[TUHS] MASSCOMP MC-500 Guide to Writing a Unix Device Driver

[TUHS] MASSCOMP MC-500 Guide to Writing a Unix Device Driver

[Norman Wilson]

Dennis's `The UNIX I/O System' paper in Volume 2 of the 7/e
manual is basically about how drivers work.  Is that near
enough, possibly as augmented by Ken's `UNIX Implementation'
paper in the same book?

Those were my own starting point, long ago, for understanding
how to write device drivers.  Along with existing source code
as examples, of course, but (unlikely many who hack on device
drivers, I'm afraid) I have always preferred to have a proper
statement of rules, conventions, and interfaces rather than
just reading code and guessing.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

Re: [TUHS] MASSCOMP MC-500 Guide to Writing a Unix Device Driver

[Warner Losh]

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On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 8:39 AM Norman Wilson <norman@oclsc.org> wrote:

> Dennis's `The UNIX I/O System' paper in Volume 2 of the 7/e
> manual is basically about how drivers work.  Is that near
> enough, possibly as augmented by Ken's `UNIX Implementation'
> paper in the same book?
>

I'm not blessed with paper versions of these, but they are in usr/doc/iosys
and usr/doc/cacm/* respectively.


> Those were my own starting point, long ago, for understanding
> how to write device drivers.  Along with existing source code
> as examples, of course, but (unlikely many who hack on device
> drivers, I'm afraid) I have always preferred to have a proper
> statement of rules, conventions, and interfaces rather than
> just reading code and guessing.
>

Yes. This is exactly what I was looking for, and I'm surprised I hadn't
thought to look here sooner. Thanks!

Warner

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Re: [TUHS] MASSCOMP MC-500 Guide to Writing a Unix Device Driver

[Larry McVoy]

I used to carry around some Masscomp doc, I believe it was about networking.
Masscomp had some great tech writers.

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 10:45:50AM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> Warner,
> 
> I should have copies of it, I'm also in email contact with both Tom T. (aka
> tjt - who is someone I reference often on this list) and Janet (Tom often
> weekly).
> 
> As for history, until Janet created that document for Masscomp, nothing
> existed other than a short paper I believe Dennis wrote for V6 and updated
> for V7.   Cliff and Tom A had spent hours in Tom and my shared office
> picking our brains.  What they came up with was not quite right (to be
> polite) and tjt attempted to fix it - which at least was technically
> correct.   Janet has the head of Masscomp's documentation group, re-wrote
> Tom's version to make it easier to understand.  I should have the version
> in my files [Janet might even have the original troff sources].
> 
> When Tim O'Reilly (who had been writing a lot of our doc under contract and
> started to do the original 'nutshell' series) cut a deal to take the
> documentation he was writing for us 'out of Masscomp' and publish it (thus
> creating the original X-Windows documentation and the first real hit for
> ORA), precedent had been set.
> 
> Shortly after, Tom and I had left for Belmont, ney Stellar, and Janet and
> Tom decided to redo it as a book.
> ???
> 
> On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 9:50 AM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:
> 
> > Greetings,
> >
> > I'm trying to find the predecessor to "Writing a UNIX Device Driver, J.
> > Egan & T. Teixeira, 1st ed, 1988". In the preface, it says:
> >
> > "This book is based on a MASSCOMP manual, Guide to Writing a Unix Device
> > Driver.  The first version that MASSCOMP published as part of the
> > documentation set for the MC-500 was based on preliminary drafts prepared
> > for MASSCOMP  by Cliff Cary and Tom Albough of Creare R&D."
> >
> > I checked bit keepers and found nothing.
> >
> > I was wondering if people on this list know of this manual, have a copy,
> > etc. In general, I'm looking for pre-SysV driver manuals. I can find all
> > kinds of SysV driver books (some of which cover 4.2BSD or 4.3BSD as well),
> > but nothing for System III or V7 unix. There were a lot of early systems
> > that were based on ports of V7 to different architectures that were then
> > updated to System III or System V (at least according to the big chart of
> > unix history and some wikipedia entries, which may be just repeating
> > marketing schlock and not reflect actual reality).
> >
> > As part of a talk I'm putting together on the 40th anniversary of V7, I
> > wanted to have a bit of history for things we still have in unix today
> > (like strategy) and things that successors to unix have added or left
> > behind (like the packet mux in V7 that was tossed aside for either STREAMS
> > or netinet from BSD, though packet muxing to userland is back with DPDK).
> >
> > Warner
> >

-- 
---
Larry McVoy            	     lm at mcvoy.com             http://www.mcvoy.com/lm 

Re: [TUHS] MASSCOMP MC-500 Guide to Writing a Unix Device Driver

[Clem Cole]

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Warner,

I should have copies of it, I'm also in email contact with both Tom T. (aka
tjt - who is someone I reference often on this list) and Janet (Tom often
weekly).

