The Birth of Standard Error (2013)

Separate error output was around for at least a decade before this. I know MTS had it in the 1960s, and I don't think it was their original idea. I used a CDC for a while and they had it too. So while this is the story of how standard error was introduced into Unix, it is not the origin story of the concept of standard error.

This might have been a case of parallel invention. When I was using Michigan Terminal System in 1981, and it wasn't new then, I remember SERCOM/MSINK being distinct from SCARDS/SOURCE and SPRINT/SINK. Yes, that's cards as in punch cards. My impression is that similar concepts and terminology have also existed in the IBM world since $forever. I doubt that the MTS folks and the Bell Labs folks were aware of each others' identical inventions, but if there was a relationship…

I came across this blog post while researching the history of the `roff` family of type-setting systems: the Graphic Systems’ C/A/T phototypesetter was the output device that Joe Ossanna’s troff was written for. I love the hacker spirit of by-passing the paper tape input that they were supposed to use though I can only begin to imagine the frustration the early Unix developers might have felt when they had to do so much work – only to see a typeset…