There was a time when Unix was an operating system used only by the computer elite.
People working on mainframes like this Amdahl 580, which is in fact the world's largest
Unix computer system.
But nowadays, Unix is showing up on personal computers.
In fact, Unix is running this RadioShack 16B.
Why all the excitement about Unix?
And will Unix become the next MS-DOS?
We'll find out as we take a look at Unix the operating system on this edition of the Computer
Chronicles.
The
Computer Chronicles is brought to you in part by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Popular Computing
Magazine, featuring microcomputer applications that increase productivity for managers and
professionals.
Welcome to the Computer Chronicles.
I'm Stuart Shaffer and this is Gary Kildall.
Gary, I told a friend of mine we were doing a show on Unix and he said to me, why in the
world would you want to feature a Unix on a computer show?
Now the moral of the story is while some computer people are talking about nothing but Unix,
some PC users don't even know what Unix is.
Why is there this sudden excitement about Unix?
Well, it shouldn't be sudden excitement.
Unix itself has been around since the late 60s.
The problem is that micros haven't had the power to support it.
They haven't had the large amount of main memory, the hard disk, the fast processor
and so forth.
But nowadays, micros do have that power and so Unix becomes a serious contender for an
operating system standard.
Okay, and in fact, many people are saying Unix might become the standard operating system
of the future, but there are many uses of Unix going on right now.
We have a report.
Developed in the late 1960s at Bell Laboratories, Unix was later adopted by the University of
California for academic research and publishing.
At Berkeley's History of Science Department, typesetting of journals and directories is
accomplished from start to finish on a network of Unix-based terminals.
Why Unix?
Well, apart from the fact that a major version of Unix was designed at Berkeley, it's an
eminently portable system.
From micro to mini to mainframe, Unix is easily adapted with few or no changes required.
The typical Unix network runs on many computers.
User-initiated tasks are distributed among computers through port selectors.
But the advantages of Unix are not limited to multi-user portability.
The system is also fast and powerful.
Once the user has mastered its unorthodox commands, he's rewarded with some very sophisticated
features, like background processing.
After initiating a task, the user can go on to another one while the system continues
to work on the first.
Surrounding the kernel of Unix is a shell, or central command interpreter, that redirects
application input and output, manipulates files, and stores command sequences.
The shell structure, unlike the commands, is friendly, allowing even the first-time
user to perform complex tasks.
Unix users give the system high marks for its versatility.
Yet up until now, it's been largely confined to a small group of specialized users.
It has proven itself to them.
Now it must prove itself to the rest of us.
Let me introduce you now to our first two guests.
First of all, Mark Sobel.
Mark is the author of a book called A Practical Guide to the Unix System.
And John Mashey.
John is now with MIPS Computer Systems, used to be with Convergent Technologies, and used
to work on Unix at Bell Labs.
Gary, a lot of people don't really understand Unix.
Maybe you can start by giving us a little bit of background.
Well, Unix has a very interesting history, and it really has come down from the mini-computer
world into micros, where a lot of the micro-operating systems move themselves up into the high end,
and they're sort of meeting right in the middle right now.
Unix carries with it the C language, the Unix file system, and the Unix interface.
Now the file system itself is what we're talking about here, but the C language is wildly successful
at C right now.
It's been on a lot of different operating systems.
Now the question about the user interface is still one that we have to address.
It's considered unfriendly, and Mark is going to show us an example of that, and how it's
made more friendly, say, with the applications themselves.
Well, first, I think for people who aren't familiar with Unix, you have a lot of short
commands, because Unix was designed for machines, for terminals that ran very slowly, teletypes.
And a command like this will generate a lot of information that needs a little interpretation.
What you're seeing more and more today is applications being built with interfaces derived
from DOS.
This application is called Fileit, and it has a Lotus 1-2-3 type of interface.
And this takes the place of the typical interface that you'd see in, say, a standard Unix world.
Right.
It can pick up this program, or it can automatically just log in and be using this program, and
moves the cursor or this highlight by pressing the space bar.
And there's built-in help.
Press Control-W, and it'll tell you where you are and what you can do if you get stuck.
And return just calls up what you want to.
So in this case, what Unix does is it's really the core of the system.
It provides the services for this program to get at the file system and so forth, but
really itself doesn't talk to the user.
Exactly.
It also provided a environment for the developers to build Unix.
