[TUHS] Honor declined
Will Senn
will.senn at gmail.com
Thu Mar 7 06:06:11 AEST 2024
Pioneer, then - surely, you beat the rush :).
On 3/6/24 1:53 PM, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> Very kind words from Brantley and Clem. It's an interesting notion to
> regard Unix as gestational until it came out in public talks (1973)
> and was exported to universities.
>
> Maybe I could claim to have laid the groundwork for Unix by causing
> Multics to be written in PL/I, a language big and sprawling, like the
> project itself. That unintentionally provided plenty of stimulus for
> thinking small. Ken was absolutely on his own when he began to fiddle
> with building a tiny operating system on the GE 645. I heard about it
> only after the fact.
>
> After Multics, I ran interference to keep our once-burned higher
> management from frowning too much on further operating-system
> research. I was aware that Ken, Dennis and Rudd were discussing the
> subject down the hall from my office, but I did not participate in the
> discussions. At the same time, I was noodling over what would later be
> called shell pipelines; but I did not come up with the vivid term
> "pipe" or a halfway workable syntax for another three years. While
> these actions may have contributed to a welcoming environment for
> Unix, they in no way "started" it.
>
> Doug
>
> On Wed, Mar 6, 2024 at 10:03 AM Brantley Coile <brantley at coraid.com>
> wrote:
>
> It all depends on how you define "started."
>
> Your contributions to it was done while it was still in the
> maternity ward of the hospital in which it was birthed. I would
> argue, at length if need be, but I suspect it's not needed, that
> you indeed "started to develop it." Did only Ken started it. Who
> was in the room when Ken outlined the file system? You're finger
> prints are all over everything from very, very early.
>
> From a quarter the way into the 21st century, you certainly appear
> to have started to develop it.
>
> Just my humble opinion. my disclaimer is that I've always held
> your contributions in very high regard.
>
> Brantley
>
> > On Mar 6, 2024, at 9:55 AM, Douglas McIlroy
> <douglas.mcilroy at dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > When Rudd, Doug, Ken, Dennis, et al start to develop UNIX
> >
> > Although I jumped into Unix as soon as it was born, I was not
> one of those who "start[ed] to develop it".
> >
> > Doug
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://www.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/attachments/20240306/ab98fbbc/attachment.htm>
More information about the TUHS
mailing list