UNIX & MAC OS X

What does UNIX stand for?

Short answer: Unix stands for UNiplexed Information and Com-

puting System. (It was originally spelled "Unics.")

Long answer: Coined in 1969 to describe a specific computer op-

erating system, the term "Unix" now covers a whole host of varia-
tions, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris. The name was in-
tended as a pun on an earlier system called "Multics" (Multiplexed
Information and Computing Service).

That sidesplitting pun is the key to understanding the acronym, since the word "uniplexed"
doesn't seem to mean anything in particular. ("Multiplexed" refers to a communications
system able to carry many messages simultaneously.)
Unix - The Beginning

PDP-11 beginnings

The earliest distributions of Unix from Bell Labs in the 1970s included the source code to
the operating system, allowing researchers at universities to modify and extend Unix. The
first Unix system at Berkeley was a PDP-11 installed in 1974, and the computer science
department used it for extensive research thereafter.

Other universities became interested in the software at Berkeley, and so in 1977 Bill Joy,
then a graduate student at Berkeley, assembled and sent out tapes of the first Berkeley
Software Distribution (1BSD). 1BSD was an add-on to Sixth Edition Unix rather than a
complete operating system in its own right; its main components were a Pascal compiler
and Joy's ex line editor.

The final release from Berkeley was 1995's 4.4BSD-Lite Release 2, after which the CSRG
was dissolved and development of BSD at Berkeley ceased. Since then, several distribu-
tions based on 4.4BSD (such as FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD) have been main-
tained.

Unix was designed to be portable, multi-tasking and multi-user in a time-sharing configura-

tion. The Unix systems are characterized by various concepts: plain text files, command
line interpreter, hierarchical file system, treating devices and certain types of inter-process
communication as files, etc. In software engineering, Unix is mainly noted for its use of the
C programming language and for the Unix philosophy.
The Unix time-line to Mac OS X’s

UNICS September 1969

1BSD March 9th 1978
Mach 1985
NeXTSTEP 0.8 October 12th 1988
OpenStep 4.0 July 22nd 1996
Rhapsody DR1 September 1997
Mac OS X Server 1.0 March 16th 1999
Darwin 0.1 March 16th 1999
Mac OS X (DP1) May 10th 1999 Developer
Mac OS X 10.0 (Cheetah) March 25th 2001
Mac OS X 10.4.6 April 3rd 2006
Darwin 8.6 April 10th 2006

What is Darwin?

Darwin is the open source UNIX-based foundation of Mac OS X. Darwin integrates a num-
ber of technologies, including the Mach 3.0 microkernel, operating system services based
on FreeBSD 5 UNIX, high-performance TCP/IP networkingf, and support for multiple inte-
grated file systems. Because the design of Darwin is highly modular, you can dynamically
add device drivers, networking extensions, and new file systems.

Unix Commands Unique to Mac OS X / Darwin

Try some of the following Darwin/Mac OS X unique commands.

You have to open Terminal to access UNIX.

say(1)
Convert text to audible speech.

screencapture(1)
Capture screenshots to file or Clipboard.

screenreaderd(8)
VoiceOver daemon, gives audible feedback on user activity and responds to user requests
for VoiceOver feedback.

Further Reading...

For further reading download UNIX - A Beginners Guide from St. British Mac.

For an interesting time-line history have a look at the UNIX History Timeline on St. British
Mac.