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The History of Unix, Rob Pike

Stephanie Borgman

335 subscribers • 1 video on Hallway

YouTube
  • Recommended by 2 people: 1 on Hacker News and 1 on Lobsters.
  • Presented by Rob Pike

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

119K views7 years ago2 recommendations

History and cultureSystems programmingOperating systemsHistory of computingPeople who shaped computing

Rob Pike shares an insider's perspective on the history and development of the Unix operating system and related technologies at Bell Labs.

The history of Unix as seen through the eyes of Rob Pike. You will get an insider's view of the development of some of the key pieces of the modern computing world.

Why it's here

2 people recommend this

What people say. Recommended for its fascinating first-hand anecdotes and historical insights into the design philosophy of Unix and early graphical systems.

fs111on Lobsters • Recommends

The History of Unix, Rob Pike
22View on Lobsters

kickon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Crabs: The bitmap terror (1985) [pdf]”

Crabs was probably the first graphical prank program—most assuredly the first well-documented one: there are a lot of scattered anecdotes about it around. Here's an amazing talk by Rob Pike where it's casually mentioned, for example: link to this video It's not something you see very often anymore, partially because modern windowing systems (and systems in general, really) were built with different security models in mind (you can probably remember a few similar programs released into the wild for real mode operating systems, they were especially common then), but also because windowing systems have moved away from how simple UNIX's windowing system was at the time. It's actually kind of relevant to so…
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wgingon Hacker News • Mentions

On “The History of Unix, by Rob Pike [video]”

I opened this earlier, and it linked to link to this video -- I think a moderator may have 'fixed' it in a really silly way.
View on Hacker News

throwaway487550on Hacker News • Mentions

On “An Introduction to the EMACS Editor (1978)”

link to this video among other things. These were places where old-school (with classical understanding, if we follow Robert M. Pirsig) people tried to reduce grounded in reality concepts to optimal (as humanly possible) implementations, as opposed to the modern tendency to pile up more and more crap.
View on Hacker News

fjarlqon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Unix: A History and a Memoir, by Brian Kernighan”

Videos of Ken Thompson and Rob Pike telling Unix history stories: Ken Thompson (interviewed by Brian Kernighan, 2019, starts after 7m38s): link Rob Pike (Unix History presentation, 2018, starts after 3m40s): link to this video
View on Hacker News

raszon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Xerox Alto Emulator”

another one was BLIT link link also mentioned in The History of Unix, by Rob Pike link to this video then there was Star
View on Hacker News