this is meant to be a tutorial and/or tips 'n tricks for the hysterical unixes on https://unix50.org.

Available instances are:

instances

    [a]  UNICS (Version Zero)   PDP-7       Summer   1969
    [b]  First Edition UNIX     PDP-11/20   November 1971
    [c]  Fifth Edition UNIX     PDP-11/40   June     1974
    [d]  Sixth Edition UNIX     PDP-11/45   May      1975
    [e]  Seventh Edition UNIX   PDP-11/70   January  1979
    [f]  Research UNIX 8        VAX-11/780           1981
    [g]  AT&T UNIX System III   PDP-11/70   Fall     1982
    [h]  AT&T UNIX System V     PDP-11/70            1983
    [i]  AT&T UNIX System V     3b2/400              1984
    [j]  4.3  BSD               MicroVAX    June     1986
    [k]  2.11 BSD               PDP-11/70   January  1992

• Some features, such as persistent images, multiple TTYs and networking are only available on the SDF MetaArray.

For the double celebration of the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Unix operating system and the 32nd anniversary of the establishment of the SDF Public Access Unix system, a collection of simulated historical Unix systems has been prepared for your exploration and entertainment.

You can connect to the systems from the web page: https://unix50.org.

If you have a MetaArray account, you can also access the historical systems by logging in and entering the following shell command: unix50th

The rest of this documents consists of notes and command “cheat sheets” to help new users on each of the historical systems. It is assumed the reader is already somewhat familiar with contemporary Unix-like systems.

• Note to SDF MetaARPA members: I am not an expert on any of the historical systems and it's unlikely I'll be able to investigate all of them in sufficient depth, so feel free to check out this document and enhance it with your own insights and discoveries, or features or tricks I have missed. – papa

The operating system hacked together so Ken Thompson could play Space Travel after Bell Labs withdrew from the Multics Project. The new operating system was named as a parody of “Multics”.

This version of the operating system has a file system, a shell, a text editor, an assembler, and very little else.

• commands available: as, bc, cat, chdir, chmod, chown, chrm, cp, date, ln, ls, mv, stat

ken writes

ken writes

    here is sme stuff..
    adm and apr submit jobs to the central
    batch processing machine (ge-635 gcos)
    i only remember a command to submit a print
    job. the pdp-7 had no printer. actually, there
    was a newer print job that got the printing
    done by rejecting the batch job for some
    trivial syntax error. printing would cost.
    job rejection was free.
    sys save generated a core file that,
    when executed, would continue after the
    sys save. it was used for breakpointing
    long jobs and for jobs that had a lot of
    initialization so they would start up faster.
    a note; this unix did not have a hierarchical
    file system. there were only a fixed number
    of directories. each was linked to by the
    directory directory dd. to get to another
    directory, you did
    chdir dd
    chdir dir
    but the chdir command would take
    multiple arguments so the above is
    chdir dd dir
    if you ever unlinked your link to dd,
    you would be cut off.
    later dd became .. meaning up. one could
    not reference a file in another directory
    directly. thus you had to link to it by a local
    name and then reference through the local
    name. this
    link; sys; x; y
    made a local link y to the file x in directory
    sys referenced off of dd. does that clear
    up some of the naming confusion.
    i will work on some of the other stuff you
    mention. some of it sends gravity waves
    through the cobwebs, but nothing specific.
    ken

Logging on to the ken or dmr account - password is the same as the username

Yeah, remember you're on an ASR33 Teletype - you can only go forward!

