Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site kitty.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!sunybcs!kitty!peter From: peter@kitty.UUCP (Peter DaSilva) Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: Accusing Bell of NIH (formerly Re: useless digest reference) Message-ID: <277@kitty.UUCP> Date: Thu, 8-Aug-85 10:57:09 EDT Article-I.D.: kitty.277 Posted: Thu Aug 8 10:57:09 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 9-Aug-85 04:42:52 EDT References: <64@brl-tgr.ARPA> <311@baylor.UUCP> <120@desint.UUCP> Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY Lines: 62 > especially now that experience has had a chance to prove Berkeley's decision > wrong? It has? News to me. The current usage seems to be: BSD USG mail mailx binmail mail And what's so terrible about "nmail", whuch has the advantage of being reasonable mnemonic for New MAIL? > (2) Count on Berkeley to provide two ways of doing things when one would do. > '~.' is a standard exit for a lot of programs (e.g., cu, tip), as is '.'. > Providing options confuses people without adding significant functionality. But '.' is the standard exit for old mail. I'm using connect (variant of cu) to call this system. I've hung up a couple of times by forgetting to type "~~.". Why not keep the compatibility eith your own software? > (3) The USG TTY driver is a clean, orthogonal design that is easy to get to > do what you want. You've never seen a posting of "how do I get an 8-bit > data path with ^S/^Q flow control" (needed for many laser printers) for USG > because it's so easy. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet for the future. Now that I've found the well-hidden documentation on the USG driver I have to agree it's orthogonal. Overloading EOF and QUIT as MIN and TIME was a bad mistake, since it makes the intuitive transform between V7 and relatives and SIII and relatives a total loss... and adds extra stuff you have to save and restore when changing modes. > > Like it or no, at the time Bell came > >out with System III, THE standard system in the real world was V7. > > THE standard system in the educational world was V7. The standard system > in the rest of the world was RSX, or TOPS-20, or OS/370. The standard UNIX system. Ever hear of Microsoft? Or Venturcom? Or Unisoft? That's a straw man & a very bad argument. > >There > >is no good excuse for making SIII incompatible with V7. > > Untrue. There are frequently excellent COMMERCIAL reasons to drop > compatibility or at least reduce it in the interests of making use of what > one has learned. (PDP-8? What's that?) But is this the case here? You say yes. I say no. Microsoft's Xenix 3.0 is compatible with V7 and looks like SIII. It's the most common UNIX system on small machines. > >Or for > >making SV incompatible with SIII. > > They didn't. You're right. I was using a Unisoft SIII and Xenix 3.0 when I said this. Both were V7 with some cosmetic changes. I apologise for this misconception, however understandable. > -- > Geoff Kuenning