From andrew at humeweb.com Sun Jun 1 05:31:41 2025 From: andrew at humeweb.com (andrew at humeweb.com) Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 12:31:41 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: generally, i rate norman’s missives very high on the believability scale. but in this case, i think he is wrong. if you take as a baseline, the abilities of LLMs (such as earlier versions of ChatGP?) 2-3 years ago was quite suspect. certainly better than mark shaney, but not overwhelmingly. those days are long past. modern systems are amazingly adept. not necessarily intelligent, but they can (but not always) pass realistic tests, pass SAT tests and bar exams, math olympiad tests and so on. and people can use them to do basic (but realistic) data analysis including experimental design, generate working code, and run that code against synthetic data and produce visual output. sure, there are often mistakes. the issue of hullucinations is real. but where we are now is almost astonishing, and will likely get MUCH better in the next year or three. end-of-admonishment andrew > On May 26, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Norman Wilson wrote: > > G. Branden Robinson: > > That's why I think Norman has sussed it out accurately. LLMs are > fantastic bullshit generators in the Harry G. Frankfurt sense,[1] > wherein utterances are undertaken neither to enlighten nor to deceive, > but to construct a simulacrum of plausible discourse. BSing is a close > cousin to filibustering, where even plausibility is discarded, often for > the sake of running out a clock or impeding achievement of consensus. > > ==== > > That's exactly what I had in mind. > > I think I had read Frankfurt's book before I first started > calling LLMs bullshit generators, but I can't remember for > sure. I don't plan to ask ChatGPT (which still, at least > sometimes, credits me with far greater contributions to Unix > than I have actually made). > > > Here's an interesting paper I stumbled across last week > which presents the case better than I could: > > https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 > > To link this back to actual Unix history (or something much > nearer that), I realized that `bullshit generator' was a > reasonable summary of what LLMs do after also realizing that > an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated > descendant of Mark V Shaney: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney > > Norman Wilson > Toronto ON From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Sun Jun 1 05:46:16 2025 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 12:46:16 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> I think when no-one notices anymore, how wrong automatic information is, and how often, it will have effectively redefined reality, and humans, who have lost the ability to reason for themselves, will declare that AI has met and exceeded human intelligence. They will be right, partly because of AI's improvements, but to a larger extent, because we will have forgotten how to think. I think AI is having disastrous effects on the education of younger generations right now, I see it in my workplace, every day. On 05/31/2025 12:31 PM, andrew at humeweb.com wrote: > generally, i rate norman’s missives very high on the believability scale. > but in this case, i think he is wrong. > > if you take as a baseline, the abilities of LLMs (such as earlier versions of ChatGP?) 2-3 years ago > was quite suspect. certainly better than mark shaney, but not overwhelmingly. > > those days are long past. modern systems are amazingly adept. not necessarily intelligent, > but they can (but not always) pass realistic tests, pass SAT tests and bar exams, math olympiad tests > and so on. and people can use them to do basic (but realistic) data analysis including experimental design, > generate working code, and run that code against synthetic data and produce visual output. > > sure, there are often mistakes. the issue of hullucinations is real. but where we are now > is almost astonishing, and will likely get MUCH better in the next year or three. > > end-of-admonishment > > andrew > >> On May 26, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Norman Wilson wrote: >> >> G. Branden Robinson: >> >> That's why I think Norman has sussed it out accurately. LLMs are >> fantastic bullshit generators in the Harry G. Frankfurt sense,[1] >> wherein utterances are undertaken neither to enlighten nor to deceive, >> but to construct a simulacrum of plausible discourse. BSing is a close >> cousin to filibustering, where even plausibility is discarded, often for >> the sake of running out a clock or impeding achievement of consensus. >> >> ==== >> >> That's exactly what I had in mind. >> >> I think I had read Frankfurt's book before I first started >> calling LLMs bullshit generators, but I can't remember for >> sure. I don't plan to ask ChatGPT (which still, at least >> sometimes, credits me with far greater contributions to Unix >> than I have actually made). >> >> >> Here's an interesting paper I stumbled across last week >> which presents the case better than I could: >> >> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 >> >> To link this back to actual Unix history (or something much >> nearer that), I realized that `bullshit generator' was a >> reasonable summary of what LLMs do after also realizing that >> an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated >> descendant of Mark V Shaney: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney >> >> Norman Wilson >> Toronto ON > From arnold at skeeve.com Sun Jun 1 06:09:07 2025 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 14:09:07 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> References: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <202505312009.54VK97bQ4163488@freefriends.org> It's been going on a for a long time, even before AI. The amount of cargo cult programming I've seen over the past ~ 10 years is extremely discouraging. Look up something on Stack Overflow and copy/paste it without understanding it. How much better is that than relying on AI? Not much in my opinion. (Boy, am I glad I retired recently.) Arnold Luther Johnson wrote: > I think when no-one notices anymore, how wrong automatic information is, > and how often, it will have effectively redefined reality, and humans, > who have lost the ability to reason for themselves, will declare that AI > has met and exceeded human intelligence. They will be right, partly > because of AI's improvements, but to a larger extent, because we will > have forgotten how to think. I think AI is having disastrous effects on > the education of younger generations right now, I see it in my > workplace, every day. > > On 05/31/2025 12:31 PM, andrew at humeweb.com wrote: > > generally, i rate norman’s missives very high on the believability scale. > > but in this case, i think he is wrong. > > > > if you take as a baseline, the abilities of LLMs (such as earlier versions of ChatGP?) 2-3 years ago > > was quite suspect. certainly better than mark shaney, but not overwhelmingly. > > > > those days are long past. modern systems are amazingly adept. not necessarily intelligent, > > but they can (but not always) pass realistic tests, pass SAT tests and bar exams, math olympiad tests > > and so on. and people can use them to do basic (but realistic) data analysis including experimental design, > > generate working code, and run that code against synthetic data and produce visual output. > > > > sure, there are often mistakes. the issue of hullucinations is real. but where we are now > > is almost astonishing, and will likely get MUCH better in the next year or three. > > > > end-of-admonishment > > > > andrew > > > >> On May 26, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Norman Wilson wrote: > >> > >> G. Branden Robinson: > >> > >> That's why I think Norman has sussed it out accurately. LLMs are > >> fantastic bullshit generators in the Harry G. Frankfurt sense,[1] > >> wherein utterances are undertaken neither to enlighten nor to deceive, > >> but to construct a simulacrum of plausible discourse. BSing is a close > >> cousin to filibustering, where even plausibility is discarded, often for > >> the sake of running out a clock or impeding achievement of consensus. > >> > >> ==== > >> > >> That's exactly what I had in mind. > >> > >> I think I had read Frankfurt's book before I first started > >> calling LLMs bullshit generators, but I can't remember for > >> sure. I don't plan to ask ChatGPT (which still, at least > >> sometimes, credits me with far greater contributions to Unix > >> than I have actually made). > >> > >> > >> Here's an interesting paper I stumbled across last week > >> which presents the case better than I could: > >> > >> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 > >> > >> To link this back to actual Unix history (or something much > >> nearer that), I realized that `bullshit generator' was a > >> reasonable summary of what LLMs do after also realizing that > >> an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated > >> descendant of Mark V Shaney: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney > >> > >> Norman Wilson > >> Toronto ON > > > From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Sun Jun 1 07:53:07 2025 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 14:53:07 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: <202505312009.54VK97bQ4163488@freefriends.org> References: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> <202505312009.54VK97bQ4163488@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <0adb7694-f99f-dafa-c906-d5502647aaf0@makerlisp.com> I agree. On 05/31/2025 01:09 PM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > It's been going on a for a long time, even before AI. The amount > of cargo cult programming I've seen over the past ~ 10 years > is extremely discouraging. Look up something on Stack Overflow > and copy/paste it without understanding it. How much better is > that than relying on AI? Not much in my opinion. (Boy, am I glad > I retired recently.) > > Arnold > > Luther Johnson wrote: > >> I think when no-one notices anymore, how wrong automatic information is, >> and how often, it will have effectively redefined reality, and humans, >> who have lost the ability to reason for themselves, will declare that AI >> has met and exceeded human intelligence. They will be right, partly >> because of AI's improvements, but to a larger extent, because we will >> have forgotten how to think. I think AI is having disastrous effects on >> the education of younger generations right now, I see it in my >> workplace, every day. >> >> On 05/31/2025 12:31 PM, andrew at humeweb.com wrote: >>> generally, i rate norman’s missives very high on the believability scale. >>> but in this case, i think he is wrong. >>> >>> if you take as a baseline, the abilities of LLMs (such as earlier versions of ChatGP?) 2-3 years ago >>> was quite suspect. certainly better than mark shaney, but not overwhelmingly. >>> >>> those days are long past. modern systems are amazingly adept. not necessarily intelligent, >>> but they can (but not always) pass realistic tests, pass SAT tests and bar exams, math olympiad tests >>> and so on. and people can use them to do basic (but realistic) data analysis including experimental design, >>> generate working code, and run that code against synthetic data and produce visual output. >>> >>> sure, there are often mistakes. the issue of hullucinations is real. but where we are now >>> is almost astonishing, and will likely get MUCH better in the next year or three. >>> >>> end-of-admonishment >>> >>> andrew >>> >>>> On May 26, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Norman Wilson wrote: >>>> >>>> G. Branden Robinson: >>>> >>>> That's why I think Norman has sussed it out accurately. LLMs are >>>> fantastic bullshit generators in the Harry G. Frankfurt sense,[1] >>>> wherein utterances are undertaken neither to enlighten nor to deceive, >>>> but to construct a simulacrum of plausible discourse. BSing is a close >>>> cousin to filibustering, where even plausibility is discarded, often for >>>> the sake of running out a clock or impeding achievement of consensus. >>>> >>>> ==== >>>> >>>> That's exactly what I had in mind. >>>> >>>> I think I had read Frankfurt's book before I first started >>>> calling LLMs bullshit generators, but I can't remember for >>>> sure. I don't plan to ask ChatGPT (which still, at least >>>> sometimes, credits me with far greater contributions to Unix >>>> than I have actually made). >>>> >>>> >>>> Here's an interesting paper I stumbled across last week >>>> which presents the case better than I could: >>>> >>>> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 >>>> >>>> To link this back to actual Unix history (or something much >>>> nearer that), I realized that `bullshit generator' was a >>>> reasonable summary of what LLMs do after also realizing that >>>> an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated >>>> descendant of Mark V Shaney: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney >>>> >>>> Norman Wilson >>>> Toronto ON From audioskeptic at gmail.com Sun Jun 1 08:36:14 2025 From: audioskeptic at gmail.com (James Johnston) Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 15:36:14 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: <0adb7694-f99f-dafa-c906-d5502647aaf0@makerlisp.com> References: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> <202505312009.54VK97bQ4163488@freefriends.org> <0adb7694-f99f-dafa-c906-d5502647aaf0@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: Well, I have to say that my experiences with "AI based search" have been beyond grossly annoying. It keeps trying to "help me" by sliding in common terms it actually knows about instead of READING THE DAMN QUERY. I had much, much better experiences with very literal search methods, and I'd like to go back to that when I'm looking for obscure papers, names, etc. Telling me "you mean" when I damn well DID NOT MEAN THAT is a worst-case experiences. Sorry, not so much a V11 experience here, but I have to say it may serve the public, but only to guide them back into boring, middle-of-the-road, 'average mean-calculating' responses that simply neither enlighten nor serve the original purpose of search. jj - a grumpy old signal processing/hearing guy who used a lot of real operating systems back when and kind of misses them. On Sat, May 31, 2025 at 2:53 PM Luther Johnson wrote: > I agree. > > On 05/31/2025 01:09 PM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > > It's been going on a for a long time, even before AI. The amount > > of cargo cult programming I've seen over the past ~ 10 years > > is extremely discouraging. Look up something on Stack Overflow > > and copy/paste it without understanding it. How much better is > > that than relying on AI? Not much in my opinion. (Boy, am I glad > > I retired recently.) > > > > Arnold > > > > Luther Johnson wrote: > > > >> I think when no-one notices anymore, how wrong automatic information is, > >> and how often, it will have effectively redefined reality, and humans, > >> who have lost the ability to reason for themselves, will declare that AI > >> has met and exceeded human intelligence. They will be right, partly > >> because of AI's improvements, but to a larger extent, because we will > >> have forgotten how to think. I think AI is having disastrous effects on > >> the education of younger generations right now, I see it in my > >> workplace, every day. > >> > >> On 05/31/2025 12:31 PM, andrew at humeweb.com wrote: > >>> generally, i rate norman’s missives very high on the believability > scale. > >>> but in this case, i think he is wrong. > >>> > >>> if you take as a baseline, the abilities of LLMs (such as earlier > versions of ChatGP?) 2-3 years ago > >>> was quite suspect. certainly better than mark shaney, but not > overwhelmingly. > >>> > >>> those days are long past. modern systems are amazingly adept. not > necessarily intelligent, > >>> but they can (but not always) pass realistic tests, pass SAT tests and > bar exams, math olympiad tests > >>> and so on. and people can use them to do basic (but realistic) data > analysis including experimental design, > >>> generate working code, and run that code against synthetic data and > produce visual output. > >>> > >>> sure, there are often mistakes. the issue of hullucinations is real. > but where we are now > >>> is almost astonishing, and will likely get MUCH better in the next > year or three. > >>> > >>> end-of-admonishment > >>> > >>> andrew > >>> > >>>> On May 26, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Norman Wilson wrote: > >>>> > >>>> G. Branden Robinson: > >>>> > >>>> That's why I think Norman has sussed it out accurately. LLMs are > >>>> fantastic bullshit generators in the Harry G. Frankfurt sense,[1] > >>>> wherein utterances are undertaken neither to enlighten nor to > deceive, > >>>> but to construct a simulacrum of plausible discourse. BSing is a > close > >>>> cousin to filibustering, where even plausibility is discarded, > often for > >>>> the sake of running out a clock or impeding achievement of > consensus. > >>>> > >>>> ==== > >>>> > >>>> That's exactly what I had in mind. > >>>> > >>>> I think I had read Frankfurt's book before I first started > >>>> calling LLMs bullshit generators, but I can't remember for > >>>> sure. I don't plan to ask ChatGPT (which still, at least > >>>> sometimes, credits me with far greater contributions to Unix > >>>> than I have actually made). > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Here's an interesting paper I stumbled across last week > >>>> which presents the case better than I could: > >>>> > >>>> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 > >>>> > >>>> To link this back to actual Unix history (or something much > >>>> nearer that), I realized that `bullshit generator' was a > >>>> reasonable summary of what LLMs do after also realizing that > >>>> an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated > >>>> descendant of Mark V Shaney: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney > >>>> > >>>> Norman Wilson > >>>> Toronto ON > > -- James D. (jj) Johnston Former Chief Scientist, Immersion Networks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From als at thangorodrim.ch Sun Jun 1 08:30:08 2025 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2025 00:30:08 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> References: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: On Sat, May 31, 2025 at 12:46:16PM -0700, Luther Johnson wrote: > I think when no-one notices anymore, how wrong automatic information is, and > how often, it will have effectively redefined reality, and humans, who have > lost the ability to reason for themselves, will declare that AI has met and > exceeded human intelligence. They will be right, partly because of AI's > improvements, but to a larger extent, because we will have forgotten how to > think. I think AI is having disastrous effects on the education of younger > generations right now, I see it in my workplace, every day. There are quite a few reports from both teachers and university lecturers that draw a pretty grim picture with two bad developments: - a significant fraction of students use LLMs to cheat their way through school and university, which means they'll never really learn how to learn, acquire knowledge and actually understand things, leaving them dependent on LLM support - this is reported to range from students who just straight up use it as a shortcut to those who feel at a severe disadvantage if they don't follow suit - additionally, social media and short format videos appear to have done an impressive job of ruining attention span and the ability to handle a lack of constant stimulation, making it very hard for teachers to even reach their students We'll have to see how that plays out once these kids and young adults approach "educated workforce" age, but I'm not very optimistic for them. But we also see the opposing trend of parents who do understand the technology (and its potential impacts on young, forming minds) trying to carefully restrict their childrens exposure to these things in order to both limit the damage to them and thus give them better chances in their future. Additionally, some of the smarter young adults seem to be realizing what this does to their age group and are essentially going "I won't let my brain get fried by this and will keep a careful distance" - I have hope for them. We're running some very large scale uncontrolled experiments on still forming minds here with the long term consequences being at best hard to predict and the short term consequences not looking pretty already. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From luther.johnson at makerlisp.com Sun Jun 1 08:47:49 2025 From: luther.johnson at makerlisp.com (Luther Johnson) Date: Sat, 31 May 2025 15:47:49 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] On the unreliability of LLM-based search results (was: Listing of early Unix source code from the Computer History Museum) In-Reply-To: References: <3e4339e9-bf9a-2b72-b47a-f20f81a153b5@makerlisp.com> <202505312009.54VK97bQ4163488@freefriends.org> <0adb7694-f99f-dafa-c906-d5502647aaf0@makerlisp.com> Message-ID: <5aa768ae-8853-f0da-9780-53ca4e9d486f@makerlisp.com> I think we could call many of these responses "mis-ambiguation", or conflation, they mush everything together as long as the questions posed and the answers they provide are "buzzword-adjacent", in a very superficial, mechanical way. There's no intelligence here, it's just amazing how much we project onto these bots because we want to believe in them. On 05/31/2025 03:36 PM, James Johnston wrote: > Well, I have to say that my experiences with "AI based search" have > been beyond grossly annoying. It keeps trying to "help me" by sliding > in common terms it actually knows about instead of READING THE DAMN QUERY. > > I had much, much better experiences with very literal search methods, > and I'd like to go back to that when I'm looking for obscure papers, > names, etc. Telling me "you mean" when I damn well DID NOT MEAN THAT > is a worst-case experiences. > > Sorry, not so much a V11 experience here, but I have to say it may > serve the public, but only to guide them back into boring, > middle-of-the-road, 'average mean-calculating' responses that simply > neither enlighten nor serve the original purpose of search. > > jj - a grumpy old signal processing/hearing guy who used a lot of real > operating systems back when and kind of misses them. > > On Sat, May 31, 2025 at 2:53 PM Luther Johnson > > > wrote: > > I agree. > > On 05/31/2025 01:09 PM, arnold at skeeve.com > wrote: > > It's been going on a for a long time, even before AI. The amount > > of cargo cult programming I've seen over the past ~ 10 years > > is extremely discouraging. Look up something on Stack Overflow > > and copy/paste it without understanding it. How much better is > > that than relying on AI? Not much in my opinion. (Boy, am I glad > > I retired recently.) > > > > Arnold > > > > Luther Johnson > wrote: > > > >> I think when no-one notices anymore, how wrong automatic > information is, > >> and how often, it will have effectively redefined reality, and > humans, > >> who have lost the ability to reason for themselves, will > declare that AI > >> has met and exceeded human intelligence. They will be right, partly > >> because of AI's improvements, but to a larger extent, because > we will > >> have forgotten how to think. I think AI is having disastrous > effects on > >> the education of younger generations right now, I see it in my > >> workplace, every day. > >> > >> On 05/31/2025 12:31 PM, andrew at humeweb.com > wrote: > >>> generally, i rate norman’s missives very high on the > believability scale. > >>> but in this case, i think he is wrong. > >>> > >>> if you take as a baseline, the abilities of LLMs (such as > earlier versions of ChatGP?) 2-3 years ago > >>> was quite suspect. certainly better than mark shaney, but not > overwhelmingly. > >>> > >>> those days are long past. modern systems are amazingly adept. > not necessarily intelligent, > >>> but they can (but not always) pass realistic tests, pass SAT > tests and bar exams, math olympiad tests > >>> and so on. and people can use them to do basic (but realistic) > data analysis including experimental design, > >>> generate working code, and run that code against synthetic > data and produce visual output. > >>> > >>> sure, there are often mistakes. the issue of hullucinations is > real. but where we are now > >>> is almost astonishing, and will likely get MUCH better in the > next year or three. > >>> > >>> end-of-admonishment > >>> > >>> andrew > >>> > >>>> On May 26, 2025, at 9:40 AM, Norman Wilson > wrote: > >>>> > >>>> G. Branden Robinson: > >>>> > >>>> That's why I think Norman has sussed it out accurately. > LLMs are > >>>> fantastic bullshit generators in the Harry G. Frankfurt > sense,[1] > >>>> wherein utterances are undertaken neither to enlighten nor > to deceive, > >>>> but to construct a simulacrum of plausible discourse. > BSing is a close > >>>> cousin to filibustering, where even plausibility is > discarded, often for > >>>> the sake of running out a clock or impeding achievement of > consensus. > >>>> > >>>> ==== > >>>> > >>>> That's exactly what I had in mind. > >>>> > >>>> I think I had read Frankfurt's book before I first started > >>>> calling LLMs bullshit generators, but I can't remember for > >>>> sure. I don't plan to ask ChatGPT (which still, at least > >>>> sometimes, credits me with far greater contributions to Unix > >>>> than I have actually made). > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> Here's an interesting paper I stumbled across last week > >>>> which presents the case better than I could: > >>>> > >>>> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5 > >>>> > >>>> To link this back to actual Unix history (or something much > >>>> nearer that), I realized that `bullshit generator' was a > >>>> reasonable summary of what LLMs do after also realizing that > >>>> an LLM is pretty much just a much-fancier and better-automated > >>>> descendant of Mark V Shaney: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_V._Shaney > >>>> > >>>> Norman Wilson > >>>> Toronto ON > > > > -- > James D. (jj) Johnston > > Former Chief Scientist, Immersion Networks -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Jun 1 09:29:59 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2025 09:29:59 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] No Further LLM messages on TUHS Message-ID: All, the LLM conversation is no longer Unix-related. Please take it to COFF if you wish to continue it. Thanks, Warren From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Jun 7 04:09:57 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:09:57 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? Message-ID: As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? - Matt G. From imp at bsdimp.com Sat Jun 7 04:29:54 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 12:29:54 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 6, 2025, 12:10 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation > with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of > historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 > manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among > your UNIX-y possessions? > My AIX yoyo. And a bootleg copy of lions. Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ron at ronnatalie.com Sat Jun 7 04:33:55 2025 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 14:33:55 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <191C7909-9BEF-4ACF-9122-DDDF92DB9844@ronnatalie.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Jun 7 04:37:29 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:37:29 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I don't know if it counts but my ninth printing of the first edition of 𝘋𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘕𝘐𝘟 𝘚𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 - 𝘝𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘐𝘐 - 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱, 𝘮𝘷, 𝘮𝘴 & 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘧 is a favorite as it makes me remember being young and wanting to learn more about computers and is still useful today. It's a hardback copy with a very slightly damaged spine but that aside, looks almost new. As an art & design guy, I love the AT&T logo of the time which appears twice in the first few printed pages. It still has a McGraw Hill bookstore price sticker for $31.95 on the back cover. I love it anyway! Cameron Tyre -------- Original Message -------- On 06/06/2025 19:10, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. > From drb at msu.edu Sat Jun 7 04:45:21 2025 From: drb at msu.edu (Dennis Boone) Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2025 14:45:21 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: (Your message of Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:37:29 -0000.) References: Message-ID: <20250606184521.E38D74EC9ED@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> > I don't know if it counts but my ninth printing of the first edition > of 𝘋𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘕𝘐𝘟 𝘚𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 - 𝘝𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘐𝘐 > - 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱, 𝘮𝘷, 𝘮𝘴 & 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘧 is a favorite as it makes me remember being > young and wanting to learn more about computers and is still useful > today. Is carefully typing the title in characters from the \u10000 moby of unicode the 21st century equivalent of rot-13 encoding the spoilers? :) De From sauer at technologists.com Sat Jun 7 04:45:44 2025 From: sauer at technologists.com (Charles H Sauer (he/him)) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 13:45:44 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <191C7909-9BEF-4ACF-9122-DDDF92DB9844@ronnatalie.com> References: <191C7909-9BEF-4ACF-9122-DDDF92DB9844@ronnatalie.com> Message-ID: It seems I should have an AIX yoyo, but I don't think I do. In any case, my answer is the commemorative plated Mike Tilson gave me -- hangs prominently on my wall: https://technologists.com/photos/1987/fullsize/1987ThompsonRitchie.jpg On 6/6/2025 1:33 PM, Ron Natalie wrote: > Dec unix plate.  My “Ron of Unix” button.   The name plate from the > Denelcor HEP supercomputer I designed the io system for and ported much > of 4bsd to. > > >> On Jun 6, 2025, at 14:30, Warner Losh wrote: >> >>  >> >> >> On Fri, Jun 6, 2025, 12:10 PM segaloco via TUHS > > wrote: >> >> As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation >> situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty >> appreciable library of historic works.  Among my most treasured >> bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the >> Lions's Commentary. >> >> What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to >> have among your UNIX-y possessions? >> >> >> My AIX yoyo. And a bootleg copy of lions. >> >> Warner >> -- 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 johnl at taugh.com Sat Jun 7 05:22:43 2025 From: johnl at taugh.com (John Levine) Date: 6 Jun 2025 12:22:43 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20250606192243.E134ACD33A76@ary.local> It appears that segaloco via TUHS said: >What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? The license plate A photo of a UNIX brand fire extinguisher. A first edition of "UNIX for Dummies" (no surprise there) R's, John From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Jun 7 05:47:30 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Pete Wright via TUHS) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 12:47:30 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <20250606192243.E134ACD33A76@ary.local> References: <20250606192243.E134ACD33A76@ary.local> Message-ID: <6e175ab4-bf0a-4356-a926-8b10a2a8fe1e@nomadlogic.org> On 6/6/25 12:22, John Levine wrote: > It appears that segaloco via TUHS said: >> What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > The license plate > > A photo of a UNIX brand fire extinguisher. > > A first edition of "UNIX for Dummies" (no surprise there) > A print of a draft of The Complete FreeBSD 4th ed. signed by Greg Lehey. Still sitting in its original manila envelope by my desk. A friend (thanks .ike!) got it and gifted it to me when I ended up in the hospital the night before I was supposed to attend BSDCan '05 and couldn't attend. Lots of sentimental value for me in that one for me. -pete -- Pete Wright pete at nomadlogic.org From frew at ucsb.edu Sat Jun 7 07:01:02 2025 From: frew at ucsb.edu (James Frew) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 14:01:02 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Most prized would definitely be what I *think* are "original" copies of the Lions books. I say "think" because they were given to me by John Bruno, who I know did time at Murray Hill before he came to UCSB. (Any OGs on this list remember him?) The source code has a pink cover and the notes has a gold one. Provenance aside, they're special to me since that's the first deep dive I ever took into an operating system. Something like 90% of the lines in the source volume have my handwritten notes, documenting a herculean attempt to Think Like Ken™ Many of my second-tier U-keepsakes got fobbed off on you lot* when I cleared out my office a few years back. Still have the license plate and the RTFM wooden coin... Cheers, /Frew *Apologies to those of you who gave me non-US addresses: shipping stuff internationally was just too painful and $$$. On 2025-06-06 11:09 AM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? From dds at aueb.gr Sat Jun 7 08:07:03 2025 From: dds at aueb.gr (Diomidis Spinellis) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 01:07:03 +0300 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <39edeb0c-ed78-409b-837e-27857480a3aa@aueb.gr> For me the two-volume book "UNIX System Readings and Applications", published by Prentice Hall in 1987 and 1988, which are reprints of the two Unix special issues of the The Bell System Technical Journal: - Vol. 57, No. 6, July-August 1978 (ISBN 0-13-939845-7), - Vol. 63, No. 8, October 1984 (ISBN 0-13-939845-7). They contain seminal papers describing Unix and its tools. Diomidis - https://www.spinellis.gr/ On 06-Jun-25 21:09, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. From pugs78 at gmail.com Sat Jun 7 11:02:54 2025 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2025 18:02:54 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I made an album with pictures of my prized possessions: https://photos.app.goo.gl/HLFW389a7AsxwYna9 On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 11:16 AM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation > with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of > historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 > manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among > your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave at horsfall.org Sat Jun 7 07:21:20 2025 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 07:21:20 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, 6 Jun 2025, segaloco via TUHS wrote: [...] > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have > among your UNIX-y possessions? At one time, the original Lions books and a UNIX plate (all sadly lost during a house move). Oh, and "the" BSTJ and CACM issues, and the UNSW manuals (e.g. "Unix Documention" [sic]), also lost. -- Dave From brantley at coraid.com Sat Jun 7 19:45:49 2025 From: brantley at coraid.com (Brantley Coile) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 09:45:49 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My tattered, original, blue BSTJ from 1978, the first UNIX issue would me my prized UNIX artifact. I got it in 1980. The day after it arrived my wife and father-in-law went to some fancy shopping places in Atlanta as a treat, but I sat in the car reading the issue. I remember reading Ken's paper on how Unix worked internally and not understanding a thing. A few years later, after things like our Kernel Club, a meeting every Wednesday night of a few friends where we would read and discuss sections of the Seventh Edition source, I re-read the article and thought ti was clarity itself. Something the text doesn't change but we do. I read it so much it fell apart. It now lives in a ring binder, its pages have been punched. I've not stopped using Brantley Coile > On Jun 6, 2025, at 2:09 PM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sat Jun 7 20:08:35 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Johan Helsingius via TUHS) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 12:08:35 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The BSTJ, of course, bunch of early editions of the classic UNIX and C books, a signed copy of "UNIX I Kako Ga Koristiti" by Mario Zagar from the Yugoslavian UNIX user group meeting in 1990, a floppy disk with a very early version of Plan 9, and somewhere in a box a bunch of stuff from the first Soviet UNIX Conference, as well as the European UNIX User Group meeting that was held on a cruise boat between Helsinki and Stockholm because the Swedish and Finnish user groups couldn't agree on who should host it. :) I might also have some stuff left from the time Linus Torvalds and I stayed at the Murray Hill Inn when visiting the labs. Julf From als at thangorodrim.ch Sun Jun 8 01:24:54 2025 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 17:24:54 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <20250606184521.E38D74EC9ED@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> References: <20250606184521.E38D74EC9ED@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 06, 2025 at 02:45:21PM -0400, Dennis Boone wrote: > > I don't know if it counts but my ninth printing of the first edition > > of 𝘋𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘜𝘕𝘐𝘟 𝘚𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 - 𝘝𝘰𝘭𝘶𝘮𝘦 𝘐𝘐 > > - 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘱, 𝘮𝘷, 𝘮𝘴 & 𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘧 is a favorite as it makes me remember being > > young and wanting to learn more about computers and is still useful > > today. > > Is carefully typing the title in characters from the \u10000 moby of > unicode the 21st century equivalent of rot-13 encoding the spoilers? :) If so, then it only hides from those with bad font setups in their terminals (or email clients for those preferring fancy GUI ones). Perfectly readable here with mutt inside xterm. ;-) Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Jun 8 02:37:57 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2025 16:37:57 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <20250606184521.E38D74EC9ED@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> Message-ID: <_3POobNbfa031iTQy86XmDp9U3edWcDDMLrpzbGT57RkXbKnphZC71Fox_pQXCfa50z1wyjTIiC4yCqN4gDi183A3ICi9TCpA5jteVF3U1I=@protonmail.ch> My apologies to anyone who received gobbledygook in my original message. It was only after I replied to Dennis, off group and thinking he somehow knew my "italics" weren't really italics, that I looked up the u10000 block, saw ancient runes and realized my shortcut had gone awry. Full disclosure, I had ignored my teacher's advice from computing class 40 years ago, that ASCII 0x20 through 0x7E is mostly adequate, and pasted the book title into LingoJam's italics generator webpage and then pasted their italicized output into my email without considering how that worked even though I know. For those who got the unintended gobbledygook, the book title was "Document formatting and typesetting on the UNIX system. Vol. 2: grap, mv, ms, & troff" by Narain Gehani and Steven Lally. Best wishes to all, Cameron Tyre -------- Original Message -------- On 07/06/2025 16:30, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > > > > Is carefully typing the title in characters from the \u10000 moby of > > unicode the 21st century equivalent of rot-13 encoding the spoilers? :) > > If so, then it only hides from those with bad font setups in their > terminals (or email clients for those preferring fancy GUI ones). > > Perfectly readable here with mutt inside xterm. ;-) > > Kind regards, > Alex. > -- > "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and > looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison > From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Jun 8 03:04:59 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Bakul Shah via TUHS) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 10:04:59 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <6e175ab4-bf0a-4356-a926-8b10a2a8fe1e@nomadlogic.org> References: <6e175ab4-bf0a-4356-a926-8b10a2a8fe1e@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: <4C32AA83-41B5-4052-A102-6E90ED8A52F5@iitbombay.org> Just this week I passed on my late friend Rob Warnock’s first edition copy of “The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD” book to a FreeBSD user who was very happy to discover it was signed by Leffler & McKusick! [I need to make an online list of all the tech books I want to give away….] > On Jun 7, 2025, at 12:14 AM, Pete Wright via TUHS wrote: > >  > >> On 6/6/25 12:22, John Levine wrote: >> It appears that segaloco via TUHS said: >>> What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? >> The license plate >> A photo of a UNIX brand fire extinguisher. >> A first edition of "UNIX for Dummies" (no surprise there) > > A print of a draft of The Complete FreeBSD 4th ed. signed by Greg Lehey. Still sitting in its original manila envelope by my desk. > > A friend (thanks .ike!) got it and gifted it to me when I ended up in the hospital the night before I was supposed to attend BSDCan '05 and couldn't attend. Lots of sentimental value for me in that one for me. > > -pete > > -- > Pete Wright > pete at nomadlogic.org > From aki at insinga.com Sun Jun 8 04:06:40 2025 From: aki at insinga.com (Aron Insinga) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 14:06:40 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <_3POobNbfa031iTQy86XmDp9U3edWcDDMLrpzbGT57RkXbKnphZC71Fox_pQXCfa50z1wyjTIiC4yCqN4gDi183A3ICi9TCpA5jteVF3U1I=@protonmail.ch> References: <20250606184521.E38D74EC9ED@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <_3POobNbfa031iTQy86XmDp9U3edWcDDMLrpzbGT57RkXbKnphZC71Fox_pQXCfa50z1wyjTIiC4yCqN4gDi183A3ICi9TCpA5jteVF3U1I=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: <48741686-2174-4c60-bc8d-c84f09986ba8@insinga.com> Somewhere here I have a PDP-11 Unix-format DECtape.  The contents probably aren't interesting (compiler & macro assembler from college, IIRC) but the format may be.  :-) Anybody know offhand what the last release was before stdio? Thanks. - Aron Insinga From clemc at ccc.com Sun Jun 8 04:34:44 2025 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2025 14:34:44 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <48741686-2174-4c60-bc8d-c84f09986ba8@insinga.com> References: <20250606184521.E38D74EC9ED@yagi.h-net.msu.edu> <_3POobNbfa031iTQy86XmDp9U3edWcDDMLrpzbGT57RkXbKnphZC71Fox_pQXCfa50z1wyjTIiC4yCqN4gDi183A3ICi9TCpA5jteVF3U1I=@protonmail.ch> <48741686-2174-4c60-bc8d-c84f09986ba8@insinga.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 7, 2025 at 2:07 PM Aron Insinga wrote: > > Anybody know offhand what the last release was before stdio? Thanks. > The C compiler in the Sixth Edition predates K&R1 and the stdio library. The Portable I/O Library existed as is included with V6, but not all program use it. "Typesetter C" was released concurrently with the with updated troff typesetter support and was required to compile it. It supplied libS.a as described in K&R1 and compiled on Sixth Edition, although I believe was included in PWB 1.0. By the Seveneth edition, libS.a was removed all its routine were included in libc.a. If you look in the sources in the TUHS archives, you can see the progression. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From erik at ono-sendai.com Sun Jun 8 05:29:55 2025 From: erik at ono-sendai.com (Erik Berls) Date: Sat, 07 Jun 2025 12:29:55 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <41C8E890-5464-4C18-B21D-C283671F064E@ono-sendai.com> Despite many rounds of cleanup, and one pretty big fire, I still have and cherish [at least one of] my “Mentally Contaminated” pins. I may have some books that were elsewhere at the time of the fire, but it’s down to the pin. Of the stuff I lost, I’m missing the two NeXT Cubes the most. :( -=erik. On 6 Jun 2025, at 11:09, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation > with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of > historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 > manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have > among your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Jun 8 10:00:57 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Richard Tobin via TUHS) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2025 00:00:57 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9713DC3F-E6CE-49E4-BF57-EC30966927F6@inf.ed.ac.uk> I have several BSD t-shirts, the first of which I bought from Kirk McKusick at, I think, the 1990 London UKUUG conference. Unfortunately it is no longer compatible with my hardware. -- Richard > On 6 Jun 2025, at 19:09, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. Is e buidheann carthannais a th’ ann an Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann, clàraichte an Alba, àireamh clàraidh SC005336. From arnold at skeeve.com Sun Jun 8 18:45:59 2025 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2025 02:45:59 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202506080845.5588jxae274815@freefriends.org> Segaloco via TUHS wrote: > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have > among your UNIX-y possessions? Gosh, where to start? Both Unix issues of the Bell System Technical Journal, in pretty good shape. Real Bell Labs V8 and V9 manuals, and the published V10 manuals. A first generation photocopy of the USG UNIX 4.0 documents (which Segaloco scanned a while back) with a UNIX 3.0 reference manual. The published version (manuals, CD, floppy) of Plan 9, 3rd edition. First edition awk book signed by all three authors. Both editions of the C book, signed by both authors. All other books by BWK autographed by him. Jon Bentley's books, autographed by him. Rob Pike's signature on one or both of the books he coauthored with BWK. The Design of 4.3 BSD book signed by the authors. A "Sex, Drugs, and UNIX" button, but not the very first one, I think. The PDP-11 with the daemons on it T-shirt, from I think the USENIX 25th anniversary conference. I sent BWK the "UNIX" pens some years go which show up in his memoir about Unix. I didn't keep any for myself. Oh well. That's from memory, I'd have to go browsing the bookshelves in my basement and my closet for more... :-) Arnold From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Jun 9 02:43:00 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Rich Jensen via TUHS) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2025 11:43:00 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <202506080845.5588jxae274815@freefriends.org> References: , <202506080845.5588jxae274815@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <3BEF4D5C-9CDB-8F4A-80DB-ADDCE48CD526@hxcore.ol> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From joseph at josephholsten.com Mon Jun 9 03:44:21 2025 From: joseph at josephholsten.com (Joseph Holsten) Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2025 10:44:21 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) Message-ID: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> A TikTok user was asking the history of the touch(1) command: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjgSMyAQ/ Unix history repo let me find the first occurrence in V7: https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V7-Snapshot-Development/usr/src/cmd/touch.c But looking at ls source in V6, it’s clear that stat(2) had st_mtime so touch would have been useful earlier. I notice make was added at the same time, which cares significantly about mtime. Was that the impetus? (Also, wow just writing a single char! Compared to present day impls which give fine grained control to modify mtime & atime, the original seems both indirect for the purpose and delightfully literal.) -- Joseph Holsten http://josephholsten.com mailto:joseph at josephholsten.com tel:+1-360-927-7234 From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Jun 9 05:08:39 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Scot Jenkins via TUHS) Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2025 15:08:39 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202506081908.558J8d1S017774@sdf.org> segaloco via TUHS wrote: > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? The C Programmer's Handbook AT&T Bell Laboratories, February 1984 spiral bound with yellow card stock covers No ISBN printed on the book itself. My copy is older than the one shown here: https://isbnsearch.org/isbn/0131100734 I managed to get a "like new" copy about 15 years ago off half.com in excellent condition. Aside from being pre-ANSI C, the book still does a great job describing the language and the standard library. It is also one of the few books I've found that includes both the control character name and description in the included ASCII table. scot From clemc at ccc.com Mon Jun 9 05:33:39 2025 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2025 15:33:39 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> Message-ID: Stu Feldman developed make(1) and touch(1), which were tools that came with it. This work was initiated on Research Sixth Edition, which was evolving into something that, as a kernel, was sometimes referred to as UNIX/TS. As to when Stu started using the TS kernel over the early V6 kernel, that has been lost to time. The same applies to the compiler. He might have started using an earlier C compiler that linked with libS.a before stdio was fully integrated into libc.a as it would later be. But I'm sure it was by the time his work was complete. Remember, there were no formal names. As the Research team and the Summit (USG) teams worked together and shared changes, differences were identified, such as in the kernels and specific tools. The *release vehicle* for the final kernel from Ken and the tools to folks *outside of the labs* was what we call the, which generally predate PWB 2.0 by a small amount. Remember rleeease internally were tad more fluid (like git clone but without a release guid). Also the tools like make/touch were also included in the PWB via the Summit releases. Stu's paper is included in the Seventh edition documentation, although it came from Research not Summit. On Sun, Jun 8, 2025 at 1:44 PM Joseph Holsten wrote: > A TikTok user was asking the history of the touch(1) command: > https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTjgSMyAQ/ > > Unix history repo let me find the first occurrence in V7: > https://github.com/dspinellis/unix-history-repo/blob/Research-V7-Snapshot-Development/usr/src/cmd/touch.c > > But looking at ls source in V6, it’s clear that stat(2) had st_mtime so > touch would have been useful earlier. I notice make was added at the same > time, which cares significantly about mtime. Was that the impetus? > > (Also, wow just writing a single char! Compared to present day impls which > give fine grained control to modify mtime & atime, the original seems both > indirect for the purpose and delightfully literal.) > > -- > Joseph Holsten > http://josephholsten.com > mailto:joseph at josephholsten.com > tel:+1-360-927-7234 > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu Mon Jun 9 08:54:56 2025 From: douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu (Douglas McIlroy) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2025 18:54:56 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? Message-ID: A complete set of manuals,v1-v10. The 8-volume History of Engineering and Science in the Bell System--not really a Unix artifact but an impressive memento of the Bell Labs experience. Unix rates several pages in it. A mock license plate, generously given to me by Jon Hall. A polyomino puzzle that I solved with the help of Gerard Halzmann's Spin model-checker. The opportunity for such an "abuse of tools" illuminates Unix and CSRC as a productive meeting place for disparate disciplines, occupations, and pastimes. Doug From norman at oclsc.org Mon Jun 9 11:30:58 2025 From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2025 21:30:58 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? Message-ID: I have a number of old Unix artifacts that I value. If I had to pick one (or one set) top one, it would be the complete set of Research Unix manuals, 1/e through 10/e. Other contenders include the AT&T-branded copy of the Lions commentary (with deathstar on the cover), a signed copy of The Unix Programming Environment, several unix-branded plastic containers (not to do with the OS, but bought from a Korean supermarket a few blocks from where I've lived for 30 years), and a plastic-slide Spin Out puzzle from Binary Arts (later ThinkFun but not part of IBM), an educational puzzle/game company founded in the 1980s by Bill Ritchie (Dennis's brother) and his wife Andrea Barthello. (I remember a prototype Spin Out, hand-made of wood, spending some time in the Unix Room.) But far more than any of that, I prize the memories and friendships I've had with fellow Unix people over the decades, particularly (but not exclusively) from my six years as sysadmin-hack in 1127. I'm very disappointed that I won't be at the last-ever USENIX Technical Conference in Boston in a few weeks. A show-and-tell there of prized artifacts sounds like a great idea. I hope those who do make it bring plenty of artifacts and memories to share. Norman Wilson Toronto ON From grog at lemis.com Mon Jun 9 12:02:54 2025 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 12:02:54 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Friday, 6 June 2025 at 18:09:57 +0000, The UNIX Heritage Society wrote: > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have > among your UNIX-y possessions? It's interesting to read the other replies. Let's see: - UNIX registration plate. Yes, one of the very last, with COMPAQ written on it. I picked it up at the USENIX ATC in Boston, 2001. - Lions Commentary. Yes, I got a copy of it some time round 1990, and sadly lost it again. But then Warren Toomey posted the TeX sources of a scanned version on alt.foklore.computers in May 1994, and I formatted them put them up on the web at http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/, where they're still accessible. - Lots of other books. Where do I start? I have two bookshelves full of books, but none that I'd consider "most prized". I have two copies of "The Magic Garden Explained" by Berny Goodheart (who didn't sign his copy) and James Cox (who did). This book is interesting because it grew out of the environment in which I had worked at Tandem Computers. - What I *do* have and "prize" is mainly hardware. To the right of my desktop I have, in increasing order of rarity, a microVAX that I think runs some version of Unix, a Control Data Cyber 910 that ran Irix 5.2 and a Tandem LXN (based on a Motorola 68020) that ran System V.2. I think the LXN might be the only one that still exists. Its name was solo (only 1 CPU) in contrast with our "real" Unix box, a Tandem Integrity S2 which had 3 lock-step processors and was thus called trio. The Magic Garden contains a reference *somewhere* to a machine called quattro, for reason that evade me, but were clearly intended to fit into this naming scheme. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available URL: From grog at lemis.com Mon Jun 9 12:15:52 2025 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 12:15:52 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <6e175ab4-bf0a-4356-a926-8b10a2a8fe1e@nomadlogic.org> References: <20250606192243.E134ACD33A76@ary.local> <6e175ab4-bf0a-4356-a926-8b10a2a8fe1e@nomadlogic.org> Message-ID: On Friday, 6 June 2025 at 12:47:30 -0700, The UNIX Heritage Society wrote: > > On 6/6/25 12:22, John Levine wrote: >> It appears that segaloco via TUHS said: >>> What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? >> >> The license plate >> >> A photo of a UNIX brand fire extinguisher. >> >> A first edition of "UNIX for Dummies" (no surprise there) > > A print of a draft of The Complete FreeBSD 4th ed. signed by Greg > Lehey. I'm honoured. > Still sitting in its original manila envelope by my desk. Somehow this reminds me of another case, not really Unix-related: I was (maybe still am) known for my long beard. In fact I trimmed it greatly over 20 years ago, in March 2004, and I put the cuttings up for sale on eBay, where they sold for $5.50. It was bought by Chris Yeoh of IBM Ozlabs. I had written "While the item is in clean condition and free of obvious parasites, it has not been sterilized", and for some reason Chris never opened the package. Instead it was pinned to the pinboard at Ozlabs. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Jun 9 17:30:18 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:30:18 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jun 06, 2025 at 06:09:57PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? Mine is the wonderful and amazing collection of people who have chosen to join the TUHS mailing list, and the contributions they have made over the past thirty years. Sincerely, thanks to all of you! Cheers, Warren From henry at henare.com Tue Jun 10 01:03:41 2025 From: henry at henare.com (Henry Mensch) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 11:03:41 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <202506080845.5588jxae274815@freefriends.org> References: <202506080845.5588jxae274815@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <1FE5FC83-161D-420D-B808-528D0B23FB22@henare.com> On 8 Jun 2025, at 4:45, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > Segaloco via TUHS wrote: > >> What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have >> among your UNIX-y possessions? > > The PDP-11 with the daemons on it T-shirt, from I think the USENIX 25th > anniversary conference. I had that shirt and mistakenly left it in a hotel room in Caracas. Somewhere in Venezuela it may live on in a thrift shop somewhere. — Henry From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 01:46:46 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 15:46:46 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello Warren and everyone, Your post is an appropriate time for me to say that, despite me still being in diapers when development started in 1969 and despite me eventually choosing a paying job that initially had no exposure to computers in general or UNIX in particular, through an unplanned series of events starting late last year I have drifted sideways into the world of UNIX and then I found this mailing list and that cemented what might have just been a passing phase into a fascination, a growing collection of books and a growing appreciation for things I never previously knew existed such as troff and the Single UNIX Specification. Thank you for letting me join this list and allowing me to learn something new every day. Best wishes to all, Cameron Tyre On Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 8:30 AM, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 06, 2025 at 06:09:57PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > > Mine is the wonderful and amazing collection of people who have chosen > to join the TUHS mailing list, and the contributions they have made over > the past thirty years. > > Sincerely, thanks to all of you! > > Cheers, Warren From arnold at skeeve.com Tue Jun 10 02:11:20 2025 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 10:11:20 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> Welcome to the fold! If you can find a copy of "Unix In A Nutshell, 4th Edition", there is a bibliography of classic Unix books in the back. You might want to try to track down some of those volumes. Some are still in print, some are not. Arnold Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS wrote: > Hello Warren and everyone, > > Your post is an appropriate time for me to say that, despite me > still being in diapers when development started in 1969 and despite > me eventually choosing a paying job that initially had no exposure to > computers in general or UNIX in particular, through an unplanned series > of events starting late last year I have drifted sideways into the world > of UNIX and then I found this mailing list and that cemented what might > have just been a passing phase into a fascination, a growing collection > of books and a growing appreciation for things I never previously knew > existed such as troff and the Single UNIX Specification. Thank you > for letting me join this list and allowing me to learn something new > every day. > > Best wishes to all, > > Cameron Tyre > > > On Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 8:30 AM, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > > > > > > > On Fri, Jun 06, 2025 at 06:09:57PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > > > > > Mine is the wonderful and amazing collection of people who have chosen > > to join the TUHS mailing list, and the contributions they have made over > > the past thirty years. > > > > Sincerely, thanks to all of you! > > > > Cheers, Warren From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 03:21:20 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:21:20 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? Message-ID: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Hello TUHS people! Someone recently posted a question about your prized UNIX artifacts to this list, that discussion [1] seems to be about various memorabilia. What about computers made to run UNIX? Do you have or used to any interesting historical hardware? For my part, I have only used UNIX on emulated systems so far but would like to purchase some hardware. Given that I have little space it would need to be something small. According to you how does one get into that specific type of retro computing? See you around cyberspace, Vicente vicente at collares.ca [1] https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2025-June/032020.html From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 03:25:30 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (=?utf-8?q?Cameron_M=C3=AD=C4=8Be=C3=A1l_Tyre_via_TUHS?=) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 17:25:30 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Hello Arnold, Thank you for the welcome and thank you for the tip-off about the book. I just grabbed a copy on eBay. Cameron On Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 5:11 PM, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > > > Welcome to the fold! > > If you can find a copy of "Unix In A Nutshell, 4th Edition", there is > a bibliography of classic Unix books in the back. You might want > to try to track down some of those volumes. Some are still in print, > some are not. > > Arnold > From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 03:45:37 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:45:37 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 13:29, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Hello TUHS people! > > For my part, I have only used UNIX on emulated systems so far but would > like to purchase some hardware. Given that I have little space it would > need to be something small. According to you how does one get into that > specific type of retro computing? How retro, and how little space? Is a pizza box form factor Sun workstation like, say, a SPARCstation 1 or 2 too new, or too big? -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From adam at koszek.com Tue Jun 10 03:57:05 2025 From: adam at koszek.com (Adam Koszek) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 10:57:05 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from Message-ID: Hi, I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect. Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their earliest instances? Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through some old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated interactions existed before Vi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen Some terminals with block display: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270 ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may have had TUIs before. Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design. Thanks, Adam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 04:04:51 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:04:51 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 13:29, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Hello TUHS people! > > Someone recently posted a question about your prized UNIX artifacts to > this list, that discussion [1] seems to be about various memorabilia. > What about computers made to run UNIX? Do you have or used to any > interesting historical hardware? > To answer this first question, most of my hardware isn't particularly rare or valuable but is of personal interest to me. Most of it came from the places where I studied and worked, and so for example I have several generations of the machine that was occs.cs.oberlin.edu, the CS department server for Oberlin College. Those are a DECserver 5000, an Alphaserver 1200, and a Sun Fire 280R; unfortunately I don't have the VAX 11/750 or know what became of it. The CS department did have an Omron LUNA 88K, which would be interesting and valuable today, but I have no idea what became of it. I'm looking forward to the answer from others on this one - what's the most weird/obscure UNIX hardware you ever used? -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 04:08:22 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:08:22 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Hello Milo, On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 Milo Velimirović wrote: > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to look into it. Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I mentioned above? I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able to get some help on this project. I wish you an excellent week, Vicente vicente at collares.ca From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 04:08:59 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Harald Arnesen via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 20:08:59 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: <34e33220-36a8-49db-a337-057140d81a02@skogtun.org> Henry Bent [2025-06-09 20:04:51]: > I'm looking forward to the answer from others on this one - what's the > most weird/obscure UNIX hardware you ever used? An Intergraph (Fairchild Clipper CPU), which I bought at an auction in the 90s. Didn't really use it for anything. -- Hilsen Harald From clemc at ccc.com Tue Jun 10 04:15:17 2025 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:15:17 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Hello Milo, > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > Milo Velimirović wrote: > > > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If > budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. > Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If > you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both > debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there > are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > > Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm > aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together > a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to > look into it. > > Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 > USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I > mentioned above? > > I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs > on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able > to get some help on this project. > > I wish you an excellent week, > > Vicente > vicente at collares.ca > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 04:21:50 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:21:50 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek wrote: > Hi, > > I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of > it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User > Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the > ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect. > > Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their > earliest instances? > > Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through some > old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated interactions > existed before Vi: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen > > Some terminals with block display: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270 > > ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may > have had TUIs before. > > Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some > of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design. > Does this count? I was just looking at it the other day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 04:28:08 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:28:08 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: Hello Henry, On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:45:37 -0400 Henry Bent wrote: > How retro, and how little space? Is a pizza box form factor Sun > workstation like, say, a SPARCstation 1 or 2 too new, or too big? The pizza box factor would be ideal since it would fit on top of a desk. Therefore the SPARCstation 1 or 2 seems reasonably sized to me. The *biggest* I could accommodate would be something the size of a modern full tower. I do not have a strong preference for the era of the system. I'm more interested in its historical signaficance. Have a great week, Vicente vicente at collares.ca From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jun 10 04:36:06 2025 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 11:36:06 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: <77a0b537-c7ed-17db-2011-802f1998ef18@bitsavers.org> On 6/9/25 10:21 AM, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Given that I have little space it > would need to be something small. The more important question is how slow do you want it to be? From stewart at serissa.com Tue Jun 10 04:48:30 2025 From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:48:30 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: Like many here, I have copies of the original BSTJ special issue, that I inherited from my dad, and a bootleg nth generation Lions. They aren’t rare, but definitely prized! My rare items are only Unix-adjacent. I have a Digital “Beta” prototype, the first Alpha machine in a PC form factor. It runs OSF-1, or would if I can find the SIMMs I borrowed from it :). I have some boards for a Digital Firefly, a research vax multiprocessor that ran a Modula-2 based OS that would run Ultrix binaries. And I have a couple of working SiCortex SC072s, which are 12-node beowulf clusters in-a-box that run Gentoo. I worked on the teams that built these so they are definitely prized. -Larry From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 04:52:54 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:52:54 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:28, Vicente Collares wrote: > Hello Henry, > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:45:37 -0400 > Henry Bent wrote: > > > How retro, and how little space? Is a pizza box form factor Sun > > workstation like, say, a SPARCstation 1 or 2 too new, or too big? > The pizza box factor would be ideal since it would fit on top of a desk. > Therefore the SPARCstation 1 or 2 seems reasonably sized to me. The > *biggest* I could accommodate would be something the size of a modern > full tower. > > I do not have a strong preference for the era of the system. I'm more > interested in its historical signaficance Something like a SPARCstation 2 or 5 might be ideal since you would be able to run a variety of operating systems both historic and modern - SunOS 4, Solaris, NetBSD, probably Linux if you really wanted to, NeXTstep, and I'm probably forgetting a few more. The historical significance of a system like that is that they were everywhere - Sun sold a ton of them and they were used in all sorts of applications, which also makes it a good entry level machine since they're fairly easy to come by and not terribly expensive. Parts are usually easy to find and inexpensive if you need them. You would also have options like using a modern SCSI emulator instead of a hard disk or connecting to an LCD monitor, but you could also do the full original workstation setup without too much trouble. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 04:54:03 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:54:03 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: <385d852a-63ce-4456-818b-60df861d3aee@collares.ca> Still being new to mailing lists, I accidentally only sent my last message to Clem. Sorry! I've resend it so that others may also see it. ---- Hello Clem, On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:15:17 -0400 Clem Cole wrote: > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try > running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while > quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage > and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you > personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's > wonderful PiDP11 kits - > https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH > behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you > budget constraints. You are right that emulation is a good way to experience these systems. Among other software, OpenSIMH is what I've been using so far and I have found it adequate. However I would like to try something different and maybe get to mess a little bit with hardware (which would be an interesting learning experience for me). Thanks for your good suggestion nonetheless, Vicente From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 05:16:08 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:16:08 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:59, Lawrence Stewart wrote: > > My rare items are only Unix-adjacent. I have a Digital “Beta” prototype, > the first Alpha machine in a PC form factor. It runs OSF-1, or would if I > can find the SIMMs I borrowed from it :). I have some boards for a Digital > Firefly, a research vax multiprocessor that ran a Modula-2 based OS that > would run Ultrix binaries. > That's incredibly cool. Do you know if any of the Firefly machines survived? I saw a VAXstation 3540 for sale at some point recently but it was well out of my price range; I hope it found a good home. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 05:18:57 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:18:57 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: Hello Henry, On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:52:54 -0400 Henry Bent wrote: > Something like a SPARCstation 2 or 5 might be ideal since you would be able > to run a variety of operating systems both historic and modern - SunOS 4, > Solaris, NetBSD, probably Linux if you really wanted to, NeXTstep, and I'm > probably forgetting a few more. The historical significance of a system > like that is that they were everywhere - Sun sold a ton of them and they > were used in all sorts of applications, which also makes it a good entry > level machine since they're fairly easy to come by and not terribly > expensive. Parts are usually easy to find and inexpensive if you need > them. You would also have options like using a modern SCSI emulator > instead of a hard disk or connecting to an LCD monitor, but you could also > do the full original workstation setup without too much trouble. > > -Henry > Do the models you mentioned generally "age" well? Do they usually require significant repairs to get them running again? I've always found Sun to be an interesting company and like your suggestion a lot. I like having the option to connect a hard drive through a SCSI emulator. Thanks for answering my questions, Vicente From miod at online.fr Tue Jun 10 05:19:47 2025 From: miod at online.fr (Miod Vallat) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 19:19:47 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: > That's incredibly cool. Do you know if any of the Firefly machines > survived? I saw a VAXstation 3540 for sale at some point recently but it > was well out of my price range; I hope it found a good home. VAXstation 35x0 and 38x0 were code-named Firefox, not Firefly, and ran regular Ultrix or VMS just fine. From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 05:35:49 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:35:49 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 15:19, Miod Vallat wrote: > > That's incredibly cool. Do you know if any of the Firefly machines > > survived? I saw a VAXstation 3540 for sale at some point recently but it > > was well out of my price range; I hope it found a good home. > > VAXstation 35x0 and 38x0 were code-named Firefox, not Firefly, and ran > regular Ultrix or VMS just fine. > Yes, they were the commercial manifestation of the Firefly project. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 05:57:56 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:57:56 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 15:19, Vicente Collares wrote: > Hello Henry, > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:52:54 -0400 > Henry Bent wrote: > > > Something like a SPARCstation 2 or 5 might be ideal since you would be > able > > to run a variety of operating systems both historic and modern - SunOS 4, > > Solaris, NetBSD, probably Linux if you really wanted to, NeXTstep, and > I'm > > probably forgetting a few more. The historical significance of a system > > like that is that they were everywhere - Sun sold a ton of them and they > > were used in all sorts of applications, which also makes it a good entry > > level machine since they're fairly easy to come by and not terribly > > expensive. Parts are usually easy to find and inexpensive if you need > > them. You would also have options like using a modern SCSI emulator > > instead of a hard disk or connecting to an LCD monitor, but you could > also > > do the full original workstation setup without too much trouble. > > > > -Henry > > > > Do the models you mentioned generally "age" well? Do they usually > require significant repairs to get them running again? > They've held up as well as anything else of that age, in my experience. As far as I'm aware there haven't been any significant problems with those models over time which is also part of why I recommended them. As long as you get one that is in reasonably good condition, I would expect it to last for at least a few more years of light to moderate use. I haven't powered on my SS2 in a while but the last time I did it was okay; I also have an SS10 that I have used very heavily over the years and it's been fine, which is a machine from the same era. Saying that does make me think - if you're not quite as worried about running as many OSes as possible and you like the form factor, you might also consider an SS10 or 20. It will be a little larger investment but a much higher powered machine, depending on how it's configured. Al Kossow made a good point - all of these machines are going to be slow by modern standards. How slow are you willing to put up with? Do you want something that was a representation of an average workstation at the time, or do you want to go all out and build a four processor SunOS 4 monster? Are you more interested in having fast interactive performance, so you invest in a higher end SBUS graphics card? Lots of options to consider. -Henry -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 06:33:10 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:33:10 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 Message-ID: Hi all, Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu Tue Jun 10 06:39:52 2025 From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:39:52 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? Message-ID: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> > From: Vicente Collares > I'm more interested in its historical signaficance. If that's your interest, PDP-11's are absolutely _the_ way to go. The PDP-11 is _the_ machine that made UNIX. That choice has good points, and a very bad point, though. Good points are that QBUS PDP-11's are pretty easy to find, pretty small (desktop PC-sized), and not very expensive. They're pretty robust, too - I have a large stack of PDP-11 QBUS CPUs, and none of them had failed, as of the last time that I powered them on. The very bad point is that working mass storage for them is very hard to find. The controllers are around, but not the drives. Does anyone know if anyone is making a QBUS mass storage clone? Bridgham and I were going to produce QBUS RK11/RP11 clone that used SD cards to hold the bits. We got the prototype working, and it booted UNIX, but then I came down with COVID and post-COVID myalgic encephalomyelitis, and that was the end of that. Noel From clemc at ccc.com Tue Jun 10 06:54:31 2025 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:54:31 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: There's a nice UDA/KDA emulation that uses SD cards or basically anything on the Linux side. I helped Dave Plummer (Dave's Garage fame) get it working with 2.11BSD on an 11/85 as a second KDA which 2.11 did not want to do. I suspect that's the way to go these days. He has it emulating RA92's and a few other things. Since this is more about HW than UNIX specifically, we should take it off line. Clem On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 4:40 PM Noel Chiappa wrote: > > From: Vicente Collares > > > I'm more interested in its historical signaficance. > > If that's your interest, PDP-11's are absolutely _the_ way to go. The > PDP-11 > is _the_ machine that made UNIX. That choice has good points, and a very > bad > point, though. > > Good points are that QBUS PDP-11's are pretty easy to find, pretty small > (desktop PC-sized), and not very expensive. They're pretty robust, too - I > have a large stack of PDP-11 QBUS CPUs, and none of them had failed, as of > the > last time that I powered them on. > > The very bad point is that working mass storage for them is very hard to > find. The controllers are around, but not the drives. > > Does anyone know if anyone is making a QBUS mass storage clone? Bridgham > and > I were going to produce QBUS RK11/RP11 clone that used SD cards to hold the > bits. We got the prototype working, and it booted UNIX, but then I came > down > with COVID and post-COVID myalgic encephalomyelitis, and that was the end > of > that. > > Noel > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Tue Jun 10 07:02:27 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:02:27 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, 2:33 PM Henry Bent wrote: > Hi all, > > Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I > have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to > regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. > Yes. The MACRO-11 we have is written in macro-11.... https://github.com/andpp/macro11 Is in C++, but I don’t know how good it is. I also think the pdp11 binary is on the 2.11 tapes since Harvard LISP depends on it. Also on different USENIX tapes. Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 07:07:59 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:07:59 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 17:02, Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, 2:33 PM Henry Bent wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I >> have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to >> regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. >> > > Yes. The MACRO-11 we have is written in macro-11.... > > https://github.com/andpp/macro11 > > Is in C++, but I don’t know how good it is. > > I also think the pdp11 binary is on the 2.11 tapes since Harvard LISP > depends on it. Also on different USENIX tapes. > If it's on 2.11 then I'm definitely looking in the wrong place, because that's the environment I want to use. I have the USENIX tape archives and I'll go through them, but to be honest I'm a little salty with whoever decided that they did not need to provide some sort of README or INDEX for those tapes. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 07:27:17 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:27:17 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: Hello Henry, On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:57:56 -0400 Henry Bent wrote: > Saying that does make me think - if you're not quite as worried about > running as many OSes as possible and you like the form factor, you might > also consider an SS10 or 20. It will be a little larger investment but a > much higher powered machine, depending on how it's configured. I would rather go for the more powerful system than the one that supports the most OSes. So I'm currently leaning more towards the SPARCstation 10 or 20. I'll give eBay and the like to a look to see what I can find. > Al Kossow made a good point - all of these machines are going to be slow by > modern standards. How slow are you willing to put up with? Do you want > something that was a representation of an average workstation at the time, > or do you want to go all out and build a four processor SunOS 4 monster? I don't mind having a machine that is slow by modern standards. I would like a system that is representative of the high-end at the time of its release. I'm not looking to cobble together the most powerful Sun workstation possible, a Frankenstein's monster of computer parts that would be unheard of at the time. > Are you more interested in having fast interactive performance, so you > invest in a higher end SBUS graphics card? Lots of options to consider. When it comes to graphics, the system should be able to comfortably run a window manager and simple programs with GUIs. I'm not looking for something that can do 3D or advanced graphics. Thanks for the advice, Vicente vicente at collares.ca From dave at horsfall.org Tue Jun 10 07:37:08 2025 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 07:37:08 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Henry Bent wrote: [ ... ] > I'm looking forward to the answer from others on this one - what's the > most weird/obscure UNIX hardware you ever used? Many decades ago I evaluated MiniUnix running on a twin-floppy (8") DEC box (can't remember which). I recall that sync(2) had to be patched to not keep updating the inode for /dev/tty8 (the console) as otherwise it would wear a hole in the floppy... -- Dave From dave at horsfall.org Tue Jun 10 07:40:35 2025 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 07:40:35 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Warner Losh wrote: > https://github.com/andpp/macro11 > > Is in C++, but I don’t know how good it is. C++ seems an odd choice to write an assembler in... -- Dave From cowan at ccil.org Tue Jun 10 07:44:14 2025 From: cowan at ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:44:14 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Perl would make more sense. On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, 5:40 PM Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Warner Losh wrote: > > > https://github.com/andpp/macro11 > > > > Is in C++, but I don’t know how good it is. > > C++ seems an odd choice to write an assembler in... > > -- Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 07:48:26 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:48:26 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: <1dSMQtY38VJqGicAA8tl2C3gV_nyHZZtwdySrGW1j5ZSaghwm5VjV77RtFn-KNX9E-kpMbEv00jkchPJlRhDAQhLLlda6I7NWvdlY25UjqY=@protonmail.com> On Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 10:21 AM, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Hello TUHS people! > > Someone recently posted a question about your prized UNIX artifacts to > this list, that discussion [1] seems to be about various memorabilia. > What about computers made to run UNIX? Do you have or used to any > interesting historical hardware? > > For my part, I have only used UNIX on emulated systems so far but would > like to purchase some hardware. Given that I have little space it would > need to be something small. According to you how does one get into that > specific type of retro computing? > > See you around cyberspace, > > Vicente > vicente at collares.ca > > [1] https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2025-June/032020.html Back when I worked in the lab we had an RS/6000 running some 4.x AIX release hanging around for data retention reasons. I was able to connect with it via rsh (yep, no security here...) and could play games like wump and quiz in a terminal on my desktop. Aside from that, we have some sort of HP boxes running HP-UX driving our high res mass specs in another lab, have had to remotely tinker with those before. Was glad I had learned ed by that point, whatever vi was in there struggled with rsh for whatever reason. Any time I have to get on those I still wind up using ed exclusively. Finally had the privilege of bumming around on some of the machines maintained by the LCM at the time, they had some PDPs and 3B2s running various UNIX versions, you could simply ssh to them. - Matt G. From barto at kdbarto.org Tue Jun 10 07:50:52 2025 From: barto at kdbarto.org (David Barto) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 14:50:52 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: <2B31635F-5980-4E2A-B5D9-24DF1EBB7C5A@kdbarto.org> A UNIX poster from Yates Ventures graphically showing how the OS works. Both issues of the BSTJ in excellent shape My /dev/mug from IBM acquired at a USENIX conference way too many years ago. A complete set of BSD 4.2 documentation with the colorful binder ends. And a Volume 4 X Toolkit Intrinsics coffee cup. There are others, these mean the most. David The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. --William Arthur Ward David Barto barto at kdbarto.org From ron at ronnatalie.com Tue Jun 10 07:53:42 2025 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:53:42 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It’s not written in C++, just plain C. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Dave Horsfall" To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" Date 6/9/2025 5:40:35 PM Subject [TUHS] Re: MACRO-11 >On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Warner Losh wrote: > >> https://github.com/andpp/macro11 >> >> Is in C++, but I don’t know how good it is. > >C++ seems an odd choice to write an assembler in... > >-- Dave From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 07:56:28 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Vicente Collares via TUHS) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:56:28 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> References: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Hello Noel, On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:39:52 -0400 (EDT) Noel Chiappa wrote: > If that's your interest, PDP-11's are absolutely _the_ way to go. The PDP-11 > is _the_ machine that made UNIX. That choice has good points, and a very bad > point, though. Buying a PDP-11 has for a long time been a dream of mine. To start my collection of historical computers however I think I'm going get a UNIX workstation. > Good points are that QBUS PDP-11's are pretty easy to find, pretty small > (desktop PC-sized), and not very expensive. They're pretty robust, too - I > have a large stack of PDP-11 QBUS CPUs, and none of them had failed, as of the > last time that I powered them on. Good to know. I was under the impression that all PDP-11s where hard to find, expensive and often required advanced tinkering to get working. I'll definitely will be looking into these Q-BUS computers. Thanks! > Does anyone know if anyone is making a QBUS mass storage clone? Bridgham and > I were going to produce QBUS RK11/RP11 clone that used SD cards to hold the > bits. We got the prototype working, and it booted UNIX, but then I came down > with COVID and post-COVID myalgic encephalomyelitis, and that was the end of > that. I am sorry to hear that you had to deal with those health problems and I sincerely hope you are now doing better. Cheers, Vicente vicente at collares.ca From paul at mcjones.org Tue Jun 10 08:20:45 2025 From: paul at mcjones.org (Paul McJones) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:20:45 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: <174949776654.8534.2792414988988968515@minnie.tuhs.org> References: <174949776654.8534.2792414988988968515@minnie.tuhs.org> Message-ID: > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:16:08 -0400, Henry Bent > wrote: > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:59, Lawrence Stewart > wrote: > >> My rare items are only Unix-adjacent. ... I have some boards for a Digital >> Firefly, a research vax multiprocessor that ran a Modula-2 based OS that >> would run Ultrix binaries. > > That's incredibly cool. Do you know if any of the Firefly machines > survived? I saw a VAXstation 3540 for sale at some point recently but it > was well out of my price range; I hope it found a good home. > > -Henry I have a set of Firefly boards (I worked on the Taos operating system for the Firefly). But as far as I can tell, no software survives. Charles P. Thacker and Lawrence C. Stewart. 1987. Firefly: a multiprocessor workstation. In Proceedings of the second international conference on Architectual support for programming languages and operating systems (ASPLOS II). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 164–172. https://doi.org/10.1145/36206.36199 Paul McJones and Garret Swart. Evolving the UNIX system interface to support multithreaded programs. Proceedings of the Winter 1989 USENIX Conference, December 1989. http://www.mcjones.org/paul/evolving.pdf Also available as Part I of SRC Research Report 21 (https://mcjones.org/paul/SRC-RR-21.pdf), Part II of which is the Taos Programmer's Manual. Paul McJones and Andy Hisgen. The Topaz system: Distributed multiprocessor personal computing. Workshop on Workstation Operating Systems. IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Operating Systems, November 1987. http://www.mcjones.org/paul/wwospos.pdf (Topaz was the name for the Modula-2+ programming environment, which also ran on VAX Ultrix.) Paul -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amp1ron at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 08:45:04 2025 From: amp1ron at gmail.com (amp1ron at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 18:45:04 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <1dSMQtY38VJqGicAA8tl2C3gV_nyHZZtwdySrGW1j5ZSaghwm5VjV77RtFn-KNX9E-kpMbEv00jkchPJlRhDAQhLLlda6I7NWvdlY25UjqY=@protonmail.com> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <1dSMQtY38VJqGicAA8tl2C3gV_nyHZZtwdySrGW1j5ZSaghwm5VjV77RtFn-KNX9E-kpMbEv00jkchPJlRhDAQhLLlda6I7NWvdlY25UjqY=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <00ef01dbd990$2492a570$6db7f050$@gmail.com> On Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 5:48 PM, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > Finally had the privilege of bumming around on some of the machines maintained by the LCM at the time, they had some PDPs and 3B2s running various UNIX versions, you could simply ssh to them. Some of the LCM physical and simulated systems ended up at the ICM/SDF. Some of the hardware To ssh into them, see connection details at https://sdf.org/?ssh . The menu of systems you can login to right now looks like this: [-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-] -+- SDF Vintage Systems REMOTE ACCESS -+- [-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-] [a] multics Multics MR12.8 Honeywell 6180 [b] toad-2 TOPS-20 7(110131)-1 XKL TOAD-2 [c] twenex TOPS-20 7(63327)-6 XKL TOAD-2 [d] sc40 TOPS-20 MARS 7(21733) SC Group SC40 [e] sc40 TOPS-10 MARS 7.05 SC Group SC40 [f] lc ITS ver 1648 PDP-10 KS10 [g] ka1050 TOPS-10 6.03a sim KA10 1050 [h] kl2065 TOPS-10 7.04 sim KL10 2065 [i] rosenkrantz OpenVMS 7.3 VAX 4000-96 [j] tss8 TSS/8 PDP-8/e [k] ibm4361 VM/SP5 Hercules 4361 [l] ibm7094 CTSS i7094 [m] cdc6500 NOS 1.3 DTCyber CDC-6500 [n] sigma9 Honeywell CP-V sim XDS [z] bitzone NetBSD BBS AMD64 [1] Proceed to the UNIX Systems sub-menu [2] Information about Vintage Systems at SDF.ORG (main) Your choice? (q to quit): Most (all?) of those systems have guest access. You can get your own account on some of them. I believe the accounts from some of the LCM systems are still present on the SDF systems. Info on the ICM is at https://icm.museum/ and SDF at https://sdf.org/ . -- Ron Pool From mah at mhorton.net Tue Jun 10 08:48:51 2025 From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:48:51 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: <0202243e-95a9-4267-a597-04483e687fcc@mhorton.net> My most prized UNIX computer is the original LF/Technologies CUBIX from 1987. It's an 11" cube with a built-in UPS (weighs a ton), an 80286 CPU, several serial ports, and runs System V release 2. This box was part of the original Stargate project, broadcasting Usenet over Satellite to Cable TV. I also have a UNIX PC 7300 and a couple SparcStation 1+ and a 10, along with a pair of 13w3 monitors. And an Ann Arbor Ambassador terminal in twisted mode. These are currently in my virtual museum at https://stargatemuseum.org/. It is my hope that someday they will go in a physical museum. Thanks, /Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am)       Award Winning Author maryannhorton.com On 6/9/25 10:21, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Hello TUHS people! > > Someone recently posted a question about your prized UNIX artifacts to > this list, that discussion [1] seems to be about various memorabilia. > What about computers made to run UNIX? Do you have or used to any > interesting historical hardware? > > For my part, I have only used UNIX on emulated systems so far but > would like to purchase some hardware. Given that I have little space > it would need to be something small. According to you how does one get > into that specific type of retro computing? > > See you around cyberspace, > > Vicente > vicente at collares.ca > > [1] https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2025-June/032020.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stewart at serissa.com Tue Jun 10 09:37:29 2025 From: stewart at serissa.com (Lawrence Stewart) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 19:37:29 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: I’ve not heard of anyone having a complete Firefly. Around 70 were build I think. The Firefox was build as a product in the late ’80s by Workstation Systems Engineering, which was down the street from us at the Systems Research Center in Palo Alto. It was maybe inspired by Firefly but had an entirely different design. I see this topic came up once before here, in 2019: https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2019-August/018389.html > On Jun 9, 2025, at 15:16, Henry Bent wrote: > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:59, Lawrence Stewart > wrote: >> >> My rare items are only Unix-adjacent. I have a Digital “Beta” prototype, the first Alpha machine in a PC form factor. It runs OSF-1, or would if I can find the SIMMs I borrowed from it :). I have some boards for a Digital Firefly, a research vax multiprocessor that ran a Modula-2 based OS that would run Ultrix binaries. > > That's incredibly cool. Do you know if any of the Firefly machines survived? I saw a VAXstation 3540 for sale at some point recently but it was well out of my price range; I hope it found a good home. > > -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aki at insinga.com Tue Jun 10 09:49:39 2025 From: aki at insinga.com (Aron Insinga) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 19:49:39 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DEC_Firefly => https://dn790000.ca.archive.org/0/items/bitsavers_dectechrep_1102275/SRC-RR-23.pdf (One of the papers Wikipedia references talks about M68010 CPUs, maybe early cache work was done with them.) - Aron On 6/9/25 19:37, Lawrence Stewart wrote: > > I’ve not heard of anyone having a complete Firefly.  Around 70 were > build I think. > > The Firefox was build as a product in the late ’80s by Workstation > Systems Engineering, which was down the street from us at the Systems > Research Center in Palo Alto.  It was maybe inspired by Firefly but > had an entirely different design. > > I see this topic came up once before here, in 2019: > https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2019-August/018389.html > > > >> On Jun 9, 2025, at 15:16, Henry Bent wrote: >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:59, Lawrence Stewart >> wrote: >> >> >> My rare items are only Unix-adjacent.  I have a Digital “Beta” >> prototype, the first Alpha machine in a PC form factor. It runs >> OSF-1, or would if I can find the SIMMs I borrowed from it :).  I >> have some boards for a Digital Firefly, a research vax >> multiprocessor that ran a Modula-2 based OS that would run Ultrix >> binaries. >> >> >> That's incredibly cool.  Do you know if any of the Firefly machines >> survived?  I saw a VAXstation 3540 for sale at some point recently >> but it was well out of my price range; I hope it found a good home. >> >> -Henry > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Tue Jun 10 10:18:07 2025 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:18:07 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20250610001807.GA8410@mcvoy.com> Amen. Says the guy that wrote the nselite source management system in 90% perl and 10% C. On Mon, Jun 09, 2025 at 05:44:14PM -0400, John Cowan wrote: > Perl would make more sense. > > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, 5:40 PM Dave Horsfall wrote: > > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Warner Losh wrote: > > > > > https://github.com/andpp/macro11 > > > > > > Is in C++, but I don???t know how good it is. > > > > C++ seems an odd choice to write an assembler in... > > > > -- Dave -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jun 10 10:24:37 2025 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:24:37 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: On 6/9/25 4:37 PM, Lawrence Stewart wrote: > > I’ve not heard of anyone having a complete Firefly.  Around 70 were build I think. > I don't think any survived, nor did any of the software for it. The only Firefly PCB I ever saw was the one Ed designed much later at General Magic. Some Firefox boards showed up on eBay last week and I grabbed pics of them for the 35x0 directory on bitsavers. From aek at bitsavers.org Tue Jun 10 10:28:44 2025 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 17:28:44 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: <4d6aa5cf-51d6-a3e8-f00e-e0f8dff0750f@bitsavers.org> On 6/9/25 5:24 PM, Al Kossow wrote: > On 6/9/25 4:37 PM, Lawrence Stewart wrote: >> >> I’ve not heard of anyone having a complete Firefly.  