# Unix

*"Those who don't know Unix are doomed to reinvent it, poorly."* --obligatory quote by Henry Spencer

Unix is an [old](old.md) [operating system](operating_system.md) developed since 1960s as a research project of [Bell Labs](bell_labs.md), which has become one of the most influential pieces of software in history and whose principles (e.g. the [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)) live on in many so called  Unix-like operating systems such as [Linux](linux.md) and [BSD](bsd.md) (at least to some degree). The original system itself is no longer in use, the name UNIX is nowadays a trademark and a certification. However, as someone once said, *Unix is not so much an operating system as a way of thinking*.

Unix has reached the highest level a software can reach: it has transcended its implementation and became a [de facto standard](de_facto_standard.md). This means it has become a set of interface conventions, cultural and philosophical ideas rather than being a single system, it lives on as a concept that has many implementations. This is extremely important as we don't depend on any single Unix implementation but we have a great variety of choice between which we can switch without greater issues. This is very important for [freedom](freedom.md) -- it prevents monopolization -- and its one of the important reasons to use unix-like systems.

## History

In the 1960s, Bell Labs along with other groups were developing [Multics](multics.md), a kind of [operating system](os.md) -- however the project failed and was abandoned for its complexity and expensiveness of development. In 1969 two Multics developers, [Ken Thompson](key_thompson.md) and [Dennis Ritchie](dennis_ritchie.md), then started to create their own system, this time with a different philosophy; that of [simplicity](minimalism.md) (see [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)). They weren't alone in developing the system, a number of other hackers helped program such things as a file system, [shell](shell.md) and simple utility programs. At VCF East 2019 Thompson said that they developed Unix as a working system in three weeks. At this point Unix was written in [assembly](assembly.md).

In the early 1970s the system got funding as well as its name Unix (a pun on Multix). By now Thompson and Richie were developing a new language for Unix which would eventually become the [C](c.md) language. In version 4 (1973) Unix was rewritten in C.

Unix then started being sold commercially. This led to its fragmentation into different versions such as the [BSD](bsd.md) or [Solaris](solaris.md). In 1983 a version called System V was released which would become one of the most successful. The fragmentation and a lack of a unified standard led to so called [Unix Wars](unix_wars.md) in the late 1980s, which led to a few Unix standards such as [POSIX](posix.md) and Single Unix Specification.

For [zoomers](genz.md) and other noobs: Unix wasn't like [Windows](windows.md), it was more like [DOS](dos.md), things were done in [text interface](cli.md) -- if you use the command line in "[Linux](linux.md)" nowadays, you'll get an idea of what it was like, except it was all even more primitive. Things we take for granted such as a [mouse](mouse.md), [copy-pastes](copy_paste.md), interactive text editors, having multiple user accounts or [running multiple programs at once](multitasking.md) were either non-existent or advanced features in the early days. Anything these guys did you have to see as done with stone tools.
