From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 21731 invoked from network); 16 Dec 2022 23:12:02 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 16 Dec 2022 23:12:02 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05BFC4240E; Sat, 17 Dec 2022 09:11:50 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mercury.lcs.mit.edu (mercury.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.122]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 741CD423F7 for ; Sat, 17 Dec 2022 09:11:45 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11178) id 62E0518C087; Fri, 16 Dec 2022 18:11:44 -0500 (EST) To: tuhs@tuhs.org Message-Id: <20221216231144.62E0518C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2022 18:11:44 -0500 (EST) From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Message-ID-Hash: UVIB5VDKP6GCMBBFVSVLFHBV3ZMBXZHU X-Message-ID-Hash: UVIB5VDKP6GCMBBFVSVLFHBV3ZMBXZHU X-MailFrom: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: origin of null-terminated strings List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: > From: Bob Supnik > The PDP11 had .ASCIZ, starting with Macro11 in 1972. I was just about to report on my results, after a tiny bit of digging, which included this. The important datum is that PAL-11 (in DEC-11-GGPB-D, "paper tape software", April 1970, revised March 1971), which _preceded_ Macro-11, _does not_ include .ASCIZ (although it has .ASCII). My oldest Macro-11 book (DEC-11-OMACA-B-D, "BATCH-11/DOS-11 Assembler (MACRO-11)", April 1972, revised March 1973) does have .ASCIZ. So in the DEC PDP-11 universe, it dates from sometime between 1970 and 1972. I'm not sure if Bell had any of the DEC paper tape software: "In early 1970 we proposed acquisition of a PDP-11, which had just been introduced by Digital. ... an order for a PDP-11 was placed in May. The processor arrived at the end of the summer, but the PDP-11 was so new a product that no disk was available until December. In the meantime, a rudimentary, core-only version of Unix was written using a cross-assembler on the PDP-7." So the .ASCIZ in Macro-11 wasn't until a couple of years later. Noel