[TUHS] manpages in svr2

[TUHS] manpages in svr2

[Will Senn]

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The core system of svr2 distributed by ATT for the 3b2-400 doesn't come 
with manpages installed. Does anybody know of a set of manpages for SVR2 
that can be installed into the system? It's not the end of the world, if 
not... the user guide is available as a pdf, but it'd be handy to have 
man on the system.

Will

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Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2

[Clem Cole]

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If you have to the installation distribution from them it would have been
in a cpio file that is optionally installed

On Mon, Dec 27, 2021 at 11:06 AM Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> wrote:

> The core system of svr2 distributed by ATT for the 3b2-400 doesn't come
> with manpages installed. Does anybody know of a set of manpages for SVR2
> that can be installed into the system? It's not the end of the world, if
> not... the user guide is available as a pdf, but it'd be handy to have man
> on the system.
>
>
> Will
>
-- 
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual

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Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2

[Seth Morabito]

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On Mon, Dec 27, 2021, at 8:16 AM, Clem Cole wrote:
> If you have to the installation distribution from them it would have been in a cpio file that is optionally installed
> 
> On Mon, Dec 27, 2021 at 11:06 AM Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> wrote:
>> The core system of svr2 distributed by ATT for the 3b2-400 doesn't come with manpages installed. Does anybody know of a set of manpages for SVR2 that can be installed into the system? It's not the end of the world, if not... the user guide is available as a pdf, but it'd be handy to have man on the system.
>> 
>> 
>> Will
> -- 
> Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual

I don't believe AT&T ever distributed manpages for the 3B2, but if I'm wrong and someone has a link to a set, I would be very happy to archive them! It's quite possible that at some point someone compiled a set of manpages as a third-party package, but unfortunately so many of the old 3B2 archives disappeared in the late 2000s before I (or anyone else I know) had a chance to archive them completely.

-Seth
--
  Seth Morabito
  Poulsbo, WA
  web@loomcom.com

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Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2

[Greg A. Woods]

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At Mon, 27 Dec 2021 09:11:20 -0800, "Seth Morabito" <web@loomcom.com> wrote:
Subject: Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2
>
> I don't believe AT&T ever distributed manpages for the 3B2, but if I'm
> wrong and someone has a link to a set, I would be very happy to
> archive them! It's quite possible that at some point someone compiled
> a set of manpages as a third-party package, but unfortunately so many
> of the old 3B2 archives disappeared in the late 2000s before I (or
> anyone else I know) had a chance to archive them completely.

I definitely had man pages on my 3B2/400 with SysVr3 (and r3.2).

They were pre-formatted (catman), not troff source though, IIRC.

This was true for all of UNIX System V, at least from 2.0 on.

There was a separate "source" distribution for the documentation, called
the "Machine Readable Documentation", aka MRD.  It contains source for
all of the system documentation, not just the manual pages.

The separation was necessary due to the separate licensing of the
Documenter's Workbench.  You couldn't format roff documents without it,
not even with nroff, so source for the documentation would be useless to
anyone who didn't also license DWB.  (IIRC some Unix licensees kept
their versions of V7 nroff working on their later SysV releases so that
they could ship man page sources that would be usable, but using that
ancient troff with modern printers was painful even with Chris Lewis'
psroff.)

The archive.org copy of SysVr2.0-NS32k contains source for DWB, MRD, as
well as the system and commands:

https://archive.org/download/ATTUNIXSystemVRelease4Version2/SysVr2.0_32000.tgz

I don't know if it is legal or not, but it's been there for ages.

IIRC somewhere there on archive.org there's also a SysVr2 for VAX too,
complete with binaries and sources, and it has catman pages included.

I do happen to have a copy of the MRD for SysVr3.2 for 3B2, but I don't
think it is legal.  I also had a legal binary license for DWB-2.0 for
3B2, but I don't think I have a copy of the media any more.

