ats:
A paper from 1989 (?) talking about improvements to SunOS.
Notable for this bit:
"The (experimental) config file system can potentially replace the device switches. It provides a device name space (hierarchy) derived automatically from the machine's configuration."
"[...] Multiplexors are represented by directories that generate channel vnodes on demand. (This might serve to eliminate major/minor device numbers from the system, removing the need to make them larger on big systems.)"
i.e. this invented sysfs some 14 years before Linux did.
(Or, rather, the specific rationale behind the way sysfs was implemented.)
I wonder if Alan Cox and co have read this paper...
ats: "Microprofessor I (MPF 1), introduced in 1981, was Acer's first branded computer product and probably one of the world's longest selling computers."
Curious. I've got one of these -- complete with the extremely impressive Tiny BASIC, which runs on the 6 seven-segment displays -- but I never knew it was Acer's first product.
I even wrote an emulator for the BASIC and disassembled quite a lot of it...
Perhaps some day I ought to get around to writing a proper emulator for the entire machine. Not that I can imagine anyone actually wanting to use it.