UNIX originated in 1969 when Ken Thompson, facinated with the game
Space Travel, decided it would be easier to write an operating
system for the DEC PDP-7 to run his game rather than to write a
PDP-7 cross compiler on the lab's GE-645. UNIX inhereted features
from MULTiplexed Information and Computer System (MULTICS), a project
that Bell Labs, General Electric and RAND were involved in. However,
Ken never bothered to include more important features of MULTICS.
After all, UNIX was just for a game. But, UNIX became popular in the
labs and soon was given away to Universites. The system was never
standardized though its name suggested UNIformity. The west coast was
given the UNIX source code and soon Berkeley UNIX (BSD) was born.
SYSTEM 5 and BSD have a distinct flavor which sets them apart. Many
view SYSTEM 5 hackers as being conservative while BSD hackers are
seen as being liberal.
