UNIX: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 23:07, 30 January 2020

An influential operating system created in the Bell Laboratories of AT&T in the early 70s. Initially created as a minimalist version of MULTICS, it was later in the decade marketed by AT&T as an "easier to use alternative" to common minicomputer operating systems, which became something of a running joke in the computer industry as even by then UNIX had become considerably more complex than the common such systems. Marketing during that time was also hampered by a reputation that the system had for unreliability.

The company tried during the 80s to market the system as a microcomputer OS, initially as a single user system by licensing Release 7 to Microsoft that created a subset of UNIX called XENIX that they then sub-licensed to microcomputer manufactures. Later in the decade the company tried to market a line of computers developed by Italian company Olivetti, both as single user alternatives to PCs and as budget multi user servers.

The UNIX business was sold to the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) in 1995 and at the same time the ownership of the trademark was transferred to industry association The Open Group.

When talking about more than one version of UNIX derived system it is customary to use the term Unices.

Porting issues

See: Porting from Unix platforms

Operating systems based on UNIX

Hewlett-Packard HP-UX
IBM AIX
Oracle Solaris (former Sun Solaris)
Xinuos OpenServer 5 (former SCO OpenServer 5, SCO Open Desktop, SCO UNIX)
Xinuos OpenServer 6 (former SCO OpenServer 6)
Xinuos UnixWare (former SCO UnixWare, Novell UnixWare, Univel UnixWare, AT&T UNIX)

Historic

Apple A/UX
Atari System V UNIX
ComFood EURIX
Digital ULTRIX
Hewlett-Packard Tru64 UNIX (former Compaq Tru64, Digital UNIX, DEC OSF/1)
INTERACTIVE UNIX
Microport System V
Pyramid DC/OSx - first SVR4 SMP implementation
SCO XENIX
SGI IRIX
SNI Reliant UNIX (former Siemens SINIX)
UniSoft UniPlus
VINES

UNIX clones

Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) variants
Coherent
Linux
- ELKS
Minix
UZI

Operating systems with UNIX style userland

EUMEL (Ux userland optional)
- L2
- L3
- L4
OS-9
QNX

Publications

Kaare Christian: The UNIX Operating System - Wiley 1983, ISBN 0-471-87542-2
Mike Banahan; Andy Rutter: The UNIX Book - Wiley 1983, ISBN 0-471-89676-4
Brian W. Kernighan; Rob Pike: The UNIX Programming Environment - Prentice-Hall 1984, ISBN 0-13-937699-2
W. Richard Stevens: Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment - Addison-Wesley 1992, ISBN 0-201-56317-7
W. Richard Stevens: UNIX Network Programming - Prentice Hall 1990, ISBN 0-13-949876-1
Donald Lewine: POSIX Programmer's Guide - O'Reilly, ISBN 0-937175-73-0

Links

UNIX at the Open Group - The current owner of the UNIX trademark and some of the code.
Tenox.net's cache of old UNIX docs - Includes lots of vintage UNIX and XENIX documentation in PDF format.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[Image:UNIX.jpg|250px|right]]
-An influential operating system created in the Bell Laboratories of USA based phone giant [[AT&T]] in the early 70's. Initially created as a minimalist version of MULTICS, it was later in the decade marketed by AT&T as an "easier to use alternative" to common minicomputer operating systems, which became something of a running joke in the computer industry as even by then UNIX had become considerably more complex than the common such systems. Marketing during that time was also hampered by a reputation that the system had for unreliability.
+An influential operating system created in the Bell Laboratories of [[AT&T]] in the early 70s. Initially created as a minimalist version of MULTICS, it was later in the decade marketed by AT&T as an "easier to use alternative" to common minicomputer operating systems, which became something of a running joke in the computer industry as even by then UNIX had become considerably more complex than the common such systems. Marketing during that time was also hampered by a reputation that the system had for unreliability.
-The company tried during the 80's to market the system as a microcomputer OS, initially as a single user system by licensing Release 7 to [[Microsoft]] that created a subset of UNIX called [[XENIX]] that they then sub-licensed to microcomputer manufactures, later in the decade the company tried to market a line of computers developed by Italian company Olivetti, both as single user alternatives to PC's and as budget multi user servers, but this was a relative but not complete failure in the marketplace.
+The company tried during the 80s to market the system as a microcomputer OS, initially as a single user system by licensing Release 7 to [[Microsoft]] that created a subset of UNIX called [[XENIX]] that they then sub-licensed to microcomputer manufactures. Later in the decade the company tried to market a line of computers developed by Italian company Olivetti, both as single user alternatives to PCs and as budget multi user servers.
 The UNIX business was sold to the [[Santa Cruz Operation]] (SCO) in 1995 and at the same time the ownership of the trademark was transferred to industry association ''The Open Group''.
@@ Line 51: / Line 51: @@
 ==Publications==
-* Brian W. Kernighan; Rob Pike: [http://www.tenox.net/docs/misc/The_UNIX_Programming_Environment.pdf The Unix Programming Environment] - 1984
+* Kaare Christian: ''The UNIX Operating System'' - Wiley 1983, ISBN 0-471-87542-2
+* Mike Banahan; Andy Rutter: ''The UNIX Book'' - Wiley 1983, ISBN 0-471-89676-4
+* Brian W. Kernighan; Rob Pike: ''The UNIX Programming Environment'' - Prentice-Hall 1984, ISBN 0-13-937699-2
 *W. Richard Stevens: ''Advanced Programming in the UNIX Environment'' - Addison-Wesley 1992, ISBN 0-201-56317-7
 *W. Richard Stevens: ''UNIX Network Programming'' - Prentice Hall 1990, ISBN 0-13-949876-1