[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Warren Toomey]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 10:53:30AM -0700, James A. Markevitch wrote:
> I have been referring to this as version "1.5" since the date is later
> than the first edition manual, but before the second edition manual.
> Does anyone know if it's truly V1 of the kernel, or something between
> V1 and V2?

The date on the first page of the memo (PDF) is September 1972. That puts
the memo after 2nd Edition (June 1972) and 3rd Edition (Feb 1973).

The s2 tape in the Unix Archive has binaries which are dated mainly in
1972, spread from January thru to December, so they should be
contemporaneous with the kernel in the PDF.

The 1st Edition manuals are on-line on Dennis Ritchie's web page at:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/1stEdman.html
I have a photocopy of the 2nd Edition manuals from Norman Wilson; I will
scan them in as a bunch of tiffs. The 3rd Edition manuals are at
http://www.tuhs.org/Archive/PDP-11/Distributions/research/Dennis_v3/v3man.tar.gz
but they refer to the C version, so they may not be as useful here.

> Does anyone have utilities earlier than the "1972" stuff from TUHS?

No, the s1 and s2 tapes are the earliest machine readable files that
we have.

I'm assuming that some of you are keen to see it running. It's going to
take a lot of work, especially on the debugging side. The existing 1972
binaries are already executable using my Apout emulator, so that will
help in two ways: we can run the old assembler, and we can tell if a bug
was in a userland binary and not in the kernel.

If I get a chance, I should try to compare the 1e and 2e manuals, to
outline the kernel API differences, as this might help us to determine
which binaries we have that will run on the PDF kernel.

Cheers,
	Warren

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Newsham]

> The date on the first page of the memo (PDF) is September 1972. That puts
> the memo after 2nd Edition (June 1972) and 3rd Edition (Feb 1973).

The cover sheet says sept 14, 1972, an invitation to a talk on the
internals of unix.  The next page, titled "Preliminary Release of
UNIX Implementation Documentation", is dated 6/20/72.  The actual
unix sources contain a header and a footer and the footer states
"Issue D   Date 3/17/72".  So the sources are probably from much
earlier in the year.

I was reading through a lot of the 1e manuals that are online (on dmr's 
page).  Much of what is said there lines up with the sources. For example, 
it mentions that core files are 8kbyte of memory plus a few more bytes for 
process state.  The kernel sources write out this amount of memory on core 
dump. The notes from dmr mention that the machine is a PDP-11/20 with 
24kbyte of memory and the memory layout in u0 reserves 16kbyte for kernel 
memory and 8kbyte for user memory.

One possible deviation is that the tty0(IV) man page says there are six
devices, but the u0 srcs sets ntty to 8+1 (I'm assuming the +1 is for
the console tty).

DMR's comments hints that they will be omving to the PDP-11/45 soon after
1ed:

"By this time we knew about the upcoming PDP-11/45, and had visited
Digital in Maynard to talk about it; in particular, we had the specs
for the floating-point instructions it supported. So the system
described here included a simulator for the instructions (fptrap(III))."

But it appears the kernel code we have is still just for a 24kbyte
machine (I'm assuming they would have gotten more memory when they
got a new machine?).

Anyway, I'm far from an expert on old PDP's or old UNIX's, but my
gut feeling so far is that this is pretty close to what is described
in the 1ed manuals that are online.

> I'm assuming that some of you are keen to see it running. It's going to
> take a lot of work, especially on the debugging side. The existing 1972
> binaries are already executable using my Apout emulator, so that will
> help in two ways: we can run the old assembler, and we can tell if a bug
> was in a userland binary and not in the kernel.

Ahh!  I wasn't aware of that!  Excellent.  I would definitely like to
play with it some.  So far I've been using the 7e assembler to
validate that the code is in compilable condition to help weed out
typos.  The only gotcha I came across so far was that the system calls
arent defined by the assembler (so I whipped up a corresponding sys.s
based on u1.s).  Building the real kernel with the real 1e assembler
will give me a lot more confidence that the assembler phase isn't
causing any problems.

> If I get a chance, I should try to compare the 1e and 2e manuals, to
> outline the kernel API differences, as this might help us to determine
> which binaries we have that will run on the PDF kernel.

