Tag Archives: Unix

As you all know, I’m a big fan of Brian Kernighan. He’s not only the co-author of the iconic K&R book on C but also wrote a lot of of the Unix utilities that we all depend on today. Not … Continue reading →

I’ve written about this before but that was 9 years ago and it’s a great story so perhaps a reprise is due. The story is about the birth of stderr. As I wrote last time, the concept seems so natural … Continue reading →

F/OSS Comics has a cute cartoon about the origins of Unix and C. If you want a quick précis of the Unix and C histories, this is a good starting point. There are a lot of inaccuracies—at least as I … Continue reading →

While researching for my post The History of C Compilers, I came across another post from Diego Crespo that was sort of along the same lines. This one, Tracing the Lines: From the Telephone to Unix, follows the early history … Continue reading →

There are lots of people who enjoy the opportunity to experience what it was like to work on early Unix systems. That’s been possible for a long time. Indeed, there’s a cottage industry of experimenters who have built PDP emulators, … Continue reading →

After yesterday’s post on Thompson’s famous hack, I watched the video of Thompson’s talk at this year’s Southern California Linux Expo that Cox mentioned. That was pretty interesting as another example of Thompson’s curiosity and genius but the point for … Continue reading →

Every year or so I revisit and write about Ken Thompson’s 1983 Turing Award lecture, Reflections on Trusting Trust. It’s one of those papers that should be read every year: it seems there’s always something new to learn. The paper … Continue reading →

Perhaps I’m just old fashioned and pining for the old days. Or perhaps I’m anticipating the time when I can finally wave my cane at all those pesky kids. Whatever the case, I do believe that avoiding the command line—or … Continue reading →