UNIX a brief history
jhar...@my-dejanews.com
to throw in some dates and correct me where I am wrong. Here goes:
Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). The original
version was created primarily by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. In 1970
UNIX was rewritten in C. This re-write is a key factor in UNIX's success.
AT&T originally gave the OS including the source code to universities. One
university that took full advantage of the gift was UC Berkley. The folks at
Berkley went on to rewrite UNIX in 1977. This rewrite became known as BSD
UNIX. Sometime in 1977 AT&T decided to quit giving the OS away and start
selling it commercially. It was at this point in 1977 that the UNIX road
forked and there became two UNIX camps. In 198? Novell bought the rights and
source to AT&T's UNIX. In 198? Novell sold these rights to SCO who is the
current owner.
In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop computer. This OS
became known as Xenix. The Xenix OS was sold to SCO in 19??
Thanks in advance for any corrections and additional information.
Jeremy
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Discuss, or Start Your Own
Bill Vermillion
<jhar...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would
>take the time to throw in some dates and correct me where I am
>wrong. Here goes:
>Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). ...
Unless you are doing this for yourself so you can learn how to
research items, you'd be a lot better off just buying "My 25 years
with Unix" Don Libes (son of Sol), or any of the other 25th year
anniversary of Unix issue that came out in 1994/5.
>Ritchie.
I once had an email from dmr in response to one of my 'net postings,
probably back in 1985/6. Boy was I impressed by that! In those days
3MB/day was consdered a heavy day for Usenet.
In 1970 UNIX was rewritten in C. This re-write is a key
>factor in UNIX's success. AT&T originally gave the OS including
>the source code to universities.
Not gave, licensed it. License fee was originally - from what I've
heard but have seen no hard documentation about - was $100
>One university that took full advantage of the gift was UC Berkley.
>The folks at Berkley went on to rewrite UNIX in 1977. This rewrite
>became known as BSD UNIX.
It became knows as BSD 2.x. That was 'free' >>IF<< you had a
license from AT&T for their original OS. It really only became
free (in the free speech paradigm, not the free beer model), after
all the AT&T code was expunged from the BSD. That became 4.4
BSD-Lite.
>Sometime in 1977 AT&T decided to quit giving the OS away and start
>selling it commercially.
By LAW AT&T could NOT sell the product. That was part of the
government consent decree. It was about 1985 or so +- that AT&T
brought out it's own computers and it's own branded Unix Sys V.r2
>It was at this point in 1977 that the UNIX
>road forked and there became two UNIX camps.
Two? TWO!!! By the early 1980's there were at least 80 versions
of Unix. The only things that could legally be called Unix were
those that were essentially built from the AT&T source tree with no
changes. In the docs for that it indicated it would take two or
three days to compile on a VAX, the hot computer of that era.
>In 198? Novell bought the rights and source to AT&T's UNIX.
It was in the early '90s as I recall. I remember being at the
demos of the Red Box Unix.
>In 198? Novell sold these rights to SCO who is the current owner.
In the 1990s - probably more around 1995. However they gave the
Unix brand to OSF. SCO owns all the copyrights and licensing
agreements, so if you develop and OS totally independant of the
code, and pass the test for Unix - that is going to cost a lot -
you can call it Unix too.
>In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop
>computer. This OS became known as Xenix.
Definately not 'desktop' computers. Even the Radio Shack line took
over the whole desk, others were often deskside. The *ix on the
desktop didn't really take hold until the '286 chips came out,
though I have seen and one time worked on one with an 8086.
>The Xenix OS was sold to SCO in 19??
Nope. Microsoft still owns Xenix, and they license it to others.
SCO's early work was more like a porting house. They developed the
Xenix 3.x for the Radio Shack 16's - running on Motorola 68000s.
I have a brochure/price-list from the early '80s for SCO and it
lists cross-compilers for at least 10 different CPU models.
The also had Xenix and the associated products for such products at
the Lisa, and I seem to recall Lyrix (among other things) for the
Unix PC - aka AT&T 6300.
>Thanks in advance for any corrections and additional information.
I think you'd be far better off doing hard research on periodicals
of that era.
Don't forget to check the CMU work which brought out Mach in 1986.
I remember being at Usenix when they (I forgot his name :-( ) said
that their goal was to be 50% smaller and faster than the current
BSD - which was a 2.3??. He also said, that at that point they
were slower and about 30% larger. Mach still exists. NeXTStep was
built on it. It also the base for the new Apple servers which use
Mach and 4.4BSD. Maybe you can look at that as future history.
