Unix Heritage Wiki

PWB/UNIX User's Manual Edition 1.0

Documents for the PWB/UNIX Time-Sharing System

The PWB/UNIX User's Manual Edition, published in 1977 by Ted Dolotta, Richard Haight, and E. Piskorik is the first manual published for the Programmers Workbench UNIX version. This manual, with samplings from other UNIX trees, would form the basis for the commercial line of UNIX manuals in later years.

This manual still uses Roman numerals like the V6 manual it is based on. There are two notable section changes:

  VI.     Games
  VII.    Miscellaneous

Section VI as Games is also reflected in the V7 manual, so this may have been a change between V6 and V7 universally. Section VII is known as Miscellaneous as it is in research V5 and back instead, so there are similarities with research versions on either side of V6.

The above documents set retains the “Documents For” nomenclature introduced with research V6. The documents are grouped in categories identified by a single letter:

  G. General
  B. Basic User Information
  T. Text Processing, Formatting, and Typesetting
  A. Additional Facilities
  I. Internals, Operations, and Administration
  R. Recommended Reading - Not Included

This grouping approach, with slight modifications, would continue until Release 5.0. The Overview and Synopsis of Facilities and PWB/UNIX Documentation Roadmap documents similarly would persist until Release 5.0, carrying through both PWB/UNIX and UNIX/TS lineages. PWB/UNIX introduces its own set of manual page macros, alongside the mm(7) macros format. These macros persisted throughout the PWB and commercial lineage. Unfortunately the above linked documents collection is cut off after section A.

PWB/UNIX manuals are known to have been distributed in the Bell Laboratories library system, and PWB 2.0 is an intermediate between PWB 1.0 and Release 3.0/System III. Manuals concerning this Edition may be preserved in the future. Several pages in the CB-UNIX Edition 2.3 manual refer to PWB/UNIX 2.0. Given his authorship on both versions surrounding, it is presumed the main by-line for this manual is Ted Dolotta. Like the versions surrounding it, PWB Edition 2.0 includes a Documents for PWB/UNIX volume containing several papers organized into similar categories.

UNIX User's Manual Release 3.0

Documents for UNIX Release 3.0

This manual was prepared in June 1980 by Ted Dolotta, S.B. Olsson, and A.G. Petruccelli. This manual would go on to see external distribution with the release of System III by Western Electric. The manual acknowledges the V6 and V7 research manuals, the PWB/UNIX 2.0 manual of 1979, and the UNIX/TS Edition 1.1 manual, also of 1979, by Ted Dolotta and S.B. Olsson. This version of the manual has adopted the Arabic numerals of V7 and has also adopted the (3C) convention for standard section 3 commands that is also seen in the CB-UNIX line. Some sections have since been renamed from PWB 1.0 and V7:

  1. Commands and Application Programs
  7. Miscellaneous Facilities
  8. System Maintenance Procedures

Of note, the name “File Formats and Conventions” does not come over from V7, and the designation of section 7 as miscellanea remains.

The above photographs capture the cover of the Bell Laboratories-branded UNIX User's Manual Release 3.0 and the Western Electric-branded Programmer's Manual for UNIX System III Volume 2A. Despite the contents in /usr/src/man/docs above suggesting the internal Release 3.0 documents were distributed like other versions in this line, as “Documents for UNIX”, it seems the Western Electric distribution of System III instead produced these papers as a “Programmer's Manual Volume 2” set.

Like other UNIX releases in this lineage, the synopsis and roadmap documents are present. Interestingly, more UNIX/TS references can be found in both sets of documents. The UNIX System III set contains a roadmap titled “UNIX/TS Documentation Road Map” with many references to the PWB/UNIX User's Manual 2.0. This document typically contains a note at the top indicating which version it supports. In the above docs folder, this target message indicates exclusively Release 3.0. However, in the Western Electric documents, insteaed the documentation is said to apply to UNIX/TS, but that UNIX/TS and PWB/UNIX may be used interchangeably throughout the document. Another mention of UNIX/TS is in reference to the UNIX/TS Shell Tutorial. The roadmap itself is dated January 1980, 6 months before the June 1980 date on most UNIX Release 3.0 documentation. An occurrence of the opposite also occurs, with the synopsis document in Release 3.0 being labeled UNIX/TS Synopsis and Overview of Facilities, whereas this document is labeled for System III in the Western Electric set. Another oddity is the Western Electric document set still refers to MM as “PWB/MM Programmer's Workbench Memorandum Macros” and includes an older January 1980 reissue of the document as opposed to the April 1980 version included online. This points to an adaptation of PWB/UNIX 2.0 into UNIX/TS and then subsequent absorption into UNIX Release 3.0, and possibly reliance on older documents for the Western Electric distribution.

