aueb.gr> The finding and successful extraction of the tape is an amazing development! I updated the Unix History Repository on GitHub [1] to incorporate the tape's contents [2]. As with other snapshots, the commit timestamps are derived from the file timestamps while the commit authors are derived from a manually-created map file [3]. I updated the author map file based on information I had gathered for preceding and following Unix Research editions. I explicitly put "ken,dmr" in all source code files where I lacked author information (this is also the default introduced via a .* regular expression) to mark missing details. If you can fill any gaps or submit corrections (via a list reply, private email, or GitHub PR), I'll incorporate your input in the next repo update. In particular I think it would important to credit the authors of the following. /usr/sno: SNOBOL III /usr/source/s3/fp*.s: Floating point simulator /usr/source/s3/qsort.s /usr/source/s4/{cos,gamma,hypot,sin}.s: Math library [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo [2] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/tree/Research-V4-Snapshot-Development [3] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make/blob/master/src/author-path/Research-V4 Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr On 20-Dec-25 03:53, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > aap [...] >>> From mastodon: >>> >>> >>> Rob Ricci >>> ricci at discuss.systems >>> >>> While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing #UNIX >>> v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 >>> >>> Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: >>> gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E >>> >>> >>> We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum >>> From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 06:58:41 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Matt Day via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 13:58:41 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: <322782d7-3dc7-40a0-a3c7-f7b5a6d5c499@aueb.gr> References: <322782d7-3dc7-40a0-a3c7-f7b5a6d5c499@aueb.gr> Message-ID: In 2004, dmr said this about V4 "sno": > I think writing it was just a quick entertainment for Ken. -- https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2004-June/004210.html On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 7:54 AM Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS wrote: > The finding and successful extraction of the tape is an amazing > development! I updated the Unix History Repository on GitHub [1] to > incorporate the tape's contents [2]. As with other snapshots, the > commit timestamps are derived from the file timestamps while the commit > authors are derived from a manually-created map file [3]. I updated the > author map file based on information I had gathered for preceding and > following Unix Research editions. I explicitly put "ken,dmr" in all > source code files where I lacked author information (this is also the > default introduced via a .* regular expression) to mark missing details. > If you can fill any gaps or submit corrections (via a list reply, > private email, or GitHub PR), I'll incorporate your input in the next > repo update. In particular I think it would important to credit the > authors of the following. > > > /usr/sno: SNOBOL III > /usr/source/s3/fp*.s: Floating point simulator > /usr/source/s3/qsort.s > /usr/source/s4/{cos,gamma,hypot,sin}.s: Math library > > > [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo > [2] > > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/tree/Research-V4-Snapshot-Development > [3] > > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make/blob/master/src/author-path/Research-V4 > > > Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr > > On 20-Dec-25 03:53, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > > > aap > > [...] > > >>> From mastodon: > >>> > >>> > >>> Rob Ricci > >>> ricci at discuss.systems > >>> > >>> While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape containing > #UNIX > >>> v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 > >>> > >>> Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: > >>> gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E > >>> > >>> > >>> We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > >>> > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 07:47:08 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 23:47:08 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: <322782d7-3dc7-40a0-a3c7-f7b5a6d5c499@aueb.gr> Message-ID: <8f9491f5-5335-4402-8799-ffe974105e25@aueb.gr> Thank you! I also got a separate authoritative confirmation: "definitely ken -- noone else ever touched it". I just pushed the updated the map file: https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make/blob/master/src/author-path/Research-V4#L150 The corresponding history repo commits should appear in the next 24 hours. On 22-Dec-25 22:58, Matt Day wrote: > In 2004, dmr said this about V4 "sno": > > I think writing it was just a quick entertainment for Ken. > -- https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2004-June/004210.html www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2004-June/004210.html> > > On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 7:54 AM Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS > > wrote: > > The finding and successful extraction of the tape is an amazing > development!  I updated the Unix History Repository on GitHub [1] to > incorporate the tape's contents [2].  