[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Noel Chiappa]

    > I've never seen a detailed description of UNIX/TS, although I have seen
    > the "Unix Program Description" (January 1976) which documents the USG
    > version, and of course PWB is described in the BSTJ issue, and UNIX/TS
    > is supposedly a merge of those two.
    > ...
    > Did the later USG versions takeup some of the PWB work, does anyone
    > know? (My thinking is 'if I find traces of PWB [in the MIT system],
    > would that be from /TS, or could it be a later USG version' - I think
    > there were 1-3, from something I saw online.)

So I seem to have stumbled on something interesting here (or maybe it's not,
and the history is just unclear - well, unclear to me at least, I'm sure
someone knows).

Looking at "Unix Program Description" (January 1976), it's clearly marked as
"Published by the UNIX Support Group". (I have an actual hardcopy, which I
don't recall how I came by, but for those who wish to follow along this
document is available in the TUHS archive, at:

  http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/unix_program_description_jan_1976.pdf

and in other TUHS mirrors).

So, given the credit, I _assume_ that it documents some version of the USG
system. So I started looking at that, and the PWB version that's in the
archive:

  http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/spencer_pwb.tar.gz

to see how they compare, and it turns out (somewhat to my surprise) that the
USG document describes what seems to be an older version of the system.

For example, in text.c, it doesn't cover xlock()/xunlock()/xexpand(), all in
the PWB system - just xalloc()/xccdec()/xfree()/xswap().

Even more telling, in sys1.c, the USG document describes the older version of
exec(), where arguments are collected in a disk buffer, not (as in the PWB
system) in swap space. (I had thought that this change was mentioned in the
PWB paper in the BSTJ issue, but on checking, it appears my memory was
incorrect. Many of the PWB changes appear to be to things like the shell, not
the OS.)


So it seems the USG document describes a system very close to the 'classic'
V6 - not what I had expected. This may also make it hard to recognize USG
source (at least, the early versions).

More generally, it would be good to try and elucidate the relationship among
all these early Bell/AT+T versions: Research, USG, PWB, etc. Clearly the two
latter (from what we know now) are descended from V6 - but was there any
interchange between USG and PWB?

And did either of them feed back into V7?  Or, perhaps more likely, were the
improvements to text.c, exec() etc _Research_ improvements that got fed into
PWB?

More questions than answers, sadly... I'm not at all familiar with V7, I'll
have to go read it at some point, and compare it to PWB. Not that I expect it
will answer many (any?) of these questions, but maybe we'll get lucky and
there will e.g. be stuff in this PWB which isn't in V7.


Speaking of which, I seem to recall there's more than one PWB version. I
wonder which one we have (above). Although there's another 'PWB' tape in the
archive:

  http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/bostic_pwb.tar.gz

(much larger than the other one), when I poked around a bit through that,
seeing what's there, and comparing it to the other one, the system sources I
looked at there all seemed to be the same as the one on the Spencer tape.


    > I should look at the MIT kernel and see how much of it is USG, and see
    > if I can find any traces of the changes described as done for PWB. I
    > know the MIT version has provisions for longer exec() arguments, and
    > text.c is considerably more complex than the one in V6 (and IIRC matches
    > the description in the USG document)

So, my memory was in error here; the text.c matches the one from the PWB tape,
_not_ the USG document. In general, the parts of the MIT system seem to be a
close match to what's on the PWB tape, with the exception that the MIT one
seems to be slightly earlier (no 'register' argument types).

    > Perhaps the MIT system really was /TS

Without a better understanding of what was really in /TS, this is totally
opaque.

    > I've always described it as a hacked PWB1, but I might be wrong there.

And for once, I think I was right. The MIT system _does_ closely match the
one on the 'PWB' tapes - whatever that was!

    Noel

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Jon Steinhart]

Noel Chiappa writes:
> I initially got /TS mixed up with /RT, which is the system I'd _really_ like
> to find - well, MERT, actually. I think that's a really early micro-kernel
> system (although I haven't done any research to confirm that), a direction I
> think is important. (I think the 'THE Multiprogramming System' may be the
> earliest work in that direction, although I'd be interested to hear of
> anything else.)
> 
> I actually got contact info for some of the original MERT people, and was
> going to contact them to see if they still retained anything, but I never
> got a 'round tuit'... too many other projects. :-(

Unless there's more than one MERT I recall that that was something originally
done by Heinz Lycklama who is still around.  He's busy trying to convince
people that the bible proves the laws of thermodynamics these days but still
might have some useful information.

