Unix History - The Humble Beginnings of Linux

[skippuff54]

Hello all,

Just thought new folks might like to review the history of Unix in order to gain some insight into what's going on under the hood of Ubuntu and other forms of Linux. You can find a detailed account here:

http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/

The main instigators involved are named Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Their homepages are here:

Ken Thompson's Homepage (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/who/ken/index.html)

Dennis Ritchie's Homepage (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/index.html)

Enjoy!

P.S. Mods, I'd like to submit this topic for a sticky in the Absolute Beginner's forum.

[Kellemora]

Hi Skip

An interesting read for sure!

But now I'm confused about something.

I thought UNIX predated all other OS's?

Yet according to this article, they were still trying to implement UNIX as a viable OS long after desktop computers became popular.

Or should I say, I had already went through the Apple computers and was using LISA within the date frame they show as the first commercial application of UNIX????? Prior to that, my first computer was a Heath/Zenith Octal Entry, followed by the Apples, the Lisa and finally the MAC, then I switched over to PC's due to client demand.

Either I read something really wrong there or in my old age I'm forgetting just when I was starting to play with these computin' contraptions.

At work we bought a WANG VS system, humongous, and had to have a special clean room with a/c and driers too. Later we downsized but upgraded to the Wang OIS system, and that was all pre 1980 for sure.

Am I mistaken than UNIX was around since computers were magnets and tubes?

I'll go back and reread the article again, but they were showing a summary of dates mentioned throught the article on the last page of the main article.

The Heath/Zenith and my first Apple I motherboard both used paper tape readers and punchers. Sure beat the IBM punch cards prior to that!
Apple II and I think Trash-80's introduced Cassette Tapes and Later floppy drives. Then we progressed into Hard Drives until the gaming companies reverted backwards to having to change CDs again, like the old days of swapping floppies. A MAJOR step backwards in technology! Why bother to have a machine with a Hard Drive when you were back to swapping disks again! And sadly, a LOT of software is still this way today.

Edited to add:
Unix Releases: V6 1975 to Universities; V7 1978 to Univ and some Commercial.
System III 1981 Commercial; System Vr1 1983 Comm. Sys Vr2 1984 Comm.
V8, V9, V10, 1985, 86, 87 respectively to Universities.

Heathkit H-8 (Heath/Zenith Octal Entry) bought in early 1977
Apple I motherboard, just afterwards in early 1977, 500 bucks.
Apple II complete, mid 1978, a little over 1,500 bucks.
Apple II+, plus every add on that came along, around 1 grand then the extras were added at about another 500 bucks. I ended up eventually purchasing 3 of these, the latter two used. They held up just fine too as long as you pulled the cards and hit them with a soft eraser about once month, hi hi....
For business, I purchased their new Lisa system (over 10 grand), this would have been in the summer of 1984, major investment for my company at that time too, but well worth it. The Lisa had a mouse and GUI by the way.
For another business I had downtown I purchased 2 Mac Plus machines and a Mac SE as Host, with commercial support for the Tops network. It was under 10 grand, probably around 8 grand I think.
Later, around 1989, the Lisa was replaced with the Wang VS System, a mainframe. We purchased the Wang VS300 used just after the VS5000's came out. It came with all the software we could ever use, and the Wang Support Office was only 6 blocks away.
We sold this system to Tradin' Times magazine in 1992 and I purchased an OIS system to make use of all our existing software, also used, along with a Support contract. Wang gave me a Wang PC for free, the purpose was to extract data from the OIS machine and resave it in IBM format, and that's about all we used that PC for. But I kept it for myself for several years.

Now you see why I'm confused about UNIX!
I thought nearly all the early home PC's OS's were written in C for Unix then recompiled into the OS's used on the machines themselves.
Or was that CP/M, don't remember anymore!
Olde Age is the Pits, hi hi..........

TTUL
Gary

[t0p]

I thought UNIX predated all other OS's?


UNIX was invented in the 1960s, and has been under development ever since. It predates DOS. But all operating systems? There were a lot of oses before UNIX!

[LowSky]

GM-NAA I/O is considerd the first computer operating system


Then we progressed into Hard Drives until the gaming companies reverted backwards to having to change CDs again, like the old days of swapping floppies. A MAJOR step backwards in technology! Why bother to have a machine with a Hard Drive when you were back to swapping disks again! And sadly, a LOT of software is still this way today.


