Hello Habitants! The Unix operating system has taken over the world in ways that its creators never imagined, making history on the top floor of Bell Labs in 1969. The idea behind this OS has had a tremendous impact on software development and the development of operating systems. You will learn about how the Unix system was born, what it is notable for and why it occupies such an important place in the computer world, as well as about the amazing people who put their strength and soul into it. The book is an honest and witty story about the life of the IT community of those times - no fuss, no pages of code or links. Relax and have fun immersed in a story full of adventure and discovery.
Brian Kernighan is the author and co-author of a dozen programming books, including the legendary C Programming Language and Unix. Software environment ". For 30 years he was a member of the same UNIX group at Bell Labs and not only oversaw the creation of UNIX.
UNIX room
Despite the fact that each member of the research department had a private office, most of the development took place in a room called the "Unix room." Its location has changed several times, but it has always been a place to relax, get news, share ideas or just chat.
The very first Unix room was on the fourth floor of Building 2, where the PDP7 was installed. But that was not for long, then for many years we gathered on the sixth floor of building 2 in room 2C644. There were only five office floors in this building, and the sixth floor was a technical corridor: dirty, poorly lit, and full of storage space with dusty abandoned equipment.
At one end, there was an open area with vending machines that sold horrible coffee and almost inedible cookies that served as fuel for nighttime programming. There were also several enclosed spaces, one of which served as a Unix room for at least ten years. It was there that the PDP11 computer stood; there is a photo of Ken and Dennis (Fig. 3.1). Several tables, chairs and terminals have made this place a great shared work area.
Of the people who did not work in Unit 1127, one of the first fans of Unix was an outstanding theoretical physicist, now deceased, whom I will call M.L. He was eager to work in Unix, saw the prospects for using computers in physics, and was also kind and a generous person. But at the same time he was extraordinarily talkative. When he opened his mouth, it was impossible to stop him. He could broadcast for hours in monologue mode. As a result, someone scratched a small hole in the frosted glass coating of the door to the Unix room, so that before entering, you could look inside and find out if M.L. was there. We called it the L-hole.
Then the Unix room moved to room 2C-501, which was on the fifth floor by stairs 9, around the corner from my office. They started buying various coffee makers there. At first, ordinary coffee jugs with a heater, which kept warm until the coffee, or even the jug itself, burned out (which happened quite regularly). Then they began to buy more expensive coffee grinders and coffee machines (Fig. 3.2). The last coffee machine cost about three thousand dollars. If my sources are right, the inhabitants of the Unix room were collecting money for it, and the management paid for the coffee.
This room was fun, there was always something going on. Some preferred to work only there, forgetting about their offices. Others dropped by several times a day to have coffee and chat. The Unix room, like nothing else, helped to keep track of what colleagues were doing and fostered a sense of community.
I think Bell Labs was good at working with space. Private offices, although more expensive than open spaces, provide people with a place to store books and papers and concentrate without the constant noise of the background. If you need to think carefully about something or talk face to face, just close the door. I have worked a lot in open spaces and I can say with confidence that they have a disastrous effect on the ability to concentrate. At Bell Labs, employees had both private offices and a shared workspace.
In the evenings, Bell Labs employees could work from home. For many years I had a dedicated phone line (which is what AT&T did after all) that allowed me to connect to Unix machines in Murray Hill, which allowed me to work evenings and weekends. An unexpected bonus turned out to be a special access code for making non-chargeable long-distance telephone calls anywhere in the country. At the time, this was a huge privilege, as long distance calls were quite expensive. Ken Thompson explains how we got it:
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In 1985, Peter Weinberger was appointed Chief of Unit 1127. On this occasion, a professional photographer shot it for the Bell Labs Bell Labs News newspaper (which everyone called Bell Labs Good News , since only good stories were published there). By leaving a print of this snapshot (Figure 3.3) in the Unix room, Peter made a serious tactical error.
Before long, his image was all over the place, sometimes streaming through the newly designed AT&T logo (Figure 3.4). As Gerard Holtzman said:
A few weeks after AT&T unveiled a new corporate logo, Tom Duff created the Peter logo (Figure 3.5), which became the symbol of our center. Rob Pike ordered T-shirts with this symbol, and Ken Thompson ordered coffee mugs.
For many years in a row, Peter's face appeared in the most unexpected places. In each cell of the Bell Labs organizational structure, formed from small round magnets on a metal wall next to the stairs, in the form of impressions on a new concrete floor and on microprocessor chips. Most notably, on the night of September 16, 1985, someone put his face logo on one of Bell Labs' water towers (Figure 3.6).
There were various rumors about who did it, but even now, more than three decades later, there is no exact information. A request was made for a refund of the cost of the paint, which was denied. A few days later, the logo on the tower was painted over by order of the administration, which clearly did not share our sense of humor.
The full history of Peter's face logos can be found at spinroot.com/pjw. This site was created and maintained by Gerard, who, together with Rob Pike, made numerous improvements to the original photo.
Bell Labs was famous for its informal atmosphere, but closer to the mid-1980s, they introduced a new rule: the mandatory wearing of badges. It was undoubtedly a sensible precaution to cut off outsiders, but it was not popular. In protest, one colleague glued the badge to his forehead with superglue, while another began to cling to his chest hair, showing it only when requested.
The badges had no protective elements. They were just a formulaic picture. So we fabricated the character Grace R. Emlyn, who had his own gre account and his own badge (Figure 3.7), and from time to time he even appeared on official lists and publications.
I made myself a Mickey Mouse badge (Fig. 3.8) and wore it regularly. Even on that day in Holmdel, New Jersey, when Bill Gates came to Bell Labs to promote Windows 3.0. Nobody paid any attention to this.
Photos 3.9 and 3.10 show a Unix room in 2005.
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