A Synopsis of Their History UNIX and LINUX A Synopsis of Their History
Origins of UNIX Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computer Services) 1960’s MIT, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric personnel Largely funded by ARPA (DOD), Bell, and GE/Honeywell GE-645 Many problems, innovations Bell Labs withdraws in 1969
After Multics at Bell Labs Several computer scientists from Bell Labs who had worked on Multics started work on a smaller, less complex operating system. Unics (UNiplexed Information and Computing Service) PDP-7 minicomputer Renamed UNIX 1971 – publication of the Unix Programmer’s Reference Manual 1972 - Unix is rewritten in C.
The C Language 1969-73: Developed by Dennis Ritchie at Bell Labs ANSI Standard C released in 1989 Latest standard: December 2011 The syntactic ancestor of many languages, including C++ and Java.
Unix impact Not totally controlled by a computer vendor. Easily obtained free of charge from AT&T because of 1956 consent decree. Ran on cheap hardware. Easy to adapt and move to different machines (portable).
Linux One of many Unix-like operating systems Kernel written by Linus Torvalds in 1991 Red Hat Linux is one popular derivative.