
Program design in the Unix environment (1984) [pdf] - vezzy-fnord
http://harmful.cat-v.org/cat-v/unix_prog_design.pdf
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jd3
Somewhat off-topic, but now that Uriel is dead, is there any central figure
tasking themselves with the future upkeep of cat-v?

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khm
Yes.

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bbanyc
"Unix" as we know it is a merger of two traditions - the spartan purism of
Research Unix and the rich user experience of PDP-10 OSes (Tenex, ITS, WAITS,
etc.). When DEC killed the PDP-10 a lot of the PDP-10 culture jumped to BSD,
bringing a few big programs (TeX and Emacs) and a few popular features
(command completion) which the Bell folks either wouldn't have thought to add
or didn't want.

This is one of many times when Rob Pike has complained about non-Research Unix
being "impure" (and also VT100s suck and the Blit is the pinnacle of GUI
design). He's right to a point, but an OS that enforced purity wouldn't have
had nearly the success Unix has had. Most people don't want pure, they want
useful, and purity can help usefulness or get in the way.

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codezero
Wow, they mention 9600 baud being common in 1984, but I remember having a
brand new 9600 baud modem around 1991, I guess we were late to the game :)

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dmckeon
> fast terminal lines

The speeds mentioned in that time and context are more likely for hard-wired
terminals rather than for modems.

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codezero
Ahhh yes. That makes sense. Thanks :)

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metaobject
It was interesting to see a reference to James Gosling's "UNIX Emacs" paper
(reference (3) at the end). I keep getting reminded every once in a while that
he did a lot of things before Java.

