[TUHS] Some Wiki Documentation of...Documentation

[segaloco via TUHS <tuhs@tuhs.org>]

After much saying I would and never getting around to it, I've finally started filling out a bit of documentation on the various UNIX manuals I've been tracking down, fleshing out history around, tracing bibliographic references though, etc etc.

https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=publications:manuals

Thus far I've got the research and CB pages filled out from available information, and PWB/commercial up through about '85-'86, give or take some things.  I apologize in advance if I've omitted your favorite piece of trivia or got something wrong, please suggest corrections in any areas needing them, or even better, a Wiki is a communal resource so with Warren's OK, I'm sure you can also make contributions.

Most of the pictures are from my own library, although I've added a few others from thing around the net.  There are links to various documents covered, TUHS content where most appropriate, a few archive.org and bitsavers links here and there.  I don't intend to include links to any documents after System V's initial 1983 run, just pictures of covers for ease of identification.

I've already mentioned a few times but I highly encourage contributions.  I intend to do another round at this sometime soon and round out at least the BSD stuff and later System V.  If anyone else has photographs or documents they think should be in these articles and you don't want to do the Wiki part yourself, feel free to send me stuff and I'll make sure it gets put up there.

Finally, some reflection on the path here.  "What was UNIX System IV" was one of those questions that plagued my mind for a long time, much before I knew much else about the history of UNIX.  Not a crucial question by any means, but it was one of those little mysteries I always wanted to know more about, which is what then lead me to trying to find Release 4.0 documents and all that.  Of course, that then lead to the rabbit hole of continuing to turn stuff up, I never imagined I'd actually be successful in trying to turn up more info on that version, let alone then continuing to find little pieces of history and slot in missing parts of stories.  Along the way I've learned more about this darn operating system than I ever intended on learning and now feel net gain in several areas of my study.  Plus, all this Bell System proximity is largely responsible for my interests in telephony as of late, and may come full circle in the gear I got for telephone experiments helping me resurrect this poor UNIX PC I've got sitting on the floor right now.  I don't know what I would've been doing with so much of my free time the past few years otherwise, especially these colder months.

Hope folks enjoy the commentary!

- Matt G.

P.S. Combing over things for this, I've found a few more pieces of the UNIX/TS puzzle.  The details are in the Release 3.0 section of the PWB/Commerial page linked above.  Short of it is there are some interesting "leaks" of the name "UNIX/TS" into Release 3.0 documentation, inconsistently between the sources on the UNIX tree and the physical document I recently obtained.