From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: pepe@naleco.com (Josh Good) Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2017 23:26:32 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] Were all of you.. Hippies? In-Reply-To: References: <20170321202839.GG21805@naleco.com> <20170324001832.GA13511@naleco.com> <20170324002754.GW23802@mcvoy.com> <1490332489.2836059.921835720.2069930C@webmail.messagingengine.com> <20170324235556.GA29323@naleco.com> Message-ID: <20170325222629.GA27153@naleco.com> On 2017 Mar 25, 03:55, ron minnich wrote: > On Fri, Mar 24, 2017 at 4:56 PM Josh Good wrote: > > > Which brings up a question I have: why didn't UNIX implement ethernet > > network interfaces as file names in the filesystem? Was that "novelty" > > a BDS development straying away from AT&T UNIX? > > See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc681, section 4j: > FILEDES = OPEN( "/DEV/NET/HARV",2 ); > > People were thinking about it. There was no shortage of people at > the time who were struggling to find a way to make the Unix model > work for networking (not me, I had no clue; I was just an interested > observer). It didn't quite work out and as a result we were left with > the non-unix-like socket interface we have today, and a feeling among > many of us that we'd missed an opportunity. > It's really hard to get this stuff right, and the approach outlined > in the RFC is not really what you want. Rob had a nice talk 20+ years > ago about the right and wrong way to do this; I can't find it and he > can't find it, and I keep hoping it'll appear. > It's a shame that Unix did not get a Unix-like model for networking, > but maybe it was just too soon. Thank you Ron for your very informative answer. I too would like to read that Rob's paper if it ever resurfaces. By the way, that RFC-681 you point to, has these two very interesting paragraphs: RELIABILITY AS OF THIS WRITING, NETWORK UNIX HAS BEEN RUNNING ON A FULL TIME BASIS FOR ABOUT FOUR WEEKS. DURING THAT PERIOD, THERE WERE BETWEEN THREE AND FOUR CRASHES A DAY. THIS IS NOT A VALID INDICATOR BECAUSE MANY OF THE FAILURES WERE DUE TO HARDWARE COMPLICATIONS. MORE RECENTLY THE HARDWARE HAS BEEN RE-CONFIGURED TO IMPROVE RELIABILITY AND THE CRASH RATE HAS BEEN REDUCED TO ONE A DAY WITH A DOWN TIME OF 2-3 MINS. THIS IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE, BUT THE SAMPLING PERIOD HASNT BEEN LONG ENOUGH FOR ANY DEPENDABLE ANALYSIS. AVAILABILITY ALTHOUGH THE UNIX NETWORK SOFTWARE WAS DEVELOPED WITHOUT ARPA SUPPORT, THE CENTER FOR ADVANCED COMPUTATION IS WILLING TO PROVIDE IT GRATIS TO THE PEOPLE OF THE ARPA COMMUNITY. HOWEVER BELL LABORATORIES MUST BE CONTACTED FOR A LISCENSE TO THE BASE SYSTEM ITSELF. BELL'S POLICY IN THE PAST HAS BEEN TO LISCENSE THE SYSTEM TO UNIVERSITIES FOR A NOMINAL FEE, $150.00, AND UNFORTUNATELY FOR A COST OF $20,000.00 TO "NONUNIVERSITY" INSTITUTIONS. Those are truly delicious historical tidbits about UNIX: how the beginnings were on humble/unreliable hardware (like Linux was on PC hardware in the early '90s), and how as early as 1975 the licensing from big AT&T much differed from the customs in the nascent Arpa/Internet community. The "licenses war" was latent in UNIX from the very beginning. And as a side note: that RFC-681 shows case sensitivity was not a particular cause of concern back in the day. Why then was UNIX, born in those days, so particularly case-sensitive? -- Josh Good