--
					Greg A. Woods <gwoods@acm.org>

Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>     Avoncote Farms <woods@avoncote.ca>

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Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2

[Will Senn]

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Greg,

I got manpages! Thanks. I took the tarball, extracted the files, cpio'd 
'em onto a tape cartridge image, pulled 'em off the cartridge onto 
/usr2/manpages, installed the Documenter's Workbench and:

    nroff -man echo.1
          ECHO(1)                   UNIX System V ECHO(1)



          NAME
               echo - echo arguments

          SYNOPSIS
               echo [ arg ] ...

Yeeha.

Now to type in Stephen's version of man in shell script form :).

Thanks,

Will

On 12/28/21 3:21 PM, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> At Mon, 27 Dec 2021 09:11:20 -0800, "Seth Morabito"<web@loomcom.com>  wrote:
> Subject: Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2
>> I don't believe AT&T ever distributed manpages for the 3B2, but if I'm
>> wrong and someone has a link to a set, I would be very happy to
>> archive them! It's quite possible that at some point someone compiled
>> a set of manpages as a third-party package, but unfortunately so many
>> of the old 3B2 archives disappeared in the late 2000s before I (or
>> anyone else I know) had a chance to archive them completely.
> I definitely had man pages on my 3B2/400 with SysVr3 (and r3.2).
>
> They were pre-formatted (catman), not troff source though, IIRC.
>
> This was true for all of UNIX System V, at least from 2.0 on.
>
> There was a separate "source" distribution for the documentation, called
> the "Machine Readable Documentation", aka MRD.  It contains source for
> all of the system documentation, not just the manual pages.
>
> The separation was necessary due to the separate licensing of the
> Documenter's Workbench.  You couldn't format roff documents without it,
> not even with nroff, so source for the documentation would be useless to
> anyone who didn't also license DWB.  (IIRC some Unix licensees kept
> their versions of V7 nroff working on their later SysV releases so that
> they could ship man page sources that would be usable, but using that
> ancient troff with modern printers was painful even with Chris Lewis'
> psroff.)
>
> The archive.org copy of SysVr2.0-NS32k contains source for DWB, MRD, as
> well as the system and commands:
>
> https://archive.org/download/ATTUNIXSystemVRelease4Version2/SysVr2.0_32000.tgz
>
> I don't know if it is legal or not, but it's been there for ages.
>
> IIRC somewhere there on archive.org there's also a SysVr2 for VAX too,
> complete with binaries and sources, and it has catman pages included.
>
> I do happen to have a copy of the MRD for SysVr3.2 for 3B2, but I don't
> think it is legal.  I also had a legal binary license for DWB-2.0 for
> 3B2, but I don't think I have a copy of the media any more.
>
> --
> 					Greg A. Woods<gwoods@acm.org>
>
> Kelowna, BC     +1 250 762-7675           RoboHack<woods@robohack.ca>
> Planix, Inc.<woods@planix.com>      Avoncote Farms<woods@avoncote.ca>

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Re: [TUHS] manpages in svr2

[Seth Morabito]

On Tue, Dec 28, 2021, at 1:21 PM, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> At Mon, 27 Dec 2021 09:11:20 -0800, "Seth Morabito" <web@loomcom.com> wrote:

> I do happen to have a copy of the MRD for SysVr3.2 for 3B2, but I don't
> think it is legal.  I also had a legal binary license for DWB-2.0 for
> 3B2, but I don't think I have a copy of the media any more.

Hello Greg,

Would you be willing to share a copy of the MRD? I'd like to at least archive it, even if I don't make it public.

If you're interested in seeing the current state of my 3B2 archive, it's available on the web at http://archive.loomcom.com/3b2/, and also on rsync at rsync://archives.loomcom.com/3b2/

I've given up trying to track down the current copyright holder of the software. AT&T certainly no longer has it, they gave it up ages ago. My trail grew cold after following the copyrights from AT&T to SCO to Novell to MicroFocus. It's not clear who owns what, and I'm afraid that even asking any more questions at this point.

-Seth
-- 
  Seth Morabito
  Poulsbo, WA
  web@loomcom.com