[TUHS] Happy birthday, Niklaus Wirth!

[dave@horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall)]

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On Sun, 18 Feb 2018, Norman Wilson wrote:

> I also wrote a paper about the work, which was published in (of all 
> places) AUUGN.  I haven't read it in years but it was probably a bit 
> snotty.  It nevertheless ended up causing a local UNIX-systems-software 
> company to head-hunt me (but at the time I had no interest in leaving 
> Caltech), so it must not have been too rude.

Norman is obviously too modest to toot his own trumpet, so me being me 
I'll do it for him:

AUUGN-V04.2.pdf		A bastardized paging UNIX


 				ABSTRACT

     One of the VAXes in the Caltech High Energy Physics Group runs a
     peculiar hybrid of several versions of UNIX.  Its principle claim to
     fame is that it is recognizably a variant of UNIX/TS, but has virtual
     memory code grafted in from Berkeley’s 4BSD.  It is also compatible
     with the UNIX/TS system run on our PDP-II/45.  This paper is meant to
     give some idea of what our system is, why it exists, and how much
     effort went into its creation.

My favourite quote:

     Philosophy - We feel that many of Berkeley’s changes to the
     system and the supporting programs are unnecessary, un-UNIX-like,
     and just plain silly.  To take a favourite example: anyone who
     will add a flag to _cat_ to make it number lines, remove blank
     lines, and make control characters visible, rather than writing
     separate filters, simply doesn’t understand what UNIX is all
     about.

Well said, bro!

-- 
Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU)  "Those who don't understand security will suffer."