A little digging turned up FIPS 151-2: https://web.archive.org/web/20140220130516/http://www.itl.nist.gov/fipspubs/fip151-2.htm This website also explains Microsoft's desire to support several APIs: https://brianreiter.org/2010/08/24/the-sad-history-of-the-microsoft-posix-subsystem/ Rik On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 11:04 AM Marc Rochkind wrote: > As I remember, part of the rationale was that DEC wanted something that > could be specified in an RFP that was defined in terms of an interface, > rather than an implementation. In theory this would allow them to propose > VMS with an appropriate interface layer. I don't know if anything like this > was ever created. But the interface standard sure was, of course. > > On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 11:32 AM Rik Farrow wrote: > >> I recall something different than what others had suggested. When the US >> government issued requests for proposals, they weren't permitted to specify >> products by name. In particular, if you wanted something that wasn't >> Microsoft, you couldn't actually specify that it be Unix. >> >> So POSIX was born partially as a way of letting it be known you wanted a >> Unix variant rather than something else. >> >> Certainly porting was an issue. I did work for a software shop in the >> late 80s and early 90s that produced graphics software, and porting between >> Unix systems was relatively easy, compared to, say, moving the software to >> Apollo's DomainIX, a sort of Unix-like version of Apollo Domain. With Unix >> systems and this software, the biggest issue was fonts, as the software >> needed to be able to calculate the extent, that is, the bounding box, for >> text that was to be displayed. >> >> Strangely enough, the other big issue was time. >> >> Rik >> >> >> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 6:29 AM Peter Weinberger (温博格) via TUHS < >> tuhs@tuhs.org> wrote: >> >>> and the folks from PARC wanted a more RPC-based open OS, according to >>> my not-yet-fully-retrieved memories. >>> >>> On Tue, Aug 6, 2024 at 2:40 AM wrote: >>> > >>> > segaloco via TUHS wrote: >>> > >>> > > Another way to put it would be as a chicken and egg, which came >>> first, ... >>> > > ..., or the ongoing need for UNIX standardization finding sponsorship >>> > > by the working groups, IEEE, etc.? >>> > >>> > This. >>> > >>> > Try to understand what things were like at the time. There were >>> > a ton of competing Unix systems, all different: >>> > >>> > - IBM: AIX on the mainframe and PS/2, which were different from >>> > AIX on the RT/PC and later RS/6000 (workstations). >>> > >>> > - DEC: Ultrix on minicomputers and microvaxen, and later on MIPS >>> > based workstations >>> > >>> > - Data General: DG/UX on their minicomputers. >>> > >>> > - Pyramid: A BSD/System V hybrid RISC minicomputer >>> > >>> > - Sun: Workstations, 680x0 based and later SPARC based, and servers. >>> > Initially BSD based, later SVR4 based. >>> > >>> > - Workstations from HP, Tektronix, NBI, others I've probably forgotten, >>> > 3B2 and 3B1/Unix PC from AT&T... The list goes on and on and on. >>> > >>> > Things split roughly along BSD/System V lines, but code wasn't >>> portable. >>> > Did you use bcopy() or memcpy()? index() or strchr()? There was lots >>> > of mixing and matching happening, too. >>> > >>> > There was a crying need for a standard. The mess is what begot GNU >>> > Autoconf, which made a difference at the time. Having the ANSI C >>> standard >>> > also helped. >>> > >>> > HTH, >>> > >>> > Arnold >>> >> > > -- > *My new email address is mrochkind@gmail.com * >