Re: [TUHS] First book on Unix for general readership

[markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de>]

Hoi.

[2020-04-04 16:12] Michael Kjörling <michael@kjorling.se>
> On 4 Apr 2020 17:05 +0200, from meillo@marmaro.de (markus schnalke):
> > found on Wikipedia:
> > 
> > 	As well as the Bourne shell, he wrote the adb debugger
> > 	and The UNIX System, the second book on the UNIX system,
> > 	intended for a general readership.
> > 
> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_R._Bourne
> > 
> > Thus I now wonder what the first book on Unix, intended for a
> > general readership was.
> 
> I would be careful with that claim.
> 
> First, it appears to lack a citation. (Someone here might be able to help
> with that.)

That was my thought already. I hope to get a citation out of this
mail thread, or information to remove this claim.

But that was only what started my interest in the situation around
the very first Unix books. Especially the Banahan/Rutter book
caught my interest, as I cannot really fit it into the picture of
my current understanding. (I've never read (or forgot) about the
University of Bredford in the early Unix context.)


> Second, once you unpack it, the claim itself can be parsed in two ways,
> yielding quite different meanings.

You're right. I directly assumed that ``the second book that was
intended for genereal readership (besides several earlier books
for special readership)'' was meant. But now that you bring this
question up, I'm no longer sure about earlier books that describe
the Unix system in general, not only single aspects of it.
Besides, we quickly run into the question what a book is. Is
Lions' Book a book? Are the manuals books?

Well, as I wrote above, although this claim in the Wikipedia
started it all up for me, I'm not so much interested in validating
or falsifying it, but rather like to know more about the situation
in general, to further improve my understanding of the time back
then. :-)


meillo