Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#1

Post by mbucc » Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 11:51 AM UTC

Unix Edition Zero (1971)
doc.cat-v.org

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#2

Post by mbucc » Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 11:51 AM UTC

Draft Unix manual written by Dennis Ritchie circa 1971---at a time when Unix had been running for a "few months" on the PDP-11.

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#3

Post by blondin » Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 11:42 PM UTC

this is great. i realized that manuals and documentation might have used a lot of paper back then. the new PDF that was typeset using troff is half the length of the original!

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#4

Post by PeterWhittaker » Wed, Feb 15, 2023, 11:50 PM UTC

I love reading this. It feels perfectly familiar.

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#5

Post by whydoyoucare » Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 12:02 AM UTC

blondin wrote: post #3

this is great. i realized that manuals and documentation might have used a lot of paper back then. the new PDF that was typeset using troff is half the length of the original!

I find reading the scan of the manual more pleasant and nostalgic than the troff version! Haha.

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#6

Post by Lammy » Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 12:28 AM UTC

TIL PDP-11 UNIX had an eight-character file/directory name limit https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/23917/ori...

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#7

Post by kragen » Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 1:14 AM UTC

Lammy wrote: post #6

TIL PDP-11 UNIX had an eight-character file/directory name limit https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/23917/ori...

in 6th edition it was already 14

https://github.com/memnoth/unix-v6/blob/master/sys/ken/nami....

https://github.com/memnoth/unix-v6/blob/master/sys/param.h#L...

i guess this 'edition zero' is from 01971, and 6th edition is 01975

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#8

Post by garaetjjte » Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 1:36 AM UTC

PeterWhittaker wrote: post #4

I love reading this. It feels perfectly familiar.

Curiously, it describes create instead of creat.

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#9

Post by nishanths » Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 2:26 AM UTC

garaetjjte wrote: post #8

PeterWhittaker wrote: post #4

I love reading this. It feels perfectly familiar.

Curiously, it describes create instead of creat .

and ken in the go source tree in 2009:

> spell it with an "e"

https://go.googlesource.com/go/+/c90d392ce3d3203e0c32b3f98d1...

Re: Unix Edition Zero (1971)

#10

Post by colejohnson66 » Thu, Feb 16, 2023, 2:37 AM UTC

nishanths wrote: post #9

garaetjjte wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curiously, it describes create instead of creat .

and ken in the go source tree in 2009: > spell it with an "e" https://go.googlesource.com/go/+/c90d392ce3d3203e0c32b3f98d1...

Tangent: I've yet to find what I'd deem a "definitive" answer on why the 'e' was dropped. Sure, Ken said it was his biggest mistake, but every answer on why it's missing just point to the quote from him. I've seen suggestions related to a possible six-character limit (from Radix50 - "50" being octal for 64), but "creat" is only five. And being a mistake, why was it never fixed early on?