[geeks] Daily Dose of Unix

[Chris Byrne]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org 
> [mailto:geeks-bounces at sunhelp.org] On Behalf Of Dave McGuire
> 
> 
>    Probably because the first non-assembler incarnation of UNIX was 
> developed on a PDP-11.  GCC didn't get PDP-11 target support until ~6 
> years ago.
> 

The first part I knew, the second part. Wow. The machine that probably
did more to spread UNIX than any other, and it didn't get GCC for 10
years. Any particular reason why not, or was it just that there were
already good C compilers avaialble for it. 

I'm pretty sure the notion got into my head because of a Stallman
interview where he was talking a bout GCC and EMACS development and ITS
in the same couple of paragraphs. I think I just mentally interpolated
that he was working on GCC using ITS.

>    Now you're talking about a PDP-10.  Yes, ml.ai and two 
> others (don't 
> recall their names offhand) were running in 1987 and for 
> quite a while 
> thereafter.  ml.ai and one of the other MIT PDP-10 systems are now in 
> Doug Humphrey's warehouse in Laurel, MD.
> 
>         -Dave

Huh, very cool. Are they still functional? I knew ITS never made it past
the PDP-10, I just wasn't sure how long it kept going. According to the
Jargon file the last one was shut down in may 1990.

Chris Byrne