Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!nuchat!uhnix1!sugar!peter
From: peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Why UNIX?
Message-ID: <1926@sugar.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 88 11:03:19 GMT
References: <908@sandino.quintus.UUCP> <1902@sugar.UUCP> <5039@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Sugar Land UNIX - Houston, TX
Lines: 55

In article <5039@cup.portal.com>, doug-merritt@cup.portal.com writes:
> Peter da Silva claims that the Version 6 Unix shell is superior to
> the CLI and all of the various Amiga shells, and asks if we remember
> it.

A good summary.

> Yes, I remember it quite clearly (I learned C by making various
> enhancements to it...arghhhh...), and I'd have to disagree. It supported
> pipes, IO redirection, wildcarding via the external program "glob"
> run as a separate process, and background processes. Not much else.

Part of the niceness of the old V6 shell was due to the fact that it ran
on V6, but while we're going down the list you better add that it supported
IO redirection anywhere on the command line (as opposed to just before
the first argument), executed shell scripts transparently (none of this
Execute foobar stuff), and so on.

> A friend (Ross Harvey) and I did a 100% reimplementation of it in a single
> night of hacking around 1978 or so. There just wasn't much to it.

No, there wasn't much to it, bu what there was was pretty well put together.

> Peter, I'm pretty sure you're thinking of experimental versions of
> Bill's C-shell, or possibly even an enhanced V6 shell as done by either
> me, Ross Harvey, or Bob Toxen.

You mean "psh"? No, I'm talking about the shell that Comp Center had on all
the CC machines.

> If memory serves me correctly, you arrived at Berkely just before v7 was
> introduced, right?

Yeh. Actually, the Comp Center held on to Version 6 for about a year after
that. They even had a Version 5 system while I was there...

> (Heh, heh...bet you didn't
> know some of us remember you from way back when! "The Shadow Knows".  I ran
> into you at a Con once and was amused that you hadn't the slightest idea who
> I was nor how I knew who you were. Hint: remember Ken Arnold? Yes, I thought
> you would.)

Yeh, I run into Ken now and then. Last time was at Usenix in Dallas (where I
wore my "Only on the Amiga" pin :->).

I guess you just didn't make an impression on me. Not enough personality :->.

> Anyway, what feature of the v6 shell are you claiming was so wonderful?

The whole gestalt of sh and UNIX was just so much more Zen than the CLI,
and none of the Amiga shells will run without the CLI.
-- 
-- Peter da Silva      `-_-'      ...!hoptoad!academ!uhnix1!sugar!peter
-- "Have you hugged your U wolf today?" ...!bellcore!tness1!sugar!peter
-- Disclaimer: These aren't mere opinions, these are *values*.