And Unix, that's one of the things Unix does best, is to allow people to generate applications
such as this.
Now, one of the things that Unix has really pioneered, I think, is the idea of portability
of software.
That is, you can move it around to various places.
And John, what do you have?
Any comments about the portability of Unix itself?
Yeah, that is certainly probably the most important area of Unix.
Unix started on some digital equipment machines and has since been moved to literally 50 or
100 different kinds of processors.
That's very important because if you're going to invest a lot of effort in building software,
it's real helpful to know that you can move it around, move it from anything from personal
computers through the very largest mainframes.
It means you save a lot of your investment.
Now, that's also true for software designers.
That's certainly true.
A software designer can then take, say, a language like C in a standard runtime library
and then you write an application for it.
And you can not only run on Unix, but say run on DOS or concurrent DOS.
That's true.
That's true.
In fact, actually, that's how Unix originally got moved was that people found that you could
move C programs very easily.
It was the environment that was difficult to copy.
And therefore, people got to move Unix to other machines.
Now, one of the criticisms of Unix has been that it was unreliable.
And I think all the Unix users have heard that over and over in the past years.
What is the state of it right now in terms of if we're talking about the core system,
the file system, you want that to be very reliable.
What is the current state of that?
It's actually fairly good these days.
You have to understand originally when you got your Unix system, the normal behavior
was to find a guru or wizard and chain them to the machine.
And therefore, when the disk broke, you would have someone to pick up the pieces and put
them back together.
That was, say, 1972, 73.
But as Unix moved into computer centers and more and more people depended on it, a lot
of work was done to make it a much more reliable system.
And actually, today, it's used in some fairly demanding applications.
One of the things that people don't realize is that actually Unix touches them through
the phone system almost every day.
If you ever want to get your telephone fixed, the system that keeps track of all that work
is run by Unix.
And it has very reliable database.
All right.
When we get into something like a micro-based system where someone can kick the power cord
as they're walking by, now there have been criticisms about the reliability.
What happens at that point?
And that's in the commercial system.
Right.
That's what people worry about.
Right.
And indeed, there has been a lot of work that has had to go on to make it a lot more reliable
system.
And it has happened.
Mark, I want to go back to your demo for a minute.
From a user's point of view, you've shown me how you can sort of friendly up Unix here
and make it look like MS-DOS.
But from a user's point of view, then why do I care?
What am I getting from this Unix-based application that I couldn't have been getting from an
MS-DOS-based application?
There are two major features that Unix offers.
And I would emphasize the point that everyone doesn't want Unix.
If you have an MS-DOS system running an application and it's doing what you need it to do, maybe
Unix is not what you need.
However, Unix is a multi-user operating system.
I can do a query, look at data at the same time someone else is looking or changing the
same data, someone else.
And this is all on the same machine, is using a word processing system.
Someone is doing graphics.
So it's a multi-user machine.
Everyone doesn't have to fight over the one machine.
It's also a multi-tasking operating system.
I can be performing my work here while the printer is printing a report and while I'm
doing some other processing in the background.
So I can be doing several.
It's important to also mention that that's not the only operating system in the micro
world that does that.
Of course, because IBM has announced TopView, which is a multi-tasking operating system.
And of course, Concurrent DOS is the same sort of thing.
And we see, again, this contention that's taking place right in the middle of Unix coming
down and these other operating systems coming up.
And it really points out that I think that a lot of people are looking for that new facility
of being able to do multi-tasking.
And Unix is a very good way to do to provide that function.
If I can open up another area, which is an alternative to a multi-user environment that's
becoming, that's talked about increasingly, it's local area networks.
But I think it's important also to contrast that with a multi-user system.
And I think at some point in the future, that will be a viable alternative.
Right now, you don't have your hard standard network.
You don't have everyone.
You can't plug every computer into the same network.
But I think that's something to watch in the future.
Right.
Now, there's one thing I wanted to ask also.
Maybe John can answer this.
But let's say TopView, for example, has addressed the problem of standardized graphics interface
with VDI from IBM.
What's evolving in terms of Unix standards for standardizing the graphics display?
At this point, it's hard to tell.
And I guess, again, the reason there is found in history is that Unix certainly was done
originally for fairly slow speed terminals.
That interface is pretty well standard.
Unix has also gotten fairly standardized in the handling of regular CRTs.
It's a normal standard interface.
But there still needs to be some work in the graphics area.
