david@indetech.UUCP (David Kuder) (05/22/89)
Recently I had reason to reminisce about using UNIX on a PDP-11/70 a few years ago. One of the things that that machine had was a shell called the "Mashey" shell. Or did it? The general question of when was a shell first written and used on a UNIX box came up. Any explanation (with juicy details) would be appreciated.
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (05/22/89)
In article <2838@emerald.indetech.uucp> david@indetech.UUCP () writes: >the "Mashey" shell. Or did it? The general question of when was a shell >first written and used on a UNIX box came up. As I recall hearing it, Ken Thompson wrote the first shell, which was pretty basic and as with other UNIX software evolved slightly through time. Mashey's shell was widely used on PWB/UNIX. Bourne's shell displaced all of these, but Bill Joy's Cshell was concurrently written and spread its influence in the Berkeley community. In modern times there have been revisions or rewrites of the Bourne shell that equal or exceed Cshell's functionality; the Korn shell is the best known.