ian@sq.UUCP (08/25/87)
Robert Halloran (rkh@mtune.UUCP) writes: > As I recall hearing the background story, Unix was put together by the > former AT&T participants in the Multics project as a quick hack alternative > to DEC's offerings for the PDP-x machine. It was budgeted as an office > word processing system for some surplus DEC hardware laying around > Bell Labs. Then people starting seeing it working and wanted copies. It was hardly a ``quick hack''. Thompson, Ritchie, Canaday and others spent many months, perhaps half a year, designing it before they started writing. Initially there was no budget; it was a research project using surplus equipment. The office word processing proposal was mounted so that they could get funding to buy a new-generation, latest-technology processor - the PDP-11/20 (do not confuse this machine with a DECsystem-20 :=) ) with a 5 MB (sic) hard disk. The UNIX story is not just folklore; it has been told in detail in an article by one of the participants. Please read it; apart from being interesting reading, it has several interesting comments on the social aspects of computer systems development. Dennis Ritchie, ``The Evolution of the UNIX Time-sharing System'', AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, October 1984, Vol 63, No 8, part 2, page 1577, ISSN 0005-8580. May still be available from AT&T Bell Laboratories Technical Journal, Room 1D335, 101 J. F. Kennedy Parkway, Short Hills, NJ 07078. This issue of BLTJ has (I believe) been reprinted by Prentice-Hall under some title like "Readings in the UNIX Operating System, Volume 2(?)"; I don't have a copy handy to verify the title or ISBN. You might also check out a paper G. Collyer & I wrote on later UNIX history: ``UNIX Evolution 1975-1984, Part 1'', Ian Darwin and Geoff Collyer, Microsystems, November 1984, Vol 5, No 11, p 44. Back issues may (for all I know) be available from Ziff-Davis in New York. Ziff closed down this magazine (November 1984 was the last issue, hence the Missing Parts 2 through N were never written :-( ). I don't know if Ziff will still have copies. If you can't find copies of these in your local technical library or at the addresses mentioned, please let me know BY MAIL. -- The moon (and beyond) can't wait: | Ian Darwin, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto we have all our eggs in one basket. | utzoo!sq!ian or ian@sq.com
lawitzke@eecae.UUCP (John Lawitzke) (08/26/87)
Also see chapter 1 of "The Design of the Unix Operating System" by Maurice Bach. -- John H. Lawitzke UUCP: ...ihnp4!msudoc!eecae!lawitzke Division of Engineering Research ARPA: lawitzke@eecae.ee.msu.edu (35.8.8.151) Michigan State University Office: (517) 355-3769 E. Lansing, MI, 48824