As with other snapshots, the > commit timestamps are derived from the file timestamps while the commit > authors are derived from a manually-created map file [3].  I updated > the > author map file based on information I had gathered for preceding and > following Unix Research editions.  I explicitly put "ken,dmr" in all > source code files where I lacked author information (this is also the > default introduced via a .* regular expression) to mark missing > details. >   If you can fill any gaps or submit corrections (via a list reply, > private email, or GitHub PR), I'll incorporate your input in the next > repo update.  In particular I think it would important to credit the > authors of the following. > > > /usr/sno: SNOBOL III > /usr/source/s3/fp*.s: Floating point simulator > /usr/source/s3/qsort.s > /usr/source/s4/{cos,gamma,hypot,sin}.s: Math library > > > [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo> > [2] > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/tree/Research-V4- > Snapshot-Development repo/tree/Research-V4-Snapshot-Development> > [3] > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-make/blob/master/src/ > author-path/Research-V4 make/blob/master/src/author-path/Research-V4> > > > Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr > > On 20-Dec-25 03:53, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ UNIX/v4/> > > > > aap > > [...] > > >>>  From mastodon: > >>> > >>> > > >>> Rob Ricci > >>> ricci at discuss.systems discuss.systems/@ricci>> > >>> > >>> While cleaning a storage room, our staff found this tape > containing #UNIX > >>> tags/UNIX>> v4 from Bell Labs, circa 1973 > >>> > >>> Apparently no other complete copies are known to exist: > >>> gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_E UNIX_Fourth_E> > >>> gunkies.org/wiki/UNIX_Fourth_Edition>> > >>> > >>> We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > >>> > From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 09:00:46 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:00:46 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found Message-ID: > I think it would important to credit the authors of > /usr/sno: SNOBOL III > /usr/source/s3/fp*.s: Floating point simulator > /usr/source/s3/qsort.s > /usr/source/s4/{cos,gamma,hypot,sin}.s: Math library Lee McMahon wrote qsort. Bob Morris wrote the math library. It was quite good, with one exception. When Peter McIlroy redid -lm for BSD, with freshly derived approximations, he found that Morris's gamma function was utter nonsense near the poles. Doug From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 09:07:01 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:07:01 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] README Message-ID: READMEs are everywhere now, but I am not aware of any before Dennis began to put them in Unix source directories. Does anyone know whether he invented the idea or borrowed it? Doug From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 10:19:10 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Clem Cole via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 19:19:10 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I suspect it was a good idea that was independently created in multiple places. I remember seeing them in PDP-6/10 arpanet would which I was introduced before discovering Unix. Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 6:07 PM Douglas McIlroy via TUHS wrote: > READMEs are everywhere now, but I am not aware of any before Dennis > began to put them in Unix source directories. Does anyone know whether > he invented the idea or borrowed it? > > Doug > From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 10:45:24 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Larry McVoy via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 16:45:24 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> I wasn't exposed to the Unix sources early but I did READMEs in stuff that I open sourced so someone must have showed me that. Or it's just an obvious thing to do. I did upper case README so it listed first in ls. On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 07:19:10PM -0500, Clem Cole via TUHS wrote: > I suspect it was a good idea that was independently created in multiple > places. I remember seeing them in PDP-6/10 arpanet would which I was > introduced before discovering Unix. > > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual > > > On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 6:07???PM Douglas McIlroy via TUHS > wrote: > > > READMEs are everywhere now, but I am not aware of any before Dennis > > began to put them in Unix source directories. Does anyone know whether > > he invented the idea or borrowed it? > > > > Doug > > -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 12:14:59 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Marc Donner via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 21:14:59 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> References: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/README#History ===== mindthegapdialogs.com north-fork.info On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 7:45 PM Larry McVoy via TUHS wrote: > I wasn't exposed to the Unix sources early but I did READMEs in stuff that > I > open sourced so someone must have showed me that. Or it's just an obvious > thing to do. I did upper case README so it listed first in ls. > > On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 