[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Steve Simon]

with my pedantic head on…

The “7th Edition” was the name of the Perkin Elmer port (nee Interdata), derived from Richard Miller’s work.

This was Unix Version 7 from the labs, with a v6 C compiler, with vi, csh, and curses from 2.4BSD (though we where never 100% sure about this version).

You never forget your first Unix :-)

-Steve

[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Mary Ann Horton]

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Adam, thank you for finding this and setting the record straight.

AT&T management had nothing to do with it. I self-censored because 
AT&T's policy was that anything I wrote belonged to my employer.

Pavel graciously offered to clone my work, and I slipped him the spec 
and the algorithm for the new improved curses. His version was FOSS and 
became the de facto standard everywhere except AT&T, where it wound up 
in System V Release 4 / Solaris.

Thanks,

/Mary Ann Horton/ (she/her/ma'am)
       Award Winning Author
maryannhorton.com <https://maryannhorton.com>



On 5/25/24 11:07, Adam Sampson wrote:
> Clem Cole<clemc@ccc.com>  writes:
>
>> Pavel (with coaching from a few of us, including me], wrote a new
>> implementation of terminfo.  When he was added it, he combined a
>> rewrite of curses.
>  From the utzoo Usenet archive...
>
> --start--
>
> From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!pavel
> Newsgroups: net.general
> Title: New Curses/Terminfo Package
> Article-I.D.: cornell.3348
> Posted: Sat Jul 10 15:10:14 1982
> Received: Sun Jul 11 03:55:13 1982
>
> At this past week's USENIX meeting, Mark Horton announced the completion
> of a replacement database/interface for the Berkeley 'termcap' setup.  The
> new version is called 'terminfo' and has several advantages over termcap:
> 	- The database is compiled and therefore start-up time for
> 	  programs using the package is considerably reduced, even
> 	  faster than reading a single-entry termcap database.
> 	- The database is more human-readable and flexible.
> 	- Many more terminals can be supported due to the addition
> 	  of several new capabilities, generalised parameter
> 	  mechanisms (enabling the full use of, for example, the ANSI
> 	  cursor-forward capability by allowing you to say 'move forward
> 	  35 spaces' as opposed to 'move forward' 35 times), a fully
> 	  general yet efficient arithmetic mechanism which should allow
> 	  the use of \any/ bizarre cursor-addressing scheme which can
> 	  be computed, etc.
> 	- A \far/ better set of routines for accessing the database,
> 	  requiring, for example, only a single call to read in an
> 	  entire entry, making all of the terminal's capabilities fully
> 	  available to the calling program.  No more need for 'tgetent',
> 	  'tgetstr', etc.
> Conversion of existing programs from termcap to terminfo is very easy and
> usually consists mostly of throwing out all of the garbage needed to read
> and store a termcap entry.
>
> As a companion to the change to terminfo, Mark has also completed work on
> a re-vamped version of the Curses screen-handling library package.  The new
> version has many, many advantages over the previous version, some of which
> are listed below:
> 	- New curses can use insert/delete line/character capabilities
> 	  in terminals which have them, considerably speeding up many
> 	  applications
> 	- It is possible to use the new curses on more than one type of
> 	  terminal at once
> 	- All of the video attributes of a terminal (e.g. reverse video,
> 	  boldface, blinking, etc.) can be used, in tandem if possible
> 	- New curses handles terminals like the Televideos with the
> 	  so-called 'magic cookie' glitch which leaves markers on the
> 	  screen for each change of video attributes
> 	- The arrow and function keys of terminals can be input just as
> 	  though they were single characters, even on terminals which use
> 	  multi-character sequences for these functions.  The new curses
> 	  does all necessary interpretation, passing back to the program
> 	  only a defined constant telling which key was pressed.
> 	- There is a user-accessable scrolling region
> 	- The use of shell escapes and the csh ^Z job control feature is
> 	  supported more fully
> 	- On systems which can support the notion, updates of the screen
> 	  will abort if a character is typed at the keyboard, thus allowing
> 	  the application to possibly avoid useless output
> 	- It should now be possible for most programs to be written very
> 	  portably to run on most versions of UNIX, including System III,
> 	  Berkeley UNIX, V7, Bell Labs internal UNIX, etc.  This portability
> 	  extends to the use of most terminal modes, such as raw mode,
> 	  echoing, etc.
>
> Now for the bad news.  Mark, being an employee of Bell Labs, cannot release
> any of his code.  Estimates currently run as high as 18 months for a Bell
> release.  Even then, nothing could be guaranteed as to its price.  As a result,
> I have decided to do a public-domain implementation of both terminfo and the
> new curses.  They will be compatible with Mark's versions.  I have arranged
> for the library/database to be distributed with the next Berkeley Software
> Distribution, 4.2BSD, in December of this year.  It will also be made available
> for free to any requestor.  I agree with Mark when he says that terminfo is
> clearly superior to termcap and deserves to be made a new and lasting standard.
>
> I expect to be able to begin recruiting test sites for both curses and terminfo
> by the end of September.
>
> If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send them to me, not
> the network.
>
> 	Pavel Curtis
> 	{decvax,allegra,vax135,harpo,...}!cornell!pavel
> 	Pavel.Cornell@Udel-Relay
>
> --end--
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Rob Pike]

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Reminds me of my typesetting story (search the list's archives for versatec
and vegents, that should find it.)

