A Quarter Century of UNIX

Peter H. Salus

Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1994 , 256 pages

ISBN: 0-201-54777-5

Synopsis:

Toggle Synopsis

UNIX is a software system that is simple, elegant, portable, and powerful.

It grew in popularity without the benefit of a large marketing organisation. Programmers kept using it; big companies kept fighting it. After a decade, it was clear that the users had won. A Quarter Century of UNIX is the first book to explain this incredible success, using the words of its creators, developers and users to illustrate how the sociology of a technical group can overwhelm the intent of multi-billion-dollar corporations. In preparing to write this book, Peter Salus interviewed over 100 of these key figures and gathered relevant information from Australia to Austria. This is the book that turns UNIX folklore into UNIX history.

Features:

• Provides the first documented history of the development of the UNIX operating system
• Includes interviews with over 100 key figures in the UNIX community
• Contains classic photos and illustrations
• Explains why UNIX succeeded
  

Table of Contents:

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• Part 1 Genesis
0. Prelude to Space
1. Summer1969-Fall 1970
2. Calculating and Computing
3. Operating Systems
4. Project MAC: CTSS and Multics
• Part 2 Birth of a System
5. The PDP-11
6. First Edition, 1971
7. C and Pipes: 1971-1973
8. The First Paper—1973
9. The Law—Part I
• Status 1974
• Part 3 What makes UNIX Unix?
10. The Users
11. Why Unix?
12. Style and Tools
13. PWB and MERT
14. Utilities
• Part 4 Unix Spreads and Blossoms
15. The Users—Part II
16. Berkeley Unix: Part I
17. Version 7
18. Berkeley Unix: Part II
19. Commercial Unix
20. DEC
21. The Law—Part II
• Part 5 The Unix Industry
22. /usr/group
23. Sun and JAWS
24. Standards
• Part 6 The Currents of Change
25. Duelling Unixes
26. Offspring Systems
27. OSF and UI
28. Berkeley Unix: After the VAX
29. The Law—Part III
• Finale
• Finale: What Made It Work?
• Further Reading
• Who's Who and What's What