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authormms <michal@sapka.me>2024-06-10 22:58:55 +0200
committermms <michal@sapka.me>2024-06-10 22:58:55 +0200
commit316cbea18afd0b630c0b8ab7b6c7820a6b41afd0 (patch)
tree383185af8945cb6b8755dbb5fb0d594eb6d12684 /content/unix-history
parentf48df3b013aebdf6ea5c131f84f7cd8bcac6c4a2 (diff)
fixes
Diffstat (limited to 'content/unix-history')
-rw-r--r--content/unix-history/01_multics.md8
-rw-r--r--content/unix-history/02_unix.md10
-rw-r--r--content/unix-history/03_unix_wars.md42
-rw-r--r--content/unix-history/_index.md15
4 files changed, 39 insertions, 36 deletions
diff --git a/content/unix-history/01_multics.md b/content/unix-history/01_multics.md
index 30c59f8..efce8ae 100644
--- a/content/unix-history/01_multics.md
+++ b/content/unix-history/01_multics.md
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ But, naturally, companies making all those investments wanted a nice return.
This led to the creation of _time-sharing_.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Photo of old computer room full of tape drives. The primary color is red." source="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/gadgets/5-reasons-love-mad-mens-new-star-ibm-360-n101716" file="ibm-360.jpg" >}}
-IBM 360 in an official photoshoot.
+Fig. 1.1. IBM 360 in an official photoshoot.
{{< /image >}}
This concept seems natural now: multiple processes were able to share computer resources, so multiple applications could run at the same time.
@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ Simply said, it's a way to combine different signals into a shared medium.
It was used extensively for land-line telephony, where all signals were transferred over shared wires.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Black and white photo of a group of man standing next to a mechanical computer" source="https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/rebuilding-edsac-the-first-real-computer/" file="edsac.jpg" >}}
-EDSAC, the "first computer".
+Fig. 1.2. EDSAC, the "first computer".
{{< /image >}}
@@ -64,11 +64,11 @@ _Multics_ was experimental and therefore ambitious, complex - designed by trial
It was delivered late, early on had performance problems, and in 1969 _Bell Labs_ withrew from the project[^fn:5].
{{< image class="centered" alt="Screenshot of SSH connection with big Multics written in ASCII" source="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics#/media/File:Multics-Login.png" file="multics-login.png" >}}
-Multics login screen.
+Fig. 1.3. Multics login screen.
{{< /image >}}
{{< image class="centered" alt="Photo of two white, bearded men. They are both wearing thick glasses. The person on the left is wearing gray-blue polo shirt. The person on the right is wearing a red tshift with big X and Bell Labs Sensitive text in center" source="https://computerhistory.org/blog/discovering-dennis-ritchies-lost-dissertation/" file="thompson-ritchie.jpg" >}}
-Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie.
+Fig. 1.4. Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie.
{{< /image >}}
Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna, frustrated with their experiences with _Multics_ Operating System are starting to work on their own alternative.
diff --git a/content/unix-history/02_unix.md b/content/unix-history/02_unix.md
index 52c084b..449842f 100644
--- a/content/unix-history/02_unix.md
+++ b/content/unix-history/02_unix.md
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ 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.
-## <span class="org-todo todo TODO">TODO</span> Getting a computer {#getting-a-computer}
+## Getting a computer {#getting-a-computer}
After this short intermission, let's return to _UNIX_.
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ 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].
{{< image class="centered" alt="Photo of black screen with lines representing rudimentay space ship viewscreen" source="https://www.uvlist.net/game-164857-Space+Travel" file="space-travel.png" >}}
-Space Travel
+Fig. 2.1. Space Travel
{{< /image >}}
What the PDP-7 was, was a refrigerator size 18bit monstrosity[^fn:2].
@@ -80,11 +80,11 @@ You can buy a working one from _eBay_ today.
It won't be easy nor cheap, but definitely possible.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Photo of a big, old computer the size of a wardrobe. The dominating color is teal." source="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-7#/media/File:Pdp7-oslo-2005.jpeg" file="pdp-7.jpeg" >}}
-PDP-7
+Fig. 2.2. PDP-7
{{< /image >}}
{{< image class="centered" alt="Photo of two white men. One is standing over and talking the other. The other is sitting in front of a teletype." source="https://www.bell-labs.com/institute/blog/invention-unix/" file="thompson-ritchie-pdp11.jpg" >}}
-Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie working on the legendary PDP-11.
+Fig. 2.3. Ken Thompson and Denis Ritchie working on the legendary PDP-11.
