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From: jab@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.unix
Subject: Re: UNIX Family Tree? - (nf)
Message-ID: <4828@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 8-Jan-84 22:54:40 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4828
Posted: Sun Jan  8 22:54:40 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Jan-84 03:21:46 EST
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#R:dartvax:-55400:uokvax:6100011:000:1967
uokvax!jab    Jan  7 12:06:00 1984

The "Electronics" August issue was devoted to Unix and Unix-like systems.
I believe that Bill Joy's article did a pretty good job of showing the
roots of the BSD and Bell (err, I mean "AT&T") Unixes --- that's probably
a good starting place. Merging his information with the information in the
July/August 1978 Bell System Technical Journal (one of the "standard"
references) you should get a fairly good family tree of at least those two.

One thing to be remembered on the AT&T Unix: for a very long time, there
were two [separate] Unix systems distributed. The first was the "development"
system, done by the Research group (Dennis Ritchie, Ken Thompson, et al) and
the "production" system, done by the PWB (Programmer's Workbench) group
(J.R.Mashey et al). Version 6 and 7 were from the Research group, and
any release of PWB Unix was from the PWB group. Bill points out in his
article that with Unix 3.0 ("System III" to the outside world), the two
versions were merged to keep confusion down.

Unix/32V is a Vax port of an early V7 system. It is *REALLY* a "vanilla"
system --- no frills. The Vax BSD is based on that release, although it
has tried to track the AT&T Unix (with 4.2bsd being the first BSD that
wasn't closely tied to the AT&T Unix). [Side note --- "System III" came
out after Unix/32V and there was a Vax version of System III that replaced
Unix/32V.]

2.8bsd is a very very hacked V7 system, made to run on a lot of pdp-11's.
(2.9bsd is a 2.8 system with the 4.2 networking code retrofitted in with
a can of axle grease and a shoehorn. The pdp-11 isn't know for a large
program address space!)

System V is "son of 'System III'" in that it's the AT&T Unix that is
based on System III. (It's the first Unix that has been offered to people
inside the Bell System (that's what it was called then) and outside at 
about the same time.)

Enough verbage. That article expands on this information and is worth your
time. (Thanks, Bill.)

	Jeff Bowles