Comments: Unix turns 40 -- the patience of Sun Tzu

traditional folklore has been that UNIX was done in response to issues with MULTICS (ge645)

some of the people from CTSS went to 5th flr, 545 tech sq to Multics ... and others went to the science center on the 4th flr.

The science center did virtual machine system ... originally cp40 on 360/40 with custom hardware modifications to support virtual memory. cp40 morphed into cp67 when the science center got a 360/67 that came standard with virtual memory support. combined cp67 & cms group was less than dozen people. I got involved in jan68, when three people came out and installed cp67 at univ. where I was undergraduate.

some multics stuff
http://www.multicians.org/multics.html

there virtual machine history document here
http://www.princeton.edu/~melinda/

that starts with CTSS and traces science center wanting to get the project mac contract (for what became multics). when they didn't, they started cp40.

cp67 (and its successor vm370) not only didn't it have corporate backing ... but corporate hdqtrs periodically had efforts to actively kill it off.

Now there are stories about thousands of "linuxes" being run under mainframe virtual machine system (some demonstrations with tens of thousands in same system).

Posted by Lynn Wheeler at December 3, 2009 09:01 AM

Remember the signs of the times.

For Unix the clock is running and it is in seconds in a 32bit signed int. The clocks epoch is 1970.

A little calculation will show we've less than ten years to go before "roll over".

Not that it realy maters but it will be an excuse to lift a glass to the passing of an epoch.

Oh one other thing about MS and Unix.

AT&T did a silly thing, they went into the lions den to ask for help.

AT&T wanted some one to port Unix onto the i286 platform. They went with Billy "Boy wunder" Gates.

He in turn found three nerds in a garage with a pumped up name of "The Santa Cruz Operation".

They did the work and in return for a small amount of cash Billy boy took the rights to their work and called it Xenix.

He also made AT&T sign a devils pact. In that every licence for Unix AT&T issued on the x86 platform MS got royalties.

So for those that remember the "server wars" MS could not lose they got the money either way.

As for the three SCO guys hmm not sure what happened to them.

Posted by Clive Robinson at December 6, 2009 11:13 AM
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