Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!botter!star.cs.vu.nl!ast
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: PDP/LSI 11 based Minix ?
Message-ID: <2095@ast.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 24 Feb 89 12:03:58 GMT
References: <9310@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <136600003@cpe>
Reply-To: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Organization: VU Informatica, Amsterdam
Lines: 18

In article <136600003@cpe> tif@cpe.UUCP writes:
>>I suggest you talk to Dennis Ritchie.
>>If my history is correct, he developed the original UNIX(tm) on the
>>DEC PDP-11.  YOU COULD HAVE REAL UNIX!  I bet he would even send you
>>the original source code. Of course it might be a few versions out of date...

You have the history botched.  Ken Thompson was one of the programmers in the
MULTICS (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) project, being done
by MIT, GE, and Bell Labs.  When Bell Labs pulled out, Ken found an old PDP-7
and tried to write a 1-user operating system for it, which Brian Kernighan
dubbed UNICS (Uniplexed Information and Computing Service).  Later Ken
rewrote it for a PDP-11/20.  That impressed Bell Labs Management so much
that they bought a PDP-11/45.  Dennis joined around then and invented a new
language called C to replace the previous language, B (a derivative of
BCPL, which is Basic CPL).  Dennis then wrote a C compiler and together
they rewrote the system in C.  The rest is history.

Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)