[TUHS] So who named Unix? [was multicians] Peter Neumann has died]

[Douglas McIlroy via TUHS]

Regardless of who cracked the pun, we were all surprised by Ken's x.

Doug

On Thu, May 21, 2026 at 6:51 PM Thalia Archibald via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> Ken wrote the following to a Redditor earlier this month:
>
> On 9 May 2026 at 12:08, Ken Thompson wrote:
> > unix was named (phonetically) by bwk.
> > i dont think he ever spelled it, but, since
> > it was a play on multics, he thought it was
> > unics. (you can ask him)
> >
> > at the time, unix was compiled on the central
> > computer at bell labs (GE-625) that produced
> > a PDP-7 paper tape. usually i just ran the tape
> > and threw it away. when i needed to save a tape,
> > i wrote "unix" on the tape. it stuck after that.
>
>
> https://www.reddit.com/r/unix/comments/1t826y8/emailed_ken_thompson_about_the_unics_to_unix/
>
> The tape part I hadn't heard before and completes the story.
>
> Thalia
>