Unix v4 Tape Found

lproven wrote: post #3

Other posts on this subject, none with discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45846438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45842643

I've added https://oldbytes.space/@bitsavers/115505135441862982 and https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/unix_fourth_edition_t... to the toptext as well. Thanks!

Re: Unix v4 Tape Found

#6

Post by ndiddy » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 10:47 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #3

Other posts on this subject, none with discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45846438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45844876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45842643

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45857695 has discussion

Re: Unix v4 Tape Found

#7

Post by mongol » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 10:53 PM UTC

lproven wrote: post #4

Anyway, since nobody much seems to realise this is quite a big deal, I will share the explainer I wrote yesterday: https://www.theregister.com/2025/11/07/unix_fourth_edition_t... Unix V4 is otherwise lost. It was the first version in C.

Interesting article. I agree it is kind of a big deal. Certainly worth the effort to try to restore

Re: Unix v4 Tape Found

#8

Post by kazinator » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 10:56 PM UTC

That is a big deal; I don't remember anything that old being available on tuhs.org.

Re: Unix v4 Tape Found

#9

Post by accrual » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 10:56 PM UTC

> It is a '70s 1200ft 3M tape, likely 9 track, which has a pretty good chance of being recoverable.

Not old enough to have this kind of knowledge or confidence. I wonder if instead one day I'll be helping some future generation read old floppies, CDs, and IDE/ATA disks *slaps top of AT tower*.

Re: Unix v4 Tape Found

#10

Post by retrac » Mon, Nov 10, 2025, 11:12 PM UTC

accrual wrote: post #9

> It is a '70s 1200ft 3M tape, likely 9 track, which has a pretty good chance of being recoverable. Not old enough to have this kind of knowledge or confidence. I wonder if instead one day I'll be helping some future generation read old floppies, CDs, and IDE/ATA disks *slaps top of AT tower*.

You might be able to use that old floppy drive. But you won't be able to use that old Pentium machine the drive is in.

Because you will need several hundred gigabytes of RAM and a very fast IO bus.

The gold standard today for archiving magnetic media is to make a flux image.

The media is treated as if it were an analog recording and sampled at such a high rate that the smallest details are captured. Interpretation is done later, in software. The only antique electronics involved are often the tape or drive head, directly connected to a high speed digitizer.

And indeed that appears to be the plan Al Kossow has for the tape: https://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2025-November/032765.htm...

As for CDs, I don't see the rush; the ones that were properly made will likely outlast human civilization.