[TUHS] First book on Unix for general readership

[TUHS] First book on Unix for general readership

[markus schnalke]

Hoi,

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.

Bourne's book was published 1983.

(``The UNIX Programming Environment'' was published 1984.)


Was it Banahan and Rutter's ``UNIX -- the Book''? It says 1982.

Could anyone share some background on that one? (The authors were
from Bradford University.)

I only have the German translation by Axel T. Schreiner, dated
1984. Haven't read the English original, but Schreiner's version
definitely is worth to read (if you speak German). He added lots
of footnotes, and it becomes apparent that he knows the system
better than the authors. ;-)


I'd like to get an understanding of the books in relation to each
other. How does the Banahan/Rutter book fit into the picture? Why
didn't Bell Labs write a user's book earlier? Were Bourne's and
Kernighan/Pike's books reactions to it?


meillo

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

[Nemo Nusquam]

On 04/04/20 11:05, markus schnalke wrote (in part):
> Thus I now wonder what the first book on Unix, intended for a general 
> readership was.
Not to be overly pedantic but what would be a "general readership"?

For example, I understand that the patent dep't was an early Unix 
customer.  Would they been a general readership (and how were they taught)?

(I would think that many of today's grunt-and-poke UI generation would 
have difficulty with a cli.)

N.

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

[Steve Mynott]

On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 16:58, Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 04/04/20 11:05, markus schnalke wrote (in part):
> > Thus I now wonder what the first book on Unix, intended for a general
> > readership was.
> Not to be overly pedantic but what would be a "general readership"?

I think the wikipedia article meant Bourne's "The Unix System"  was
the first general introduction to UNIX.

In the autumn of 1984 it was a recommended text book for an
introduction to computing course aimed at first year science
undergraduates at an English university.

They taught us awk programming and basic shell commands on a VAX
running BSD 4.1 using it. I still have a copy.

So by general readership they probably meant primer.

--
Steve Mynott <steve.mynott@gmail.com>
cv25519/ECF8B611205B447E091246AF959E3D6197190DD5

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

[Warner Losh]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1076 bytes --]

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 9:27 AM Steve Mynott <steve.mynott@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 16:58, Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 04/04/20 11:05, markus schnalke wrote (in part):
> > > Thus I now wonder what the first book on Unix, intended for a general
> > > readership was.
> > Not to be overly pedantic but what would be a "general readership"?
>
> I think the wikipedia article meant Bourne's "The Unix System"  was
> the first general introduction to UNIX.
>
> In the autumn of 1984 it was a recommended text book for an
> introduction to computing course aimed at first year science
> undergraduates at an English university.
>
> They taught us awk programming and basic shell commands on a VAX
> running BSD 4.1 using it. I still have a copy.
>
> So by general readership they probably meant primer.
>

I think it's not the first primer, but it's one of the first. But I'll know
more once I process through the half dozen books from the early 80s on Unix
that just arrived from ebay... I'll post a brief review and a bibliography


Warner

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1624 bytes --]

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

[Warner Losh]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2976 bytes --]

I have the following 5 books:

The Unix Operating System Book by Mike Banahan and Andy Rutter (Copyright
1983)
A Unix Primer by Ann Nicols Lomuto & Nico Lomuto (Copyright 1983)
The Unix System by SR Borne (Copyright 1983)
Introducing the Unix System by Henry McGilton and Rachel Morgan (Copyright
1983)
A User Guide to the Unix System by Rebecca Thomas and Jean Yates (Copyright
1982)

The last one is quite interesting because it has a 13 page annotated
bibliography. Here's the earlier books:

Information and Publication Division. The UNIX System. An Easier Way to
Communicate with Computers." 1979. This has a similar title to an article
by SP Morgan in Bell Laboratories Record 56 (1978).  The rest are all
clearly articles in journals and magazines back to the original in 75.

