[Simh] Regarding "Cutler THE father of VMS" myth

[Nelson H. F. Beebe]

There is more on the history of Dijkstra's P and V notation
for semaphores here:

	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semaphore_%28programming%29

The article says:

>> ...
>> The canonical names V and P come from the initials of Dutch words. V
>> is generally explained as verhogen (`increase'). Several explanations
>> have been offered for P, including proberen for `to test' or `to try,'
>> passeren for `pass,' and pakken for `grab.' Dijkstra's earliest paper
>> on the subject gives passering (passing) as the meaning for P, and
>> vrijgave (release) as the meaning for V. It also mentions that the
>> terminology is taken from that used in railroad signals. Dijkstra
>> subsequently wrote that he intended P to stand for the portmanteau
>> prolaag, short for probeer te verlagen, literally `try to reduce,' or
>> to parallel the terms used in the other case, `try to decrease.' This
>> confusion stems from the fact that the words for increase and decrease
>> both begin with the letter V in Dutch, and the words spelled out in
>> full would be impossibly confusing for those not familiar with the
>> Dutch language.
>>
>> In ALGOL 68, the Linux kernel, and in some English textbooks, the V
>> and P operations are called, respectively, up and down. In software
>> engineering practice, they are often called signal and wait, release
>> and acquire (which the standard Java library uses), or post and
>> pend. Some texts call them vacate and procure to match the original
>> Dutch initials.
>> ...

I recently released a bibliography of Dijstra's works, and works about
him, here:

	http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/bibnet/authors/d/dijkstra-edsger-w.bib
	http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/bibnet/authors/d/dijkstra-edsger-w.html

The two files look identical in a browser, except that the HTML form
has live hyperlinks.  The top-level index

	http://www.math.utah.edu/pub/bibnet/

provides more information about the bibliographic coverage of the
BibNet Project, and also how to mirror the collection, or subsets
thereof.

It may have been Dijstra's 1968 Communications of the ACM article
(entry Dijkstra:2002:SMSb)

	The Structure of the "THE"-Multiprogramming
	http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/363095.363143

that first made the P/V notation known to the English-reading world,
in the appendix, where he writes

>> ...
>> A process, "Q" say, that performs the operation "P (sem)" decreases
>> the value of the semaphore called "sem" by 1. If the resulting value
>> of the semaphore concerned is nonnegative, process Q can continue with
>> the execution of its next statement; if, however, the resulting value
>> is negative, process Q is stopped and booked on a waiting list
>> associated with the semaphore concerned.  ...
>>
>> A process, "R" say, that performs the operation "V (sem)" increases
>> the value of the semaphore called "sem" by 1. If the resulting value
>> of the semaphore concerned is positive, the V-operation in question
>> has no further effect; if, however, the resulting value of the
>> semaphore concerned is nonpositive, one of the processes booked on its
>> waiting list is removed from this waiting list, i.e.  its dynamic
>> progress is again logically permissible and in due time a processor
>> will be allocated to it...
>> ...

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- Nelson H. F. Beebe                    Tel: +1 801 581 5254                  -
- University of Utah                    FAX: +1 801 581 4148                  -
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