Jon

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Clem Cole

    > it's direct predecessor (UNIX/TS) which was not officially released made
    > its way to number of places ... heavily hacked systems that were combo's
    > of V6, PWB [1.0], UNIX/TS plus local additions.  UNIX/TS had a newer
    > kernel, updated FS and the compiler that was released with troff -
    > a.k.a. 'Typesetter C'

I'm not sure quite what the MIT system was.

I've never seen a detailed description of UNIX/TS, although I have seen the
"Unix Program Description" (January 1976) which documents the USG version,
and of course PWB is described in the BSTJ issue, and UNIX/TS is supposedly a
merge of those two. (If we ever do find V6+ USG source, it should be easy to
verify - that document is pretty detailed.)

I should look at the MIT kernel and see how much of it is USG, and see if I
can find any traces of the changes described as done for PWB. I know the MIT
version has provisions for longer exec() arguments, and text.c is
considerably more complex than the one in V6 (and IIRC matches the
description in the USG document); but I don't recall withough careful
checking, what was done where. Perhaps the MIT system really was /TS, and I
didn't know that - I've always described it as a hacked PWB1, but I might be
wrong there.

Did the later USG versions takeup some of the PWB work, does anyone know?  (My
thinking is 'if I find traces of PWB, would that be from /TS, or could it be a
later USG version' - I think there were 1-3, from something I saw online.)


I initially got /TS mixed up with /RT, which is the system I'd _really_ like
to find - well, MERT, actually. I think that's a really early micro-kernel
system (although I haven't done any research to confirm that), a direction I
think is important. (I think the 'THE Multiprogramming System' may be the
earliest work in that direction, although I'd be interested to hear of
anything else.)

I actually got contact info for some of the original MERT people, and was
going to contact them to see if they still retained anything, but I never
got a 'round tuit'... too many other projects. :-(

    Noel

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Clem Cole]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2767 bytes --]

On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 11:15 AM, Jon Steinhart <jon at fourwinds.com> wrote:

> Random832 writes:
> > On Tue, Dec 5, 2017, at 20:07, Warren Toomey wrote:
> > >  Ken tried to send it out, but the lawyers kept
> > >       stalling and stalling and stalling.
> > >
> > >       When the lawyers found out about it, they called every
> > >       licensee and threatened them with dire consequences if they
> > >       didn’t destroy the tape, after trying to find out how they got
> > >       the tape. I would guess that no one would actually tell them
> > >       how they came by the tape (I didn’t).
> >
> > I have a question, if anyone has any idea... is there any recorded
> > knowledge about *who was driving*? That is, beyond "the lawyers", who on
> > the business side of AT&T was making the policy decisions that led to
> > the various sometimes bizarre legal actions that caused problems for the
> > Unix world, and to what end (was there some way they expected to profit?
> > liability concerns?)
> >
> > In other words, what was the basis of the legal department's mandate to
> > try to shut these things down? (This question is also something I've
> > wondered for some non-Unix stuff like the E911 document, but that's not
> > relevant to this list)
>
> Can't answer your question directly, but I think that some of this was
> the result of the prior consent decree banning them from being in the
> data business.  I seem to recall that it was technically illegal for
> them to sell SW and don't know how giving it away would have been viewed.
>
​I really think Jon is correct here.  The behavior was all left over from
the 1956 consent decree, which settled the 1949 anti-trust case against
AT&T.

As the recipients of the AT&T IP, we used to refer the behavior as "UNIX
was abandoned on your doorstep."  Throughout the 60s and 70s, the AT&T sr
management from the CEO on down, were terrified of another anti-trust
case.  And of course they got one and we all know what judge Green did to
resolve that in 1980.

I described the activities/actions in detail in my paper: *"**UNIX: A View
from the Field as We Played the Game" *which I gave last fall in Paris​.
The proceeding are supposed to go on line at some point.  Send me email if
you want the details and I'll send you a PDF.   I'm holding off cutting and
pasting here for reasons of brevity.  For an legal analysis I also
recommend: *“AT&T Divestiture & the Telecommunications Market”,* John
Pinheiro, Berkeley Technical Law Journal, 303, September 1987, Volume 2,
Issue 2, Article 5 which I cite in my paper.

