maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) (10/08/87)
In article <392@xios.XIOS.UUCP> greg@sdn.UUCP (Greg Franks) writes:
\
\We just had a talk from Susam L. Rosenbaum from AT&T. She was one of
\the originals on the Multics project. Daemon is term from that system.
\It is NOT an acronym. The guy that created those little processes that
\run around behind your back doing useful things was into greek
\mythology. I believe Multics predates TOPS-10 or whatever.
\
\By the way, the name 'cat' did not originate from 'conCATenate' despite
\what the manuals say...... (Hint: its a pun on GCOS).
\
\--
\Greg Franks XIOS Systems Corporation, 1600 Carling Avenue,
\(613) 725-5411 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1Z 8R8
\uunet!mnetor!dciem!nrcaer!xios!greg "Vermont ain't flat!"
... the hint isn't enough, I guess, so... ?
To continue, what does [nt]roff stand for ? (I believe 'off' is something
like 'output format filter')
--
### -------- | Maarten Litmaath
# |$...@.+### Hack | maart@cs.vu.nl
##+..c../| scene | Escaped University - Amsterdam
-------- |davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) (10/10/87)
In article <1129@ark.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes: >In article <392@xios.XIOS.UUCP> greg@sdn.UUCP (Greg Franks) writes: >\ >\By the way, the name 'cat' did not originate from 'conCATenate' despite >\what the manuals say...... (Hint: its a pun on GCOS). >\ >... the hint isn't enough, I guess, so... ? >To continue, what does [nt]roff stand for ? (I believe 'off' is something >like 'output format filter') >-- GCOS was an operating system on the General Electric something-or-other computer I believe... I still don't see what "cat" has to do with it though. "roff" was the original program, and stood for "RunOFF". I assume the "t" stands for "typesetter". I've always wondered what the "n" was for though ("non-typesetter"?). --Dave Curry
esf00@amdahl.amdahl.com (Elliott S. Frank) (10/10/87)
GECOS (later GCOS after GE got out of the computer business) was the
General Electric Comprehensive Operating System.
I don't get how `cat' is a pun on GECOS.
--
Elliott Frank ...!{hplabs,ames,sun}!amdahl!esf00 (408) 746-6384
or ....!{bnrmtv,drivax,hoptoad}!amdahl!esf00
[the above opinions are strictly mine, if anyone's.]
[the above signature may or may not be repeated, depending upon some
inscrutable property of the mailer-of-the-week.]ritchie@hpldola.HP.COM (Dave Ritchie) (10/12/87)
>"roff" was the original program, and stood for "RunOFF". I assume the >"t" stands for "typesetter". I've always wondered what the "n" was >for though ("non-typesetter"?). > >--Dave Curry >---------- I think that the 'n' stands for new (wasn't there a roff in V6? or I am completely off base?) OK... what is the pun in 'cat'? I started out on GCOS (my high school timeshared an Honeywell 635?) but that was many moons ago. Dave Ritchie hplabs!hp-lsd!ritchie
rde@eagle.ukc.ac.uk (R.D.Eager) (10/12/87)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: >To continue, what does [nt]roff stand for ? (I believe 'off' is something >like 'output format filter') I always understood that `roff' was a contraction of the name `runoff', from the name of the DEC program on which `roff' was based (it being far too long a command name for UNIX in its own right :-) ). The original version was in PDP-11 assembler, but it was rewritten in C; this (n)ew version was called `nroff' (new roff). Then the typesetter version naturally got called (t)roff. Put us out of our misery. What was the origin of cat?? -- Bob Eager rde@ukc.UUCP ...!mcvax!ukc!rde Phone: +44 227 764000 ext 7589
daveb@geac.UUCP (Dave Collier-Brown) (10/13/87)
GECOS: General Electric Computer Operating System.
GCOS: General Comprehensive Operating Supervisor,
God's Chosen Operating System.
