From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Feb 1 11:54:53 2026 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Warren Toomey via TUHS) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2026 11:54:53 +1000 Subject: [TUHS] Boston Children's Museum RK05 Driver: Questions Message-ID: Hi all, for some reason I thought about the RK05 driver written by Bill Mayhew and Brent Byer at the Boston Children's Museum. Based on the minor device number, it remaps blocks 1 to 2435 as blocks 2436 to 4871, and remaps blocks 2436 to 4871 down to blocks 1 to 2435. According to the notes in the driver (see dmr/rk.c in https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/UNSW/1/record0.tar.gz): The effect of this mapping is to centralize disk head motion about the center of the disk. The optimization is ideal for those RK's which serve as both root device and swap device. It is less than ideal, although probably still an improvement over traditional form, for RK's used exclusively as mounted file systems. Question: how much of a win was this, and why was the idea of moving (some/all) of the i-nodes to the centre of the disk not used until we got the fast filesystem? Cheers, Warren From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Feb 1 14:03:19 2026 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Jonathan Gray via TUHS) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2026 15:03:19 +1100 Subject: [TUHS] Mix Utah V4 and the V4 Man Pages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jan 31, 2026 at 07:52:22AM +1000, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > On 1/29/26 9:57 PM, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > > Hi all, sorry for the delay but I've just added V4 to the Unix Archive here: > > > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Utah_v4/ > > > > And it's also now in the Unix Tree at > > https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V4 > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 06:08:30PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > Regarding the V4 manpage sources, would it be appropriate to merge those > > with this entry in the tree at /usr/man? At the very least the blurb on > > the root directory should then probably mention the providence of the > > two pieces and their being amalgamated for tree reasons. > > I wasn't sure if I should mix the V4 manuals from > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v4/ > with the Utah tape as there is no nroff on the Utah tape but > the man pages are written in nroff. > > But, yes, I can add some blurb that explains the amalgamation. > > So, a related question, does anybody know why nroff was _not_ on the > Utah V4 tape, especially as it was a late snapshot of V4? Documented as not being on the tape: "The following programs out of the programmer's manual are not provided: catsim(I), man(I), nroff(I), opr(I), plot(I), speak(I), troff(I), tss(I), gerts(III), vt(III), azel(VI), m6(VI), maze(VI), ov(VI), sky(VI), spline(VI), tmg(VI), yacc(VI), dpd(VII), tmheader(VII), vs(VII), 20boot(VIII) and update(VIII). The source of the following programs from the manual is not provided: cref(I), proof(I), bj(VI), chess(VI), cubic(VI), moo(VI), ttt(VI) and wump(VI)." https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Dennis_Tapes/Gao_Analysis/v4_dist/setup.pdf Though the Utah tape has a yacc binary and update. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Feb 1 15:59:55 2026 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (segaloco via TUHS) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2026 05:59:55 +0000 Subject: [TUHS] Mix Utah V4 and the V4 Man Pages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Saturday, January 31st, 2026 at 20:03, Jonathan Gray via TUHS wrote: > On Sat, Jan 31, 2026 at 07:52:22AM +1000, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > > > On 1/29/26 9:57 PM, Warren Toomey via TUHS wrote: > > > > > Hi all, sorry for the delay but I've just added V4 to the Unix Archive here: > > > > > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Utah_v4/ > > > > > > And it's also now in the Unix Tree at > > > https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V4 > > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 06:08:30PM +0000, segaloco via TUHS wrote: > > > > > Regarding the V4 manpage sources, would it be appropriate to merge those > > > with this entry in the tree at /usr/man? At the very least the blurb on > > > the root directory should then probably mention the providence of the > > > two pieces and their being amalgamated for tree reasons. > > > > I wasn't sure if I should mix the V4 manuals from > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Dennis_v4/ > > with the Utah tape as there is no nroff on the Utah tape but > > the man pages are written in nroff. > > > > But, yes, I can add some blurb that explains the amalgamation. > > > > So, a related question, does anybody know why nroff was not on the > > Utah V4 tape, especially as it was a late snapshot of V4? > > > Documented as not being on the tape: > > "The following programs out of the programmer's manual are not > provided: catsim(I), man(I), nroff(I), opr(I), plot(I), speak(I), > troff(I), tss(I), gerts(III), vt(III), azel(VI), m6(VI), > maze(VI), ov(VI), sky(VI), spline(VI), tmg(VI), yacc(VI), > dpd(VII), tmheader(VII), vs(VII), 20boot(VIII) and update(VIII). > > The source of the following programs from the manual is not > provided: cref(I), proof(I), bj(VI), chess(VI), cubic(VI), > moo(VI), ttt(VI) and wump(VI)." > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Applications/Dennis_Tapes/Gao_Analysis/v4_dist/setup.pdf > > Though the Utah tape has a yacc binary and update. Actually, what is the "man.tap" available here? https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Utah_v4/ I'm not somewhere I can dig around more than with od, certainly looks like there are manpage sources in there. >From the looks of it, nroff was missing from other, earlier versions as well. For instance, the s1/s2 bits tapes don't appear to have nroff present despite it being in the V2 manual. Is it known whether nroff was primarily developed on the "trunk" MH PDP-11 or if it might have lived elsewhere, leading to it not getting swept along for the tapes cut for external users? - Matt G. From tuhs at tuhs.org Sun Feb 1 21:09:00 2026 From: tuhs at tuhs.org (Angelo Papenhoff via TUHS) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2026 12:09:00 +0100 Subject: [TUHS] Mix Utah V4 and the V4 Man Pages In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That would be the Dennis_V4 manual source which i've put onto a tape so you can load it on V4 and have a usable manual (i included nroff from v6 in my "distro" too), see my expanded guide at http://squoze.net/UNIX/v4/README aap > Actually, what is the "man.tap" available here? > > https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/Utah_v4/ > > I'm not somewhere I can dig around more than with od, certainly looks > like there are manpage sources in there. > > From the looks of it, nroff was missing from other, earlier versions > as well. For instance, the s1/s2 bits tapes don't appear to have nroff > present despite it being in the V2 manual. Is it known whether nroff > was primarily developed on the "trunk" MH PDP-11 or if it might have > lived elsewhere, leading to it not getting swept along for the tapes cut > for external users? > > - Matt G.