hwe@beta.lanl.gov (Skip Egdorf) (06/19/88)
I am posting this to comp.os.minix because that is where it belongs. I am posting to comp.unix.wizards because that is where the old-timers who might remember this reside. Please edit followups as needed. While digging through my large collection of computer glossy ads (I never throw any printed matter away) I ran accross something that should make all the lawyers on comp.os.minix really lick their chops: A three page advertisement from Digital Systems House inc. 143 First Street Batavia, IL 60510 (312)879-1008 For a product called MINIX (tm) (MINIX is a trademark of Digital Systems House). I probably picked it up at the vendors show at one of the Unix Conferences (which doesn't help the date, I have attended all since 1978). I don't have a date for the glossy, but it has: Support for TS (Version 6), GP (Version 7), and PPS (PWB). There is mention of binary licenses which first appeared for V-7 (and included grandfathering for V-6 and PWB) around 1980. There is mention of support for 11/70s, bit no VAXen. The company thrust was to provide a supported, binary Unix(tm) (Unix is a trademark of Bell Telephone Laboratories, or so it says on the MINIX(tm) blurb. This may have changed by now.) as Interactive Systems did about the same time. My guess would therefore be about Summer 1980. Now the questions: 1. What ever happened to Digital Systems House? 2. If they are gone (likely), who inherited the trademark for MINIX(tm)? 3. What happens to a trademark (such as MINIX(tm)) when a company goes away?? Remember, MINIX is a trademark of Digital Systems House Inc. OH I'm going to hate myself in the morning! Skip Egdorf hwe@lanl.gov
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) (06/22/88)
In article <20347@beta.lanl.gov> hwe@beta.lanl.gov (Skip Egdorf) writes: >MINIX is a trademark of Digital Systems House Interesting, interesting. Here comes one of those stories that only insiders know. The derivation of UNIX is as follows. Ken Thompson was one of the programmers on MULTICS, the MULTIplexed Information and Computing Service projected started by MIT, Bell Labs and GE. After Bell Labs pulled out, Ken found an unused PDP-7 and tried writing MULTICS on his one. Brian Kernighan noted that it only supported 1 user, so it should be called Unics (Uni being the Latin for 1). The spelling got garbled later. My original name for this system was MONICS (the MONoplexed Information and Computing Service, Mono being Greek for 1). The spelling later got garbled to MONIX. All my students knew it under this name. Then Prentice-Hall did a trademark search and discovered that MONIX was the trademark of some French company. Bye MONIX. I then suggested MINIX, STUNIX, and various other names. Then did trademark searches on them and MINIX was not anybody's trademark, so we picked it. I can't explain the Digital Systems House alleged trademark except to say they must not have done a very good job of trademarking it since it didn't show up in a very specific search for it. Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl) -- Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)