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Large footnote about history of Unix.
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43
README.rst
43
README.rst
@@ -592,6 +592,49 @@ http://www.zdnet.com/article/dear-microsoft-its-time-to-stop-using-drive-letters
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https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Cc938934.aspx
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.. [#disk_location]
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Multics appears to be the first operating system with a root directory
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and a hierarchical filesystem underneath it.
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However, the motivations for such a scheme go back further.
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One of the most influential time-sharing systems,
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CTSS, recognized the need for accessing files independent of their disk location.
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All files kept on the disk (and drum) are known to the
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user only by name: the supervisor disk control module keeps
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for each user a directory of names and corresponding track
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locations on the disk.
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https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_mitctssMAC5_3662592/MAC-TR-16_CTSStecNote_Mar65_djvu.txt
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It is desirable, from the point of view both of programming and
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of disk administration, that the user have no notion of the absolute
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location where his files of information are stored in the disk. Rather,
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the user will refer to his files only by symbolic names and logical mode
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number.
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https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_mitctssCTS_3840198/CTSS_ProgrammersGuide_djvu.txt
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Unix was developed on relatively small disk drives,
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so it was useful to be able mount drives anywhere on the filesystem.
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You know how Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie created Unix on a PDP-7 in 1969?
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Well around 1971 they upgraded to a PDP-11 with a pair of RK05 disk packs (1.5
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megabytes each) for storage.
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When the operating system grew too big to fit on the first RK05 disk pack (their
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root filesystem) they let it leak into the second one, which is where all the
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user home directories lived (which is why the mount was called /usr). They
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replicated all the OS directories under there (/bin, /sbin, /lib, /tmp...) and
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wrote files to those new directories because their original disk was out of
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space. When they got a third disk, they mounted it on /home and relocated all
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the user directories to there so the OS could consume all the space on both
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disks and grow to THREE WHOLE MEGABYTES (ooooh!).
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http://lists.busybox.net/pipermail/busybox/2010-December/074114.html
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