In November 2017, I wrote here (c.u.question and c.u.misc):
> When I started out with Unix, someone gave me a second-hand book. This
> was in the 1991-1992 timeframe. I learned a lot from that book and I
> later passed the book on to another person for them to learn from.
>
> Now decades later, I'd like to relocate a copy of that book, but I don't
> remember the title or author. General searches of second hand computer
> books have not been fruitful so far.
>
> Probably the best way I can positively identify it as the same book, is
> the cover. This one had a picture of the planet springing to life[*]
> at the end of _Star Trek: Wrath of Khan_ because the special effects had
> some tenuous connection to Unix, such as the graphics software ran on a
> Unix system.
>
> That book taught me things about the standard utilities, kernel tuning
> with adb, why ed is useful, etc. I'd kinda like to get the book and see
> how well the advice has held up in Linux almost everywhere world.
> Clearly adb isn't used for kernel tuning any more (and most people
> don't even know about the assembly debugger, preferring to think of the
> Android program), but I still use ed knowledge, even if it mostly is
> from the : line of vi / ex / vim.

There were a bunch of suggestions, but no one had _the_ answer. I'm
reporting back today to say that I've figured it out.

I saw some references to Khan this week, so I tried my periodic search
again. Today, I used Bing image search for "{year} unix book" with years
of 1990, 1989, and then 1988. Up popped an image from Abe Books UK that
looked right:

https://i.imgur.com/IzB33Px.jpg

Kaare Christian's _The Unix Operation System_, second edition, published
in 1988.

The preface to the third edition (1994) can be read at archive.org, (or
the whole book "borrowed" with an account) and the first page of that
preface (page 6 as scanned, page v as numbered), confirms it for me:

https://archive.org/details/unixoperatingsys00chri/page/n5/mode/2up

Both the first and second editions of this book were notable for the
cover, a single frame from the movie _Star Trek II, The Wrath of
Khan_. The image was created by Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, and
others at Lucas Film Ltd, and at the time was the state of the art
of computer graphics.

First edition was 1984, which would be too old to be the one I read.

I've found a copy, I think of second edition, for sale by Goodwill of
Seattle and ordered it today, ~$12 with shipping.

Archive.org's second edition copy:

https://archive.org/details/unixoperatingsys0000chri

You can't preview that one far enough to read about the cover.

Elijah
------
those bing image search results included some distinctly not Unix results

On 8/16/20 8:03 PM, Eli the Bearded wrote:
> In November 2017, I wrote here (c.u.question and c.u.misc):
>> When I started out with Unix, someone gave me a second-hand book. This
>> was in the 1991-1992 timeframe. I learned a lot from that book and I
>> later passed the book on to another person for them to learn from.
>>
>> Now decades later, I'd like to relocate a copy of that book, but I don't
>> remember the title or author. General searches of second hand computer
>> books have not been fruitful so far.
>>
>> Probably the best way I can positively identify it as the same book, is
>> the cover. This one had a picture of the planet springing to life[*]
>> at the end of _Star Trek: Wrath of Khan_ because the special effects had
>> some tenuous connection to Unix, such as the graphics software ran on a
>> Unix system.
>>
>> That book taught me things about the standard utilities, kernel tuning
>> with adb, why ed is useful, etc. I'd kinda like to get the book and see
>> how well the advice has held up in Linux almost everywhere world.
>> Clearly adb isn't used for kernel tuning any more (and most people
>> don't even know about the assembly debugger, preferring to think of the
>> Android program), but I still use ed knowledge, even if it mostly is
>> from the : line of vi / ex / vim.
>
> There were a bunch of suggestions, but no one had _the_ answer. I'm
> reporting back today to say that I've figured it out.
>
> I saw some references to Khan this week, so I tried my periodic search
> again. Today, I used Bing image search for "{year} unix book" with years
> of 1990, 1989, and then 1988. Up popped an image from Abe Books UK that
> looked right:
>
> https://i.imgur.com/IzB33Px.jpg
>
> Kaare Christian's _The Unix Operation System_, second edition, published
> in 1988.
>
> The preface to the third edition (1994) can be read at archive.org, (or
> the whole book "borrowed" with an account) and the first page of that
> preface (page 6 as scanned, page v as numbered), confirms it for me:
>
> https://archive.org/details/unixoperatingsys00chri/page/n5/mode/2up
>
> Both the first and second editions of this book were notable for the
> cover, a single frame from the movie _Star Trek II, The Wrath of
> Khan_. The image was created by Ed Catmull, Alvy Ray Smith, and
> others at Lucas Film Ltd, and at the time was the state of the art
> of computer graphics.
>
> First edition was 1984, which would be too old to be the one I read.
>
> I've found a copy, I think of second edition, for sale by Goodwill of
> Seattle and ordered it today, ~$12 with shipping.
>
> Archive.org's second edition copy:
>
> https://archive.org/details/unixoperatingsys0000chri
>
> You can't preview that one far enough to read about the cover.
>
> Elijah
> ------
> those bing image search results included some distinctly not Unix results
>

Heh, glad you found your book and it jived with your memory. When you
first posted I was picturing something different, basically a planet
undergoing transformation.

Think this is the frame from the film's terraforming sequence:

https://youtu.be/jKOwIVjwSPc?t=115

Enjoy your book reunion!

-m4

In comp.unix.questions, <met@ph.or> wrote:
[ Archive.org's second edition copy:
https://archive.org/details/unixoperatingsys0000chri
] > Heh, glad you found your book and it jived with your memory. When you
> first posted I was picturing something different, basically a planet
> undergoing transformation.

That's certainly how I remembered it and probably described it, but what
a "transformation" looks like can vary in one's mind's eye.

> Think this is the frame from the film's terraforming sequence:
> https://youtu.be/jKOwIVjwSPc?t=115

About there. I hadn't seen that sequence since about when the movie was
new.

> Enjoy your book reunion!

Hasn't arrived yet, but I plan to.

Elijah
------
became less of a Trek fan over the course of the eighties