mp (05/13/83)
Some answers to recent questions, dredged up from my usenet archives... >From mhtsa!ihnss!ucbvax!unix-wizards Wed Oct 28 12:38:28 1981 Subject: Origin of UNIX Newsgroups: fa.unix-wizards >From dan@BBN-UNIX Wed Oct 28 11:48:57 1981 UNIX was named by analogy with Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing System), whose development began at about the same time, and which was originally a joint Bell/GE/MIT project. The name was intended to contrast the UNIX philosophy of providing a small, unified system whose elements could be readily combined with what Bell people perceived as the Multics attitude of providing many individual commands, each with many options, to perform different functions. Or so Brian Kernighan told me when I asked him (more or less). Dan Franklin >From mhtsa!ihnss!ucbvax!unix-wizards Sat Oct 31 17:08:13 1981 Subject: rc etymology Newsgroups: fa.unix-wizards >From CSVAX.dmr@Berkeley Sat Oct 31 16:58:15 1981 The name 'rc' comes from RUNCOM, which was the rough equivalent on the MIT CTSS system of what Unix calls shell scripts. Of course RUNCOM derives from 'run commands.' Yet another piece of evidence for my thesis that Unix is a modern version of CTSS. (I said it ca. 1973, so 'modern' is questionable.) Any who used '. SAVED' will have no trouble conquering the Shell. Noel I. Morris, do you still live? Your indefatigable historian, Dennis Ritchie