That would be excellent.

> Cheers,
> 	Warren

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[James A. Markevitch]

> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 10:53:30AM -0700, James A. Markevitch wrote:
> > I have been referring to this as version "1.5" since the date is later
> > than the first edition manual, but before the second edition manual.
> > Does anyone know if it's truly V1 of the kernel, or something between
> > V1 and V2?
> 
> The date on the first page of the memo (PDF) is September 1972. That puts
> the memo after 2nd Edition (June 1972) and 3rd Edition (Feb 1973).

However, the date at the bottom of each page of the source listing
is 3/17/72.  My assumption is that the code was from that date, but that
the author of the memo spent a few months writing up the text that goes
along with it.

That's why I've been assuming that it was code somewhere between Version 1
and Version 2.

> I have a photocopy of the 2nd Edition manuals from Norman Wilson; I will
> scan them in as a bunch of tiffs.

If possible, can you scan them at 400dpi or 600dpi?  Those are much
more amenable to OCR than 300dpi.

Alternatively, if you can send me a hardcopy, I will scan it at 600dpi
and pass it along to bitsavers.

> I'm assuming that some of you are keen to see it running. It's going to
> take a lot of work, especially on the debugging side.

I have already noticed quite a few errors in the listing, so it's not
clear that the PDF was something that actually ran, or whether it had
been re-typed by somebody.  So far, many of the errors I have found are
in the "cold" portion of it, so it may be that the "warm" code will
run properly.

James Markevitch

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Warren Toomey]

All,
	I'm sure I saw a PDF document a few years ago which was an early
UNIX kernel written in assembly code. I thought I had saved the document,
but alas I can't find it. Can anybody remind me where to get it, or
perhaps I was hallucinating!

Thanks,
	Warren

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Warren Toomey]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 04:03:56PM +1000, Warren Toomey wrote:
> 	I'm sure I saw a PDF document a few years ago which was an early
> UNIX kernel written in assembly code. I thought I had saved the document,
> but alas I can't find it. Can anybody remind me where to get it, or
> perhaps I was hallucinating!

Humph, I should always delay 5 minutes before e-mailing :-) I just
found it at bitsavers:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf

	Warren

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Newsham]

> Humph, I should always delay 5 minutes before e-mailing :-) I just
> found it at bitsavers:
> http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf

wow, I didn't know that so much of the system was still around somewhere.
Has anyone started work on typing it in and trying to get a system
built?  (would make for great captchas ;-)

How complimentary are these listings with the "1972_stuff" on TUHS?

> 	Warren

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Warren Toomey]

On Wed, Apr 23, 2008 at 08:27:59AM -1000, Tim Newsham wrote:
> >Humph, I should always delay 5 minutes before e-mailing :-) I just
> >found it at bitsavers:
> >http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/bellLabs/unix/PreliminaryUnixImplementationDocument_Jun72.pdf
> 
> wow, I didn't know that so much of the system was still around somewhere.
> Has anyone started work on typing it in and trying to get a system
> built?

I thought about it a while back, but the potential for OCR errors is high,
and so too the frustration level. I'd say, only if someone was to fund the
work :-)
 
> How complementary are these listings with the "1972_stuff" on TUHS?

the s2 tape in the PDP-11/Distributions/research/1972_stuff area contains
userland binaries and libraries from 1972, so there's a strong possibility
that the kernel in the PDF document would be able to execute the binaries.

Cheers,
	Warren

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Newsham]

> I thought about it a while back, but the potential for OCR errors is high,
> and so too the frustration level. I'd say, only if someone was to fund the
> work :-)

What about a community effort?  The sources start on pdf page 6 and go
through pdf page 96.  That's only 91 pages.  If someone was to OCR these
and place them in some distributed revision control, one page per file,
and 9 people each took ownership over 10 pages each, it wouldn't take
that much effort to get it done.  Someone would have to write scripts
to glue the pages properly back into files, but that should be a fairly
minor effort in comparison.  Finally someone would have to get build
tools appropriate for processing the files, and feed back the errors
to the contributors to help fix up (or provide tools for contributors
to test their work independently).

