Accusing Bell of NIH (formerly Re: useless digest reference)

[Guy Harris]

> It has? News to me. The current usage seems to be:
> 
> 	BSD		USG
> 
> 	mail		mailx
> 	binmail		mail
> 
> And what's so terrible about "nmail", whuch has the advantage of being
> reasonable mnemonic for New MAIL?

I agree "mailx" is kind of a gross name.  However, a quick look at the
4.2BSD distribution indicates there is *no* such program as "binmail".
There is "/bin/mail", which is the old "mail", and "/usr/ucb/mail" and
"/usr/ucb/Mail", which are two links to the new "mail".  You can get the new
"mail" by putting "/usr/ucb" first in your path (which is OK) or by typing
"Mail" (which is kind of gross).

> Overloading EOF and QUIT as MIN and TIME was a bad mistake, since it makes
> the intuitive transform between V7 and relatives and SIII and relatives a
> total loss... and adds extra stuff you have to save and restore when
> changing modes.

Agreed (there are proposals presented by AT&T people to the /usr/group
standards committee to fix this, so even they realize it was a botch).  I
usually save and restore *everything* when changing modes, so that part
isn't a problem, however.

> You're right. I was using a Unisoft SIII and Xenix 3.0 when I said this.
> Both were V7 with some cosmetic changes.

Considering how similar the V7 and S3 kernels (PDP-11 kernels, anyway) were,
modulo the TTY driver, that part of the V7 vs. S3 debate is somewhat
irrelevant.  CCI and, I believe, Microsoft set up their "V7 kernel made into
an S3 kernel" with an S3 TTY driver with a "compatibility aide" (*sic* -
that's how it's spelled in the comment, but considering how many kern*e*l
hackers spell it "kernal" I shouldn't be too upset) for V7 rather than
UNIX/TS 1.0 and PWB/UNIX 2.0.

	Guy Harris