[TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source

[TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source

[Mark Longridge]

Ok, I was just thinking that we have a lack of Unix version 5 (and
older) source code but since the Unix v5 era was the era of
teletypewriters perhaps there could be a stockpile of old teletype
printouts somewhere. Assuming they didn't run out of paper all the
time there would have been an automatic record generated of everything
Thompson and Ritchie did. Some of those printouts must have been kept
somewhere.

Mark

[TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source

[John Cowan]

Mark Longridge scripsit:

> Ok, I was just thinking that we have a lack of Unix version 5 (and
> older) source code but since the Unix v5 era was the era of
> teletypewriters perhaps there could be a stockpile of old teletype
> printouts somewhere. Assuming they didn't run out of paper all the
> time there would have been an automatic record generated of everything
> Thompson and Ritchie did. Some of those printouts must have been kept
> somewhere.

In my (non-Bell-Labs) experience, most of that paper went straight into
a large trash can standing next to the terminal, unless there was some
reason to save a particular stretch of it.  (TTY paper was unpaginated
rolls of yellow paper, but later devices like the DECwriter used
fan-folded line printer paper.)

-- 
John Cowan          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
Barry thirteen gules and argent on a canton azure fifty mullets of five
points of the second,  six, five, six, five, six, five, six, five, and six.
        --blazoning the U.S. flag

[TUHS] Possible way to get more old unix source

[Dave Horsfall]

On Sat, 9 Aug 2014, John Cowan wrote:

> In my (non-Bell-Labs) experience, most of that paper went straight into 
> a large trash can standing next to the terminal, unless there was some 
> reason to save a particular stretch of it.  (TTY paper was unpaginated 
> rolls of yellow paper, but later devices like the DECwriter used 
> fan-folded line printer paper.)

And of course the silverfish were very happy.  Does microfiche have a 
lifetime?

> Barry thirteen gules and argent on a canton azure fifty mullets of five
> points of the second,  six, five, six, five, six, five, six, five, and six.
>         --blazoning the U.S. flag

Love it!  One of my interests is blazoning.

-- Dave