Visual Map of Unix history 214
psychosis writes "A friend pointed me towards this site that has a really interesting diagram of the History of Unix. It shows where all the development splits occured, recombined, and dissolved into the ether. The diagram is available in several different formats (html, pdf, and PS), so all can enjoy!"
Re:Isn't it ironic (Score:1)
Re:Not new (Score:1)
'Quarter Century' is the definitive history of Unix.
NeXTStep was not a UNIX (Score:1)
Geez, the inclusion of Steve Jobs ugly mug and the little footnote about NeXTStep being the "best UNIX" really give away this guy's biases.
NeXTStep was not a UNIX. It was NOT derivative of BSD. It had a Mach kernel (which is not UNIX), with a display system and object oriented set of GUI libraries.
It used a BSD filesystem, had BSD file management utilites (i.e mv,cp,rm,ln, etc.) and had a C shell. That does not a UNIX make. NeXTStep/ OpenStep were never POSIX compliant, and never had the full set of system calls that even a poor implementation of either BSD or SYSV would have.
I remember what open source software was like 10+ years ago. I compiled lots of it. Occasionally I'd see a NeXT port of an open source app, and it'd almost always require massive patching to get it to compile. NeXT's simply didnt have the innards of a UNIX.
Re:They missed the part... (Score:1)
Minix - Linux ?! (Score:1)
I though that it started as a terminal emulator and that Linus had wanted to fork from Minix but couldn't for licensing reasons (and went on to have a big fight with Tanenbaum on UseNet over the portability of the Linux code).
Ken Thompson (Score:1)
Not new (Score:1)
missing 'influences' (Score:1)
How many other products that went into Windows can you name?
--
Simon
Re:old code AVAILABLE! (Score:1)
If you go to mckusick.com [mckusick.com], you can buy a 4 CD set containing all the original BSD src. However, you will need to have an ancient Unix source license, according to the web page. There's a link on how to get one listed on the web page.
This is just too cool (Score:1)
Tres cool!
Re:Windows History, and computer languages history (Score:1)
Re:Map this (Score:1)
What is he supposed to say? I did the whole thing? Even if he did it just wouldn't be very cool, a lot of people worked on the design of NT.
Besides, he probably knew it would come back to haunt him ;)
Re: SHELLS (Score:1)
for f in foo bar baz; do
echo $f;
lpr $f;
done
or you can use backticks to generate your list (watch out for files with spaces in the names though...):
for f in `find . -type f -name '*.ps' -print`; do
echo $f;
lpr $f;
done
Try reading up on bash functions if you want to do complicated things. The hyperlinked help you mention sounds nice, but I reckon bash is probably bloated enough already without all that extra gubbins in it. If you need to read a manual your shell script might be better written in something a little more legible and flexible -- like Perl, Python or whatever -- horses for courses and all that.
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Re:Where's OS/2 on the map? (Score:1)
It cam out of IBM/MS's attempt to do the next windows after windows 3.0. they argued at NT came out from M$ and OS/2 from IBM.
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
holy shit wow (Score:1)
It's interesting to see SunOS starting off as BSD-based, then being changed over to System V-based.
But where is BeOS?
if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
Re:Wow. I like it... (Score:1)
That's funny, I always thought that was a Yankee joke! :-)
-- OpenSourcerers [opensourcerers.com]
AIX 3.x/AIX 4.x is not descended from SVR4 (Score:1)
Re:NeXTStep was not a UNIX (Score:1)
Where's OS/2 on the map? (Score:1)
Proprietary Unixes? (Score:1)
Unix fonts (Score:1)
PS. This is not a troll, it's an observation of the objective fact that Unix fonts suck.
Re:What Unix fonts? (Score:1)
Poster? (Score:1)
Re:Now how about ... (Score:1)
You take this corner, I'll take this corner....
The Growth of an idea (Score:1)
Tomorrow ... (Score:1)
of doing the Xenix thing ?
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:1)
The old Apollo workstations initially ran DomainOS, then later had the option of using Unix. It was a version of BSD that they called Domain/IX.
Woops, both BSD and SYSV (Score:1)
$ install_sysadmin
Software installation TYPES are:
RESTART -- Restart the DOMAIN/IX software installation.
DOMAIN_IX -- Install the full DOMAIN/IX software package.
