This is an incredible find. It would be amazingly cool if we could create an emulated environment for compiling and running Unix v4 from these sources.
SIMH emulates the PDP-11 (along with a ton of other early mini/microcomputers). It should be possible to run whatever's extracted from the tapes on SIMH. For example, the members of the TUHS mailing list were able to get an even earlier set of UNIX sources from 1972 running again, see here for more info: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/unix-jun72
Unfortunately, I am working for an aerospace manufacturer that runs VAX VMS on emulators (which are quite expensive). We also run an even older operating system, OS2200.
The original VMS system manager who moved from 7000 series hardware to emulation was somewhat inquisitive, and we did install VMS 7 on simh. He retired and passed away some years ago, and none of his replacements have wanted to touch simh. I find that apathy appalling.
For me, it's a chance to experience what it was like to use and develop software on these systems back in the day. For example, lately I've been writing some small apps and adding new kernel features to a variant of V6 Unix running on my PDP-11/05. It's humbling to see what it really took to be productive on these systems.
Understanding, and inspiration. They had to create under serious constraints in compute, memory, and storage, and understanding how and why they did can lead to ideas about how to optimize software on modern machines.
It's also critical for understanding how and why the engineering choices were made when documenting the evolution of processing. Instruction sets, processor design, programming languages, computer culture, corporate trends, all of those things have roots in design decisions, and the software preserved on tapes like this are a sort of DNA.
The effort needed to incorporate the information is dropping, with AI you can run analysis and grab important principles and so on, and whatever principles govern optimization and performance under constraints will be useful on a permanent basis.
You never know what will be important to people in the future.
I just listened to a great new episode (podcast) of The Truth (audio drama anthology series, they’re fantastic). It was called “The Joke.” Basically this archivist finds an old hard drive with a dumb pun joke - turns out she didn’t even understand it because jokes were no longer allowed in society. Kind of has an Equilibrium vibe but more bureaucratic and less “killing people for feeling.” Anyway the joke itself takes on great importance as a result. Bit of a dramatic comparison, but you see what I’m driving at.
Don't expect it to do much, but it's fascinating if you're interested in OS history.
The original VMS system manager who moved from 7000 series hardware to emulation was somewhat inquisitive, and we did install VMS 7 on simh. He retired and passed away some years ago, and none of his replacements have wanted to touch simh. I find that apathy appalling.
Maybe this explains why we have to call "creat" to "create" a file.
On one side I think we need to preserve this relic as we did with Homer's poetry. Because it just deserves.
On another side I think we won't (and should not) try to preserve in an infinite present whatever has been written by humanity. For what purpose?
It's also critical for understanding how and why the engineering choices were made when documenting the evolution of processing. Instruction sets, processor design, programming languages, computer culture, corporate trends, all of those things have roots in design decisions, and the software preserved on tapes like this are a sort of DNA.
The effort needed to incorporate the information is dropping, with AI you can run analysis and grab important principles and so on, and whatever principles govern optimization and performance under constraints will be useful on a permanent basis.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gp-RXCLO2M&t=3500s
I just listened to a great new episode (podcast) of The Truth (audio drama anthology series, they’re fantastic). It was called “The Joke.” Basically this archivist finds an old hard drive with a dumb pun joke - turns out she didn’t even understand it because jokes were no longer allowed in society. Kind of has an Equilibrium vibe but more bureaucratic and less “killing people for feeling.” Anyway the joke itself takes on great importance as a result. Bit of a dramatic comparison, but you see what I’m driving at.