-rob


On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 10:17 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> Oh how I hate history rewrites.  Job control was developed by Kulp on V7
> in Europe and MIT.  Joy saw it and added it what would become 4BSD.
>
> The others were all developed on V7 (PDP11)at UCB.  They were not back
> ported either. The vax work inherited them from V7.
>
> It is true, The public tended to see these as 4BSD features as that was
> the vehicle that got larger distribution.
>
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
>
>
> On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 6:49 AM Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 07:03:48PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
>> > Hi folks,
>> >
>> > I'm finding it difficult to find any direct sources on the question in
>> > the subject line.
>> >
>> > Does anyone here have any source material they can point me to
>> > documenting the existence of a port of BSD curses to Unix Version 7?
>>
>> "In particular, the C shell, curses, termcap, vi and job control were
>> ported back to Version 7 (and later System III) so that it was not
>> unusual to find these features on otherwise pure Bell releases."
>> from Documentation/Books/Life_with_Unix_v2.pdf
>>
>> in some v7ish distributions: unisoft, xenix, nu machine, venix?
>>
>> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/codata/Unisoft_UNIX_Vol_1_Aug82.pdf pg 437
>>
>> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_codataUnis_28082791/page/n435/mode/2up
>>
>>
>> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/forwardTechnology/xenix/Xenix_System_Volume_2_Software_Development_1982.pdf
>> pg 580
>>
>> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_forwardTecstemVolume2SoftwareDevelopment1982_27714599/page/n579/mode/2up
>>
>> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/lmi/LMI_Docs/UNIX_1.pdf pg 412
>>
>> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_lmiLMIDocs_20873181/page/n411/mode/2up
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Adam Sampson]

Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> writes:

> Pavel (with coaching from a few of us, including me], wrote a new
> implementation of terminfo.  When he was added it, he combined a
> rewrite of curses.

From the utzoo Usenet archive...

--start--

From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!cornell!pavel
Newsgroups: net.general
Title: New Curses/Terminfo Package
Article-I.D.: cornell.3348
Posted: Sat Jul 10 15:10:14 1982
Received: Sun Jul 11 03:55:13 1982

At this past week's USENIX meeting, Mark Horton announced the completion
of a replacement database/interface for the Berkeley 'termcap' setup.  The
new version is called 'terminfo' and has several advantages over termcap:
	- The database is compiled and therefore start-up time for
	  programs using the package is considerably reduced, even 
	  faster than reading a single-entry termcap database.
	- The database is more human-readable and flexible.
	- Many more terminals can be supported due to the addition
	  of several new capabilities, generalised parameter
	  mechanisms (enabling the full use of, for example, the ANSI
	  cursor-forward capability by allowing you to say 'move forward
	  35 spaces' as opposed to 'move forward' 35 times), a fully
	  general yet efficient arithmetic mechanism which should allow
	  the use of \any/ bizarre cursor-addressing scheme which can
	  be computed, etc.
	- A \far/ better set of routines for accessing the database,
	  requiring, for example, only a single call to read in an
	  entire entry, making all of the terminal's capabilities fully
	  available to the calling program.  No more need for 'tgetent',
	  'tgetstr', etc.
Conversion of existing programs from termcap to terminfo is very easy and
usually consists mostly of throwing out all of the garbage needed to read
and store a termcap entry.

As a companion to the change to terminfo, Mark has also completed work on
a re-vamped version of the Curses screen-handling library package.  The new
version has many, many advantages over the previous version, some of which
are listed below:
	- New curses can use insert/delete line/character capabilities
	  in terminals which have them, considerably speeding up many
	  applications
	- It is possible to use the new curses on more than one type of
	  terminal at once
	- All of the video attributes of a terminal (e.g. reverse video,
	  boldface, blinking, etc.) can be used, in tandem if possible
	- New curses handles terminals like the Televideos with the
	  so-called 'magic cookie' glitch which leaves markers on the
	  screen for each change of video attributes
	- The arrow and function keys of terminals can be input just as
	  though they were single characters, even on terminals which use
	  multi-character sequences for these functions.  The new curses
	  does all necessary interpretation, passing back to the program
	  only a defined constant telling which key was pressed.
	- There is a user-accessable scrolling region
	- The use of shell escapes and the csh ^Z job control feature is
	  supported more fully
	- On systems which can support the notion, updates of the screen
	  will abort if a character is typed at the keyboard, thus allowing
	  the application to possibly avoid useless output
	- It should now be possible for most programs to be written very
	  portably to run on most versions of UNIX, including System III,
	  Berkeley UNIX, V7, Bell Labs internal UNIX, etc.  This portability
	  extends to the use of most terminal modes, such as raw mode,
	  echoing, etc.