{{< /image >}}
@@ -124,7 +124,7 @@ The system was presented by Ken and Denis during the _4th Symposium on Operating
and a year later Ken and Dennis publish the first paper on _UNIX_ - "The UNIX Time-Sharing System" in the _Communications_ journal of ACM.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Photo of front and back cover of an orange book with The Unix System written in the center; Above it a text states AT&amp;T Bell Laboratories Technical Jurnal" source="https://leancrew.com/all-this/2011/10/dennis-ritchie-unix-and-clarity/" file="unix-tech-journal.jpg" >}}
-Bell System Technical Journal cover.
+Fig. 2.4. Bell System Technical Journal cover.
{{< /image >}}
The word was out and _UNIX_ became known outside of _Bell Labs_.
diff --git a/content/unix-history/03_unix_wars.md b/content/unix-history/03_unix_wars.md
index 4575040..93e1f9a 100644
--- a/content/unix-history/03_unix_wars.md
+++ b/content/unix-history/03_unix_wars.md
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
title = "History of Unix part III: Forks and Wars"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2024-06-08T14:43:00+02:00
+lastmod = 2024-06-10
categories = ["unix-history"]
draft = false
weight = 2004
@@ -42,7 +43,7 @@ Those advancements were not back ported to mainline _Unix_ until _System V_[^fn:
This version of Unix evolved into _Columbus Unix_ (_CB-Unix_), as the _SCCS Unix_ was developed by Bell Division 59473 in Columbus, Ohio.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Two red books containing Volume 1 and 2 of Programmers Manuals for CB Unix" source="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_UNIX#/media/File:CB_Unix_Manuals.jpg" file="cb-unix-manuals.jpg" >}}
-Programmers Manuals for CB Unix
+Fig. 3.1. Programmers Manuals for CB Unix
{{< /image >}}
In a completely different part of Bell Labs, another project was starting to use _Unix_.
@@ -85,7 +86,7 @@ _AUSAM_, the _Australian Unix Share Accounting Method_ was the first community m
The work conducted at Universities of Sydney and New South Wales focused on allowing the system to run with huge number of users[^fn:9].
The changes returned to _Unix V7_, but _AUSAM_ was never upgraded to a full 7th ed[^fn:1]
-In 1975, Ken Thompson took a sabbatical and took a teaching job at Berkeley University, where he helped install Version 6 of _Unix_.
+In 1975, Ken Thompson took a sabbatical and took a teaching job at the University of California at Berkeley, where he helped install Version 6 of _Unix_.
The OS received quite the attention of students and faculty, resulting in the first version of _BSD Unix_ - _1BSD_.
The lineage of BSD is extensive (not to mention their descendants are what I use) and will be a subject of the next part of our story.
For now, remember that _BSD_ exists.
@@ -127,7 +128,7 @@ Measured by number of machines on which it was installed, _Xenix_ was the most c
Nothing of this mattered in the death march of Windows, and the last version was released in 1991.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Cover of Unix World from 1985 showing Bill Gates with &quot;Bill Gates on the future of Xenix&quot; feature" source="https://computeradsfromthepast.substack.com/p/microsofts-xenix" file="unix-world-xenix.jpg" >}}
-What an issue that was!
+Fig. 3.2. What an issue that was!
{{< /image >}}
@@ -162,14 +163,16 @@ AT&amp;T had all the money and name to crush anyone but did not support networki
BSD had a TCP/IP based networking and was popular among st universities.
Vendor were choosing sides - IBM and HP went with _System V_ while others, like Sun choose _BSD_.
+Some were trying to get it both ways - Pyramid's OSx supported syscalls of both, BSD and System V[^fn:15].
+
On 27th of March, 1984 AT&amp;T officially enters computer market with their own line of computers from desktops PCs to "super-microcomputers" powered by _Unix_[^fn:14].
{{< image class="centered" alt="An print ad for AT&amp;T Unix PC showing the computer and listing features" source="https://www.thejumpingfrog.com/product/sku/1526351" file="att-unix-pc.jpg" >}}
-Introducing the AT&amp;T Unix PC.
+Fig. 3.3. Introducing the AT&amp;T Unix PC.
{{< /image >}}
{{< image class="centered" alt="A drawing of an space ship flying of a planet looking like System V logo. On top text 4.2 &gt; V can be seen." source="https://archive.org/details/mtxinu-mach386/Mt.Xinu%20BSD%20Poster.png" file="mt-xinu.png" >}}
-Mt Xinu poster shows the atmosphere of those days .
+Fig. 3.4. Mt Xinu poster shows the atmosphere of those days .
{{< /image >}}
@@ -197,8 +200,8 @@ In 1984 the _Open Group for Unix Systems_ was formed by the likes of Bull, ICL,
The group was commonly known as _BISON_, from first names of their name.
Later, the name was changed to _X/Open_.
