AT&T Archives: The UNIX Operating System

Watch new AT&T Archive films every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at techchannel.att.com/archives
In the late 1960s, Bell Laboratories computer scientists Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson started work on a project that was inspired by an operating system called Multics, a joint project of MIT, GE, and Bell Labs. The host and narrator of this film, Victor Vyssotsky, also had worked on the Multics project. Ritchie and Thompson, recognizing some of the problems with the Multics OS, set out to create a more useful, flexible, and portable system for programmers to work with.
What's fascinating about the growth of UNIX is the long amount of time that it was given to develop, almost organically, and based on the needs of the users and programmers. The first installation of the program was done as late as 1972 (on a NY Telephone branch computer). It was in conjunction with the refinement of the C programming language, principally designed by Dennis Ritchie.
Because the Bell System had limitations placed by the government that prevented them from selling software, UNIX was made available under license to universities and the government. This helped further its development, as well as making it a more "open" system.
This film "The UNIX System: Making Computers More Productive", is one of two that Bell Labs made in 1982 about UNIX's significance, impact and usability. Even 10 years after its first installation, it's still an introduction to the system. The other film, "The UNIX System: Making Computers Easier to Use", is roughly the same, only a little shorter. The former film was geared towards software developers and computer science students, the latter towards programmers specifically.
The film contains interviews with primary developers Ritchie, Thompson, Brian Kernighan, and many others.
While widespread use of UNIX has waned, most modern operating systems have at least a conceptual foundation in UNIX.
Footage courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center, Warren, NJ

[@ale_schneider]

No matter what, I'll never be as cool as Kernighan casually explaining UNIX while resting his feet atop a desk at Bell Laboratories.

[@dieselscience]

hiking boots....

[@psalc1]

I for one, welcome our new machine overlords!

[@MrSHowVIdeo]

dieselscience lmao his style is great

[@snickers3340]

I beg to differ.............anyone who's watching this.... is already cool just by their presence.

[@Zack-xz1ph]

He's like the Carl Sagan of computing

[@LemystereManCarloc]

These guys built the backbone of almost every server, mobile device, iot, and apple device in existence. Unix + C has held for 40 years.

[@luimu]

Linux != Unix

[@antoniofickel9373]

@@luimu linux is a unix clone and was written in unix so these guys started it all

[@luimu]

@@antoniofickel9373 BSD is closer to Unix than linux. I didn't say that these guys didn't start it all. I just merely stated the fact that Linux isn't Unix.

[@nikolaisalikov1257]

@@luimu MacOS == Unix GNU/Linux == Unix-like OS

[@Sick1982]

Guys, who cares, lookup the amount of forks and merges which were done over time. You can't just say Unix and refer to a single thing. And if you ever worked with hp-ux, irix, sunos, ... you'll quickly realise what a blessing the more recent BSD's and Linux distro's are ;’)

[@AlexandreGurchumelia]

There is an old saying from the ancient times: "What one programmer does in one month, two programmers do in two."

[@Blippity_Bloop64]

I love this one.

[@ThanhNguyen-pe5rk]

especially more so when two programmers don’t see eye to eye.

[@Menaceblue3]

That's like *"buy a pack of 4 for $9.99 or a pack of 10 for $24.99!"*

[@AlexandreGurchumelia]

@ᚱᛰUᛠӖᚱ ᚦᗩӖϻᛰᚤ It's fairly trivial, you just biject it to monoidal category equipped with Waffenstoffer's non-degenerate norm.

[@AlexandreGurchumelia]

@ᚱᛰUᛠӖᚱ ᚦᗩӖϻᛰᚤ Those that do understand computer science, those that don't and those who haven't heard this joke in base 3.

[@YourModulesMayVary]

19:18 "so along the way in the course of the unix systems development, Dennis Ritchie created the C language" I love how this is so casually dropped in.

[@goodshowmanythanks]

”So I decided to create C.” Absolutely godlike.

[@nikolascoleman6502]

So anyways I started coding

[@samsmith1580]

C and the Shell. Still here more than 40 years later. So many languages have come and gone in the meantime.

[@k.osiyuk]

I have your book, and I`m reading it, and I love it.

[@dennisritchie149]

It's literally the only book in the world that is worth the price charged...and much much more. Take your time with it; it's a literal piece of history.

[@k.osiyuk]

I imagine it`s a piece of future...

[@vurpo7080]

Still here 40 years later, and still stuck 40 years in the past...

[@MilanVVVVV]

vurpo Yet you can't go without it.

[@james1787]

I met Dennis Ritchie when working at Bell Labs in the 90s.. it was such an honor to meet him.

[@UmarTahir]

Dude, that is so cool! Respect to you man, you're a legend! 😁✌

[@james1787]

@@UmarTahir Thanks!! My boss at the time introduced us when he came in the room to pickup something he printed (we had a room with specialized printers which was one of the things we maintained). So much fundemental technology of things the world uses today came from there, it was such an honor to work there the few years I did!