Relying on 'net postings, which often contain much hearsay from
people who weren't around at the time, and a lot of what is passed
for the "real story" isn't quite as accurate as it could be.
Check your local library. Find the early truth in the AT&T Journals
of about summer/fall of 1977, or the AT&T Bell Labs Technical
Journal, Vol 63, No. 8, October 1984.
I've never read the first but have two copies of the latter.
Anyone want to sell/trade/swap the first issue? I also think I
have a spare of the journal documenting the ESS5 also.
I'm a pack rat at heart :-)
--
Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
Jerry Heyman
: I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would take the time
: to throw in some dates and correct me where I am wrong. Here goes:
: Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). The original
: version was created primarily by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.
In response to Bell Labs withdrawing from the Multics project.
: In 1970
: UNIX was rewritten in C. This re-write is a key factor in UNIX's success.
: AT&T originally gave the OS including the source code to universities. One
: university that took full advantage of the gift was UC Berkley. The folks at
: Berkley went on to rewrite UNIX in 1977. This rewrite became known as BSD
: UNIX.
The first BSD distribution was some time in the early 1980s
: Sometime in 1977 AT&T decided to quit giving the OS away and start
: selling it commercially.
Not true. AT&T was restricted from selling computer (and related products)
because of the government sanctioned monopoly it had on the Telephone. They
didn't get into the Unix commercial market until after the breakup (1984)
and started with System III.
: It was at this point in 1977 that the UNIX road
: forked and there became two UNIX camps. In 198? Novell bought the rights and
: source to AT&T's UNIX. In 198? Novell sold these rights to SCO who is the
: current owner.
Novell bought USL from AT&T in early 1992 (if memory serves)
SCO purchased the rights in 1995 - and Novell became a stock holder in SCO
at that time.
: In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop computer.
: This OS became known as Xenix.
No. Since AT&T was restricted from selling Unix to the commercial market,
they allowed Microsoft to do the distribution, called Xenix.
: The Xenix OS was sold to SCO in 19??
This is how SCO got its start - in late 1970s...
: Thanks in advance for any corrections and additional information.
: Jeremy
jerry
--
Jerry Heyman O- Team AMIGA
Jerry....@tivoli.com by day : Tier2 Ports, Tivoli Systems Inc.
hey...@acad.stedwards.edu : Former Adjunct Lecturer, St. Edward's Univ.
hey...@acm.org always
<A HREF="http://www.cs.stedwards.edu/u/heyman/"> My other self </A>
Eric Levenez
> I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would take the time
> to throw in some dates and correct me where I am wrong. Here goes:
You can find a little diagram (in PostScript) and some usefull link
on unix history in my page <http://perso.club-internet.fr/levenez/unix/>.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Éric Lévénez "Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas"
mailto:lev...@club-internet.fr Publius Vergilius Maro,
http://perso.club-internet.fr/levenez Georgica, II-489
--------------------------------------------------------------------
"We are Microsoft. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile."
jhar...@my-dejanews.com
I have to teach about 10 people how to login, change directories, etc. I
just wanted to have a little background to provide them so they know where
the OS is coming from.
Thanks,
Jeremy
In article <777nsu$afm$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
jhar...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would take the time
> to throw in some dates and correct me where I am wrong. Here goes:
>
> Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). The original
> version was created primarily by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. In 1970
> UNIX was rewritten in C. This re-write is a key factor in UNIX's success.
> AT&T originally gave the OS including the source code to universities. One
> university that took full advantage of the gift was UC Berkley. The folks at
> Berkley went on to rewrite UNIX in 1977. This rewrite became known as BSD
> UNIX. Sometime in 1977 AT&T decided to quit giving the OS away and start
> selling it commercially. It was at this point in 1977 that the UNIX road
> forked and there became two UNIX camps. In 198? Novell bought the rights and
> source to AT&T's UNIX. In 198? Novell sold these rights to SCO who is the
> current owner.
>
> In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop computer. This OS
> became known as Xenix. The Xenix OS was sold to SCO in 19??
>
> Thanks in advance for any corrections and additional information.
>
> Jeremy
>
fred smith
: In article <777nsu$afm$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
: <jhar...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
: >I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would
: >take the time to throw in some dates and correct me where I am
: >wrong. Here goes:
: >Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). ...
: Unless you are doing this for yourself so you can learn how to
: research items, you'd be a lot better off just buying "My 25 years
: with Unix" Don Libes (son of Sol), or any of the other 25th year
: anniversary of Unix issue that came out in 1994/5.
