*BSD News Article 82675


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From: Mike Czaplinski <mike.czaplinski@washingtondc.ncr.com>
Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things
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Date: Mon, 11 Nov 1996 16:03:38 GMT
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jeverett@wwa.com (John Everett) wrote:
>

[snip re daemons]

> The daemon concept may predate its implementation on the PDP-10, I'm not 
> sure. It's entirely possible it came from either Project MAC or Multics. I 
> know that Tom Hastings and Dennis Ritchie both worked on Multics. Tom 
> rejoined the PDP-10 monitor group after his stint at Multics, and of course 
> Dennis joined Ken at Bell Labs and had a bit to do with the development of 
> UNIX. BTW, the name UNIX is a play on Multics.

I heard of an alternate origin for the term 'Unix' from a cow orker
who was around Bell Labs in the mid 70's:

UNiversal Information eXchange.

Perhaps it's a retronym, but it sure fits both the name itself (since
it was always capitalized in it's earliest appearances) and the
function of the OS.

Mike "But, maybe it fits too good..." Czaplinski
mike.czaplinski@washingtondc.ncr.com