[@UmarTahir]

@@james1787 I always find it incredible to hear about how rare technology like printers were just a few decades ago. I'm a college student majoring in math and minoring in computer science, so I've started to learn a bit of the early history of computer science, and it fascinates me to meet and hear people's stories of how it was like programming back then. So thank you for sharing your story! 😁

[@james1787]

@@UmarTahir It's amazing how computers have evolved over the decades. I remember some of the "older guys" showing me their collection of punch cards they used to program computers. I could not even fathom that! Even with my 25+ years in IT/Computers... there have been substantial changes. When I started all consumer communications were over telephone lines and modems. Businesses did have some circuits connecting offices. The world wide web was just barely starting - I remember the first browsers and using the web at Bell Labs before it was readily available to the rest of the world. Things change so often - in another 25 years we'll look at what we are doing today and think "wow, those were the dark ages!".

[@UmarTahir]

@@james1787 Programming with punch cards, wow 😯 I genuinely could not even imagine it lol. And it's really cool that you've been able to witness this evolution throughout your career. I imagine it must have been so exciting each step of the way. And I actually didn't know the web was initially limited to just Bell Labs, it really is a history-making place like you said. So cool, I hope to visit one day! And you're right, I can't even imagine what another 25 years will bring to the IT world.

[@NotCarpeDM]

"Welcome to Bell Labs, here is your blue sweater."

[@mudkatt2003]

yellow sweaters for the ladies!

[@wquayle9229]

I started my career as a UNIX systems admin at Bell Labs in 1986. What an awesome blast from the past, this is.

[@danielweigert2856]

Holmdel 1987 - Offer Integration Lab, then Dept 54121 in 1989

[@IllusionSector]

@@ciscornBIG Gladly! Back in the day, I developed a computer program that would convert a digital image into zeros and ones on the screen. Then, you would pick up your rotary dial phone and call whomever you wanted to send the images and read them the binary data. (e.g., _Zero, one, one, zero, one, zero, zero,..._ etc.) And that's how the first ever dic pic was sent.

[@techwithtee8721]

@@IllusionSector wow!

[@pfos]

010 (the infamous olo)

[@bobasawrus]

Bill! In Naperville per chance?

[@dr-funk]

Holy shit that visualization just made me realize why it's called a shell. It's the shell of the kernel.

[@nnywadd]

Me too bro, me too

[@bobba84]

Holy shit! Your comment made me realise!

[@alessandrotrezza37]

😅

[@venture3800]

that moment when

[@drygordspellweaver8761]

Bash = born again shell

[@user-jj9ur6ly1c]

These geniuses were my heroes like rock stars. Once at a USENIX conference, I saw Dennis Ritchie talking to 3-4 people. Having never met him, I was not going to miss a chance to shake his hand, so I walked up to this group, stuck my hand out he shook my hand. I was so star-struck, that I blurted out "So glad to meet you Dr. Kernighan"... After AT&T bought BellSouth where I worked, I sent Dr. Ritchie an email describing my incredibly embarrassing moment. He replied with "that's ok, I often get mistaken for Brian" I still have those emails on a 3.5" floppy

[@gylgameshofuruk]

And then Linus Torvalds based his LINUX OS on UNIX. Something great was used for something truly revolutionary. Also amazing how slow paced and calm that age still was. So many "tech gurus" today talk about some banal new gizmo with so much irrational exuberance, you would think they just discovered gravity or the electron.

[@rum-ham]

As a Linux (and Mac) user it's amazing how everything they are demonstrating is still perfectly relevant on these modern OSes. Unix was genius.

[@ccp_fact_checker]

It is amazing to think if these guys did not create unix, would we be running ICL George ,IBM MVS, or DEC OpenVMS on our smart phones!!! and Google/Apple were little companies that did not track everything you do.

[@user-sr6pi5lp3q]

It's amazing how unix people hold on things that are from 70th and don't want to introduce something new.

[@lickablestinkage7783]

@@user-sr6pi5lp3q its because its so good we dont need anything new. If it aint broke dont fix it

[@The_Ballo]

Great...now how the hell do we get out of this mess?

[@user-sr6pi5lp3q]

@@The_Ballo hahahaha 😁😁😁😁 begin with inplementing powershell-like object piping instead of byte tossing.

[@jnrivers]

I don't think many people realize what a masterpiece Unix is. It's quite the accomplishment.

[@jamesb8305]

Imagine a world without iPhones or Androids...

[@meismehaha]

+James B Interestingly enough, iOS is a UNIX system. Well, they can't actually say it's UNIX for licensing reasons but it's based on OS X/macOS which is actually UNIX certified.

[@manysnakes]

I think that was James' point.

[@techmage89]

gespilk We want computers to do far more things, and far more complex things, than ever before. That will naturally be hard. We also have a lot of old systems that maybe weren't designed to work the way we want them to work now.

[@davidporowski9512]

proteusx Perhaps not idiots, just trying to compete (against GNU-LINUX)

[@dantescanline]

Brian Kernighan's demo of piping utilities together at 6:00 is really an amazing piece of education. It's careful, clear, doesn't use big words, goes step by step and shows you a powerful real world example of the concept he's trying to explain.

[@tizianschmidlin5411]

Yeah! And so casual! He's the archetype of the guy who doesn't care that he's doing an educational video in the way he presents himself, yet still manages to give the simplest introduction to piping I've ever seen. Brilliant!

[@jmclabexperience]

So true. Nowadays, a "program that improves itself" running on a terminal with a time-sharing kernel would be called a scalable AI algorithm running on-demand in the cloud, which means nothing.