Please enter installation TYPE: domain_ix
**** SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR ONLY INSTALLATION ****
You must provide the name of the TARGET volume on which to
install the software (e.g.,
Please enter TARGET Volume or type quit:
The DOMAIN/IX PRODUCT TYPES are:
BSD4.2 -- Berkeley 4.2
SYS5 -- System 5
BOTH -- Berkeley 4.2 and System 5
Please enter the PRODUCT TYPE you wish to install, or type quit: bsd4.2
Hmmmm, I guess I was a BSD snob back then.:)
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:1)
Re:Map this (Score:1)
logan
Re:NeXTStep was not a UNIX (Score:1)
earlier versions may be as bad as you say but from ns3.3 on, pretty much anything that would compile on any bsd4.2 would compile out of the box on a next box. NeXTSTEP was/is just as much unix as any version of linux say up to kernel 1.1 was.
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Solaris/FreeBSD/Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Linux/ultrix/OS
Re:Visual map of Windows is HERE (Score:1)
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:Visual map of Windows is HERE (Score:1)
Structurally, Windows took over more and more of the job of DOS, starting with Windows 3.0 Enhanced Mode. Win95's internals weren't a heck of a lot different than Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with 32-bit file access activated, although both used DOS for some low-level functions.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Re:Windows History (Score:1)
Steven E. Ehrbar
Let's all sing the BSD athemn... (Score:1)
2.4 still in development (Score:1)
This is a great chart, though. Very interesting.
To me it looks like... (Score:2)
Unix the royal OS.
Mmm... MIPS Unix and those Magnum pizzaboxes.. (Score:2)
Back in those days, my 25mhz 386 was pretty dope, so having a Magnum pizzabox was delicious. I wasn't really a big fan of DOS (but *was* a big fan of DesqView running multiple DOS shells), so to have cranked up MIPS Unix and be given a Magnum box for my porting effort, that was a sweet, sweet day.
Man, that's some serious nostalgia right there. Wonder if I can get a Magnum cheap somewhere these days, to go alongside my aging Indy collection...
But, but . . . (Score:2)
Heresy! Burn them all! Force them to use Windows!
On a more serious note, I *am* strongly skeptical about the credibility of a site that links to a Rhonda Hauben article.
hawk
Re:What about GNU? (Score:2)
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:2)
Actually, these days it runs on Intel CPUs. Although they continue to maintain the m88k version, they haven't sold any 88k based machines for many years now. It's actually one of my favourite Unices. It sucked quite badly in early versions, but later ones are much better. Interestingly, it's the only Unix version I know of (other than Linux) that doesn't originate from "real" Unix. The kernel was rewritten from scratch to conform with the specs. It contains none of the original Unix code. The userland was all licensed from SVR4, though.
old code (Score:2)
I'd give my left mouse button for a genuine compiled binary by Mr. Joy himself...
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Perhaps you were mistaken and it doesn't contain any Mach code.
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:2)
You misspelled "ROMP". :-) The RT PC used the IBM-developed ROMP; see The IBM RT Information page [cmu.edu], and pages linked to it, such as the IBM RT system hardware FAQ [cmu.edu], which says:
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Dave Cutler, as per this earlier posting of mine [slashdot.org].
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
And the evidence to support this belief is? (The fact that Cutler was one of the people working on that project - I seem to remember hearing that "Prism" was the name of the RISC architecture they were doing; I don't know whether the OS they were doing had the same name - doesn't ipso facto mean that the next OS he did included any code from that project. Ideas, maybe, but not necessarily code.)
Re:holy shit wow (Score:2)
Re:FreeBSD - Darwin? (Score:2)
Re:Unix fonts (Score:2)
CE not correct (Score:2)
Re:Details (Score:2)
I think the creator of the chart is well aware of what a "Unix system" really means. Most of the world accepts "Linux" to mean "complete systems using the Linux kernel", in the right context. This is no exception.
Under your proposed definition, the chart is still wrong, as the dates given on the chart are not dates for releases of "complete systems using the Linux kernel". And surely you know that there are a number of contributors to the complete system that uses the Linux kernel that do object to use of the term "Linux" to describe the whole system, even if you think (as I do) that some like RMS carry it too far.
There is no mention of Linus anywhere on the web page.
Well, duh. There is more to a picture than the characters and lines on the page, there is also what is implied to an intelligent reader. Putting an event on the diagram marks it as significant; leaving an event off the diagram marks it as insignificant. The release dates of the various Linux kernels can be obtained from many sources; it would be nice to tell the story of the Linux distributions, as it is woefully under-publicized.