--dave (GCOS is alive and living on the riviera) c-b
--
David Collier-Brown. {mnetor|yetti|utgpu}!geac!daveb
Geac Computers International Inc., | Computer Science loses its
350 Steelcase Road,Markham, Ontario, | memory (if not its mind)
CANADA, L3R 1B3 (416) 475-0525 x3279 | every 6 months.bill@trotter.usma.edu (Bill Gunshannon) (10/13/87)
In article <748@ea.ecn.purdue.edu>, davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) writes: > > GCOS was an operating system on the General Electric something-or-other > computer I believe... I still don't see what "cat" has to do with it > though. Having looked thru my more ancient UNIX documentation I find on the page covering troff(1) the following passage: .....for printing on a Graphics Systems C/A/T phototypesetter; further down under the -g option it says: Prepare output for a GCOS phototypsetter ..... So it looks like we are talking about two different GCOS's. And it would appear from the first line that this is where "cat" might have come from. Now, lets have someone who really knows come back with the definitive answer. :-) bill gunshannon UUCP: {philabs}\ US SNAIL: Martin Marietta Data Systems {phri } >!trotter.usma.edu!bill USMA, Bldg 600, Room 26 {sunybcs}/ West Point, NY 10996 RADIO: KB3YV PHONE: WORK (914)446-7747 AX.25: KB3YV @ K3RLI PHONE: HOME (914)565-5256
hartzell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (George Hartzell) (10/14/87)
In article <3360@eagle.ukc.ac.uk> rde@ukc.ac.uk (R.D.Eager) writes: > >Put us out of our misery. What was the origin of cat?? How about conCATenate? g. George Hartzell (303) 492-4535 MCD Biology, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309 hartzell@Boulder.Colorado.EDU ..!{hao,nbires}!boulder!hartzell
rwa@auvax.UUCP (Ross Alexander) (10/15/87)
<void where prohibited by law> Someone (I didn't bother to include the article, as you may have noticed by now ;-) mentioned that `roff' was originally written in pdp11 assembly. That would be Joe Ossana's code, I suppose. But that drove the CAT photo- typsetter, and would thus be the first version of `troff'. I remember compiling `roff' in early 1975, on the UofWaterloo's H6050 under GCOS. It was written in B, the predecessor of C, and I am very sure of that since I was at the time writing a (not very sophisticated) run-time profiling package and the canonical test case was to compile roff with the profiling turned on and then check that the resulting code ran correctly (which it indeed did, eventually). I shudder to think of that package (the profiler, I mean; roff was ok) - it modified the object code on the fly, inserting instructions & generally violated all the rules of good programming. I suppose it's a dusty deck now, assuming it exists at all. -- Ross Alexander @ Athabasca University, <the known world>!ihnp4!alberta!auvax!rwa
mac3n@babbage.acc.virginia.edu (Alex Colvin) (10/15/87)
GECOS: General Electric Comprehensive Operating System. GCOS: When the large systems division was sold to Honeywell, they dropped the E. There used to be GCOSs (GCoi) at Bell. The gcos field in etc/passwd is supposed to have your gcos account name. edit runoff was a text formatting command at Dartmouth in the late 60's. This was replaced by runoff. The latter was UNIcized to roff. AT Dartmouth it's now off. on the early GE/Dartmouth timesharing system, CAT printed a catalogue of files (like ls) and LIST printed a file (like cat). for that matter, the nucleus of the OS was the EXEC, and the user interface the MONITOR. On DECs it was the other way around.
marty1@houdi.UUCP (M.BRILLIANT) (10/16/87)
In article <1000@trotter.usma.edu>, bill@trotter.usma.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes: > In article <748@ea.ecn.purdue.edu>, davy@ea.ecn.purdue.edu (Dave Curry) writes: > > > > GCOS was an operating system on the General Electric something-or-other > > computer I believe... I still don't see what "cat" has to do with it > > though. > > Having looked thru my more ancient UNIX documentation I find on the page > covering troff(1) the following passage: > > .....for printing on a Graphics Systems C/A/T phototypesetter; > > further down under the -g option it says: > > Prepare output for a GCOS phototypsetter ..... > > > So it looks like we are talking about two different GCOS's. And it would > appear from the first line that this is where "cat" might have come from. > > Now, lets have someone who really knows come back with the definitive > answer. :-) Sorry, I can only say definitively that that's not the answer. Before the C/A/T typesetter became available to troff users at Bell Labs, all troff output went to a typesetter that ran under the GCOS system at Murray Hill. Later documentation says the -g option is for the "Murray Hill Computation Center phototypesetter." So the so-called GCOS phototypesetter is not a different GCOS, and the cat command was named before C/A/T and not after it. M. B. Brilliant Marty AT&T-BL HO 3D-520 (201)-949-1858 Holmdel, NJ 07733 ihnp4!houdi!marty1
john@frog.UUCP (John Woods, Software) (10/16/87)
In article <1129@ark.cs.vu.nl>, maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes: > To continue, what does [nt]roff stand for ? (I believe 'off' is something > like 'output format filter') Multics had "runoff" (quite a reasonable name). UNIX Version 6 had "roff" (small runoff, one would think). UNIX Version 7 had "nroff" (new roff) and "troff" (typesetter roff). -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu "Cutting the space budget really restores my faith in humanity. It eliminates dreams, goals, and ideals and lets us get straight to the business of hate, debauchery, and self-annihilation." -- Johnny Hart