[@ScoutSniperMC]

Brain Kernighan also writes amazing books for programmers, he does a great job at explaining things.

[@koffiezet]

@@JohnHoward_ Check out the Computerphile channel, it has quite a few videos with him - and they're always very nice...

[@bennri]

That's been the Hallmark of Bell Labs forever. I worked there as an intern in 1981, and the BSTJ was a great way to learn what they were working on.

[@SteinGauslaaStrindhaug]

Weird, I only now realized that "shell" and "kernel" were related metaphors. Probably because I grew up knowing first learning about the "shell" as just a name for the command line (I only knew the other meaning of "shell" as the gas company and seashells before that), and then much later learned the name "kernel". I only learned that "kernel" is what you call the seed of a nut or fruit stone, much much later. You learn things in weird orders sometimes when you learn a language as a second language.

[@jimbopaw]

oooooh

[@thegougeman]

When you see guys like Alfred V. Aho and followed their career years after this, you really see that we stand on the shoulders of giants. Thank you Kernighan, Ritchie, Thompson, Cherry, Mashey and all the others in this video for all you did in the computing world. Special thank you to AT&T for putting this out there years ago for our knowledge and enjoyment.

[@zenzeleluckymtshali8433]

good morning

[@SkinniJ]

@@zenzeleluckymtshali8433good night

[@Nucknyan]

Brian Kernighan is the only guy in this video who doesn't seem like an awkward 80s nerd. His interview style is surprisingly modern.

[@Thesamdeman22]

i know lol, I was just watching the computerphile interview with him, and when he came up in this interview at first I didn't recognize his face, but his _voice_ and _style_ were precisely the same XD

[@samsmith1580]

I was just thinking how relaxed and informal the workplace was. Appearances didn't matter. Contrast that to now with all the posing, posturing and arrogance. Also all these guys would be fired on day one for being too old.

[@cleoz9274]

Did you mean AWKward?

[@samsmith1580]

***** Did you mean GIT out?

[@cleoz9274]

I'd much prefer if he'd told me to get a grep on myself. )

[@khelben1979]

I really appreciate the lack of background music in this clip! :)

[@userou-ig1ze]

most underrated comment ever

[@shnooog1]

there's a sick outro snippet. check it out.

[@kakhak]

Biggest achievment of mankind in coding. Mother of all modern operation systems. What kind of genuine brain can compose such kind of brilliant, priceless piece of programming code...

[@ccp_fact_checker]

Think of the companies that have made Trillions off the back of Unix: An operating system for mankind and now an operating system to track mankind!! Kept me in a job all my life though from leaving school to just about to retire.

[@MnemonicCarrier]

21:23 - that green screen graphics rendering looks ultra-cool and strangely enough, ultra-futuristic! It's amazing!!!

[@DocDawning]

I love how even-though this is very dated, it remains a completely relevant introduction. I send this video to folks frequently.

[@alexxx4434]

Old but Gold

[@merica1354]

@jonny j You mean the modern world would be better. Right?

[@elgeneralxx]

@suny123boy1 im sorry but that victor guy is just creepy!!!

[@atlantic_love]

Totally agree. It's a fantastic video. I just showed it to my husband. I full expect him to start programming the new operating system UNICorn. :D

[@heinoustentacles5719]

If it's completely relevant, then how is it dated?

[@mintoo2cool]

holy shit, the gods of computers all packed into one video!

[@GodKing804]

MECCA

[@davidjames666]

I worked down the hall from these guys, and then i moved into the area where the transistor was invented. I retired in 2017

[@reoire843]

The real greybeards in their prime!

[@ronjon7942]

I wish I had seen this video 20 yrs ago. Just learning the significance of pipes and how revolutionary a concept it was has totally changed my perception of just how fundamental UNIX is. This video is basically chapter1 of every book on the subject and is something that should be required viewing for anyone lucky enough to use to earn a living, accomplish meaningful tasks, and expand knowledge and understanding on a wide variety of scientific, economic and mathematic fields. To me, this has been a very motivating view at a time when I’ve recently done a major re-evaluation of the direction of my second half of my career. I can’t overstate how enlightening it has been to listening to these fore-persons of extremely powerful tools that are so meaningful to so many disparate fields of study…such an authentic and authoritative discussion. I almost can’t wait to apply myself to my new perspective, so changed in a mere 28 minutes.

[@carlfarrington]

I really enjoyed that. RIP Dennis.

[@bomlife1572]

INFO: Ken Thompson works at Google, where he co-invented the Go programming language.

[@denischiosa4496]

Wow, happy to know this as a go and fan developer

[@techbear82]

Every computer science major should see this.

[@kristiyanivanov7414]

Joemax McTalkersson Not a major, but definitely a great video to learn something from.

[@opaaaaaaaaaaa]

These guys are on a way different level in programming and understanding computers. Thank to them we are enjoying most of the modern day technology.

[@onoff5604]

From the 60's through the 80's as a mainframe programmer, my Dad would debug by reading the core dumps of assembler instructions...in hex...Oh, that's where the bug is! Quick fix...run it again!

[@hellowill]

Yeah I guess they understood the hardware and low level stuff. Many devs today start way too high level and never have to appreciate that understanding.