Clem
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20171206/6623bbac/attachment-0001.html>

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Jon Steinhart]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1430 bytes --]

Random832 writes:
> On Tue, Dec 5, 2017, at 20:07, Warren Toomey wrote:
> >  Ken tried to send it out, but the lawyers kept
> >       stalling and stalling and stalling.
> >
> >       When the lawyers found out about it, they called every
> >       licensee and threatened them with dire consequences if they
> >       didn’t destroy the tape, after trying to find out how they got
> >       the tape. I would guess that no one would actually tell them
> >       how they came by the tape (I didn’t).
> 
> I have a question, if anyone has any idea... is there any recorded
> knowledge about *who was driving*? That is, beyond "the lawyers", who on
> the business side of AT&T was making the policy decisions that led to
> the various sometimes bizarre legal actions that caused problems for the
> Unix world, and to what end (was there some way they expected to profit?
> liability concerns?)
> 
> In other words, what was the basis of the legal department's mandate to
> try to shut these things down? (This question is also something I've
> wondered for some non-Unix stuff like the E911 document, but that's not
> relevant to this list)

Can't answer your question directly, but I think that some of this was
the result of the prior consent decree banning them from being in the
data business.  I seem to recall that it was technically illegal for
them to sell SW and don't know how giving it away would have been viewed.

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Random832]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1085 bytes --]

On Tue, Dec 5, 2017, at 20:07, Warren Toomey wrote:
>  Ken tried to send it out, but the lawyers kept
>       stalling and stalling and stalling.
>
>       When the lawyers found out about it, they called every
>       licensee and threatened them with dire consequences if they
>       didn’t destroy the tape, after trying to find out how they got
>       the tape. I would guess that no one would actually tell them
>       how they came by the tape (I didn’t).

I have a question, if anyone has any idea... is there any recorded
knowledge about *who was driving*? That is, beyond "the lawyers", who on
the business side of AT&T was making the policy decisions that led to
the various sometimes bizarre legal actions that caused problems for the
Unix world, and to what end (was there some way they expected to profit?
liability concerns?)

In other words, what was the basis of the legal department's mandate to
try to shut these things down? (This question is also something I've
wondered for some non-Unix stuff like the E911 document, but that's not
relevant to this list)

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Clem Cole]

s/did get polluted/didn't get polluted/    --- sigh

On Wed, Dec 6, 2017 at 9:29 AM, Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> wrote:

> An observation ... in reading the last few days emails, I fear there may
> be some confusion - there were two different tapes.  The infamous 'patch
> tape' that Lou was discussing was patches to the *Sixth Edition* which I
> want to say '76 or 77 timeframe (should be able to be dated by when Chesson
> graduated from UofI and Ken was on his way to UCB for a sabbatical).
>
> I can date this because we had a copy of the patch tape at CMU at least by
> I think late '77/early '78 when I was hacking full-time for the EE Dept.
>  CS had switched from the Fifth Edition on their systems, which was my
> introduction.   I would eventually bring up 6th on an original 11/34 (not a
> 34A).   The 11/34 did not 'just work' due to some small differences between
> the 11/40 and the 11/34 and remember having to do it from first principles
> borrowing a hacked CS system (11/40e), that had CSR/CRET stuff in their
> compiler, so I went back to just booting Ken's original tape, hacking until
> both 11/34 and the 11/40 boot and then having to reapplied the patches,
> because I wanted to make sure I did get polluted with the 11/40e stuff.
>
> The V7 addendum was obviously post Seventh Edition.  The Seventh Edition
> was released in 1979 for general availability**; although it's direct
> predecessor (UNIX/TS) which was not officially released made its way to
> number of places such as MIT and CMU via OYOCs and summer students as Noel
> and I have pointed out in the past.   Noel (MIT) and I (CMU) both had
> heavily hacked systems that were combo's of V6, PWB [1.0], UNIX/TS plus
> local additions.  UNIX/TS had a newer kernel, updated FS and the compiler
> that was released with troff - a.k.a. 'Typesetter C'  [Historical note -
> this was the system Ted with a small amount of help from me, used to create
> fsck].
>
> If I recall the V7 'addendum' is in reference to the later (post 1980) V7
> distribution tapes, that had one more file on it with some
> additions/corrections from Research as Doug mentioned.  IIRC: The first V7
> tapes that went out in '79 (such as the ones I recieved at CMU and then
> Tektronix) did not have that file and the copy said tape I have home is
> missing it (I just checked the label).
>
> Clem
>
>
> **V7 GA was in Feb '79 I think, I can not find my copy of Al Arm's letter
> to the licensees announcing it, I seem to have lost it - any other pack
> rat/old f*rt please check your files.
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20171206/b9bdba63/attachment.html>

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Clem Cole]

An observation ... in reading the last few days emails, I fear there may be
some confusion - there were two different tapes.  The infamous 'patch tape'
that Lou was discussing was patches to the *Sixth Edition* which I want to
say '76 or 77 timeframe (should be able to be dated by when Chesson
graduated from UofI and Ken was on his way to UCB for a sabbatical).

