| 1969 |
The Beginning |
The history of UNIX starts back in 1969, when Ken
Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and others started working on the "little-used
PDP-7 in a corner" at Bell Labs and what was to become UNIX. |
| 1971 |
First Edition |
It had a assembler for a PDP-11/20, file system, fork(), roff and ed. It was used for text processing of patent documents. |
| 1973 |
Fourth Edition |
It was rewritten in C. This made it portable and changed the history of OS's. |
| 1975 |
Sixth Edition |
UNIX leaves home. Also widely known as Version 6,
this is the first to be widely available out side of Bell Labs. The
first BSD version (1.x) was derived from V6. |
| 1979 |
Seventh Edition |
It was a "improvement over all preceding and
following Unices" [Bourne]. It had C, UUCP and the Bourne shell. It was
ported to the VAX and the kernel was more than 40 Kilobytes (K). |
| 1980 |
Xenix |
Microsoft introduces Xenix. 32V and 4BSD introduced. |
| 1982 |
System III |
AT&T's UNIX System Group (USG) release System
III, the first public release outside Bell Laboratories. SunOS 1.0
ships. HP-UX introduced. Ultrix-11 Introduced. |
| 1983 |
System V |
Computer Research Group (CRG), UNIX System Group (USG) and a third group merge to become UNIX System Development Lab.
AT&T announces UNIX System V, the first supported release. Installed
base 45,000. |
| 1984 |
4.2BSD |
University of California at Berkeley releases 4.2BSD,
includes TCP/IP, new signals and much more. X/Open formed. |
| 1984 |
SVR2 |
System V Release 2 introduced. At this time there are 100,000 UNIX installations around the world. |
| 1986 |
4.3BSD |
4.3BSD released, including internet name server. SVID introduced. NFS shipped. AIX announced. Installed base 250,000.
|
| 1987 |
SVR3 |
System V Release 3 including STREAMS, TLI, RFS.
At this time there are 750,000 UNIX installations around the world. IRIX
introduced. |
| 1988 |
|
POSIX.1 published. Open Software Foundation (OSF) and UNIX International (UI) formed. Ultrix 4.2 ships. |
| 1989 |
|
AT&T UNIX Software Operation formed in preparation for spinoff of USL. Motif 1.0 ships. |
| 1989 |
SVR4 |
UNIX System V Release 4 ships, unifying System V, BSD and Xenix. Installed base 1.2 million. |
| 1990 |
XPG3 |
X/Open launches XPG3 Brand. OSF/1 debuts. Plan 9 from Bell Labs ships. |
| 1991 |
|
UNIX System Laboratories (USL) becomes a company -
majority-owned by AT&T. Linus Torvalds commences Linux development.
Solaris 1.0 debuts. |
| 1992 |
SVR4.2 |
USL releases UNIX System V Release 4.2 (Destiny).
October - XPG4 Brand launched by X/Open. December 22nd Novell announces
intent to acquire USL. Solaris 2.0 ships. |
| 1993 |
4.4BSD |
4.4BSD the final release from Berkeley. June 16 Novell acquires USL |
| Late 1993 |
SVR4.2MP |
Novell transfers rights to the "UNIX" trademark
and the Single UNIX Specification to X/Open. COSE initiative delivers
"Spec 1170" to X/Open for fasttrack. In December Novell ships SVR4.2MP ,
the final USL OEM release of System V |
| 1994 |
Single UNIX Specification |
BSD 4.4-Lite eliminated all code claimed to
infringe on USL/Novell. As the new owner of the UNIX trademark, X/Open
introduces the
Single UNIX Specification (formerly Spec 1170), separating the UNIX
trademark from any actual code
stream. |
| 1995 |
UNIX 95 |
X/Open introduces the UNIX 95 branding programme for
implementations of the Single UNIX Specification. Novell sells UnixWare
business line to SCO. Digital UNIX introduced. UnixWare 2.0 ships. OpenServer 5.0 debuts. |
| 1996 |
|
The Open Group forms as a merger of OSF and X/Open. |
| 1997 |
Single UNIX Specification, Version 2 |
The Open Group introduces Version 2 of the Single
UNIX Specification, including support for realtime, threads and 64-bit
and larger processors. The specification is made freely available on the
web. IRIX 6.4, AIX 4.3 and HP-UX 11 ship. |
| 1998 |
UNIX 98 |
The Open Group introduces the UNIX 98 family of
brands, including Base, Workstation and Server. First UNIX 98 registered
products shipped
by Sun, IBM and NCR. The Open Source movement starts to take off with
announcements from Netscape and IBM. UnixWare 7 and IRIX 6.5 ship. |
| 1999 |
UNIX at 30 |
The UNIX system reaches its 30th anniversary. Linux 2.2
kernel released. The Open Group and the IEEE commence joint development
of a revision to POSIX and the Single UNIX Specification. First LinuxWorld
conferences. Dot com fever on the stock markets. Tru64 UNIX ships.
|
| 2001 |
Single UNIX Specification, Version 3 |
Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification
unites IEEE POSIX, The Open Group and the industry efforts.
Linux 2.4 kernel released. IT stocks face a hard time at the markets.
The value of procurements for the UNIX brand exceeds $25 billion. AIX 5L ships.
|
| 2003 |
ISO/IEC 9945:2003 |
The core volumes of Version 3 of the Single UNIX
Specification are approved as an international standard. The "Westwood"
test suite ship for the UNIX 03 brand. Solaris 9.0 E ships. Linux 2.6
kernel released.
|
| 2007 |
|
Apple Mac OS X certified to UNIX 03.
|
| 2008 |
ISO/IEC 9945:2008 |
Latest revision of the UNIX API set formally
standardized at ISO/IEC, IEEE and The Open Group. Adds further APIs
|
| 2009 |
UNIX at 40 |
IDC on UNIX market -- says UNIX $69 billion in 2008, predicts UNIX $74 billion in 2013
|
| 2010 |
UNIX on the Desktop |
Apple reports 50 million desktops and growing -- these are Certified UNIX systems.
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