Re:What about GNU? (Score:2)
I expect this will start another GNU/Linux flamefest
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:2)
I noticed that virtually none of the Digital UNIXes are on there. There's Digital Unix, the outgrowth of OSF, but nothing about Ultrix (unless I missed it). Hardly a fringe variant, Ultrix got as high as 4.0 and was on Vaxen, workstations, RISC workstations, all sorts of stuff. Being as how this is the UNIX I learned on, I'm kinda miffed to see it missing. :-(
It's also interesting to note that, as recently as a few years ago, DEC was still using their standard character generator for their PCI-based Alpha machines -- now that's what a UNIX console is supposed to look like!
-- Offtopic --
The quote at the bottom, as I read this:
Reminds me of the time in school when I found a phone number that was one digit off from mine, but not currently in service. I recorded the intercept message, put it as my outgoing message, and added "but that's not my number, and I'm not here anyway." Best message I ever did, but really pissed off all my friends and family... :-)
AIX/370 and AIX/ESA (Score:2)
This was around 1994. I don't know what it was derived from, but it was an extensive rewrite, and deserves its own breakout in the chart.
Re:Visual map of Windows is HERE (Score:2)
Shouldn't it be the other way around, given that the first version of Win95 was really just DOS with some 32 bit code, and a GUI totally unlike Win 3.1?
At least it should be equal contrib...
What I'd Like to See (Score:2)
Re:Wow. I like it... (Score:2)
So IRIX did "evolve". Just on different platforms. And Linux is better tracked due to the open development method.
If you look at the IRIX that was developed for the last two years for SN1 (O3000), it was done almost
completely separate from mainstream IRIX 6.5 devolopment and then pulled back in (in an incredibly painstaking manner) to the mainstream 6.5 release for 6.5.9. You just don't know this happened because it was all inside of SGI.
A matter of semantics (Score:2)
Er, no. The diagram shows code forks. By and large, Linux systems incorporate little to no code from other Unix systems, largely because of the licensing issues. Perhaps there should be a dashed line from some of the BSDs, since there is some BSD code floating around in your average Linux distro, but by and large, Linux (for the obtuse: in this context, Linux == Linux kernel, GNU tools, some BSD tools, XFree, Perl, Python, KDE, etc., etc.) stands alone. Indeed, the line from Minix to Linux is incorrect.
The kernel is just a tiny part of the OS...
And, once again, I state: Most of the world accepts "Linux" to mean "complete systems using the Linux kernel". This diagram is no exception.
Re:Proprietary Unixes? (Score:2)
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:2)
And I always wondered about those Unices that the Emacs and trn installers ask about... Venix, Eunice, etc.
Also, isnt EROS a Unixish OS?
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Wheres Multics? (Score:2)
Re:Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:2)
The company I worked for back in '84 had one shipped to us for a month or so along with a pair of comically inept technicians in the hope we'd consider a port of our Unix software to it.
It didn't seem so bad for a computer with limited resources; certainly it was miles ahead of the very early versions of DOS that were kicking around then. On the other hand, we had a sweet little 68K based Unix System III box from Plexus, that proved you could put a real operating system on a microcomputer.
Map this (Score:2)
I'd like to see a similar map for programming languages, although the few I saw back in school were pretty lacking, and some were big jumps.
At least with Unix, it's easier to trace.
Ever think that some day all the geneology map will be put together officially (by the government of course so that they could mess with your 'past', and prove Jefferson never committed adultery...) but a 3-d real time traversing of the world's geneology....
Rader
Re:Windows History (Score:2)
Re:The Growth of an idea (Score:2)
And verily did the hackers become confused, for their servants now spoke dialects, numerous beyond counting, and what was said to one might not be understood by another, or might be misunderstood;
And the hackers cried out for relief, saying "Let there be but one and only one operating system on every machine, that our lives may be easy and carefree!"
And Eris Discordia heard their cries. And she did grin most wickedly. And she did whisper into the ear of Sir William of Gates, that he should steal the face of the golden Apples, and place it upon the body of the Devil's Operating System;
And thus was THE ABOMINATION, W*ND*WS, brought forth upon the earth.
And there was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth amoung the hackers, who now realized that diversity, and even a certain amount of disorder, is healthy. And they fought mightily against the abomination.
And Eris relented on the poor suckers, and allowed there to be GNU, and Linux, and the brethern BSD, and Darwin, and all manner of software which each might change to his or her own liking, in a manner most eristic. Or not. And it was good.
Fnord.
Re:holy shit wow (Score:2)
Re:Wow. I like it... (Score:2)
You have to wonder whether IBM are ultimately planning the same fate for AIX.
