Re: Derivative effects.
On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 12:06:05PM -0800, Deryk Barker wrote:
> Thus spake Bijan Soleymani (bijan@psq.com):
>
> > On Sun, Jan 25, 2004 at 07:21:02AM -0500, Haines Brown wrote:
> > > > On Fri, Jan 23, 2004 at 10:43:56PM -0800, Day Brown wrote:
> > > > > Linux comes from Unix, which was designed for mainframes.
> > > > > windows comes from dos, which was designed for personal desktops.
> > > >
> > > > Well technically Unix was designed for mid-sized computers...
> > >
> > > And wasn't DOS designed for the workstation?
> >
> > Nope, Dos was for 16 bit PCs. It was like Unix's under-achieving relative :)
> > 8.3 filenames, single-tasking, crappy shell,...
>
> And what nobody has mentioned is that Unix was derived from
> Multics. Indeed, the original name was "Unics", an even more obvious
> pun, but that was felt to be alittle too close.
In Bell System Technical Journal v57 #6 part2, (July/Aug 1968) page
1948, D. M. Ritchie says "... a good case can be made that it (UNIX)
is in essance a modern implementation of M.I.T.'s CTSS system."
Previous to working on UNIX, Ritchie had worked on MULTICS, but he did
not credit that in his retrospective article. The very strong
impression I got from talking to people at Bell Labs at the time was
that MULTICS was viewed by Thompson and Ritchie as an object lesson in
how NOT to do software.
Also, he says that it runs on the PDP-11 and the Interdata 8/32, which
contradicts my memory that it was developed on an earlier model DEC
computer. But he does say that work on UNIX started in 1971. so maybe
my memory is OK.
--
Paul E Condon
pecondon@peakpeak.com
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