[comp.sources.wanted] Ken Greer's newcsh for SPARC environment

rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R. P. C. Rodgers) (09/12/89)

Dear Netlanders,

On our former Sun 3 facility, we quite happily used the enhanced csh (known
in some circles as newcsh) sent out as a batch of diffs to the 4.2 BSD csh
by Ken Greer of HP Labs.  We also have tcsh, but many users prefer newcsh,
which simply extends the csh by adding autologout after a user-specifiable
amount of idle time, command name completion, and file name completion.

Ken doesn't seem to be at HP any more (where are you?).  Does anyone know
of an updated version of this program, perhaps built upon the 4.3 BSD csh?

Many thanks in advance for any help.

Cheerio, Rick Rodgers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.                  Telephone:
Statistical Mechanics of Biomolecules   (415)476-8910 (work)
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry  (415)664-0560 (home)

kg@elan.elan.com (Ken Greer) (09/12/89)

From article <11820@cgl.ucsf.EDU>, by rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R Rodgers):
> 
> On our former Sun 3 facility, we quite happily used the enhanced csh (known
> in some circles as newcsh) sent out as a batch of diffs to the 4.2 BSD csh
> by Ken Greer of HP Labs.  We also have tcsh, but many users prefer newcsh,
> which simply extends the csh by adding autologout after a user-specifiable
> amount of idle time, command name completion, and file name completion.

The file name and command completion and autologout code
were all in my original Csh mods.  I called it tcsh at HP Labs.
After posting, the mods magically appeared all over the place, one being
in /usr/new/newcsh on SUN-3's.  It now appears that newcsh is honest to
god /bin/csh on SPARCstation 1's.  You have to do a "set filec", though,
to make file name completion work.

>Ken doesn't seem to be at HP any more (where are you?).

I'm alive and well at...

Ken Greer  Elan Computer Group, Inc. 888 Villa St. 3rd Floor Mt View CA 94041
Phone:     415-964-2200
Internet:  kg@elan.com
UUCP:      {ames,hplabs,uunet}!elan!kg

rodgers@clausius.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R. P. C. Rodgers) (09/13/89)

kg@elan.elan.com (Ken Greer) writes:

>From article <11820@cgl.ucsf.EDU>, by rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu (R Rodgers):
>> 
>> On our former Sun 3 facility, we quite happily used the enhanced csh (known
>> in some circles as newcsh) sent out as a batch of diffs to the 4.2 BSD csh
>> by Ken Greer...

>The file name and command completion and autologout code
>were all in my original Csh mods.  I called it tcsh at HP Labs.
>After posting, the mods magically appeared all over the place, one being
>in /usr/new/newcsh on SUN-3's.  It now appears that newcsh is honest to
>god /bin/csh on SPARCstation 1's...

> Ken Greer, Elan Associates...

Ken,

Glad to hear you are alive and well at Elan.  Your newcsh certainly was
a valued contribution to the user community, as evidenced by the rapidity
of its spread. However, the csh on the Sun is not *quite* your newcsh,
as it does not support command name completion.  My left pinky still reaches
out to hit the escape key, but to no avail 8^(.  If you ever build
command completion back into the latest shell, let us know!

Cheerio, Rick Rodgers
R. P. C. Rodgers, M.D.         (415)476-8910 (work) 664-0560 (home)
UCSF Laurel Heights Campus     UUCP: ...ucbvax.berkeley.edu!cca.ucsf.edu!rodgers
3333 California St., Suite 102 ARPA: rodgers@maxwell.mmwb.ucsf.edu
San Francisco CA 94118 USA     BITNET: rodgers@ucsfcca

guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (09/13/89)

>The file name and command completion and autologout code
>were all in my original Csh mods.  I called it tcsh at HP Labs.
>After posting, the mods magically appeared all over the place, one being
>in /usr/new/newcsh on SUN-3's.  It now appears that newcsh is honest to
>god /bin/csh on SPARCstation 1's.  You have to do a "set filec", though,
>to make file name completion work.

Some form of file name (but *NOT* command) completion appeared in the
4.3BSD C shell; I don't know if it is derived from the "tcsh" code or
not.  That form requires that you do a "set filec" to make file name
completion work.  I don't think it contains autologout code, either.

In either SunOS 3.x, for some value of "x", or SunOS 4.0 (I forget which
at this point), Sun picked up the 4.3BSD C shell and made it the
standard C shell in SunOS.  That is "honest to god /bin/csh" on most, if
not all, Suns running 4.x (and maybe 3.x for some value of "x"), not
just on the SS1.  It is possible that the SS1 runs some other variant of
the C shell as its "/bin/csh" (or "/usr/bin/csh" - "/bin" being a
symlink to "/usr/bin" in 4.x), but I suspect it's unlikely; I think it,
like Sun-2s, Sun-3s, Sun-4s, other SPARCSystems, and Sun386i's, has the
4.3BSD C shell (with some other additions, like "hardpaths") as its
"/bin/csh".

I can't speak for "/usr/new/newcsh" with certainty, but I suspect that
if you had such a file on your Sun-3, it was dropped in by some site
administrator - I don't think there ever *was* a "/usr/new" distributed
as part of SunOS, much less a "/usr/new/newcsh".  It's certainly not
there in 4.x.... 

jlo@elan.elan.com (Jeff Lo) (09/15/89)

In article <2442@auspex.auspex.com> guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:
>Some form of file name (but *NOT* command) completion appeared in the
>4.3BSD C shell; I don't know if it is derived from the "tcsh" code or
>not.  That form requires that you do a "set filec" to make file name
>completion work.  I don't think it contains autologout code, either.

If I remember right, back when I was at Berkeley, a guy there named
Ed Wang rewrote a chunk of csh, including the filename completion
sometime around 1984-5, his changes being folded into the 4.3 BSD
csh.  So I imagine the Sun and 4.3 code is not derived from Ken Greer's
code.
-- 
Jeff Lo, Elan Computer Group, Inc.
jlo@elan.com, ..!{ames,uunet}!elan!jlo
888 Villa Street, Third Floor, Mountain View, CA 94041, 415-964-2200