Software companies introduced the Disc swapping technique, so that hard drives would not have to write all their data onto a hard drive. In the early 1990's when CD-ROMs were first coming out, a CD could hold 650MB, roughly the same size as the then availble hard drives. disc swapping was great for things like video which still can take up quite a bit of size. as hard drives finally started breaking the Gigabyte market CDROMS were being replaced by DVDs (except in gaming), Soon the issue of encryption and piracy became an issue, the easiest way to stop a single copy of a game from playing on multiple computers was to force the user to have the CD availible while playing. Once game exe file cracks and sio mounting progrmas became prevalent, encryption was then use in the forms or keys and now digital rights management. Now that DVD are moving towared Blu-Ray and Flash drives and Networked mediums, DRM looks like it will stick around the longest. I bet in a few years time companies will want a DNA sample or a finger print touse software....LOL

[Kellemora]

I hear ya LowSky

If it were Not for Beagle Bros. Software, I would not have had many backups of my software at all. The Bros. were great at cracking spiraling and all the other techniques used to make software not copyable.

Although I don't Pirate Software nor distribute illegal copies. By the same token, I don't buy a software package until I've used it myself long enough to find out if it does what I need it to do. Which if it's a program I would only use occasionally, those 30 day trials are totally useless to me.
I've been burned way to many times in my old age to just BUY any software anymore! The LIE on the packages BIG TIME!
So I may obtain a pirated copy to try out for a time and if it does what I need it to do, THEN I will gladly buy an OEM copy.

Also, as far as Open Source goes, although a lot is FREE, when I find something I like, I do send something to the author. Hopefully it really makes their day too! I feel one should support whatever they are using!
Take Ubuntu here for example. It's not free to provide all the support we are getting, the upgrades, patches, add-on's etc. Somebody (group of bodies) are working VERY HARD to make all this happen.
Maybe it's to get all the bugs out to go commercial later, maybe not, maybe it's because they like us and hope Ubuntu users move to bigger things and require Commercial Support. For whatever reason Ubuntu is free, it's the reason I'm here learning it.
I have CentOS OS also and have yet to get it to do anything and it has little to no support at all, not even at their web site.
This web site, and the quality of Ubuntu is what probably drove it to the #1 spot on the charts so quickly.
And if I decide to continue to use it, in lieu of other OS's, you can bet your boots I will begin to support the author!

TTUL
Gary

[bab1]

About 15 years ago there was a magazine (remember those) called Server/Workstatiion Expert (SWExpert). Recently I found there articles archived here (http://www.tech-geeks.org/contrib/mdrone/LinuxWorkshop/SWExpert%20Article%20Archive/). There were great articles that also provided a little history of why things were done as well has how to.

[billgoldberg]

Hello all,

Just thought new folks might like to review the history of Unix in order to gain some insight into what's going on under the hood of Ubuntu and other forms of Linux. You can find a detailed account here:

http://www.bell-labs.com/history/unix/

The main instigators involved are named Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Their homepages are here:

Ken Thompson's Homepage (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/who/ken/index.html)

Dennis Ritchie's Homepage (http://plan9.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/index.html)

Enjoy!

P.S. Mods, I'd like to submit this topic for a sticky in the Absolute Beginner's forum.

I don't see how a Linux forum should sticky things about another OS in which it shares not a single line of code with.

Oh, and I'll bet you a 100 bucks it will never, ever make it as a sticky.

PM me if you accept

lol

[bab1]

I don't see how a Linux forum should sticky things about another OS in which it shares not a single line of code with.

And who says it doesn't share a single line of code? Documentation of this?

[northern lights]

Also, as far as Open Source goes, although a lot is FREE, when I find something I like, I do send something to the author. Hopefully it really makes their day too! I feel one should support whatever they are using!
IMHO thinking of price when talking about "Free Software" misses the point. Software ought to be free as in "free speech", not necessarily as in "free beer".


Oh, and I'll bet you a 100 bucks it will never, ever make it as a sticky.
PM me if you accept
I want in too. Easy money. :)

[aysiu]

P.S. Mods, I'd like to submit this topic for a sticky in the Absolute Beginner's forum. Unless the other mods vote me down on this, I'm going to move this to the Community Cafe (which right now appears to be "The Poop Deck"). I see no reason to sticky this.