[TUHS] Honor declined

[Douglas McIlroy]

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
>
>
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