[TUHS] b remnants?

[lorddoomicus@mac.com (Derrik Walker)]

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On Oct 14, 2011, at 11:53 AM, Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Derrik Walker <lorddoomicus at mac.com> wrote:
> > Many, many eons ago, in the early '90's, there was an implementation of B
> > for Linux ( I believe it was written in C, ironically enough ).  I think it
> > was part of a bigger collection of "ancient" software for Linux that use to
> > be around in the early Slackware days.
> >
> > Alas, I have searched for it in the recent past, as I was thinking about
> > porting it to OS X for kicks, but it seems to have vanished.
> >
> > Having an B, implemented in a modern language for a modern OS would be cool.
> >
>
>
> Hello!
> How early a time period for the Slackware Linux group? (Which is what
> I run.) There's a repository of older distributions on the Ibib site,
> and a more comprehensive one situated on a mirror in the UK.

It would have been around '92 or '93, back when Slackware really only provided a very basic boot system, gcc, some fancy scripts, and a crap load of tarballs to compile everything.  I'm not even sure it was part of the Slackware collection, it might have been something someone added to the server - I didn't build that computer.

It was an experimental system at CSU, where I was going to school at the time - and the first actually Linux computer I ever had an account on.  One of the older professors had a bunch of B code he got from someplace and put the compiler on there to see if he could get it to build.  I remember he also put f2c on there too as he had a tape full of Fortran code he wanted to compile.

But, for all I know, he may have written the B compiler himself, but I seem to remember him telling me about this collection of ancient software for Linux that someone else had written, and he had gotten it up and running on the experimental Linux system.  Just not sure how faulty my memory is.  I just remember looking at B, and asking why he just doesn't covert it to C?

Funny thing was, some of the younger professors were complaining saying the preferred their "REAL UNIX".

Unfortunately, he as long since retired.  And that Computer was retired when they moved the main Student system from HPUX to Redhat in the late '90's.

- Derrik

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