-The group decided to base their standard on _System V_ because they "decided to run the risk of exploitation by AT&amp;T rather than by IBM”[^fn:15].
-The first version of the specification, X/Open Portability Guide Issue 1 was published in 1985 and “covered basic operating system interfaces”[^fn:16].
+The group decided to base their standard on _System V_ because they "decided to run the risk of exploitation by AT&amp;T rather than by IBM”[^fn:16].
+The first version of the specification, X/Open Portability Guide Issue 1 was published in 1985 and “covered basic operating system interfaces”[^fn:17].
The situation was, however, dire.
In 1985 _MS-DOS_ had 5x the number of applications compared to _Unix_.
@@ -206,7 +209,7 @@ This lead to the year 1986, and AT&amp;T took a $1.2 billion loss, with half of
In 1987 AT&amp;T and Sun enter an agreement.
Sun, by that time, was the largest _Unix_ vendor with _SunOS_ based on _BSD 4.2_ and their own line of RISC-based microprocessors - SPARC.
-The official note stated that they are joining forces to "pursue co-development of a standard Unix operating system based on AT&amp;T’s System V, Berkeley’s BSD 4.2, and the graphical capabilities of Sun’s SunOS"[^fn:16].
+The official note stated that they are joining forces to "pursue co-development of a standard Unix operating system based on AT&amp;T’s System V, Berkeley’s BSD 4.2, and the graphical capabilities of Sun’s SunOS"[^fn:17].
The computer world was not happy with those giants creating their own front.
The fear was that it could lead to a total domination of the market by AT&amp;T OS running on Sun hardware.
@@ -214,15 +217,15 @@ DEC engineer Armando Stettner, said:
> "When Sun and AT&amp;T announced the alliance, we at Digital were concerned that AT&amp;T was no longer the benign, benevolent progenitor of UNIX…Sun was everyone’s most aggressive competitor.
> We saw Sun’s systems were direct replacements for the VAX.
-> Just think: the alliance combined our most aggressive and innovative competitor with the sole source of the system software — the balance shifted."[^fn:16],&nbsp;[^fn:17]
+> Just think: the alliance combined our most aggressive and innovative competitor with the sole source of the system software — the balance shifted."[^fn:17],&nbsp;[^fn:18]
This lead to the creation of third combined group - in 1988 representatives from Apollo, DEC, Gould Electronics, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell-Bull, InfoCorp, MIPS, NCR, Silicon Graphics, UniSoft, and Unisys met in DEC's office in Palo Alto.
Initially the group called themselves _Hamilton Group_ (from Hamilton Avenue, where DEC offices were located).
-Their goal was to get AT&amp;T on board, but it failed.[^fn:16]
+Their goal was to get AT&amp;T on board, but it failed.[^fn:17]
As a reaction, they invited IBM who happily joined and in May of 1988 they official announced their existence under the name of _Open Software Foundation (OSF)_.[^fn:14]
They decided not to base their standard on AT&amp;T:
-> "Unlike X/Open, OSF planned to produce an operating system that it would license to its members, rather than function only as an advisory body."[^fn:16]
+> "Unlike X/Open, OSF planned to produce an operating system that it would license to its members, rather than function only as an advisory body."[^fn:17]
This had the historic effect of putting rivals, DEC and IBM on the same side.
DEC co-founder, Ken Olsen never before shared a stage with any IBM executive before.
@@ -232,12 +235,12 @@ Even Ken Thomson while traveling in Australia commented on this to Dennis Ritchi
Sun's CEO, Scott McNealy was not as pleased, as he called the OSF the "Oppose Sun Forever".
The heat lead to AT&amp;T and Sun creating _Unix International_, whose goal was to advise AT&amp;T on _System V_ and promote its development.
-The voting rights were based on, of course, financial contributions[^fn:16].
+The voting rights were based on, of course, financial contributions[^fn:17].
OSF faced internal problems due to consisting parties often competing on the mainframe market.
This left OSI and UI as the dominant powers in the straggle, and in total they ended with over two hundred members.
Both also developed and released their own Unixes.
-In November of 1989 AT&amp;T releases a commercial version of _System V Release 5_, and in 1990 the OSF released _OSF/1_ based on IBM's AIX and Carnegie Mellon’s MACH operating systems[^fn:16]
+In November of 1989 AT&amp;T releases a commercial version of _System V Release 5_, and in 1990 the OSF released _OSF/1_ based on IBM's AIX and Carnegie Mellon’s MACH operating systems[^fn:17]
## Enemy mine {#enemy-mine}
@@ -258,7 +261,7 @@ This time, however, it was not a fight between _Unix_ vendors.
This was the first time they had to unite against a common enemy.