And I have the following on the way that's been mentioned before:
Using the Unix System by Richard Gauthier Command Computer Programming 1981

So there's at least 2 books that pre-date Borne's book, maybe more. There's
a second Banahan book that I ordered, but didn't get that claims to be
1982. Trying to get to the bottom of that... All of the above are tutorials
to varying degrees, though I've only reviewed the Lomuto and Thomas/Yates
books in any detail. None appear to have useful additional historic
information.

The McGilton/Morgan book is the oldest one I've seen talk about Berkeley
Unix system. The chapter was written in the spring of 1982.

And there's this gem https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvDZLjaCJuw that I've
seen before here I think, which is dated 1982 and is a film with the same
title "he UNIX System. An Easier Way to Communicate with Computers" as one
of the items above, so I wonder if that's this film or a paper copy of it.
It's clearly Bell Labs related, though.

Warner

On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 2:32 PM Warner Losh <imp@bsdimp.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2020 at 9:27 AM Steve Mynott <steve.mynott@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 16:58, Nemo Nusquam <cym224@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > On 04/04/20 11:05, markus schnalke wrote (in part):
>> > > Thus I now wonder what the first book on Unix, intended for a general
>> > > readership was.
>> > Not to be overly pedantic but what would be a "general readership"?
>>
>> I think the wikipedia article meant Bourne's "The Unix System"  was
>> the first general introduction to UNIX.
>>
>> In the autumn of 1984 it was a recommended text book for an
>> introduction to computing course aimed at first year science
>> undergraduates at an English university.
>>
>> They taught us awk programming and basic shell commands on a VAX
>> running BSD 4.1 using it. I still have a copy.
>>
>> So by general readership they probably meant primer.
>>
>
> I think it's not the first primer, but it's one of the first. But I'll
> know more once I process through the half dozen books from the early 80s on
> Unix that just arrived from ebay... I'll post a brief review and a
> bibliography
>
>
> Warner
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4148 bytes --]

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

[Michael Kjörling]

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.)

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

One way of parsing the claim is that Bourne wrote the book _The UNIX
System_ which was the second book on the UNIX system. It was also a book
which was intended for a general readership, presumably thereby setting it
apart from the first book which was not intended for a general readership.

The other way of parsing the claim is that he wrote the book _The UNIX
System_ which was second in the set of intended-for-a-general-readership
books on the UNIX system (as opposed to the set of books on the UNIX
system which were intended for other than a general readership, or for
_any_ readership, of which there may have been any number prior to this
book), thereby setting it apart only from the first book on the UNIX
system intended for a general readership.

I'm not a good enough UNIX historian to know which meaning is correct.

-- 
Michael Kjörling • https://michael.kjorling.se • michael@kjorling.se
 “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

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

[markus schnalke]

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

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

[Ronald Natalie]

The Lions book wasn’t really published back in the day.   It was only targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).

The manuals aren’t really a book (and again, they weren’t really published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form of articles than an entire book.

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

[Larry McVoy]

Do the Bell Labs technical journals count?  I have a collection of Unix
papers that were puled out and published together in two volumes.  That
stuff was a gold mine of information in the 80's.

On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> The Lions book wasn???t really published back in the day.   It was only targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
> 
> The manuals aren???t really a book (and again, they weren???t really published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form of articles than an entire book.

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

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

[Clem Cole]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2883 bytes --]

Two thoughts ...

1.) Lion's was not a general book.  It really was more of a kernel
'here-is-how-the-magic-happens.'   It's still the best I know for that.
BTW:  it did not leak.  It was purchasable from WE.   But the cost was high
and it was hard to get (you had a price you had a license and could not
buy/order it at any book store - I don't think it had an ISBN or a library
congress number originally).

I know a couple of the schools (like CMU) wanted to use it for the OS
course, but there was some hang-up associated with it in the mid-70s, which
I don't remember - we did have a couple of sections passed out for a few
lecture.  But because of how it was bound (and short), it was photocopied s
others have pointed out.

