+A \fBtabs\fP utility appeared in PWB/Unix 1.0 (1977).
+There was a reduced version of the \fBtabs\fP utility
+in Unix 7th edition and in 3BSD (1979).
+The latter supported a single \*(``\-n\*('' option
+(to cause the first tab stop to be set on the left margin).
+That option is not documented by POSIX.
+.PP
+The PWB/Unix \fBtabs\fP utility, which was included in System III (1980),
+used built-in tables rather than the terminal database,
+to support a half-dozen terminal types.
+It also had built-in logic to support the left-margin,
+as well as a feature for copying the tab settings from a file.
+.PP
+Later versions of Unix, e.g., SVr4,
+added support for the terminal database,
+but kept the tables, as a fallback.
+In an earlier development effort,
+the tab-stop initialization provided by \fBtset\fP (1982)
+and incorporated into \fBtput\fP uses the terminal database,
+.PP
+POSIX documents no limits on the number of tab stops.