PWB/UNIX

PWB/UNIX (usually called just 'PWB; the acronym is from its formal name, the 'Programmer's Workbench')) was a variant of V6 Unix inside Bell, with minor changes to make it more suitable for use in a production environment. The effort started in mid-1973 after a suggestion by M. L. Ivie, with its first PDP-11/45 later that year.

By October, 1977 it ran on a group of seven PDP-11/45's and PDP-11/70's in a computing center of the Business Information Systems Program (BISP) group at Bell. It rapidly spread inside Bell, so by that point there were about 10 other PWB sites (some with more than one system) at Bell Labs, and a half-dozen more inside Bell System; others outside (including MIT) also ran it.

Most V6 applications will run without object code modification on PWB.

User-visible compatability

PWB supports all the standard V6 system calls.

Further reading

• T. A. Dolotta, R.C. Haight, J. R. Mashey, The Programmer's Workbench, Bell System Technical Journal, Vol. 57, No. 6, July-August 1978

External links

• PWB1 - Complete source and binary
• PWB/UNIX 1.0 on the 11/23+