• (Special thanks to Dan Cross and Mary Ann Horton for discovering and demonstrating these at UNIX50)

• @ = kill's the current line
• # = erase character
• } = intr (equiv to ^C)
• ^D = EOT (used to close a file)

• bc - not the calculator, but the B compiler.
• ls - supports the -l option which displays inum, type[dls]/umode/omode, nlink, uid, size and name - warren toomey
• Manual Pages for UNIX Version 0 for the PDP-7 (special thanks to wkt and tuhs)

There is no concept of filesystem paths or '..' in Unics 0. It is also important to note that 'dd' is a Multicism and stands for the “Directory Directory”. This concept will become '/' or 'root' in Version 1 UNIX. The shell searches two locations: 'system' and '.' However, '.' must be linked with the following command:

• ln dd userdirectory . - links 'userdirectory' in the 'directory directory' to '.' aka the current directory.
• ln dd dd udd - creates a new link named 'udd' to 'directory directory directory directory' in the current directory.

(You'll need to do this for the next example)

• login as dmr, dmr
• ln dd dmr .

Now you can type ls and see the contents of the directory

• The file hello.b contains:

hello.b

    @ cat hello.b
    main $(
     write('He');
     write('ll');
     write('o,');
     write(' W');
     write('or');
     write('ld');
     write(!*n');
    $)

• bc hello.b hello.s # bc will compile hello.b and produce hello.s
• as ops.s bl.s hello.s bi.s # as will assemble hello.s along with the standard libraries and produce an a.out

    @ a.out
    Hello, World!

• ops.s, bl.s and bi.s Opcodes and System Calls - must be included in any assembly

For the UNIX 50th on 10-Jul-2019 SDF held a B Language challenge on the DEC PDP-7 running UNIX Version 0 under simh. A herd of hackers gave it a go over the course of 2 hours and in the end there were 4 that put in best efforts:

• Karl Koscher (@supersat) - WINNER
• Dan Cross - Runner UP
• Mary Ann Horton - Valiant Effort
• Seth Morabito (@twylo) - Flailing Attempt (awarded with a '?')

Karl's effort implements a somewhat ROT1 and was the only working example of TTY IO. The code follows:

fdip.b

    main $(
     auto c;
     while (1) $(
       c = read();
       write(c + 1);
       flush();
     $)
    $)
    supersat)
    // gplv3 lol
    // karl koscher

The winner was awarded a handsome ASVEL UNIX WARE™ Japanese write storage container and a delicious bag of Tamanishiki Premium Short Grain Rice

By issuing the sac -nar command, your spirit animal will be changed to the narwhal.

sac -nar

    10 PRINT "DO YOU EAT BOOGERS?"
    20 INPUT X
    30 IF X="YES" THEN PRINT "YOU'RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN.": END
    40 IF X="NO" THEN PRINT "WHAT, YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME?"

    $ finger man@arms
    Login: man                                 Name: Duncan
    Directory: /eternia/heroic_warriors/man    Shell: /bin/bashasaurus
    No mail.
    Plan: Make Orko clean-up the mess he left in my workshop.

Do not forget to flush the buffer. If you do, the smell will be intolerable.

The Honeywell 6080 can be induced to perform a samba by pressing the button labeled “Samba” on the operator's console¹. That mainframe's forté, however, is the foxtrot², but the inducement of that particular step is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

¹⁾ Zurgone Vemliat, Mainframe Dancing Habits (Milwaukie: Brewers' Press, 1988), 96. ²⁾ Vemliat, Mainframe, 112.

• The Open Group. 2018. “History and Timeline”. http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/history_timeline.html.
• Eric Steven Raymond. 2003. “Origins and History of Unix, 1969-1995”. The Art of Unix Programming. http://www.catb.org/esr/writings/taoup/html/ch02s01.html.
• Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie. 1971. UNIX Programmer's Manual. Bell Labs. https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/1stEdman.html.
• Unix Heritage Wiki. 2015. “PDP-7 Unix”. https://wiki.tuhs.org/doku.php?id=systems:pdp7_unix.
• Wikipedia. 2018. “History of Unix”. History_of_Unix.

$Id: unix50th.html,v 1.12 2019/07/12 15:52:37 smj Exp $¹ -+- H Y S T E R I C A L -+- U N I X E S -+- - traditional link (using RCS)

¹ Replicated from the unix50th.html,v 1.12 2019/07/12 text.