Questions tagged [historical-unix]
The historical Unix from Bell Labs in the 1970s and 1980s, as opposed to Unix variants and clones from other vendors. This tag is only about the historical product known as UNIX Time-Sharing System or UNIX System III/IV/V. For the history of the Unix family of operating systems in general, use the "history" tag.
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How was a shell like when operating systems didn't had a GUI? [closed]
I understand the concepts of terminal, console, shell and their differences. I know a shell today is an interpreter that communicates with the OS kernel to perform some actions and does it through ...
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Unix System III Installation
I recently became curious about history of modern operating systems. Since the best way to learn is to see yourself - I would like to ask:
Is there a way to download and install Unix System III on a ...
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Is there an example for a shell or computing accessibility culture aspiring a shell with more special characters and if so what is it? [closed]
I was always a bit frustrated from the lack of characters in modern computer systems such as, from what I know:
A global template literal character for which the closest character today is a backtick ...
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Were there any programs besides editors that relied on on the O_NDELAY file status flag (predecessor to O_NONBLOCK)
Recently, I've been researching on the O_NONBLOCK feature specified in the standard.
From what I've seen so far, the predecessor of this flag - O_NDELAY had existed all the way back to UNIX System III....
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How to add user in Unix System 7?
I have created a Unix System 7 VM in VirtualBox following instructions by Robert Nordier. I have dropped to the single user prompt (#). I can run commands like ls and passwd and cat. However, useradd ...
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I thought Linux is POSIX-compliant, yet some POSIX commands are not found [closed]
I wanted to write a small shell script for Linux and other UNIX systems (probably OSX). And also, why not keep things platform-independent out of principle, right?
So I went with a #!/bin/sh shebang ...
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Does UNOS still exist?
UNOS is a derivative of UNIX by Charles River Information Systems.
Google and Wikipedia doesn't have much information on it.
Is there any version of it still in use?
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Who owns the UNIX trademark?
I am currently enrolled in a course that is teaching me UNIX fundamentals, such as common commands and such. After doing some digging on UNIX, I came across the rabbit hole of legal battles over who ...
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Why does ed start at the last line?
Why does ed start at the last instead of first line of a file?
Most of ed's behavior makes sense when you remember that it was for interacting with a printer, but not this. Since I believe it reads ...
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why are the definition of true and false in stdbool.h the exact opposite from the UNIX programs true and false?
stdbool.h is usually defined as:
#define false 0
#define true 1
(Sources: OpenBSD, musl, etc.)
whereas the unix program false - which just has a unsuccessful status code, is defined as:
int
main(...
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What format does syslog() use when writing to /dev/log?
I initially thought to post this to StackOverflow because my interest was primarily from a programming focus, but after reading about the history tag (and the question it linked to), I posted it to ...
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How can I try old UNIX versions? [duplicate]
I want to try old versions of UNIX for fun, but I don't know where to get them. Is there a way to download them?
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What does Rob Pike consider 'system research' in his essay?
I'm not sure what does Rob Pike consider 'system research' in his essay (that can be found here).
Is he referring to operating systems?
What's a system to him?
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plan 9 fonts on linux console
I am wondering how I can convert plan 9 fonts for use with the linux console, there is very little info on the topic. All i can find is vga medium having been ported to true type, but it doesnt look ...
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What ever became of the "prep" program? And what can I use instead on modern Linux systems?
Long ago, in Seventh Edition UNIX (a/k/a V7), there was a program called prep. Its primary use was to take files of text, and break them up into one word per line, for further processing by other ...
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Proprietary files during the Unix wars
While reading some papers on the history and evolution of Unix, I keep falling on this text in some way or another even here about some files that were proprietary of AT&T and present in BSD ...
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Why a caret (^) and dollar sign ($) were chosen for beginning/end of line in regex? [duplicate]
To clarify, this isn't a question about what a caret (^) or a dollar sign ($) does in a regular expression.
In modern keyboards with QWERTY layout, ^ comes after $ (i.e., ^ appears above the number 6 ...
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How did BSD rewrite AT&T Unix code?
From Unix War
BSD purged copyrighted AT&T code from 1989 to 1994.
If both BSD and System V were POSIX compliant, I don't understand what it means to "purge copyrighted code".
Both systems ...
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Why are names for Super, Meta and Hyper keys still in use?
As far as I know these keys could be found on some keyboards that are extinct nowadays. I have to confess to have never seen any other keyboards in real life (save computer museums here) but standard ...
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So what was the "u area" in UNIX?
The subject of the u area in UNIX came up in a comment. So what was it?
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What does the letter 'u' mean in umask?
Is it "user mask" or something?
Wikipedia does not have details, but says the feature has been in Unix since 1978.
POSIX just says it is the "file mode creation mask".
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Historically as well as today, what was or is the commonly accepted default argument for a command to show its help page?
I stumbled upon this the first time when I wanted to add an option -h to my program and got an error that -h is already in use: With add_help=True, Python's argparse automatically creates a help page ...
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Why isn't installing with apt/yum to a home directory a mainstream feature?
This is a history related question of a sense, tightly related to the use cases of Linux. Am open to closing it if it's off topic.
Why is the default to always use sudo when installing with package ...
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Do Unix Interface Naming Rules Exist? [duplicate]
I realized, that on Unix - systems a lot of weird interface acronyms exist:
lo = loopback interface
eno = ethernet interface, network interface card
ens = ethernet interface, on newer Ubuntu ...
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Unix Version 7 'learn' command (CAI) - additional configuration necessary?
I'm going through the 'Unix Programming Environment' classic by Kernighan and Pike.