Oh, but he's missing kernel 2.4 [kernel.org].
cheers,
G
Re:Map this (Score:2)
I think that Sun hired a load of the guys at Berkely, Bill Joy etc, who did a lot of the early work on UNIX.
Also, didn't Micros~1 hire one of the key programmers on Mach to write the NT kernel?
SGI IRIX info: accurate? (Score:2)
--LP
Re:There's more (Score:2)
A/UX (Score:2)
Actually A/UX was never Mach based - it came from another whole family tree that's missing from the chart - 'UniPlus' which was an early System 3/5/5r2/5r3 variant with BSD networking and utilities on top - A/UX came from the system 5r2 branch.
UniSoft did over 100 ports of UniPlus to mostly 68k based platforms in the early to mid 80s.
DOS 1.x -- anyone use it out there? (Score:2)
Re:DOS 1.x and CPM (Score:2)
Ah, I forgot about that one. I attempted to create a Zork-style game with it without docs, knowledge of arrays, or examples. Really fun to do. I think I spent more time on my Zork-like game then Zork itself!
Unfortunately, because I didn't know what I was doing, when I added rooms the program grew exponentially.
Re:Wow. I like it... (Score:2)
Read all the way to the bottom.
"You may be wondering "Why does Steve Jobs appear in this unix history?". Simply because he has made the best unix computer ever : a NeXTcube powered with NeXTSTEP operating system."
Which seems reasonable, other than his odd misspelling of "G4 Cube powered with OS X operating system."
OS/2 to NT (Score:2)
On top of that you have Microsoft's participation in the pre-divorce OS/2 2.0 project, and the direct connection between the "MS OS/2 3.0" project and Windows NT.
Another major problem is that WinCE is not a variant of Windows 9x, but instead is based on an embedded version of NT. I suspect MS will resync CE and NT around about Whistler so that they can build
Unix Archeology (Score:2)
y'know, showing the evolutionary forms of Geeks. Primordial forms with slide rules and pocket protectors, later forms with their ponytails and nez pierce glasses. never mind the migration patterns of the tribes
Re:Windows History (Score:2)
well, QDOS was written from scratch, though a goal was to mimic CP/M. DOS 2 added significant Unix functionality so Unix would have to be mentioned also. CP/M was modelled after the DEC OSes like RSX-11 and RT-11: anybody remember PIP? :)
BTW, I thought of more of the DOS lineage that should have been included: Phar Lap DOS extenders, QEMM and 386Max... was TopView in there?
M$ panic (Score:2)
Now how about ... (Score:2)
Visual map of Windows is HERE (Score:3)
an interesting contrast (Score:3)
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Re:Map this (Score:3)
I suppose being one of the four founders of Sun, as Bill was, could be read as being hired by Sun, in a sense. :-)
However, I don't think any of the other core BSD guys were Sun employees - Kirk McKusick wasn't (I seem to remember he may have consulted at Sun, but he wasn't on the payroll), and neither was Sam Leffler (he went to SGI, not Sun); I forget whether Mike Karels was involved with 4BSD or 2BSD at that time Sun was founded - in any case, he also wasn't ever a Sun employee, as far as I know.
They hired Rick Rashid for Microsoft Research, but that was, I think, well after NT was shipped. They may have hired other Mach people to work on NT, but I don't know of any myself, for what that's worth.
They did hire a guy from Digital Equipment Corporation, Dave Cutler, to be one of the architects of NT (perhaps the chief architect, although in the foreword to the first edition of Inside Windows NT he just says "I must say that I did not design Windows NT -- I was merely one of the contributors to the design of the system.")
The I/O subsystem of NT looks somewhat VMSish, but I suspect the VMS I/O subsystem looks somewhat RSX-11M-ish; I suspect Cutler was responsible for much of the design of all three I/O subsystems (which does not mean that he necessarily used any VMS code in NT, it may just mean he reused earlier ideas of his).
Re:Wow. I like it... (Score:3)
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What about GNU? (Score:3)
The thing that makes Linux Unix-like (libc, shell tools, etcetera) is the GNU System [gnu.org], which was started in 1983, but doesn't appear anywhere in the chart.
two missining that I noticed (Score:3)
What about Coherent, a V7 clone for 8086/80286 from Mark Williams Corp. and QNX?
I'm a bit suprised that these two are missing, but XINU has made it onto the chart, even though it doesn't show any actual inheritance from any unix strain (and rightly so: XINU's only relationship to unix, aside from the name, was entirely spiritual).