<large snippage>
: Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
Also, in my "archives" I've found a url that is (used to be?) a home
page of Dennis Ritchie. There may well be additional historical information
available there for those inclined to look:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/index.html
Fred
--
---- Fred Smith -- fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us -----------------------------
"For him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his
glorious presence without fault and with great joy--to the only God our Savior
be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before
all ages, now and forevermore! Amen."
----------------------------- Jude 1:24,25 (niv) -----------------------------
Bill Vermillion
fred smith <fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us> wrote:
>Bill Vermillion (bi...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS) wrote:
>: In article <777nsu$afm$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
>: <jhar...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>
>: >I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would
>: >take the time to throw in some dates and correct me where I am
>: >wrong. Here goes:
>
>: >Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). ...
>
>: Unless you are doing this for yourself so you can learn how to
>: research items, you'd be a lot better off just buying "My 25 years
>: with Unix" Don Libes (son of Sol), or any of the other 25th year
>: anniversary of Unix issue that came out in 1994/5.
>: Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
>Also, in my "archives" I've found a url that is (used to be?)
>a home page of Dennis Ritchie. There may well be additional
>historical information available there for those inclined to look:
> http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/index.html
Yup - it's still there. I also moved up higher in the cm/cs tree and
there is a lot there. In Dennis' area there is even the first Unix
manaul - November 3, 1971 - and he commented on how they had already
designed for what is now known as "the millenium bug".
Thanks for the pointer.
Some neat stuff there and somethings totally unexpected, such
as a picture of Ken Thompson in a MIG-29
jrich...@my-dejanews.com
my current UW7.0.1 version and my old friend units is still there and still
referenced to 'epoch May 18, 1977 wall st j'. Amazing. So some things really
don't change.
In article <F5EHn...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS>,
bi...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS (Bill Vermillion) wrote:
> In article <F5Cwx...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us>,
> fred smith <fre...@fcshome.stoneham.ma.us> wrote:
> >Bill Vermillion (bi...@bilver.magicnet.netREMOVETHIS) wrote:
> >: In article <777nsu$afm$1...@nnrp1.dejanews.com>,
> >: <jhar...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
> >
> >: >I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would
> >: >take the time to throw in some dates and correct me where I am
> >: >wrong. Here goes:
> >
> >: >Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). ...
> >
> >: Unless you are doing this for yourself so you can learn how to
> >: research items, you'd be a lot better off just buying "My 25 years
> >: with Unix" Don Libes (son of Sol), or any of the other 25th year
> >: anniversary of Unix issue that came out in 1994/5.
> ><large snippage>
> >: Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
>
> >Also, in my "archives" I've found a url that is (used to be?)
> >a home page of Dennis Ritchie. There may well be additional
> >historical information available there for those inclined to look:
>
> > http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/index.html
>
> Yup - it's still there. I also moved up higher in the cm/cs tree and
> there is a lot there. In Dennis' area there is even the first Unix
> manaul - November 3, 1971 - and he commented on how they had already
> designed for what is now known as "the millenium bug".
>
> Thanks for the pointer.
>
> Some neat stuff there and somethings totally unexpected, such
> as a picture of Ken Thompson in a MIG-29
>
> --
> Bill Vermillion bv @ wjv.com
>
-----------== Posted via Deja News, The Discussion Network ==----------
Bill Vermillion
<jrich...@my-dejanews.com> wrote:
>Boy does this thread bring back memories. For the fun of it I took
>a look in my current UW7.0.1 version and my old friend units is
>still there and still referenced to 'epoch May 18, 1977 wall st j'.
>Amazing. So some things really don't change.
And you can find some interesting things in there too - great for
that next trivia game.
If 1000 bytes is a kilobyte and 1000000 bytes is a megabyte, what
would you call 10000 bytes? A myria-byte.
So how long will it be before we measure memory in yottabytes :-)
Kirk J. Farquhar
old :-)
jhar...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
> I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would take the time
> to throw in some dates and correct me where I am wrong. Here goes:
>
> Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). The original
> version was created primarily by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. In 1970
> UNIX was rewritten in C. This re-write is a key factor in UNIX's success.
> AT&T originally gave the OS including the source code to universities. One
> university that took full advantage of the gift was UC Berkley. The folks at
> Berkley went on to rewrite UNIX in 1977. This rewrite became known as BSD
> UNIX. Sometime in 1977 AT&T decided to quit giving the OS away and start
> selling it commercially. It was at this point in 1977 that the UNIX road
> forked and there became two UNIX camps. In 198? Novell bought the rights and
> source to AT&T's UNIX. In 198? Novell sold these rights to SCO who is the
> current owner.