And you can particularly see that this is a period where some parts of Unix have become
standard and other parts are under a lot of heavy work.
Certainly Unix is used on anything from personal computer machines through fairly powerful
single-user workstations.
John, I'm afraid I have to interrupt.
You've got to move on.
Because in just a minute, we're going to meet two more Unix experts.
And we're going to take a look at the new Unix PC from Hewlett Packard.
So stay with us.
Joining us now is Doug Hartman.
Doug is the manager of Unix development at Hewlett Packard.
And next to Doug, Mike Denny, Unix consultant and the vice president and co-founder of Basis,
which is a Unix resource center in Berkeley.
One of the key people in the development of Unix is a man named Bill Joy, who's sometimes
called the father of 4.2, which is the Berkeley version of Unix.
Reporter Wendy Woods has a profile of Bill Joy.
The success of Bill Joy's Unix 4.2 can best be measured by the success of his own company.
Sun Microsystems, which makes a line of Unix 4.2-based mini computers and workstations,
has gone from six to over 1,000 employees in three years.
Sun ships more than $7 million worth of equipment each month to the technical and engineering
communities, which find Unix 4.2 the ideal operating environment for their specialized
software needs.
But despite his success, Bill Joy isn't allowing his Unix 4.2 to stagnate.
He continues to work closely with his university roots to improve on Unix, unlike others.
Unix has hit the point where it's starting to get standardized by standards committees
and adopted by, and really attempt to get the control of the development by major corporations
like IBM and AT&T.
That inevitably involves a slowing down of the rate of change in the system.
As for the future of Unix, he says its open source code, versatility, and ability to work
on a variety of machines means it will be popular with scientists and engineers for
some time.
Unix will be important if it can deliver applications that people want to run.
The technical market needs more operating system capabilities than you're likely to
see from the smaller systems.
So we don't really have an alternative applications delivery vehicle than Unix.
But will Unix ever make it big in the business market?
Bill Joy doubts it.
He says what's needed is a Unix-based business program like Lotus 1-2-3, something big and
successful.
And until that's written, he says, quote, I'm not super hopeful.
Reporting for the Computer Chronicles, I'm Wendy Woods.
Stuart, in the last segment, we focused in on this issue of user friendliness.
I guess that overworked word.
Micro users have come to expect this idea of a graphical animated communication with
their programs.
And one of the points of Unix being successful is to be able to do that in the micro world.
Doug, we've got an example of what Hewlett Packard has done to provide a shell or kind
of an animated communication.
That's right.
On our integral PC, we have an example of using Windows menus, that sort of thing, to
give people a friendlier user interface.
We can select, say, a spreadsheet, be putting the information in the spreadsheet.
And while it's going on, we can be selecting other, say, graphical windows.
Now, Doug, there are other computers that don't use Unix that can do some of this stuff.
We've seen multiple windows and other machines and multitasking.
What now is special about Unix here?
The big thing that Unix has going for it is the compatibility with various other machines.
Software portability.
The idea that you can take programs which are written on some other machine, bring them
to another Unix-based machine with very little effort.
It makes a software developer's job very easy.
And this is what we talked about earlier in terms of the C language in the standard runtime
library.
The idea is if an application software writer codes in a machine-independent way using,
say, C in the runtime library, then it can run on Unix or it can run on concurrent DOS
or under MS-DOS and things of that sort.
It's a very powerful concept for software writers.
We mentioned before 4.2, which is the Berkeley version of Unix.
And I'd like to clear up what may be some confusion of people.
We hear about Xenix.
We hear about Unix.
I think you call your thing HPUX.
We hear of PCIX, System 3, System 5, 4.2, and so on.
Why are there so many versions of Unix, and how do they differ, Mike?
Just luck.
The proliferation of names besides Unix is dictated by AT&T's requirement that you not
call it Unix.
So each manufacturer comes up with their little name for it.
For the most part, it is fairly standard.
A Xenix machine looks like Unix to me.
It may have a few extras here and there, maybe a couple of things.
Your favorite utility may not be there.
But to move from even between the so-called Berkeley camp and the AT&T Bell Labs camp
of Unix, very, very strikingly the same.
Equally effective.
Why do the systems programmers feel this need to make local changes?
Are they social in nature?
I noticed one example that I had.
I came into our computer center and I asked one of the local programmers, I said, well
I don't think this I.O. statement is working quite right.
