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* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
@ 2019-07-11 22:02 ron
  2019-07-11 22:31 ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: ron @ 2019-07-11 22:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 'The Eunuchs Hysterical Society'

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Interactive Systems.   Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in many a year.  Heinz Lycklama went there.

The did a couple of things, a straight UNIX port to various things (PDP-11, 386) and also there “UNIX running under VMS” product.

They also had their own version of the Rand Editor called “INed” that was happiest on this hacked version of a Perkin Elmer terminal.

Early versions were PWB UNIX based if I recall.


My first job out of college was working with IS Unix on an 11/70 playing configuration management (essentially all the PWB stuff).   I also hacked the line printer spooler and the .mm macro package to do classification markings (this was a part of a government contract).

 

A few years later I was given the job of porting Interactive Systems UNIX that was already running on an i386 (an Intel 310 system which had a Multibus I) to an Intel Multibus II box.    Intel had already ported it once, but nobody seemed to be able to find the source code.    So with a fresh set of the source code for the old system from IS, I proceeded to reverse engineer/port the code to the Message Passing Coprocessor.   (Intel was not real forthcoming for documentation for that either).   Eventually, I got it to work (the Multibus II really was a pleasant bus and worked well with UNIX).   I went on to write drivers for a 9-track tape drive (which sat in my living room for a long time), a Matrox multibus II framebuffer (OK, that had problems), and a SCSI host adapter that was talking to this kludge device that captured digital data from a FLIR on uMatic cassettes (but that’s a different story).

 


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* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-11 22:02 [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386) ron
@ 2019-07-11 22:31 ` Dave Horsfall
  2019-07-12  2:52   ` Warner Losh
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2019-07-11 22:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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On Thu, 11 Jul 2019, ron@ronnatalie.com wrote:

> Interactive Systems.   Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in many a 
> year.  Heinz Lycklama went there.

A blast from the past indeed.

> The did a couple of things, a straight UNIX port to various things 
> (PDP-11, 386) and also there “UNIX running under VMS” product.

Which model of the PDP-11?  I did ports of V6.5 (as I called it) to the 
11/34, 11/23, and 11/60, all of which had their oddities.

And that wouldn't be Eunice, would it?  Or was that purely a DEC product?

-- Dave

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-11 22:31 ` Dave Horsfall
@ 2019-07-12  2:52   ` Warner Losh
  2019-07-12  3:55     ` Nigel Williams
  2019-07-13  0:36     ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2019-07-12  2:52 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dave Horsfall; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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On Thu, Jul 11, 2019, 4:31 PM Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:

> On Thu, 11 Jul 2019, ron@ronnatalie.com wrote:
>
> > Interactive Systems.   Now there’s a name I’ve not heard in many a
> > year.  Heinz Lycklama went there.
>
> A blast from the past indeed.
>
> > The did a couple of things, a straight UNIX port to various things
> > (PDP-11, 386) and also there “UNIX running under VMS” product.
>
> Which model of the PDP-11?  I did ports of V6.5 (as I called it) to the
> 11/34, 11/23, and 11/60, all of which had their oddities.
>
> And that wouldn't be Eunice, would it?  Or was that purely a DEC product?
>

Eunice came from Stanford and was sold by the Wollongong group, both as a
standalone thing, or as the TCP/IP subset... I'm unsure if others licensed
it or not (TGV did the TCP part, iirc, but enhanced it way more than TWG
did).

Warner

>

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* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12  2:52   ` Warner Losh
@ 2019-07-12  3:55     ` Nigel Williams
  2019-07-12 17:00       ` Clem Cole
  2019-07-13  0:36     ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Nigel Williams @ 2019-07-12  3:55 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2019, ron@ronnatalie.com wrote:
>> > (PDP-11, 386) and also there “UNIX running under VMS” product.

Was there only three UNIX on VMS (or under...) options?

Eunice:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_(software)

"phi"-nix: A Unix Emulator for VAX/VMS:
https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/101549/TR82-08.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

ISC's IS/1-WB Work Bench for VMS (UNIX Tools only?)

