From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: cowan@mercury.ccil.org (John Cowan) Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2015 17:47:51 -0500 Subject: [TUHS] v6tar from v7 on v6, too large? In-Reply-To: References: <20151209221624.B27CC18C0C9@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Message-ID: <20151209224751.GC20697@mercury.ccil.org> Clem Cole scripsit: > ​To be fair UNIX was the naming sinner here IMO. Unix's ld command is the > "link editor", I thought "ld" stood for Link eDitor. :-) > I never asked Dennis or Ken why those names were not used. FWIW, DEC transitioned from "loader" to "link editor". On OS/8 there were four linkers, one for each compiler: ABSLDR, LOAD, LOADER, and LINK. LINK was for the macro assembler, the last one published. I don't remember the story on the various PDP-11 DEC OSes; by VMS days it was exclusively LINK. The ABSLDR actually did loading rather than linking (it was "absolute" in the sense that it did no relocation, so if parts of your program overwrote other parts, that was your problem). When it terminated, the executable program was in core (the ABSLDR's last act was to arrange for the executable to overwrite it) where you could save it or start it up as you were so minded. -- "Well, I'm back." --Sam John Cowan