Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!ukc!sys.uea!cmp8118
From: cmp8118@sys.uea.ac.uk (D.S. Cartwright)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: *nix - an abbreviation?
Message-ID: <1344@sys.uea.ac.uk>
Date: 6 Mar 90 09:48:16 GMT
References: <5155@balu.UUCP>
Organization: UEA, Norwich, UK
Lines: 19

fifi@cosmo.UUCP (A.F.Zinser) writes:

>does anybody know, what the abbreviation '*nix' stands for?

	Well, hopefully this will be the final response to this question ...
it's getting a bit outdated now. Basically, you may (or may not)ay no that
there are several, errm ... what shall I call them ... 'Alternatives' to UNIX,
such as AIX, MINIX, etc, which are named differently due to copyright problems.
Therefore, when people refer to UNIX their arguments tend also to reflect the
other, similar systems. Therefore, using the standard UNIX wildcard *, the
term *NIX (or more accurately *IX to allow for those like AIX which don't fit
*NIX) is used to get across the concept of 'all (or most) UNIX-like systems'.

	Dave C
-- 
 Dave Cartwright,               | cmp8118@uk.ac.uea.sys    <- Here
 School of Information Systems, | cmp8118@uk.ac.uea.cpc780 <- Somewhere else
 University of East Anglia,     | "Computing Science undergraduates do it
 Norwich, ENGLAND. NR4 7TJ.     |    concurrently, using several I/O ports ..."