I discovered there was a very interesting command written by Kernighan and someone else called learn for computer ...
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Undump od (octal or hex dump) in Version 6 Unix
od (octal dump) command is implemented in Unix since Version 1. However, I couldn't find a reverse command in the Version 6 Unix manual (1975). Modern ways of reversing od with either xxd or sed do ...
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How to understand this TMG's assembly code from the Version 6 Unix?
Early versions of Unix included Doug McIlroy's tool tmg ("transmogrifier"), an early compiler-compiler. TMG was implemented in Dennis Ritchie's assembly language as well as in TMGL itself (the ...
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What checksum algorithm is used by Version 5 Unix?
I can't figure out, what algorithm was used in Unix V5 and V6 for the sum command.
At first, I thought that it is a simple sum of bytes modulus 2^16. However for a string "1111111111\n" repeated 320 ...
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What is the most similar distro/flavor to the original UNIX source code? [duplicate]
Just like Ubuntu, Arch, Red Hat etc are just modifications to the original Linux Kernel... macOS (XNU), Solaris etc are some variants of the closed source code of AT&T's UNIX. But what is the ...
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How to make a script command work in both linux & UNIX
As the command NUMBER=$((${NEW_COUNT}-${OLD_COUNT})) in a shell script did work in Linux system but not work in UNIX system, how can I make a new command work the same as the above command in UNIX ...
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I need to take first 4 characters of first line in a file and i need it in a variable
I have a file
like
sample1.txt
ABCDE10998909
10898990XYZ
1898772222YGH
8980000000000sihgj
Output:
ABCD
I need to take first 4 characters of first line in a file and i need it in a variable.
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What's the content of license that AT&T licensed Unix to third-party vendors?
Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties in the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial Unix variants from vendors ...
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History of the saying "Everything is a file"
Upon my journey to master Unix/Linux, I came across this saying and some of its derivaties:
Everything is a file.
or
Everything in Unix is a file.
Reflecting upon my humble knowledge of Unix/...
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What were the original reason(s) for adding a "standard error" which is separate from "standard output"?
Unix provides standard output and standard error, which can be redirected independently.
$ ls /not-exist
ls: cannot access '/not-exist': No such file or directory
$ ls /not-exist > redirect.out
...
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Why was `.` chosen to represent the dot command?
I am wondering after seeing this question why the . symbol was chosen to represent the dot command?
I am not able to find much about it's origin or who created it and am curious as to why a full stop ...
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Why was the dot (.) used as an alias for source & why don't other commands have shortcuts too? [closed]
EDIT : actually, it is not an alias (see answers)
As you all know, in a shell, the dot-command (.) is an alias to the source command.
But I wonder if there's a reason behind such a weird alias? ...
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How was Unix installed in the 70's-80's?
Well I've been around computers since the late 80's(I was like 3 actually). Went the whole mile: Atari Xl-XE, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1, 95, etc. Then started using Linux because of the looks(yes I know, ...
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Where can I get the original Unix? [duplicate]
Where can I get the original Unix (from the year 1969)? I would like to look at the source code of the original Unix.
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What was the reason for lseek function to return file descriptors as long integer? [closed]
According to the book Advanced Programming in the Unix Environment :-
"The character l in the name lseek means ‘‘long integer.’’ Before the introduction of the off_t data type, the offset argument ...
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Is UNIX System V's source still available?
I was wondering if the AT&T system V's source code still available.
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How did UNIX programs interact with each other, before the invention of the pipe?
I read recently, that the concept of a pipe did not come about before UNIX version 3.
But since UNIX was always about simple programs, that do one thing, composed to do more complex things: How did ...
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What's special about "!xxx%s%s%s%s%s%s%s%s"?
I was linked to The Unix-Haters Handbook and stumbled on (page 149):
Subject: Relevant Unix bug
October 11, 1991
Fellow W4115x students—
While we’re on the subject of activation ...
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Kernighan and Pike challenge: how to put a slash in a filename?
I've just encounter the following question in Unix Programming Environment, the Kernighan and Pike's classic book on Unix (I found the below text on p. 79 of year 1984 edition, ISBN:0-13-937699-2):
...
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What's this I hear about First Edition Unix being restored?
I commented elsewhere that the source code of First Edition Unix had been restored from tapes. The response was amazement and a request for more information.
What have people done? Who did it? ...
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Why is the default umask 002 or 022 in many Unix systems? Seems insecure by default [closed]
I have been using Linux & Unix for a long time. The first time I learned Unix is in a computer classroom with many students, where the instructor told us that you can use ssh to log in to remote ...
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When was the UNIX single-user vs multi-user modes distinction first introduced?
Practically if not actually every single UNIX-like operating system today makes the distinction between multi-user and single-user modes. Single user mode is generally intended for low-level system ...
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Behold System V; what about systems I-IV?
System V (by AT&T) is the ancestral Unix, and I have used it. But I have never read or heard anything about systems I-IV, other than they existed once upon a time in the dim past. How effective ...
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No stdlib in UNIX v7?
Browsing through the v7 UNIX Sources I noticed there is no "stdlib" directory - further more using a v7 UNIX Emulator, there is no such file as <stdlib.h>. However functions like exit() and ...
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How to run Unix?
I always wanted to try Unix but I can't seem to find an ISO file or somewhere to buy it. Is Unix published for the whole wide world to use or is it a special OS only for high-class servers, mainframes ...
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Why did Unix become open source/free?
Why did the original Unix versions suddenly become open source/free? It seems odd that AT&T and Bell Labs would let something like an operating system become moldable and resellable with all of ...
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