I think Michigan managed to use the whole thing for their OS course, as I
seem to remember that both Ted Kowalski and Bill Joy got copies there
(although my memory is that they both had photocopies not the original
Orange and Red bindings).  Ted brought it to CMU, which is how I first saw
it (and I think my original copy was a duplicate of his). And I remember
seeing a photocopy in wnj's office at UCB.  The first time I saw
the official Red/Orange bound version was when I ordered it at Tektronix
from WE a few years later, but I had to leave it there when I went back to
grad school.


2.) The question asked about general 'Unix' text -- my favorite is still
Rob and Brian's and I still recommend it (particularly to learn how to
>>use<< UNIX/Linux today by doing the exercises), but it was not first.
 Steve's certainly was early and I thought it was a good explanation and
until Rob and Brian became available was what I suggested when people
asked.  In fact, early Masscomp system's shipped Bourne's text, until Tim
wrote the original 'UNIX In a Nutshell' that started his empire.    That
said, I do seem to remember there was another book around the same time
(79-80 ish) that had a light blue cover that came from one 'PC-press'
publishers.   I wish I could remember the author and the name.  I remember
looking at a copy in Powell's in Portland when it came out and not being
impressed.

On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:08 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:

> Do the Bell Labs technical journals count?  I have a collection of Unix
> papers that were puled out and published together in two volumes.  That
> stuff was a gold mine of information in the 80's.
>
> On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> > The Lions book wasn???t really published back in the day.   It was only
> targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
> >
> > The manuals aren???t really a book (and again, they weren???t really
> published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form of
> articles than an entire book.
>
> --
> ---
> Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com
> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4309 bytes --]

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

[Michael Usher via TUHS]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3482 bytes --]

I tried an ngram search on google, and came up with the following:

Richard L. Gauthier. October 1981. Using the Unix System, Reston Publishing
Co.  ISBN 978-0835981644.

That seems to precede the Bourne book.

Available at amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Using-Unix-System-Richard-Gauthier/dp/0835981649

Michael


On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 5:28 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> Two thoughts ...
>
> 1.) Lion's was not a general book.  It really was more of a kernel
> 'here-is-how-the-magic-happens.'   It's still the best I know for that.
> BTW:  it did not leak.  It was purchasable from WE.   But the cost was high
> and it was hard to get (you had a price you had a license and could not
> buy/order it at any book store - I don't think it had an ISBN or a library
> congress number originally).
>
> I know a couple of the schools (like CMU) wanted to use it for the OS
> course, but there was some hang-up associated with it in the mid-70s, which
> I don't remember - we did have a couple of sections passed out for a few
> lecture.  But because of how it was bound (and short), it was photocopied s
> others have pointed out.
>
> I think Michigan managed to use the whole thing for their OS course, as I
> seem to remember that both Ted Kowalski and Bill Joy got copies there
> (although my memory is that they both had photocopies not the original
> Orange and Red bindings).  Ted brought it to CMU, which is how I first saw
> it (and I think my original copy was a duplicate of his). And I remember
> seeing a photocopy in wnj's office at UCB.  The first time I saw
> the official Red/Orange bound version was when I ordered it at Tektronix
> from WE a few years later, but I had to leave it there when I went back to
> grad school.
>
>
> 2.) The question asked about general 'Unix' text -- my favorite is still
> Rob and Brian's and I still recommend it (particularly to learn how to
> >>use<< UNIX/Linux today by doing the exercises), but it was not first.
>  Steve's certainly was early and I thought it was a good explanation and
> until Rob and Brian became available was what I suggested when people
> asked.  In fact, early Masscomp system's shipped Bourne's text, until Tim
> wrote the original 'UNIX In a Nutshell' that started his empire.    That
> said, I do seem to remember there was another book around the same time
> (79-80 ish) that had a light blue cover that came from one 'PC-press'
> publishers.   I wish I could remember the author and the name.  I remember
> looking at a copy in Powell's in Portland when it came out and not being
> impressed.
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:08 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>
>> Do the Bell Labs technical journals count?  I have a collection of Unix
>> papers that were puled out and published together in two volumes.  That
>> stuff was a gold mine of information in the 80's.
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>> > The Lions book wasn???t really published back in the day.   It was only
>> targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
>> >
>> > The manuals aren???t really a book (and again, they weren???t really
>> published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form of
>> articles than an entire book.
>>
>> --
>> ---
>> Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com
>> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
>>
>