Around 70 were build I think. >> > > I don't think any survived, nor did any of the software for it. > The only Firefly PCB I ever saw was the one Ed designed much later at General Magic. > Some Firefox boards showed up on eBay last week and I grabbed pics of them for the 35x0 directory on bitsavers. > > Nothing was saved from Titan that I know of either. I've complained in the past that other than the published reports nothing was archived in the DEC corporate archives from WRL, SRC or DEC West. WRL was the best preserved of the bunch because of the work that got released to the world (or made it to products) From kennethgoodwin56 at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 11:55:01 2025 From: kennethgoodwin56 at gmail.com (Kenneth Goodwin) Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2025 21:55:01 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Several copies of the "first edition " bootleg of the Lions book. A Gould Firebreathers Coffee Mug in pristine condition An "Amdahl now does GREP" button. The previous items being related to the ascension of UNIX onto mainframe class servers. My favorite quote from that time if I have it right. Amdahl Computers now compile the entire UNIX KERNEL in the debounce time of the RETURN key. (Or something like that) The UNIX and Ultrix versions of the license plate A QMS KISS BUTTON issued when their first laser printer hit the UNIX conference circuit. Their salute to the KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID! A Software Artisan Craftsman and Hardware Designer philosophy as exemplified by UNIX and its vast toolkit of simple "do one thing very well" and THEN interface to all other tools programming approach to software design To design complex systems using well tested modules. On Fri, Jun 6, 2025, 9:37 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > > On Fri, Jun 6, 2025, 12:10 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > >> As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation >> with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of >> historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 >> manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. >> >> What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among >> your UNIX-y possessions? >> > > My AIX yoyo. And a bootleg copy of lions. > > Warner > >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From robpike at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 12:10:28 2025 From: robpike at gmail.com (Rob Pike) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:10:28 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: An original, hand-wire-wrapped Jerq board, later renamed Blit because of marketing. Also the original mouse, made by Prof Nicoud's lab and signed by him on the bottom. Pictures here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vEQ4CRkAzRYAj0_tUjThL6-FV0MGwKhA/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1alcuuOaql7qgoahNiTUytzXKh4kxxsQC/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cUAGgV1iJccO4yKaZS6NVF4y_CfZvqgo/view?usp=sharing -rob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 17:21:55 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Johan Helsingius via TUHS) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 09:21:55 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On 09/06/2025 19:21, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Someone recently posted a question about your prized UNIX artifacts to > this list, that discussion [1] seems to be about various memorabilia. > What about computers made to run UNIX? Do you have or used to any > interesting historical hardware? Penet.fi was a 3B2 back in the day, but it has gone to the great recycling scrapyard by now. I still have the basic 386 PC that was anon.poenet.fi (using BSD UNIX). The most horrible one I remember was the Zilog Z8000 system that was the UUCP and USENET (EUnet) backbone for Finland for a while. It ran a Zilog implementation of System III. Unfortunately they, just like everybody else, noticed the discrepancy between the TTY termio interface implementation and documentation, but unlike everybody else, they fixed the code, not the documentation. The Zilog TTY driver, in raw mode, would not wait for a certain number of bytes and a certain time before returning, but would return after a certain number of bytes *or* a timeout. My horror story is of running the Helsinki-Amsterdam (penet-mcvax) backbone connection on UUCP over X.25. If mcvax was slow, the tty driver would occasionally time out -- and return with 0 bytes, (that UUCP of course took as "line dropped"), and that transfer of a news or email batch would have to re-start - while paying for traffic per data packet. Bills got pretty expensive pretty fast. Julf From tuhs at tuhs.org Tue Jun 10 19:05:35 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:05:35 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> (Noel Chiappa's message of "Mon, 9 Jun 2025 16:39:52 -0400 (EDT)") References: <20250609203952.0491D18C088@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: Noel Chiappa writes: > If that's your interest, PDP-11's are absolutely _the_ way to go. The > PDP-11 is _the_ machine that made UNIX. [...] I have a couple of them running - two 11/23 machines running PWB 1.0 (i.e. 6th edition plus various improvements), and two 11/83 machines with 2.11BSD on them. The 11/23 boxes are newer than 6th edition, which didn't support MSCP devices, so some work had to be done to get that retrofitted. There are some notes on this on my web site: https://hamartun.priv.no/ (including links to, among others, Noel Chiappa's excellent collection of PDP-11 information). -tih -- The creation of the state of Israel was a regrettable mistake. It is time to undo this mistake, and finally re-establish a free Palestine. From ewayte at gmail.com Tue Jun 10 21:10:36 2025 From: ewayte at gmail.com (Eric Wayte) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 07:10:36 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I refer to this section of my library as the "historical documents": 4.2BSD manuals - Berkeley (comb bound) 4.4BSD manuals - O'Reilly & Associates The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD Operating System (signed by all four authors) 4.3BSD Answer Book The Design and Implementation of the 4.4BSD Operating System (signed by Kirk McKusick) The Bell System Technical Journal July/August 1977 AT&T Bell Labs Technical Journal October 1984 On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 2:10 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation > with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of > historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 > manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among > your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. > -- Eric Wayte -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Jun 11 01:42:01 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 15:42:01 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: <6T7uiwXXcHyqJN1wZ71Maa53-DDw7tAXftwvx5Io9pqIvpwhwuxSFsPMMcLiy2f1Wz7n8h5XQNSVLckXnu_J5Dfi-5lJ0wIu5FybPu5Kn4Q=@protonmail.com> On Monday, June 9th, 2025 at 7:10 PM, Rob Pike wrote: > An original, hand-wire-wrapped Jerq board, later renamed Blit because of marketing. Also the original mouse, made by Prof Nicoud's lab and signed by him on the bottom. > > Pictures here: > > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vEQ4CRkAzRYAj0_tUjThL6-FV0MGwKhA/view?usp=sharing > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1alcuuOaql7qgoahNiTUytzXKh4kxxsQC/view?usp=sharing > https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cUAGgV1iJccO4yKaZS6NVF4y_CfZvqgo/view?usp=sharing > > -rob > > I only just noticed from your pictures but the mouse buttons appear to be the same button that was used for the reset on the MAC Tutor, albeit the MAC Tutor one is red. - Matt G. From crossd at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 03:49:56 2025 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:49:56 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more efficient in that regard. - Dan C. > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: >> >> Hello Milo, >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 >> Milo Velimirović wrote: >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to >> look into it. >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I >> mentioned above? >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able >> to get some help on this project. >> >> I wish you an excellent week, >> >> Vicente >> vicente at collares.ca From ron at ronnatalie.com Wed Jun 11 03:57:42 2025 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 17:57:42 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find a copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able to download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace the 2.8 BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Henry Bent" To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 >Hi all, > >Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I >have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to >regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. > >-Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 04:09:04 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 14:09:04 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's one of the hidden gems of the PDP-11 world. I'm not clear on its legal status so I don't know if what's there can be redistributed, but it's an extremely mature PDP-11 OS. -Henry On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 13:57, Ron Natalie wrote: > By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 > distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find a > copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able to > download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace the 2.8 > BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. > > > > > ------ Original Message ------ > From "Henry Bent" > To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" > Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM > Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 > > Hi all, > > Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I > have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to > regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. > > -Henry > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ron at ronnatalie.com Wed Jun 11 05:23:32 2025 From: ron at ronnatalie.com (Ron Natalie) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 19:23:32 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The JHU kernel was Version 6 (Research). All the development was done by the Undergraduate Computer Society at Johns Hopkins notably: Mike Muuss, Robert Jesse, me, Robert Miles, and a few others. Mike went to BRL around the summer of 1979. Any changes after that were done by BRL (federal) employees). So once you have the rights for V6 there’s nothing really additional. We did add the V7 file system as a switch but I think that wasn’t done with V7 code. ------ Original Message ------ >From "Henry Bent" To "Ron Natalie" Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" Date 6/10/2025 2:09:04 PM Subject Re: Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick >It's one of the hidden gems of the PDP-11 world. I'm not clear on its >legal status so I don't know if what's there can be redistributed, but >it's an extremely mature PDP-11 OS. > >-Henry > >On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 13:57, Ron Natalie wrote: >>By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 >>distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find >>a copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able >>to download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace >>the 2.8 BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. >> >> >> >> >>------ Original Message ------ >>From "Henry Bent" >>To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" >>Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM >>Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 >> >>>Hi all, >>> >>>Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package >>>I have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary >>>to regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. >>> >>>-Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 10:22:28 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 20:22:28 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, I suppose I can tar it up and send it to Warren then? -Henry On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 15:23, Ron Natalie wrote: > The JHU kernel was Version 6 (Research). All the development was done by > the Undergraduate Computer Society at Johns Hopkins notably: Mike Muuss, > Robert Jesse, me, Robert Miles, and a few others. Mike went to BRL around > the summer of 1979. Any changes after that were done by BRL (federal) > employees). So once you have the rights for V6 there’s nothing really > additional. We did add the V7 file system as a switch but I think that > wasn’t done with V7 code. > > > > > ------ Original Message ------ > From "Henry Bent" > To "Ron Natalie" > Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" > Date 6/10/2025 2:09:04 PM > Subject Re: Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick > > It's one of the hidden gems of the PDP-11 world. I'm not clear on its > legal status so I don't know if what's there can be redistributed, but it's > an extremely mature PDP-11 OS. > > -Henry > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 13:57, Ron Natalie wrote: > >> By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 >> distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find a >> copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able to >> download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace the 2.8 >> BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. >> >> >> >> >> ------ Original Message ------ >> From "Henry Bent" >> To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" >> Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM >> Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 >> >> Hi all, >> >> Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I >> have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to >> regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. >> >> -Henry >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Jun 11 12:55:25 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 12:55:25 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7ADD12AB-0B81-4C93-BD0A-0D8AAB8E9EE2@tuhs.org> Sure! Thanks, Warren On 11 June 2025 10:22:28 am AEST, Henry Bent wrote: >Well, I suppose I can tar it up and send it to Warren then? > >-Henry > >On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 15:23, Ron Natalie wrote: > >> The JHU kernel was Version 6 (Research). All the development was done by >> the Undergraduate Computer Society at Johns Hopkins notably: Mike Muuss, >> Robert Jesse, me, Robert Miles, and a few others. Mike went to BRL around >> the summer of 1979. Any changes after that were done by BRL (federal) >> employees). So once you have the rights for V6 there’s nothing really >> additional. We did add the V7 file system as a switch but I think that >> wasn’t done with V7 code. >> >> >> >> >> ------ Original Message ------ >> From "Henry Bent" >> To "Ron Natalie" >> Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" >> Date 6/10/2025 2:09:04 PM >> Subject Re: Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick >> >> It's one of the hidden gems of the PDP-11 world. I'm not clear on its >> legal status so I don't know if what's there can be redistributed, but it's >> an extremely mature PDP-11 OS. >> >> -Henry >> >> On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 13:57, Ron Natalie wrote: >> >>> By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 >>> distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find a >>> copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able to >>> download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace the 2.8 >>> BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ------ Original Message ------ >>> From "Henry Bent" >>> To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" >>> Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM >>> Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 >>> >>> Hi all, >>> >>> Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I >>> have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to >>> regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. >>> >>> -Henry >>> >>> -- Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Wed Jun 11 13:00:14 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 23:00:14 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: <7ADD12AB-0B81-4C93-BD0A-0D8AAB8E9EE2@tuhs.org> References: <7ADD12AB-0B81-4C93-BD0A-0D8AAB8E9EE2@tuhs.org> Message-ID: I have an extra special expanded version of Kirk's DVD. Some of which I'm not allowed to share, but the brl stuff wasn't in the list.... Do you have that stuff Warren, or should I send you a list and ask Kirk what we can put up? He's here in ottawa at BSDcan with me at the moment as luck would have it... Or do you have it all already and it's been filtered... Warner On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 10:55 PM Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > > Sure! > Thanks, Warren > > > On 11 June 2025 10:22:28 am AEST, Henry Bent wrote: >> >> Well, I suppose I can tar it up and send it to Warren then? >> >> -Henry >> >> On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 15:23, Ron Natalie wrote: >>> >>> The JHU kernel was Version 6 (Research). All the development was done by the Undergraduate Computer Society at Johns Hopkins notably: Mike Muuss, Robert Jesse, me, Robert Miles, and a few others. Mike went to BRL around the summer of 1979. Any changes after that were done by BRL (federal) employees). So once you have the rights for V6 there’s nothing really additional. We did add the V7 file system as a switch but I think that wasn’t done with V7 code. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> ------ Original Message ------ >>> From "Henry Bent" >>> To "Ron Natalie" >>> Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" >>> Date 6/10/2025 2:09:04 PM >>> Subject Re: Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick >>> >>> It's one of the hidden gems of the PDP-11 world. I'm not clear on its legal status so I don't know if what's there can be redistributed, but it's an extremely mature PDP-11 OS. >>> >>> -Henry >>> >>> On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 13:57, Ron Natalie wrote: >>>> >>>> By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find a copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able to download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace the 2.8 BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ------ Original Message ------ >>>> From "Henry Bent" >>>> To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" >>>> Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM >>>> Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 >>>> >>>> Hi all, >>>> >>>> Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package I have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. >>>> >>>> -Henry > > -- > Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 13:14:22 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 23:14:22 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick In-Reply-To: References: <7ADD12AB-0B81-4C93-BD0A-0D8AAB8E9EE2@tuhs.org> Message-ID: Do you mean the version with the historic1 and historic2 directories, or something else? A lot of that stuff is definitely on shaky legal ground. -Henry On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:10, Warner Losh wrote: > I have an extra special expanded version of Kirk's DVD. Some of which > I'm not allowed to share, but the brl stuff wasn't in the list.... Do > you have that stuff Warren, or should I send you a list and ask Kirk > what we can put up? He's here in ottawa at BSDcan with me at the > moment as luck would have it... Or do you have it all already and it's > been filtered... > > Warner > > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 10:55 PM Warren Toomey via TUHS > wrote: > > > > Sure! > > Thanks, Warren > > > > > > On 11 June 2025 10:22:28 am AEST, Henry Bent > wrote: > >> > >> Well, I suppose I can tar it up and send it to Warren then? > >> > >> -Henry > >> > >> On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 15:23, Ron Natalie wrote: > >>> > >>> The JHU kernel was Version 6 (Research). All the development was > done by the Undergraduate Computer Society at Johns Hopkins notably: Mike > Muuss, Robert Jesse, me, Robert Miles, and a few others. Mike went to BRL > around the summer of 1979. Any changes after that were done by BRL > (federal) employees). So once you have the rights for V6 there’s nothing > really additional. We did add the V7 file system as a switch but I think > that wasn’t done with V7 code. > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> > >>> ------ Original Message ------ > >>> From "Henry Bent" > >>> To "Ron Natalie" > >>> Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" > >>> Date 6/10/2025 2:09:04 PM > >>> Subject Re: Thank you Henry Bent and Marshal McKusick > >>> > >>> It's one of the hidden gems of the PDP-11 world. I'm not clear on its > legal status so I don't know if what's there can be redistributed, but it's > an extremely mature PDP-11 OS. > >>> > >>> -Henry > >>> > >>> On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 13:57, Ron Natalie wrote: > >>>> > >>>> By the way. I’d like to thank you for mentioning the brl.pdp11 > distribution below. I had despaired that I was never going to find a > copy of the kernel that I cut my teeth on developing. I was able to > download the set from Kirk yesterday and it is destined to replace the 2.8 > BSD that I’m using oin my PiDP-11/70. > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> > >>>> ------ Original Message ------ > >>>> From "Henry Bent" > >>>> To "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" > >>>> Date 6/9/2025 4:33:10 PM > >>>> Subject [TUHS] MACRO-11 > >>>> > >>>> Hi all, > >>>> > >>>> Do sources exist for a MACRO-11 assembler for UNIX? The only package > I have found is written in MACRO-11 and relies on a provided binary to > regenerate itself; it's on the brl.pdp11 archive on the CSRG DVD. > >>>> > >>>> -Henry > > > > -- > > Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 13:37:19 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 23:37:19 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be reasonable with power consumption. -Henry On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try > running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the > same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most > everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal > computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful > PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 > (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and > will meet you budget constraints. > > Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will > absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more > efficient in that regard. > > - Dan C. > > > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS > wrote: > >> > >> Hello Milo, > >> > >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > >> Milo Velimirović wrote: > >> > >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? > If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on > eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a > system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for > both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, > there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > >> > >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm > >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together > >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to > >> look into it. > >> > >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 > >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I > >> mentioned above? > >> > >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs > >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able > >> to get some help on this project. > >> > >> I wish you an excellent week, > >> > >> Vicente > >> vicente at collares.ca > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Wed Jun 11 13:41:39 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2025 23:41:39 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... Warner On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent wrote: > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be reasonable with power consumption. > > -Henry > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: >> >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. >> >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more >> efficient in that regard. >> >> - Dan C. >> >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: >> >> >> >> Hello Milo, >> >> >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: >> >> >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. >> >> >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to >> >> look into it. >> >> >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I >> >> mentioned above? >> >> >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able >> >> to get some help on this project. >> >> >> >> I wish you an excellent week, >> >> >> >> Vicente >> >> vicente at collares.ca From grog at lemis.com Wed Jun 11 16:27:07 2025 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 16:27:07 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] X.25 stacks on Unix (was: Do you have any historical UNIX computers?) In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Tuesday, 10 June 2025 at 9:21:55 +0200, Johan Helsingius wrote: > > My horror story is of running the Helsinki-Amsterdam (penet-mcvax) > backbone connection on UUCP over X.25... Was this X.25 on the Z8000? How good was the implementation in itself? My recollection was that we wanted to sell our LXN (see my other post) to Finland simply because it had a native X.25 stack. And yes, to my recollection it worked well. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA.php -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: not available URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Wed Jun 11 17:41:38 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Johan Helsingius via TUHS) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:41:38 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] X.25 stacks on Unix In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On 11/06/2025 08:27, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: > Was this X.25 on the Z8000? How good was the implementation in > itself? No, just standard serial connection to PTT-provided X.25 PAD. Julf From kennethgoodwin56 at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 20:53:16 2025 From: kennethgoodwin56 at gmail.com (Kenneth Goodwin) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 06:53:16 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Besides all the curses and termcap/terminfo efforts, There was also POP which stood for Pieces of Perspect. It was a terminal screen update library. I think it used curses as the underlying CRT management package. Sorry, i dont recall the authors. It was on one of the distribution tapes around the late 1970s, early 80s. I remember it being painfully slow on my PDP 11/70. It would redraw the entire screen with every change. I sped it up using differential compute buffers so only actual changes were refreshed. I used it for my two player Tank War game and a new email program I called Mr. ZIP. Mr. Zip had three display zones or display panels. One for email actions. One for a list of emails and a email contents zone for displaying the text of the selected email. Part of the work I did hacking the kernel, utilities and applications at NJSMU so I could support 250 users connected via serial to the PDP 11/70 used to run that insurance company. Massive 4 MB of National Semiconductor Ram, The maximum memory for that machine. In those days of Tape based distribution, My boss was not keen to engage in "software distribution". More out of fear of running afoul of AT&T lawyers, I think than anything else. So releasing source code was forbidden. Otherwise, POP might have taken off with my performance improvements. You would have all been enthralled by Tank War and got no real work done. You had to enter several of your moves ahead of time. (Command buffering) So you really had to think strategically to out maneuver your opponent. On Mon, Jun 9, 2025, 1:57 PM Adam Koszek wrote: > Hi, > > I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of > it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User > Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the > ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect. > > Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their > earliest instances? > > Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through some > old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated interactions > existed before Vi: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen > > Some terminals with block display: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270 > > ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may > have had TUIs before. > > Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some > of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design. > > Thanks, > > Adam > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crossd at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 22:08:49 2025 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:08:49 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM Warner Losh wrote: > They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... As I recall, SunOS 4 would run on MP machines, though with some restrictions. Perhaps only one CPU could be in the kernel at any given time? - Dan C. > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent wrote: > > > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be reasonable with power consumption. > > > > -Henry > > > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: > >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. > >> > >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will > >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more > >> efficient in that regard. > >> > >> - Dan C. > >> > >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > >> >> > >> >> Hello Milo, > >> >> > >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: > >> >> > >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > >> >> > >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm > >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together > >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to > >> >> look into it. > >> >> > >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 > >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I > >> >> mentioned above? > >> >> > >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs > >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able > >> >> to get some help on this project. > >> >> > >> >> I wish you an excellent week, > >> >> > >> >> Vicente > >> >> vicente at collares.ca From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 22:14:03 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:14:03 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time period it's fine, and it definitely works well. -Henry On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 08:09, Dan Cross wrote: > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... > > As I recall, SunOS 4 would run on MP machines, though with some > restrictions. Perhaps only one CPU could be in the kernel at any > given time? > > - Dan C. > > > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent > wrote: > > > > > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of > the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be > reasonable with power consumption. > > > > > > -Henry > > > > > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: > > >> > > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > > >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and > try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite > the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and > most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal > computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful > PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 > (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and > will meet you budget constraints. > > >> > > >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will > > >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more > > >> efficient in that regard. > > >> > > >> - Dan C. > > >> > > >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS < > tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote: > > >> >> > > >> >> Hello Milo, > > >> >> > > >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > > >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: > > >> >> > > >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical > skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or > vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together > a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for > both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, > there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > > >> >> > > >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm > > >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > > >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing > together > > >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll > have to > > >> >> look into it. > > >> >> > > >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend > around $500 > > >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of > computer I > > >> >> mentioned above? > > >> >> > > >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do > repairs > > >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be > able > > >> >> to get some help on this project. > > >> >> > > >> >> I wish you an excellent week, > > >> >> > > >> >> Vicente > > >> >> vicente at collares.ca > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From imp at bsdimp.com Wed Jun 11 22:50:39 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:50:39 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:14 AM Henry Bent wrote: > > Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time period it's fine, and it definitely works well. Hmmm, I thought OS/MP was the only SunOS 4 that ran on MP machines. I worked at Solbourne at the time. It went through the normal progression: ASMP in OS/MP 4.0C with SMP in OS/MP 4.1A (corresponding to 4.0.3 and 4.1.1 respectively). When I left, the only Sun OS that ran on MP was Solaris 2.x. SunOS 4.0 and 4.1 definitely needed a lot of love to get up and running on Solbourne's machines. We were happy when we had 16 CPU systems that scaled to about 12x the single CPU performance. At the time, all our contacts at Sun said that Solaris was the only MP OS they'd ever produce. There were like 3-5 man years of effort in the project by the time it was fully SMP. I did leave the Solbourne sphere in 1994 though. When / how did it happen? Or is it another third party port? Warner > -Henry > > On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 08:09, Dan Cross wrote: >> >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM Warner Losh wrote: >> > They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... >> >> As I recall, SunOS 4 would run on MP machines, though with some >> restrictions. Perhaps only one CPU could be in the kernel at any >> given time? >> >> - Dan C. >> >> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent wrote: >> > > >> > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be reasonable with power consumption. >> > > >> > > -Henry >> > > >> > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: >> > >> >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: >> > >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. >> > >> >> > >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will >> > >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more >> > >> efficient in that regard. >> > >> >> > >> - Dan C. >> > >> >> > >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: >> > >> >> >> > >> >> Hello Milo, >> > >> >> >> > >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 >> > >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: >> > >> >> >> > >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. >> > >> >> >> > >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm >> > >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX >> > >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together >> > >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to >> > >> >> look into it. >> > >> >> >> > >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 >> > >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I >> > >> >> mentioned above? >> > >> >> >> > >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs >> > >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able >> > >> >> to get some help on this project. >> > >> >> >> > >> >> I wish you an excellent week, >> > >> >> >> > >> >> Vicente >> > >> >> vicente at collares.ca From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 22:58:58 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 08:58:58 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: Maybe Larry can chime in here? I don't know any of the intricacies of Sun's MP support, I only run the hardware. It's SunOS 4.1.4 patched all the way up. -Henry On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 08:50, Warner Losh wrote: > On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:14 AM Henry Bent wrote: > > > > Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just > fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right > now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time > period it's fine, and it definitely works well. > > Hmmm, I thought OS/MP was the only SunOS 4 that ran on MP machines. I > worked at Solbourne at the time. It went through the normal > progression: ASMP in OS/MP 4.0C with SMP in OS/MP 4.1A (corresponding > to 4.0.3 and 4.1.1 respectively). When I left, the only Sun OS that > ran on MP was Solaris 2.x. SunOS 4.0 and 4.1 definitely needed a lot > of love to get up and running on Solbourne's machines. We were happy > when we had 16 CPU systems that scaled to about 12x the single CPU > performance. At the time, all our contacts at Sun said that Solaris > was the only MP OS they'd ever produce. There were like 3-5 man years > of effort in the project by the time it was fully SMP. I did leave the > Solbourne sphere in 1994 though. > > When / how did it happen? Or is it another third party port? > > Warner > > > -Henry > > > > On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 08:09, Dan Cross wrote: > >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM Warner Losh wrote: > >> > They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... > >> > >> As I recall, SunOS 4 would run on MP machines, though with some > >> restrictions. Perhaps only one CPU could be in the kernel at any > >> given time? > >> > >> - Dan C. > >> > >> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent > wrote: > >> > > > >> > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of > the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be > reasonable with power consumption. > >> > > > >> > > -Henry > >> > > > >> > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > >> > >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org > and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while > quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage > and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you > personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's > wonderful PiDP11 kits - > https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run > OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet > you budget constraints. > >> > >> > >> > >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will > >> > >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more > >> > >> efficient in that regard. > >> > >> > >> > >> - Dan C. > >> > >> > >> > >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS < > tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote: > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Hello Milo, > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > >> > >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware > technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete > pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece > together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly > recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. > Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what > I'm > >> > >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > >> > >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing > together > >> > >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, > I'll have to > >> > >> >> look into it. > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend > around $500 > >> > >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of > computer I > >> > >> >> mentioned above? > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do > repairs > >> > >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might > be able > >> > >> >> to get some help on this project. > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> I wish you an excellent week, > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Vicente > >> > >> >> vicente at collares.ca > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From crossd at gmail.com Wed Jun 11 23:55:41 2025 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 09:55:41 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:50 AM Warner Losh wrote: > On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:14 AM Henry Bent wrote: > > Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time period it's fine, and it definitely works well. > > Hmmm, I thought OS/MP was the only SunOS 4 that ran on MP machines. I > worked at Solbourne at the time. It went through the normal > progression: ASMP in OS/MP 4.0C with SMP in OS/MP 4.1A (corresponding > to 4.0.3 and 4.1.1 respectively). When I left, the only Sun OS that > ran on MP was Solaris 2.x. SunOS 4.0 and 4.1 definitely needed a lot > of love to get up and running on Solbourne's machines. We were happy > when we had 16 CPU systems that scaled to about 12x the single CPU > performance. At the time, all our contacts at Sun said that Solaris > was the only MP OS they'd ever produce. There were like 3-5 man years > of effort in the project by the time it was fully SMP. I did leave the > Solbourne sphere in 1994 though. > > When / how did it happen? Or is it another third party port? I don't know when exactly it came around. It was definitely in 4.1.4, and I'm also certain it was in 4.1.3/4.1.3_U1. If Wikipedia can be trusted, it says that MP support came in 4.1.2, for the SPARCserver 600MP systems. It looks like it only supported up to 4 CPUs. - Dan C. > > On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 08:09, Dan Cross wrote: > >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM Warner Losh wrote: > >> > They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... > >> > >> As I recall, SunOS 4 would run on MP machines, though with some > >> restrictions. Perhaps only one CPU could be in the kernel at any > >> given time? > >> > >> - Dan C. > >> > >> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent wrote: > >> > > > >> > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be reasonable with power consumption. > >> > > > >> > > -Henry > >> > > > >> > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > >> > >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. > >> > >> > >> > >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will > >> > >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more > >> > >> efficient in that regard. > >> > >> > >> > >> - Dan C. > >> > >> > >> > >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Hello Milo, > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > >> > >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm > >> > >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > >> > >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together > >> > >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to > >> > >> >> look into it. > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 > >> > >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I > >> > >> >> mentioned above? > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs > >> > >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able > >> > >> >> to get some help on this project. > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> I wish you an excellent week, > >> > >> >> > >> > >> >> Vicente > >> > >> >> vicente at collares.ca From imp at bsdimp.com Thu Jun 12 00:22:23 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:22:23 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 9:56 AM Dan Cross wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:50 AM Warner Losh wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:14 AM Henry Bent wrote: > > > Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time period it's fine, and it definitely works well. > > > > Hmmm, I thought OS/MP was the only SunOS 4 that ran on MP machines. I > > worked at Solbourne at the time. It went through the normal > > progression: ASMP in OS/MP 4.0C with SMP in OS/MP 4.1A (corresponding > > to 4.0.3 and 4.1.1 respectively). When I left, the only Sun OS that > > ran on MP was Solaris 2.x. SunOS 4.0 and 4.1 definitely needed a lot > > of love to get up and running on Solbourne's machines. We were happy > > when we had 16 CPU systems that scaled to about 12x the single CPU > > performance. At the time, all our contacts at Sun said that Solaris > > was the only MP OS they'd ever produce. There were like 3-5 man years > > of effort in the project by the time it was fully SMP. I did leave the > > Solbourne sphere in 1994 though. > > > > When / how did it happen? Or is it another third party port? > > I don't know when exactly it came around. It was definitely in 4.1.4, > and I'm also certain it was in 4.1.3/4.1.3_U1. > > If Wikipedia can be trusted, it says that MP support came in 4.1.2, > for the SPARCserver 600MP systems. It looks like it only supported up > to 4 CPUs. There's #ifdef MUlTIPROCESSOR in the 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 trees that leaked. But it looks like they only work for sun4m machines have real defines... I'd been told at the time, over lunch, that even those code bases didn't have MP support, but it may have been SMP support was lacking... Warner > - Dan C. > > > > > On Wed, 11 Jun 2025 at 08:09, Dan Cross wrote: > > >> > > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:41 PM Warner Losh wrote: > > >> > They are also UP, so SunOS 4 will run on them... > > >> > > >> As I recall, SunOS 4 would run on MP machines, though with some > > >> restrictions. Perhaps only one CPU could be in the kernel at any > > >> given time? > > >> > > >> - Dan C. > > >> > > >> > On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM Henry Bent wrote: > > >> > > > > >> > > Yet another reason why I suggested a SPARCstation 2 or 5; of all of the machines from that time period those are ones that will at least be reasonable with power consumption. > > >> > > > > >> > > -Henry > > >> > > > > >> > > On Tue, 10 Jun 2025 at 23:20, Dan Cross wrote: > > >> > >> > > >> > >> On Tue, Jun 10, 2025 at 1:44 PM Clem Cole wrote: > > >> > >> > Can I suggest you start with OpenSIMH - https://OpenSimH.org and try running any a simulated system. It's a lot cheaper and while quite the same has having the the actual hardware, a lot easier to manage and most everything you could do from the old days can be done on you personal computer. If you want BlinkenLights, get one on of Occar's wonderful PiDP11 kits - https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 (which run OpenSIMH behind his lights and switches). Again a lot small and will meet you budget constraints. > > >> > >> > > >> > >> Another side of that is power consumption. The older machines will > > >> > >> absolutely drink energy; OpenSIMH on a modern SBC is so much more > > >> > >> efficient in that regard. > > >> > >> > > >> > >> - Dan C. > > >> > >> > > >> > >> > On Mon, Jun 9, 2025 at 2:08 PM Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> Hello Milo, > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 13:38:54 -0400 > > >> > >> >> Milo Velimirović wrote: > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> > What’s your budget and what’s your level of hardware technical skill? If budget is no concern, there are occasional complete pdp11 or vaxen on eBay. Or, you could get CPU cards and interfaces to piece together a system. If you go that route a Unibone or Qbone is highly recommended for both debugging and filling in hardwar gaps via emulation. Alternatively, there are several FPGA projects to emulate -11s. > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> Buying a complete PDP-11 or VAX is the dream, but it's not what I'm > > >> > >> >> aiming for to start. I was thinking of something like a UNIX > > >> > >> >> workstation. I haven't thought about the possibility of piecing together > > >> > >> >> a system using various cards. Thanks for pointing that out, I'll have to > > >> > >> >> look into it. > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> Budget is a concern for me. So ideally I would like to spend around $500 > > >> > >> >> USD on the actual computer. Is that realistic for the type of computer I > > >> > >> >> mentioned above? > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> I'm not hardware savvy, so I would have a limited ability to do repairs > > >> > >> >> on the electronics. I do know someone who is though, so I might be able > > >> > >> >> to get some help on this project. > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> I wish you an excellent week, > > >> > >> >> > > >> > >> >> Vicente > > >> > >> >> vicente at collares.ca From crossd at gmail.com Thu Jun 12 00:53:14 2025 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:53:14 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <72414E7F-B5D6-4CFF-8682-F8E292E3572F@gmail.com> <35467ae5-1cfb-4af6-b554-71f2e66a9ce3@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 10:22 AM Warner Losh wrote: > On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 9:56 AM Dan Cross wrote: > > [snip] > > I don't know when exactly it came around. It was definitely in 4.1.4, > > and I'm also certain it was in 4.1.3/4.1.3_U1. > > > > If Wikipedia can be trusted, it says that MP support came in 4.1.2, > > for the SPARCserver 600MP systems. It looks like it only supported up > > to 4 CPUs. > > There's #ifdef MUlTIPROCESSOR in the 4.1.3 and 4.1.4 trees that > leaked. But it looks like they only work for sun4m machines have real > defines... > > I'd been told at the time, over lunch, that even those code bases > didn't have MP support, but it may have been SMP support was > lacking... I could definitely imagine someone saying something like, "well, it's not _true_ multiprocessor support" since it really does appear that the kernel was restricted to running on one CPU at a time. However, it seems like the LWP support in those versions allows a single process to run across multiple CPUs, so there's that. - Dan C. From shadow at gmail.com Thu Jun 12 02:27:35 2025 From: shadow at gmail.com (Daria Phoebe Brashear) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 12:27:35 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I still have deep regrets about giving my IBM 6152 "crossbow" microchannel card away when I handed off the rest of my IBM RT gear; it was going to an exhibit of other RT hardware with Pick OS in Ohio which I understand to have subsequently been disbanded; I didn't have space for the 6150 towers or the 6151 slabs, but the 6152 was a card I could have kept for future times (despite never having had the right PS/2 to put it in) if I had known it wasn't going to be displayed. The goal has been to acquire a second and then go through the pain of setting up two of them in a PS/2, running AOS4 as I assume the 4.4BSD-almost port probably wasn't going to work. On Fri, Jun 6, 2025 at 2:16 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > As someone who has been quite attentive to the documentation situation with UNIX, I've managed to build out a pretty appreciable library of historic works. Among my most treasured bits are my 3B20S Release 4.1 manual and Bell Labs copies of the Lions's Commentary. > > What do folks have around that you're particularly thrilled to have among your UNIX-y possessions? > > - Matt G. -- Daria Phoebe Brashear AuriStor, Inc dariaphoebe.com From crossd at gmail.com Thu Jun 12 02:36:27 2025 From: crossd at gmail.com (Dan Cross) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 12:36:27 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] How did Dennis Ritchie typeset his PhD Thesis? A Typographical mystery Message-ID: I just ran across this. Fascinating: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/how-did-dennis-ritchie-produce-his-phd-thesis-a-typographical-mystery - Dan C. From adam at koszek.com Thu Jun 12 04:38:43 2025 From: adam at koszek.com (Adam Koszek) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:38:43 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <12FAE948-FEA4-430A-8030-01E4D871B93C@koszek.com> I think it counts! I was suspecting TUIs were either an IBM thing or UNIX thing—not sure if it’s < 1970 direction or > 1970 direction. In UNIX, someone must have added code for the cursor addressing for CRT screens b/c on printer terminals moving back a page … wasn’t possible? Adam > On Jun 9, 2025, at 11:21 AM, Henry Bent wrote: > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek > wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect. >> >> Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their earliest instances? >> >> Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through some old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated interactions existed before Vi: >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen >> >> Some terminals with block display: >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270 >> >> ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may have had TUIs before. >> >> Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design. > > Does this count? I was just looking at it the other day. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System > > I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here. > > -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rik at rikfarrow.com Thu Jun 12 04:46:17 2025 From: rik at rikfarrow.com (Rik Farrow) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 11:46:17 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: <12FAE948-FEA4-430A-8030-01E4D871B93C@koszek.com> References: <12FAE948-FEA4-430A-8030-01E4D871B93C@koszek.com> Message-ID: ECMA 48 was first published in 1976 as a standard for terminal escape sequences. This could be in support of any multiuser system, not just IBM or UNIX. Rik On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 11:39 AM Adam Koszek wrote: > I think it counts! I was suspecting TUIs were either an IBM thing or UNIX > thing—not sure if it’s < 1970 direction or > 1970 direction. In UNIX, > someone must have added code for the cursor addressing for CRT screens b/c > on printer terminals moving back a page … wasn’t possible? > > Adam > > On Jun 9, 2025, at 11:21 AM, Henry Bent wrote: > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 14:14, Adam Koszek wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> I got interested in UI design and often study some historical aspects of >> it as I work on software. It’s hard not to notice how fast/usable Text User >> Interfaces are—ncurses and its siblings are still alive and well. From the >> ergonomy point of view, not needing a mouse in those interfaces if perfect. >> >> Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their >> earliest instances? >> >> Many pages state that Vi was the first, but I’ve been looking through >> some old hardware photos, and things capable of more sophisticated >> interactions existed before Vi: >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pen >> >> Some terminals with block display: >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_3270 >> >> ^ ’71. Wiki says Vi showed up in ’76, but I suspect IBM mainframes may >> have had TUIs before. >> >> Question 2: were there any manuals talking about TUIs? I’m thinking some >> of those spiffy IBM things mandating certain design. >> > > Does this count? I was just looking at it the other day. > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext_Editing_System > > I have a feeling we're going to get away from UNIX pretty quickly here. > > -Henry > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From davida at pobox.com Thu Jun 12 06:01:23 2025 From: davida at pobox.com (David Arnold) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 06:01:23 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <324E485E-DFE2-450A-A322-CDF7935B2DBD@pobox.com> > On 11 Jun 2025, at 23:56, Dan Cross wrote: > > On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:50 AM Warner Losh wrote: >>> On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:14 AM Henry Bent wrote: >>> Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time period it's fine, and it definitely works well. >> >> Hmmm, I thought OS/MP was the only SunOS 4 that ran on MP machines. At one time I had a SPARCserver1000 with 6 (out of 8 possible) sun4d CPUs. I can’t confirm it now, but I’m pretty sure it was not supported by SunOS 4.x; I ran SunOS 5.8 on it I think. Which is consistent with Wikipedia’s claim that SunOS 4.x supported sun4m but not sun4d (and the XDBus). d From lm at mcvoy.com Thu Jun 12 06:14:49 2025 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 13:14:49 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <324E485E-DFE2-450A-A322-CDF7935B2DBD@pobox.com> References: <324E485E-DFE2-450A-A322-CDF7935B2DBD@pobox.com> Message-ID: <20250611201449.GC30509@mcvoy.com> On Thu, Jun 12, 2025 at 06:01:23AM +1000, David Arnold wrote: > > On 11 Jun 2025, at 23:56, Dan Cross wrote: > > > > ???On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:50???AM Warner Losh wrote: > >>> On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 8:14???AM Henry Bent wrote: > >>> Sorry, I sent a response only to Warner by accident. SunOS 4 runs just fine on MP machines, I have a dual processor HyperSPARC SS10 running right now. The MP support isn't ideal by modern standards but for the time period it's fine, and it definitely works well. > >> > >> Hmmm, I thought OS/MP was the only SunOS 4 that ran on MP machines. > > At one time I had a SPARCserver1000 with 6 (out of 8 possible) sun4d CPUs. > > I can???t confirm it now, but I???m pretty sure it was not supported by SunOS 4.x; I ran SunOS 5.8 on it I think. > > Which is consistent with Wikipedia???s claim that SunOS 4.x supported sun4m but not sun4d (and the XDBus). All correct. I believe sun4m was the only SMP that ran 4.x, everything else was Solaris. As an aside, Solaris was slow as molasses on sun4d (aka Sun Dragon). I was pushing for a clustered answer and Ken Okin stole a couple of pallets of IPXes and maybe some sun4m machines. I did a clustered NFS server that ran circles around Sun Dragon at the time. Ken came down to the machine room where I was running an NFS benchmark and watched for a while. That afternoon I had a $2 million budget to get started. All Ken said was "Your lights blink more" which was true, the same benchmark on Sun Dragon was less than half of the performance of the cluster. -- --- Larry McVoy Retired to fishing http://www.mcvoy.com/lm/boat From hjt at xs4all.nl Thu Jun 12 06:21:41 2025 From: hjt at xs4all.nl (H.J.Thomassen) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:21:41 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? Message-ID: <18982d8d-c869-fd34-c0c9-1652ec448ef7@xs4all.nl> I still have two 19" racks with the main components of the PDP-11/45, built in 1972, on which we started using UNIX 5th Edition in late summer 1974. Later it ran 6th and 7th Ed. CPU with front panel w. switches and lamps, RK03 cartridge disk (2.5Mb!), floating point processor board (serial number 1), several core memory banks among which 8K ones, DEC-tape, ASR33-TTY, dozens of mini-lightbulbs, not a single LED. Its hour-meter has clocked 122532: that's 13,97 years. It is complete but doesn't run. I remember from the days when I administered it during its productive life that it required .5 day of maintenance per six weeks, by a qualified service engineer: tuning power supplies, adjusting the disk head with the help of a special "alignment" disk cartridge, checking the fans (25+ in just those two racks), etc. etc. The CPU consists of 17 large PCBs. The combined MTBF of these PCBs was 1.5 years approx. Then the service engineer came with his box with exchange boards and swapped until the machine was up&running again. Without a maintenance contract such a board had a 5-figure exchange fee..... Hendrik-Jan Thomassen From als at thangorodrim.ch Thu Jun 12 06:19:42 2025 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:19:42 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 09, 2025 at 05:27:17PM -0400, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > Hello Henry, > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 15:57:56 -0400 > Henry Bent wrote: > > > Saying that does make me think - if you're not quite as worried about > > running as many OSes as possible and you like the form factor, you might > > also consider an SS10 or 20. It will be a little larger investment but a > > much higher powered machine, depending on how it's configured. > > I would rather go for the more powerful system than the one that supports > the most OSes. So I'm currently leaning more towards the SPARCstation 10 or > 20. I'll give eBay and the like to a look to see what I can find. The first Unix I ever got into contact was SunOS on SPARCstation ELC machines (diskless, razorsharp monochrome display) that filled one of our university computing pools. The first paying job was doing web/backend development as a student job on a Sun Ultra 1 running Solaris. That somehow left a fondness for SPARC behind ... A few years ago, a Sun V100 fell into my hands (being decommissioned) and it's serving me running NetBSD to this day (and later got some V100 friends as the board has some .. useful properties). The most priced of the SUN machines here so far is an Ultra-45 (dual CPU) that I managed to acquire a few months ago - the very last workstation SUN built with an actual UltraSPARC CPU. It happily runs NetBSD 10.1 here. > > Al Kossow made a good point - all of these machines are going to be slow by > > modern standards. How slow are you willing to put up with? Do you want > > something that was a representation of an average workstation at the time, > > or do you want to go all out and build a four processor SunOS 4 monster? > > I don't mind having a machine that is slow by modern standards. I would like > a system that is representative of the high-end at the time of its release. > I'm not looking to cobble together the most powerful Sun workstation > possible, a Frankenstein's monster of computer parts that would be unheard > of at the time. For that: The above-mentioned Ultra-45 is essentially the end of the line (1 or 2 (depending on board) 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi CPUs, 8/16G RAM) and still pretty speedy for being almost 30y (introduced 1995, discontinued 2001) old. Still official and not a FrankenWorkstation. > > Are you more interested in having fast interactive performance, so you > > invest in a higher end SBUS graphics card? Lots of options to consider. > When it comes to graphics, the system should be able to comfortably run a > window manager and simple programs with GUIs. I'm not looking for something > that can do 3D or advanced graphics. Haven't tried that yet, but I've got the fastest graphics card officially available for the Ultra-45 (XVR-2500, a 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm) sitting in a box next to the machine (currently equipped with the lowly XVR-100). It's being kept company by a dual SCSI PCIe card and a 10G PCI-X NIC (all on the officially supported addons list for the Ultra-45) in their own boxes. Once I find the round tuits ... Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From als at thangorodrim.ch Thu Jun 12 06:30:37 2025 From: als at thangorodrim.ch (Alexander Schreiber) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 22:30:37 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: <77a0b537-c7ed-17db-2011-802f1998ef18@bitsavers.org> References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <77a0b537-c7ed-17db-2011-802f1998ef18@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Jun 09, 2025 at 11:36:06AM -0700, Al Kossow wrote: > On 6/9/25 10:21 AM, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > > Given that I have little space it would need to be something small. > > The more important question is how slow do you want it to be? SIMH VAX runs on a Raspberry Pi4 class machine (RockPro64) reasonably well, if a little slow. Compiling stuff there is not an activity for the impatient ;-) But that host hardware is reasonably cheap, quiet (no fan) and low power. Kind regards, Alex. -- "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison From dave at horsfall.org Thu Jun 12 06:59:01 2025 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 06:59:01 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> Message-ID: Which just reminded me: who came up with the "Reach out and grep someone" bumper sticker? Or was it just a sig? -- Dave From woods at robohack.ca Thu Jun 12 07:46:29 2025 From: woods at robohack.ca (Greg A. Woods) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 14:46:29 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At Mon, 9 Jun 2025 10:57:05 -0700, Adam Koszek wrote: Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from > > Question: where did TUIs come from originally, and what were their > earliest instances? By "TUI", I assume you mean that in the anachronistic sense going backwards from "GUI". (Technically command-line interfaces are "text UIs" too, but just using one line at a time!) So "TUI" is really "full-screen text-based user interface"? I would think any terminal "block oriented" terminal, including all the way back to the IBM 2260 (1964), were typically used to create "full-screen textual user interfaces", while character-oriented terminals, including printing terminals, were typically used to create command-line interfaces (at least until screen-oriented terminals supported faster baud rates). I would also think the first full-screen editors (on any system, including with any kind of character-oriented terminals) should arguably be described as "TUIs" (as opposed to line-oriented editors and other command-line interfaces). In the Unix world I think there were versions of full-screen editors well before "vi" was fully fledged. I used one called "fred -- the friendly editor", initially IIRC on a PDP 11/60 running 7th Edition Unix at the University of Calgary, though at the time it was contemporary with "vi" (1980). It was, I believe, basically also an adaptation of Unix "ed". It had a modeless "open mode" controlled by the cursor keys allow one to move about and change text at arbitrary locations on the screen, though it could also be used in a more line-oriented way like you would expect a full-screen "ed" to work -- in this mode it still maintained a full screen's worth of context and one could "page" up and down in the document being edited but typically one inserted/appended lines in a modal manner, or moved or deleted or ran other commands on a line or block of lines at a time. Unfortunately I've never seen or heard any more of "fred" since leaving UofC in the early 1980s. It may even have been a local name for some adaptation of another editor, perhaps even "em" itself. In second year I quickly quit using "fred" and switched to (Gosling) emacs (true full-time modeless operation, finally!) as soon as it was available on the new VAX 11/780 (then running 4BSD -- though in first year it initially ran 32V then 3BSD). -- Greg A. Woods Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack Planix, Inc. Avoncote Farms -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: OpenPGP Digital Signature URL: From woods at robohack.ca Thu Jun 12 08:18:15 2025 From: woods at robohack.ca (Greg A. Woods) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:18:15 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] MACRO-11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: At Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:53:42 +0000, "Ron Natalie" wrote: Subject: [TUHS] Re: MACRO-11 > > It’s not written in C++, just plain C. > > ------ Original Message ------ > > On Mon, 9 Jun 2025, Warner Losh wrote: > > > >> https://github.com/andpp/macro11 > >> > >> Is in C++, but I don’t know how good it is. Yeah, don't believe everything GitHub claims about implementation languages of projects! So this is NOT the same as the "m11(1)" in 2BSD (which is written in itself, i.e. MACRO-11)! Once upon a time I wrote some first-year assignments in PDP-11 assembly on a PDP-11/60 running 7th Edition, and we used a MACRO-11 assembler with a manual I had bought for it that was clearly directly produced by DEC (but I think I bought it at the university bookstore). Would that DEC manual have been for the UCB m11(1) or a sibling, or was the UCB (nee Harvard) M11 a reimplementation of the DEC RT-11 MACRO-11 assembler? I wish I could find my printout of the main assembler project I did that year -- it was a complete arithmetic expression parser (with nested parenthesis support) for an integer calculator that I implemented based on a nice flowchart I had found in a book at the time (the basic assignment didn't require operator precedence or parenthesis support, but with the flowchart I found it very easy to implement the whole works). I probably accidentally recycled that box of paper though.... -- Greg A. Woods Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack Planix, Inc. Avoncote Farms -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: OpenPGP Digital Signature URL: From woods at robohack.ca Thu Jun 12 08:29:13 2025 From: woods at robohack.ca (Greg A. Woods) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:29:13 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: At Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:10:28 +1000, Rob Pike wrote: Subject: [TUHS] Re: Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? > > An original, hand-wire-wrapped Jerq board, later renamed Blit because of > marketing. Also the original mouse, made by Prof Nicoud's lab and signed by > him on the bottom. The mice that came with the DMD-5620s, the Dépraz Mouse, "Made in Switzerland" (one of mine says "Type D 85 / P") looks very similar. I have one in an original AT&T package too. It's one of my favourite Unix-related possessions, along with the DMD-5620 itself (or do I have 2?). Not a real Jerq, but still very nice! I wish I had the 3B2/500 that I used the DMD with -- but it didn't have an Ethernet card, and without TCP/IP it did not seem useful enough to keep at the time I moved into working with full Internet things. I do also still have a VT102 that reminds me of the PDP-11s I also once had. -- Greg A. Woods Kelowna, BC +1 250 762-7675 RoboHack Planix, Inc. Avoncote Farms -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 195 bytes Desc: OpenPGP Digital Signature URL: From aek at bitsavers.org Thu Jun 12 08:33:27 2025 From: aek at bitsavers.org (Al Kossow) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 15:33:27 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: On 6/11/25 3:29 PM, Greg A. Woods wrote: > At Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:10:28 +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > Subject: [TUHS] Re: Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? >> >> An original, hand-wire-wrapped Jerq board, later renamed Blit because of >> marketing. Also the original mouse, made by Prof Nicoud's lab and signed by >> him on the bottom. > have the eproms been archived? From mah at mhorton.net Thu Jun 12 10:38:54 2025 From: mah at mhorton.net (Mary Ann Horton) Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:38:54 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025, 1:59 PM Dave Horsfall wrote: > Which just reminded me: who came up with the "Reach out and grep someone" > bumper sticker? Or was it just a sig? > > -- Dave > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rudi.j.blom at gmail.com Thu Jun 12 12:46:18 2025 From: rudi.j.blom at gmail.com (Rudi J. Blom) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 09:46:18 +0700 Subject: [TUHS] X.25 stacks on Unix Message-ID: Greg, a long time a go while still working for Computer Division of Philips Electronics I used X.25 and X.21 extensively on various proprietary O.S.-es. X.25/X.21 (or PSDN/CSDN) was used for Teletex (CCITT T series, TTX, better than telex but lost to FAX which was easier, cheaper and legally acceptable). I still have some dedicated boards which Philips used for X.25, X.21 and SDLC. At a customer side in a test environment with SCO UNIX 3.2V4.2 SDLC links are still used, X.25 was phased out a few years ago. Same with DEC Tru64, a multi-port SYNC-2000 with appropriate DEC software could support both X.25 and SDLC. AlphaServer DS25 with SDLC links still in production. I still have all the applicable software for SCO UNIX and DEC Tru64. Cheers, uncle rubl -- The more I learn the better I understand I know nothing. 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration. 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ori at heliconbooks.com Fri Jun 13 00:10:44 2025 From: ori at heliconbooks.com (Ori Kuttner) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 17:10:44 +0300 Subject: [TUHS] How did Dennis Ritchie typeset his PhD Thesis? A Typographical mystery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The link doesn't work. -- Ori Kuttner CEO Helicon Books http://www.heliconbooks.com On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 7:37 PM Dan Cross wrote: > I just ran across this. Fascinating: > > https://fermatslibrary.com/s/how-did-dennis-ritchie-produce-his-phd-thesis-a-typographical-mystery > > - Dan C. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnl at taugh.com Fri Jun 13 01:05:42 2025 From: johnl at taugh.com (John Levine) Date: 12 Jun 2025 17:05:42 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] How did Dennis Ritchie typeset his PhD Thesis? A Typographical mystery In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20250612150542.D01DCCDE98D4@ary.local> It appears that Dan Cross said: >I just ran across this. Fascinating: This link works https://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/dmr/doceng22.pdf R's, John From clemc at ccc.com Fri Jun 13 01:06:09 2025 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:06:09 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 5:46 PM Greg A. Woods wrote: > > In the Unix world I think there were versions of full-screen editors > well before "vi" was fully fledged. I used one called "fred -- the > friendly editor", initially IIRC on a PDP 11/60 running 7th Edition Unix > at the University of Calgary, though at the time it was contemporary > with "vi" (1980). It was, I believe, basically also an adaptation of > Unix "ed". It had a modeless "open mode" controlled by the cursor keys > allow one to move about and change text at arbitrary locations on the > screen, though it could also be used in a more line-oriented way like > you would expect a full-screen "ed" to work -- in this mode it still > maintained a full screen's worth of context and one could "page" up and > down in the document being edited but typically one inserted/appended > lines in a modal manner, or moved or deleted or ran other commands on a > line or block of lines at a time. > fred was original released for v6. FWIW: I think it came out of Cornell. I know we had it at CMU in 1977/78 and ran it on Perkin Elmer Fox terminals mostly, since that is what most of the UNIX boxes we had. I'm pretty sure that I have the sources somewhere. There was nothing like termcap; it was hard-coded to the terminal being used in some manner, probably reading something static like /etc/ttys and knowing the site's set up. But as you said, it was small enough to run on 11/40 class UNIX systems which helpful since 40s and 34s were what we had the most. We did not have vi nor emacs in UNIX-land which was still PDP-11's (EMACS was on the PDP-10s). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tuhs at tuhs.org Fri Jun 13 23:42:00 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 15:42:00 +0200 Subject: [TUHS] Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: (Clem Cole's message of "Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:06:09 -0400") References: Message-ID: Clem Cole writes: > fred was original released for v6. FWIW: I think it came out of Cornell. I > know we had it at CMU in 1977/78 and ran it on Perkin Elmer Fox terminals > mostly, since that is what most of the UNIX boxes we had. Another one from around the same time is 'ded'. I use it under PWB 1.0 on two of my 11/23 systems, and quite like it. There's a link to an article about it, and where to find it in the TUHS archives, on my web page at https://hamartun.priv.no/ded.html -tih -- The creation of the state of Israel was a regrettable mistake. It is time to undo this mistake, and finally re-establish a free Palestine. From henry.r.bent at gmail.com Sat Jun 14 09:02:15 2025 From: henry.r.bent at gmail.com (Henry Bent) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 19:02:15 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Do you have any historical UNIX computers? In-Reply-To: References: <28866308-c13a-41ba-9b6f-b3d11d69e9fe@collares.ca> <77a0b537-c7ed-17db-2011-802f1998ef18@bitsavers.org> Message-ID: Performance per watt is always an interesting metric that has been largely left alone. My Ryzen 7 5700G claims to operate within a 65W thermal envelope, and with modern monitoring I can pretty much keep it there. Heck, even my i7-7700 can be manually throttled down to keep it within a certain frequency envelope so that it doesn't cook itself, because I'm not happy with the thermal solution HP came up with. -Henry On Fri, 13 Jun 2025 at 15:01, Alexander Schreiber wrote: > On Mon, Jun 09, 2025 at 11:36:06AM -0700, Al Kossow wrote: > > On 6/9/25 10:21 AM, Vicente Collares via TUHS wrote: > > > Given that I have little space it would need to be something small. > > > > The more important question is how slow do you want it to be? > > SIMH VAX runs on a Raspberry Pi4 class machine (RockPro64) reasonably > well, if a little slow. Compiling stuff there is not an activity for > the impatient ;-) > > But that host hardware is reasonably cheap, quiet (no fan) and low > power. > > Kind regards, > Alex. > -- > "Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and > looks like work." -- Thomas A. Edison > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From shadow at gmail.com Sat Jun 14 12:27:23 2025 From: shadow at gmail.com (Daria Phoebe Brashear) Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 22:27:23 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? In-Reply-To: References: <202506091611.559GBKZJ397819@freefriends.org> <4-qJVuQM7Jgik3HG9UukaN3NXJSFwGeqyP5ChnzKLRP-k3pCVD5kLjsrxl8kGGF9pnrovp91wleJFXKLrc-XK3Wv9tk0g4Pz7YfeTCqTKJw=@protonmail.ch> Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 18:35 Greg A. Woods wrote: > At Tue, 10 Jun 2025 12:10:28 +1000, Rob Pike wrote: > Subject: [TUHS] Re: Your Most Prized UNIX Artifacts? > > > > An original, hand-wire-wrapped Jerq board, later renamed Blit because of > > marketing. Also the original mouse, made by Prof Nicoud's lab and signed > by > > him on the bottom. > > The mice that came with the DMD-5620s, the Dépraz Mouse, "Made in > Switzerland" (one of mine says "Type D 85 / P") looks very similar. I > have one in an original AT&T package too. > Ah yes. Mice. I still have two new-in-their-boxes DEC Hawley puck mice. VSXXX-AA, with two rollers. They kept tracking reliably whereas the ball variant always got gunked up and skipped, but our DEC mice tended to succumb to Nettrek disease, where the left button would get clicked to death, and the replacements were inevitably the ball version. I never managed to source a wheel version at the time to just carry with me. Got two years later, planning to give one to a friend a few months older than me for his collection. Cancer intervened and he is several years gone now, alas. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aaronscohen at gmail.com Sun Jun 15 04:43:27 2025 From: aaronscohen at gmail.com (Aaron) Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2025 14:43:27 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <47E2B3E8-9358-49DA-961B-EEE9474CE4BE@gmail.