* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
@ 2016-03-23 19:30 ` Dan Cross
2016-03-23 19:38 ` Diomidis Spinellis
` (5 subsequent siblings)
6 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Dan Cross @ 2016-03-23 19:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
They stand for, "run-com" as in "run commands": This was the name for a
scripting facility in, I believe, CTSS.
On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 3:20 PM, Rocky Hotas <rockyhotas at post.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> I am Rocky and this is my first message. Before starting, I would like to
> thank you for all the valuable informations and stories you post here.
> About the History of Unix, I was wondering with another guy why the rc
> script has that name. As many of you already know, and according to NetBSD,
> FreeBSD, OpenBSD (current) manual,
>
> "The rc utility is the command script which controls" the startup of
> various services, "and is invoked by init(8)" (from DESCRIPTION).
> "The rc command appeared in 4.0BSD" (from HISTORY).
>
> Words may slightly change between the three distributions, but the meaning
> and the informations provided are the same. So, the etymology of rc does
> not appear in the man pages. Do you know how to recover it? Do (or did) the
> letters rc have some meaning in this context?
> Cheers,
>
> Rocky
>
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
2016-03-23 19:30 ` Dan Cross
@ 2016-03-23 19:38 ` Diomidis Spinellis
2016-03-23 19:53 ` Mantas Mikulėnas
` (4 subsequent siblings)
6 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Diomidis Spinellis @ 2016-03-23 19:38 UTC (permalink / raw)
According to "The New Hacker's Dictionary" (Eric Raymond, MIT Press,
1991) "the startup script /etc/rc is commonly believed to have been
named after older scripts to 'run commands'". This name was then
adopted by other scripts.
On 23/03/2016 21:20, Rocky Hotas wrote:
> About the History of Unix, I was wondering with another guy why the rc script has that name. As many of you already know, and according to NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD (current) manual,
>
> "The rc utility is the command script which controls" the startup of various services, "and is invoked by init(8)" (from DESCRIPTION).
> "The rc command appeared in 4.0BSD" (from HISTORY).
>
> Words may slightly change between the three distributions, but the meaning and the informations provided are the same. So, the etymology of rc does not appear in the man pages. Do you know how to recover it? Do (or did) the letters rc have some meaning in this context?
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
2016-03-23 19:30 ` Dan Cross
2016-03-23 19:38 ` Diomidis Spinellis
@ 2016-03-23 19:53 ` Mantas Mikulėnas
2016-03-23 19:57 ` Steve Nickolas
` (3 subsequent siblings)
6 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Mantas Mikulėnas @ 2016-03-23 19:53 UTC (permalink / raw)
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The best reference on that might be <
http://article.olduse.net/4857 at Aucbvax.UUCP>.
(Though also <http://article.olduse.net/203 at brl-bmd.UUCP> – not sure what's
that one about.)
On Wed, Mar 23, 2016 at 9:20 PM, Rocky Hotas <rockyhotas at post.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> I am Rocky and this is my first message. Before starting, I would like to
> thank you for all the valuable informations and stories you post here.
> About the History of Unix, I was wondering with another guy why the rc
> script has that name. As many of you already know, and according to NetBSD,
> FreeBSD, OpenBSD (current) manual,
>
> "The rc utility is the command script which controls" the startup of
> various services, "and is invoked by init(8)" (from DESCRIPTION).
> "The rc command appeared in 4.0BSD" (from HISTORY).
>
> Words may slightly change between the three distributions, but the meaning
> and the informations provided are the same. So, the etymology of rc does
> not appear in the man pages. Do you know how to recover it? Do (or did) the
> letters rc have some meaning in this context?
> Cheers,
>
> Rocky
>
--
Mantas Mikulėnas <grawity at gmail.com>
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^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
` (2 preceding siblings ...)
2016-03-23 19:53 ` Mantas Mikulėnas
@ 2016-03-23 19:57 ` Steve Nickolas
2016-03-23 21:14 ` Jeremy C. Reed
` (2 subsequent siblings)
6 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Steve Nickolas @ 2016-03-23 19:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Wed, 23 Mar 2016, Rocky Hotas wrote:
> Hello everyone,
> I am Rocky and this is my first message. Before starting, I would like to thank you for all the valuable informations and stories you post here.
