hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr3485.txt

Episode: 3485
Title: HPR3485: 50 years since the 1st Edition of Unix was published
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3485/hpr3485.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 00:17:13

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3485 for Friday 10th of December 2021.
Today's show is entitled, 50 years since the first edition of Units was published.
It is posted by Ken Fallon and is about 12 minutes long and carries an explicit flag.
The summary is, Ken Fallon not Thompson checks his Units like computer to see how many commands still exist.
Hi everybody, my name is Ken Fallon and you're listening to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
I'm recording this show because we're massively low on shows at the moment for some strange reason.
Normally, this time of year people in the Northern Hemisphere at least have more time in their hands
and plenty of time to record some shows. So, time folks to dust off that old microphone that you had
and get down on a record to show. If you don't know what type of show that you want to record,
then I suggest introducing yourself to the community if you've not done so in the past.
If you've already not done a show on how you got into technology, Linux, listening to HPR,
then sit down and give us your background as a way of introducing yourself to the community.
Think of us like a hacker space except for virtual and we're in your years.
Anyway, what is valid content for something like this? I show I thought, well,
somebody posted a link in mastodon and if you're not a mastodon, then it is kind of a nice place to
be, Twitter without all the pain sorrow and suffering. And the post was forwarded on from
Jesse and it was a retweet by the BSD imp. And it says today is the 50th anniversary of the
first edition of Unix. It was targeted at the PDP 11 slash 20 with 8 kilowatt of
kilowatts of memory I imagine. 16384 bytes by Ken Thomas Andy M. Ritchie. And today is the 21st
of the 11-04. So, I was thinking to myself as you do and there's a link which I'll obviously put
into the show notes for where you can download the original Unix manuals. So, they're there.
And it looks surprisingly like a manuals from a normal version of Linux or Unix like system
that you'd be aware of. And I was thinking to myself, well, Ken, gosh, I wonder how many of those
commands are still in use. And if you think about it 50 years ago, the argument for not using
Linux was that everybody will be using Windows and Windows 95. Think about it if you invested
the amount of effort in learning these few commands 50 years ago, you're still using them today.
So, what I did was I downloaded the files to the PDF grep with a search for the string name.
Space Man 1 Asterix PDF, because PDF file is basically a, it's like a man page with names,
synopsis, description files, etc. And then I piped that into Oc to give me the second character
and I read the first character and then I went which, so which and then the command. So, for example,
the name of the man page is ls, then it goes which ls tells me if it's installed on my system or not.
So, what I thought was I would go through each of these commands and basically tell you which
is or is not installed on my default desktop here for for Nora. So, starting, I'm not going to tell you
what they are because the, so AR is the tape archive which is installed. Aas is assembler which
is installed. The language B is not installed. So, availability B was the precursor to C.
Bass is not installed which is basic which is a dialectic basic. I imagine basic is available
somewhere but we're talking about standard default here on Unix. The next one is BCD which is not
installed either. It doesn't look good, does it? And that's binary code decimal conversion which
will convert into geocross card code. So, probably not that much need for that on a modern day
Unix system. Then we have boot which reboots a system and that's been replaced by reboot.
Cat, our good friend is there. CHDRR is a change directory that's been renamed to
CD change directory just the two letters. Then check file system consistency check is not available
but as we know that's been replaced with FS check. Then we have change mod which is available
change owner which is available. CMP which is available compared to files. CP, our good friend
is available. Date is available. DB is not available. This is debug and it was used to examine files.
I think it's probably limited to the system that we're working on at the time. DB PPT which is
binary dump binary paper tape as you can imagine no need for that in a modern system. That was the
first man page, the second man page excuse me one moment while I get that lined up. So the next
one on our list is DC which stands for desk calculator and that is available to us. As is DF
disk free where will we be without that one. Next one is DSW Delta Sierra Whiskey. Delete
interactively and that's now replaced by RM I think dash i or something like that. The next one
deck tape format will write timing tracks to tapes also not included in your default fedora install.
However the following two are DU, summarized disk space, ED, the editor and my personal friend
find files with a given name. Then we do have four which is for Fortron but that's now a reserved
in bash and Fortron is definitely available. Form is a form letter generator which is interesting.
Hope is hang up typewriter. Hangs up the phone or typewriter which uses it. Bugs should not be
used, sometimes causes the typewriter channel to be lost. So we have the derivative of that which
is no hope. So now we know what hope means hang up typewriter. Interesting. LBPPT is also not
available on fedora. Load binary paper tips so very interesting. LD is a link editor that is
installed as is LN which is make a link. Remember these are commands from 50 years ago. LS
is the contents of a directory. Mail again is on the system. Message is also available on the system.
As are the write down to when we get to as are all the following commands.
METER make FS, MKFS make file system, mount, move, N and we go onto the next one which is NM
get a name list. It prints a list of symbolic tables from the output file assembler or loaded
loader run. No idea what that is. OD is an octal dump. I've used that in my time. PR,
principal produces a printed list of one or more files. R-E-W is not on there but I have loaded
in the past. It's for rewind a tape. R-K-D is not there which is dump, R-K-Disk to tape.
Now there is R-K-F which is a format R-K-O-3 disk pack and R-K-L is also not there reload R-K-Disk
from tape but our good friend R-M is there despite what Tlatu would want us to have.
R-M-Dur is removed directly that is also there but R-O-F-F is not there. It's a format text
Roth formats text according control lines embedded in the text. Now I have seen that that is available
if you install it. I just don't think I've installed it. S-Dat sets the days in time so that
was particular to that system that's now replaced with days itself. S-H is available,
stat is available, get a file status, strip and remove symbols and relocation bits is available.
S-U becomes privilege user was available at the time. Some of a file is available. T-A-P
tango alpha papa manipulates a deck tape drive that's is not available. Now there is T-M
which is provide time information it's replaced by the time command. T-T-I is available as
this type as is unmount but UN is not available. Undefined symbols and that leaves us three more
which is all of which are available. W-C word count who tells you who's on the system
and right right to another user. Now in 50 years look at all the commands that are in use and I will
for the crack do a history of my I do account of how many of these I have actually used in my
bash history. So obviously there's a few of those that I wouldn't have used very often.
I've used S-H, the least S-U, seven times, DU, 15 times, days, 19 times, unmount 40 times,
Mount 46 times, W-C word count 69 times change mod 94 times, L-N-130 times, DF-202 times,
RM-Dur 280 times, CP-314 times, Mector-544 times, now we're getting it to the top,
ones 649, what could it be? Four, I used four. Next in at 887, it's Cat-C-A-T.
Coming in even higher than that at 1482, it's our classic move MV command.
Oh and sadly we'll not be happy with this one, 1,985 RM and my favorite is not the favorite,
is fined at 2847 times and the winner naturally will be LS at 10108 times. So guys this is how often
you would use these commands that were all originally conceived 50 years ago. Now if that doesn't
want to make you sit down and record a better show than this, then I don't know what else.
This is Ken loading the bar so you don't have to tune in tomorrow for hopefully another exciting
episode from a listener, very, very, very much like you. This is Hacker Public Radio.
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