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Introduction

Introduction
        Who I am
        About the class
        History and background of Unix
        Unix Camps

 

Who I am

About the class

History and background of Unix

1969:

Developed at AT&T
00:00:00 Jan 1, 1970 is "time zero" in Unix
An experiment on an old, unused computer (a DEC PDP-7)

“Unix” is a pun on “Multics”


1970:

Ported to a PDP-11/20
C programming language invented by Dennis Ritchie to make it easier


1973:

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie re-wrote kernel in C


1974:

Source is being distributed to Universities
Since AT&T had trade restrictions due to their telephone monopoly, they couldn't really make money off of Unix
Unix begins gaining a stronghold in Universities (which would eventually lead to Unix's commercial success)


1976:

Version 6


1977:

First version of BSD Unix
Based on AT&T Version 6
Developed by the Computer Systems Research Group at UC Berkeley


1979:

Version 7
Focused on being portable to various architectures
AT&T begins charging for Unix source license

$100 for universities, $21,000 for everyone else


3BSD adds virtual memory


1983:

System V


1984:

BSD 4.2

Added TCP/IP networking


1985:

BSD 4.3


1987:

System V, Release 3 (Usually written Vr3 or V.3)


1990:

System V, Release 4

Sun and AT&T. Attempted to combine the best of System V and BSD


Open Software Foundation (OSF) formed

DEC, HP, IBM, and some others


1991:

OSF/1

The OSF's attempt to combine the best of System V and BSD
DEC (now Compaq) is the only vendor who has actually used the OSF/1 system, though HP and IBM both use elements from OSF/1.


First Linux kernel


1992:

Unix sold to Novell


1993:

BSD 4.4


????:

Unix sold to X/Open Consortium


1994:

Linux kernel 1.0


1994:

The web takes off, Unix is the primary server platform, demand soars

There's a good article on Unix history at http://www.byte.com/art/9410/sec8/art3.htm and a totally cool Unix history chart at http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/

Unix and Dilbert (circa 1999 maybe)

Dilbert’s Boss: My boss says we need some more eunuch programmers.

Dilbert: I think he means UNIX and I already know UNIX.

Dilbert’s Boss: Well, if the company nurse comes by, tell her I said “never mind”.  

Unix Camps

The material for this class should be applicable to any Unix system anywhere on the spectrum. You are free to use whatever you have at your disposal. You should note however, that there are likely to be variations in how commands work, depending on what system you use.