Might have been a ditto or mimeograh at some point. We had such section 1 manuals at JHU when I was a student there in 1977. ------ Original Message ------ From "Marc Donner" To "segaloco" Cc "The Eunuchs Hysterical Society" Date 6/3/23, 8:59:35 AM Subject [TUHS] Re: CB-UNIX dsw(1l) Page from PDP-7? >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