From ram at rkrishnan.org Sun May 1 11:28:56 2016 From: ram at rkrishnan.org (Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan) Date: Sun, 01 May 2016 06:58:56 +0530 Subject: [TUHS] Portals in 4.4 BSD In-Reply-To: References: <1461920291.2703061.593186393.3DD04F16@webmail.messagingengine.com> Message-ID: <1462066136.2653464.594540825.0AB37B4D@webmail.messagingengine.com> On Fri, Apr 29, 2016, at 04:45 PM, Tony Finch wrote: > Ramakrishnan Muthukrishnan wrote: > > > > I read with a lot of interest, an old Usenix paper by the late Richard > > Stevens on a system called "Portals": [...] > > Wondering if this survived in any existing, so called "modern" Unix. > > A descendent of the original code is still present in DragonFlyBSD: > > http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/sys/vfs/portal > http://gitweb.dragonflybsd.org/dragonfly.git/tree/HEAD:/sbin/mount_portal > > The facility still exists in NetBSD but it has been reimplemented on top > of puffs, the Pass-to-Userspace Framework File System development > interface. > > http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?mount_portal > > It survived in FreeBSD for a long time, but eventually was removed in > 2012 > rather than being made multiprocessor-safe. > > https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/commit/efcca33ac515c354e18135425794400ea32406a8 > > It also got removed from OpenBSD in 2011. > > http://cvsweb.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/sbin/mount_portal/Attic/mount_portal.8 Thanks a lot, Tony. Looks like Portal is alive, at least in some of the BSD variants. I will try these out. -- Ramakrishnan From arnold at skeeve.com Mon May 2 13:44:10 2016 From: arnold at skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) Date: Mon, 02 May 2016 06:44:10 +0300 Subject: [TUHS] interesting but long article on Dave Cutler, of VMS and NT fame Message-ID: <201605020344.u423iA4p012452@skeeve.com> https://news.microsoft.com/features/the-engineers-engineer-computer-industry-luminaries-salute-dave-cutlers-five-decade-long-quest-for-quality/#sm.00000ni2wngtehe9rwkwmhfhom6ny Some of the statements about him seem exaggerated, but that's not surprising. Anyone who's read "Showstopper!" will have a different picture of him than what's painted here. Arnold From cowan at mercury.ccil.org Tue May 3 00:25:48 2016 From: cowan at mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Mon, 2 May 2016 10:25:48 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] interesting but long article on Dave Cutler, of VMS and NT fame In-Reply-To: <201605020344.u423iA4p012452@skeeve.com> References: <201605020344.u423iA4p012452@skeeve.com> Message-ID: <20160502142548.GE29513@mercury.ccil.org> Aharon Robbins scripsit: > Some of the statements about him seem exaggerated, but that's not > surprising. Anyone who's read "Showstopper!" will have a different > picture of him than what's painted here. After all, it's a Microsoft press release. The reality distortion field is in full operation. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan at ccil.org Even a refrigerator can conform to the XML Infoset, as long as it has a door sticker saying "No information items inside". --Eve Maler From wkt at tuhs.org Tue May 3 17:21:55 2016 From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 17:21:55 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 Unix Progress Message-ID: <20160503072155.GA28307@minnie.tuhs.org> All, a status update on the PDP-7 Unix restoration project at https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix The system is pretty much complete now. We have as much of the original code working as we can. We have rewritten things like the shell and some other utilities (ls etc.). The ed editor and the native assembler both work. We also have written a user-mode PDP-7 simulator to test things and an assembler to make building things faster. The system boots up under SimH with a filesystem and you can see what things were like back in 1970. One big missing utility is roff. As of today, I've written a compiler that inputs a vaguely C-like language and outputs PDP-7 code. Using this, I've compiled a minimalist roff which is enough to format man pages. This is a separate project here: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/h-compiler Now we are hoping to get the Living Computer Museum people to bring it up on their real PDP-7. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a disk drive. The expected solution is to build a disk simulator with an FPGA and SD card. There is no time frame for this, but it is in the works. Thanks go to Phil Budne and Robert Swierczek for all their hard work in building and testing things, and also to Norman Wilson for supplying scans of the original documents. Cheers, Warren From wkt at tuhs.org Wed May 4 12:12:40 2016 From: wkt at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey) Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 12:12:40 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 Unix Progress In-Reply-To: <57291BAF.6020507@aueb.gr> References: <20160503072155.GA28307@minnie.tuhs.org> <57291BAF.6020507@aueb.gr> Message-ID: <20160504021240.GA29896@minnie.tuhs.org> On Wed, May 04, 2016 at 12:44:15AM +0300, Diomidis Spinellis wrote: > This would have found any code from the PDP-7 Unix that appeared in the > First Edition. (I was hoping that some PDP-7 instruction sequences might be > the same in PDP-11.) > Unsurprisingly, nothing came out. No, the instruction set is completely different. The PDP-11 ISA is a paradise compared to the spartan PDP-7 ISA. Cheers, Warren From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu Wed May 4 12:28:03 2016 From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy) Date: Tue, 03 May 2016 22:28:03 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 Unix Progress Message-ID: <201605040228.u442S37b013394@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> > Now we are hoping to get the Living Computer Museum people to bring it up on their real PDP-7. Truly a fantastic prospect! The only Unix the museum has running is on a 3B2--a curious byway perhaps, but of little historic interest. The PDP-7 version would be a tremendous coup. doug From grog at lemis.com Wed May 4 12:42:39 2016 From: grog at lemis.com (Greg 'groggy' Lehey) Date: Wed, 4 May 2016 12:42:39 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 Unix Progress In-Reply-To: <20160504021240.GA29896@minnie.tuhs.org> References: <20160503072155.GA28307@minnie.tuhs.org> <57291BAF.6020507@aueb.gr> <20160504021240.GA29896@minnie.tuhs.org> Message-ID: <20160504024239.GI15924@eureka.lemis.com> On Wednesday, 4 May 2016 at 12:12:40 +1000, Warren Toomey wrote: > On Wed, May 04, 2016 at 12:44:15AM +0300, Diomidis Spinellis wrote: >> This would have found any code from the PDP-7 Unix that appeared in the >> First Edition. (I was hoping that some PDP-7 instruction sequences might be >> the same in PDP-11.) >> Unsurprisingly, nothing came out. > > No, the instruction set is completely different. The PDP-11 ISA is a > paradise compared to the spartan PDP-7 ISA. In case you're interested, I've located a reference manual at http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp7/F-75P_PDP7prelimUM_Dec64.pdf The instruction set is very reminiscent of the PDP-8, including the "operate" class "microcodding" instructions (starting with 7) and autoindexing via indirect access to locations 10 to 17. Even the mnemonics and the assembler syntax are very similar to the -8. Certainly the PDP-11 is an improvement, but there's something nostalgic about the -7 instruction set. Greg -- Sent from my desktop computer. Finger grog at FreeBSD.org for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. This message is digitally signed. If your Microsoft mail program reports problems, please read http://lemis.com/broken-MUA -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 181 bytes Desc: not available URL: From lm at mcvoy.com Wed May 4 12:44:46 2016 From: lm at mcvoy.com (Larry McVoy) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 19:44:46 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 Unix Progress In-Reply-To: <20160504024239.GI15924@eureka.lemis.com> References: <20160503072155.GA28307@minnie.tuhs.org> <57291BAF.6020507@aueb.gr> <20160504021240.GA29896@minnie.tuhs.org> <20160504024239.GI15924@eureka.lemis.com> Message-ID: <20160504024446.GA23269@mcvoy.com> > Certainly the PDP-11 is an improvement, but there's something > nostalgic about the -7 instruction set. Umm, as a dude that assembly after the PDP-11 I just yearn for something as pleasant as PDP-11. From pechter at gmail.com Wed May 4 13:59:09 2016 From: pechter at gmail.com (William Pechter) Date: Tue, 3 May 2016 23:59:09 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-7 Unix Progress In-Reply-To: <201605040228.u442S37b013394@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> References: <201605040228.u442S37b013394@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> Message-ID: <5729738D.9000904@gmail.com> Doug McIlroy wrote: >> Now we are hoping to get the Living Computer Museum people to bring it up > on their real PDP-7. > > Truly a fantastic prospect! The only Unix the museum has running is > on a 3B2--a curious byway perhaps, but of little historic interest. > The PDP-7 version would be a tremendous coup. > > doug Actually, they have a V7 or 2.xBSD on an 11/70 which used to be the Microsoft Corporate Email Server... My kid was playing Hangman on it when we were there last year. My idea of a perfect job would be to work in a museum like that as a tour guide... Bill -- Digital had it then. Don't you wish you could buy it now! pechter-at-gmail.com http://xkcd.com/705/ From doug at cs.dartmouth.edu Tue May 31 17:27:43 2016 From: doug at cs.dartmouth.edu (Doug McIlroy) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 03:27:43 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of read -u Message-ID: <201605310727.u4V7Rhmp030422@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> What's the mnmonic significance, if any, of the u in the bash builtin read -u for reading from a specified file descriptor? Evidently both f and d had already been taken in analogy to usage in some other commands. The best I can think of is u as in "tape unit", which was common usage back in the days of READ INPUT TAPE 5. That would make it the work of an old timer, maybe Dave Korn? From chet.ramey at case.edu Tue May 31 22:55:34 2016 From: chet.ramey at case.edu (Chet Ramey) Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 08:55:34 -0400 Subject: [TUHS] etymology of read -u In-Reply-To: <201605310727.u4V7Rhmp030422@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> References: <201605310727.u4V7Rhmp030422@coolidge.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> Message-ID: On 5/31/16 3:27 AM, Doug McIlroy wrote: > What's the mnmonic significance, if any, of the u in > the bash builtin read -u for reading from a specified > file descriptor? Evidently both f and d had already been > taken in analogy to usage in some other commands. > > The best I can think of is u as in "tape unit", which > was common usage back in the days of READ INPUT TAPE 5. > That would make it the work of an old timer, maybe Dave Korn? I picked it up from ksh many years ago, and assumed at the time that it meant `unit'. -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU chet at case.edu http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/