Now for the bad news.  Mark, being an employee of Bell Labs, cannot release
any of his code.  Estimates currently run as high as 18 months for a Bell
release.  Even then, nothing could be guaranteed as to its price.  As a result,
I have decided to do a public-domain implementation of both terminfo and the
new curses.  They will be compatible with Mark's versions.  I have arranged
for the library/database to be distributed with the next Berkeley Software
Distribution, 4.2BSD, in December of this year.  It will also be made available
for free to any requestor.  I agree with Mark when he says that terminfo is
clearly superior to termcap and deserves to be made a new and lasting standard.

I expect to be able to begin recruiting test sites for both curses and terminfo
by the end of September.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send them to me, not
the network. 

	Pavel Curtis
	{decvax,allegra,vax135,harpo,...}!cornell!pavel
	Pavel.Cornell@Udel-Relay

--end--

-- 
Adam Sampson <ats@offog.org>                         <http://offog.org/>

[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Warner Losh]

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On Sat, May 25, 2024, 10:38 AM G. Branden Robinson <
g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Clem,
>
> At 2024-05-25T12:21:17-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> > On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 12:13 PM G. Branden Robinson <
> > g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > That does complicate my simplistic story.  Ing70 was, then, as you
> noted
> > > in a previous mail, an 11/70, but it _wasn't_ running Version 7 Unix,
> > > but rather something with various bits of BSD (also in active
> > > development, I reckon).
> > >
> > Mumble -- the kernel and 90% of the userspace on Ing70 was V7 -- it was
> > very similar to Teklabs which I ran.
>
> Yes, sorry, I was hasty and sloppy.  I should have qualified that
> "Version 7 Unix" with "pure".  Though I wonder if anyone ran "pure"
> distributions of anything by today's standards, with our flatpaks and VM
> images and containers and distributions and Linux kernel "taint" flags.
>
> And, blessed be, our reproducible builds.  So there is such a thing as
> progress.
>
> > The point is it was a 16 bits system, the Johnson C compiler with some
> > fixes from the greater USENIX community including UCB.
> > There was >>no port<< needed.
> >
> > This was its native tongue.
>
> Okay.  My crystal ball shows wordsmithing in my future.
>
> > It was >>included<< in later BSD released which is how people came to
> > know it because 4.XBSD was became much more widely used than V7+2BSD.
>
> Acknowledged.
>
> > The 2.9 work of Keith at al, started because the UCB Math Dept could
> > not afford a VAX.   DEC had released the  v7m code to support
> > overlays, so slowly changed from the VAX made it back into the V7
> > based kernel - which took a new life.
>
> Ah, I'd never heard the actual origin story of later 2BSD's reason for
> parallel development.  Thanks!
>

The 2.8 kernel from the 2.83 archive is a V7 with a bunch of hacks /
features #ifdef'd into the tree with a primitive config thing to cons up
the #defines. This is still largely present in 2.9, but with less rigid
adherence for bug fixes. It's very clear that for the kernel this was
followed. I've not studied userland to comment on that but i think not.

It also explains why the release notes kept saying it was the last release
starting iirc with 2.8...

Warner

Back when I was first learning Unix, a mere 30 years ago, I asked a
> local guru why the kernel image was called "vmunix" instead of just
> plain "unix".  I got a correct answer, but then asked why you'd keep
> calling it "vmunix" when no non-VM Unix was even available for the
> platform.  Historical inertia and the long shadow of the work that
> became 4BSD.  (Linus's decision to name his kernel's image "vmlinux" [or
> "vmlinuz" for those remember having those lulz] when in its case no
> non-VM version had ever existed anywhere, nor even been desired or
> conceived, struck me as an excess of continuity.)
>
> Unix geeks are conservative about the weirdest things.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[G. Branden Robinson]

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Hi Clem,

At 2024-05-25T12:21:17-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 12:13 PM G. Branden Robinson <
> g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > That does complicate my simplistic story.  Ing70 was, then, as you noted
> > in a previous mail, an 11/70, but it _wasn't_ running Version 7 Unix,
> > but rather something with various bits of BSD (also in active
> > development, I reckon).
> >
> Mumble -- the kernel and 90% of the userspace on Ing70 was V7 -- it was
> very similar to Teklabs which I ran.

