Date: Thu, 3 May 2001 08:31:55 -0700 (PDT) From: Rick Duvall <maillist@coastsight.com> To: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> Cc: Andrew Hesford <ajh3@chmod.ath.cx>, questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What is BSD Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105030831370.20381-100000@ns1.coastsight.com> In-Reply-To: <15089.53.575798.364087@guru.mired.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Are they still alive? No offense...... On Thu, 3 May 2001, Mike Meyer wrote: > 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 > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?Pine.BSF.4.21.0105030831370.20381-100000>