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* [TUHS] Fwd: Origins and life of the pg pager
@ 2020-06-14 22:52 Warren Toomey
  2020-06-14 23:37 ` Mary Ann Horton
  2020-06-18 12:49 ` [TUHS] Fwd: " Michael Siegel
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 46+ messages in thread
From: Warren Toomey @ 2020-06-14 22:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

All, I just received this e-mail from a non-TUHS list member. If you have
an answer for Michael, could you reply to him and pop a cc here as well?

Thanks, Warren

----- Forwarded message from Michael Siegel <msi@malbolge.net> -----

Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2020 16:37:59 +0200
From: Michael Siegel <msi@malbolge.net>
To: wkt@tuhs.org
Subject: Origins and life of the pg pager

Hi there,

I'm trying to find out where the pg pager originated.

The research I've done so far vaguely suggests it came with one of the
System V versions, though Internet claims it to be “the name of the
historical utility on BSD UNIX systems” occasionally.[1]

I think System V because the source code of pg.c in the util-linux
package says that this utility is “a clone of the System V CRT paging
utility.”[2]

I'd also like to find out when pg was discarded and if it ever made it
into POSIX before that. Linux still has pg to the very day, but none of
the current major BSDs (Free/Net/Open) offer it. POSIX 2001, 2004
Edition lists it as an excluded utility.[3] I've not been able to get
the text of any prior POSIX documents. It seems they aren't freely
available.

Any ideas on how to proceed?


Best
Michael


[1] This one's from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pg_(Unix)),
    but I've also found other sites stating the same.

[2]
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/utils/util-linux/util-linux.git/tree/text-utils/pg.c

[3] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009696899/xrat/xcu_chap04.html

----- End forwarded message -----

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Origins and life of the pg pager
@ 2020-06-15  2:26 Doug McIlroy
  2020-06-15  2:41 ` Bakul Shah
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Doug McIlroy @ 2020-06-15  2:26 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

>  less(1) was actually an improvement

Hmm. Less is my favorite whipping boy for featuritis.

% less --help |wc
    242    1331   12202

I am very happy with p.

Doug

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] Origins and life of the pg pager
@ 2020-06-15 20:25 Norman Wilson
  2020-06-15 21:36 ` Rob Pike
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 46+ messages in thread
From: Norman Wilson @ 2020-06-15 20:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

Rob Pike:

  Yeah, p is all we need. I think it originated with td at UofT. I might have
  brought it with me to Bell Labs, or recreated it. Probably the former.

====

The former, I think.  The source code in V10 is very similar
to that you left behind at Caltech (where I first encountered
p).  Most differences have to do with using opendir and readdir
rather than reading raw directories in the SPname code.

A further clue is that, even in V10, p.c begins

/*%cc p.c pad.o spname.o
 */

The tool that looked for such lines to tell it how to compile
things (I forget its name; was it comp?) doesn't seem to have
survived in the archival backup I have from Caltech HEP, but
I'm quite sure it came from U of T as well.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 46+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2020-07-05  1:35 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 46+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2020-06-14 22:52 [TUHS] Fwd: Origins and life of the pg pager Warren Toomey
2020-06-14 23:37 ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-14 23:52   ` [TUHS] " David Barto
2020-06-15  0:06     ` George Michaelson
2020-06-15  0:31     ` Alan D. Salewski
2020-06-15  0:35       ` Alan D. Salewski
2020-06-15  1:38         ` Warner Losh
2020-06-15  1:47           ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-15  2:38             ` Alec Muffett
2020-06-15  2:46               ` Alec Muffett
2020-06-15  2:26           ` Charles H. Sauer
2020-06-15 14:03           ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-15 20:19             ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-15 20:50               ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-15  0:32   ` [TUHS] Fwd: " Nemo Nusquam
2020-06-15  5:41   ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-15 13:56     ` Clem Cole
2020-06-15 14:15       ` Mary Ann Horton
2020-06-15 14:56         ` Clem Cole
2020-06-15 15:04           ` Richard Salz
2020-06-15 16:14             ` Clem Cole
2020-06-15 15:45           ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-15 19:08             ` Lars Brinkhoff
2020-06-21 18:49           ` Michael Siegel
2020-06-22  0:35             ` Greg A. Woods
2020-06-22 16:24               ` Derek Fawcus
2020-06-22 21:33                 ` Rob Pike
2020-06-22 21:58                   ` Kurt H Maier
2020-06-22 21:59                   ` [TUHS] " Bakul Shah
2020-06-22 22:43                     ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-06-25  1:50                       ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2020-06-25 21:31                         ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2020-07-05  1:34                         ` Dave Horsfall
2020-06-18 12:49 ` [TUHS] Fwd: " Michael Siegel
2020-06-15  2:26 [TUHS] " Doug McIlroy
2020-06-15  2:41 ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-15  2:55   ` Larry McVoy
2020-06-15  4:26     ` Rob Pike
2020-06-15  4:27     ` Bakul Shah
2020-06-15  4:38       ` George Michaelson
2020-06-15  7:40     ` Ed Carp
2020-06-15  8:17       ` Rob Pike
2020-06-15  7:12   ` Thomas Paulsen
2020-06-15 20:25 Norman Wilson
2020-06-15 21:36 ` Rob Pike
2020-06-15 22:55   ` Henry Bent

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