The Pioneers of UNIX

Steve Jobs? Steve Jobs didn't do jack. If you want to know who is responsible for the modern world you have to look at the people working at Bell Labs in the 1970s and 1980s. The people who created UNIX. It was from that invention that we have the modern world. UNIX led to Linux which led to Android. UNIX led to the BSD family of operating systems which led to Apple OSX. UNIX led to the C programming language in which most system-level software today is written. Ever wonder why URLs use forward slashes? It's because UNIX was instrumental in the creation of the Internet.

Below is a 27 minute promotional video produced in 1982 by Bell Labs, where we meet some of the giants on whose shoulders we all stand today. Included in the video are:

• Dennis Ritchie (UNIX, C programming language)
• Ken Thompson (UNIX)
• Alfred Aho (AWK programming language)
• Brian Kernighan (AWK programming language, many C and UNIX programming books)
• Lorinda Cherry (many document processing tools)

In addition, you'll get a good look at some computer hardware from the early 1980s which is around the time I was starting my transition from TRS-80s to IBM PCs.