Open Source Software

UNIX which was developed in 1969 by a few employees of AT&T is an operating system and in the two decades that followed it began to be used extensively by many commercial concerns and inspired certain similar systems like Linux. Unix used a client-server program which was instrumental in leading to computing and the internet being network-centric rather than restricted to a single computer. Unix stores data in the form of simple text and arranges files and folders in a hierarchy.  Also instead of using assembly language Unix used high-level language and the entire system was configured through textual shell command scripts and there were no binary editors. C Programming language was first used in UNIX before spreading to other systems and applications. The program could support two users and so one of its inventors called it Unics which later was modified to Unix.

Bell Labs, the company which the developers belonged to released a free version of UNIX in its source language so that anyone could obtain and modify a copy for themselves and by the end of the 1970s many different versions were doing the rounds. Unix was licensed to educational institutions, commercial firms and the U.S Government and it was not very expensive as it could not be marketed due to anti trust regulations.

It was only after AT&T split in the early 80s that did the marketing of Unix begin in earnest. Because it is portable and flexible UNIX has been highly popular at workplaces but has not been able to attain the same response as far as personal computers are concerned.

The current owner of UNIX is The Open Group an industry standards consortium which only qualifies those Operating Systems as UNIX which are fully compliant with the Single Unix Certification which the others are merely called Unix like.

Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), one of the foundations for later big guns like Unix, was at one point of time, one of the most influential early time-sharing operating systems. Right from 1964 when it was first setup successfully, it remained an important tool for development for almost two decades. Even at later stages, when it was outdated, old school programmers continued to use it till the dawn of the millenium.

Multics, ancient and obsolete now, employed a humble single level store for data access, almost ignoring the apparent difference between files (called segments in Multics) and process memory. The memory of a process used to consist solely of segments which were mapped into an address space. To control them, the process basically required usual CPU commands, and the operating system then made sure that all the Read the rest of this entry »

The UNIX computer operating system from Bell Labs is still considered as one of the most powerful, multipurpose, and lithe operating systems (OS) for computers. It has the ability to run a wide array of systems which accounts for a huge chunk of reputation and fame. It runs from micros to supercomputers, and its portability — all of which led to its adoption by many manufacturers.UNIX rose from the ashes of a multi-organizational effort in the early 1960s to develop a dependable timesharing operating system like the origin of phoenix after being burnt to ashes.

The combined try was not that successful, but a few who didn’t gave up, from Bell Labs tried again, and prepared a system that which has a work environment that is described as “of unusual simplicity, power, and elegance….”. The system fosters Read the rest of this entry »