donn@sdchema.UUCP (12/06/83)
Only one respondent to my question ('What happened to Dennis Ritchie's replacement for the tty driver?') had firm enough information that they didn't mind their name being associated with it in public... This respondent said: The stream character IO system is alive, and is being wondered over by the unix development lab. I would not hazard a guess as to what system it will appear in. No lawyers had a chance to nix it for any BSD, since it wasn't offered to them (either of "them"). ... I don't think I said anything secret. Further non-secret facts: the system run by our organization is known as the Eighth Edition system, usually solecized to V8, but is certainly not going to be distributed under that name or any other. The stream, or coroutine, IO system is a design for writing IO processing modules. At the moment, there are two modules for doing tty handling; one is like v7 and the other is like the UCB "new tty" stuff. A paper describing the details is scheduled for publication in a new special BSTJ issue on Unix to appear next year. (However the journal will doubtless have a new name, because will be no Bell System next year.) Dennis Since the stream IO system was not offered to Berkeley, I assume that the 'descriptor wrapping' proposals for 4.2/3 BSD are distinct and would contain no Eighth Edition code. I stand corrected of my paranoia about lawyers: Mark Horton's new curses package is unavailable as a result of the decision of a USG department head, not due to lawyers. Does anyone else have any information (or misinformation) to add? Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn 32 52' 30"N 117 14' 25"W (619) 452-4016 sdcsvax!sdchema!donn@noscvax