* [TUHS] UNIX or unix @ 2019-11-09 17:20 Nemo Nusquam 2019-11-09 19:43 ` Paco López 2019-11-09 20:36 ` Derrik Walker v2.0 0 siblings, 2 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Nemo Nusquam @ 2019-11-09 17:20 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Historical Society I was reading the comments on Hackaday on UNIX at 50 (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/). As expected, a lot of manure but some interesting comments from seemingly knowledgeable people. One comment (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977), from a DDS, stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to comment on this? N. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-09 17:20 [TUHS] UNIX or unix Nemo Nusquam @ 2019-11-09 19:43 ` Paco López 2019-11-09 20:36 ` Derrik Walker v2.0 1 sibling, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Paco López @ 2019-11-09 19:43 UTC (permalink / raw) Cc: The Eunuchs Historical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1457 bytes --] An excerpt from The Jargon File: Some people are confused over whether this word is appropriately ‘UNIX’ or ‘Unix’; both forms are common, and used interchangeably. Dennis Ritchie says that the ‘UNIX’ spelling originally happened in CACM's 1974 paper The UNIX Time-Sharing System because “we had a new typesetter and troff had just been invented and we were intoxicated by being able to produce small caps.” Later, dmr tried to get the spelling changed to ‘Unix’ in a couple of Bell Labs papers, on the grounds that the word is not acronymic. He failed, and eventually (his words) “wimped out” on the issue. So, while the trademark today is ‘UNIX’, both capitalizations are grounded in ancient usage; the Jargon File uses ‘Unix’ in deference to dmr's wishes. at: http://catb.org/jargon/html/U/Unix.html El sáb., 9 nov. 2019 a las 17:28, Nemo Nusquam (<cym224@gmail.com>) escribió: > I was reading the comments on Hackaday on UNIX at 50 > (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/). > As expected, a lot of manure but some interesting comments from > seemingly knowledgeable people. > > One comment > ( > https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977), > > from a DDS, stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it > "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to > comment on this? > > N. > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2110 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-09 17:20 [TUHS] UNIX or unix Nemo Nusquam 2019-11-09 19:43 ` Paco López @ 2019-11-09 20:36 ` Derrik Walker v2.0 2019-11-09 21:05 ` Mary Ann Horton 1 sibling, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Derrik Walker v2.0 @ 2019-11-09 20:36 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs On 11/9/19 12:20 PM, Nemo Nusquam wrote: > I was reading the comments on Hackaday on UNIX at 50 > (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/). > As expected, a lot of manure but some interesting comments from > seemingly knowledgeable people. > > One comment > (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977), > from a DDS, stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it > "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to > comment on this? > > N. It was always my understanding, based totally on hearsay from engineers from both Sun and SGI back in my early days with it, UNIX is the OS, while unix, or vmunix is the kernel. Unix was deprecated by the time it became a real commercial product. So, right or wrong, I've always used UNIX for the OS, and unix, or vmunix as appropriate, to refer to the kernel. - Derrik -- Derrik Walker v2.0 dwalker@doomd.net https://www.doomd.net "Those UNIX guys, they think weird!" -- John C. Dvorak ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-09 20:36 ` Derrik Walker v2.0 @ 2019-11-09 21:05 ` Mary Ann Horton 2019-11-09 21:23 ` Clem Cole 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Mary Ann Horton @ 2019-11-09 21:05 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs I just finished Brian Kernighan's book (excellent!) and he addresses this in section 7.6. (Yes, he wrote the book in troff.) He prefers "Unix" and wrote it that way except for this section. He says "Bell Labs' legal guardians decided that the name Unix was a valuable trademark that had to be protected..." Legal mostly required it to be used as an adjective "The UNIX TM operating system", and how the ms macros produced a small caps "UNIX" (and a footnote on the first reference). He's clear that the 1127 folks hated the requirements from legal. It is true that the file which contains the kernel was /unix, or /vmunix for Berkeley Unix, but that's the name of the file, not the proper name of the operating system for English prose. By convention, virtually all Unix files were in lower case. Mary Ann On 11/9/19 12:36 PM, Derrik Walker v2.0 wrote: > On 11/9/19 12:20 PM, Nemo Nusquam wrote: >> I was reading the comments on Hackaday on UNIX at 50 >> (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/). >> As expected, a lot of manure but some interesting comments from >> seemingly knowledgeable people. >> >> One comment >> (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977), >> from a DDS, stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it >> "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to >> comment on this? >> >> N. > > It was always my understanding, based totally on hearsay from > engineers from both Sun and SGI back in my early days with it, UNIX is > the OS, while unix, or vmunix is the kernel. Unix was deprecated by > the time it became a real commercial product. > > So, right or wrong, I've always used UNIX for the OS, and unix, or > vmunix as appropriate, to refer to the kernel. > > - Derrik > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-09 21:05 ` Mary Ann Horton @ 2019-11-09 21:23 ` Clem Cole 2019-11-10 0:07 ` Steve Johnson 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Clem Cole @ 2019-11-09 21:23 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Mary Ann Horton; +Cc: tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2475 bytes --] In fact ATT legal had a document they sent to all commercial licensees around 1980 on proper use of the name. I wonder if I still have/can find a copy. But the lawyers were pretty clear. It was UNIX with ™ and later the R with a circle around beside the all caps letters after they registered it. It was that letter that started all the names like Xenix, Ultrix, HP-UX, SunOS, RTU etc. On Sat, Nov 9, 2019 at 4:06 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah@mhorton.net> wrote: > I just finished Brian Kernighan's book (excellent!) and he addresses > this in section 7.6. (Yes, he wrote the book in troff.) > > He prefers "Unix" and wrote it that way except for this section. He says > "Bell Labs' legal guardians decided that the name Unix was a valuable > trademark that had to be protected..." Legal mostly required it to be > used as an adjective "The UNIX TM operating system", and how the ms > macros produced a small caps "UNIX" (and a footnote on the first > reference). He's clear that the 1127 folks hated the requirements from > legal. > > It is true that the file which contains the kernel was /unix, or /vmunix > for Berkeley Unix, but that's the name of the file, not the proper name > of the operating system for English prose. By convention, virtually all > Unix files were in lower case. > > Mary Ann > > On 11/9/19 12:36 PM, Derrik Walker v2.0 wrote: > > On 11/9/19 12:20 PM, Nemo Nusquam wrote: > >> I was reading the comments on Hackaday on UNIX at 50 > >> (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/). > >> As expected, a lot of manure but some interesting comments from > >> seemingly knowledgeable people. > >> > >> One comment > >> ( > https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977), > > >> from a DDS, stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it > >> "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to > >> comment on this? > >> > >> N. > > > > It was always my understanding, based totally on hearsay from > > engineers from both Sun and SGI back in my early days with it, UNIX is > > the OS, while unix, or vmunix is the kernel. Unix was deprecated by > > the time it became a real commercial product. > > > > So, right or wrong, I've always used UNIX for the OS, and unix, or > > vmunix as appropriate, to refer to the kernel. > > > > - Derrik > > > -- Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3408 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-09 21:23 ` Clem Cole @ 2019-11-10 0:07 ` Steve Johnson 2019-11-11 8:07 ` Dr Iain Maoileoin 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Steve Johnson @ 2019-11-10 0:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Clem Cole, Mary Ann Horton; +Cc: tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3337 bytes --] I remember a story I heard second hand. The Bell System had so many acronyms that they published yearly a small book with all the acronyms in the Bell System. Somebody (Ken?, Doug?) got a call one year that they wanted to include UNIX in the book, so would we please tell them what UNIX stood for. The reply was that UNIX was not an acronym. So the caller said: "OK. We won't put it in the book..." Steve ----- Original Message ----- From: "Clem Cole" <clemc@ccc.com> To:"Mary Ann Horton" <mah@mhorton.net> Cc:<tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> Sent:Sat, 9 Nov 2019 16:23:04 -0500 Subject:Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix In fact ATT legal had a document they sent to all commercial licensees around 1980 on proper use of the name. I wonder if I still have/can find a copy. But the lawyers were pretty clear. It was UNIX with ™ and later the R with a circle around beside the all caps letters after they registered it. It was that letter that started all the names like Xenix, Ultrix, HP-UX, SunOS, RTU etc. On Sat, Nov 9, 2019 at 4:06 PM Mary Ann Horton <mah@mhorton.net [1]> wrote: I just finished Brian Kernighan's book (excellent!) and he addresses this in section 7.6. (Yes, he wrote the book in troff.) He prefers "Unix" and wrote it that way except for this section. He says "Bell Labs' legal guardians decided that the name Unix was a valuable trademark that had to be protected..." Legal mostly required it to be used as an adjective "The UNIX TM operating system", and how the ms macros produced a small caps "UNIX" (and a footnote on the first reference). He's clear that the 1127 folks hated the requirements from legal. It is