[@mudkatt2003]

you gotta hand it to these folks, you can tell most of them are very shy people and it must have been tough to be on camera. great historic video

[@_chris_6786]

I'm a Linux sysadmin since the mid 2000, and watching this masterpiece makes me feels like I only know the A letter of the alphabet. Thank you for the video.

[@drygordspellweaver8761]

are you able to run a server entirely without a GUI?

[@_chris_6786]

Hello @@drygordspellweaver8761 In Linux, which is my area of expertise, *yes* In fact, and AFAIK, all kinds of servers in Linux are run without GUI, although in some cases you can install a graphical interface to administer the server, but this is not imperative.

[@axlslak]

@@_chris_6786 Not only not imperative, but as I got older, I learned that it is more of a hassle than a gain. It's only a front end for a console based utility. Much better to universally have access to all tools in text mode, than gui.

[@sreenath9587]

Why windows servers can't run like linux servers without a reboot for long time? What do u think? When both are having same hardware specifications etc... Why windows need a reboot or hanging issue?

[@alb12345672]

@@axlslak Windows has more and more Linux now. WSL2, Docker, etc. In 20 years Windows may be a Linux core.

[@72launchpad]

AT&T presents: Unix and you. A guide for understanding your teen body

[@sirisoj]

lol

[@neilarellano8470]

🤣😂

[@bearcb]

😂😂😂😂

[@mitchellyoung8561]

LOL, belly LOL.

[@tawpgk]

Met Dennis Ritchie 40 years ago at a conference luncheon in NY. Quite a jovial outgoing sort for such a genius.

[@BurninRevolver]

19:23 "C is a very nice high level language", words I never thought I will hear

[@jessstuart7495]

It's high level compared with writing things in assembly language, where you need to know how to use specific processor instructions.

[@BurninRevolver]

@ReaktorLeak c is by no means a high level languages in today standars. It is high level compared only to assembly, but programmers nowadays are used to a total different meaning of high level, and above all C is the the lowest-level of all general-purpose, architecture-independent programming language

[@steffennilsen2132]

Compared to what was before, it really is. There's a reason why most modern programming languages uses c style syntax

[@bomlife1572]

Dennis Ritchie is so young. Rest in peace father of C and Unix. 09.09.1941 - 10.12.2011

[@datasailor8132]

Sigh. I knew all these guys except Lorinda Cherry. I went to work at Bell Labs in Piscataway, NJ, right out of the army in 1972 retiring in 1999. John "Small is Beautiful" Mashey was a particular friend. I was working on one of those Multi-Man-Millenia projects when a co-worker got us an account on a PDP-45 in 1974. They wpuldn't let us have individual accounts so we shared one with the initials of our supervisor, ffk. We wrote our mainframe destined code there and sent it over to the mainframe via RJE. This was on the first release of the Programmer's Workbench. Release 3 was sold to the outside as System III. There was an internal only release 4, and release 5 was sold as System V.

[@thecandyman9308]

Wow. You were there on the ground level. I have a love/hate relationship with computing. Love it in the way there is so much possibility in this "mystery box" but hate it in the way that it's become this tether with an invisible chain for any of us that work in offices. What kinds of discussion was taking place in this circle re: the possibility for this technology to be a benefit or a detriment in the business world? Could/did you guys foresee the negative impact of say, MS, in the coming decades? Any insight as to where people saw this stuff going around this time would be great to hear. :)

[@diegopineda8840]

Awesome

[@smorrow]

Damn, you knew Ken Thompson?

[@L0j1k]

Man I'd love to smoke a joint with you.

[@james1787]

I worked briefly at Murray Hill Bell Labs in the 90's early in my IT career. My boss introduced me to Dennis Ritchie, what an honor it was to meet him!

[@PeraDjordjevic]

Kernighan's ability to explain these concepts is really something

[@perrybrown4985]

I was studying at UNSW in the late 70's, with John Lions teaching the OS course. You have to appreciate how cumbersome and obstructive the computing systems of the time were. (BK created systems like RATFOR and its associated software tools to help make these awful environments somewhat bearable) In those times, UNIX was a crusade and its acolytes faced huge resistance from those who were invested in large mainframe systems. At UNSW at the time, there were a bunch of PDP11/40's scattered about the place, functioning as card reading, print spooling I/O concentrators for the campus CDC Cyber mainframe. Somebody read the ACM UNIX paper and wrote away (no eMail!) to get the offered system on magtape. UNIX at first was run as an experiment on the CompSci's PDP11 out of hours and was totally unapproved. A few pioneers created a system, drivers etc. to allow these little UNIX machines to support users whilst still fulfilling their primary role of being batch terminals for the CDC mainframe. This was the point at which UNIX began to spread throughout the campus and John Lions created his operating system course and associated source code books. It is hard to appreciate how awful computing was before that point and how much the computing world changed in that short time due to those few determined individuals.

[@jojoanggono3229]

I am your junior Sir. It was in 1990s, Unix, Motorola 68k, Ansi C, 56kbps dial up modem. After graduating I went on to be sysadmin for IBM AS400 in insurance sector.

[@onefortyfour3]

holy, getting taught by John Lions himself. His legacy lives on at the garden in front of the CS building. Im gonna take OS next yr at UNSW as well.

[@perrybrown4985]

@@onefortyfour3 I took my daughter to the UNSW open day last year. The campus has changed a lot and the CS department is now a school? and has its own building (back then, it was a department within EE on the third floor of the EE building). We did eat lunch in JL's graden 🙂. The only person remaining from my days was Claude, who was a PhD student/tutor at the time (I got a "thankyou" in his thesis back then).