And he got on there and made modifications to the source code and compiled it right into
the system right there on the spot.
So we had a different operating system right there at that very time.
Is it because it's so easy that you make changes to it?
I think everybody adulterates their, let's say improves the recipe that they receive
from grandma and in this case ma.
And particular manufacturers, for example, receive the official original source code
and they're putting it on their machine.
They have particular target markets in mind, for example.
The emphasis on networking and workstations is contrasted with an emphasis on multi-user
transaction machines for database management.
Now what about AT&T, their role in this right now?
Are they trying to, say, bring these versions back into one standard?
Quite apparently AT&T would like to establish, define the standard as system 5.2 and we'll
get other decimal points behind that undoubtedly.
There is another kind of de facto standard out of the so-called Berkeley 4.2 standard
distribution.
They are, in fact, quite different code underneath to the outside most user.
They look very similar with the difference of some utilities.
It's quite common for a manufacturer, I would think of a half dozen who have adopted AT&T
Unix but put Berkeley utilities on top of so-called extensions.
Seems like that might be the safe place to...
Because they're nifty things from Berkeley and there is the basic Unix itself.
There's another question that comes up, I think, in the minds of many people is that
IBM has a couple of versions of Unix that they're supporting.
Are they doing this just to, say, fill the market out or are they really trying to get
behind the effort in the sense that you think of IBM and AT&T as being competitors and it's
a little strange to think that IBM might be promoting a competitor's product.
Well, and AT&T uses IBM computers, similar in the inner cockles of the organization.
I think we would all get rich if we knew the answer to those questions with any confidence.
Doug, I want to ask you about your implementation of Unix on something like this.
We're talking here about a $5,000 PC.
In the first part of the show, we were looking at a $12,000 to $15,000 pretty high-end AT&T
machine.
Do we lose anything in the implementation here?
Is this the same Unix?
The only thing that we've really left out is the hard disk, which would allow you to
do your own program development.
By leaving out the hard disk, we can reduce the cost but still leave you enough to run
applications.
Now, I read in one of the trades recently that there was talk that Commodore was going
to come out with Unix at that level.
I'm a C64.
You know, kind of Mac look-alike running Unix.
Is that kind of thing possible?
Certainly technology is there to do that.
It's really been a question of if the applications are there to support the home end user.
I think if any kind of a rumor like that were true, they would have to be different from
the standard machine you buy on the Kmart.
Imagine trying to get Unix explained to you at that level.
Let's go back to the core file system at this point, the kernel, I guess is what it might
be called.
Operating systems from the micro world right now provide multitasking, file lockout, record
lockout, facilities like that.
What does Unix really offer that is, I think, substantially different that will make it
successful besides its backing by AT&T?
I like to take that one.
I think that with Unix you've got the promise of being able to offer the same kinds of environments,
same user interfaces across a broad range of computers, both at work and at home, so
that you don't have to relearn everything just because you moved to a different computer.
But is there anything inherent in the file system, say, as special access methods, let's
say an IBM terminology, index sequential access methods, or anything really substantially
different about the way files are accessed, say, from the micro world?
Technically, not necessarily, though it is a very, very flexible sort of least common
denominator so that ISAMs can be used on top of it.
Unix itself doesn't provide an ISAM, but they are around most countries.
So maybe, let's say AT&T's backing and the number of applications and so forth that may
determine the success of Unix in the future.
The 200 utilities that do handy things don't hurt.
Some of its emulation, one might dare say, of Unix by MS-DOS, other products that see
concepts and try to implement them, Unix can't claim to be the sole source of such useful
functionality.
Okay, gentlemen, well, there are clearly two points of view on whether Unix will prevail
as a new kind of standard operating system, and commentator Paul Schindler has some thoughts
on that.
Sure, I should be using a can opener instead of a screwdriver to open this can of tomato
juice.
I mean, a can opener is the appropriate tool for the job.
Well, I'm one of those people that feel Unix is the wrong tool in the wrong place in the
microcomputer world.
Yeah, I know, I've heard all the arguments.
Unix is so easy to move to new computers.
Unix programs are so easy to move from computer to computer.
Well, I'm sorry, but I think that's just so much bunkum.
Look, let's face a few facts.
Unix was developed by a bunch of brilliant programmers at Bell Laboratories.
They wanted a great mini-computer environment to develop software in, and that's what they
created.
