Re: [TUHS] Useful Unix tools + Usenix tapes

[Clem cole <clemc@ccc.com>]

Warren There are a number of usenix tapes missing in your archives.   The first three were called 1 2 and 3 from the mid 70s but where included in the Harvard tape*** from about 76 or 77 which I sort of consider the first usenix tape.  Note that This is an stp format distribution.     Which IIRC the v6 tp could read or at least read it enough to pull the stp binary off the tape which would then allow you read the whole thing.      You will need the v6 ar because the directories inside the tape were archived as files called cont.a   And I think I remember that some of those were compressed with pack/unpack tools which were in the wild in those days — probably also on the Harvard tape.    As I mentioned the other day the 1BSD tape you have seems to be a conversion from stp to tar.   

FYI:  one of the issues with tp and stp is that the directory for the tape is at the beginning of the tape itself and is fixed in size [this is have DECtape worked].  Because it was fixed in size folks archived directories together so the tp directory needed only the folder and a single file it.   FWIW One of the big enhancements tar provided over tp was the threading the directory throughout the archive which eliminated tat issue, but of course if there is a tape error recovery is more difficult.  IIRC Harvard had added a second directory to the end of tp in the stp format to help reliability.  Ie if you had errors in the tp directory at the front of the tape, you had a chance to recover by using the second copy of it.   


*** the Harvard tape takes it name from the meeting at Harvard of the Unix News readers.  This would become USENIX as an org shortly there after.   The earlier tapes (1 2 and 3) were what files had been collected at earlier meetings. 

Sent from my PDP-7 Running UNIX V0 expect things to be almost but not quite. 

> On Dec 31, 2018, at 6:36 PM, Warren Toomey <wkt@tuhs.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Mon, Dec 31, 2018 at 09:55:31AM -0500, Clem Cole wrote:
>>   *** Note to Warren.  It might be a wise to put copies of v6tar (both
>>   seperate I/D and not) binaries and maybe cpio(v6) on the TUHS we site
>>   in the V6 directory; maybe, a 'collected_tools' directory.  Noel's
>>   tools would probably make sense to add there also.  I bet people that
>>   are downloading and playing might find them helpful.
> 
> In the Unix Archive, there is this location:
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Tools/
> 
> It's separate from the distributions. Pro: it keeps the original files
> separate from 3rd party things; con: it's a bit harder to find things
> when you need them.
> 
> If anybody has other tools or useful utilities to add in here, let me know!
> 
> There are some Usenix tapes in the archive here:
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/
> Look in Shoppa_Tapes, Spencer_Tapes and Spencer_Tapes. If there are
> other tape images out there that I could add, let me know as well.
> 
> Happy New Year, everyone.
> Cheers, Warren