[@oliverhenning8758]

Watching this on a UNIX-like OS in 2019...

[@CatFace8885]

Me too

[@patricklhermie9585]

Same here on a 5 screens Linux Ubuntu desktop *without* any video driver issue! ;-)

[@xfce4491]

Me on Android 😂😂😂

[@2Truth4Liberty]

FreeBSD running Firefox? LOL!!!

[@janskacel9480]

@@2Truth4Liberty UNIX-like OS can be FreeBSD, Linux, Solaris, Android or MacOS.

[@fg-zm2yu]

You can tell these are the guys who developed the system! What a clear and simple way of explaining the main design concepts of Unix. Great documentary!

[@MonsieurMosca]

You can see Kernighan struggling for a one-word definition at 15:34, as a rare glimpse of the times before the term “shell scripting” was invented.

[@joshuamigueldelpilar6287]

It’s such a treasure that I was able to learn the fundamentals of computer systems in an intuitive way. Modern teachings of computers tend to be too complex, and often people like me are discouraged by the mystical way computers are painted to be. Thanks AT&T!

[@xxxmohxxxful]

Brian W. Kernighan is amazing

[@brpadington]

I found an old Unix box in a datacenter that had an uptime of more than 25 years. You don't see that on Windows platforms.

[@nunyabusiness3786]

*gasp

[@PaperBagMan884]

Probably because windows platforms are outputing trillions times more jobs and tasks since it's the consumer OS after all, while the Unix box was sitting there waiting for input and collecting dust.

[@trollsthatlol1]

Ms don't support em even for that half that time

[@DrewWalton]

@@PaperBagMan884 you do realize that Unix and Unix-like systems literally run the backbone of the entire Internet right?

[@MirekFe]

@@PaperBagMan884 The internet runs completely on Unix and Unix like systems. These platforms work 24/7. There is no downtime.

[@ackinito]

We should be naming stadiums after these guys. Brilliant!

[@ccp_fact_checker]

You would not have the AWS/Azure/Google... DCs with millions of compute nodes all around the world without these amazing people.

[@davidcolantuono3622]

I never worked for AT&T, but my dad used to work there. Once in a while, especially on Christmas Eve, he used to bring me with him to his work for a few hours. It wasn't much actual work. It was mostly my dad hanging out with his friends and fellow employees. I remember the cubicles where the employees worked. I remember the buffet in the cafeteria and even on the long table not far from the cubicles. I remember exploring the old AT&T office building and even discovered a vending machine. Too bad that I didn't have any change or I would have picked a candy bar or snack from it. This was mainly during the 1980s, though likely later than 1982. My guess is between 1986 and 1989.

[@rodericktimmerman9779]

When I need inspiration: this video. Just can't explain why.

[@grassyclimer6853]

agreed

[@dennisritchie149]

It's cuz I'm 300% nigga.

[@marcussmithwick6326]

RIP Dennis Ritchie :'(

[@allencrider]

Follow the path of Al. Reverend Al.

[@JDKMM7]

@gespilk HOW

[@leisergeist]

"Computing is going to be more and more interwoven into peoples lives as the years go by..." Man...... Over 30 years later he's still right

[@GeekBoy03]

LeiserGeist it will never catch on

[@Cobalt985]

The horseless carriage is just a fad. It will never catch on! That's all that reminded me of :P

[@gorillaau]

There will always be a market for quality buggy whips.

[@jSyndeoMusic]

And the phone you’re watching this on runs on a descendent of UNIX! iOS devices (through their Mac lineage) run an offshoot of macOS (aka Darwin), which evolved from NeXTSTEP, whose XNU kernel combined components of CMU’s Mach kernel with components of FreeBSD, which is based on Berkeley’s BSD, which uses the same source code as AT&T’s UNIX shown here. Android’s Linux kernel, however, isn’t directly using UNIX code, but is HEAVILY inspired by it. One way or another, though, as long as you’re not on a Windows device, you’re running an evolution of UNIX and/or its core concepts. I for one find that amazing.

[@MirekFe]

@@jSyndeoMusic And what about all of the internet? Pretty much all websites run on Unix or Unix-like OSs. Amazing world we live in!

[@_emh]

The world owes a debt of gratitude to Thompson, Ritchie, Kernighan, and the others who created Bell Labs Unix. The biggest tragedy with Unix was AT&T’s foolish lawsuit against BSDi, which scared developers away from Unix and led to the rise of Linux. Today, commercial Unix is nearly dead and the survival of the BSDs are endangered. Had AT&T embraced and promoted BSD Unix the world today might run on Unix instead of Linux. We can be thankful that Linux stands on the shoulders of these giants and will carry on the Unix Philosophy after Unix itself is extinct.

[@onoff5604]

Indeed, two pivotal moments in history: epic invension of tools...epic grab to prevent people from using the tools...but nature finds a way.

[@hellowill]

Ah the classic... engineers build something awesome... lawyers fuck it up.

[@musembi]

The clarity and simplicity with which they deliver the information is a true testament of their smarts

[@Lurker1979]

Love AT&T uploading their film archives. Was a treasure trove of tech history.

