WelcomeWelcome | FAQFAQ | DownloadsDownloads | WikiWiki

Author Topic: Old Unix documentation and TC / dCore  (Read 1997 times)

Offline PDP-8

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 915
Old Unix documentation and TC / dCore
« on: July 08, 2020, 08:53:17 PM »
With TC and dCore being simple initially, they can be configured the "old-way", or one can merely install their way to the most modern desktop to avoid all that.

But for those of us who enjoy the simplicity of operations by editing a dot-file or two, and seeing the results of those actions, it can be hard to find user-friendly docs on how to do stuff like this without having to work backward from systemd to the 1970's.

One I particularly enjoyed was this "Coping With Unix - A Survival Guide" from Oregon State

http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/~landaur/nacphy/coping-with-unix/book.html

Basically meant to the help the guy who was plopped down in front of new mega-buck 1980s/1990/s workstation, and needed to get up and running fast to work on his project, without requiring a lot of a-priori knowledge in the first place.

I get a kick out of reading some of the older stuff - filtering out the memory-lane stuff - when some little gem I never thought of doing stands out, and seeing it work in today.  And um, look at the ram and disk requirements.  HUGE! :)

Warning: this seems to have been meant for guys running projects in total security, and the admonition to simply add your current directory to the head of your $PATH is one of the absolute first targets for bad guys.  But I suppose if you are just running TC at home on a bench with no connectivity in a lead box, ok maybe he's got a point. :)

X-window setups, xterm and other basic .dotfile stuff is interesting - and sometimes hard to find in context these days.  But when you find a gem or explanation that clears the cobwebs over something you've had for 30 years, it's worth it. :)

That's a UNIX book! - cool  -- Garth