Re: [9fans] v8 shell

["boyd, rounin" <boyd@insultant.net>]

> not to mention:
>
> tar c . | tee >{wc -c} | @{cd somewhere; tar x}
>
> are a constant joy.

yes, but you needed /dev/fd (at the time) and very few
systems did.

norman wilson worked out that you could get at the newly
allocated descriptor from some leftover in the u-area [index
into u.u_ofile iirc] and from knowing that you could write
/dev/fd as a driver, which meant no mods to the kernel.

i wrote one for SCO lunix and then stuck it into ultrix and
used it with byron's rc.  of course, the ultrix development
group wanted nothing to do with it, but it got released as a
'paper', back in '91 or so.

the driver was a page of code, most of that taken up
by a large copy-thing comment and a swath of #include's