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dave at horsfall.org Sun Jun 15 09:14:09 2025 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:14:09 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, 11 Jun 2025, Mary Ann Horton wrote: (Who came up with "Reach out and grep someone") > [IMAGE]Greg Chesson. Thanks. -- Dave From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Jun 15 19:12:34 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 09:12:34 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> Message-ID: <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> On Saturday, June 14th, 2025 at 4:14 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > On Wed, 11 Jun 2025, Mary Ann Horton wrote: > > (Who came up with "Reach out and grep someone") > > > [IMAGE]Greg Chesson. > > > Thanks. > > -- Dave Was this a reference to AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone" campaign or just a happy coincidence? - Matt G. From arnold at skeeve.com Mon Jun 16 02:02:32 2025 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 10:02:32 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: <202506151602.55FG2WO3320564@freefriends.org> segaloco via TUHS wrote: > On Saturday, June 14th, 2025 at 4:14 PM, Dave Horsfall wrote: > > > On Wed, 11 Jun 2025, Mary Ann Horton wrote: > > > > (Who came up with "Reach out and grep someone") > > > > > [IMAGE]Greg Chesson. > > > > > > Thanks. > > > > -- Dave > > Was this a reference to AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone" campaign or just a happy coincidence? Very much so. Arnold From stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca Mon Jun 16 11:02:46 2025 From: stuff at riddermarkfarm.ca (Stuff Received) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:02:46 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: <202506151602.55FG2WO3320564@freefriends.org> References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> <202506151602.55FG2WO3320564@freefriends.org> Message-ID: On 2025-06-15 12:02, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > segaloco via TUHS wrote: [...] >> Was this a reference to AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone" campaign or just a happy coincidence? > > Very much so. > > Arnold Not to be overly pedantic or anything but you answered "yes" to "a" or "b". S. From arnold at skeeve.com Mon Jun 16 13:46:54 2025 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2025 21:46:54 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> <202506151602.55FG2WO3320564@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <202506160346.55G3ksWN363735@freefriends.org> Stuff Received wrote: > On 2025-06-15 12:02, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > > segaloco via TUHS wrote: > [...] > >> Was this a reference to AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone" campaign or just a happy coincidence? > > > > Very much so. > > > > Arnold > > Not to be overly pedantic or anything but you answered "yes" to "a" or "b". > > S. Yes it was a response to.the at&t ad campaign. From dave at horsfall.org Mon Jun 16 15:49:41 2025 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:49:41 +1000 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Origins of touch(1) In-Reply-To: <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> References: <08eedb97-22f5-4d57-af2c-9bfb1d7649ba@app.fastmail.com> <_evZKSX6YvFCsXIOOMucSQfDubVIrffem9pdZ2b39f2aG1mB-ApEXdtV0gXp0DXELyUqz2vz-4kmuQRs-IqLfjmrxEy1l5spzkiVwqEl1OQ=@protonmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 15 Jun 2025, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > (Who came up with "Reach out and grep someone") > > Was this a reference to AT&T's "Reach out and touch someone" campaign or > just a happy coincidence? It was around the time of that campaign (although being Australian I didn't pay much attention), so I guess that's what prompted it. -- Dave From johnl at taugh.com Tue Jun 17 08:51:16 2025 From: johnl at taugh.com (John Levine) Date: 16 Jun 2025 18:51:16 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> It appears that Greg A. Woods said: >In the Unix world I think there were versions of full-screen editors >well before "vi" was fully fledged. ... At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. Although programs could directly write arbitrary graphics to them, the editor used them as text terminals via the system terminal emulator I wrote. I made a few tweaks to help the editor like insert mode to push characters out of the way rather than having to redraw the line each time, and an input mode that buffered up characters until you typed something that needed more than an echo to the screen. It was based on Ned Irons' PDP-10 screen editor that ran on Omron glass ttys, and was a cousin of INed which Walt Bilofsky wrote for Interactive Systems. They used the quarter-plane model, you could move the cursor around the screen and overtype stuff, with no automatic flow from one line to another. There were control characters to do the other editing stuff like search and save/exit, but nowhere near as complicated as emacs. R's, John From lars at nocrew.org Tue Jun 17 22:48:19 2025 From: lars at nocrew.org (Lars Brinkhoff) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 12:48:19 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> (John Levine's message of "16 Jun 2025 18:51:16 -0400") References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> Message-ID: <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> John Levine wrote: > At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. The GEM display system, in case anyone is curious. Here's a description: https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/3917/3714/8796/tr163.pdf Unrelated to DR's GEM desktop. > It was based on Ned Irons' PDP-10 screen editor that ran on Omron glass ttys, > and was a cousin of INed which Walt Bilofsky wrote for Interactive Systems. I'm curious if any listing or simliar may have survived for these? From arnold at skeeve.com Tue Jun 17 22:52:29 2025 From: arnold at skeeve.com (arnold at skeeve.com) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 06:52:29 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: <202506171252.55HCqT9D509554@freefriends.org> > John Levine wrote: > > At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. Wasn't this related (somehow) to what was called the RAND editor? I remember using "e" on IS/1, a V6 derivative on the PDP-11, in the 1980-81 time frame. I don't know if it was hardwired for a particular terminal or not. The ones we had at my school had some smarts in them, you could do simple bitmap graphics. Someone wrote a "Space Invaders" game for them. I don't remember what brand they were. Arnold From jsg at jsg.id.au Wed Jun 18 00:21:29 2025 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 00:21:29 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Yale and RAND editors In-Reply-To: <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 12:48:19PM +0000, Lars Brinkhoff wrote: > John Levine wrote: > > At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. > > The GEM display system, in case anyone is curious. Here's a description: > https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/3917/3714/8796/tr163.pdf > > Unrelated to DR's GEM desktop. https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/2117/3714/8646/TR19_The_Yale_Editor_E_a_CRT-Based_Text_Editing_System_Preliminary_Version.pdf references an IDA CDC6600 editor Edgar T. Irons, Frans M. Djorup A CRT Editing System https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/361237.361244 > > > It was based on Ned Irons' PDP-10 screen editor that ran on Omron glass ttys, > > and was a cousin of INed which Walt Bilofsky wrote for Interactive Systems. > > I'm curious if any listing or simliar may have survived for these? Walter Bilofsky The CRT Text Editor NED - Introduction and Reference Manual https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA049314.pdf has a page on the history of associated editors. tuhs Applications/Usenix_77/ug091377.tar.gz 2/rand/re/ /* file re.c - main program for RAND editor */ tuhs Applications/Shoppa_Tapes/usenix_80_delaware.tar.gz delaware/maryland/rand/re/ delaware/maryland/rand/redoc/ /* file ned.c - main program for new RAND editor */ /* Walt Bilofsky - 14 January 1977 */ From johnl at taugh.com Wed Jun 18 01:06:23 2025 From: johnl at taugh.com (John R Levine) Date: 17 Jun 2025 11:06:23 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: <202506171252.55HCqT9D509554@freefriends.org> References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <202506171252.55HCqT9D509554@freefriends.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 17 Jun 2025, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: >>> At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. > > Wasn't this related (somehow) to what was called the RAND editor? Yes. The same people went from Yale to RAND and then started Interactive. INed may have used code from the RAND editor, even if not, it was written by the same guy and worked much the same. > I remember using "e" on IS/1, a V6 derivative on the PDP-11, in > the 1980-81 time frame. I don't know if it was hardwired for a > particular terminal or not. Interactive sold OEM terminals but I don't recall whether the editor also worked on other devices. Regards, John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly From johnl at taugh.com Wed Jun 18 01:11:27 2025 From: johnl at taugh.com (John R Levine) Date: 17 Jun 2025 11:11:27 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] Yale and RAND editors In-Reply-To: References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 18 Jun 2025, Jonathan Gray wrote: >> The GEM display system, in case anyone is curious. Here's a description: >> https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/3917/3714/8796/tr163.pdf >> >> Unrelated to DR's GEM desktop. > > https://engineering.yale.edu/application/files/2117/3714/8646/TR19_The_Yale_Editor_E_a_CRT-Based_Text_Editing_System_Preliminary_Version.pdf Huh, didn't realize that report was still available. It became an article in Software Practice and Experience. Regards, John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly From clemc at ccc.com Wed Jun 18 01:40:14 2025 From: clemc at ccc.com (Clem Cole) Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2025 11:40:14 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <202506171252.55HCqT9D509554@freefriends.org> Message-ID: Somebody (ISC I >>think<<) inserted some of the code for INed into the ROMs of the Perkin-Elmer Fox terminals to provide some assistance (which were 6800-based). I never knew much about it, but it was the system the 68000 folks (Les Crudele, Nich Trudenick et al) used during core development. It all ran on a PDP-11/70, which was running Interactive's V6 port that their group controlled in the back, basically unnoticed. Les told me that the system was pretty responsive, even with the load they put on it of editing and text processing, much more responsive than the resources Motorola corporate offered them. This was all important because the 6809 was the "corporate" project and what would become the 68000 was purely an unamed skunkworks project, basically hidden away from the core management structure as an experiment/bet that they could do it (a story told elsewhere and while UNIX rely on the results, was not part of UNIX's story directly other than a PDP-11/70 running UNIX was the system was used to create the processor). On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 11:06 AM John R Levine wrote: > On Tue, 17 Jun 2025, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > >>> At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. > > > > Wasn't this related (somehow) to what was called the RAND editor? > > Yes. The same people went from Yale to RAND and then started Interactive. > INed may have used code from the RAND editor, even if not, it was written > by the same guy and worked much the same. > > > I remember using "e" on IS/1, a V6 derivative on the PDP-11, in > > the 1980-81 time frame. I don't know if it was hardwired for a > > particular terminal or not. > > Interactive sold OEM terminals but I don't recall whether the editor also > worked on other devices. > > Regards, > John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY > Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsg at jsg.id.au Wed Jun 18 02:27:22 2025 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2025 02:27:22 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <202506171252.55HCqT9D509554@freefriends.org> Message-ID: INtext Terminal, INed and other ISC products ~ 1979 mentioned in https://archive.org/details/TNM_Automated_office_communications_-_Interactive_20180306_0001/page/n23/mode/2up On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 11:40:14AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote: > Somebody (ISC I >>think<<) inserted some of the code for INed into the ROMs > of the Perkin-Elmer Fox terminals to provide some assistance (which were > 6800-based). I never knew much about it, but it was the system the 68000 > folks (Les Crudele, Nich Trudenick et al) used during core development. It > all ran on a PDP-11/70, which was running Interactive's V6 port that their > group controlled in the back, basically unnoticed. Les told me that the > system was pretty responsive, even with the load they put on it of > editing and text processing, much more responsive than the resources > Motorola corporate offered them. This was all important because the 6809 > was the "corporate" project and what would become the 68000 was purely an > unamed skunkworks project, basically hidden away from the core management > structure as an experiment/bet that they could do it (a story told > elsewhere and while UNIX rely on the results, was not part of UNIX's story > directly other than a PDP-11/70 running UNIX was the system was used to > create the processor). > > On Tue, Jun 17, 2025 at 11:06 AM John R Levine wrote: > > > On Tue, 17 Jun 2025, arnold at skeeve.com wrote: > > >>> At Yale we had one called "e" that ran on our early bitmap terminals. > > > > > > Wasn't this related (somehow) to what was called the RAND editor? > > > > Yes. The same people went from Yale to RAND and then started Interactive. > > INed may have used code from the RAND editor, even if not, it was written > > by the same guy and worked much the same. > > > > > I remember using "e" on IS/1, a V6 derivative on the PDP-11, in > > > the 1980-81 time frame. I don't know if it was hardwired for a > > > particular terminal or not. > > > > Interactive sold OEM terminals but I don't recall whether the editor also > > worked on other devices. > > > > Regards, > > John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY > > Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly > > From johnl at taugh.com Wed Jun 18 02:29:52 2025 From: johnl at taugh.com (John R Levine) Date: 17 Jun 2025 12:29:52 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] screen editors, Where/when did TUIs come from In-Reply-To: References: <20250616225117.3E615CE727E2@ary.qy> <7wmsa6fsa4.fsf@junk.nocrew.org> <202506171252.55HCqT9D509554@freefriends.org> Message-ID: <49efae23-c849-c466-2ab1-6d5d00251ab4@taugh.com> On Tue, 17 Jun 2025, Clem Cole wrote: > Somebody (ISC I >>think<<) inserted some of the code for INed into the ROMs > of the Perkin-Elmer Fox terminals to provide some assistance (which were > 6800-based). Yup, those were called INterms or something like that. > folks (Les Crudele, Nich Trudenick et al) used during core development. It > all ran on a PDP-11/70, which was running Interactive's V6 port that their We used whatever was available from AT&T so it'd have been v7 probably in 1979. Later it was Sys III. Regards, John Levine, johnl at taugh.com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly From pugs78 at gmail.com Tue Jun 24 06:21:51 2025 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2025 13:21:51 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Texas UNIX Users Conference 1981 Message-ID: I just discovered that this issue of the Australian UNIX User Group Newsletter contains summaries of all the talks and sessions from the Usenix Texas UNIX Users Conference - Summer 1981. https://vtda.org/pubs/AUUGN/AUUGN-V03.4.pdf In what I believe was my first public speaking role I presented "UNIX vs Godzilla -- UNIX in an IBM Environment" Lots of other familiar names in those notes too. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.bowling at kev009.com Tue Jun 24 08:44:50 2025 From: kevin.bowling at kev009.com (Kevin Bowling) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2025 15:44:50 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] X.25 stacks on Unix In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jun 11, 2025 at 7:46 PM Rudi J. Blom wrote: > > > Greg, > > a long time a go while still working for Computer Division of Philips Electronics I used X.25 and X.21 extensively on various proprietary O.S.-es. X.25/X.21 (or PSDN/CSDN) was used for Teletex (CCITT T series, TTX, better than telex but lost to FAX which was easier, cheaper and legally acceptable). > > I still have some dedicated boards which Philips used for X.25, X.21 and SDLC. At a customer side in a test environment with SCO UNIX 3.2V4.2 SDLC links are still used, X.25 was phased out a few years ago. Same with DEC Tru64, a multi-port SYNC-2000 with appropriate DEC software could support both X.25 and SDLC. AlphaServer DS25 with SDLC links still in production. > > I still have all the applicable software for SCO UNIX and DEC Tru64. Consider uploading to archive.org or somewhere. I've uploaded the SunLink stack here http://iommu.com/sun/sunlink-x.25-8.0.2.iso There is a hobby x.25 network at https://x25.org/ > Cheers, > uncle rubl > -- > The more I learn the better I understand I know nothing. > 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration. > 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration > 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration > 24 x 7 is not enough but my request for 25 x 8 is still under consideration > From norman at oclsc.org Tue Jun 24 11:08:04 2025 From: norman at oclsc.org (Norman Wilson) Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2025 21:08:04 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [TUHS] Texas UNIX Users Conference 1981 Message-ID: This note gets a bit COFF-y; please redirect any replies to that list. USENIX Summer 1981, in Austin TX. First USENIX conference I ever attended, and the first to which I travelled by train-- mostly. I was somewhat shy about travelling in those days, but my Caltech colleague Mark Bartelt talked me into going, and suggested going by train. Except by the time I booked the trip there was space available only from Los Angeles to San Antonio and back, not onward from San Antonio to Austin. But in those days I did a bit of cycle touring, often in the company of my friend Brian Foster. Brian was also a co-worker at the time, and was interested in attending too. So we decided to travel together by train (in coach) to San Antonio, arriving around 05h30, and spent the rest of that day cycling, mostly up the frontage roads beside I-35, to Austin. After the conference we cycled back, mostly at night, which was somewhat spooky (I remember seeing a thunderstorm off on the horizon but we didn't get rained on) but saved us a second dose of sunburn. They checked into a motel for a day and a night until the return train came through at 02h55. I have gone by train to nearly every other conference I've attended since, but never again have I cycled. It was a fun ride but a harder one than expected. In those days of paper mapes, we visited the Caltech geography department and plotted out what looked like a fairly smooth route, with a slow but steady climb. The topo map we used had a resolution of 50' altitude. Evidently the constant, sometimes steep hills between San Antonio and Austin are all no more than 49' tall. It was a good conference too. One memory that sticks in my head was Jim Joyce using Tinker Toys as a metaphor for connecting Unix tools together. Norman Wilson Toronto ON From pugs78 at gmail.com Sun Jun 29 10:26:21 2025 From: pugs78 at gmail.com (Tom Lyon) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 17:26:21 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] Old UNIX newsletters? Message-ID: Anyone sitting on piles of old UNIX newsletters? I find they make for fascinating reading. I haven't found any online archives. If you have a pile, I can scan them. I'm going to scan my 3 copies of commUNIXations, the /usr/group newsletter, and 4 copies of "UNIQUE - Your independent UNIX and C Advisor" - all from 1983/4. Warren can hopefully find a home for these. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsg at jsg.id.au Sun Jun 29 13:30:12 2025 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2025 13:30:12 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Old UNIX newsletters? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Tom Lyon wrote: > Anyone sitting on piles of old UNIX newsletters? I find they make for > fascinating reading. > I haven't found any online archives. > If you have a pile, I can scan them. > > I'm going to scan my 3 copies of commUNIXations, the /usr/group newsletter, > and 4 copies of "UNIQUE - Your independent UNIX and C Advisor" - all from > 1983/4. Great, thank you. Also looking for USG newsletters, and UKUUG newsletters from the 1970s and 1980s. "The first issue of the monthly UNIX Newsletter was published in January 1974 and was edited by Joe Maranzano. ... the newsletter's name was changed to Minisystems Newsletter but was still published by USG." Pirzada A Statistical Examination of The Evolution of the UNIX System p 36-37 "agenda of the UNIX/MERT Users Meeting held February 24, 1977, printed in the January 1977 issue of the Mini-System Newsletter, circulated within Bell Laboratories" UUCP history described by Brian Redman in Kochan & Wood - UNIX Networking, p 6-7 "In December 1976, the first UK UNIVERSITIES UNIX NEWSLETTER appeared. ... In the UK, Alistair Kilgour of Glasgow, circulated a letter in March 1977, suggesting the formation of a UK Unix Users Group as a DECUS UK SIG. There was a Unix colloquium in Glasgow on 27 May 1977, "attended by about 40 people," and the first few issues of the Unix Newsletter were duplicated and mailed by DECUS UK." Peter H. Salus - The Importance of the Users in UNIX/Linux History AUUG 2001 Conference Proceedings https://books.google.com/books?id=xPe8dPxcU98C&pg=PA7 From imp at bsdimp.com Sun Jun 29 13:36:28 2025 From: imp at bsdimp.com (Warner Losh) Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2025 21:36:28 -0600 Subject: [TUHS] Old UNIX newsletters? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 28, 2025, 9:30 PM Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Tom Lyon wrote: > > Anyone sitting on piles of old UNIX newsletters? I find they make for > > fascinating reading. > > I haven't found any online archives. > > If you have a pile, I can scan them. > > > > I'm going to scan my 3 copies of commUNIXations, the /usr/group > newsletter, > > and 4 copies of "UNIQUE - Your independent UNIX and C Advisor" - all from > > 1983/4. > > Great, thank you. > > Also looking for USG newsletters, and UKUUG newsletters from the 1970s > and 1980s. > > "The first issue of the monthly UNIX Newsletter was published in > January 1974 and was edited by Joe Maranzano. > ... > the newsletter's name was changed to Minisystems Newsletter but was > still published by USG." > Pirzada > A Statistical Examination of The Evolution of the UNIX System > p 36-37 > > "agenda of the UNIX/MERT Users Meeting held February 24, 1977, printed > in the January 1977 issue of the Mini-System Newsletter, circulated > within Bell Laboratories" > UUCP history described by Brian Redman in > Kochan & Wood - UNIX Networking, p 6-7 > > "In December 1976, the first UK UNIVERSITIES UNIX NEWSLETTER appeared. > ... > In the UK, Alistair Kilgour of Glasgow, circulated a letter in > March 1977, suggesting the formation of a UK Unix Users Group as a DECUS > UK SIG. There was a Unix colloquium in Glasgow on 27 May 1977, > "attended by about 40 people," and the first few issues of the Unix > Newsletter were duplicated and mailed by DECUS UK." > Peter H. Salus - The Importance of the Users in UNIX/Linux History > AUUG 2001 Conference Proceedings > https://books.google.com/books?id=xPe8dPxcU98C&pg=PA > I think you'll find many of the earliest newsletters just photocopied other interesting newsletters for some of ther editions... and then a few isdues later, the editors have discovered copyright law and issue mea culpas... Having said that, i hope many of the lost newsletters being sought are found since it wasn't all like that. Warner > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jsg at jsg.id.au Mon Jun 30 00:04:44 2025 From: jsg at jsg.id.au (Jonathan Gray) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2025 00:04:44 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Old UNIX newsletters? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Jun 29, 2025 at 01:30:12PM +1000, Jonathan Gray wrote: > On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Tom Lyon wrote: > > Anyone sitting on piles of old UNIX newsletters? I find they make for > > fascinating reading. > > I haven't found any online archives. > > If you have a pile, I can scan them. > > > > I'm going to scan my 3 copies of commUNIXations, the /usr/group newsletter, > > and 4 copies of "UNIQUE - Your independent UNIX and C Advisor" - all from > > 1983/4. > > Great, thank you. > > Also looking for USG newsletters, and UKUUG newsletters from the 1970s > and 1980s. as ukuug.org now links to casinos... https://web.archive.org/web/20220331114723/https://www.ukuug.org/about/timeline/ mentions some of the newsletters: 1976 December UK Universities UNIX Newsletter Vol 1, No 1 Editor Peter Gray partly? reprinted in Unix News, Vol 2, No 1 tuhs Documentation/Usenix/Early_Newsletters/197612-unix-news-v2n1.pdf p 5-6 1977 July UKUUG Newsletter Vol 1, No 2 Editor Peter Gray 1978 January UKUUG Newsletter Vol 1, No 3 Editor Peter Gray 1979 August UKUUG (Decus SIG) Newsletter Vol 1, No 5 Editor Bruce Anderson 1980 February UKUUG (Decus SIG) Newsletter No 6 Editor Bruce Anderson 1980 July UKUUG (Decus SIG) Newsletter No 7 Editor Bruce Anderson UKUUG newsletters replaced by EUUG newsletters in 1980 or 1981? 1981 February EUUG (Decus SIG) Newsletter No 8 Editor Bruce Anderson 1981 May EUUG (Decus SIG) Newsletter No 9 Editor Bruce Anderson 1981 August EUUG (Decus SIG) Newsletter No 10 Editor Bruce Anderson 1982 January EUUG Newsletter Vol 2, No 1 Editor Jim McKie 1982 April EUUG Newsletter Vol 2, No 2 Editor Jim McKie EUUG Newsletter Vol 2, No 4 onwards scans at https://datamuseum.dk/wiki/Bits:Keyword/PERIODICALS/EUUG-NEWSLETTER From tuhs at tuhs.org Mon Jun 30 07:56:34 2025 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2025 07:56:34 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Old UNIX newsletters? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jun 28, 2025 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Tom Lyon wrote: > Anyone sitting on piles of old UNIX newsletters? I find they make for > fascinating reading. > I haven't found any online archives. > If you have a pile, I can scan them. > I'm going to scan my 3 copies of commUNIXations, the /usr/group > newsletter, and 4 copies of "UNIQUE - Your independent UNIX and C > Advisor" - all from 1983/4. > Warren can hopefully find a home for these. I scanned all the AUUGNs in; they are here: https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/AUUGN/ I'm happy to take other scanned newsletters and put them in Documentation/ Thanks! Warren