07:19:10PM -0500, Clem Cole via TUHS wrote: > > I suspect it was a good idea that was independently created in multiple > > places. I remember seeing them in PDP-6/10 arpanet would which I was > > introduced before discovering Unix. > > > > Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual > > > > > > On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 6:07???PM Douglas McIlroy via TUHS < > tuhs at tuhs.org> > > wrote: > > > > > READMEs are everywhere now, but I am not aware of any before Dennis > > > began to put them in Unix source directories. Does anyone know whether > > > he invented the idea or borrowed it? > > > > > > Doug > > > > > -- > --- > Larry McVoy Retired to fishing > http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat > From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 12:20:16 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Al Kossow via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:20:16 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: References: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> Message-ID: <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> On 12/22/25 6:14 PM, Marc Donner via TUHS wrote: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/README#History isn't this a reference to Alice in Wonderland? From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 12:41:56 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Clem Cole via TUHS) Date: Mon, 22 Dec 2025 21:41:56 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> References: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Below Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 9:20 PM Al Kossow via TUHS wrote: > On 12/22/25 6:14 PM, Marc Donner via TUHS wrote: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/README#History > > isn't this a reference to Alice in Wonderland? Certainly that was my experience. But as I said, I think it was an idea that was created a few times. I also remember files called “READ THIS 1ST” and similar names. Another thing that was sometimes done was put a few zeros In name so the file was the sorted to be the first file you would see when a directory was listed. BTW way the reference to Berkeley SPICE for the PDP-10 is telling. We never had a PDP-10 in the UCB CAD group. We had CDC6600 originally and an IBM 360. Ellis Cohen was the original author. And yes certainly he had README files in the basic distribution (FORTRAN 80 column card images) from the Industrial Liaison Office (ILO) in the early 1970s explaining how to compile and build it [FWIW: the ILO a few years later would be how Bill Joy distributed the Berkeley (UNIX) Software Distribution. From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 16:36:07 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Lars Brinkhoff via TUHS) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 06:36:07 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: (Douglas McIlroy via TUHS's message of "Mon, 22 Dec 2025 18:07:01 -0500") References: Message-ID: <7w3451so14.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Douglas McIlroy via TUHS writes: > READMEs are everywhere now, but I am not aware of any before Dennis > began to put them in Unix source directories. Does anyone know whether > he invented the idea or borrowed it? The question has come up in some other places. I offered some information from ITS history where the file is usually called -READ- -THIS-; however there's a SHRDLU; %READ ME which up in 1973. https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/96966/origin-of-readme https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/6059/when-did-readme-files-start-showing-up-in-software From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 23:12:48 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Diomidis Spinellis via TUHS) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 15:12:48 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: With the tape now available as a synthetic Git repo [1], I run git-blame on the V4 and V5 files [2]. V4's composition is as follows in terms of lines: v4 75676 v3 6590 v2 168 So, a lot of new material and about 10% coming from earlier editions. V5 is as follows: v5 11181 v4 52238 v3 3296 v2 168 So, quite close to V5, but not entirely so. [1] https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo [2] for ref in Research-V4-Snapshot-Development \ Research-V5-Snapshot-Development ; do echo $ref git ls-tree -r --name-only $ref | grep -Ev 'README|LICENSE|\.pdf|\.ref' | xargs -I '{}' git blame -M -M -C -C $ref -- '{}' | sort | uniq -c | awk '{("git show " $2 "| awk '\''/Synthesized-from:/{print $2}'\''") | getline ver; total[ver] += $1 } END {for (v in total) print v, total[v]}' done On 20-Dec-25 06:28, Matt Day via TUHS wrote: > Cool, thanks Angelo.. I got it running easily thanks to your efforts. > > At a glance it looks like Fifth Edition to me... all the files are > timestamped June 10 - 12, 1974. Commands present include col, dd, diff, > eqn, glob, lpr, msh, neqn, pwd, spell, and tee -- according to > https://dspinellis.github.io/unix-history-man/man1.html those commands > first appeared in Fifth Edition and were not present in Fourth. From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Dec 23 23:31:26 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 14:31:26 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Quick update: Since that mail i spent almost all of my time inside the UNIX kernel trying to get nsys to work correctly. Putting in pipes