Re: [9fans] a question of file and the history of magic^H^H^H^H^HUNIX

[Lyndon Nerenberg <lyndon@orthanc.ca>]

On 2008-Jul-6, at 14:59 , Brantley Coile wrote:

> I remember the day I first saw a file magic file.  I welcomed it
> because for the first time I didn't have access to the source code.
> Those were the days when you had to have $45k to get the source.

Closer to $100K for most people. I had great fun writing nroff (yup,
*n*roff) output device tables as binary blobs to interface with the
non-source UNIXen of the day. And the Convergent Technologies X.25
binary code was a wonder to configure/tune as an end user :-P

Remember kids: UNIX source code (BSD, really) wasn't free until 1994
(give or take a bit). You haven't lived until you've resolved device
driver configuration and ordering problems when trying to link a
binary version of SunOS 2 or 3 (no, not Solaris :-).  Or even better,
an NBI VME 68K box pretending it's a UNIBUS VAX.

Is alt.folklore.computers still alive? 99% of the list traffic
[cs]hould be redirected there.

-- (creaky/grumpy olde) lyndon