Wow. I’m impressed … that pdf is clearly of an nth generation photocopy. What contrast ratio? More seriously, this is a delightful proof point that some cruft is really cruft. Your document archaeology work is entertaining and instructive. Thank you! Best, Marc ===== On Fri, Jun 2, 2023 at 7:04 PM segaloco via TUHS wrote: > While performing my CB-UNIX 2.3 manual separation, among the many curious > things I came across was this manual page: > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/USDL/CB_Unix/man/man1/dsw.1l.pdf > > The dsw(I) pages I've seen in the various UNIX manuals are all for the > interactive delete utility, but make brief mention of the history of the > command being amusing. I've seen some communication on the matter of the > years here, but had never come across a manual page for the former version > of dsw. > > In the linked page up there is the actual "delete from switches" version > of dsw. What I find particularly interesting is that the footer indicates > this was printed 8/11/81, but likewise indicates the command is "PDP-7 > local". > > This raises a couple of questions: > > - Did Columbus ever touch PDP-7 UNIX? > - Did dsw(I) as "delete from switches" ever make it to PDP-11 UNIX? Even > the V1 manual lists the "delete interactively" utility, not this. > - If neither are true, that begs the question of where this page came > from, if there was ever a formalized PDP-7 manual that it would've > descended from or not, etc. > > Finally, this page plainly spells out the history of the command in the > bugs section: > > "This command was written in 2 minutes to delete a particular file that > managed to get an 0200 bit in its name. It should work by printing the > name of each file in a specified directory and requestion a 'y' or 'n' > answer. Better, it should be an option of rm(1). The name is mnemonic, > but likely to cause trouble in the future." > > So the first bug is eventually mitigated by transforming this into the > more familiar dsw. I can't say what the latter means, whether it's a > concern of "dsw" colliding with some reserved word eventually or is more > poking fun at the other folk etymology of "delete s__t work". > > In any case, I hadn't seen the etymology explained to this degree in the > mailing list references I found while searching around, so figured I'd > share this analysis. > > - Matt G. > > P.S. There is mention here that Dennis Ritchie shared the original dsw > manpage at some point > https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/1999-November/001203.html however the > link in question appears to be dead. In any case, the source for the PDP-7 > version is in that email if anyone wants to look at it, although looks to > be the same as what is in the archive. > -- ===== nygeek.net mindthegapdialogs.com/home