>
> In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop computer. This OS
> became known as Xenix. The Xenix OS was sold to SCO in 19??
>
> Thanks in advance for any corrections and additional information.
>
> Jeremy
>
Kirk J. Farquhar
I just checked my annual report and although SCO has been around for 20 years, it
states "Beginning in 1983, we delivered the first commercial Unix operating system
for Intel....".
Bill Vermillion
Richard Schroeder <di...@addpower.net> wrote:
>>SCO bought the Intel rights for Unix from Microsoft in 1979. SCO
>>is now 20 years old :-)
>>> In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop
>>> computer. This OS became known as Xenix. The Xenix OS was sold
>>> to SCO in 19??
>I don't think that Microsoft developed anything. Most of the work
>was contracted to SCO. This was a good deal for SCO, a better one
>for AT&T and the best deal for Microsoft.
I seem to recall that the original Xenix I had exposore too had a
great deal of work done by the staff at Tandy - the 1.x series.
SCO's name was not mentioned until the 3.x ports. Tandy did a lot
of their own porting/supporting of apps.
>All they did was collect the royalties that were distributed among
>the three parties on a sliding scale.
The only Xenix that I can't determine who did what or if both
parties contributed to the disasterous port ( just my opinon after
finding major bugs in the parts I had to work with) was IBM's
Xenix 1.0 and Xenix 2.0. The former was released as unsupported.
I was at the announcement of the 2.0, and it was to be supported.
Gawd what a mess. Working in the serial area modifying some ioctls
you could not AND with the value already there, you had to set all
the flags specifically. but while using creat() and passing a mode
to the file, it would take that and and it with the umask, and
create a file far from what you had intended. They seemed to get
those two backwards.
No - I didn't make a mistake - as we put another machine right next
to that one - a V.2 port, and the code ran correctly.
Richard Schroeder
>SCO bought the Intel rights for Unix from Microsoft in 1979. SCO is now 20
>years old :-)
>
be sold under the Microsoft name of XENIX and hired SCO to port XENIX to
other computers. SCO did all of the technical work and Microsoft passed
some of the royalty money to SCO.
The nature of that relationship changed when SCO entered the market
as a vendor in their own right. Microsoft continued to earn royalties on
every copy of SCO XENIX and UNIX sold until that changed in November
of 1997 when MicroSoft released SCO from its contractural agreement
for these royalties.
History of the Microsoft-SCO Agreement:
The conflict arose from a 1987 agreement that Microsoft entered into
with AT&T, the original owner of the UNIX System technology. The
technology was subsequently acquired in 1993 by Novell, who sold it
to SCO in 1995. Microsoft and AT&T entered into the original
agreement to ensure that AT&Ts UNIX system for the Intel 286 and
386 microprocessors included Microsoft code to run applications
originally developed for Microsoft's XENIX operating system, a
commercial version of the UNIX operating systems developed for
the Intel hardware platform in the early 1980s.
>jhar...@my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
>> I am working on a brief UNIX history and hoped some of you would take the
>> time to throw in some dates and correct me where I am wrong. Here goes:
>>
>> Unix began at AT&T Bell Labs in 1969 (Bill Gates was 14). The original
>> version was created primarily by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. In 1970
>> UNIX was rewritten in C. This re-write is a key factor in UNIX's success.
>> AT&T originally gave the OS including the source code to universities. One
>> university that took full advantage of the gift was UC Berkley. The folks at
>> Berkley went on to rewrite UNIX in 1977. This rewrite became known as BSD
>> UNIX. Sometime in 1977 AT&T decided to quit giving the OS away and start
>> selling it commercially. It was at this point in 1977 that the UNIX road
>> forked and there became two UNIX camps. In 198? Novell bought the rights and
>> source to AT&T's UNIX. In 198? Novell sold these rights to SCO who is the
>> current owner.
>>
The date you are looking for for Novell's purchase is 1993, they only had
if for two
years, selling it to SCO in 1995.
>> In 198? Microsoft developed a UNIX like OS for the desktop computer. This OS
>> became known as Xenix. The Xenix OS was sold to SCO in 19??
>>
I don't think that Microsoft developed anything. Most of the work was
contracted
to SCO. This was a good deal for SCO, a better one for AT&T and the best deal
for Microsoft. All they did was collect the royalties that were distributed
among
the three parties on a sliding scale. I also dont think that XENIX was ever
sold to
SCO, what the 1997 agreement got SCO was freedom from including Microsoft
code in OpenServer and UnixWare.