Difference between revisions of "UNIX"

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'''Unix''' (officially trademarked as '''UNIX'''® - the documentation switched from using 'UNIX' to 'Unix' as of [[Unix Seventh Edition|V7]]) is a computer [[operating system]] originally developed in the 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy.
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'''Unix''' (officially trademarked as '''UNIX'''® - the documentation switched from using 'UNIX' to 'Unix' as of [[Unix Seventh Edition|V7]]) is a computer [[operating system]] originally developed in the 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including [[Ken Thompson]], [[Dennis Ritchie]] and [[Douglas McIlroy]].
  
 
Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations. A number of clones of Unix, which share the interfaces, and 'look and feel', but no code, have also been produced; most notably, [[Linux]].
 
Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations. A number of clones of Unix, which share the interfaces, and 'look and feel', but no code, have also been produced; most notably, [[Linux]].

Revision as of 20:06, 25 May 2022


UNIX
Type: Time-sharing
Creator: Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy at Bell Labs
Multitasking: Multi-tasking with swapping/paging (latter added in a later version)
Architecture: Originally PDP-7, then PDP-11; now cross-platform.
Date Released: 1969


Unix (officially trademarked as UNIX® - the documentation switched from using 'UNIX' to 'Unix' as of V7) is a computer operating system originally developed in the 1970s by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy.

Today's Unix systems are split into various branches, developed over time by AT&T as well as various commercial vendors and non-profit organizations. A number of clones of Unix, which share the interfaces, and 'look and feel', but no code, have also been produced; most notably, Linux.

Notable versions

Versions of relevance for hobbyists include (note that 'Version' in early UNIXes refers to the revision of the 'UNIX Programmer's Manual'; UNIX didn't really have coordinated distros before about V6):

Unix then went commercial and was sold, in a number of releases. (Below is an early ad for AT&T UNIX.)

Unix ad


CSRG releases

Meanwhile the Computer Systems Research Group‎ kept on releasing newer BSD UNIX's, mostly for the VAX, derived from 32V. These had wide distribution, and tremendous impact; they were a major step in UNIX's road to its current ubiguity.

Descended from there are several popular versions:

  • FreeBSD focuses on providing a system geared towards a single user.
  • NetBSD will run on a variety of 32-bit older systems from the VAX to the Amiga.
  • OpenBSD derived from the NetBSD project will run on all kinds of systems.

See also

External links

Fun links