[@sweetberries4611]

Unix, C, Bourne shell. You couldn't see most of things without it

[@WidlyScuds]

man its so crazy to watch this in 2023

[@fayezalle43]

Imagine programming in this era. No google, no stackoverflow. You must truly understand and have deep knowledge.

[@stri8ted]

Something about the way these guys articulate themselves, leaves you mesmerized.

[@thiesenf]

It's called Asperger Syndrome... AKA "The Nerd Syndrome"... I am an Aspie myself and a nerd so I immediatly can identify other nerds... How many people in Silicon Walley do you think have Asperger Syndrome? Quite many I would say... Now I am not claiming that all of them actually would be Aspies though... but they're still nerds... and I am a proud nerd

[@Z4KJ0N3S]

I think the guy in the intro is reading his script from big ol' posterboards lol

[@pamus6242]

Thats probably because the population of earth was half and human relationships meant a lot more...when people looked forward to meet other people....

[@getgle]

@@thiesenf It's sad that nerds with nothing wrong with them are diagnosed with a "mental disorder" now.

[@prometheus9443]

@@thiesenf You have no idea what Asperger S. is, nor does any of these people have it. You don't either.

[@emilyinder]

history can be interesting too . how they explained filesystem and piping input and output was remarkably simple . look at Brian how he is sitting there like boss ,typing future.

[@alexa.davronov1537]

He was typing future like a boss.

[@Jeff_Seely]

Ken Thompson and Dennis Richie are two of the most profound computer icons or pioneers that I can possibly think of. Day after day for most of the day my time is spent in a programming language fathered by Dennis Ritchie and that is the c language. Dennis, may God rest his soul, was an absolute uncontested genius. I really enjoyed this documentary.

[@eliasab1998]

One of the best videos ever suggested to me. Thank you, KZbin suggestion algorithm!

[@shutdown-r]

Brian Kernighan has such a soothing voice

[@larrygall5831]

LOL. "C is a *very high level* language.." It gives you an idea of what it was like back then. To them, low level was binary and assembly was "high level."

[@VideoNOLA]

Actually, BASIC was well established by then, as was ADA (for nearly 20 years!)...now /there's/ some high-level ... even machine-agnostic ... languages for you!

[@glyphimor]

@@VideoNOLA ? This video is dated 1982; Ada was first released in 1983.

[@VideoNOLA]

@@glyphimor Actually, ADA began development in 1977, with first major release in 1980. But the language I meant to mention was Pascal, over 20 years old by the time of this film.

[@iLiokardo]

"It's a very nice high level language"

[@BYMYSYD]

But C IS a very high level language.

[@DalasYoo]

Graph partitioning, column signals; circuit design rule checking. Very complex to simple program Such a brilliant people

[@the_real_vdegenne]

I am using Fedora and Gnome, it's amazing to think the building blocks of my system are the ones designed by these people more than 30 years ago, and I am still using the shell, the pipes and the original unix programs to make my development processes easier.

[@nicolareiman9687]

if u wanna use the real original programs use FreeBSD or any other BSD descendants. and if u wanna get rid of UNIX mistakes use plan9(designed by these people). Linux is very complex.

[@uriituw]

Fedora is not Unix.

[@the_real_vdegenne]

@@uriituw oh here comes the smarty pants... humans are not a direct descendant of primates but yet we share a common ancestor and we have a lot of similarities. That's the point smarty pants.

[@MindoverMatrix2012]

This could be the best television program I ever seen, no joke, a time when the television showed programs that promoted creativity and real learning! I'm happy to read the description, Thanks!

[@AndrewLohmannKent]

Yes no magic no gun shoot out. Plenty of I see I can do that!

[@youreale]

Completely agreed.

[@easlern]

Pretty sure this is a corporate ad not meant for television. America was watching Gunsmoke, TV wasn’t very different back then. :)

[@arkadianriver]

Gunsmoke? Love Boat, baby. And Fantasy Island, past my bedtime. :)

[@merica1354]

@@arkadianriver According to my mom, Magnum PI and Miami Vice were all the rage. Gunsmote ended in 1975 (7 years before this video).

[@stargazer7644]

The systemd programmers need to watch this over and over.

[@jobymanuel6447]

Star Gazer please send me 1000 billion dollars

[@L0j1k]

But systemd was never about improving the ecosystem. It was about wedging Red Hat's shitty business model between the kernel and userland. It became obvious after the whole thing with cgroups2.

[@hunterhancock474]

@@user-ke6gn8pg3u I use gentoo btw :^)

[@zantetsu8674]

SO VERY TRUE!

[@user-ke6gn8pg3u]

@suny123boy1 Windows takes about 25 GUI clicks to do anything ;)

[@JoshuaSalazarMejia]

16:46 Actually, the rendering of the plot of that old CRT screen looked preety MATRIX like. Beautiful to see that working decades ago! :O

[@testplmnb]

Man, this video is extremely good in terms of explainings how functions were developed.

[@shinigamilee5915]

I was a little kid back then and I can remember seeing these computers when I would go with my Dad to work. I remember these things being so heavy and cumbersome I could hardly see their value back then. I never would have imagined I would end up in the same field.

[@notmychairnotmyproblem]

Same. My mom had a black and white computer that ran on MS/DOS. And as a child I never saw the point of a computer because I thought they were boring. Boy if younger me could see me now.