I could commit myself to 10 pages if others were willing to come forward
and take a chunk.

> the s2 tape in the PDP-11/Distributions/research/1972_stuff area contains
> userland binaries and libraries from 1972, so there's a strong possibility
> that the kernel in the PDF document would be able to execute the binaries.

Restoring most of a working 1972 unix software system would be incredible.

> 	Warren

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Newsham]

> What about a community effort?  The sources start on pdf page 6 and go
> through pdf page 96.  That's only 91 pages.  If someone was to OCR these
> and place them in some distributed revision control, one page per file,
> and 9 people each took ownership over 10 pages each, it wouldn't take
> that much effort to get it done.  Someone would have to write scripts
> to glue the pages properly back into files, but that should be a fairly
> minor effort in comparison.  Finally someone would have to get build
> tools appropriate for processing the files, and feed back the errors
> to the contributors to help fix up (or provide tools for contributors
> to test their work independently).
>
> I could commit myself to 10 pages if others were willing to come forward
> and take a chunk.

Here's a start.

     http://www.thenewsh.com/%7Enewsham/unix_jun72/

I did the 10 pages of section E00.  It took me about
3-4 hours.  The files should probably be reviewed, so I'm estimating
about 5 hours of work for 10 pages.

If other people are interested in committing their time, I'll commit to 
another 10 pages plus reviewing 10 pages of someone elses work if someone 
will review my work.

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Al Kossow]

Tim Newsham wrote:
>> What about a community effort?

I went back into the archive and rescanned the entire document at 400dpi
uncompressed 8bits/pixel. Someone I know has been working on an OCR program
optimized for printouts, I'm hoping to get him interested.

What would be more interesting is recovering the original program documentation
which appeared in the same document, but is very light. There was also the
original hand-written version from Jan-Mar 1972 which I also scanned.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Newsham]

> Tim Newsham wrote:
>>> What about a community effort?
>
> I went back into the archive and rescanned the entire document at 400dpi
> uncompressed 8bits/pixel. Someone I know has been working on an OCR program
> optimized for printouts, I'm hoping to get him interested.

That would be great and would make the effort much easier!

> What would be more interesting is recovering the original program 
> documentation
> which appeared in the same document, but is very light. There was also the
> original hand-written version from Jan-Mar 1972 which I also scanned.

I'm much more interested in reconstructing a running system, myself.
The documentation is great to have, but its already readable (although
not searchable) in the current pdf.  At least in most places (there are
some really faded sections).

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Bradshaw]

>
> I'm much more interested in reconstructing a running system, myself.
> The documentation is great to have, but its already readable (although
> not searchable) in the current pdf.  At least in most places (there  
> are
> some really faded sections).

I think it's fascinating that we may end up with a working first  
edition Unix which has been *typed in by hand in 2008*. None of the  
bits will actually be the original ones.  Borges would be proud  
("Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" is the story I am thinking of).

If anyone is looking for volunteers I would have a go at typing bits  
in, but I do not know how much time I'm likely to have.

--tim

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Al Kossow]

Tim Bradshaw wrote:

> I think it's fascinating that we may end up with a working first edition 
> Unix which has been *typed in by hand in 2008*.

Only the kernel. Sounds like Warren has the rest in machine-readable form.

This is exactly what they had to do to get DTSS running again. The code was
retyped from a listing that a field service engineer had saved in his garage.

I see this a LOT at the Computer History Museum. The oldest code has only survived
on paper (tape, cards, listings). Almost no magnetic media has survived from the
60's. I was recently talking to someone about OS/360, and it appears almost none of
it from the 60's has survived, which is staggering considering how pervasive those
systems were.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Michael Kerpan]

I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Tim Newsham]

> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.

And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting codes?

ps: how many pages to archive a gigabyte of src code? ;-)

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[lyricalnanoha]

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008, Tim Newsham wrote:

>> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
>> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
>
> And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
> that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting codes?

Like a hexadecimal dump?

-uso.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[ckeck]

What about magneto-optical disks? They are supposed to last 50 years.
Problem is that one would have to not only hold on to the disks, but also
the drives, as well as a system with a SCSI I/F.