true that the file which contains the kernel was /unix, or /vmunix for Berkeley Unix, but that's the name of the file, not the proper name of the operating system for English prose. By convention, virtually all Unix files were in lower case. Mary Ann On 11/9/19 12:36 PM, Derrik Walker v2.0 wrote: > On 11/9/19 12:20 PM, Nemo Nusquam wrote: >> I was reading the comments on Hackaday on UNIX at 50 >> (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/ [2]). >> As expected, a lot of manure but some interesting comments from >> seemingly knowledgeable people. >> >> One comment >> (https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977 [3]), >> from a DDS, stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it >> "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to >> comment on this? >> >> N. > > It was always my understanding, based totally on hearsay from > engineers from both Sun and SGI back in my early days with it, UNIX is > the OS, while unix, or vmunix is the kernel. Unix was deprecated by > the time it became a real commercial product. > > So, right or wrong, I've always used UNIX for the OS, and unix, or > vmunix as appropriate, to refer to the kernel. > > - Derrik > -- Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual Links: ------ [1] mailto:mah@mhorton.net [2] https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/ [3] https://hackaday.com/2019/11/05/will-the-real-unix-please-stand-up/#comment-6192977 [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4513 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-10 0:07 ` Steve Johnson @ 2019-11-11 8:07 ` Dr Iain Maoileoin 2019-11-11 19:58 ` Dave Horsfall 0 siblings, 1 reply; 9+ messages in thread From: Dr Iain Maoileoin @ 2019-11-11 8:07 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Steve Johnson; +Cc: tuhs [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1211 bytes --] > On 10 Nov 2019, at 00:07, Steve Johnson <scj@yaccman.com> wrote: > > I remember a story I heard second hand. The Bell System had so many acronyms that they published yearly a small book with all the acronyms in the Bell System. Somebody (Ken?, Doug?) got a call one year that they wanted to include UNIX in the book, so would we please tell them what UNIX stood for. The reply was that UNIX was not an acronym. So the caller said: "OK. We won't put it in the book..." > > Steve > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Clem Cole" <clemc@ccc.com> > To:"Mary Ann Horton" <mah@mhorton.net> > Cc:<tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> > Sent:Sat, 9 Nov 2019 16:23:04 -0500 > Subject:Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix > > > In fact ATT legal had a document they sent to all commercial licensees around 1980 on proper use of the name. I wonder if I still have/can find a copy. But the lawyers were pretty clear. It was UNIX with ™ and later the R with a circle around beside the all caps letters after they registered it. I was not just commercial licensees. I remember seeing a copy of that letter. We were a Scottish University who had a legit tape sent from AT&T/Bell Labs for academic use. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2697 bytes --] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix 2019-11-11 8:07 ` Dr Iain Maoileoin @ 2019-11-11 19:58 ` Dave Horsfall 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Dave Horsfall @ 2019-11-11 19:58 UTC (permalink / raw) To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society [-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 379 bytes --] On Mon, 11 Nov 2019, Dr Iain Maoileoin wrote: [ UNIX (tm) (R) ] > I was not just commercial licensees. I remember seeing a copy of that > letter. We were a Scottish University who had a legit tape sent from > AT&T/Bell Labs for academic use. I saw the same thing at the University of New South Wales back when [Uu][Nn][Ii][Xx] <random symbols> was first released. -- Dave ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
* Re: [TUHS] UNIX or unix @ 2019-11-09 19:39 Noel Chiappa 0 siblings, 0 replies; 9+ messages in thread From: Noel Chiappa @ 2019-11-09 19:39 UTC (permalink / raw) To: tuhs; +Cc: jnc > From: Nemo Nusquam > One comment .. stated that (s)he worked at The Bell and they wrote it > "unix" (lower-case) to distinguish it from MULTICS. Anyone care to > comment on this? All the original Multics hardcopy documentation I have (both from GE and MIT, as well as later material from Honeywell) spells it 'Multics'. Conversely, an original V6 UPM spells it 'UNIX'; I think it switched to 'Unix' around the time of V7. (I don't know about _really_ early, like on the PDP-7.) The bit about case to differentiate _might_ be right. Noel ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 9+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2019-11-11 19:58 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 9+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2019-11-09 17:20 [TUHS] UNIX or unix Nemo Nusquam 2019-11-09 19:43 ` Paco López 2019-11-09 20:36 ` Derrik Walker v2.0 2019-11-09 21:05 ` Mary Ann Horton 2019-11-09 21:23 ` Clem Cole 2019-11-10 0:07 ` Steve Johnson 2019-11-11 8:07 ` Dr Iain Maoileoin 2019-11-11 19:58 ` Dave Horsfall 2019-11-09 19:39 Noel Chiappa
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