> About the History of Unix, I was wondering with another guy why the rc script has that name. As many of you already know, and according to NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD (current) manual,
>
> "The rc utility is the command script which controls" the startup of various services, "and is invoked by init(8)" (from DESCRIPTION).
> "The rc command appeared in 4.0BSD" (from HISTORY).
>
> Words may slightly change between the three distributions, but the meaning and the informations provided are the same. So, the etymology of rc does not appear in the man pages. Do you know how to recover it? Do (or did) the letters rc have some meaning in this context?
> Cheers,
>
> Rocky
>
I suppose it's Run Commands?
-uso.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
` (3 preceding siblings ...)
2016-03-23 19:57 ` Steve Nickolas
@ 2016-03-23 21:14 ` Jeremy C. Reed
2016-03-24 9:59 ` Rocky Hotas
2016-03-24 6:59 ` Dave Horsfall
2016-03-25 1:19 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
6 siblings, 1 reply; 11+ messages in thread
From: Jeremy C. Reed @ 2016-03-23 21:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Wed, 23 Mar 2016, Rocky Hotas wrote:
> "The rc command appeared in 4.0BSD" (from HISTORY).
I see that history added in the CSRG sccs revision 6.2 on 91/03/16. I
don't know why it says that as it was in 3BSD too. The /etc/rc concept
wasn't new in 4BSD.
The script was rewritten though for 4BSD to be used for "autoboot". Init
was extended to run /etc/rc to do a fsck if not booting single user
mode. (And if the fsck failed it could go into single user mode.)
The history should be fixed to be more clear about.
(For fun, read the usr/man/man0/changes from 4.0BSD about autoboot and
reboot.)
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 21:14 ` Jeremy C. Reed
@ 2016-03-24 9:59 ` Rocky Hotas
0 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Rocky Hotas @ 2016-03-24 9:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
> Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2016 at 10:14 PM
> From: "Jeremy C. Reed" <reed at reedmedia.net>
> To: "Rocky Hotas" <rockyhotas at post.com>
> Cc: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
>
> The history should be fixed to be more clear about.
Yes, I agree.
> (For fun, read the usr/man/man0/changes from 4.0BSD about autoboot and
> reboot.)
Ok! Thanks to you and to all for the many messages!
Rocky
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread
* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
` (4 preceding siblings ...)
2016-03-23 21:14 ` Jeremy C. Reed
@ 2016-03-24 6:59 ` Dave Horsfall
2016-03-25 1:19 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
6 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2016-03-24 6:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Wed, 23 Mar 2016, Rocky Hotas wrote:
> Words may slightly change between the three distributions, but the
> meaning and the informations provided are the same. So, the etymology of
> rc does not appear in the man pages. Do you know how to recover it? Do
> (or did) the letters rc have some meaning in this context?
"Run Commands."
--
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 11+ messages in thread* [TUHS] Again about etymology: rc
2016-03-23 19:20 Rocky Hotas
` (5 preceding siblings ...)
2016-03-24 6:59 ` Dave Horsfall
@ 2016-03-25 1:19 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
6 siblings, 0 replies; 11+ messages in thread
From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey @ 2016-03-25 1:19 UTC (permalink / raw)
On Wednesday, 23 March 2016 at 20:20:05 +0100, Rocky Hotas wrote:
> About the History of Unix, I was wondering with another guy why the
> rc script has that name.
I'm surprised nobody else has commented that we saw this about 3
months ago. Tom Van Vleck wrote about CTSS:
> Louis wrote a disk loaded program called RUNCOM that read command
> lines from a file, substituted arguments into the command, and
> requested the supervisor to run them, and then return control to
> RUNCOM. This is a shell-like function.
>
> ...
>
> Revised command processing, RUNCOM, and . SAVED are documented in
> the second edition CTSS manual.
> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/mit/ctss/CTSS_ProgrammersGuide_Dec69.pdf
Our assumption at the time was that the "rc" comes from this program.
The entire message is in the TUHS archives (29 December 2015, Subject:
" CTSS user interface?". Let me know if you can't find it.
Greg
--
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