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> DEC's Unix (the other one, not Ultrix) was the most baffling. It took me days to realize that all command line utilities truncated their output at column width. Every single one. Over 30 years later and that one still stands out.

Do you mean OSF1/, Digital Unix, or Tru64 Unix?

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Oh, yes, I think it was Digital Unix. IIRC, we toyed with OSF/1, but there wasn't much call for it.

OSF/1, Digital Unix, and Tru64 are the same OS at different points in time.

Technically OSF/1 was supposed to be the commercial BSD answer to System V, in practice only several niche vendors used it, plus Digital and NeXT (and through NeXT, Apple which continues the line to this day)

Thanks for the clarification. It was so long ago, it’s all a bit hazy.

Other than the COLUMNS thing. That is burnt into my memory forever.

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