-- 
Michael Usher
Senior Wireless Network Engineer
University of California, Santa Cruz
musher@ucsc.edu        831-459-3697

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6186 bytes --]

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

[Clem Cole]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3802 bytes --]

That’s it.

On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:46 PM Michael Usher <musher@ucsc.edu> wrote:

> I tried an ngram search on google, and came up with the following:
>
> Richard L. Gauthier. October 1981. Using the Unix System, Reston
> Publishing Co.  ISBN 978-0835981644.
>
> That seems to precede the Bourne book.
>
> Available at amazon:
> https://www.amazon.com/Using-Unix-System-Richard-Gauthier/dp/0835981649
>
> Michael
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 5:28 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:
>
>> Two thoughts ...
>>
>> 1.) Lion's was not a general book.  It really was more of a kernel
>> 'here-is-how-the-magic-happens.'   It's still the best I know for that.
>> BTW:  it did not leak.  It was purchasable from WE.   But the cost was high
>> and it was hard to get (you had a price you had a license and could not
>> buy/order it at any book store - I don't think it had an ISBN or a library
>> congress number originally).
>>
>> I know a couple of the schools (like CMU) wanted to use it for the OS
>> course, but there was some hang-up associated with it in the mid-70s, which
>> I don't remember - we did have a couple of sections passed out for a few
>> lecture.  But because of how it was bound (and short), it was photocopied s
>> others have pointed out.
>>
>> I think Michigan managed to use the whole thing for their OS course, as I
>> seem to remember that both Ted Kowalski and Bill Joy got copies there
>> (although my memory is that they both had photocopies not the original
>> Orange and Red bindings).  Ted brought it to CMU, which is how I first saw
>> it (and I think my original copy was a duplicate of his). And I remember
>> seeing a photocopy in wnj's office at UCB.  The first time I saw
>> the official Red/Orange bound version was when I ordered it at Tektronix
>> from WE a few years later, but I had to leave it there when I went back to
>> grad school.
>>
>>
>> 2.) The question asked about general 'Unix' text -- my favorite is still
>> Rob and Brian's and I still recommend it (particularly to learn how to
>> >>use<< UNIX/Linux today by doing the exercises), but it was not first.
>>  Steve's certainly was early and I thought it was a good explanation and
>> until Rob and Brian became available was what I suggested when people
>> asked.  In fact, early Masscomp system's shipped Bourne's text, until Tim
>> wrote the original 'UNIX In a Nutshell' that started his empire.    That
>> said, I do seem to remember there was another book around the same time
>> (79-80 ish) that had a light blue cover that came from one 'PC-press'
>> publishers.   I wish I could remember the author and the name.  I remember
>> looking at a copy in Powell's in Portland when it came out and not being
>> impressed.
>>
>> On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 8:08 PM Larry McVoy <lm@mcvoy.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Do the Bell Labs technical journals count?  I have a collection of Unix
>>> papers that were puled out and published together in two volumes.  That
>>> stuff was a gold mine of information in the 80's.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>>> > The Lions book wasn???t really published back in the day.   It was
>>> only targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
>>> >
>>> > The manuals aren???t really a book (and again, they weren???t really
>>> published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form of
>>> articles than an entire book.
>>>
>>> --
>>> ---
>>> Larry McVoy                  lm at mcvoy.com
>>> http://www.mcvoy.com/lm
>>>
>>
>
> --
> Michael Usher
> Senior Wireless Network Engineer
> University of California, Santa Cruz
> musher@ucsc.edu        831-459-3697
>
-- 
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6695 bytes --]

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

[Michael Usher via TUHS]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 262 bytes --]

Now that I think about it -- I suspect I did actually read that book in the
late 80s from the Fisher Library collection at Sydney Uni.  The cover looks
familiar to me.