I can date this because we had a copy of the patch tape at CMU at least by
I think late '77/early '78 when I was hacking full-time for the EE Dept.
 CS had switched from the Fifth Edition on their systems, which was my
introduction.   I would eventually bring up 6th on an original 11/34 (not a
34A).   The 11/34 did not 'just work' due to some small differences between
the 11/40 and the 11/34 and remember having to do it from first principles
borrowing a hacked CS system (11/40e), that had CSR/CRET stuff in their
compiler, so I went back to just booting Ken's original tape, hacking until
both 11/34 and the 11/40 boot and then having to reapplied the patches,
because I wanted to make sure I did get polluted with the 11/40e stuff.

The V7 addendum was obviously post Seventh Edition.  The Seventh Edition
was released in 1979 for general availability**; although it's direct
predecessor (UNIX/TS) which was not officially released made its way to
number of places such as MIT and CMU via OYOCs and summer students as Noel
and I have pointed out in the past.   Noel (MIT) and I (CMU) both had
heavily hacked systems that were combo's of V6, PWB [1.0], UNIX/TS plus
local additions.  UNIX/TS had a newer kernel, updated FS and the compiler
that was released with troff - a.k.a. 'Typesetter C'  [Historical note -
this was the system Ted with a small amount of help from me, used to create
fsck].

If I recall the V7 'addendum' is in reference to the later (post 1980) V7
distribution tapes, that had one more file on it with some
additions/corrections from Research as Doug mentioned.  IIRC: The first V7
tapes that went out in '79 (such as the ones I recieved at CMU and then
Tektronix) did not have that file and the copy said tape I have home is
missing it (I just checked the label).

Clem


**V7 GA was in Feb '79 I think, I can not find my copy of Al Arm's letter
to the licensees announcing it, I seem to have lost it - any other pack
rat/old f*rt please check your files.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20171206/feaf3ab8/attachment.html>

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Doug McIlroy]

> Was this [v7 addenda] put out by the Labs?

It is definitely Research code from the Labs. How it

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Warren Toomey]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1817 bytes --]

On Tue, Dec 05, 2017 at 05:33:02PM -0700, Warner Losh wrote:
>   From the tuhs web site:
>   "This is a set of addenda to Seventh Edition Unix, possibly put out by
>   the Labs."
>   and
>   "The identity of the person who donated them is unknown."
>   Two questions: Was this put out by the Labs?
>   Second: There was recently a discussion about a tape found at some
>   public location during an early Unix user group meeting. Is this that
>   tape?
>   Warner

No. I had to search my own archives. From this list in 2002:

The mythical `50 bugs' tape, described in Peter Salus' book `A Quarter
Century of UNIX' has been found lurking in the Unix Archive. You can
find it in Applications/Spencer_Tapes/unsw3.tar.gz as the file
usr/sys/v6unix/unix_changes.

And here is the relevant paragraphs from QCU:

   Lou Katz’s version is a bit different:

      A large number of bug fixes was collected, and rather than
      issue them one at a time, a collection tape (”The 50 fixes”)
      was put together by Ken. Some of the fixes were quite important,
      though I don't remember any in particular. I suspect
      that a significant fraction of the fixes were actually done by
      non-Bell people. Ken tried to send it out, but the lawyers kept
      stalling and stalling and stalling.

      Finally, in complete disgust, someone "found a tape on
      Mountain Avenue” which had the fixes. [The address of Bell
      Labs is 600 Mountain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ.]
      
      When the lawyers found out about it, they called every
      licensee and threatened them with dire consequences if they
      didn’t destroy the tape, after trying to find out how they got
      the tape. I would guess that no one would actually tell them
      how they came by the tape (I didn’t).

Cheers, Warren

[TUHS] V7 Addendem

[Warner Losh]

From the tuhs web site:

"This is a set of addenda to Seventh Edition Unix, possibly put out by the
Labs."
and
"The identity of the person who donated them is unknown."

Two questions: Was this put out by the Labs?

Second: There was recently a discussion about a tape found at some public
location during an early Unix user group meeting. Is this that tape?

Warner
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20171205/9ef4ce03/attachment.html>