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12  3:55     ` Nigel Williams
@ 2019-07-12 17:00       ` Clem Cole
  2019-07-12 20:12         ` Deborah Scherrer
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2019-07-12 17:00 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Nigel Williams; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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There were a number of them.  As others have meantioned, the TGV folks did
one, there were a number of tools from DECUS, and even DEC actually
released more and more UNIX into VMS themselves.   I used to carry a mag
tape with vi, the shell and few basic tools that allowed me to edit things
on VMS if I had to deal with it.  The biggest issue was TCP/IP, since
DECnet was the only networking for a such a long time from DEC.

Stan Smith and I wrote the original VAX IP/TCP support for Tektronix in
1979, in BLISS and some small amount of VAX assembler.  My friends (former
coworkers) @ CMU took this back in and enhanced it (the CMU folks did a
huge amount of work on the mail interface).  IIRC I sent the tape to Danny
Klein, but it might have been someone else.

I have the code from the CMU's update of our work on 9-track tape, but I
think it eventually also may have gone out on a DECUS tape.    But I do
know that this code base would make its way to DEC, where CJ and Wayne
would take it to become the code base that started OpenVMS's version [CJ
once told me he was impressed at how little they had to rewrite it, mostly
removing some Vaxism's - Stan and I were not worried about portability, we
just wanted something to talk correctly to the UNIX V7 TCP from 3COM (UNET)
and the TCP we had written from the Cyber NOS].

Clem

On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 11:56 PM Nigel Williams <
nw@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote:

> >> On Thu, 11 Jul 2019, ron@ronnatalie.com wrote:
> >> > (PDP-11, 386) and also there “UNIX running under VMS” product.
>
> Was there only three UNIX on VMS (or under...) options?
>
> Eunice:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_(software)
>
> "phi"-nix: A Unix Emulator for VAX/VMS:
>
> https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/101549/TR82-08.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
>
> ISC's IS/1-WB Work Bench for VMS (UNIX Tools only?)
>

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12 17:00       ` Clem Cole
@ 2019-07-12 20:12         ` Deborah Scherrer
  2019-07-12 20:45           ` Paul Winalski
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Deborah Scherrer @ 2019-07-12 20:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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There was also an extensive port of the Software Tools to VMS, done by 
Joe Sventek at LBNL.   Included at the key tools, the shell, pipes, 
everything.   Felt completely like Unix.
Deborah

On 7/12/19 10:00 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> There were a number of them.  As others have meantioned, the TGV folks 
> did one, there were a number of tools from DECUS, and even DEC 
> actually released more and more UNIX into VMS themselves.   I used to 
> carry a mag tape with vi, the shell and few basic tools that allowed 
> me to edit things on VMS if I had to deal with it.  The biggest issue 
> was TCP/IP, since DECnet was the only networking for a such a long 
> time from DEC.
>
> Stan Smith and I wrote the original VAX IP/TCP support for Tektronix 
> in 1979, in BLISS and some small amount of VAX assembler.  My friends 
> (former coworkers) @ CMU took this back in and enhanced it (the CMU 
> folks did a huge amount of work on the mail interface).  IIRC I sent 
> the tape to Danny Klein, but it might have been someone else.
>
> I have the code from the CMU's update of our work on 9-track tape, but 
> I think it eventually also may have gone out on a DECUS tape.    But I 
> do know that this code base would make its way to DEC, where CJ and 
> Wayne would take it to become the code base that started OpenVMS's 
> version [CJ once told me he was impressed at how little they had to 
> rewrite it, mostly removing some Vaxism's - Stan and I were not 
> worried about portability, we just wanted something to talk correctly 
> to the UNIX V7 TCP from 3COM (UNET) and the TCP we had written from 
> the Cyber NOS].
>
> Clem
>
> On Thu, Jul 11, 2019 at 11:56 PM Nigel Williams 
> <nw@retrocomputingtasmania.com <mailto:nw@retrocomputingtasmania.com>> 
> wrote:
>
>     >> On Thu, 11 Jul 2019, ron@ronnatalie.com
>     <mailto:ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
>     >> > (PDP-11, 386) and also there “UNIX running under VMS” product.
>
>     Was there only three UNIX on VMS (or under...) options?
>
>     Eunice:
>     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_(software)
>     <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_%28software%29>
>
>     "phi"-nix: A Unix Emulator for VAX/VMS:
>     https://scholarship.rice.edu/bitstream/handle/1911/101549/TR82-08.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
>
>     ISC's IS/1-WB Work Bench for VMS (UNIX Tools only?)
>


