[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[grog]

I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[imp]

It depends a lot on when.

For pure research V7 / 2BSD / 4BSD that was true. You can give the
install.ms from these releases as a reference. It was a lot more daunting
than today, and often times only bug fixes warranted a recompile. You can
find references in the 2.11BSD patch series to the 'annual recompilation of
the sources' which Steve did and where he'd always find something.

However, after that, everything was binaries. The kernel you got was a
bunch of .o files (even for the V7 ports), though often you had all the
source to the drivers (but not the core of the kernel). I have said files
for Venix, though there it was an extra cost option it seems (I say seems,
since I've not found a price sheet for it from the era, though I have the
disks). DEC's ultrix was binary. Sun's SunOS. All the Unisoft ports to 68k
machines. Sony's NEWS workstations likewise. HP's unix offerings too. Sure,
you could get a source license, sometimes, but they kept those expensive.

IBM and VMS were always binary only (though again, you could buy source if
you had the right amount of $$$ and leverage).

So I'm not sure what old days you were talking about, or which
machines....  The BSD build.sh and/or make world were a bit of an anomaly
imho. Once Linux got distributions the whole notion of building it yourself
faded somewhat.

Warner


On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 4:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at 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
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[clemc]

Mumble -- For IBM and DEC in the 60s and early 70s, the manufactures
distributed the (assembler) sources to the OS and we could (and did) build
from source but usually just built parts.   By the time of VMS and the
other minis, you tended to link together from modules, although many sites
did have sources (in assembler).

Remember, the target was the manufacturers HW so they were not giving away
much.   In the case of IBM, eventually, Amdahl started cloning and they got
a tad more closed, but by that time there were also many mainframe OS
flavors in wild.

That said, I think Burrough's gave away the ESPOL code for their systems,
but I never saw it; so I can not speak definitively there.

Unix was different.  Like Burrough's, it was heavily written in a systems
programming language.   To my knowledge, the 'concept' or 'porting' the OS
in it's entirety to a completely new ISA began with UNIX.

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 6:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at 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
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[bakul]

On Nov 10, 2020, at 3:11 PM, Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
> 
> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?

Not sure about a "big computer" but what about this paper by Richard
Miller on porting V6 to Interdata 7/32?

http://bitsavers.org/bits/Interdata/32bit/unix/univWollongong_v6/miller.pdf

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[grog]

On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 16:52:58 -0700, Adam Thornton wrote:
> If 4.3BSD is old enough, the System Administrator's Manual (e.g.
> http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/isi/bsd/490197C_Unix_4.3BSD_System_Administrator_Guide_ISI_Release_4.1_May88.pdf)
> section 4.2 _et seq_.
>
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 4:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
>> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
>> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
>> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>
> How olden days do you mean?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  I was thinking commercial systems of the
1960s and 1970s, not any form of Unix.

Greg
--
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[grog]

On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 18:45:15 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 6:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
>> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
>> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
>> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>
> Mumble -- For IBM and DEC in the 60s and early 70s, the manufactures
> distributed the (assembler) sources to the OS and we could (and did)
> build from source but usually just built parts.

Right, this is my recollection.

> Remember, the target was the manufacturers HW so they were not
> giving away much.

Again, my assessment.

The real issue is: where can I find a reference?  Google brings up so
many false positives that it's not worth the trouble, and Wikipedia's
pages on "System generation" are too vague.

Greg
--
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[athornton]

Pretty sure this VM/370 reference has, somewhere in its rather formidable
bulk, what you're looking for.  Start around p. 225:

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/370/VM_370/Release_6/GC20-1801-10_VM370_Sysgen_Rel_6_Jan80.pdf

Now granted VM was never the most popular of the IBM OSes.  But it was
delivered (and patched) as assembler sources.  You may also enjoy Melinda
Varian's "What Mother Never Told You about VM Service."
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/tutorial.pdf

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 5:06 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 18:45:15 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 6:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
> >> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
> >> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
> >> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
> >
> > Mumble -- For IBM and DEC in the 60s and early 70s, the manufactures
> > distributed the (assembler) sources to the OS and we could (and did)
> > build from source but usually just built parts.
>
> Right, this is my recollection.
>
> > Remember, the target was the manufacturers HW so they were not
> > giving away much.
>
> Again, my assessment.
>
> The real issue is: where can I find a reference?  Google brings up so
> many false positives that it's not worth the trouble, and Wikipedia's
> pages on "System generation" are too vague.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at 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
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[athornton]

I don't know enough about MVS but it too is public domain until 3.8j or so,
and I would expect that the way you serviced the system was about the same:
patch the assembly code from PTFs (or whatever those are called in
MVS-land), reassemble the modules, relink into a kernel/system
image/whatever the os-appropriate nomenclature is.

