Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 01:52:37 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What is BSD Message-ID: <15089.53.575798.364087@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <20010503013836.A949@cec.wustl.edu> References: <124992994@toto.iv> <15088.59902.80071.263738@guru.mired.org> <20010503002403.A798@cec.wustl.edu> <15088.60767.89794.219758@guru.mired.org> <20010503013836.A949@cec.wustl.edu>
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Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> types: > On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 12:32:15AM -0500, Mike Meyer wrote: > > Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> types: > > > On Thu, May 03, 2001 at 12:17:50AM -0500, Mike Meyer wrote: > > > > Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx> types: > > > > > Back in the days when I was, oh, about -13 years old (yes, that's a > > > > > minus sign), a man named Dennis Ritchie and some of his cohorts at Bell > > > > > Labs decided to build an operating system to run on their PDP-11 > > > > Um - that was a PDP-7, and it was never known as "Unics", but was Unix > > > > from the first, though that was indeed a pun on Multics. They didn't > > > > write a PDP-11 version of Unix until after the PDP-11 was available. > > > I wasn't sure about either of those... but the UNIX timeline, available > > > at the URL I posted before, shows UNIX coming from UNICS. This was > > > September 1969. The first UNIX release is listed as November 3, 1971. > > > > > > The site has a fair amount of information, including links to the home > > > pages of Brian Kernighan, Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson and others. Here > > > is the URL again: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/. I urge you all > > > to check it out. > > > > That also includes the AT&T paper on the history of Unix, which I used > > to verify the original machine type. It happened to mentioned the > > origin of the name. > > I was only wrong in one place then, the original machine. From > http://www.unix-systems.org/what_is_unix/history_timeline.html: > The result was a system which a punning colleague called UNICS > (UNiplexed Information and Computing Service)--an 'emasculated > Multics'; no one recalls whose idea the change to UNIX was According to Ritchie (one of the two original authors): "Althought it was not until well into 1970 that Brian Kernighan suggested the name 'UNIX,', in a somewhat treacherous pun on 'Multics,' ..." <URL: http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/almost.html >. Kernighan is clearly the "punning colleague" that Salus refers to, but the quote from Ritchie uses the X spelling, not the CS one. If you're really curious, you could try emailing the people involved about it.g <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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