# Unix

Unix is an [old](old.md) [operating system](operating_system.md) developed since 1960s as a research project of [Bell Labs](bell_labs.md), which has become one of the most influential pieces of software in history and whose principles (e.g. the [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)) live on in many so called  Unix-like operating systems such as [Linux](linux.md) and [BSD](bsd.md) (at least to some degree). The original system itself is no longer in use, the name UNIX is nowadays a trademark and a certification.

## History

In the 1960s, Bell Labs along with other groups were developing [Multics](multics.md), a kind of [operating system](os.md) -- however the project failed and was abandoned for its complexity and expensiveness of development. In 1969 two Multics developers, [Ken Thompson](key_thompson.md) and [Dennis Ritchie](dennis_ritchie.md), then started to create their own system, this time with a different philosophy; that of [simplicity](minimalism.md) (see [Unix philosophy](unix_philosophy.md)). They weren't alone in developing the system, a number of other hackers helped program such things as a file system, [shell](shell.md) and simple utility programs. At VCF East 2019 Thompson said that they developed Unix as a working system in three weeks. At this point Unix was written in [assembly](assembly.md).

In the early 1970s the system got funding as well as its name Unix (a pun on Multix). By now Thompson and Richie were developing a new language for Unix which would eventually become the [C](c.md) language. In version 4 (1973) Unix was rewritten in C.

Unix then started being sold commercially. This lead to its fragmentation into different versions such as the [BSD](bsd.md) or [Solaris](solaris.md). In 1983 a version called System V was released which would become one of the most successful. The fragmentation and a lack of a unified standard led to so called [Unix Wars](unix_wars.md) in the late 1980s, which led to a few Unix standards such as [POSIX](posix.md) and Single Unix Specification.