From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id c6a32680 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 2020 03:43:27 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C6E319C205; Thu, 23 Jan 2020 13:43:25 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B70999C102; Thu, 23 Jan 2020 13:42:46 +1000 (AEST) Authentication-Results: minnie.tuhs.org; dkim=pass (2048-bit key; unprotected) header.d=algebras-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com header.i=@algebras-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com header.b="TEJ6l4bi"; dkim-atps=neutral Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 1F31F9C102; Thu, 23 Jan 2020 13:42:43 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-il1-f180.google.com (mail-il1-f180.google.com [209.85.166.180]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 15B429B842 for ; Thu, 23 Jan 2020 13:42:42 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-il1-f180.google.com with SMTP id c4so1096857ilo.7 for ; Wed, 22 Jan 2020 19:42:42 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=algebras-org.20150623.gappssmtp.com; s=20150623; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :content-transfer-encoding; bh=ydl8Fh+Pu8F3bDHakDip2xycZ36TUQCQcKY1IZZfjo8=; b=TEJ6l4bi6epCkGXAvAhlKLKqUulX0fErJWEhjC/POgoeYj5Yqi1+HCh5XWP1Memf9h Bv85n0Gb5P/Qq4/dnBY99MgUQjGYKTOpQKYfNQ8ZJO0g2MRMHJi3uWNzIUVc7yS4QPrt foZ35JfREN+BVHzqApuEleOMlfgqVX2FS7oVFPHYBeXM77+QbrlZfaieKCZYG4+7Ficg kvPBjtd/SxCpkzZ01oLZgyN4yJng23oUz0XWh1iYC4piaHiQ2dCzvTYcUGtUAJUVXHuy yxRQPz62yy+tXcADJohBzkbjfOu09nG1SMEcSe3MZC59Xsu7+EDDl72qde5EANJRhV9+ Q+bQ== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:content-transfer-encoding; bh=ydl8Fh+Pu8F3bDHakDip2xycZ36TUQCQcKY1IZZfjo8=; b=nKW1FuYgL0FTGZqR4APVUskjRg0DAtD4/w4tzPs+Jl5RR9FTUz6VL45uy2lSYmghL2 7QzOU/Uwgtl9LzTGQ/YcYiu/IFMHCCsG8bjgKC6BApcRD8PELclW2tWOXzMLfHVcqcKX 9GdWXjGBwNWl4+tR0nVcvYxD6DyXW5DW/ypskqiiuRSn/4a+QXMYKNCH468e0o61lY+D exYBQXxVLRAMZgSuocZXopyE+j2wve+E/98IY2Z6nfAdKw1W0c+FzSSrODPiaTq0Lmvk rhoQMiT8OpIdf7H/C9tR8KjBrjSKVrWmYuYMaYRh6ihsD082RRPfSd1k7toiJVCawmSC Gf5Q== X-Gm-Message-State: APjAAAWJllCEPeF8w3l0lQX15IWNhr8kpmL5+iyPX2NPOd+y47o3Uont LwdJFRw9+sZ/H31Ii98pcZMEkqGa8dSX+6WlXLmwVN2XEQo= X-Google-Smtp-Source: APXvYqxPfwaVym+jmWNrCNa5IBhIMErquKGrZQLp4yMi8DR1BLMPxS/63vfwdYPI1dPO8lgWSdI8yCyNrE6LaVmxbcY= X-Received: by 2002:a92:5d88:: with SMTP id e8mr11162693ilg.106.1579750961136; Wed, 22 Jan 2020 19:42:41 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <54907FF0-3700-43FC-AA46-95F43F54AEB2@planet.nl> In-Reply-To: From: George Michaelson Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 13:42:29 +1000 Message-ID: To: TUHS main list Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Subject: Re: [TUHS] Spider [was: Unix quix] X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" Be careful talking about "spider" in UNIX contexts, thats a UK (Scottish?) UNIX consultancy, which did JANET X.25 related work. Different Spider. Spider Systems maybe. -G On Thu, Jan 23, 2020 at 11:01 AM Warner Losh wrote: > > > > On Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 12:54 PM Paul Ruizendaal wrote: >> >> I can answer some of the below, as I was looking into that a few years a= go. >> >> > 81. Q: What was the first Unix network? >> > A: spider >> > You thought it was Datakit, didn't you? But Sandy Fraser had an earlie= r >> > project. >> > >> > When did Alexander G Fraser's spider cell network happen? For that mat= ter, >> > when did Datakit happen? I can't find references to either start date = on >> > line (nor anything on spider except for references to it in Dr Fraser'= s >> > bio). I can find references to Datakit in 1978 or so. >> >> Spider was designed between 1969 and 1974 - the final lab report (#23) d= ates from December 1974. It was based around a serial loop running at T1 si= gnalling speed (~1.5Mhz). Here is a video recorded by Dr. Fraser about it: = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DojRtJ1U6Qzw (first half is about Spider, = second half about Datakit). > > > Cool! I'll have to watch that. > >> It connected to its hosts via a (discrete TTL-based) microcontroller or = =E2=80=9CTIU=E2=80=9D and seems to have been connected almost immediately t= o Unix systems: the oldest driver I have been able to locate is in the V4 t= ree (https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=3DV4/nsys/dmr/tdir/tiu.c= ). It used a DMA-based parallel interface into the PDP11. As such, it seems= to have been much faster than