Episode Details

Now, as the name suggests this is the second part of a series on the history of UNIX. Part 1 mainly covers the background leading up to UNIX. If you haven't listened to it yet, I strongly suggest you go do that now. A lot of what was covered in part 1 provides needed context for our discussion today.

Just as a quick recap, last time I told you about CTSS and Multics, two of the earliest time-sharing operating systems. Today, we are going to be picking up where we left off: Bell Labs just left Project MAC and decided to start their own time-sharing project. What they didn't realize was that this new project, called UNIX, would soon outshine all of its predecessors. But when this all started, in 1969 on a spare mainframe at Bell Labs, there was no hint at it's amazing future.