Yes, sorry, I was hasty and sloppy.  I should have qualified that
"Version 7 Unix" with "pure".  Though I wonder if anyone ran "pure"
distributions of anything by today's standards, with our flatpaks and VM
images and containers and distributions and Linux kernel "taint" flags.

And, blessed be, our reproducible builds.  So there is such a thing as
progress.

> The point is it was a 16 bits system, the Johnson C compiler with some
> fixes from the greater USENIX community including UCB.
> There was >>no port<< needed.
> 
> This was its native tongue.

Okay.  My crystal ball shows wordsmithing in my future.

> It was >>included<< in later BSD released which is how people came to
> know it because 4.XBSD was became much more widely used than V7+2BSD.

Acknowledged.

> The 2.9 work of Keith at al, started because the UCB Math Dept could
> not afford a VAX.   DEC had released the  v7m code to support
> overlays, so slowly changed from the VAX made it back into the V7
> based kernel - which took a new life.

Ah, I'd never heard the actual origin story of later 2BSD's reason for
parallel development.  Thanks!

Back when I was first learning Unix, a mere 30 years ago, I asked a
local guru why the kernel image was called "vmunix" instead of just
plain "unix".  I got a correct answer, but then asked why you'd keep
calling it "vmunix" when no non-VM Unix was even available for the
platform.  Historical inertia and the long shadow of the work that
became 4BSD.  (Linus's decision to name his kernel's image "vmlinux" [or
"vmlinuz" for those remember having those lulz] when in its case no
non-VM version had ever existed anywhere, nor even been desired or
conceived, struck me as an excess of continuity.)

Unix geeks are conservative about the weirdest things.

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[G. Branden Robinson]

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Hi Clem,

At 2024-05-25T12:14:10-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> Ouch -- there was no licensing issue with [BSD] curses or termcap.

Right.  I wasn't trying to imply otherwise.  That's why Pavel Curtis
could use BSD curses as a basis for his pcurses.

It is only System V curses that was encumbered.  And now it too is
available for inspection, if in a somewhat gray area for anyone with
commercial ambitions.

> termcap and curses were written at UCB.

Agreed.  I've seen no claim anywhere to the contrary.

> When MaryAnn went to Columbus - there was  desire to rewrite to be
> "compiled".  That work was terminfo.    AT&T >>restricted<< terminfo.

Yes.  This too is my understanding.  terminfo is a better API (and
source format) than termcap, but I also surmise that better support for
deployment environments with large "fleets" of video terminals was also
seen by AT&T management as an enticing prospect for vendor lock-in.

> Pavel (with coaching from a few of us, including me], wrote a  new
> implementation of terminfo.  When he was added it, he combined a
> rewrite of curses.

Thank you for the confirmation.  And for supplying some coaching all
those years ago--we're still enjoying the benefits today!

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 12:13 PM G. Branden Robinson <
g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> That does complicate my simplistic story.  Ing70 was, then, as you noted
> in a previous mail, an 11/70, but it _wasn't_ running Version 7 Unix,
> but rather something with various bits of BSD (also in active
> development, I reckon).
>
Mumble -- the kernel and 90% of the userspace on Ing70 was V7 -- it was
very similar to Teklabs which I ran.
It had all of 2BSD on it, but the kernel work that we think of as 'BSD" was
3.0BSD and later 4.0BSD and that was 100% on the Vax.

The point is it was a 16 bits system, the Johnson C compiler with some
fixes from the greater USENIX community including UCB.
There was >>no port<< needed.

This was its native tongue.

It was >>included<< in later BSD released which is how people came to know
it because 4.XBSD was became much more widely used than V7+2BSD.

The 2.9 work of Keith at al, started because the UCB Math Dept could not
afford a VAX.   DEC had released the  v7m code to support overlays, so
slowly
changed from the VAX made it back into the V7 based kernel - which took a
new life.

Clem




ᐧ

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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Ouch -- there was no licensing issue with curses or termcap.

termcap and curses were written at UCB.

When MaryAnn went to Columbus - there was  desire to rewrite to be
"compiled".  That work was terminfo.    AT&T >>restricted<< terminfo.
Pavel (with coaching from a few of us, including me], wrote a  new
implementation of terminfo.
When he was added it, he combined a rewrite of curses.

