Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Unix version numbers...
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From: seebs@plethora.net (Peter Seebach)
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There's a charming quote about Unix version numbers, to the effect of
Unix versions are numbered in an intuitive sequence: 7, III, 4.2, ...
but I no longer have a copy of this. Anyone got a source?
-s
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Copyright 1999, All rights reserved. Peter Seebach / seebs@plethora.net
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######
From: Phil Shirley
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Unix version numbers...
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 12:54:36 +0100
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Peter Seebach wrote:
> There's a charming quote about Unix version numbers, to the effect of
> Unix versions are numbered in an intuitive sequence: 7, III, 4.2, ...
> but I no longer have a copy of this. Anyone got a source?
The different versions of the UN*X brand operating system are numbered in a
logical sequence: 5, 6, 7, 2, 2.9, 3, 4.0, III, 4.1, V, 4.2, V.2, and 4.3.
Don't know the source, but it's in....
UN*X History
By Alan Filipski
The UN*X brand operating system was writting by two computer science researchers
in a closet in the attic of a famous research laboratory (The Labs) in the late
1960s. The authors had
complete freedom to design an operating system according to their own wishes
without management constraints. This was because everyone at The Labs, including
the management, thought
they were janitors who spent their time in the closet wringing out mops or
something.
The first version of the UN*X brand operating system was a game that simulated
the gravitational motion of all known planets and satellites of our solar system.
Soon such things as a file
system and user procedures were grafted onto it. It ran on a PDP-7 computer that
someone had stored in the closet and forgotten about.
Later the authors made the mistake of drawing attention to themselves by asking
the management for a larger computer. At this, the management took the operating
system and, supposing it
to be something of use only to hippies (or closet hippies), sent it University of
California at Berkeley.
It may be coincidental, but at the about the same time cases of a peculiar
compulsive mental disorder known as Unirexia Nervosa were first noted in San
Francisco, Calif. area. The
symptoms of this disorder are the interjection of nonsense words such as grep,
awk, runrun, and nohup by the victim into his or her speech; the misuse of
ordinary words such as cat and lint;
and the avoidance of the use of uppercase letters.
Advanced cases of Unirexia Nervosa have been found at many major universities
throughout the U.S., where youths with pasty complexions and sunken eyes can be
found late at night
subsisting on diet pop, glaring fanatically at CRT's, and mumbling about "one
more bugs". Since for the most part this malady has been confined to university
students, it has not cause great
public alarm. But recently there have been reports of regular people contracting
the disease, even some who hold otherwise respectable positions in industry. The
mode of transmission of
Unirexia Nervosa is not known, but it is thought to have something to do with
beards.
Members of the UN*X community have developed a novel and effective means of
communication with each other. Suppose a user named Athol at Epizootic Systems in
Cupertino, Calif.,
wishes to send an electronic mail message to his friend Elba at Perjorative
Systems Inc. in Palo Alto, Calif. Although their computers do not communicate
directly, they message may be
passed via intermediate links. Athol would merely type:
mail ihnp4!allegra!ucbvax!seismo!decvax!cbosgd!ucbvax!pejor!elba
and then enter the text of his message. This electronic mail would appear at
Elba's terminal either within two days of the time it takes to propagate a
telephone signal 73 times between the
East and West Coasts of the U.S., whichever is greater.
Although many people think the word "UN*X" is an acronym (or even a homonym), the
word actually originated in the following manner. When management in The Labs
noticed the strange
machine running in the closet, they stopped the first technical-looking type they
saw in the hall and asked him what it was. As fate would have it, it was not a
technical type at all but a
member of a lost Australian aboriginal tribe who had been wandering the halls of
The Lab for years without drawing attention. The fellow did not understand
English and believed they were
asking him to haul the computer away. He replied, "UN*X(tm)," which is aboriginal
for "Not my job, man." The rest is history.
The different versions of the UN*X brand operating system are numbered in a
logical sequence: 5, 6, 7, 2, 2.9, 3, 4.0, III, 4.1, V, 4.2, V.2, and 4.3.
The C programming language is descended from the languages B and BCPL (short for
Bucephalus, Alexander the Great's horse). It is a highly structured language. The
following structured
program, for example, is well-known to all C language programmers, and prints a
well-known message at the terminal (try it!):
#define TWENTYNINE 29
int ll, L1, l0, h_1,q,h1,h;
main(){
for(putchar(putchar((h=7)*10+2)+TWENTYNINE);
l0?putchar(l0):!h_1;
putchar (ll),L1==2?ll=' ':0){
L1++==0?(ll=l0=54<<1):
ll=='l'&&L1<3?(ll+=1L|
1L<<1L,l0=0)
:L1==sizeof L1&&ll==' '
?(ll=19+h1):(q-=h1);
L1==5?ll-=8:q&& &
h_1;L1==sizeof ll+2?
