[pups] History of 32-bit UNIX (was History of 2 BSD)

[Norman Wilson]

Mario Premke:

  but I wonder when the step from
  16bit to 32bit was made in BSD.

Michael Sokolov:

  It was not made in BSD.  It was made at Ma Bell: the step from V7 to 32V (VAX
  port of V7).

You're a little late: researchers at Bell Labs ported UNIX to the 32-bit
Interdata 8/32 in 1977.  I don't think the resulting system was widely used,
but the lessons learned greatly influenced V7.  In particular typedef and
unsigned were added to C, the compiler became more honest about type checking,
and system-interface data structures like struct stat were installed in standard
include files rather than being copied into every program.

Others ported the system in those carefree days as well, in particular Richard
Miller at the University of Wollongong, but I don't know much about the other
efforts.  But the VAX was by no means the first 32-bit port.

Norman Wilson
Toronto ON