[TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff

[TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff

[Wendell P]

Since a few people here are Bell Labs veterans, I'd to ask if someone
can explain a bit about that place. Sometimes I hear about work done
there that I'd like to follow up on, but I have no idea where to start.

For starters, I assume that everybody had to write up periodical reports
on their work. Was that stuff archived and is it still accessible
someplace? What about software that got to the point that it actually
had users beyond the developers? I know that major commercial projects
like UNIX are tied up in licensing limbo, but does that apply to
absolutely everything made there?

There is the AT&T Archives and History Center in Warren, NJ. Is it worth
asking if they have old tech reports?

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[TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff

[Diomidis Spinellis]

The following book provides an interesting perspective on many of the 
questions you ask.

Narain Gehani. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel. Silicon Press, 
Summit, NJ, 2003.

Many of the Bell Labs technical reports related to Unix were also 
published in volume 2 of the Unix Programmer's Manual. Some also 
appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal.  Back issues of the 
latter used to be freely available online, but they now live behind the 
IEEE Xplore Digital Library pay-wall.  Two  issues of BSTJ devoted to 
Unix (volume 57 number 6 July-August 1978 and volume 63, number 8, 
October 1984) were also published in book form (titled "Unix System 
Readings and Applications") by Prentice-Hall in 1987.


On 05/07/2016 03:17, Wendell P wrote:
> Since a few people here are Bell Labs veterans, I'd to ask if someone
> can explain a bit about that place. Sometimes I hear about work done
> there that I'd like to follow up on, but I have no idea where to start.
>
> For starters, I assume that everybody had to write up periodical reports
> on their work. Was that stuff archived and is it still accessible
> someplace? What about software that got to the point that it actually
> had users beyond the developers? I know that major commercial projects
> like UNIX are tied up in licensing limbo, but does that apply to
> absolutely everything made there?
>
> There is the AT&T Archives and History Center in Warren, NJ. Is it worth
> asking if they have old tech reports?
>

[TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff

[arnold]

Many of the Computing Science Technical Reports used to be available
on line from Bell Labs. That (sadly) seems to no longer be the case.
Google points me to this mirror:

	https://rbn.im/bell-labs/cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/cstr.html

Warren - maybe snarf all these for the archives too, while they can
still be gotten?

HTH,

Arnold

Diomidis Spinellis <dds at aueb.gr> wrote:

> The following book provides an interesting perspective on many of the 
> questions you ask.
>
> Narain Gehani. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel. Silicon Press, 
> Summit, NJ, 2003.
>
> Many of the Bell Labs technical reports related to Unix were also 
> published in volume 2 of the Unix Programmer's Manual. Some also 
> appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal.  Back issues of the 
> latter used to be freely available online, but they now live behind the 
> IEEE Xplore Digital Library pay-wall.  Two  issues of BSTJ devoted to 
> Unix (volume 57 number 6 July-August 1978 and volume 63, number 8, 
> October 1984) were also published in book form (titled "Unix System 
> Readings and Applications") by Prentice-Hall in 1987.
>
>
> On 05/07/2016 03:17, Wendell P wrote:
> > Since a few people here are Bell Labs veterans, I'd to ask if someone
> > can explain a bit about that place. Sometimes I hear about work done
> > there that I'd like to follow up on, but I have no idea where to start.
> >
> > For starters, I assume that everybody had to write up periodical reports
> > on their work. Was that stuff archived and is it still accessible
> > someplace? What about software that got to the point that it actually
> > had users beyond the developers? I know that major commercial projects
> > like UNIX are tied up in licensing limbo, but does that apply to
> > absolutely everything made there?
> >
> > There is the AT&T Archives and History Center in Warren, NJ. Is it worth
> > asking if they have old tech reports?

[TUHS] Pursuing Bell Labs stuff

[Wendell P]

On Mon, Jul 4, 2016, at 10:32 PM, Diomidis Spinellis wrote:
> The following book provides an interesting perspective on many of the 
> questions you ask.
> 
> Narain Gehani. Bell Labs: Life in the Crown Jewel. Silicon Press, 
> Summit, NJ, 2003.

I have in fact contacted Gehani regarding this and he couldn't offer
much help. What surprises me is that so much was produced but nobody
knows where it all went.

Papers that were published in journals or given at conferences as easy
to find. I'm talking about internal documents that don't turn up in a
Google search.

>  Two  issues of BSTJ devoted to 
> Unix (volume 57 number 6 July-August 1978 and volume 63, number 8, 
> October 1984) were also published in book form (titled "Unix System 
> Readings and Applications") by Prentice-Hall in 1987.

They are downloadable:
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_attunixUNIpplicationsVolume11987_27266562
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_attunixUNIpplicationsVolume21987_25157701

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http://www.fastmail.com - Or how I learned to stop worrying and
                          love email again