[Info-vax] misstatement of Unix origin [was Re: A portable VMS, was: Re: OS Ancestry]

[Bob Eager]

On Mon, 24 May 2021 12:28:32 +0000, Simon Clubley wrote:

> On 2021-05-21, Rich Alderson <news at alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
>> Simon Clubley <clubley at remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP> writes:
>>
>>> VAX. Which is where VMS started (and 32-bit processors are where Unix
>>> and Linux started). It was a lot easier to get 32-bit Unix/Linux
>>> working on 64-bit architectures than it was VMS.
>>
>> NB:  For the purposes of this discussion, Unix started on a *16*-bit
>> architecture.  (We'll ignore the fact that it actually started on an
>> 18-bit word addressed architecture.)
>>
>>
> Yes, oops. :-) Somebody already reminded me about this a few days ago
> and as I pointed out in response this just shows how much more portable
> things are when you are using an implemention language not tied to the
> architecture.

They still made some mistakes. Such as a 16 bit limit for the number of 
sectors on a disk (they solved that one by inventing partitions). And the 
16 bit seek distance (in bytes, solved by inventing lseek in Seventh 
Edition).

The language isn't everyting.
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