As for history, until Janet created that document for Masscomp, nothing
existed other than a short paper I believe Dennis wrote for V6 and updated
for V7.   Cliff and Tom A had spent hours in Tom and my shared office
picking our brains.  What they came up with was not quite right (to be
polite) and tjt attempted to fix it - which at least was technically
correct.   Janet has the head of Masscomp's documentation group, re-wrote
Tom's version to make it easier to understand.  I should have the version
in my files [Janet might even have the original troff sources].

When Tim O'Reilly (who had been writing a lot of our doc under contract and
started to do the original 'nutshell' series) cut a deal to take the
documentation he was writing for us 'out of Masscomp' and publish it (thus
creating the original X-Windows documentation and the first real hit for
ORA), precedent had been set.

Shortly after, Tom and I had left for Belmont, ney Stellar, and Janet and
Tom decided to redo it as a book.
ᐧ

On Mon, Apr 29, 2019 at 9:50 AM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:

> Greetings,
>
> I'm trying to find the predecessor to "Writing a UNIX Device Driver, J.
> Egan & T. Teixeira, 1st ed, 1988". In the preface, it says:
>
> "This book is based on a MASSCOMP manual, Guide to Writing a Unix Device
> Driver.  The first version that MASSCOMP published as part of the
> documentation set for the MC-500 was based on preliminary drafts prepared
> for MASSCOMP  by Cliff Cary and Tom Albough of Creare R&D."
>
> I checked bit keepers and found nothing.
>
> I was wondering if people on this list know of this manual, have a copy,
> etc. In general, I'm looking for pre-SysV driver manuals. I can find all
> kinds of SysV driver books (some of which cover 4.2BSD or 4.3BSD as well),
> but nothing for System III or V7 unix. There were a lot of early systems
> that were based on ports of V7 to different architectures that were then
> updated to System III or System V (at least according to the big chart of
> unix history and some wikipedia entries, which may be just repeating
> marketing schlock and not reflect actual reality).
>
> As part of a talk I'm putting together on the 40th anniversary of V7, I
> wanted to have a bit of history for things we still have in unix today
> (like strategy) and things that successors to unix have added or left
> behind (like the packet mux in V7 that was tossed aside for either STREAMS
> or netinet from BSD, though packet muxing to userland is back with DPDK).
>
> Warner
>

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[TUHS] MASSCOMP MC-500 Guide to Writing a Unix Device Driver

[Warner Losh]

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Greetings,

I'm trying to find the predecessor to "Writing a UNIX Device Driver, J.
Egan & T. Teixeira, 1st ed, 1988". In the preface, it says:

"This book is based on a MASSCOMP manual, Guide to Writing a Unix Device
Driver.  The first version that MASSCOMP published as part of the
documentation set for the MC-500 was based on preliminary drafts prepared
for MASSCOMP  by Cliff Cary and Tom Albough of Creare R&D."

I checked bit keepers and found nothing.

I was wondering if people on this list know of this manual, have a copy,
etc. In general, I'm looking for pre-SysV driver manuals. I can find all
kinds of SysV driver books (some of which cover 4.2BSD or 4.3BSD as well),
but nothing for System III or V7 unix. There were a lot of early systems
that were based on ports of V7 to different architectures that were then
updated to System III or System V (at least according to the big chart of
unix history and some wikipedia entries, which may be just repeating
marketing schlock and not reflect actual reality).

As part of a talk I'm putting together on the 40th anniversary of V7, I
wanted to have a bit of history for things we still have in unix today
(like strategy) and things that successors to unix have added or left
behind (like the packet mux in V7 that was tossed aside for either STREAMS
or netinet from BSD, though packet muxing to userland is back with DPDK).

Warner

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