-Cornelius

On Thu, 24 Apr 2008, Tim Newsham wrote:

> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:30:58 -1000 (HST)
> From: Tim Newsham <newsham at lava.net>
> To: Michael Kerpan <madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com>
> Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?
>
> > I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
> > paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
>
> And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
> that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting codes?
>
> ps: how many pages to archive a gigabyte of src code? ;-)
>
> Tim Newsham
> http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>

-- 
Cornelius Keck -----------------------------------------> ckeck at texoma.net

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Al Kossow]

ckeck at texoma.net wrote:
> What about magneto-optical disks? They are supposed to last 50 years.

This is the wrong way to think about preservation of digital data,
which is inherently easy to duplicate without loss. You don't want
to wait 50 years to find out there is no economical way to read the
media someone wrote in the past.

As John said:

"Archiving can be done on any medium:  what matters is that there is
someone with the right, the power, and the concern to make copies of it
periodically onto new media."

The critical point to add to this is that the data integrity needs to be
constantly verified, even on presumed stable storage, and it is migrated
to what at that time is easily to deal with storage, so you CAN easily
verify it.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <4810D417.8040005 at bitsavers.org>
            Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
: The critical point to add to this is that the data integrity needs to be
: constantly verified, even on presumed stable storage, and it is migrated
: to what at that time is easily to deal with storage, so you CAN easily
: verify it.

I keep my archives on a series of disks.  There's always at least 2
copies, often times more, and the underlying disks get swapped out on
a round-robin basis.  Helps limit my exposure to one or two
failures...  I've had horrible luck with all other methods...

Warner

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Larry McVoy]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 12:57:12PM -0600, M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <4810D417.8040005 at bitsavers.org>
>             Al Kossow <aek at bitsavers.org> writes:
> : The critical point to add to this is that the data integrity needs to be
> : constantly verified, even on presumed stable storage, and it is migrated
> : to what at that time is easily to deal with storage, so you CAN easily
> : verify it.
> 
> I keep my archives on a series of disks.  There's always at least 2
> copies, often times more, and the underlying disks get swapped out on
> a round-robin basis.  Helps limit my exposure to one or two
> failures...  I've had horrible luck with all other methods...

We do the same thing here.  For /home which has all the stuff we really
care about we have 

	/nightly	- last night's copy of the data
	/nightly2	- same thing, night before
	/weekly		- last Sunday's copy of the data
	/weekly2	- same thing, week before

and we do it so that

	diff foo /nightly/$PWD

works.  Handy, that.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Milo Velimirovic]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
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I'd vote against. The MO disks and drive in my NeXT no longer work.  
(of course if anyone has advice for resuscitating MO devices, I'm all  
ears.)

  - Milo



On Apr 24, 2008, at 1:15 PM, ckeck at texoma.net wrote:

> What about magneto-optical disks? They are supposed to last 50 years.
> Problem is that one would have to not only hold on to the disks, but  
> also
> the drives, as well as a system with a SCSI I/F.
>
> -Cornelius
>
> On Thu, 24 Apr 2008, Tim Newsham wrote:
>
>> Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:30:58 -1000 (HST)
>> From: Tim Newsham <newsham at lava.net>
>> To: Michael Kerpan <madcrow.maxwell at gmail.com>
>> Cc: tuhs at tuhs.org
>> Subject: Re: [TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?
>>
>>> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free  
>>> archival
>>> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
>>
>> And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
>> that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting  
>> codes?
>>
>> ps: how many pages to archive a gigabyte of src code? ;-)
>>
>> Tim Newsham
>> http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/
>> _______________________________________________
>> TUHS mailing list
>> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
>> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs
>>
>
> -- 
> Cornelius Keck -----------------------------------------> ckeck at texoma.net
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

--
Milo Velimirović,  Unix Computer Network Administrator
608-785-6618 Office -  608-386-2817 Cell
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA   43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W
--
Unix: Where /etc/init is job #1.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Peter Jeremy]

On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 07:30:58AM -1000, Tim Newsham wrote:
>> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
>> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
>
>And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
>that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting codes?