On Sun, Apr 5, 2020 at 6:41 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> That’s it.
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 663 bytes --]

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

[ron]

> I tried an ngram search on google, and came up with the following:
>
> Richard L. Gauthier. October 1981. Using the Unix System, Reston
> Publishing
> Co.  ISBN 978-0835981644.
>

Gosh, I'd forgotten about Gauthier, perhaps the worst UNIX book ever written.

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

[Greg A. Woods]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1002 bytes --]

At Mon, 6 Apr 2020 10:51:05 -0400, ron@ronnatalie.com wrote:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] First book on Unix for general readership
>
> > I tried an ngram search on google, and came up with the following:
> >
> > Richard L. Gauthier. October 1981. Using the Unix System, Reston
> > Publishing
> > Co.  ISBN 978-0835981644.
> >
>
> Gosh, I'd forgotten about Gauthier, perhaps the worst UNIX book ever written.

I was going to mention this book as one I thought might be the first
book on Unix for a truly general readership.  I bought a copy in 1982.

Not a very good book indeed.  Horribly typeset.  Content reminds me of
many of the early poor-quality O'Reilly books.

But it was available in 1981, a few years before K&P's almost infinitely
greater "TUPE" (though TUPE is targeted far more to programmers than
general users).

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP Digital Signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --]

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

[Dave Horsfall]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 767 bytes --]

On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Ronald Natalie wrote:

> The Lions book wasn’t really published back in the day.  It was only 
> targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).

Leaked out?  Apparently it's the most photocopied book in the world!  I 
had the originals but sadly lost them in a house move (along with all 
issues of AUUGN).

> The manuals aren’t really a book (and again, they weren’t really 
> published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form 
> of articles than an entire book.

I still reckon that the manpage format is perfect at what it does: telling 
you what you need to know right away without going through various menu 
levels (and that's not a dig at "info" but just an observation in 
general).

-- Dave

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

[ron]

> On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>
>> The Lions book wasn’t really published back in the day.  It was only
>> targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
>
> Leaked out?  Apparently it's the most photocopied book in the world!  I
> had the originals but sadly lost them in a house move (along with all
> issues of AUUGN).

I have one of the Xeroxes.   It's a second generation copy.   I remember
when I got a hold of someone else's copy me and five of my coworkers split
up and went to different copiers around the company and each made six
copies of their section and then we collated it together.  We didn't dare
take it to the company copy center.

>
>> The manuals aren’t really a book (and again, they weren’t really
>> published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form
>> of articles than an entire book.
>
> I still reckon that the manpage format is perfect at what it does: telling
Agreed, but neither the manpages nor the BSTJ articles or the few
non-manpage UNIX documents were "books."

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

[ron]

> On Sun, 5 Apr 2020, Ronald Natalie wrote:
>
>> The Lions book wasn’t really published back in the day.  It was only
>> targetted at his students in Australia (though copies leaked out).
>
> Leaked out?  Apparently it's the most photocopied book in the world!  I
> had the originals but sadly lost them in a house move (along with all
> issues of AUUGN).

I have one of the Xeroxes.   It's a second generation copy.   I remember
when I got a hold of someone else's copy me and five of my coworkers split
up and went to different copiers around the company and each made six
copies of their section and then we collated it together.  We didn't dare
take it to the company copy center.

>
>> The manuals aren’t really a book (and again, they weren’t really
>> published as a book) and most of the prose on UNIX was more in the form
>> of articles than an entire book.
>
> I still reckon that the manpage format is perfect at what it does: telling
Agreed, but neither the manpages nor the BSTJ articles or the few
non-manpage UNIX documents were "books."

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

[Derek Fawcus]

On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> 
> The manuals aren’t really a book (and again, they weren’t really published as a book)

A bit later on but...

