• Tawk 5.0 doc available

    From arnold@arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) to comp.lang.awk on Tue Feb 25 09:44:11 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    In going through some old files, I found a zip file:

    -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold ftpusers 18137948 Jun 12 2013 TAWKCompilerI.zip

    It has PDFs and a text file documenting the use of tawk 5.0. I've
    made it available for download at:

    https://www.skeeve.com/TAWKCompilerI.zip

    I have offered it to bitsavers.org, but haven't heard back yet from
    them.

    If you're interested, get it now. I'm not sure how long I'm going to
    leave it there for.
    --
    Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com
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  • From gazelle@gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack) to comp.lang.awk on Tue Feb 25 16:04:50 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    In article <67bd90eb$0$714$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>,
    Aharon Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
    In going through some old files, I found a zip file:

    -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold ftpusers 18137948 Jun 12 2013 TAWKCompilerI.zip

    It has PDFs and a text file documenting the use of tawk 5.0. I've
    made it available for download at:

    https://www.skeeve.com/TAWKCompilerI.zip

    I have offered it to bitsavers.org, but haven't heard back yet from
    them.

    Interesting. Any idea where this came from? The dates are too recent for
    it to have come from Pat Thompson, so I assume it was some 3rd party.
    Perhaps the guy who has posted here occasionally with new Windows versions
    of TAWK?

    Note, BTW, that the ".doc" file is not a text file. Presumably, it is an
    MS Word document.
    --
    Debating creationists on the topic of evolution is rather like trying to
    play chess with a pigeon --- it knocks the pieces over, craps on the
    board, and flies back to its flock to claim victory.
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  • From arnold@arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) to comp.lang.awk on Tue Feb 25 18:34:06 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    In article <vpkpn1$njmu$1@news.xmission.com>,
    Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:
    In article <67bd90eb$0$714$14726298@news.sunsite.dk>,
    Aharon Robbins <arnold@skeeve.com> wrote:
    In going through some old files, I found a zip file:

    -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold ftpusers 18137948 Jun 12 2013 TAWKCompilerI.zip

    It has PDFs and a text file documenting the use of tawk 5.0. I've
    made it available for download at:

    https://www.skeeve.com/TAWKCompilerI.zip

    I have offered it to bitsavers.org, but haven't heard back yet from
    them.

    Interesting. Any idea where this came from?

    No idea. I am doing some cleaning up of stuff on my disk.

    Note, BTW, that the ".doc" file is not a text file. Presumably, it is an
    MS Word document.

    My bad. Yeah. Libreoffice opens it just fine.
    --
    Aharon (Arnold) Robbins arnold AT skeeve DOT com
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  • From Keith Thompson@Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com to comp.lang.awk on Tue Feb 25 15:06:07 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) writes:
    In going through some old files, I found a zip file:

    -rw-rw-r-- 1 arnold ftpusers 18137948 Jun 12 2013 TAWKCompilerI.zip

    It has PDFs and a text file documenting the use of tawk 5.0. I've
    made it available for download at:

    https://www.skeeve.com/TAWKCompilerI.zip

    I have offered it to bitsavers.org, but haven't heard back yet from
    them.

    If you're interested, get it now. I'm not sure how long I'm going to
    leave it there for.

    The TAWK compiler is (was) from Thompson Automation Software (no
    relation).

    """
    The Thompson AWK language, or TAWK for short, is a vastly improved
    compiled version of the normally interpreted awk language. Unlike awk,
    TAWK is a robust general purpose programming language that can handle
    any programming task. For those unfamiliar with awk, the TAWK language resembles the "C" programming language, but is much easier to use and
    has extensive built-in error checking that eliminates program
    crashes. Unlike "C", TAWK includes powerful built-in functions for
    searching, sorting and manipulating text and data-base records making it especially valuable for these types of applications.
    """

    Described here: <http://www.tasoft.com/tawk.html> (last updated in
    2003; I'm impressed that the website still exists).

    "Thompson Automation Software has ceased actively selling software."

    They also sold the "Thompson Toolkit", which apparently provided
    UNIX-like shells and tools for DOS, OS/2, and Windows.

    I see nothing indicating how their software can be obtained or how much
    it would have cost.
    --
    Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
    void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */
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  • From Arti F. Idiot@addr@is.invalid to comp.lang.awk on Tue Feb 25 17:21:45 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    On 2/25/25 4:06 PM, Keith Thompson wrote:
    Described here:<http://www.tasoft.com/tawk.html> (last updated in
    2003; I'm impressed that the website still exists).

    "Thompson Automation Software has ceased actively selling software."

    They also sold the "Thompson Toolkit", which apparently provided
    UNIX-like shells and tools for DOS, OS/2, and Windows.

