[TUHS] Unix v5 and beyond

[TUHS] Unix v5 and beyond

[Mark Longridge]

Hi folks,

I'm interested in comparing notes with C programmers who have written
programs for Unix v5, v6 and v7.

Also I'm interested to know if there's anything similar to the scanf
function for unix v5. Stdio and iolib I know well enough to do file IO
but v5 predates iolib.

Back in 1988 I tried to write a universal rubik's cube program which I
called unirubik and after discovering TUHS I tried to backport it to
v7 (which was easy) and v6 (which was a bit harder) and now I'm trying
to backport it to v5. The v5 version currently doesn't have the any
file IO capability as yet. Here are a few links to the various
versions:

http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v7
http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v6
http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v5

Also I've compiled the file utility from v6 in v5 and it seemed to
work fine. Once I got /dev/mt0 working for unix v5 (thanks to Warren's
help) I transferred the binary for the paging utility pg into it. This
version of pg I believe was from 1BSD.

I did some experimenting with math functions which can be seen here:

http://www.maxhost.org/other/math1.c

This will compile on unix v5.

My initial impression of Unix v5 was that it was a primitive and
almost unusable version of Unix but now that I understand it a bit
better it seems a fairly complete system. I'm a bit foggy on what the
memory limits are with v5 and v6. Unix v7 seems to run under simh
emulating a PDP-11/70 with 2 megabytes of ram (any more than that and
the kernel panics).

Also I'd be interested in seeing the source code for Ken Thompson's
APL interpreter for Unix v5. I know it does exist as it is referenced
in the Unix v5 manual. The earliest version I could find was dated Oct
1976 and I've written some notes on it here:

http://apl.maxhost.org/getting-apl-11-1976-to-work.txt

Ok, that's about it for now. Is there any chance of going further back
to v4, v3, v2 etc?

Mark

[TUHS] Unix v5 and beyond

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sun, 13 Jul 2014, Mark Longridge wrote:

> I'm interested in comparing notes with C programmers who have written 
> programs for Unix v5, v6 and v7.

I'll try and remember, but this was about 40 years ago...

> Also I'm interested to know if there's anything similar to the scanf 
> function for unix v5. Stdio and iolib I know well enough to do file IO 
> but v5 predates iolib.

Not a chance; about all it had were the system calls.  Portable I/O came 
with either Edition 6 or PWB, then Standard I/O replaced it.  I could be 
wrong, of course...  Ed5 may have had getc()/putc() - I dunno.

> Back in 1988 I tried to write a universal rubik's cube program which I 
> called unirubik and after discovering TUHS I tried to backport it to v7 
> (which was easy) and v6 (which was a bit harder) and now I'm trying to 
> backport it to v5. The v5 version currently doesn't have the any file IO 
> capability as yet. Here are a few links to the various versions:
> 
> http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v7
> http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v6
> http://www.maxhost.org/other/unirubik.c.v5

Hmmm...  I must have a peek at them, and for laughs port the v7 one to 
BSD/Linux/Mac.

[...]

> My initial impression of Unix v5 was that it was a primitive and almost 
> unusable version of Unix but now that I understand it a bit better it 
> seems a fairly complete system. I'm a bit foggy on what the memory 
> limits are with v5 and v6. Unix v7 seems to run under simh emulating a 
> PDP-11/70 with 2 megabytes of ram (any more than that and the kernel 
> panics).

Well, complete for the day...  Memory limits were basically 64kw for each 
space (I'm not even sure whether Ed5 had sep/id space).  The irony of the 
PDP-11 was that it could support virtual memory in theory, but simply 
didn't have enough address registers.  Or am I thinking of some other box?

> Also I'd be interested in seeing the source code for Ken Thompson's APL 
> interpreter for Unix v5. I know it does exist as it is referenced in the 
> Unix v5 manual. The earliest version I could find was dated Oct 1976 and 
> I've written some notes on it here:
> 
> http://apl.maxhost.org/getting-apl-11-1976-to-work.txt

Gawd; I'd love to see APL again!  I used it on the IBM-360.

> Ok, that's about it for now. Is there any chance of going further back 
> to v4, v3, v2 etc?

Very little; Ed5 was the first public release, so unless an old-timer has 
them squirreled away somewhere...

-- Dave

[TUHS] Unix v5 and beyond

[Warren Toomey]

Mark,  we did resurrect the 1st Edition kernel and with it the C compiler from 2nd Edition. I think from memory the address space for each process is 16K and there are no structs on the C language at this point. Not sure what your program needs in terms of language support. 
Cheers,  Warren
-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20140713/c1aa2bb1/attachment.html>

[TUHS] Unix v5 and beyond

[Warren Toomey]

The URL for the 1st edition stuff is http://code.google.com/p/unix-jun72/.
     Warren

On 13 July 2014 16:00:01 AEST, Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:
>Mark,  we did resurrect the 1st Edition kernel and with it the C
>compiler from 2nd Edition. I think from memory the address space for
>each process is 16K and there are no structs on the C language at this
>point. Not sure what your program needs in terms of language support. 
>Cheers,  Warren
>-- 
>Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>_______________________________________________
>TUHS mailing list
>TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

-- 
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20140713/55deed7f/attachment.html>