Clem
ᐧ

On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 12:06 PM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> Ken was working in Ing70 [he was part of the Ingres group] - IngVax did
> not yet exist,
> ᐧ
> ᐧ
>
> On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 11:57 AM G. Branden Robinson <
> g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Clem,
>>
>> At 2024-05-25T11:40:13-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
>> > It was never needed to be ported -- it was developed on V7.
>> > It was released in comp.sources.unix volume1 as pcurses
>>
>> This bit conflicts with other accounts.  Here's what I have in draft.
>>
>> HISTORY
>>      4BSD (1980) introduced curses, implemented largely by Kenneth
>>      C. R. C. Arnold, who organized the terminal abstraction and screen
>>      management features of Bill Joy’s vi(1) editor into a library.
>>      That system ran only on the VAX architecture; curses saw a port to
>>      2.9BSD (1983) for the PDP‐11.
>>
>>      System V Release 2 (SVr2, 1984) significantly revised curses and
>>      replaced the termcap portion thereof with a different API for
>>      terminal handling, terminfo.  System V added form and menu
>>      libraries in SVr3 (1987) and enhanced curses with color support in
>>      SVr3.2 later the same year.  SVr4 (1989) brought the panel library.
>>
>> pcurses by distinction was, by the accounts I have, a later effort by
>> Pavel Curtis to clone SVr2 curses by taking BSD curses and replacing its
>> termcap bits with a reimplementation terminfo.  This was apparently done
>> for licensing reasons, as BSD code was free ("as in freedom") and System
>> V certainly was not.
>>
>> The pcurses 0.7 tarball I have contains a document, doc/manual.tbl.ms,
>> which starts as follows.  Note the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.
>>
>> .po +.5i
>> .TL
>> The Curses Reference Manual
>> .AU
>> Pavel Curtis
>> .NH
>> Introduction
>> .LP
>> Terminfo is a database describing many capabilities of over 150
>> different terminals.  Curses is a subroutine package which
>> presents a high level screen model to the programmer, while
>> dealing with issues such as terminal differences and optimization of
>> output to change one screenfull of text into another.
>> .LP
>> Terminfo is based on Berkeley's termcap database, but contains a
>> number of improvements and extensions.  Parameterized strings are
>> introduced, making it possible to describe such capabilities as
>> video attributes, and to handle far more unusual terminals than
>> possible with termcap.
>> .LP
>> Curses is also based on Berkeley's curses package, with many
>> improvements.  The package makes use of the insert and delete
>> line and character features of terminals so equipped, and
>> determines how to optimally use these features with no help from the
>> programmer.  It allows arbitrary combinations of video attributes
>> to be displayed, even on terminals that leave ``magic cookies''
>> on the screen to mark changes in attributes.
>>
>> > That said, I believe late volumes have nervous updates.
>>
>> I'm gathering data for another paragraph of that "History" section now.
>> The long and short of it seems to be that:
>>
>> BSD curses, besides getting ported to many platforms, begat pcurses.
>>
>> pcurses begat PCCurses, PDCurses, and ncurses.
>>
>> PCCurses died.
>>
>> PDCurses went dormant, begat PDCursesMod, and roused from its slumber.
>>
>> ncurses, after a long period of erratic early administration that seemed
>> more concerned with seizing celebrity status for its developers (one of
>> whom was more single-minded and successful at this goal than the other)
>> than with software development, has been maintained with a steady hand
>> over 25 years.
>>
>> There also exists NetBSD curses, which wasn't developed ex nihilo but
>> I'm not sure yet what origin it forked from.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Branden
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[G. Branden Robinson]

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Hi Clem,

At 2024-05-25T12:06:27-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> Ken [Arnold] was working in Ing70 [he was part of the Ingres group] -
> IngVax did not yet exist,

That does complicate my simplistic story.  Ing70 was, then, as you noted
in a previous mail, an 11/70, but it _wasn't_ running Version 7 Unix,
but rather something with various bits of BSD (also in active
development, I reckon).  Nevertheless, I venture, the first officially
distributed curses was in 4BSD, a VAX-only release.  But, it stands to
reason that BSD curses never got far from its -11-portable roots; it
must have been obvious that the library would be desired on such hosts
and the CSRG came to officially support it thus in 2.9BSD 3 years later.

Hmm.  I'll have to chew on how to recast that economically.

Thanks for all the light you're throwing on this!