Adam

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 5:10 PM Adam Thornton <athornton at gmail.com> wrote:

> Pretty sure this VM/370 reference has, somewhere in its rather formidable
> bulk, what you're looking for.  Start around p. 225:
>
>
> http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/370/VM_370/Release_6/GC20-1801-10_VM370_Sysgen_Rel_6_Jan80.pdf
>
> Now granted VM was never the most popular of the IBM OSes.  But it was
> delivered (and patched) as assembler sources.  You may also enjoy Melinda
> Varian's "What Mother Never Told You about VM Service."
> http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/tutorial.pdf
>
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 5:06 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 18:45:15 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
>> > On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 6:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
>> >> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
>> >> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
>> >> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>> >
>> > Mumble -- For IBM and DEC in the 60s and early 70s, the manufactures
>> > distributed the (assembler) sources to the OS and we could (and did)
>> > build from source but usually just built parts.
>>
>> Right, this is my recollection.
>>
>> > Remember, the target was the manufacturers HW so they were not
>> > giving away much.
>>
>> Again, my assessment.
>>
>> The real issue is: where can I find a reference?  Google brings up so
>> many false positives that it's not worth the trouble, and Wikipedia's
>> pages on "System generation" are too vague.
>>
>> Greg
>> --
>> Sent from my desktop computer.
>> Finger grog at 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> COFF mailing list
>> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>>
>
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[dave]

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the 
> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for a 
> big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference, and 
> I can't find one!  Can anybody help?

Depends what you mean by "olden days" and "big computer".  As I recall we 
(Uni of NSW) had the source to the 360/50 and the Cyber 72, but not for 
the VMS stuff; binaries were patched with IEBUPDTE and later on SUPERZAP 
(possibly written locally).

I got an official pat on the back for getting SPITBOL to work after its 
time-bombs (yes, plural) expired[*]...

And we had the source to something called Unix Edition 5 & 6 etc, but they 
were hardly mainframes :-)

[*]
The first bomb failed with an error message, so I patched that.  It then 
started crashing rather mysteriously, and I discovered that it was taking 
an indirect jump to whatever was in R0 at the time (I think).  Rather than 
waste time digging them all out, I wrote a program that LOADed the binary, 
scanned memory for a word that matched that date, and printed each address 
so they could then be inspected by hand.  There were something like six of 
them...  One big SUPERZAP later, and we had a working SPITBOL compiler 
again; a bored CompSci student is terrible to behold.

-- Dave

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[dave]

On Tue, 10 Nov 2020, Bakul Shah wrote:

> Not sure about a "big computer" but what about this paper by Richard 
> Miller on porting V6 to Interdata 7/32?
>
> http://bitsavers.org/bits/Interdata/32bit/unix/univWollongong_v6/miller.pdf

Either that server is suddenly overloaded, or the Interweb pipes are 
suddenly blocked...

-- Dave

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[brad]

Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> writes:

> On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the 
>> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for a 
>> big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference, and 
>> I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>
> Depends what you mean by "olden days" and "big computer".  As I recall we 
> (Uni of NSW) had the source to the 360/50 and the Cyber 72, but not for 
> the VMS stuff; binaries were patched with IEBUPDTE and later on SUPERZAP 
> (possibly written locally).
>
> I got an official pat on the back for getting SPITBOL to work after its 
> time-bombs (yes, plural) expired[*]...
>
> And we had the source to something called Unix Edition 5 & 6 etc, but they 
> were hardly mainframes :-)
>
> [*]
> The first bomb failed with an error message, so I patched that.  It then 
> started crashing rather mysteriously, and I discovered that it was taking 
> an indirect jump to whatever was in R0 at the time (I think).  Rather than 
> waste time digging them all out, I wrote a program that LOADed the binary, 
> scanned memory for a word that matched that date, and printed each address 
> so they could then be inspected by hand.  There were something like six of 
> them...  One big SUPERZAP later, and we had a working SPITBOL compiler 
> again; a bored CompSci student is terrible to behold.
>
> -- Dave
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff


Wow...  you too...  Back in the late 1980s or early 1990s I removed a
time bomb from a language compiler running on a Data General MV/10000
with AOS/VS as the OS while an undergrad.  This particular bomb,
apparently, was put in by a disgruntled employee of the company that
provided the compiler, as I received the story.  I honestly don't know
many of the details, beyond that.  The effort required that I
disassemble the compiler with a assembly debugger and then patch the
machine code to defeat the bomb.  I seem to remember that I just patched
out a jump instruction with a nop or two.  I have mostly forgotten what
the compiler was for, but it may have been the commercial Simscript
compiler for the DG.  We, that is myself and one of the professors, sent
the patch to the company that provided the compiler and I know that they
ended up giving the patch out as another university with the same bomb
problem sent me a thank you note.  The only other work around was to set
the clock back on the system, as it literally was a time based bomb.





-- 
Brad Spencer - brad at anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS - http://anduin.eldar.org

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[clemc]

Well bitsavers is probably your best bet.  I would look at any ibm doc for
os/360 and TSS/360.  Then look at the DEC docs for Tops-10 and the distro
library's.  Tops-20 I would have expected but maybe not as by the VMS and
more closed culture had begun at DEC but because it was based on Tenex
(from BBN) might have been available with full sources.

IIRC early versions of RT-11 was distributed as a binary but the sources
were readily available. I know I have seen them.  Some of the first
assembler based driver code I ever looked was from RT11 (the TC11 driver)

TSS/8 was in PDP-8 source originally from CMU but DEC made it a product.
That was source which I think I have somewhere from the paper tape swapping
hack.

  I never looked for or built OS/8 but I have to believe it was distributed
as source from DEC

As I said I would suggest bit savers.

Clem

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 7:06 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 18:45:15 -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 6:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
> >> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for
> >> a big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference,
> >> and I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
> >
> > Mumble -- For IBM and DEC in the 60s and early 70s, the manufactures
> > distributed the (assembler) sources to the OS and we could (and did)
> > build from source but usually just built parts.
>
> Right, this is my recollection.
>
> > Remember, the target was the manufacturers HW so they were not
> > giving away much.
>
> Again, my assessment.
>
> The real issue is: where can I find a reference?  Google brings up so
> many false positives that it's not worth the trouble, and Wikipedia's
> pages on "System generation" are too vague.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at 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
>
-- 
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[grog]

On Tuesday, 10 November 2020 at 17:12:27 -0700, Adam Thornton wrote:
> I don't know enough about MVS but it too is public domain until 3.8j or so,
> and I would expect that the way you serviced the system was about the same:
> patch the assembly code from PTFs (or whatever those are called in
> MVS-land),

Right!  There's a TLA that rings a bell.  "Permanent Temporary Fix"?
Or was that a reinterpretation?  But yes, it's clearly source-related.

> reassemble the modules, relink into a kernel/system image/whatever
> the os-appropriate nomenclature is.

Yup.  That reminds me of a poem published in Datamation decades ago:

  On either die the printer lie
  Fat stacks of paper six feet high
  That stun the mind abnd blur the eye,
  And lo!  Still more comes streaming by,
    A fresh SYSABEND dump.
  Ye printer clackth merrily
  "Compleccioun code is 043"
  Alack!  What can the matter be
    That made SYSABEND dump?
  My TCAM hath no MCP?
  My data cannot OPENed be?
  Consult my neighbourhood SE?
  The devil take thy dam and thee,
    Thou vile SYSABEND dump!
  Assemble modules on the fly
  And link for yet another try.
  With SUPERZAP a patch apply,
    This time THOU SHALT NOT DUMP!

  On either side the printer lie
  Fat stacks of paper twelve feet high
  That blow the mind and blast the eye.
  Gadzooks!  How shrill yon varlet's cry
  As sixteen megabytes go by
    In yet another dump.

Greg
--
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[grog]

On Wednesday, 11 November 2020 at 12:01:40 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
>> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for a
>> big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference, and
>> I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
>
> Depends what you mean by "olden days" and "big computer".

Since clarified, of course, but you're in the right track.

> As I recall we (Uni of NSW) had the source to the 360/50 and the
> Cyber 72, but not for the VMS stuff; binaries were patched with
> IEBUPDTE and later on SUPERZAP (possibly written locally).

