[COFF] Re: [TUHS] Re: project athena (was Re: Setting up an X Development Environment for Mac OS)

[Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 10:44 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 10:34 AM Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote:
>> If I recall correctly (and it's been a while...) csup, CVSup, et al
>> were based on `sup`, which was a file distribution tool somewhat like
>> `rdist`, which came from CMU. csup/cvsup was optimized for moving
>> source code deltas (a la CVS repositories) around. I recall a
>> graphical client written in Modula-3?
>
> Right -- ??maybe?? Bob Baron or one of the Mach guys did it  - used the DEC Modula-3 IIRC.

That sounds right for `sup`. I vaguely remember it being associated
with Coda, as well? I believe the BSDs used it to distribute source
code (in addition to or instead of anoncvs?) in the 90s.

It looks like CVSup was done by John Polstra in Modula-3. It was being
used for FreeBSD in at least 1996, but I don't know when they started
using it. It's mostly disappeared, but archive.org has a snapshot of
its old web site:
https://web.archive.org/web/20060103034312/http://www.cvsup.org/faq.html

`csup` was a reimplementation in C (without the GUI part, I imagine)
because the Modula-3 dependency was a pain.

>> The SUPDUP protocol used by ITS hosts was a "Display Protocol" based
>> on TELNET: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc734
>
> Exactly - popular with the LISP hackers.  I started to implement it in the CMU Distributed Front-End years ago but never finished it - I don't know if it was ever completed.

Oh yeah, I imagine it was implemented on Lisp machines, probably for
connecting to ITS. Lars, do you know?

        - Dan C.