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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Ken was working in Ing70 [he was part of the Ingres group] - IngVax did not
yet exist,
ᐧ
ᐧ

On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 11:57 AM G. Branden Robinson <
g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Clem,
>
> At 2024-05-25T11:40:13-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> > It was never needed to be ported -- it was developed on V7.
> > It was released in comp.sources.unix volume1 as pcurses
>
> This bit conflicts with other accounts.  Here's what I have in draft.
>
> HISTORY
>      4BSD (1980) introduced curses, implemented largely by Kenneth
>      C. R. C. Arnold, who organized the terminal abstraction and screen
>      management features of Bill Joy’s vi(1) editor into a library.
>      That system ran only on the VAX architecture; curses saw a port to
>      2.9BSD (1983) for the PDP‐11.
>
>      System V Release 2 (SVr2, 1984) significantly revised curses and
>      replaced the termcap portion thereof with a different API for
>      terminal handling, terminfo.  System V added form and menu
>      libraries in SVr3 (1987) and enhanced curses with color support in
>      SVr3.2 later the same year.  SVr4 (1989) brought the panel library.
>
> pcurses by distinction was, by the accounts I have, a later effort by
> Pavel Curtis to clone SVr2 curses by taking BSD curses and replacing its
> termcap bits with a reimplementation terminfo.  This was apparently done
> for licensing reasons, as BSD code was free ("as in freedom") and System
> V certainly was not.
>
> The pcurses 0.7 tarball I have contains a document, doc/manual.tbl.ms,
> which starts as follows.  Note the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.
>
> .po +.5i
> .TL
> The Curses Reference Manual
> .AU
> Pavel Curtis
> .NH
> Introduction
> .LP
> Terminfo is a database describing many capabilities of over 150
> different terminals.  Curses is a subroutine package which
> presents a high level screen model to the programmer, while
> dealing with issues such as terminal differences and optimization of
> output to change one screenfull of text into another.
> .LP
> Terminfo is based on Berkeley's termcap database, but contains a
> number of improvements and extensions.  Parameterized strings are
> introduced, making it possible to describe such capabilities as
> video attributes, and to handle far more unusual terminals than
> possible with termcap.
> .LP
> Curses is also based on Berkeley's curses package, with many
> improvements.  The package makes use of the insert and delete
> line and character features of terminals so equipped, and
> determines how to optimally use these features with no help from the
> programmer.  It allows arbitrary combinations of video attributes
> to be displayed, even on terminals that leave ``magic cookies''
> on the screen to mark changes in attributes.
>
> > That said, I believe late volumes have nervous updates.
>
> I'm gathering data for another paragraph of that "History" section now.
> The long and short of it seems to be that:
>
> BSD curses, besides getting ported to many platforms, begat pcurses.
>
> pcurses begat PCCurses, PDCurses, and ncurses.
>
> PCCurses died.
>
> PDCurses went dormant, begat PDCursesMod, and roused from its slumber.
>
> ncurses, after a long period of erratic early administration that seemed
> more concerned with seizing celebrity status for its developers (one of
> whom was more single-minded and successful at this goal than the other)
> than with software development, has been maintained with a steady hand
> over 25 years.
>
> There also exists NetBSD curses, which wasn't developed ex nihilo but
> I'm not sure yet what origin it forked from.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[G. Branden Robinson]

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Hi Clem,

At 2024-05-25T11:40:13-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> It was never needed to be ported -- it was developed on V7.
> It was released in comp.sources.unix volume1 as pcurses

This bit conflicts with other accounts.  Here's what I have in draft.

HISTORY
     4BSD (1980) introduced curses, implemented largely by Kenneth
     C. R. C. Arnold, who organized the terminal abstraction and screen
     management features of Bill Joy’s vi(1) editor into a library.
     That system ran only on the VAX architecture; curses saw a port to
     2.9BSD (1983) for the PDP‐11.

     System V Release 2 (SVr2, 1984) significantly revised curses and
     replaced the termcap portion thereof with a different API for
     terminal handling, terminfo.  System V added form and menu
     libraries in SVr3 (1987) and enhanced curses with color support in
     SVr3.2 later the same year.  SVr4 (1989) brought the panel library.

pcurses by distinction was, by the accounts I have, a later effort by
Pavel Curtis to clone SVr2 curses by taking BSD curses and replacing its
termcap bits with a reimplementation terminfo.  This was apparently done
for licensing reasons, as BSD code was free ("as in freedom") and System
V certainly was not.

The pcurses 0.7 tarball I have contains a document, doc/manual.tbl.ms,
which starts as follows.  Note the 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.

.po +.5i
.TL
The Curses Reference Manual
.AU
Pavel Curtis
.NH
Introduction
.LP
Terminfo is a database describing many capabilities of over 150
different terminals.  Curses is a subroutine package which
presents a high level screen model to the programmer, while
dealing with issues such as terminal differences and optimization of
output to change one screenfull of text into another.
.LP
Terminfo is based on Berkeley's termcap database, but contains a
number of improvements and extensions.  Parameterized strings are
introduced, making it possible to describe such capabilities as
video attributes, and to handle far more unusual terminals than
possible with termcap.
.LP
Curses is also based on Berkeley's curses package, with many
improvements.  The package makes use of the insert and delete
line and character features of terminals so equipped, and
determines how to optimally use these features with no help from the
programmer.  It allows arbitrary combinations of video attributes
to be displayed, even on terminals that leave ``magic cookies''
on the screen to mark changes in attributes.