Was SUPERZAP source or object related?  I thought the latter, but I've
never come close to it.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[athornton]

Pretty sure SUPERZAP was for object files.  That was for wizardry beyond my
ken.  Normal VM service, as I recall, and I am only about 75% sure I'm
right, was in the form of source patches rather like diff files--I don't
know anymore if they were literally editor commands to transform File A
into File B, but that was the net effect--plus reassembly.  Patching the
object modules was possible, but you had to be better at it than I ever was
to pull it off.

Adam

On Tue, Nov 10, 2020 at 8:11 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog at lemis.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 11 November 2020 at 12:01:40 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> > On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
> >
> >> I'm currently reviewing a paper about Unix and Linux, and I made the
> >> comment that in the olden days the normal way to build an OS image for a
> >> big computer was from source.  Now I've been asked for a reference, and
> >> I can't find one!  Can anybody help?
> >
> > Depends what you mean by "olden days" and "big computer".
>
> Since clarified, of course, but you're in the right track.
>
> > As I recall we (Uni of NSW) had the source to the 360/50 and the
> > Cyber 72, but not for the VMS stuff; binaries were patched with
> > IEBUPDTE and later on SUPERZAP (possibly written locally).
>
> Was SUPERZAP source or object related?  I thought the latter, but I've
> never come close to it.
>
> Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog at 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
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/coff
>
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[dave]

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> Right!  There's a TLA that rings a bell.  "Permanent Temporary Fix"?

Program Temporary Fix.

-- Dave

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[grog]

On Wednesday, 11 November 2020 at 15:54:06 +1100, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
>> Right!  There's a TLA that rings a bell.  "Permanent Temporary Fix"?
>
> Program Temporary Fix.

Yes.  But I recall correctly.  See the Wikipedia page:

  Customers sometimes explain the acronym in a tongue-in-cheek manner
  as permanent temporary fix or more practically probably this fixes,
  because they have the option to make the PTF a permanent part of the
  operating system if the patch fixes the problem.

Greg
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[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[dave]

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> Was SUPERZAP source or object related?  I thought the latter, but I've 
> never come close to it.

Binary, for things for which there was no source (like SPITBOL).  To edit 
the source, you used a keypunch :-)

Which reminds me; our SPITBOL was just a demo program, until I nobbled it; 
the "real" one (no time bomb) cost many $$$ which we couldn't afford.

-- Dave, a bored CompSci student at the time

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[dave]

On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

>> Program Temporary Fix.
>
> Yes.  But I recall correctly.  See the Wikipedia page:
>
>  Customers sometimes explain the acronym in a tongue-in-cheek manner as
>  permanent temporary fix or more practically probably this fixes,
>  because they have the option to make the PTF a permanent part of the
>  operating system if the patch fixes the problem.

Yeah, they did have a habit of being permanent, but I don't recall
them ever being called by any of those names during my servitude.

-- Dave

[COFF] Building OS from source in the olden days

[athornton]

This has inspired me to re-read Melinda Varian's "What Mother Never Told
You About VM Service" and it's still a magnificent document.  I once again
find the control files confusing as hell, but once you get used to how they
work, which once upon a time I was, you had a repeatable (and unwindable!)
service process.

I miss the casualness with which you'd build a new CP nucleus and test it
out on a second-level system.  It's so much better than anything in the
Unix world, far more elegant than testing kernel patches in a Linux virtual
machine, largely because of the ease with which you can attach minidisks to
a first, second, or whatever-level system.  I guess cgroups and bind mounts
finally get you most of the way there in terms of mounting arbitrary
storage to virtual systems, but it's still a pain in the ass to test
multiple kernels.

Not that I spend much time anymore that far down in the system (any
system!), but...VM got a lot of things right.

Adam

On Thu, Nov 12, 2020 at 7:15 PM Dave Horsfall <dave at horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Wed, 11 Nov 2020, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:
>
> >> Program Temporary Fix.
> >
> > Yes.  But I recall correctly.  See the Wikipedia page:
> >
> >  Customers sometimes explain the acronym in a tongue-in-cheek manner as
> >  permanent temporary fix or more practically probably this fixes,
> >  because they have the option to make the PTF a permanent part of the
> >  operating system if the patch fixes the problem.
>
> Yeah, they did have a habit of being permanent, but I don't recall
> them ever being called by any of those names during my servitude.
>
> -- Dave
> _______________________________________________
> COFF mailing list
> COFF at minnie.tuhs.org
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>
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