From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_ADSP_CUSTOM_MED, DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED,FREEMAIL_FROM,MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 11740 invoked from network); 1 Feb 2023 23:26:37 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 1 Feb 2023 23:26:37 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 97E09411EA; Thu, 2 Feb 2023 09:26:01 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lf1-f53.google.com (mail-lf1-f53.google.com [209.85.167.53]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 5595B411EA for ; Thu, 2 Feb 2023 09:25:56 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lf1-f53.google.com with SMTP id bi36so408103lfb.8 for ; Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:25:56 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20210112; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=nwLGk9CXA05sxqNw48v5no0B1vJZ/pRN/Vj4U85i2Zc=; b=YcztOxoOkOedw2OyEyitFS4lPp++ayUuFbLIrAXYoCfsR4ka2WEtwuUjzl2TLkZEPl 7JxeLnAKvONqcftoqEkeJgCWk0Y087cBr5QRVYVpMByQ4zNaFlr92Y5vcJWenPPcO4xn gYr6Z+CHZQQ1X7LmxIyBphAFE5wQxI4E3uJMh/5YSIMWgKP1/2JSMV2kRClDbFwpHEJ9 2AWWBYAgIl+w1oGzk+GwjhxibTssYW5446I5wKTVcnhBtOOM7uRTvpC2EPIqlFKamQ2m 35ufneKtvCW/+USb4dsKVvpWdrhDlNoVJ+a/OhPaDJ+Kz6vypAZKnSO+whGUxgovK71U jgMg== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20210112; h=cc:to:subject:message-id:date:from:in-reply-to:references :mime-version:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id :reply-to; bh=nwLGk9CXA05sxqNw48v5no0B1vJZ/pRN/Vj4U85i2Zc=; b=lr5oR/vPoyku2wKnE3ZKYytNYMptAevev04H1UsmQWduNh0DhCggDDO5G0pHM9zmbL 7PNAAhqo5495m1PrFd678Fx+XsMsO6GqJBkS3zj1WwEeCNPZaYFqrqZj9j59iyNjHr7r Xi8mqT0b0Pj4MZ9XQGGeRZpkpkpAB7byj248GpPPPu5j2WA3sp/nzbQ/QAGp2VM6hT8G ZrimdJ0BWjaJFyeVnUCWAQ7KAODo++U4j6dyvWTHenVpEzbzznWf7W9fc0hffezmqHIs k7z+0D2A1kIRrK2zHf/41GvVvAumiNAmXWhFq61wo2xhi7tObV7uqT86IEYN+ySkXzux cLqQ== X-Gm-Message-State: AO0yUKV/Lrrlxi8wcreUYUcPeCAK3DOalCnEP+5M1NFnqZCHBY0MbYz3 wwWHpvmz0lUmS2znfDWKlR7lDbuR/GMymhTHSNw= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AK7set/F15MbccGZ59psJY0g7V0vGpF8llZUv+Y3s02iy8qGivXcOhF7KgqS0yjmhRzPNLGAeCaA+Xx/gVAVfo3KGxY= X-Received: by 2002:a19:2d16:0:b0:4b5:7607:3191 with SMTP id k22-20020a192d16000000b004b576073191mr773136lfj.93.1675293894403; Wed, 01 Feb 2023 15:24:54 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: In-Reply-To: From: Dan Cross Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2023 18:24:18 -0500 Message-ID: To: Douglas McIlroy Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Message-ID-Hash: VLFFT7YMYWPAMKMYSLCLHOWG2IXC6RS4 X-Message-ID-Hash: VLFFT7YMYWPAMKMYSLCLHOWG2IXC6RS4 X-MailFrom: crossd@gmail.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header CC: COFF X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Unix game origins - stories similar to Crowther's Adventure List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: [TUHS to Bcc] On Wed, Feb 1, 2023 at 3:23 PM Douglas McIlroy wrote: > > In the annals of UNIX gaming, have there ever been notable games that have operated as multiple processes, perhaps using formal IPC or even just pipes or shared files for communication between separate processes > > I don't know any Unix examples, but DTSS (Dartmouth Time Sharing > System) "communication files" were used for the purpose. For a fuller > story see https://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/DTSS/commfiles.pdf Interesting. This is now being discussed on the Multicians list (which had a DTSS emulator! Done for use by SIPB). Warren Montgomery discussed communication files under DTSS for precisely this kind of thing; apparently he had a chess program he may have run under them. Barry Margolin responded that he wrote a multiuser chat program using them on the DTSS system at Grumman. Margolin suggests a modern Unix-ish analogue may be pseudo-ttys, which came up here earlier (I responded pointing to your wonderful note linked above). > > This is probably a bit more Plan 9-ish than UNIX-ish > > So it was with communication files, which allowed IO system calls to > be handled in userland. Unfortunately, communication files were > complicated and turned out to be an evolutionary dead end. They had > had no ancestral connection to successors like pipes and Plan 9. > Equally unfortunately, 9P, the very foundation of Plan 9, seems to > have met the same fate. I wonder if there was an analogy to multiplexed files, which I admit to knowing very little about. A cursory glance at mpx(2) on 7th Edition at least suggests some surface similarities. - Dan C.