henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (05/10/85)
Well, the mail about still-operational ancient Unix machines has petered out, so here's the summary of results that I promised. For the purposes of terminology in this article, I will pretend that Bell-System divestiture didn't happen, since virtually all the events in question happened before the breakup. The oldest still-running Unix machine is unquestionably within the Bell System. The Murray Hill research lab long since put its old machines out to pasture, but there are some very old applications machines still operational. In particular, there are machines still running Cosnix, which was a hacked derivative of the assembly-language Unix (V3). Obviously these are not now used much as development machines, but as turnkey applications systems. Incidentally, some, possibly all, of the applications are written in the old "fc" semi-interpretive Fortran! 11/45 number 570 (numbers started at 100, Research's 45 was 110) is still running Cosnix at Bell Labs Whippany. There is a still-older Cosnix machine in the Bell System 8th-Street site in LA; it was installed in late 72 or early 73. Considering the timing, this might be an 11/20 rather than a 45. This would appear to be the Grand Prize winner for oldest Unix still operating. Outside the Bell System, the picture is less clear. Unix license number one went to Columbia, but this may not be too significant; I don't have dates for the licenses, and in any case license dates don't necessarily correlate with operational dates. Of the people I actually got responses from, it would appear to be a three-way tie, all for V4 in late 1973, between U of Alberta (11/45 #315, still running), Johns Hopkins U (11/45 #493, given to Chemistry Dept. but believed still running), and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (a small NYC engineering school) (11/45, #???, still running, possibly still V4!). Corrections and addenda would be appreciated. Thanks to all the people who replied with information, notably Dennis Ritchie and John Mashey for the info on the Cosnix systems. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (05/12/85)
> and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (a small NYC > engineering school) (11/45, #???, still running, possibly still V4!). Yes, Cooper still has their '45 going strong, but with V6. I learned on that machine during my undergrad years there (1977-81). They added a 160 Mb fuji since I left, but still boot off the 2 RK-05's they had when I got there (yup, 5 Mb total disk space). Isn't it amazing how 32 people can do real work on a machine with 256K of core (I think they finally upgraded to MOS ram) and a kernal that only takes up about 20K? -- allegra!phri!roy (Roy Smith) System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute