Dennis M. Ritchie

The Evolution of the Unix Time-Sharing System

This paper presents a brief history of the early development of the UNIX™ operating system. It concentrates on the evolution of the file system, the process-control mechanism, and the idea of pipelined commands. Some attention is paid to social conditions during the development of the system. This paper is reprinted from Lecture Notes on Computer Science, No. 79, Language Design and Programming Methodology, Springer-Verlag, 1980. During the past few years, the UNIX operating system has come into wide use, so wide that its very name has become a trademark of Bell Laboratories. Its important characteristics have become known to many people. It has suffered much rewriting and tinkering since the first publication describing it in 1974,1 but few fundamental changes. However, UNIX was born in 1969 not 1974, and the account of its development makes a little-known and perhaps instructive story. This paper presents a technical and social history of the evolution of the system.

The development of the C language

The C programming language was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language for the nascent Unix operating system. Derived from the typeless language BCPL, it evolved a type structure; created on a tiny machine as a tool to improve a meager programming environment, it has become one of the dominant languages of today. This paper studies its evolution.

The development of the C programming language

The C programming language was devised in the early 1970s as a system implementation language for the nascent Unix operating system. Derived from the typeless language BCPL, it evolved a type structure; created on a tiny machine as a tool to improve a meager programming environment, it has become one of the dominant languages of today. This paper studies its evolution.

Reflections on software research

<italic>Can the circumstances that existed in Bell Labs that nurtured the UNIX project be produced again</italic>?

C Reference Manual

The UNIX Programmer’s Manual [4] describes the library routines available to C programs under UNIX, and also the procedures for compiling programs under that system. ‘‘The GCOS C Library’’ by Lesk and Barres [5] describes routines available under that system as well as compilation procedures. Many of these routines, particularly the ones having to do with I/O, are also provided under UNIX. Finally, ‘‘Programming in C! A Tutorial,’’ by B. W. Kernighan [6], is as useful as promised by its title and the author’s previous introductions to allegedly impenetrable subjects.