was the easy bit, but i've been banging my head against the wall for days now. Something is leaking IO blocks so eventually the system gets stuck waiting for bfreelist. My test case is 'cc -c *.c' in /usr/sys/ken. Replacing bawrite and bdwrite with just plain bwrite gets me somewhat further in that process but eventually i hit a 'panic: trap', although it seems to be a bit non-deterministic. I even gotten into an endless panic loop. The good thing is that in this case there seem to be no bfreelist leaks at all so far. So definitely asynch IO is not working correctly, and i suspect this is related to synchronization bugs in the nsys code in general. I also started de-registerifying the v4 kernel to be aesthetically more similar to nsys. Perhaps the two approaches will somehow meet in the middle. Lots of frustration unfortunately, but on the other hand i never understood the unix kernel as deeply as i do now. At some point you *are* expected to understand this :) cheers, aap On 20/12/25, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > nice observations. Just a quick glance at numbers revealed around 4.1k > lines of diffs between matching ken/*.c and dmr/*.c files between nsys and v4, > and 1.1k between v4 and v5. Most changes are about the register keyword > however, and prefixing these variables with 'r'. De-registerifying the v4 > kernel would allow for a fairer comparison to nsys. It would also be a > good step towards adding pipe support into the nsys kernel, which it is > unfortunately lacking. That would make it an actually usable complete UNIX > kernel i believe. > > aap > > On 20/12/25, segaloco wrote: > > On Friday, December 19th, 2025 at 17:53, Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS wrote: > > > > > I extracted it: http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/ > > > > > > aap > > > > Some observations: > > > > - In this init(1), /etc/getty is called as the only member of a single > > member array "com". In the current V5, /etc/getty is instead provided > > as the only execution target for dfork. The V5 manual adds that a > > line in /etc/ttys indicates the specifiable program in this array. > > The V6 manual removes again this idea of /etc/getty being one of many > > possible targets in a table, making this a more V5-ish init(1) than > > the current V5 copy. Additionally, the V4 manual indicates that > > init(1) still pulls TTYs from an internal table. This init(1) is > > using /etc/ttys. Finally, utmp is still in /tmp in this tape, whereas > > V6 sees it moved to /etc, as is the case in the current V5. > > > > - The copy of wc(1) present matches the V5 manual page in that it > > includes a number of options. > > > > - Stty(1) here also is more V5-ish in that it does not implement the hup > > options nor erase, kill, or ek. > > > > Just a few, but some areas marking this as matching V5 well. Probably > > tail end of calling it "V4" at all. > > > > - Matt G. > > > > V4->V5 /usr/man diff - https://gitlab.com/segaloco/mandiff/-/compare/v4...v5?from_project_id=44843539 > > V5->V6 /usr/man diff - https://gitlab.com/segaloco/mandiff/-/compare/v5...v6?from_project_id=44843539 From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 24 02:34:05 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Paul Winalski via TUHS) Date: Tue, 23 Dec 2025 11:34:05 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> References: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Dec 22, 2025 at 9:26 PM Al Kossow via TUHS wrote: > > isn't this a reference to Alice in Wonderland? > > I always thought so. A reference to the bottle Alice finds that is labeled "Drink Me". I suspect README has been invented independently several times. Back in 1974 when I was an undergrad a fellow hacker wrote a S/360 DOS logical transient (privileged overlay code in the operating system) that, when called returned control to the caller in supervisor (privileged) mode. We used it as the basis for many a hack. All transient routines were named starting with $$B. This one was called $$BTRYME. -Paul W. From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 24 07:58:45 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Rob Pike via TUHS) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2025 08:58:45 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: References: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Now we need to find the first README about READMEs. -rob From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 24 11:22:53 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (steve jenkin via TUHS) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2025 12:22:53 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] unix v4 tape found In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <37A35DF4-FC08-4702-AE71-3E707E57707F@canb.auug.org.au> Liam Proven has written a nice piece in ’The Register’, includes history, why finding this piece is important & more. Links to videos and many CHM and other sources, including Oral Histories. LP wonders “Is this a Christmas Miracle?” It’s certainly the original CSRC spirit of “Cooperation and Collegiality” alive & well. Link & extract at end. > On 7 Nov 2025, at 09:44, Al Kossow via TUHS wrote: > > On 11/6/25 2:41 PM, Rob Pike via TUHS wrote: > >> We have arranged to deliver it to the Computer History Museum > > another day, another project. =============== Original message on-line =============== UNIX V4 tape successfully recovered: First ever version of UNIX written in C is running again Crucial early