I'm prettry sure I managed to read the man pages published as a book while
at Uni, so between '86 and '90.  I found it in the University Library.

It was published by Western Electric, and had either a dark blue or black cover.

It also didn't appear to be a particularly recent book, but could just have
been well worn.  Possibly about System III, I don't think it was about System V.

However, there were books of System V man pages published, since I bought
some of them.

DF

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

[Greg A. Woods]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1939 bytes --]

At Tue, 7 Apr 2020 11:42:51 +0100, Derek Fawcus <dfawcus+lists-tuhs@employees.org> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] First book on Unix for general readership
> 
> On Sun, Apr 05, 2020 at 07:57:55PM -0400, Ronald Natalie wrote:
> > 
> > The manuals aren’t really a book (and again, they weren’t really published as a book)
> 
> A bit later on but...
> 
> I'm prettry sure I managed to read the man pages published as a book while
> at Uni, so between '86 and '90.  I found it in the University Library.
> 
> It was published by Western Electric, and had either a dark blue or black cover.

Indeed the Unix manuals were available as printed books.  Volume One was
the manual pages and Volume Two the articles from /usr/doc.  I remember
seeing soft-cover bound copies of the 7th Edition manuals, first in
someone's collection, then for sale, probably in the Computer Literacy
bookshop on Lawrence in Sunnyvale, I think with a dark red cover on the
ones I saw there.  For some reason I never acquired a copy (probably
because by then I already had several other sets of Unix manuals,
including a complete set of boxed AT&T manuals.

I think the next time this happened in the exact same way was with the
"Unix Research System Tenth Edition" books published by Saunders College
Publishing in 1990.  (Which I probably bought at Computer Literacy.)

There were also of course 4.4BSD manuals published and printed jointly
by The USENIX Association and O'Reilly & Associates in 1994.

> However, there were books of System V man pages published, since I bought
> some of them.

Yes, Prentice Hall's "UNIX System V/386" manuals from 1988 grace my
shelves, along with an incomplete set of the UNIX Press "SVR4" manuals
from 1992.

-- 
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>

[-- Attachment #2: OpenPGP Digital Signature --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 195 bytes --]

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

[Warner Losh]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1475 bytes --]

On Sat, Apr 4, 2020, 9:19 AM markus schnalke <meillo@marmaro.de> wrote:

> Hoi,
>
> 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.
>
> Bourne's book was published 1983.
>
> (``The UNIX Programming Environment'' was published 1984.)
>
>
> Was it Banahan and Rutter's ``UNIX -- the Book''? It says 1982.
>
> Could anyone share some background on that one? (The authors were
> from Bradford University.)
>
> I only have the German translation by Axel T. Schreiner, dated
> 1984. Haven't read the English original, but Schreiner's version
> definitely is worth to read (if you speak German). He added lots
> of footnotes, and it becomes apparent that he knows the system
> better than the authors. ;-)
>
>
> I'd like to get an understanding of the books in relation to each
> other. How does the Banahan/Rutter book fit into the picture? Why
> didn't Bell Labs write a user's book earlier? Were Bourne's and
> Kernighan/Pike's books reactions to it?
>

All good questions. I just bought both of these 9n ebay (there are several
copies available for <$10 so I didn't feel bad about sniping a rarity from
others in this group).

But I don't know the back stories.

Warner


> meillo
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2411 bytes --]

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

[Doug McIlroy]

Another book from the same era--quite good--is A Unix Primer
by Ann Nichols Lomuto and Nico Lomuto, copyright 1983.

Before the title page appears an interesting endorsement:
"Prentice-Hall Software Series, Brian Kernighan, advisor

Doug

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

[Doug McIlroy]

> Indeed the Unix manuals were available as printed books.  Volume One was
the manual pages and Volume Two the articles from /usr/doc.  I remember
seeing soft-cover bound copies of the 7th Edition manuals, ...
> I think the next time this happened in the exact same way was with the
"Unix Research System Tenth Edition" books published by Saunders College
Publishing in 1990.