(ll+=3):1L;ll==(h<<4)+2
&&L1!=6?(ll=ll-
6):(h1=100L);L1!=1L<<3?q--
:(h_1=ll=h1);
}
printf("%s\n",0);
}
Note the absence of goto statements in the program. Also note how the portability
of the program is enhanced by judicious use of the C preprocessor and the sizeof
operator. The
dereferenced null pointer at the end is used to make sure the output is properly
terminated.
The most commonly used UN*X interactive command language is known as the Bourne
shell. (This shell was recently completely rewritten and is now available as the
Bourne-again shell.)
The shell provides a uniform syntax by which the user can interact with the
operating system kernel and utility programs. The utility programs in turn accept
a uniform syntax of command line
arguments and options. Typical examples of utilities are the ar utility, which
requires single-letter options that are lumped together in a specified order with
an introductory minus sign, before
the other arguments; and the find utility, which has multiletter options that
cannot be lumped together, each of which must be preceded by a minus sign and
which follow any other arguments.
Besides being used interactively, the shell itself may be used as a programming
language. Although programs written in shell are slower than equivalent programs
written in C, they are shorter
and easier to read and debug. For example, to add 1 to a variable a in C one
would have to write:
a = a + 1;
or:
a += 1;
or even:
a++;
In shell, one need only write:
a = `expr $a + 1`
where it is essential to have spaces around the + sign to use the $ sign only
before the righthand occurrence of the variable a, and to use the backward quote
character instead of the
common single quote. When UN*X brand operating system programmers want to develop
an application quickly, they often use the shell because of this convenient
syntax.
Security is a very important issue in the UN*X brand operating system world. The
typical UN*X brand operating system source licensee is living in a fool's
paradise, little realizing that on the
streets of every major city wander broken hackers who would kill for access to
kernel source code. These people may be down on their luck, but they are not
stupid. As you read these
words, there are people who but for lack of a quarter would be whistling uucp
protocols at 1200 baud to your modem from a downtown pay phone.
Therefore, the prudent administrator should be aware of common techniques used to
breach UN*X brand operating system security. The most widely known and practiced
attack on the
security of the UN*X brand operating system is elegant in its simplicity. The
perpetrator simply hangs around the system console until the operator leaves to
get a drink or go to the
bathroom. The intruder lunges for the console and types rm -rf / before anyone
can pry his or her hands of the keyboard. Amateur efforts are characterized by
typing in such things as ls or
pwd. A skilled UN*X brand operating system security expert would laugh at such
attempts.
The Trojan horse strategy is used in many attempts to defeat the security of a
UN*X brand operating system installation. The following scenario is typical: The
UN*X brand operating
administrator arrives at work one afternoon and finds a new terminal outside the
system security area. Since it is better than the current system console, he
brings it in to the computer. After a
few minutes of use, hordes of cockroaches come pouring out of the back of the
terminal, driven out by the heat. The operator jumps up to stamp them out and the
intruder has his will with
the system.
How can this sort of damage be prevented? The greatest weakness of the UN*X brand
operating system is the fact that the superuser root is so powerful. Therefore,
an important principle
is simple to minimize the use of root. An ingenious way of doing this is to
first, without looking, set the root password of the system to some randomly
generated string of character. Do not
memorize or even look at this string. Now set up the /etc/inittab file with the
run level 2 flag that will cause it to demand this unknown password whenever the
system is booted. The system is
now secure. Log off.
What can a system administrator do if he suspects that some has broken root?
Simple. First, at the slightest suspicion that someone has unauthorized access to
the superuser capability,
immediately seal off the computer room, sound the fire alarm, release inert halon
gas into the atmosphere, and activate the automatic sprinkler system. Type
"shutdown 0" and cut all circuit
breakers to the computer. Physically destroy all magnetic media that have ever
been mounted on or associated with the insecure system in any way. Order a new
distribution and reboot.
An administrator who is aware of these methods can maintain a sufficient degree
of paranoia for most applications.
It has often been said that if God had a beard, he would be a UN*X programmer.
While this may be an exaggeration, it is true that UN*X brand operating system is
well on its way to
replacing the outmoded 10- and 15-year-old operating systems in common use today.
Regards,
Phil