evolutionary step found, imaged, and ... amazingly … works Liam Proven Tue 23 Dec 2025 Computer History Museum software curator Al Kossow has successfully retrieved the contents of the over-half-a-century old tape found at the University of Utah last month. Last month, we wrote about the remarkable discovery of a forgotten tape with a lost early version of Unix, found by Professor Robert Ricci at the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah. At the time, we quoted the redoubtable Kossow, who also runs Bitsavers, as saying that it "has a pretty good chance of being recoverable.” The data was recovered using the readtape program by the Computer History Museum's Len Shustek. So, in the recovered files on the Internet Archive, you can see there's a 1.6 gigabyte file created from a tape that only held 40 MB or so of data. You probably don't want to download that. Fortunately, Angelo Papenhoff offers a processed version, complete with a README telling you how to run it. =============== -- From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Dec 24 17:53:18 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (George Michaelson via TUHS) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2025 17:53:18 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: References: <20251223004524.GW26336@mcvoy.com> <3c531103-6411-5b74-0c30-83b98d454716@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=README.TXT&year_start=1950&year_end=1980&corpus=en&smoothing=3&case_insensitive=true Suggests 1956/7 I wonder if DECUS tape submission instructions recommended? From tuhs at tuhs.org Thu Dec 25 04:04:31 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Ron Natalie via TUHS) Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2025 13:04:31 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] README In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In my short stint working for Unipress I did field a call that someone stated that the README program wasn’t working. From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Dec 26 13:44:20 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jonathan Gray via TUHS) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2025 14:44:20 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] cubic (was: unix v4 tape found) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 05:17:35PM -0700, Adam Thornton via TUHS wrote: > "cubic" exists both here and on the v7 I have. There don't seem to be > sources, though, at least not in the obvious places. > > I went looking online, and didn't find much besides Patashnik's 1980 paper > (the acknowledgements there are a lovely rogues' gallery of exactly who'd > you'd expect). > > I think (based on the oral history interview) that cubic here is probably a > Ken program. "Some of the things Ken wrote on the PDP-7 by 1969 include ... A graphical-interface 3D tic-tac-toe program (4x4x4) run with the light pen." https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/ken-games.html "His early work has been on MULTICS, file system design and simulation, computer chess, cubic (3D) tic-tac-toe, and language implementation." K Thompson, The Unix Command Language, 1976 https://archive.org/details/theunixcommandlanguage > > I was playing with it, but trying to keep the board state in my head rather > than on paper (which was a mistake) and was intrigued by the fact that it > found a forced loss for me and laid it out for me. > > My question is, do the sources to "cubic" exist anywhere? > > Adam https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/ttt1.s jms messg; i>;040;w>;i>;n>;0 https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/ttt2.s tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes/dmr_tapes.tgz games/ttt-play/ games/ttt-solve/ contain .s files with '3d tic-tac-toe' comments 'I have a force win' is in games/ttt-play/ot1.s From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Dec 26 13:54:15 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Adam Thornton via TUHS) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2025 20:54:15 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] cubic (was: unix v4 tape found) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you for the excellent Christmas gift! On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 8:44 PM Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 05:17:35PM -0700, Adam Thornton via TUHS wrote: > > "cubic" exists both here and on the v7 I have. There don't seem to be > > sources, though, at least not in the obvious places. > > > > I went looking online, and didn't find much besides Patashnik's 1980 > paper > > (the acknowledgements there are a lovely rogues' gallery of exactly who'd > > you'd expect). > > > > I think (based on the oral history interview) that cubic here is > probably a > > Ken program. > > "Some of the things Ken wrote on the PDP-7 by 1969 include > ... > A graphical-interface 3D tic-tac-toe program (4x4x4) run with the light > pen." > https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/ken-games.html > > "His early work has been on MULTICS, file system design and simulation, > computer chess, cubic (3D) tic-tac-toe, and language implementation." > K Thompson, The Unix Command Language, 1976 > https://archive.org/details/theunixcommandlanguage > > > > > I was playing with it, but trying to keep the board state in my head > rather > > than on paper (which was a mistake) and was intrigued by the fact that it > > found a forced loss for me and laid it out for