Details (Score:3)
I think the creator of the chart is well aware of what a "Unix system" really means. Most of the world accepts "Linux" to mean "complete systems using the Linux kernel", in the right context. This is no exception.
Drawing the picture this way gives too much credit to Linus Torvalds...
There is no mention of Linus anywhere on the chart or the web page. Furthermore, the diagram itself is not, as near as I can tell, about giving credit for anything. It merely tracks code forks.
The folks who gave you the hundred-odd programs required by Posix plus all the development tools, mainly the FSF and its army of volunteers and the folks at Cygnus...
Your average Linux distro includes a number of utilities from the BSDs, as well. (Indeed, pretty much any Unix these days encorporates ideas, if not code, from BSD.)
Even more important, the folks like Peter McDonald, Adam Richter, and Patrick Volkering...
Indeed. I wonder if we should include people like ESR and companies like Red Hat, who have been largely responsible for bringing Free Software onto the corporate map?
The picture can be fixed by removing the Linux kernels
That would not "fix" anything, only expand it. The "Linux" branch includes all of those implictly.
I do think a diagram of the history of the Linux distros, in the same spirit as this one, is a cool idea, though.
Re:Windows History, and computer languages history (Score:3)
There's more (Score:3)
Re:What about GNU? (Score:3)
IRIX (Score:3)
One thing: IRIX is shown beginning around 1986 right out of the blue. According to SGI.com's section on IRIX, it was incepted in '82. I'm curious which it is, and whether it was derived or really conjured up from scratch.
The only others that appear out of thin air (other than UNICS) are Minix, Xinu, and Mach (A/UX briefly so before getting BSDed). Does anyone know if IRIX, like these, was an original design? It's certainly unique in its own right.
Also, did I miss UNICOS in there? As I understand it, it is a UNIX (looks like a duck, quacks like a duck) derived from SysV with some BSDisms thrown in... showed up in '85, I reckon.
Re:Windows History (Score:3)
... and especially, it doesn't show all the rebooting :)
outdated (Score:3)
Those bastards!
They missed the part... (Score:3)
The Linux kernel != a Unix (like) distribution (Score:4)
The picture is beautiful, but it repeats a common error. Every Unix or Unix-like distribution listed in the picture consists not only of a kernel, but of hundreds of utilities (all the little programs that you can count on having in your /bin and /usr/bin directories).
Drawing the picture this way gives too much
credit to Linus Torvalds and too little to two
other groups of heros:
The picture can be fixed by removing the Linux kernels (or at least putting in large asterisks making sure that these are kernels only) and replacing them with a diagram showing the early SLS, LGX, and Slackware releases, with the branching relationships showing how the later distributions depend on the earlier ones.
Thankfully it's not complete :) (Score:4)
Does anyone remember MIPS Unix? I'm not sure of it's origins, but I think MIPS made it before SGI bought them outright (although I think it was still maintained despite the fact SGI had their own version of Unix, IRIX).
Or what about Amiga UNIX (Aka AMIX)? From what I remember, this was a straight port of V.5.
And of course, there was Data General's DG/UX for the Motorola 88K series of RISC processors. And even Dell had their own Unix for a while. And this isn't counting all the versions of companies that went under, and all the tweaked versions used in academia...
fork(), anyone?
Re:Map this (Score:4)
Wow. I like it... (Score:5)
...especially the part where Minix is just coasting along, and then... "Look! that little line poking out. Whazzit say? Linux 0.0.1?"
Kinda makes you proud.
It interesting to see how Linux progresses as compared to, say, Irix. Linux progresses, and each branch (from kernel 2.0 to 2.1) is the "new" Linux, with the old branch dying off, while Irix runs in a straight, continuous line.
Looks kinda Darwinian, in fact. If I may make a poor analogy, it's like the difference between balancing a pole on it's end, and balancing a tripod.
I'm still scared of the person that took the time to put that together, though...
UNIX History Graphing Project (Score:5)
here is the source for the first linux kernels:
linux0.1
Name: Linux 0.1
Date: 1991-09-17
Reference: http://www.memalpha.cx/Linux/Kernel/Master.html
Influenced by minix1.5.10
linux0.2
Name: Linux 0.3
Date: 1991-10-05
Reference: a printed calendar
Successor to linux0.1
greetings, eMBee.
--
Windows History, and computer languages history (Score:5)
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/lang/ [wanadoo.fr]
And not as complicated, history of DOS and Windows:
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/windows/ [wanadoo.fr]