PGP successfully did this (primarily to work-around US crypto laws):
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=7024

Archiving digital data is actually a major problem: Not only do you
need to be able to physically read the media but you need to be able
to interpret the bits that you read.  This probably means access to
the software that was used to create it (more data to archive) running
on the relevant OS (yet more data) and hardware (you might be able to
emulate this if someone archive a good-enough description).

-- 
Peter Jeremy
Please excuse any delays as the result of my ISP's inability to implement
an MTA that is either RFC2821-compliant or matches their claimed behaviour.
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[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Wilko Bulte]

Quoting Peter Jeremy, who wrote on Fri, Apr 25, 2008 at 07:39:17AM +1000 ..
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 07:30:58AM -1000, Tim Newsham wrote:
> >> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
> >> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
> >
> >And not necessarily in human readable form -- how about some format
> >that is very easy to ocr with minimal errors and error correcting codes?
> 
> PGP successfully did this (primarily to work-around US crypto laws):
> http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=7024
> 
> Archiving digital data is actually a major problem: Not only do you
> need to be able to physically read the media but you need to be able
> to interpret the bits that you read.  This probably means access to
> the software that was used to create it (more data to archive) running

Yeah... can you say "Microsoft Office" files?

-- 
Wilko Bulte				wilko at FreeBSD.org

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Wilko Bulte]

Quoting Michael Kerpan, who wrote on Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 01:27:17PM -0400 ..
> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.

Papertape.

The info is in the holes..

;-)

Wilko

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Milo Velimirovic]

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bar codes printed on archival paper -- what was the name of the format  
that was published in BYTE?

On Apr 24, 2008, at 12:38 PM, Wilko Bulte wrote:

> Quoting Michael Kerpan, who wrote on Thu, Apr 24, 2008 at 01:27:17PM  
> -0400 ..
>> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
>> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.
>
> Papertape.
>
> The info is in the holes..
>
> ;-)
>
> Wilko
> _______________________________________________
> TUHS mailing list
> TUHS at minnie.tuhs.org
> https://minnie.tuhs.org/mailman/listinfo/tuhs

--
Milo Velimirović,  Unix Computer Network Administrator
608-785-6618 Office -  608-386-2817 Cell
University of Wisconsin - La Crosse
La Crosse, Wisconsin 54601 USA   43 48 48 N 91 13 53 W
--
There's a reason Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson have been awarded the  
U.S. National Medal of Technology (1998) and are fellows of the  
Computer History Museum Online. Dave Cutler hasn't and isn't.
"You are not expected to understand this."

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[John Foust]

At 01:39 PM 4/24/2008, Milo Velimirovic wrote:
>bar codes printed on archival paper -- what was the name of the format  that was published in BYTE?

BYTE Paperbytes, Cauzin Softstrips, etc.

But 2D bar codes have come a long way since then.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_codes

I'd say the larger problems are that laser toner doesn't stick enough, or sticks 
to other pages especially under heat or pressure or time, and inkjet ink is expensive 
and water-soluble.

- John

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[Al Kossow]

Michael Kerpan wrote:
> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.

The reason it didn't survive was no one cared about saving it. Companies
actively destroyed it so they didn't have to support it, or have it available
for legal descovery. The paper copies survive because someone tossed a listing
in a box and threw it in their garage. So it wasn't really the archival medium
that is the problem, but the fact that there was no monetary reason to save
it.

What has been saved from the past 20-30 years has demonstrated that people
are taking some interest in software preservation now, and mirrored archives
reflect the fact is pretty easy to implement basic digital preservation through
replication.

One of the issues I run into is what to save. The early stuff is easy, you save
anything from before 1975 that can still be found. PC era and forward is MUCH more
difficult because of the volume.

[TUHS] Whence 1st Edition Unix Kernel Assembly?

[John Cowan]

Michael Kerpan scripsit:

> I guess we need to start archiving all software on acid-free archival
> paper, then. It's the only way it'll survive.

That doesn't protect it from being thrown out.

Archiving can be done on any medium:  what matters is that there is
someone with the right, the power, and the concern to make copies of it
periodically onto new media.

-- 
John Cowan                                   cowan at ccil.org
        "You need a change: try Canada"  "You need a change: try China"
                --fortune cookies opened by a couple that I know