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* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12 20:12         ` Deborah Scherrer
@ 2019-07-12 20:45           ` Paul Winalski
  2019-07-12 21:43             ` Deborah Scherrer
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Paul Winalski @ 2019-07-12 20:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Deborah Scherrer; +Cc: tuhs

On 7/12/19, Deborah Scherrer <dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu> wrote:
> There was also an extensive port of the Software Tools to VMS, done by
> Joe Sventek at LBNL.   Included at the key tools, the shell, pipes,
> everything.   Felt completely like Unix.

How did the LBNL Software Tools for VMS implement pipes?  I'm curious
because DEC itself did a product in the mid-1980s called DEC Shell
that was a VMS port of the Bourne shell and associated utilities.  I
wrote a VMS device driver that implemented pipes as a true VMS
pseudo-device, similar to VMS mailboxes but with true Unix pipe
semantics.

-Paul W.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12 20:45           ` Paul Winalski
@ 2019-07-12 21:43             ` Deborah Scherrer
  2019-07-12 22:45               ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Deborah Scherrer @ 2019-07-12 21:43 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Paul Winalski; +Cc: tuhs

I didn't do this port, so don't know the details.  But it was done in 
the late 70s (I think) and had broad distribution.  When I collected 
various Software Tools versions, I was not able to find the VMS one. Sorry.
Deborah

On 7/12/19 1:45 PM, Paul Winalski wrote:
> On 7/12/19, Deborah Scherrer <dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu> wrote:
>> There was also an extensive port of the Software Tools to VMS, done by
>> Joe Sventek at LBNL.   Included at the key tools, the shell, pipes,
>> everything.   Felt completely like Unix.
> How did the LBNL Software Tools for VMS implement pipes?  I'm curious
> because DEC itself did a product in the mid-1980s called DEC Shell
> that was a VMS port of the Bourne shell and associated utilities.  I
> wrote a VMS device driver that implemented pipes as a true VMS
> pseudo-device, similar to VMS mailboxes but with true Unix pipe
> semantics.
>
> -Paul W.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12 21:43             ` Deborah Scherrer
@ 2019-07-12 22:45               ` Clem Cole
  2019-07-12 23:18                 ` Deborah Scherrer
  2019-07-13  0:24                 ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2019-07-12 22:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Deborah Scherrer; +Cc: tuhs

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If I recall this was one of the implementations that wrote to a file and
then forked the next process after it got to eof.

On Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 2:44 PM Deborah Scherrer <
dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu> wrote:

> I didn't do this port, so don't know the details.  But it was done in
> the late 70s (I think) and had broad distribution.  When I collected
> various Software Tools versions, I was not able to find the VMS one. Sorry.
> Deborah
>
> On 7/12/19 1:45 PM, Paul Winalski wrote:
> > On 7/12/19, Deborah Scherrer <dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >> There was also an extensive port of the Software Tools to VMS, done by
> >> Joe Sventek at LBNL.   Included at the key tools, the shell, pipes,
> >> everything.   Felt completely like Unix.
> > How did the LBNL Software Tools for VMS implement pipes?  I'm curious
> > because DEC itself did a product in the mid-1980s called DEC Shell
> > that was a VMS port of the Bourne shell and associated utilities.  I
> > wrote a VMS device driver that implemented pipes as a true VMS
> > pseudo-device, similar to VMS mailboxes but with true Unix pipe
> > semantics.
> >
> > -Paul W.
>
> --
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual

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* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12 22:45               ` Clem Cole
@ 2019-07-12 23:18                 ` Deborah Scherrer
  2019-07-13  0:24                 ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Deborah Scherrer @ 2019-07-12 23:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Clem Cole; +Cc: tuhs

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I believe you are right.  That was a typical implementation method.
Deborah

On 7/12/19 3:45 PM, Clem Cole wrote:
> If I recall this was one of the implementations that wrote to a file 
> and then forked the next process after it got to eof.
>
> On Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 2:44 PM Deborah Scherrer 
> <dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu <mailto:dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu>> 
> wrote:
>
>     I didn't do this port, so don't know the details.  But it was done in
>     the late 70s (I think) and had broad distribution.  When I collected
>     various Software Tools versions, I was not able to find the VMS
>     one. Sorry.
>     Deborah
>
>     On 7/12/19 1:45 PM, Paul Winalski wrote:
>     > On 7/12/19, Deborah Scherrer <dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu
>     <mailto:dscherrer@solar.stanford.edu>> wrote:
>     >> There was also an extensive port of the Software Tools to VMS,
>     done by
>     >> Joe Sventek at LBNL.   Included at the key tools, the shell, pipes,
>     >> everything.   Felt completely like Unix.
>     > How did the LBNL Software Tools for VMS implement pipes?  I'm
>     curious
>     > because DEC itself did a product in the mid-1980s called DEC Shell
>     > that was a VMS port of the Bourne shell and associated utilities.  I
>     > wrote a VMS device driver that implemented pipes as a true VMS
>     > pseudo-device, similar to VMS mailboxes but with true Unix pipe
>     > semantics.
>     >
>     > -Paul W.
>
> -- 
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12 22:45               ` Clem Cole
  2019-07-12 23:18                 ` Deborah Scherrer
@ 2019-07-13  0:24                 ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2019-07-13  0:24 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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On Fri, 12 Jul 2019, Clem Cole wrote:

[ VMS "pipes" ]

> If I recall this was one of the implementations that wrote to a file and 
> then forked the next process after it got to eof.    

That's my recollection too.

Trivia: I was speaking to Max at a DECUS conference, and he admitted that 
they had a Unix licence and were studying the code very carefully; not 
soon after, VMS became POSIX-compliant :-)

-- Dave

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386)
  2019-07-12  2:52   ` Warner Losh
  2019-07-12  3:55     ` Nigel Williams
@ 2019-07-13  0:36     ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2019-07-13  0:36 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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On Thu, 11 Jul 2019, Warner Losh wrote:

>       Which model of the PDP-11?  I did ports of V6.5 (as I called it)
>       to the 11/34, 11/23, and 11/60, all of which had their oddities.
>
>       And that wouldn't be Eunice, would it?  Or was that purely a DEC
>       product?
> 
> Eunice came from Stanford and was sold by the Wollongong group, both as 
> a standalone thing, or as the TCP/IP subset... I'm unsure if others 
> licensed it or not (TGV did the TCP part, iirc, but enhanced it way more 
> than TWG did).

Aha!  Thanks for that background info.

I still remember the conversation I had with my boss about running Eunice 
on their Vaxen:

Me: "It makes VMS look civilised."
He: "No, it makes it look like Unix."
Me: "That's what I said!"

Dunno what happened afterwards, because I was attracted to a commercial 
opportunity which paid much more and needed my Unix skills (otherwise I 
would've been supporting ancient COBOL programs).

-- Dave

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2019-07-13  0:36 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2019-07-11 22:02 [TUHS] Interactive Systems (was Pcc for 386) ron
2019-07-11 22:31 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-07-12  2:52   ` Warner Losh
2019-07-12  3:55     ` Nigel Williams
2019-07-12 17:00       ` Clem Cole
2019-07-12 20:12         ` Deborah Scherrer
2019-07-12 20:45           ` Paul Winalski
2019-07-12 21:43             ` Deborah Scherrer
2019-07-12 22:45               ` Clem Cole
2019-07-12 23:18                 ` Deborah Scherrer
2019-07-13  0:24                 ` Dave Horsfall
2019-07-13  0:36     ` Dave Horsfall

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