I think I mentioned a while back that I have a pretty large and growing collection of old computer books - these are mostly serious things - no "Unix For Dummies" kind of stuff. They encompass several broad ranges of topics: operating systems, programming languages, algorithms, networking, and computer history.

So I thought that over time I might catalog them and maybe write up some reviews for others with similar interests, if there are any. I haven't been very diligent in doing that, though I hope to someday post more.

But, a new, old book came in the mail last night: "The Unix System V Environment", by Stephen R. Bourne. Published in 1987, this is perhaps
THE book to have on System V, and it was written by one of my favorite authors. S.R. Bourne, of bourne shell fame among many other achievements, writes with a style that makes even the most complex concepts seem simple. This book starts with the basics of how to use the
system, to using the editors, including the new (to SYSV) vi, to document formatting, to C programming, to the SYSV APIs and libraries. There us also a consise treatment of the Unix utilities and how to string them together with shell scripting. As one might expect, his
description of the shell is fairly comprehensive. There is no system administration material to speak of in the book.

While "The Unix System V Environment" was likely meant for the more technical user of the system, today that's probably all there are left: nobody uses SYSV in their day job anymore.

This is a great book that should be in the collection of any serious Unix book fan, and is a great way to understand some of the innards of
SYSV. Using this book along with the system manuals is about all one would need to completely understand SYSV.