the typical Datakit connection later - but I= know too little about Datakit to be sure. > > > Me too. I know even less about Spider. I've been looking for Bell Labs Co= mputing Science Technical Report #23. It's referenced in the visit report b= elow. So far, the closest I've come is https://www.computerhistory.org/coll= ections/catalog/102773566 which says that CHM has it on paper. :/ From abou= t 1990 or so, these reports are easy to find. > >> >> There is an interesting visit report from 1975 that discusses some of th= e stuff that was done with Spider here: https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/dr= uid:rq704hx4375/rq704hx4375.pdf >> Beyond those experiments I think Spider usage was limited to file servin= g (=E2=80=99nfs=E2=80=99 and =E2=80=98ufs=E2=80=99) and printing (=E2=80=99= npr=E2=80=99). It would seem logical that it was used for remote login, but= I have not found any traces of such usage. Same for email usage. > > > Oh that's very interesting. The earliest Network Unix was all about remot= e login and file transfer (not file servering). The earliest version were f= or telnet/ftp clients. Later versions have the servers in them. > >> >> From what little I know, I think that Datakit became operational in a te= st network in 1979 and as a product in 1982. > > > OK. That's good to know. Are there good references for this? > >> >> > I thought the answer was "ARPANET" since we had a NCP on 4th edition = Unix >> > in late 1974 or early 1975 from the University of Illinois dating from= that >> > time (the code in TUHS appears to be based on V6 + a number of patches= ). >> >> =E2=80=9CNetwork Unix=E2=80=9D (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc681.ht= ml) was written by Steve Holmgren, Gary Grossman and Steve Bunch in the las= t 3 months of 1974. To my best knowledge they used V5 and migrated to V6 as= it came along. I think they were getting regular update tapes, and they im= plemented their system as a device driver (plus userland support) to be abl= e to keep up with the steady flow of updates. Greg Chesson was also involve= d with this Arpanet Unix. > > > That makes sense. The version in our archive is very close to V6. > >> >> As far as I can tell, Arpanet Unix saw fairly wide deployment within the= Arpanet research community, also as a front end processor for other system= s. > > > My research matches that. Starting in about 1976 there was an explosion o= f host names with -unix in their name. There's a number of ARPANET census r= eports, or ARPANET resource reports that have lots of Unix systems. RFCs sh= ow the explosion from 1977 onward. Google has these reports that can be dow= nloaded as a PDF, but are otherwise kinda hard to find :(. > >> >> A few years back I asked on this list why =E2=80=9CNetwork Unix=E2=80=9D= was not more enthusiastically received by the core Unix development team a= nd (conceptually) integrated into the main code base. I understood the repl= ies as that (i) people were very satisfied with Spider; and (ii) being part= of Bell they wanted a networking system that was more compatible with the = Bell network, i.e. Datakit. > > > Yea. I never understood how Unix could be so leading edge in computing, y= et so backward (at least so poor at picking winners) at networking. But thi= s does make a certain amount of sense. We've also seen NIH in the children = of Unix as well (Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and MacOS have all had thi= s issue, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill). > >> >> In my opinion both =E2=80=9CSpider Unix=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9CArpanet Un= ix=E2=80=9D threw a very long conceptual shadow. From Spider onwards, the R= esearch systems viewed the network as a device (Spider), that could be mult= iplexed (V8 streams) or even mounted (Plan9). The Arpa lineage saw the netw= ork as a long distance bidirectional pipe, with the actual I/O device hidde= n from view; this view persists all the way to 4.2BSD and beyond. > > > Yes. It's difficult to match a connected socket to a network interface...= And sockets definitely take the view that it's not a device you are talki= ng to at all, but a special kind of thing that you can do normal I/O to (an= d a few other special things too). > >> >> I often wonder if it was (is?) possible to come up with a design with th= e conceptual clarity of Plan9, but organised around the =E2=80=9Cnetwork as= a pipe=E2=80=9D view instead. > > > We'll never know. > > Warner