feat: unix hist, part 2

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+title = "History of BSD part II: Unix"
+author = ["Michał Sapka"]
+date = 2024-03-09T22:20:00+01:00
+categories = ["bsd"]
+draft = false
+weight = 2002
+abstract = "BSD history starts with Multics"
+[menu]
+  [menu.bsd-history]
+    weight = 2002
+    identifier = "history-of-bsd-part-ii-unix"
+    name = "Unix"
++++
+
+## Bell Labs {#bell-labs}
+
+Let's pause here and discuss a few things.
+
+_Bell Labs_ was a research institute founded by no other, but the famous Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
+It is known as one of the most innovative places ever conceived.
+It was the birthplace of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the photovoltaic cell, the charge-coupled device (CCD), information theory, and the programming languages B, C, C++, S, SNOBOL, AWK, AMPL, and the UNIX operating system.
+The work completed there was awarded 10 times with a Nobel Prize[^fn:1].
+
+But it wasn't all pretty.
+AT&T (owner of the lab) was _the_ telephone company in the USA.
+It had the _de facto_ monopoly for most of the 20th century.
+This led to a consent decree with US Government under which AT&T was forbidden to branch out to other markets.
+This agreement happened in 1956 and will be very important for our story[^fn:2].
+
+Another cool tidbit: back then computer screens as we know them now were yet to be invented.
+There were ways for computer to present information on a screen, but it was not feasable to present information back to the user in real time.
+The monitor was a separate machine and an _assembly_ code to light up individual pixels would need to be sent every time to it.
+If the user wanted to see what the edited document looked like, the only way to achieve that was via a printer.
+Try to print a page every few lines - let alone every character.
+Even the bravest of the brave would not escape the anger of the finance department.
+
+
+## Getting a computer {#getting-a-computer}
+
+After this short intermission, let's return to _UNIX_.
+
+The popular history of _UNIX_ goes as follows:
+Ken Thompson finds a PDP-7 microcomputer, starts playing with it and suddenly realizes that he has created a new operating system.
+
+What he actually wanted to do, was to play a damn game.
+A completely reasonable reason to revolutionize the industry if you ask me.
+
+Ken was a huge fan of _Space Travel_, but it was only available on mainframes.
+And since those costed an arm and a leg, end users were paying for time they used.
+A single game of _Space Travel_ could cost Ken USD 50-75[^fn:3].
+Luckily, he was able to find a discarded PDP-7 from another department[^fn:2].
+
+{{< img-c "space-travel.png" "https://www.uvlist.net/game-164857-Space+Travel" >}}
+Space Travel
+{{< /img-c >}}
+
+What the PDP-7 was, was a refrigerator size 18bit monstrosity[^fn:2].
+It was at the time a 5-year-old and obsolete[^fn:4] leftover from an ended research into audio-psychology.
+No one cared what would happen to this particular machine.
+Have I mentioned just how stinky rich the _Bell Lab_ was?
+So, Ken started rewriting the game for that PDP-7 as _GECOS Space Travel_.
+
+Porting the game proved challenging and difficult to debug, so they developed a system for PDP-7 to make developing  the game easier.
+This was how _PDP UNIX_ was born[^fn:5].
+A guy wanted to play a god-damn game and now bankrupt in the process[^fn:2]
+
+Labs management was very happy with this turn of events as _UNIX_ was something to show after the _Multics_ fiasco.
+They allowed Ken to get himself a _PDP-11_ and port _UNIX_ to it.
+It was a cheaper machine compared to _PDP-7_, but it was also 16bit - which was a nice change.
+Officially, the new system would allow for document preparation for patent applications[^fn:4].
+The biggest benefit however was the popularity of this machine - over the next decades it could be seen everywhere across enterprise America.
+You can buy a working one from _eBay_ today.
+It won't be easy nor cheap, but definitely possible.
+
+{{< img-c "pdp-7.jpeg" "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-7#/media/File:Pdp7-oslo-2005.jpeg" >}}
+PDP-7
+{{< /img-c >}}
+
+{{< img-c "thompson-ritchie-pdp11.jpg" "https://www.bell-labs.com/institute/blog/invention-unix/" >}}
+Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie working on the legendary PDP-11.
+{{< /img-c >}}
+
+
+## Unix 1 {#unix-1}
+
+So here we are, November 1971, and _UNIX 1_ for _PDP-11_ is released[^fn:6]
+
+A year later Ken notes:
+
+>
+>
+> [...]the number of UNIX installations has grown to 10, with
+> more expected. None of these has exactly the same complement of
+> hardware or software. Therefore, at any particular installation,
+> it is quite possible that this manual will give inappropriate
+> information. [...] Also, not all installations have the latest versions of all the software.''
+>
+> -- Unix Programmers Manual, Second Edition. Thompson Ken, Ritchie Denis, 1972
+
+Note, that this is 10 mainframes across _Bell Labs_, so user count was significantly higher.
+
+It's also worth to talk about release cycle.
+UNIX was in constant development, and each installation would use current snapshot at the moment of installation.
+This is why Ken notes that each part of _UNIX_ could differ between installations.
+What is also important is that due to licensing of _UNIX_ (or rather lack of thereof), each installation would be accompanied by full source code.
+Administrators were able to modify the system.
+Crazy times.
+
+Still, in June 1972 the 2nd Edition of _UNIX_ was released and every 7–8 months a new release was out.
+
+In November 1973, a 4th Edition was released, and it was the first one released to Universities.
+It made quite the buzz, and first user groups started forming under the _USENIX_ name[^fn:2].
+It's worth to mention that this version was rewritten in C, as  previous versions which were created in Assembly
+This made it the first portable _UNIX_, as it could be recompiled to any compared, as long as it also had a C compiler[^fn:4].
+
+The system was presented by Ken and Denis during the _4th Symposium on Operating System Principles_ the same year,
+and a year later Ken and Dennis publish the first paper on _UNIX_ - "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" in the _Communications_ journal of ACM.
+
+{{< img-c "unix-tech-journal.jpg" "https://leancrew.com/all-this/2011/10/dennis-ritchie-unix-and-clarity/" >}}
+Bell System Technical Journal cover.
+{{< /img-c >}}
+
+The word was out and _UNIX_ became known outside of _Bell Labs_.
+
+In the next episode of History of BSD: the scariest creature of them all.
+Lawyers.
+
+[^fn:1]: [Bell Labs  --- {W}ikipedia{,} The Free Encyclopedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Labs)
+[^fn:2]: [The hidden early history of unix the forgotten history of early unix](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzeagzqwrs)
+[^fn:3]: [UVL](https://www.uvlist.net/game-164857-Space+Travel)
+[^fn:4]: [The early days of Unix at Bell Labs - Brian Kernighan (LCA 2022 Online)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECCr_KFl41E)
+[^fn:5]: [Living Computer Museum](https://livingcomputers.org/Blog/Restoring-UNIX-v0-on-a-PDP-7-A-look-behind-the-sce.aspx) has a real PDP-7 running _PDP Unix_ if want to chek it.
+[^fn:6]: The 50th anniversary of this event was very big for a small group of fans.