me. > > > > My question is, do the sources to "cubic" exist anywhere? > > > > Adam > > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/ttt1.s > jms messg; i>;040;w>;i>;n>;0 > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/ttt2.s > > tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes/dmr_tapes.tgz > games/ttt-play/ > games/ttt-solve/ > contain .s files with '3d tic-tac-toe' comments > > 'I have a force win' is in > games/ttt-play/ot1.s > From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Dec 26 17:44:44 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Ken Thompson via TUHS) Date: Thu, 25 Dec 2025 23:44:44 -0800 Subject: [TUHS] cubic (was: unix v4 tape found) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: patasnik said he solved cubit as a forced win for the first player. he submitted it to elwyn berlekamp for verification and publication. patasnik had solved it by hand up to a point where a computer could make forcing moves to a win. elwyn asked me to verify the solution. i did -- it was a win. a by-product was a program that would find forced wins. from there a program was easy. i haven't thought about this since then. thank you for bringing it up. On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 7:54 PM Adam Thornton via TUHS wrote: > Thank you for the excellent Christmas gift! > > On Thu, Dec 25, 2025 at 8:44 PM Jonathan Gray wrote: > > > On Sat, Dec 20, 2025 at 05:17:35PM -0700, Adam Thornton via TUHS wrote: > > > "cubic" exists both here and on the v7 I have. There don't seem to be > > > sources, though, at least not in the obvious places. > > > > > > I went looking online, and didn't find much besides Patashnik's 1980 > > paper > > > (the acknowledgements there are a lovely rogues' gallery of exactly > who'd > > > you'd expect). > > > > > > I think (based on the oral history interview) that cubic here is > > probably a > > > Ken program. > > > > "Some of the things Ken wrote on the PDP-7 by 1969 include > > ... > > A graphical-interface 3D tic-tac-toe program (4x4x4) run with the light > > pen." > > https://www.nokia.com/bell-labs/about/dennis-m-ritchie/ken-games.html > > > > "His early work has been on MULTICS, file system design and simulation, > > computer chess, cubic (3D) tic-tac-toe, and language implementation." > > K Thompson, The Unix Command Language, 1976 > > https://archive.org/details/theunixcommandlanguage > > > > > > > > I was playing with it, but trying to keep the board state in my head > > rather > > > than on paper (which was a mistake) and was intrigued by the fact that > it > > > found a forced loss for me and laid it out for me. > > > > > > My question is, do the sources to "cubic" exist anywhere? > > > > > > Adam > > > > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/ttt1.s > > jms messg; i>;040;w>;i>;n>;0 > > https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix/blob/master/src/cmd/ttt2.s > > > > tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes/dmr_tapes.tgz > > games/ttt-play/ > > games/ttt-solve/ > > contain .s files with '3d tic-tac-toe' comments > > > > 'I have a force win' is in > > games/ttt-play/ot1.s > > > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 27 03:15:53 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Phil Budne via TUHS) Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2025 12:15:53 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] ken's sno soma solver? In-Reply-To: References: <322782d7-3dc7-40a0-a3c7-f7b5a6d5c499@aueb.gr> Message-ID: <202512261715.5BQHFsqT027097@ultimate.com> Matt Day wrote: > In 2004, dmr said this about V4 "sno": > > I think writing it was just a quick entertainment for Ken. > -- https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2004-June/004210.html In the archived message Dennis wrote: > The "application" that has survived is a > 1-page program that solves the Soma (or Instant Insanity) > puzzle. As a snobol(*) enthusiast, I can't help asking (21 years after the fact), whether the soma solver survives? (*) I did a port of the original Macro SNOBOL4 to C [http://www.regressive.org/snobol/csnobol4/], and since I learned on SNOBOL4, SNOBOL3 has always seemed like alien technology, and I'd love to see an actual program! From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Dec 27 08:00:53 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jonathan Gray via TUHS) Date: Sat, 27 Dec 2025 09:00:53 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] ken's sno soma solver? In-Reply-To: <202512261715.5BQHFsqT027097@ultimate.com> References: <322782d7-3dc7-40a0-a3c7-f7b5a6d5c499@aueb.gr> <202512261715.5BQHFsqT027097@ultimate.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Dec 26, 2025 at 12:15:53PM -0500, Phil Budne via TUHS wrote: > Matt Day wrote: > > In 2004, dmr said this about V4 "sno": > > > I think writing it was just a quick entertainment for Ken. > > -- https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2004-June/004210.html > > In the archived message Dennis wrote: > > The "application" that has survived is a > > 1-page program that solves the Soma (or Instant Insanity) > > puzzle. > > As a snobol(*) enthusiast, I can't help asking (21 years after the > fact), whether the soma solver survives? > > (*) I did a port of the original Macro SNOBOL4 to C > [http://www.regressive.org/snobol/csnobol4/], and since I learned on > SNOBOL4, SNOBOL3 has always seemed like alien technology, and I'd > love to see an actual program! tuhs Applications/Dennis_Tapes/dmr_tapes.tgz ken-sky contains soma.sno and ch.sno