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@thalia@discuss.systems
Computer science PhD student at the University of Utah, researching compiler verification with @regehr.
UNIX historian and archivist.
Occasional Rust standard library contributor.
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My workshop at LRC on playing with UNIX V4 was a great success!
Everyone loved the teletype and terminal. In the manner of the day, I gave manuals to teach the system and ed (@ed1conf), and we now have a cohort of new ed users. A few groups solved or got close to solving my challenge of backporting the obfuscated mullender.c program from V7 to V4. Surprisingly with a dozen or so people on at once, UNIX handled the load fantastically.
This Friday at noon PDT, I will be speaking about UNIX V4 for @lindsey's Languages, Systems, and Data Seminar! I'm excited to demonstrate programming with a teletype, as that hasn't fit into my other talks.
If you're interested, email (see my site) or DM me for a Zoom invite.
Abstract: We recently recovered UNIX V4 from a 1974 magnetic tape at the University of Utah. This version of the UNIX operating system, thought to have been lost, was the 19th copy distributed to the public, just months after the first public announcement. It was originally acquired by Martin Newell while managing the computer graphics laboratory, and it was likely connected to his foundational research in procedural modeling and the famous Utah teapot. UNIX V4 was the culmination of the effort to rewrite the kernel in C, made possible by the introduction of structs to the language, and has shaped all modern operating systems. In this talk, I put this artifact into context within the larger history of UNIX and demonstrate period-appropriate software development with a paper-printing teletype and replica PDP-11.
@ed1conf I will be demonstrating the standard text editor with a teletype :).
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