Andrew - can't speak for the original, but the BTL version was red and
orange and was perfect bound.  But, I was not on 11x17 - it must have been
printed on A3 paper, as copying was always a little funny (maybe it was on
traditional 'green bar' size 14 7/8 x 11 - I don't remember - but my copy
of the original was on US 11x17).

Ordering it originally was difficult.   I remember that we tried to order a
copy for Tektronix in the summer/fall of 1979 because I had my n-th
generation xerographic copy that I had brought from CMU and Tek wanted to
legitimate copy.  IIRC, I wrote the PO request and it bounced back from Tek
purchasing because it had been denied by somebody at AT&T.  We had to call
the right person (Al Arms if memory serves me), and then I had the restart
on the Tek side, but we did eventually get an official version - which
as on my desk for a few years [Of course, we immediately made more copies
-- I think I made them for Steve Glaser, Mike Zuhl, Ward Cunningham and
possibly Jon if he did not yet have a copy from his BTL days].

When I left Tek I gave the original Tektronix copy of the two books to
Terry Laskodi.  I have wondered what happened to that copy after he
tragically died in the early 1980s.  I fear it was tossed by someone that
had no idea what its value was.

Clem

On Mon, Nov 2, 2020 at 2:44 AM Andrew Hume <andrew@humeweb.com> wrote:

> i was a TA for the course which used this as a textbook.
> my memory is little faded on this (it was on the other side of my stroke),
> but i believe they were perfect bound (cloth strip and glue) and had
> two different colors for the covers (i want to say orange and red).
> they might have been just stapled but they were thick enough that staples
> might have been insufficient.
>
> i certainly remember john printing them off on the DEC printer.
>
> as for the permissions, i can’t recall anything at the time (this was
> about 45 years ago),
> but do remember the fuss at the Labs when Bell Labs started printing their
> own
> high security copies just a couple of years later.
>
>         andrew hume
>
> > On Nov 1, 2020, at 9:07 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:
> >
> > Warner Losh and I have been discussing the early history of John
> > Lions' "A commentary on the Sixth Edition UNIX Operating System".
> > I've been hosting Warren Toomey's version (with some correction of
> > scan errors) at http://www.lemis.com/grog/Documentation/Lions/ for
> > some years now, and my understanding had been that the book hadn't
> > been published, just photocopied, until Warren posted it on
> > alt.folklore.computers in 1994.  But now it seems that the "book" had
> > been published by UNSW when Lions held the course, and only later was
> > the license revoked.  Does anybody have any insights?  What
> > restrictions were there on its distribution?  What was the format?
> > Was it a real book, or just bound notes?
> >
> > Greg
> > --
> > Sent from my desktop computer.
> > Finger grog@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
>
>