Retrocomputing Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [unix]

For questions about the Unix operating system.

Initially intended for use inside the Bell System, AT&T licensed Unix to outside parties from the late 1970s, leading to a variety of both academic and commercial variants of Unix from vendors such as the University of California, Berkeley (BSD), Microsoft (Xenix), IBM (AIX) and Sun Microsystems (Solaris).

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How did people use ed?

ed was the standard Unix editor, and is present on all POSIX certified systems (though it's not installed by default in Debian, FWIW). It's a line editor (meaning, you can't see all the text at a time. You query line numbers and it spits it back,…
Unix
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Why does UNIX ed not have a prompt by default

The line editor ed in UNIX/Linux has a "command mode" and an "insert mode" and there is no visual way to tell which mode you are in. However, there is a -p option that causes it to display a prompt when you are in command mode, which is very…
JoelFan
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What is the simplest UNIX system with a MMU?

I was recently looking at a Motorola 68010 and 68451 that have been in some ESD foam on a shelf for a very, very long time. Now, things are all so huge in memory, but BSD4.4-Lite can run in only 256k for the kernel with networking…
b degnan
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Where did /usr/mdec come from?

On UNIX, the boot code is traditionally found in the directory /usr/mdec. Some modern UNIX variants keep this tradition up (e.g. OpenBSD) while others have changed the directory layout (e.g. FreeBSD). I was able to find a /usr/mdec directory in…
fuz
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Unix on the H11?

I'm curious if anyone is aware of actual uses of Unix on the Heathkit H11? I don't see any technical reason a memory-expanded H11 couldn't run Unix, but can't find any examples of it doing so.
Maury Markowitz
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9
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What environment was Coherent developed with?

Coherent was a Unix clone for IBM compatibles Mark Williams Company produced and sold in the 1980s and early 1990s. What environment and tools was Coherent developed with? Was it cross-developed on another Unix system?
Paolo Amoroso
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Unix: Why was five (SysV) released *after* seven (V7)?

AT&T released UNIX Version 7 (seven) in 1979. The same company released UNIX System V (five) in 1983. Why did the later release have a lower number?
DrSheldon
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How to get a list of processes on UNIX V7?

I am running UNIX V7 using the SimH emulator. I am trying to get a list of processes using ps, but I am getting the following error: No namelist So I tried the following fix (from this post): cd / ln rl2unix unix But now when I do ps, I get the…
user4938
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"ps" returning "No namelist" on UNIX V7

I am using this emulator for UNIX V7: http://www.jbox.dk/sanos/pdp11.htm When I type ps to get a list of processes, I get the following error:
user4916
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Can you get the file descriptors of a process in UNIX V7?

In Linux, if I want to get the file descriptors of a process, I would go to the following directory: /proc//fd But in UNIX V7, the /proc directory does not exist.
user7681202
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Was job control supported in UNIX V7 or earlier?

Linux supports job control, i.e. you can start a process in the background, or make a foreground process run in the background, or make a background process run in the foreground, etc. Did any V7 or earlier version of UNIX support such job control?
user7681202
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Does UNIX V7 have a built-in file editor?

I can use cat to display the content of a file in UNIX V7, but I don't know how can I edit the content of a file. Is there a built-in file editor in UNIX V7?
user4938
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