Dennis Ritchie's Newer-than-new Tty Driver (followup)

[donn at sdchema.UUCP]

Only one respondent to my question ('What happened to Dennis Ritchie's
replacement for the tty driver?') had firm enough information that they
didn't mind their name being associated with it in public...  This
respondent said:

	The stream character IO system is alive, and is being wondered
	over by the unix development lab.  I would not hazard a guess
	as to what system it will appear in.  No lawyers had a chance
	to nix it for any BSD, since it wasn't offered to them (either
	of "them").

	...

	I don't think I said anything secret.  Further non-secret
	facts:  the system run by our organization is known as the
	Eighth Edition system, usually solecized to V8, but is
	certainly not going to be distributed under that name or any
	other.

	The stream, or coroutine, IO system is a design for writing IO
	processing modules.  At the moment, there are two modules for
	doing tty handling; one is like v7 and the other is like the
	UCB "new tty" stuff.

	A paper describing the details is scheduled for publication in
	a new special BSTJ issue on Unix to appear next year.  (However
	the journal will doubtless have a new name, because will be no
	Bell System next year.)

			Dennis

Since the stream IO system was not offered to Berkeley, I assume that
the 'descriptor wrapping' proposals for 4.2/3 BSD are distinct and
would contain no Eighth Edition code.

I stand corrected of my paranoia about lawyers: Mark Horton's new
curses package is unavailable as a result of the decision of a USG
department head, not due to lawyers.

Does anyone else have any information (or misinformation) to add?

Donn Seeley    UCSD Chemistry Dept. RRCF    ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn
32 52' 30"N 117 14' 25"W  (619) 452-4016    sdcsvax!sdchema!donn at noscvax