jsgray@watmath.UUCP (Jan Gray) (11/13/86)
These are found among the other UNIX commands on the cover of the Oct. 1984 BSTJ (or should I say AT&T BLTJ...). Would anyone from research care to say what these commands do? Thanks! Jan Gray jsgray@watmath University of Waterloo 519-885-5921
gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (11/13/86)
In article <3347@watmath.UUCP> jsgray@watmath.UUCP (Jan Gray) writes: >say what these commands do? "asa" is a standard UNIX utility for post-processing Fortran "print" output; it uses the first-column "carriage control" character to map the text file to a corresponding conventional (e.g. ASCII control sequence) file suitable for sending to a "dumb" printer. I don't know what the others are, but could give some good guesses for most of them.
ark@alice.UUCP (11/14/86)
The number of byte-years in a file is the number of bytes in the file times the number of years since it has last changed. The "byteyears" command gives you this information for files and looks recursively at the contents of directories. It is useful for gaining hints as to what files might well be deleted. Seal and ship are parts of the software distribution stuff described in my article "Automatic Software Distribution" in the USENIX conference proceedings, June 1984 [Salt Lake City].
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/15/86)
The stuff on the BLTJ cover was probably a listing of the commands on
one of the Bell research systems.
Byteyears reports the product of a file's age and its size.
Ship and seal are parts of an automatic-software-distribution-over-network
package; ship sends stuff out, seal packages stuff for shipment (adding a
checksum and possibly encryption).
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henrymartin@minster.UUCP (11/15/86)
In article <3347@watmath.UUCP> jsgray@watmath.UUCP (Jan Gray) writes: >These are found among the other UNIX commands on the cover of the Oct. 1984 >BSTJ (or should I say AT&T BLTJ...). Would anyone from research care to >say what these commands do? > >Thanks! >Jan Gray jsgray@watmath University of Waterloo 519-885-5921 Our machine has asa (isn't it standard 7th edition?), the man page says: asa - interpret ANSI Fortran carriage control seal, and ship form part of Andrew Koenig's `Automatic Software Distribution' system (see the paper of that name - I'm afraid I don't have a reference) I'm especially interested to find out what `byteyears' is for! Martin
geoff@desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) (11/17/86)
In article <7323@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: > Byteyears reports the product of a file's age and its size. Sounds useful. So useful, in fact, that I whipped up a version and posted it to net.sources. Look for it there. -- Geoff Kuenning {hplabs,ihnp4}!trwrb!desint!geoff
mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (System Mangler) (11/22/86)
In article <7323@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: > The stuff on the BLTJ cover was probably a listing of the commands on > one of the Bell research systems. Maybe they got "clap" from us (clap was our VLSI layout language circa 1980). Don Speck speck@vlsi.caltech.edu {seismo,rutgers,ames}!cit-vax!speck
decot@hpisoa1.HP.COM (Dave Decot) (11/23/86)
> > The stuff on the BLTJ cover was probably a listing of the commands on > > one of the Bell research systems. > > Maybe they got "clap" from us... Apparently, some promiscuous coding practices were used. Dave Decot hpda!decot
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/25/86)
> Maybe they got "clap" from us (clap was our VLSI layout language circa 1980).
Could be. My guess was that "clap" was something related to animation work.
As I recall, in conventional filmmaking the "clapper" is the little hinged-
board gadget that gets banged together at the start of each scene; its role
is to provide a timing mark to synchronize sound and image, plus putting
things like the scene number on the image. (I'm not sure how much it's
used now, since I think many movies now have the sound done later, rather
than at the time the image is being shot.) This sort of bookkeeping is a
serious issue for animation groups as well, since a non-trivial animation
project requires keeping huge volumes of data organized.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henrygwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn ) (11/25/86)
In article <7348@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >> Maybe they got "clap" from us (clap was our VLSI layout language circa 1980). >Could be. My guess was that "clap" was something related to animation work. Well, if we're going to flood the net with guesses, then perhaps "clap" was a precursor to "crabs"? (Fill the DMD screen with slowly growing blotches?)
dmr@dutoit.UUCP (11/26/86)
Clap is a rendering language done primarily by Rob Pike. The manual begins, "Clap is a language for putting interesting things on the other side of color CRTs. The language is largely declarative; it is used to define, orient, and place objects in space, rather than move them.... The units of the language are numbers, triples [points, RGB values], transformations, surfaces, objects, lights, and a camera." Objects include the interesting quadrics, and surfaces have a variety of optical properties. The major work in the genre is a ~1min movie of a dancing robot. (The lack of movement was finessed by an undocumented inbetweening program.) I think that finishes off the question except for bwmovie. Probably it is one of several animation programs for the 5620 DMD, but I can't track it down. Dennis Ritchie