The term "Research Unix" refers to early versions of the

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

operating system for DEC PDP-7,

PDP-11 The PDP-11 is a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) from 1970 into the 1990s, one of a set of products in the Programmed Data Processor (PDP) series. In total, around 600,000 PDP-11s of all models were sold, ...

VAX VAX (an acronym for Virtual Address eXtension) is a series of computers featuring a 32-bit instruction set architecture (ISA) and virtual memory that was developed and sold by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in the late 20th century. The V ...

and

Interdata 7/32 and 8/32 The Model 7/32 and Model 8/32 were 32-bit minicomputers introduced by Perkin-Elmer after they acquired Interdata, Inc., in 1973. Interdata computers are primarily remembered for being the first 32-bit minicomputers under $10,000. The 8/32 was a m ...

computers, developed in the

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

Computing Sciences Research Center (CSRC).

History

The term ''Research Unix'' first appeared in the

Bell System Technical Journal The ''Bell Labs Technical Journal'' is the in-house scientific journal for scientists of Nokia Bell Labs, published yearly by the IEEE society. The managing editor is Charles Bahr. The journal was originally established as the ''Bell System Techn ...

(Vol. 57, No. 6, Pt. 2 Jul/Aug 1978) to distinguish it from other versions internal to Bell Labs (such as

PWB/UNIX The Programmer's Workbench (PWB/UNIX) is an early, now discontinued, version of the Unix operating system that had been created in the Bell Labs Computer Science Research Group of AT&T. Its stated goal was to provide a time-sharing working envir ...

and MERT) whose code-base had diverged from the primary CSRC version. However, that term was little-used until

Version 8 Unix The term "Research Unix" refers to early versions of the Unix operating system for DEC PDP-7, PDP-11, VAX and Interdata 7/32 and 8/32 computers, developed in the Bell Labs Computing Sciences Research Center (CSRC). History The term ''Resear ...

, but has been retroactively applied to earlier versions as well. Prior to V8, the operating system was most commonly called simply UNIX (in caps) or the UNIX Time-Sharing System.

AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile tel ...

licensed Version 5 to educational institutions, and Version 6 also to commercial sites. Schools paid $200 and others $20,000, discouraging most commercial use, but Version 6 was the most widely used version into the 1980s. Research Unix versions are often referred to by the edition of the

manual Manual may refer to: Instructions * User guide * Owner's manual * Instruction manual (gaming) * Online help Other uses * Manual (music), a keyboard, as for an organ * Manual (band) * Manual transmission * Manual, a bicycle technique similar to ...

that describes them, because early versions and the last few were never officially released outside of Bell Labs, and grew organically. So, the first Research Unix would be the First Edition, and the last the Tenth Edition. Another common way of referring to them is as "Version ''x'' Unix" or "V''x'' Unix", where ''x'' is the manual edition. All modern editions of Unix—excepting

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

implementations such as

Coherent Coherence, coherency, or coherent may refer to the following: Physics * Coherence (physics), an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e. temporally and spatially constant) interference * Coherence (units of measurement), a deri ...

, Minix, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

—derive from the 7th Edition. Starting with the 8th Edition, versions of Research Unix had a close relationship to

BSD The Berkeley Software Distribution or Berkeley Standard Distribution (BSD) is a discontinued operating system based on Research Unix, developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) at the University of California, Berk ...

. This began by using 4.1cBSD as the basis for the 8th Edition. In a

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

post from 2000,

Dennis Ritchie Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie (September 9, 1941 – October 12, 2011) was an American computer scientist. He is most well-known for creating the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system and B p ...

described these later versions of Research Unix as being closer to BSD than they were to

UNIX System V Unix System V (pronounced: "System Five") is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, an ...

, which also included some BSD code:

Versions

Legacy

In 2002,

Caldera International Caldera International, Inc., earlier Caldera Systems, was an American software company that existed from 1998 to 2002 and developed and sold Linux- and Unix-based operating system products. Caldera Systems was created in August 1998 as a spinoff ...

released Unix V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, V6, V7 on

and Unix 32V on

FOSS Fos or FOSS may refer to: Companies *Foss A/S, a Danish analytical instrument company * Foss Brewery, a former brewery in Oslo, Norway *Foss Maritime, a tugboat and shipping company Historic houses * Foss House (New Brighton, Minnesota), United ...

under a

permissive {{about, , the 1970 British film, Permissive (film), the grammatical mode, Permissive mood, the flavor of software license, permissive free software licence A permissive cell or host is one that allows a virus to circumvent its defenses and replica ...

BSD-like

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source ...

. In 2017, Unix Heritage Society and

Alcatel-Lucent Alcatel–Lucent S.A. () was a French–American global telecommunications equipment company, headquartered in Boulogne-Billancourt, France. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of France-based Alcatel and U.S.-based Lucent, the latter being a su ...

USA Inc., on behalf of itself and

Nokia Nokia Corporation (natively Nokia Oyj, referred to as Nokia) is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporatio ...

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

, released V8, V9, and V10 under the condition that only non-commercial use was allowed, and that they would not assert copyright claims against such use.Samizdat no more: Old Unix source code opened for study
by Richard Chirgwin on

register.com Register.com is a domain name registrar. History The company was founded in 1994 as Forman Interactive Corp by brothers Peter and Richard Forman and their brother-in-law, Dan B. Levine as a provider of website creation software. In 1999, the com ...

(30 March 2017)

References

External links

UNIX EvolutionPostScript
by Ian F. Darwin and Geoffrey Collyer
Unix heritage
- More links and source code for some Research Unix versions

by Dennis M. Ritchie
The Restoration of Early UNIX Artifacts
by Warren Toomey, School of IT, Bond University
Full Manual Pages documentation for Research Unix 8th Edition

List of new features in Research Unix 9th Edition
{{unix-like Bell Labs Unices Computing platforms Discontinued operating systems Unix variants

History

Versions

Legacy

See also

References

External links