I have already posted this in another thread (on non-BTL C compilers), but it's more relevant here. My 1985 review of Coherent for BYTE Magazine: https://www.mrochkind.com/mrochkind/docs/Byte-Pick-Coherent-Theos.pdf I see that I went into some detail. For example: "Of the 77 requests in the Version 7 nroff. only 31 are present in Coherent (the most useful 31. however)." And this, although I'm sure there were incompatibilities I didn't uncover: "Coherent has all the Version 7 system calls except nice (which sets a process's priority). and they seem to be used in the same way. It should be easy to port C programs between Coherent and UNIX Version 7." On the whole my review was very positive. Marc On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 7:43 AM Dan Cross wrote: > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 9:03 AM Dan Cross wrote: > > > > On Fri, Mar 15, 2024 at 3:00 AM Rob Pike wrote: > > > Another detail. There was lawyerly concern about the code being > stolen, and we (127) were asked to find ways to test, absent their source, > whether they had just stolen our source and built the binaries. It was soon > concluded that there were enough details different to definitively say that > at least most of the work was done in a clean room, as advertised, but the > piece I liked best is that their PPT(1) program (ASCII art showing a paper > tape rendering the argument text) did not include the original, and just > discovered, bug that mispunched, if I remember right, the letter 'R'. > > > > Along those lines, Dennis Ritchie wrote up a summary of the event on > > USENET; apparently in 1998 (I had no idea it was this late): > > > https://groups.google.com/g/alt.folklore.computers/c/_ZaYeY46eb4/m/5B41Uym6d4QJ > > Sorry, just to clarify: I meant I had no idea Dennis's posting about > the event happened so late; by 1998 USENET was basically overrun by > spam. Obviously, the inspection trip had happened much earlier. > > - Dan C. > -- *My new email address is mrochkind@gmail.com *