[TUHS] Fwd: dmr DECtape Analysis, part N

[TUHS] Fwd: dmr DECtape Analysis, part N

[Warren Toomey via TUHS]

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All, Yufeng Gao has done more amazing work at extracting binaries,
source code and text documents from the DECtapes that Dennis Ritchie
provided for the Unix Archive:
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Dennis_Tapes/

His latest e-mail is below. I've temporarily placed his attachments here:
https://minnie.tuhs.org/wktcloud/index.php/s/aWkck2Ljay6c5sB

He needs some help with formatting old *roff documents. If someone could offer
him help, that would be great. His e-mail address is yufeng.gao AT uq.edu.au

Cheers, Warren

----- Forwarded message from Yufeng Gao -----

Date: Tue, 31 Dec 2024
Subject: RE: UNIX DECtapes from dmr

   Hi Warren,

   Happy New Year! Here's another update. I found more UNIX bins on
   another tape ('ken-sky'). They appear to be between V3 and V4. I have
   attached them as "ken_sky_bins.tar". I have also attached an updated
   tarball of the V2/V3 bins recovered from the 'e-pi' tape (with a few
   names corrected), see "identified_v2v3_bins_r2.tar".

   So far, the rough timeline of UNIX binaries (RTM hereinafter refers to
   the exact version of the OS described by the preserved manuals) is as
   follows:

   Sys: V1 RTM <= unix-study-src < s1/s2 < V2 RTM < V3 RTM < nsys < V4 RTM

   Bin: V1 RTM < s1/s2 < epi-V2 < epi-V3 < ken-sky-bins < V4 RTM

   There is a possibility that the V2 bins from the 'e-pi' tape belong to
   V2 RTM, as they're all PDP-11/20 bins with V2 headers. In contrast,
   most of the bins from the s1/s2 tapes are V1 bins. Some of them are
   identical to those from the 's2' tape, and if the timestamps from the
   's2' tape can be trusted, they're from May/June 1972.

   The V3 bins from the 'e-pi' tape are most likely from late 1972 or
   early 1973, but no later than Feb 1973, as they've been overwritten by
   files from Feb 1973. This suggests they're from a V3 beta, supported by
   the fact that some features described in the V3 manual are missing. The
   files were laid out in perfect alphabetical order on the tape.

   The bins from the 'ken-sky' tape fall somewhere between V3 RTM and V4
   RTM. The directory structure and other elements match the V3 manual, as
   do the syscalls (e.g., the arguments for kill(2) differ between V3 and
   V4, and these bins use the V3 arguments). The features, however, are
   closer to V4. For example, nm(1) had already been rewritten in C and
   matches the V4 manual's description. The assembler also matches the V4
   manual in terms of the number of temp files, and the C compiler refers
   to the assembler as 'nas.' The assembler is located physically between
   files starting with "n" and "o," and the files around it follow a weak
   alphabetical order, so it is logical to assume that it was named "nas".

   It is a bit difficult to version these binaries, especially without any
   timestamps. The lines between versions for early UNIX are blurry, and
   modern software versioning terms like "beta" and "RTM" don't really
   apply well. If these binaries are to be preserved (which I hope they
   will be, even though the kernels are long gone), I'd put the V2 bins
   from 'e-pi' under V2, the V3 bins from 'e-pi' under V3, and the bins
   from 'ken-sky' under V4 (I'd argue that nsys also falls under V4, as
   the biggest change between V3 and V4 was the kernel being rewritten in C).

   There are other overwritten files on the tapes, and I will address them
   later. There are quite a few patents, papers, and memos in *roff
   format, but I'm not entirely sure what to do with them. Among those, I
   have picked out some V4 distribution documents and attached them as a
   ZIP folder :-). If you know of ways to generate PDFs from these ancient
   *roff files accurately, please lend a hand - I'm struggling to get
   accurate results from groff.


   Sincerely,
   Yufeng
----- End forwarded message -----

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[TUHS] Re: Fwd: dmr DECtape Analysis, part N

[Warren Toomey via TUHS]

On Wed, Jan 01, 2025 at 07:46:28AM +1000, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:
> All, Yufeng Gao has done more amazing work at extracting binaries,
> source code and text documents from the DECtapes that Dennis Ritchie
> provided for the Unix Archive:

The file `setup` in Yufeng's file `v4_dist_docs.zip` has this interesting end:

If you would like to share any UNIX compatible software with others,
please let us know about it. If you find bugs in the software or the
documentation, again let us know. And finally if you need any help that
we can provide we'll do all we can.
We expect to have a UNIX seminar early in 1974.
.pg
Good luck.
.br
Ken Thompson
.br
Dennis Ritchie
.br
Bell Telephone Labs
.br
Murray Hill, NJ 07974

[TUHS] Re: Fwd: dmr DECtape Analysis, part N

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2025-01-01T07:46:28+1000, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote:
> All, Yufeng Gao has done more amazing work at extracting binaries,
> source code and text documents from the DECtapes that Dennis Ritchie
> provided for the Unix Archive:
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Dennis_Tapes/
> 
> His latest e-mail is below. I've temporarily placed his attachments
> here: https://minnie.tuhs.org/wktcloud/index.php/s/aWkck2Ljay6c5sB
> 
> He needs some help with formatting old *roff documents. If someone
> could offer him help, that would be great. His e-mail address is
> yufeng.gao AT uq.edu.au
[...]
>    There are other overwritten files on the tapes, and I will address
>    them later. There are quite a few patents, papers, and memos in
>    *roff format, but I'm not entirely sure what to do with them. Among
>    those, I have picked out some V4 distribution documents and
>    attached them as a ZIP folder :-). If you know of ways to generate
>    PDFs from these ancient *roff files accurately, please lend a hand
>    - I'm struggling to get accurate results from groff.

Hi Yufeng,

I maintain groff.  How can I be of assistance?

Is there an exhibit of a troublesome document you'd like me to inspect?
(It's possible given the era that you have some roff(1) documents rather
than nroff(1) or troff(1) ones.)

Regards,
Branden

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