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diff --git a/man/lib/preface b/man/lib/preface new file mode 100644 index 00000000..a49bc721 --- /dev/null +++ b/man/lib/preface @@ -0,0 +1,73 @@ +.FP lucidasans +.nr PS -1 +.nr VS -1 +.TL +Preface +.SP 0.4i exactly +.LP +Inferno benefits from the results of many years of systems research +at the Computing Science Research Center at Lucent Technologies, Bell Labs. +The system is clearly a cultural descendent of the earliest Unix systems, +and amongst Inferno's inventors, listed below, are several venerable programmers +associated with the development of Unix. +Inferno looks out on a very different world from Unix: complexity is no longer +confined to large mainframes, but has sprawled +across world wide networks, trapping programmers in its web. +.LP +Inferno tackles this as radically now as Unix did then. +First, it adopts key ideas from the system Plan 9, also from Bell Labs: +.IP \(bu +Replace a plethora of protocols by a simple, unifying file service protocol (Styx), +that can be served even by tiny devices, giving a uniform +way to access objects throughout the network. +.IP \(bu +Let applications `compute a name space': all resources are represented +as file systems, which an application assembles into an application-specific +hierarchy or `name space', private or shared, that hides their source (local or remote) +and nature (static or dynamic), for completely transparent access. +.IP \(bu +Using those primitives, implement windowing systems, networked graphics, remote debugging, +device control, and much more, with remarkable ease +and great simplicity. +.LP +Inferno carries Plan 9's ideas further. +Plan 9 virtualised resources; Inferno virtualises the whole system. +The operating system kernel can run both native and `hosted' on a range +of platforms presenting identical interfaces on all, offering wider portability. +The Limbo programming language offers proper concurrent programming, +and straightforward yet dynamic modularity. +The Dis virtual machine allows applications to cross architecture boundaries +invisibly during execution. +Inferno shows the `continued appliance of computer science'. +.LP +The original development team at Bell Labs was +Sean Dorward, Rob Pike and Phil Winterbottom, +with Eric Grosse, Jim McKie, Dave Presotto, +Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson and Howard Trickey. +Many others have contributed much since then, both within Lucent and without. +.LP +Inferno® is now a supported, commercial product of Vita Nuova. +The Third Edition of the Programmer's manual marked that event. +The Fourth Edition brings many changes in content, but also makes the full +source available as Free Software under a new `dual licence' scheme. +.LP +.sp +.in 4i +.nf +.ft I +.ce 100 +Dave Atkin +John Bates +Danny Byrne +John Firth +Charles Forsyth +Michael Jeffrey +Chris Locke +Roger Peppé +Nigel Roles +.sp +Vita Nuova +.br +June 2003 +.ce 0 +.in -4i |