History of Unix for Bioinformatics

Question

Briefly explain the History of Unix for Bioinformatics?

Answer 1

History of Unix for Bioinformatics:

A) Ken Thompson wrote the predecessor to Unix (based on another OS called Multics) in 1969, in assembly.

B) Was called Unics (Uniplexed Information and Computer System)

C) Supported limited multitasking and 2 concurrent users

D) Only ran on the DEC (now Compaq) PDP-7

E) Dennis Ritchie ported Unics to the C language, and renamed it UNIX

F) C made UNIX available to many more platforms than the PDP-7

G) Thompson and Ritchie published a paper in 1974, and UNIX was brought into the mainstream

H) In 1975, the source code of UNIX was released (under licence by AT&T laboratories) and lots of UNIX clones were developed

I) Until the mid 90s, two UNIX clones sat atop the rest

J) AT&T System V

• This version spawned the famous Novell, and later, SCO Unix
• Berkeley BSD v4
• This version spawned FreeBSD and OpenBSD, and Apple OS X

K) In 1991, an MIT student from Finland called Linus Torvalds made a famous posting to a mailing list declaring that he was going to write a Unix clone as a hobby.