Early UNIX dates

[Warren Toomey]

All,
	After some reading though papers and books, I've come up with the
following brief timeline of very early UNIX development. I just thought
some of you might find it interesting.

	Warren


		   Early dates of UNIX Development

As accurately as we can tell, anyway! References given where possible.

1969
	Unknown: Ken creates `Space Travel'. It was first written on Multics,
		then transliterated into Fortran for GECOS, then Ken and
		Dennis rewrote Space Travel to run on the PDP-7
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html]

	Mid-year: Bell Labs withdraws from the Multics project
		  [QCU pg 8]

	April, May, June: Ken is interested in writing a file system
		  [QCU pg 8]

	Mid-year: Ken brings the file system to life on the PDP-7 in a month
		  [QCU pg 10]

	Unknown: Ken develops the B language
		  [QCU pg 34],
		  [http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html]

1970
	Unknown: Peter Neumann coins the term `Unics', which is
		subsequently changed to `Unix'
		  [QCU pg 9]

	Unknown: Alternatively, Brian Kernighan suggests the name `Unix'
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html]

	Mid-year: The PDP-11/20 is purchased, with no disk drives
		[QCU pg 35],
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html]

	3 months later: The disks arrive
		  [http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html]

	Unknown: Ken recodes the Unix kernel and some commands in PDP-11
		assembly code
		  [http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html]

1971
	January-March: PDP-11 version largely rewritten during this period
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/notes.html]

	February: PDP-11 Unix beccomes ``operational''
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/cacm.html]

	Unknown: Dennis extends B to be NB
		  [http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/chist.html]

	Spring: roff rewritten in PDP-11 assembler language, starting from
		the PDP-7 version that had been transliterated from
		McIlroy's BCPL version on Multics, which had in turn been
		inspired by J. Saltzer's runoff program on CTSS
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html]
	
	November: First Edition manuals were published
		  [QCU pg 43]

1972
	January: The Labs issues a technical memorandum, written by Ken,
		describing the B language on the PDP-11
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/kbman.html]

	March: First manual for cc(1)
		  [QCU pg 48]

	March: UNIX is running on at least 5 PDP-11/20s
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/notes.html]

	June: DEC starts to ship the PDP-11/45. The Labs purchases one
		sonn after this
		[http://www.village.org/pdp11/faq.pages/11model.html]

	June: Second Edition manuals were published. 10 UNIX installations
		  [QCU pg 43]

	Unknown: Ken adds pipes to the assembly-language version of the kernel
		[QCU pg 51],
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/hist.html]

1973
	January: the `nsys' kernel in the PUPS archive, written in C
		[timestamps on the files]

	February: Third Edition manuals were published. 16 UNIX installations
		  [QCU pg 43]
		  Kernel is still the assembly-language version
		  [private email from dmr dated 7 Jan 1999]

	September: The C version of the kernel is adopted over the
		assembly-language version
		  [private email from dmr dated 18 Jan 1999]

	October: First UNIX paper, presented by Ken at the Fourth
    		ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/cacm.html]

	November: Fourth Edition manuals were published
		  [QCU pg 43]

1974
	June: Fifth Edition manuals were published
		  [QCU pg 43]

	July: Ken's SOSP published in Communications of the ACM, 17, No. 7
		[http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/cacm.html]

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