unix/linux history

kona

               
                First version created in Bell Labs -1969
Information and images taken from Peter H. Salus, A Quarter Century of UNIX; Reading, MA:
Addison-Wesley, 1994.
1969 -- Bell Telephone Laboratories [BTL]
Ken Thompson (from UC Berkeley, at BTL since 1966) and
Dennis Ritchie (from applied mathematics, Harvard, at BTL for one year)
working together on a team for Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing
Service)--a joint attempt by BTL, GE, and MIT to create an operating system for a large computer which
accommodate up to a thousand simultaneous users.
When BTL withdrew from the project, they needed to rewrite an operating system (OS) in order to play space
travel on another smaller machine (a DEC PDP-7 [Programmed Data Processor] 4K memory for user programs).
The result was a system which a punning colleague called UNICS
(UNiplexed Information and Computing Service)--an 'emasculated Multics'; no one recalls whose idea the
change to UNIX was.
According to Thompson:
It was the summer of '69.  In fact, my wife went on vacation to my family's place in California.... I
allocated a week each to the operating system, the shell, the editor, and the assembler, to reproduce
itself, and during the month she was gone, it was totally rewritten in a  form that looked like an
operating system, with tools that were sort of known, you know, assembler, editor, and shell .... Yeh,
essentially one person for a month.

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, 1970s
The "language" they were writing the OS in was BCPL (Basic Combined Programming Language)--a tool for
compiler writing and systems programming.  But in keeping with their need for extreme economy, Richie
wrote a "cut-down version of BCPL" with the abbreviated name, B.
In 1970, BTL purchased a PDP-11 for a text preparation project:  "Only the processor and memory arrived,
there was no disc.  It was all paper tape software, you loaded things with paper tape, there was no
operating system as such."  The elementary Unix operating system was redone for this machine, including
now a simple line editor ed which Thompson wrote, as well as a program for rendering text
runoff or roff.
The Patent Department of BTL became the first Unix user, sharing the PDP-11/20 with the research
group--then taking it over and giving the researchers funds to acquire a more advanced PDP-11/45. [a
1972 version of the 11/20 had 56K ram and two 2.4Mb disks
The first edition of the "UNIX PROGRAMMER'S MANUAL [by] K. Thompson [and] D. M. Ritchie" is dated
"November 3, 1971".  It includes over 60 commands like: b (compile B program); boot (reboot system); cat
(concatenate files); chdir (change working directory); chmod (change access mode); chown (change owner);
cp (copy file); ls (list directory contents); mv (move or rename file); roff (run off text); wc (get word
count); who (who is one the system).  The main thing missing was pipes.
in 1972, Ritchie rewrote B and called the new language C; Thompson created the pipe--a
uniform mechanism for connecting the output of one program to the input of another.  This lay the
groundword for the Unix "toolbox" philosophy: "Write programs that do one thing and do it well.  Write
programs to work together.  Write programs that handle text streams, because that is a universal
interface."
in 1973, Unix had been installed on 16 sites (all within AT&T/Western Electric); is was publically
unveiled at a conference in October--within six months the number of installations had trebled, and after
a version was published in Communications of the ACM in July 1974, there was a flood of
requests.
Fall 1974--Thompson went to UC Berkeley to teach for a year; Bill Joy arrived there as a new graduate
student.  Frustrated with ed, Joy developed a more featured editor em.
"Something was created at BTL.  It was distributed in source form.  A user in the UK created something
from it.  Another user in California improved on both the original and the UK version.  It was
distributed to the community at cost.  The improved version was incorporated into the next BTL
release.
There was no way that [BTL] Patent and Licensing could control this.  And the system got better and more
widely used all the time."

Dennis Ritchie and Bill Joy, late 70s

               
               
               
               
               
               
               

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