UNIX User's Manual Release 4.1 3B20S (Reconstruction)

Documents for UNIX Release 4.0

Release 4.0 was another intermediate release not seen outside the Bell System. Based on their credits in the Documents for UNIX collection, the same authors likely apply as the Release 3.0 manual. Release 4.x appears to begin a trend of separating out the manual into separate sections, with the former User's Manual being split into separate User's and Administrator's Manuals, stored in their respective folders u_man and a_man. Thus far only the User's Manual for a 3B20S-specific version of Release 4.1 has surfaced. Along with the split into u_man and a_man, the sections were renumbered:

  1. Commands and Application Programs
  2. System Calls
  3. Subroutines
  4. File Formats
  5. Miscellaneous Facilities
  6. Games
  7. Special Files
  8. System Maintenance Procedures

In this case, section 4 was moved to section 7, causing 5 and 7 to roll back to 4 and 5 respectively. In other words, special files is now section 7 where it was section 4, file formats is now section 4 where it was section 5, and miscellaneous facilities is now section 5 where it was section 7. This ordering will then persist through the commercial line.

In addition, the Documents for UNIX 4.0 collection has been scanned and preserved. This collection was presented in two volumes, much like the research line's document sets and the Western Electric System III documents. The TOC has been adjusted in that the sections have different letters, now in alphabetical order:

  Volume I
  A. Overviews
  B. Getting Started
  C. Document Preparation
  D. Programming
  
  Volume II
  E. Supporting Tools and Languages
  F. Administrative, Maintenance, and Implementation
  G. Recommended Reading (Not Included)

Pictured above are the UNIX User's Manual 4.1 3B20S and the UNIX Programming Starter Package. The former is the source of the reconstructed manual linked above and is thus far the only preserved UNIX 4.x manual. The latter is part of a pair of documents distributed by Bell Labs consisting of a subset of the Documents for UNIX collection listed above. The papers appear to be identical and are simply separated out for subject focus. This may represent the beginning of the further granularity in supporting document distributions seen starting with Release 5.0, making Documents for UNIX Release 4.0 the last such bundle in this lineage. Interestingly, this same falling blocks motif and document pair would continue to see distribution into the AT&T era, with versions of these documents with the AT&T death star logo appearing in the wild. It is presently unknown whether these AT&T branded sets still refer specifically to Release 4.0 or may have amendments.

UNIX Release 5.0 User's Manual

UNIX Release 5.0 Administrator's Manual

UNIX System V User's Manual

UNIX Support Documents (Archive.org Collection)

This manual is published in a few different formats for different distribution groups. Initially, Release 5.0 is distributed internally by both Bell Laboratories and Western Electric for various applications, and then as System V as a commercial product. Like the last two releases, these are comb-bound manuals accompanied by a set of descriptive documents, but unlike the last few releases, the documents are now split up into a number of different volumes, each concerning a different topic. Much of this documentation is linked to above. While the title pages of manuals have not had authorship information since Release 3.0, the commented out authors in this manual in System V are A.G. Petruccelli and W.J. Laauser.

It is unknown if this occurred during Release 4.0 or 5.0, but there are different versions of the documentation distributed for general use vs use within Bell Telephone Laboratories. These separate versions continue at least until System V Release 2.0 and are edited by S. Dealy.

Pictured above are examples of various Release 5.0/System V documentation. The two variants of the general use manual flank the Bell Laboratories-specific manual on either side. All three User's Manuals have Administrator's Manual-equivalents. Additionally, an Error Message Manual is distributed in a similar comb bind. All of the Release 5.0 documents have their titles printed on their comb-binds, whereas previous generations were simply blank. As for System V, these have black comb bindings and thus no printing.

Below the manuals are two of the larger documents, displaying the same cover motif as the general manuals. Documents like these were distributed either as binders as seen on the left, books as seen on the right, or report cover-bound manuals like those seen in other, older UNIX documentation but with the same cover motif produced on the report covers. While all known documents distributed distinctly as System V have been identified and are preserved or on their way, several documents distributed specifically with Release 5.0 have thus far not been located and preserved. It is assumed they would have a similar cover motif to these other documents.

pictured above are early System V R2 documents distributed by Western Electric and AT&T. The upper left may represent System V R1 or R2, but in any case is targeting the 3B5 computer and presents a cover motif, a large orange square on a grey binder, that is visible in other Western Electric-branded binders of the time concerning UNIX and Documenters Workbench. In the upper right is a Documenter's Workbench binder displaying the typical motif of other UNIX System V R2 documents distributed publicly by AT&T at the time such as the User's Manuals for the DEC and 3B versions of SVR2. There were additionally small handbooks such as a vi handbook distributed with a similar grey AT&T death star motif at the time. Finally, the bottom binder is another Bell Laboratories-specific issue of System V. This binder is part of a set of 3 and represents the u_man portion of the binder. System V R2 features the further split-up of the u_man of previous manuals into u_man and p_man (Programmer's Manual) sections distributed separately. The other two BTL sections, Programmer's and Administrator's have thus far not been located or preserved.

Pictured above are later System V R2 documents distributed by AT&T. The left bears a similar red cover motif to the binders AT&T was similarly distributing with 3B computers at the time. The middle document is a series of HRW-published “UNIX Programmer's Manual” documents, likely harkening back to the Seventh Edition manuals which were published as trade books previously. Finally, the right volume is part of a three volume set, published in small comb or wire bound form with striking yellow covers, concerning vi, C, and UNIX use in general. They're terse handbooks designed to be kept at one's desk for easy reference and are referred to on the back of the User's Manual on the left (along with a reference to a User's Guide, which is of a similar appearance to the manual but glue bound and green.)