And that's what Unix is today, a great place to do mini-computer software.
What Unix is not is what AT&T and a lot of other companies are trying to make it into,
the ultimate microcomputer operating system.
I don't know enough to say whether it's easy to move Unix from machine to machine, but
I do know that applications written for Unix on one machine don't always work on another.
There are incompatible Unix dialects galore.
Unix is a user-hostile operating system, dramatically short on software.
That's my opinion.
I'm Paul Schindler.
In the Random Access file this week, the Consumer Electronics Show was over and there were no
Blockbuster new products.
Commodore did show off its new 128 series and promised to ship it later this month.
Commodore also displayed its new Unix machine and two new IBM compatibles.
Probably the biggest hot new area was robots, with new personal robots being shown by several
manufacturers.
Tomy introduced a new robot which can be run by your personal computer, and Nintendo showed
off a game-playing robot that interfaces with the game on your computer screen.
There were robots with synthesized speech and robots that change their facial expressions.
Atari was a last-minute exhibitor and confused the ST picture even more by showing a new
256K model, which will supposedly sell for $499.
Atari also unveiled its new CD-ROM storage system.
The disc holds 500 megabytes and will sell for about $500.
Atari said it will ship this December.
What makes you choose one computer over another?
Well, performance being equal, the most important factor is the design of the keyboard.
According to a study just completed by a Connecticut design firm, buyers may want bells and whistles,
but they also want a simple-looking keyboard, contrasting colors on function keys, full
travel keys, long space bars, and a, quote, substantial look, generally meaning thick
edges.
Light waves are not only replacing electrons in computer storage, but researchers at the
Center for Applied Optics at the University of Alabama say light beams may soon replace
electrons in the computer itself.
The center's director says optical computers using photons and lasers will be smaller,
use less power, and allow for three-dimensional design and more efficient parallel processing.
The optical research is being funded by the Pentagon, which sees optical processing power
as essential to an effective Star Wars system.
Our star of the software wars is Paul Schindler, and here's his review for the week.
They say you can tell how good a word person is by whether they work the New York Times
crossword puzzle in ink or in pencil.
Well, I got to tell you, I don't work it at all, but if you do, you ought to try WordMaker,
a truly obscure software package from Word Associates at 55 Sutter Street in San Francisco.
Now, normally we don't give addresses, but these guys aren't in the phone book, and you
can't buy WordMaker in any store.
This is the software package for word lovers.
It makes the grandiose claim of including every word in the English language.
Its search technique is a real boon for the crossword puzzle fan.
If you know how long the word is and can fill in some of the letters, you can search through
a hundred thousand words and find all those that match what you have.
Now, I can't review this package without pointing out that its command menu is one of the simplest,
most useful I've ever seen.
This package used to cost $50, but at that price, no one wanted it, so Word Associates
cut the price to $10, just over the price of a floppy.
WordMaker from Word Associates, 55 Sutter Street, San Francisco.
For the Computer Chronicles, I'm Paul Schindler.
Looking for a word processor and want to know what everyone else is buying?
Well, here's the latest list of top sellers.
Leading the pack is IBM's Writing Assistant, followed by Microsoft's Word, Bank Street
Writer from Broderbund, and then PFSWrite and Multimate, WordStar comes in sixth.
The Bank of America and Chemical Bank are forming a joint venture with AT&T and Time
Incorporated to expand home banking services into broader-based electronics services for
home users.
Chemical's Pronto and B of A's Home Banking now have nearly 40,000 subscribers.
The Defense Department has just completed a study which says that of the 17,000 DoD
computers, only 30 of them are adequately protected from unauthorized entry.
The head of computer security for the Pentagon said they are currently vulnerable to any
mentally unbalanced 16-year-old.
Industrial robot sales are moving right along in the U.S.
Sales of robots were up 71 percent in the past year.
There are now nearly 15,000 robots at work in the United States, up from less than 10,000
just a year ago.
Finally, the tough times in the computer business were evident at last week's CES show in Chicago.
Lots of booth space reserved for computer companies went unused, but the space was quickly
grabbed up by the makers of X-rated video cassettes.
Apparently that part of the home entertainment business is doing just fine.
That's it for this week's Computer Chronicles.
We'll see you next time.
The Computer Chronicles is brought to you in part by McGraw-Hill, publishers of Popular
Computing Magazine, featuring microcomputer applications that increase productivity for
managers and professionals.