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Date:      Tue, 14 May 1996 09:36:38 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Bill/Carolyn Pechter <pechter@shell.monmouth.com>
To:        edd@aic.net
Cc:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: UNIX System
Message-ID:  <199605141336.JAA08518@shell.monmouth.com>
In-Reply-To: <199605140826.MAA03275@aic.net> from "edd@aic.net" at May 14, 96 12:26:37 pm

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> 
> > 
> > 'Could've sworn it went Multics-->Unics-->UNIX
> 
> no, IMHO.
> 
> > 
> > Uniplexed information and computer system or something like that.
> 
> Let's ask 
> 
> > 
> > Bill
> > 
> > (an old Unix history teacher)
> 
> OLD UNIX teacher or OLD unix teacher? :)


Both... and here's the promised citation...


Re: Unics--> UNIX

>From pg 5... Life With Unix by Don Libes and Sandy Ressler.

The word "MULTICS" actually stoof for MULTiplexed Information and Computing
System.  In 1970 Brian Kernighan jokingly referred to their two user system
as "UNICS," for the  "UNiplexed Information and Computing System" since MULTICS
seemed to be a vastly oversized operating system by comparison.  (Some claim 
that MULTICS stands for "Many Unnecessarily Large Tables In Core 
Simultaneously" and that UNIX was a castrated version of MULTICS.  Soon after,
"UNICS" became "UNIX" and the name has stuck ever since.

I rest my case.  ... follow ups to alt.folklore.computers...

(I know it's before the 1971 Version 1 release.  

Yes, this was the PDP7 version of the system.  Yes, it was assembler
based rather than the C kernel we know now.  Yup it's not V4, 5, 6, or 7.
But it's the real Unix just like the early prehistoric humans are
still humans.)


Bill
Unix Geneologist


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Bill Pechter/Carolyn Pechter  | 17 Meredith Drive, Tinton Falls, NJ 07724, 
 908-389-3592                  | pechter@shell.monmouth.com                
 I'll run Win96 on my box when you pry the keyboard from my cold, dead
 hands.  FreeBSD, OS/2, CP/M, RT11, spoken here.



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