Tag Archives: Unix

Unix Pipes

Posted on 2020-11-01 by jcs

This post is a blast from the past \(\times 2\). One reason it’s a blast from the past is that it discusses the Unix V6 code. The other reason is that it discusses some of the code that first helped … Continue reading →

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You Are Not Expected to Understand This Redux

Posted on 2020-10-23 by jcs

Three and a half years ago, I wrote about what is arguably the most famous comment in computer history. That, of course, is the celebrated “You are not expected to understand this” comment in the V6 Unix source code. The … Continue reading →

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The 500 Mile Email

Posted on 2020-07-10 by jcs

I vaguely remember writing about this before but I just saw a reference to it and it’s such a great story that it should be repeated every few years. Trey Harris tells a funny and instructive tale about how even … Continue reading →

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Vivek Haldar on How Unix Won

Posted on 2020-05-06 by jcs

Vivek Haldar has an interesting essay on How Unix Won and it why it may now be entering its end phase. From a technical standpoint, the main reason Unix fared so well is that it was written by programmers for … Continue reading →

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Surprising Unix Programs

Posted on 2020-03-18 by jcs

Doug McIlroy has another interesting post on TUHS. This time it’s about Unix programs that he found surprising. Many of the programs have been replaced by updated tools and are no longer used by most people but they all offer … Continue reading →

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Sort and Uniq

Posted on 2020-03-15 by jcs

I’ve been using Unix for 3 decades but I just learned something new about two of the basic Unix tools sort and uniq. If you’re not familiar with Unix command line tools, sort does just what it sounds like. You … Continue reading →

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A Talk With Brian Kernighan

Posted on 2019-10-18 by jcs

Back in March, John Mashey interviewed Brian Kernighan at Princeton about his career and technical work. It’s a wonderful video that covers his career from his undergraduage years to his current position as a professor at Princeton. We’ve heard some … Continue reading →

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Ken Thompson’s Password

Posted on 2019-10-10 by jcs

Many years ago, (the old) SCO released the source for some “ancient” versions of Unix. They did that by releasing a tape dump of the file system. Included in the image was a copy of the password file. The file … Continue reading →

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Remembering Unix at 50

Posted on 2019-09-02 by jcs

As hard as it seems to believe, Unix is going to be 50 this year. Once Unix escaped from the Labs and became generally known and available, there was a lot of skepticism that it would have amount to anything. … Continue reading →

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Seven Bash Tips

Posted on 2019-08-28 by jcs

Carrying on with yesterday’s theme of Bash hackery, I present to you Ian Miell’s Seven God-Like Bash History Shortcuts You Will Actually Use. If you’re anything like me, you read one of these articles and think, “Wow! That’s really neat. … Continue reading →

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