[@kristiyanivanov7414]

I'm younger than you guys, my first computer had 1.6 ghz amd (athlon I think?) cpu and 2 gb of ram, a cd/dvd drive and I loved to play cs1.6 and other (mostly browser) games on it. :D I'm thinking about pursuing a career in computer science or something close, not sure yet.

[@notmychairnotmyproblem]

@@kristiyanivanov7414 go for it! Computing really is an infinite field that will always be profitable. At least for the foreseeable future.

[@mardus_ee]

​@@kristiyanivanov7414 You'll need to be good in several things to get to computer science: mathematics, a very good command of English, and avoidance of dust. Disks and diskettes should be well-enclosed and kept out of sunlight. Also, keep magnets away from all gadgets, including fridge magnets and any toys with magnets.

[@qualiauniverse638]

I started studying programming with their book The C Programming Language. Never seen their face!

[@PigOnAUnicycle]

Super-cool to hear them lay out how features we now take for granted made UNIX more productive than competing OSs

[@Pongant]

Really cool stuff, you can still learn a lot from these ancient videos. Thanks for the upload!

[@SlaughterDog]

"...and Good things come from Bell Labs" -Dr. Bailey, my college programming instructor. Everyone in class was using Windows, except for me on Ubuntu and Dr. Bailey himself on Mac. When the C++ textbook's example output didn't match anyone's except mine and his, he said "and this is what we call Redmond standards". I learned the most important things from him.

[@nobytes2]

Strange the teacher did not get the class setup on Linux virtualbox.

[@b3ans4eva]

Constructive Bytes, when I tried to learn C++ at school, we SSH’d into a Linux server to do our programming. They were all named after Lord of the Rings.

[@hectorcanizales5900]

@@b3ans4eva nice

[@pflaffik]

@@b3ans4eva Vedry common naming scheme, and so many similar schemes. In Scandinavia lots of servers are named Thor, Loke, Frey, Odin, Sleipnir.

[@hellowill]

Yeah sad. In my class like 3/80 people used Linux. The rest Mac or windows.

[@TanjoGalbi]

Interesting for me to find this channel in my recommendations. I used to be a professional programmer and my very first paid project was to help write the front end (the part the user uses) for a tape backup system. How is this relevant to the channel? Well, the contract was for AT&T! This was back in the mid 90's, the days of Windows 3.11 (not 3.1 as networking was needed to communicate with the backup servers) and Windows NT. If anyone has programmed for Windows back in those days you would know that the GUI of Windows did not include elements for displaying files or directory tree lists with collapsible entries, those came in Windows 95 onward. I had to hand code our own version for the backup software to use, which I actually enjoyed and led to me specialising in GUI work :) As a side boast: I also had to hand draw the AT&T globe logo for the software as a placeholder image as we were waiting for AT&T to provide digital copies of their logo for use in the software. They were so impressed with it they said to just keep the version I drew :)

[@djtjpain]

Joined KZbin in 2007 too... impressive indeed

[@victor753]

This video is fantastic! It is astonishing to be able to see and hear them talking about Unix so many years later and realizing that things haven't changed that much. They solved an incredibly complex problem (what they call the programming environment) in such a brilliant and complete way that their solution has survived to this date. It is so cool to see so many distinguished computing world personalities in one place. Kudos to the people who produced this video and whomever shared it with the rest of the world! :)

[@DiarrheaBubbles]

This is AT&T's greatest moment. They're just another greedy investor owned American ISP these days.

[@gmc9753]

Weren't they a greedy telephone company back then? After all, they were forced to divest their regional phone companies. They were the largest company in the world for a large part of the 20th century.

[@serglit10229]

KZbin 2019: This is the perfect recommendation!

[@Egeexyz]

hahaha right?

[@kristiyanivanov7414]

steveo314 yes

[@tensfantasy2384]

Lol....they recommend me in 2020...

[@AgentSmith911]

This 40 year old video is still very relevant 👍🏻

[@__Hamlet__]

19:39 "Sometimes when you're writing an operating system" I like how casualy he mentions it as if its like taking a shower

[@MichealAngeloArts]

and he wasn't even using ChatGPT to write that operating system LOL 🤣

[@kimberlyblake-roth489]

What a beautiful, simple way to explain operating systems. Thank you!

[@leodu561]

I was fascinated in class about all those automaton theories and graph algorithm where other students who just want a programming job was indifferent about. The first time I watch this video, seeing all my heroes in the computing history: Kernighan, Ritchie, Aho, Thompson etc. I am rendered utterly stunned, amazed and speechless. This is truly an important step in the human history, where men's fascination of machine is really coming to fruition. And in such times I always remind myself of Turing's quote: "We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see that much remains to be done".

[@user-bs4qu7tb2g]

Finally someone who feels the same like I do ! :D

[@b0r1sus]

Be ready! 2020 - 50th anniversary of Unix Epoch! Half Century!

[@kristiyanivanov7414]

b0r1sus hbd unix

[@michaelutech4786]

2021

[@bishbashboshjt]

I love the editing splicing all these extra words in

[@klc3rd]

I love that so many years later and this video is still a relevant explanation of modern Unix based systems. If I was new to Linux/bsd this video would be very enlightening.

[@slayerofapples1146]

This video is the best introduction to Linux ever.