Those were the only two that were published as trade books. I still use
the 10th Ed regularly. The 7th Ed was a debacle. The publisher didn't
bother to send us galleys because they had printed straight from troff.
It turned out they did not have the full troff character set, and put
an @ sign in place of each missing character. The whole print run was
done before we saw a copy. Not knowing whether they ever fixed it, I'd
be interested to hear whether or not the botch made it to bookstores.

Doug

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

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1697 bytes --]

On Monday, 13 April 2020 at 22:13:17 -0400, Doug McIlroy wrote:
>
> Those were the only two that were published as trade books. I still use
> the 10th Ed regularly. The 7th Ed was a debacle. The publisher didn't
> bother to send us galleys because they had printed straight from troff.
> It turned out they did not have the full troff character set, and put
> an @ sign in place of each missing character. The whole print run was
> done before we saw a copy. Not knowing whether they ever fixed it, I'd
> be interested to hear whether or not the botch made it to bookstores.

OK, I've dug out my copies.  Two volumes, published by CBS College
publishing, aka Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1982, both titled "UNIX
Programmer's Manual".  Volume 1 (ISBN 0-03-061742-1) was the man
pages, and volume 2 (ISBN 0-03-061743-X) was the supplementary docs,
starting with “7th Edition UNIX — Summary”, dated September 6, 1978.
They have perforated, 3-hole punched pages, clearly intended to be
torn out and put into a three-ring binder.

I've skimmed through both of them, and I can't find any obvious
typesetting errors.  "Typesetting Mathematics" shows some quite
complicated equations.  And in the quick reference in volume 1, all
the troff special characters seem right, even up to less common
characters such as \(bs.  Is there anything specific that I should
look for?  Scans available if they would help.

Greg
--
Sent from my desktop computer.
Finger grog@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

[-- Attachment #2: signature.asc --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 163 bytes --]

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

[Warner Losh]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1936 bytes --]

On Mon, Apr 13, 2020, 11:31 PM Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@lemis.com> wrote:

> On Monday, 13 April 2020 at 22:13:17 -0400, Doug McIlroy wrote:
> >
> > Those were the only two that were published as trade books. I still use
> > the 10th Ed regularly. The 7th Ed was a debacle. The publisher didn't
> > bother to send us galleys because they had printed straight from troff.
> > It turned out they did not have the full troff character set, and put
> > an @ sign in place of each missing character. The whole print run was
> > done before we saw a copy. Not knowing whether they ever fixed it, I'd
> > be interested to hear whether or not the botch made it to bookstores.
>
> OK, I've dug out my copies.  Two volumes, published by CBS College
> publishing, aka Holt, Rinehart and Winston in 1982, both titled "UNIX
> Programmer's Manual".  Volume 1 (ISBN 0-03-061742-1) was the man
> pages, and volume 2 (ISBN 0-03-061743-X) was the supplementary docs,
> starting with “7th Edition UNIX — Summary†, dated September 6, 1978.
> They have perforated, 3-hole punched pages, clearly intended to be
> torn out and put into a three-ring binder.
>
> I've skimmed through both of them, and I can't find any obvious
> typesetting errors.  "Typesetting Mathematics" shows some quite
> complicated equations.  And in the quick reference in volume 1, all
> the troff special characters seem right, even up to less common
> characters such as \(bs.  Is there anything specific that I should
> look for?  Scans available if they would help.
>

Mine are like that too. Maybe it was just wrong for the first printing?

Warner

Greg
> --
> Sent from my desktop computer.
> Finger grog@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
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2785 bytes --]

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

[Doug McIlroy]

> OK, I've dug out my copies. They have perforated, 3-hole punched pages
...
>  I can't find any obvious typesetting errors.

That sets my mind at rest after three decades. What I saw
back in the day was littered with @ signs, and was not punched
for a ring binder. Thanks for checking.

Doug