    I see nothing indicating how their software can be obtained or how much
    it would have cost.

    I found a price list on the Internet Archive; IIRC single seat for
    toolkit and TAWK compiler was ~$200 (late 90s).

    While poking around I found a MKS Toolkit which sounds very similar to
    this and is a current offering from PTC (Parametric Technology Corp;
    they mostly do CAD stuff).

    -AI
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  • From arnold@arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) to comp.lang.awk on Thu Feb 27 08:44:32 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    In article <vplmqp$b7g$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com>,
    Arti F. Idiot <addr@is.invalid> wrote:
    While poking around I found a MKS Toolkit which sounds very similar to
    this and is a current offering from PTC (Parametric Technology Corp;
    they mostly do CAD stuff).

    The MKS toolkit is as you described, it's been around for ages. Like
    almost 40 years. The awk from it became the POSIX awk in Solaris. The
    source can be found and made to work under Linux if one works at it.
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  • From Janis Papanagnou@janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com to comp.lang.awk on Thu Feb 27 09:59:35 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    On 27.02.2025 09:44, Aharon Robbins wrote:

    The MKS toolkit is as you described, it's been around for ages. Like
    almost 40 years. The awk from it became the POSIX awk in Solaris. [...]

    Interesting. - BTW...

    Many years ago I tried to find out where the Mac OS_X Awk stems from.
    Back then I could not find any hint on that.

    Does anyone know what Awk version is/was the base of Apple's Awk?

    Janis

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  • From Alex Bochannek@alex@bochannek.com to comp.lang.awk on Thu Feb 27 11:30:07 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    Janis,

    Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:

    On 27.02.2025 09:44, Aharon Robbins wrote:

    The MKS toolkit is as you described, it's been around for ages. Like
    almost 40 years. The awk from it became the POSIX awk in Solaris. [...]

    Interesting. - BTW...

    Many years ago I tried to find out where the Mac OS_X Awk stems from.
    Back then I could not find any hint on that.

    Does anyone know what Awk version is/was the base of Apple's Awk?

    At https://opensource.apple.com/releases/ you will find which macOS
    release includes which Apple build of AWK. You can also run strings on
    the awk executable and grep for PROJECT, which for me (macOS Sequoia)
    shows:

    @(#)PROGRAM:awk PROJECT:awk-40

    At https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/awk you can then find the
    latest version (awk-40) on main and older versions on their own branch.
    For all but the oldest there is an awk.plist file. In there you see:

    <key>OpenSourceWebsiteURL</key>
    <string>https://github.com/onetrueawk/awk</string>

    So, macOS AWK appears to be BWK AWK.

    Hope this helps.
    --
    Alex.
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  • From Janis Papanagnou@janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com to comp.lang.awk on Fri Feb 28 06:58:18 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    On 27.02.2025 20:30, Alex Bochannek wrote:
    [...]
    Many years ago I tried to find out where the Mac OS_X Awk stems from.
    Back then I could not find any hint on that.

    Does anyone know what Awk version is/was the base of Apple's Awk?
    [...]

    At https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/awk you can then find the latest version (awk-40) on main and older versions on their own branch.
    [...]
    https://github.com/onetrueawk/awk</string>

    So, macOS AWK appears to be BWK AWK.

    Hope this helps.

    Yes, thanks.

    It says "The One True Awk" and "Copyright (C) Lucent Technologies 1997".
    I wasn't aware about the actual copyright holder.

    Janis

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  • From arnold@arnold@freefriends.org (Aharon Robbins) to comp.lang.awk on Fri Feb 28 13:07:25 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    In article <m2eczjqj7k.fsf@bochannek.com>,
    Alex Bochannek <alex@bochannek.com> wrote:
    So, macOS AWK appears to be BWK AWK.

    Indeed, it has been based on BWK awk for many years, but they tend to
    lag behind it. awk --version on macos should give you some idea of what
    they started with.
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  • From Janis Papanagnou@janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com to comp.lang.awk on Fri Feb 28 15:03:12 2025
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.awk

    On 28.02.2025 14:07, Aharon Robbins wrote:
    In article <m2eczjqj7k.fsf@bochannek.com>,
    Alex Bochannek <alex@bochannek.com> wrote:
    So, macOS AWK appears to be BWK AWK.

    Indeed, it has been based on BWK awk for many years, but they tend to
    lag behind it. awk --version on macos should give you some idea of what
    they started with.

    When I had my hands on some Apple quite some years ago I tried all
    sorts of things; looking for identifying strings or SCCS IDs in the
    binary, trying various typical command line switches to get such
    information (also --version), but to no avail. - So thanks for the
    information and confirmation.

    Janis

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