> That said, I believe late volumes have nervous updates.

I'm gathering data for another paragraph of that "History" section now.
The long and short of it seems to be that:

BSD curses, besides getting ported to many platforms, begat pcurses.

pcurses begat PCCurses, PDCurses, and ncurses.

PCCurses died.

PDCurses went dormant, begat PDCursesMod, and roused from its slumber.

ncurses, after a long period of erratic early administration that seemed
more concerned with seizing celebrity status for its developers (one of
whom was more single-minded and successful at this goal than the other)
than with software development, has been maintained with a steady hand
over 25 years.

There also exists NetBSD curses, which wasn't developed ex nihilo but
I'm not sure yet what origin it forked from.

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 11:40 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> It was never needed to be ported -- it was developed on V7.
> It was released in comp.sources.unix volume1 as pcurses
>
> That said, I believe late volumes have nervous updates.
>
> Clem
> ᐧ
>
>>
>> As Rich points out, the comp.source.unix version may be a later Cornell
version, but I am fairly sure that the original was developed in Cory Hall,
I believe on Ing70, although it may have been the Cory Hall 11/70. I
remember finding bugs in it when we ran it on the Teklabs 11/70, which was
definitely a heavily hacked V7-based system with much of 2BSD and other UCB
tools added to it.

The point is while Vaxen had been released, we did not have one at
Tektronix at the time, and I got a lot of V7-based tools from folks in Cory
Hall.
ᐧ
ᐧ

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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l hate autocorrect ...  s/nervous/numerous/
ᐧ

On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 11:40 AM Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote:

> It was never needed to be ported -- it was developed on V7.
> It was released in comp.sources.unix volume1 as pcurses
>
> That said, I believe late volumes have nervous updates.
>
> Clem
> ᐧ
>
> On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 11:11 AM Rich Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I thought that Rob Pike was involved in the port
>>
>>     /R$, troll
>>
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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It was never needed to be ported -- it was developed on V7.
It was released in comp.sources.unix volume1 as pcurses

That said, I believe late volumes have nervous updates.

Clem
ᐧ

On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 11:11 AM Rich Salz <rich.salz@gmail.com> wrote:

> I thought that Rob Pike was involved in the port
>
>     /R$, troll
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[G. Branden Robinson]

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Hi Jonathan & Doug,

At 2024-05-25T20:48:54+1000, Jonathan Gray wrote:
> On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 07:03:48PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > Does anyone here have any source material they can point me to
> > documenting the existence of a port of BSD curses to Unix Version 7?
> 
> "In particular, the C shell, curses, termcap, vi and
[ snip per Clem Cole ;-) ]
> were ported back to Version 7 (and later System III) so that it was
> not unusual to find these features on otherwise pure Bell releases."
> from Documentation/Books/Life_with_Unix_v2.pdf

Thanks!  This is exactly the sort of source citation I was looking for.

At 2024-05-25T11:06:24-0400, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> Curses appears in the v8 manual but not v7. Of course a
> conclusion that it was not ported to v7 turns on dates.

I was confident that curses was not "part" of v7 because of these
factors.  (1) It wasn't in the manual; (2) archives of v7 in which we
now traffic as historical artifacts show no trace of it; and (3) the
story of its origin and development, even when distorted, doesn't place
it at the CSRC as far back as 1977/8.

But, if someone placed to know had claimed that it was, that would have
been a claim worth investigating.

> Does v7 refer to a point in time or an interval that extended until we
> undertook to prepare the v8 manual? Obviously curses was ported during
> or before that interval.

Perhaps one reason my question can be read two ways is that I'm
interested in both aspects of the issue.

I'm trying to write a "History" section for the primary ncurses man page
and clean up other problems its documentation has, like a boilerplate
reference to "Version 7 curses" in many of its other man pages, which
repeatedly implies such a thing as a separate line of development from
"BSD curses" and "System V curses".  I've been dubious of that language
since first encountering it, but I want a good documentary record to
support my proposal to chop it out.

> If curses was available when the v7 manual was prepared, I (who edited
> both editions) evidently was unaware of any dependence on it then.

I see no evidence that you missed it.  :)

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Rich Salz]

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I thought that Rob Pike was involved in the port

    /R$, troll

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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Oh how I hate history rewrites.  Job control was developed by Kulp on V7 in
Europe and MIT.  Joy saw it and added it what would become 4BSD.

The others were all developed on V7 (PDP11)at UCB.  They were not back
ported either. The vax work inherited them from V7.

It is true, The public tended to see these as 4BSD features as that was the
vehicle that got larger distribution.

Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual


On Sat, May 25, 2024 at 6:49 AM Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au> wrote:

> On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 07:03:48PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> >
> > I'm finding it difficult to find any direct sources on the question in
> > the subject line.
> >
> > Does anyone here have any source material they can point me to
> > documenting the existence of a port of BSD curses to Unix Version 7?
>
> "In particular, the C shell, curses, termcap, vi and job control were
> ported back to Version 7 (and later System III) so that it was not
> unusual to find these features on otherwise pure Bell releases."
> from Documentation/Books/Life_with_Unix_v2.pdf
>
> in some v7ish distributions: unisoft, xenix, nu machine, venix?
>
> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/codata/Unisoft_UNIX_Vol_1_Aug82.pdf pg 437
>
> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_codataUnis_28082791/page/n435/mode/2up
>
>
> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/forwardTechnology/xenix/Xenix_System_Volume_2_Software_Development_1982.pdf
> pg 580
>
> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_forwardTecstemVolume2SoftwareDevelopment1982_27714599/page/n579/mode/2up
>
> https://bitsavers.org/pdf/lmi/LMI_Docs/UNIX_1.pdf pg 412
>
> https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_lmiLMIDocs_20873181/page/n411/mode/2up
>

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Arrigo Triulzi via TUHS]

On 25 May 2024, at 12:49, Jonathan Gray <jsg@jsg.id.au> wrote:
> in some v7ish distributions: unisoft, xenix, nu machine, venix?

In Xenix 286 I have “fond” memories of some characters being inverted in curses so you had your windows (if you drew them) looking weird.

I had an #ifdef in my code to flip the characters…

Arrigo

[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Jonathan Gray]

On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 07:03:48PM -0500, G. Branden Robinson wrote:
> Hi folks,
> 
> I'm finding it difficult to find any direct sources on the question in
> the subject line.
> 
> Does anyone here have any source material they can point me to
> documenting the existence of a port of BSD curses to Unix Version 7?

"In particular, the C shell, curses, termcap, vi and job control were
ported back to Version 7 (and later System III) so that it was not
unusual to find these features on otherwise pure Bell releases."
from Documentation/Books/Life_with_Unix_v2.pdf

in some v7ish distributions: unisoft, xenix, nu machine, venix?

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/codata/Unisoft_UNIX_Vol_1_Aug82.pdf pg 437
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_codataUnis_28082791/page/n435/mode/2up

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/forwardTechnology/xenix/Xenix_System_Volume_2_Software_Development_1982.pdf pg 580
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_forwardTecstemVolume2SoftwareDevelopment1982_27714599/page/n579/mode/2up

https://bitsavers.org/pdf/lmi/LMI_Docs/UNIX_1.pdf pg 412
https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_lmiLMIDocs_20873181/page/n411/mode/2up

[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[G. Branden Robinson]

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At 2024-05-24T20:46:19-0400, Clem Cole wrote:
> I’m traveling this weekend so I’m doing this by memory.  ISTR The original
> curses was developed on Ing70 as part of Rogue and that It missed the 2BSD
> tape by about a year.  See if you can find an early Rogue distribution and
> I think you’ll find it there.  If not look in the early net news source
> distributions.

Thanks, Clem!

Regards,
Branden

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[TUHS] Re: Was curses ported to Seventh Edition Unix?

[Clem Cole]

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I’m traveling this weekend so I’m doing this by memory.  ISTR The original
curses was developed on Ing70 as part of Rogue and that It missed the 2BSD
tape by about a year.  See if you can find an early Rogue distribution and
I think you’ll find it there.  If not look in the early net news source
distributions.

Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual


On Fri, May 24, 2024 at 8:04 PM G. Branden Robinson <
g.branden.robinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>
> I'm finding it difficult to find any direct sources on the question in
> the subject line.
>
> Does anyone here have any source material they can point me to
> documenting the existence of a port of BSD curses to Unix Version 7?
>
> I know that curses made it into 2.9BSD for the PDP-11, but that's not
> quite the same thing.
>
> There are comments in System V Release 2's curses.h file[1][2] (very
> different from 4BSD's[3]) that suggest some effort to accommodate
> Version 7's terminal driver.  So I would _presume_ that curses got
> ported to Version 7.  But that's System V, right when it started
> diverging from BSD curses, and moreover, presumption is not evidence.
>
> Even personal accounts/anecdotes would be helpful.  Maybe some of you
> _wrote_ curses applications for Version 7 machines.
>
> Regards,
> Branden
>
> [1] System III apparently did not have curses at all.  Both it and 4BSD
>     were released in 1980.  System V Release 1 doesn't seem to, either.
> [2]
> https://github.com/ryanwoodsmall/oldsysv/blob/master/sysvr2-vax/include/curses.h
> [3]
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=4BSD/usr/include/curses.h
>

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