Initially the group consisted of The Santa Cruz Operation, Unix System Laboratories, Univel, Sun, HP, and IBM
They tasked themselves not with creating of a single unified OS, but rather with survey and document what already was there.
-The result of their work is _Spec 1170_, now known as _Single Unix Specification_.[^fn:16],&nbsp;[^fn:18]
+The result of their work is _Spec 1170_, now known as _Single Unix Specification_.[^fn:17],&nbsp;[^fn:19]
This lead to the last attempt.
In 1996 OSF and X/Open merged and became _The Open Group_ which exists till today.
@@ -266,7 +269,7 @@ It was however too late for _Unix_ to regain its dominance.
The value was lost, the _Unix_ wars saw the rise of Microsoft and a new player - GNU/Linux.
{{< image class="centered" alt="Screenshot of an Unix system running Common Desktop Environment" source="http://sourceforge.net/p/cdesktopenv/wiki/LinuxBuild/" file="cde.png" >}}
-One of the great achievements of The Open Group was Common Desktop Environment
+Fig. 3.5. One of the great achievements of The Open Group was Common Desktop Environment
{{< /image >}}
The trademark of _Unix_ resides now with _The Open Group_ which is responsible for certification of products.
@@ -287,7 +290,8 @@ _The Open Group_ develops a very large volume of specifications under the name o
[^fn:12]: [Xenix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix) on Wikipedia
[^fn:13]: [Unix Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars) on Wikipedia
[^fn:14]: [A Chronicle of the Unix Wars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffh3DRFzRL0) by Asianometry on Youtube
-[^fn:15]: [UNIX STANDARDS IN THE 1990s](https://websites.umich.edu/~afuah/cases/case12.html) on University of Michigan
-[^fn:16]: [Unix Wars](https://klarasystems.com/articles/unix-wars-the-battle-for-standards/) on Klara Systems
-[^fn:17]: [The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin](http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050601125916588) by by Peter H. Salus
-[^fn:18]: [COSE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Open_Software_Environment) on Wikipedia
+[^fn:15]: [Piramid Technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_Technology) on Wikipedia
+[^fn:16]: [UNIX STANDARDS IN THE 1990s](https://websites.umich.edu/~afuah/cases/case12.html) on University of Michigan
+[^fn:17]: [Unix Wars](https://klarasystems.com/articles/unix-wars-the-battle-for-standards/) on Klara Systems
+[^fn:18]: [The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin](http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050601125916588) by by Peter H. Salus
+[^fn:19]: [COSE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Open_Software_Environment) on Wikipedia
diff --git a/content/unix-history/_index.md b/content/unix-history/_index.md
index 6aea1ce..1974316 100644
--- a/content/unix-history/_index.md
+++ b/content/unix-history/_index.md
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
title = "Unix history"
author = ["Michał Sapka"]
date = 2024-05-30T21:03:00+02:00
+lastmod = 2024-06-10
categories = ["unix-history"]
draft = false
weight = 2001
@@ -17,15 +18,11 @@ shortname = "History of Unix"
+++
To say that the history of Unix is long and convoluted would be a huge understatement.
-It started its life as a gaming OS dressed as typesetting one in a forgotten alley in an research center, but soon became the most important idea in modern computing history.
-No other OS had such broad impact on how we work with computers. And despite that, it's mostly a forgotten name.
-It lives in it's ideas and licenses, but very rarely do we think about running Unix.
+It started its life as a gaming OS dressed as a typesetting one in a forgotten alley in a research center but soon became the most important idea in modern computing history.
+No other OS had such a broad impact on how we work with computers. And despite that, it's mostly a forgotten name.
+It lives in its ideas and licenses, but very rarely do we think about running Unix.
-This site is a fang, and a love letter to computer history.
-To the brilliant minds and sleazy lawyers.
-To the original, the followers, and imitators.
-
-{{< image class="centered" alt="A group of characters in the style of Unix Surralism." file="header-transparent.png" >}}
+{{< image class="centered" alt="A group of characters from Unix Surrealism." file="header-transparent.png" >}}
noop
{{< /image >}}
@@ -42,10 +39,12 @@ Dune
- [Jeff](http://wovenmemories.net/), for proofreading Part III
- [Tomáš](https://www.analognowhere.com/), for providing artwork on homepage
- [Karl Pettersson](https://static-dust.klpn.se/), for pointing date errors about IX/386 and Xenix in Part III
+- [Dave Marquardt](https://github.com/davemq), for pointing grammar errors in Part III and informing me about existence of Piramid Technologies
## Changes {#changes}
+- _2024-06-10_: Added artwork; fixes in Part 3
- _2024-06-09_: Date fixes (IX/386 Xenix) in Part 3
- _2024-06-08_: First release of Part 3
- _2024-05-30_: Extract into self-contained website