From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
UNIX
n 1: trademark for a powerful operating system [syn: {UNIX},
{UNIX system}, {UNIX operating system}]
From The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003) [jargon]:
Unix
/yoo'niks/, n.
[In the authors' words, ?A weak pun on Multics?; very early on it was
?UNICS?] (also ?UNIX?) An interactive timesharing system invented in 1969
by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the Multics project, originally so he
could play games on his scavenged PDP-7. Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of C,
is considered a co-author of the system. The turning point in Unix's
history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C during
1972?1974, making it the first source-portable OS. Unix subsequently
underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of many different people,
resulting in a uniquely flexible and developer-friendly environment. By
1991, Unix had become the most widely used multiuser general-purpose
operating system in the world ? and since 1996 the variant called {Linux}
has been at the cutting edge of the {open source} movement. Many people
consider the success of Unix the most important victory yet of hackerdom
over industry opposition (but see {Unix weenie} and {Unix conspiracy} for
an opposing point of view). See {Version 7}, {BSD}, {Linux}.
[richiethom]
Archetypal hackers ken (left) and dmr (right).
Some people are confused over whether this word is appropriately ?UNIX? or
?Unix?; both forms are common, and used interchangeably. Dennis Ritchie
says that the ?UNIX? spelling originally happened in CACM's 1974 paper The
UNIX Time-Sharing System because ?we had a new typesetter and {troff} had
just been invented and we were intoxicated by being able to produce small
caps.? Later, dmr tried to get the spelling changed to ?Unix? in a couple
of Bell Labs papers, on the grounds that the word is not acronymic. He
failed, and eventually (his words) ?wimped out? on the issue. So, while the
trademark today is ?UNIX?, both capitalizations are grounded in ancient
usage; the Jargon File uses ?Unix? in deference to dmr's wishes.
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