[@ErnestoStaccolanana]

unix man... UNIX

[@ErnestoStaccolanana]

@hunter0one and so what? there are tons of unix-like systems out there... linux is just one kernel family, and not even my favorite unix-like kernel

[@yuricherkasov]

Unix does not exist as a software anymore. There are many POSIX-compliant systems instead. Linux with hundreds of distros, BSD-kernel systems, including Mac OS, proprietary POSIX systems like Solaris.

[@Krush206]

@@yuricherkasov What are you talking about? macOS is a certified UNIX system. And there are a couple of its branches still alive: SCO OpenServer, UnixWare, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, illumos and (probably) TRS-XENIX

[@ErnestoStaccolanana]

@@Krush206 exactly. moreover linux hasn't been posix compliant for years, and a lot of popular UNIX-LIKE systems are not posix compliant still today. the term is unix-like and there's no problem with it

[@TurpInTexas]

I've been a computer nerd since DOS 2.0, learned C using Kernighan's and Ritchie's book, played with various versions of UNIX over the years, knew how to do a lot of the things about Unix using pipes Kernighan explained but never understood until now THAT was supposed to be the strength and fundamental concept of UNIX. That it was a repository of lots of simple building blocks that could be used with the pipes to perform many kinds of tasks, instead of creating programs with all the functionality rolled into one massive program. Dang! I am such an idiot! How did I miss that concept all these years? I knew it could do it, but couldn't see the trees for the forest! Anyhow, maybe I didn't completely, I write a lot of programs for MS based systems, and frequently make calls to the system (via .dll, .ocx, .exe, etc.) to handle specialized functions so I don't have to mess with the code, and speed things up. Thanks for posting this video! It was like walking into the sunlight for the very first time! [re-edited today for clarity since I neglected to proofread before posting my idiot epiphany. Sorry folks. ]

[@ksaikiranr5]

why do you look like the better version of gaben

[@randomrfkov]

Unix Philosophy. Do one thing and do it good.

[@mendodave]

The Pipes really cleared up a lot of things for me too.

[@mardus_ee]

wrt spelling mistakes, I thought to cheekily recommend the exact routine demonstrated by Brian W. Kernighan at 5:58 (his whole segment starts at 4:09), where he so effortlessly shows the usefulness of UNIX pipes. Web browsers and modern smartphones have built-in spell-checking, and some desktop operating systems even include system-level word prediction. I haven't used Linux for years now, so cannot tell if this feature is also available in X, GNOME, or KDE.

[@jessevalenzuela7071]

Hey no more calling yourself an idiot the brain has ears of its own!

[@ravisriram6746]

I recall taking a class on SGI's Irix OS, years ago: going from a GUI interface to learning the command-line was challenging and exhilarating. It was a truly unforgettable experience.

[@sonicfluxdave]

What's a lovely colourful environment they worked in back in the day 😮

[@jesuschristsuperczar1224]

I feel like I'm sitting in class learning Solaris over 20 years ago. It's funny 'cuz this video already had some years on it then but AT&T UNIX is so elegant that people could source this video for many more decades to come as they learn the core of computer software.

[@1977doctorno]

THX a lot to AT&T for providing these historical interestings vids!

[@Cypeq]

These videos are gold. Come from a different place in time and mindset, so much more informative and also easy to understand then goop we usually find made today.

[@adamploof3528]

I realize this is partly available to watch for it's nostalgic and camp-y qualities, but I actually found some useful stuff to be learned from this. Also, for anyone who's ever read the --help documentation on many shell utilities, it's hard not to notice how many of them were written at Bell labs. Pretty cool to have a look into what that era was all about.

[@raghunc]

Gods of computer science..

[@anthonystramaglia342]

I worked for Eric Belove's production company (who produced this video) for a brief time in the early 90's and remember pulling this video from their library and being completely blown away. I got hired for a multimedia kiosk production for a couple of brand new technologies, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and Frame Relay, The production team took us to Bell Labs Holmdel where I got to work with some amazing engineers and developers. 3B2's and 5ESS everywhere, it was veritable tech playground.

[@arashroshanineshat8457]

KZbin recommendations are getting better! .... Thank you! :D

[@jdubbs.7469]

Took four UNIX classes(w/ GNOME gui) back in the day and I thought I had a solid understanding of it. These guys are on an entirely different level. #respect

[@douggale5962]

It is amazing to listen to the precision with which they explain things. I love the technical accuracy of this video, everything seems to be so carefully worded to be completely correct and unambiguous.

[@Tyler-fm4ix]

Thanks for recommending this KZbin

[@jigneshpatel5469]

Thanks a ton Denise Ken and Brian.

[@angrybirds2472]

Thanks Bell Labs, and Thanks DEC! and thanks LINUS! bringing it open source was the best thing to ever happen to this strictly epic environment

[@IHateYoutubeHandles615]

If you want more detail and to understand the intent of the design of UNIX seek out a copy of the Bell System Technical Manual, july/aug 1978, Vol 57, no 6, part 2. It''s completely devoted to UNIX, the shell, C, and other things.

[@charleygrossman8368]

This is a gem

[@stanleygsf]

10:53 It's my first time seeing Alfred Aho in person. I've only seen him as a popular name on the covers of books about compilers.

[@chawlagrv]

the animation at the end was dope