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#unix

88 posts67 participants2 posts today

A Research #UNIX V2 beta from 1972 brought back to life.

This copy of Research UNIX is dated mid-1972 and sits between V1 and V2. Its kernel offers a 16 KiB (8K word) user core and is capable of executing UNIX V2 (0407) a.out formatted executables; however, none of the V2 syscalls are supported. It is the earliest surviving version of UNIX in machine-readable form.

It comes from the "s1" and "s2" tapes given to @DoctorWkt by Dennis Ritchie in 1997. The "s1" tape is a copy of the UNIX INIT DECtape containing the kernel and tools necessary for restoring the system from DECtapes, and the "s2" tape contains the rest of the system. github.com/TheBrokenPipe/Resea

A Research UNIX V2 beta from 1972 brought back to life - TheBrokenPipe/Research-UNIX-V2-Beta
GitHubGitHub - TheBrokenPipe/Research-UNIX-V2-Beta: A Research UNIX V2 beta from 1972 brought back to lifeA Research UNIX V2 beta from 1972 brought back to life - TheBrokenPipe/Research-UNIX-V2-Beta

This isn't Apple's fault, as it still has to follow local laws to sell its products. However, this is a huge #securityfail.

Even though Apple no longer fights for mindshare in the enterprise computing market as it once did, this will force companies that require secure data to either avoid iCloud-enabled apps altogether—which can be hard to do on a Mac—or stop using Macs altogether for anything that processes #PII, #PHI, or even proprietary #sourcecode.

In particular, many #softwaredevelopers prefer #MacBooks since they offer a mainstream user experience but run #Unix under the hood. If they can't use MacBooks anymore for security reasons, companies will have to rethink some of their long-standing laptop and desktop #cybersecurity practices.

bbc.com/news/articles/cgj54eq4

Apple's logo shown on its glass store front in New York.
www.bbc.comApple pulls data protection tool after UK government security rowCustomers' photos and documents stored online will no longer be protected by end-to-end encryption.

I know #Linux is a 🙄 punchline in the fedi, but still, how cool is it that I can open the Termux terminal emulator on my Android phone, type

ssh -t ourairports.com apachetop

and get a stream of webserver stats updating every few seconds on my phone screen?

I started on both Unix and the Internet in 1987, and the ease of connecting things still feels like magic to me.

Oh, also, forgot to mention that today at work, the machine we use to clock in and out decided to spend hours installing countless Windows 11 updates. It runs a bloated version of 11 on a touchscreen display, all just to let us scan our cards to clock in or out. That’s literally all it does, no extra features, no added functionality, just a glorified card reader held hostage by unnecessary updates.

Why can’t systems like this run Linux? If it did, we wouldn’t have to deal with endless update loops or bloated software. A lightweight Linux distro would handle this task effortlessly, without wasting time or resources. Instead, we’re stuck waiting for Windows to finish its nonsense while productivity takes a back seat.

At least this happened around lunchtime, so it didn’t completely derail the day. Still, it’s frustrating how much time gets wasted on systems that are overcomplicated for no reason. A little open-source thinking could save everyone the headache.

#Linux#Unix#Debian

Hackaday: UNIX Archaeology Turns Up 1972 “V2 Beta”. “In 1997 a set of DEC tapes were provided by Dennis Ritchie, as historical artifacts for those interested in the gestation of the UNIX operating system. The resulting archive files have recently been analysed by [Yfeng Gao], who has succeeded in recovering a working UNIX version from 1972. What makes it particularly interesting is that […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/02/21/hackaday-unix-archaeology-turns-up-1972-v2-beta/

ResearchBuzz: Firehose | Individual posts from ResearchBuzz · Hackaday: UNIX Archaeology Turns Up 1972 “V2 Beta” | ResearchBuzz: Firehose
More from ResearchBuzz: Firehose

"In 1997 a set of DEC tapes were provided by Dennis Ritchie, as historical artifacts for those interested in the gestation of the #UNIX operating system. The resulting archive files have recently been analysed by [Yfeng Gao], who has succeeded in recovering a working UNIX version from 1972. What makes it particularly interesting is that this is not a released version, instead it’s a work in progress sitting somewhere between versions 1 and 2. He’s therefore taken the liberty of naming it “V2 Beta”.

"If you happen to have a #PDP-11/20 you should be able to run this operating system for yourself, and for those of us without he’s provided information on which emulator will work. …"
hackaday.com/2025/02/20/unix-a

Hackaday · UNIX Archaeology Turns Up 1972 “V2 Beta”In 1997 a set of DEC tapes were provided by Dennis Ritchie, as historical artifacts for those interested in the gestation of the UNIX operating system. The resulting archive files have recently bee…

1972 UNIX V2 “beta” resurrected from old tapes

There's a number of backups of old DECtapes from Dennis Ritchie, which he gave to Warren Toomey in 1997. The tapes were eventually uploaded, and through analysis performed by Yufeng Gao, a lot of additional details, code, and software were recovered from them. A few days ago, Gao came back with the results from their analys of two more tapes, a

osnews.com/story/141769/1972-u

www.osnews.com1972 UNIX V2 “beta” resurrected from old tapes – OSnews