Research Unix
{{Inappropriate tone|date=December 2007}}{{Bell Unix}}
Research Unix is a term used to refer to versions of the
Unix operating system for
DEC PDP-7,
PDP-11,
VAX and
Interdata 7/32 and 8/32 computers, developed in the
Bell Labs Computing Science Research Center (frequently referred to as Department 1127).
History
The term
Research Unix first appeared in the Bell System Technical Journal (Vol. 57, No. 6, Pt. 2 Jul/Aug 1978) to distinguish it from other versions internal to Bell Labs (such as
PWB/UNIX and
MERT) whose code-base had diverged from the primary CSRC version. However, that term was little-used until
Version 8 Unix, but has been
retroactively applied to earlier versions as well. Prior to V8, the operating system was most commonly called simply UNIX (in caps) or the UNIX Time-Sharing System.Because both the early versions and the last few were never officially released outside of Bell Labs, and grew rather organically, Research Unix versions are often referred to by the edition of the
manual that describes them. So, the first Research Unix would be the First Edition, and the last the Tenth Edition. Another common way of referring to them is Version
x (or V
x) Unix, where
x is the manual edition. All modern editions of Unix (excepting implementations from scratch like
Coherent,
Minix, and
Linux, usually referred to as
Unix-like) derive from the 7th Edition.
Versions
{| class="wikitable"!
Manual Edition!
Release date!
Description|
| 1st Edition| Nov. 3, 1971| First edition of the Unix manual, based on the version that ran on the PDP-11 at the time. Unix was actually 2 years old at the time and had been ported from the PDP-7 to the PDP-11/20 in 1970.
|
| 2nd Edition| Jun. 12, 1972| Total number of installations at the time was 10, according to the preface of the manual.
|
| 3rd Edition| Feb. 1973| C (programming language)>C programming language and pipes; total number of installations was 16. |
|
| 4th Edition| Nov. 1973 | C (programming language)>C. It also introduced groups. Number of installations was listed as "above 20". The manual was formatted with troff for the first time. |
|
| 5th Edition | Jun. 1974| Introduced the sticky bit; installations "above 50".
|
| Version 6 Unix>6th Edition| May 1975| First Unix to see widespread distribution outside Bell Labs, as well as the first to be ported to non-PDP hardware. May 1977 saw the release of MINI-UNIX, a "cut down" v6 for the low-end PDP-11/10. |
|
| Version 7 Unix>7th Edition | Jan. 1979 | PWB/UNIX with an extensively modified kernel with almost 80% more lines of code than V6. In February, a port called UNIX/32V>32V was made to DEC's VAX hardware; 32V was the basis for 4BSD. |
|
| Version 8 Unix>8th Edition| Feb. 1985 | Berkeley sockets>sockets replaced by STREAMS); used internally |
|
| Version 9 Unix>9th Edition | Sep. 1986| Incorporated code from 4.3BSD; used internally |
|
| Version 10 Unix>10th Edition | Oct. 1989| Last Research Unix; though the manual itself was published outside of AT&T, there was no distribution of the system itself publicly. |
See also
{{unix-like}} External links
Research UnixResearch Unix
(...as imported from WP)
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