Within 40 years of being created, the computer language known as Unix has become the pre-eminent language of the intensely computerised modern world. For example, it is the code behind the user-friendly interface of Apple computers. And most of the internet now runs on Unix servers. Moreover, the language and its development has directly inspired the open source software movement, which is growing in influence even after it has become the leading source of software online.

As with most things, Unix has a convoluted history. It started life in Bell Labs in the US after AT&T, MTI and GE scrapped an ambitious project to develop an operating system called Multics. The concept was to write a piece of software for mainframe computers that would enable them to serve many people at the same time.

“With Multics they tried to have a much more versatile and flexible operating system, and it failed miserably,” said Dr Peter Salus, author of the definitive history of Unix’s early years.

The cancellation of the project left two of the researchers, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, with enough time on their hands to develop the language without the constraints that may have entailed working with big corporate giants like GE and AT&T.

It was some time in August 1969 that Thompson wrote the core of the language. And the operating system he and his growing team eventually came up with was tested on operating system running on a DEC computer known as a PDP-7.

One of the central ideas behind Unix was to create a language that was more compact than the languages used by the mainframe computers of the day. It is this compactness which has almost certainly ensured its longevity. Unix is known for its stability and adaptability.

But it still came as a surprise to many that Unix was chosen by Steve Jobs to be the basis of the new operating system for Apple computers, as the language was developed with mainframes in mind. In hindsight, however, it was a brilliant move because it gave Unix server operators around the world a new lease of life, and a hip and trendy association with a dynamic company such as Apple, which has since adapting Unix for its OSX gone on to capture an increasing share of the computer market.

Computer professionals tend to have some reverence for Unix, but very few of us have to learn it, thank goodness, even if we work as website designers or in another, related job. But we know that Unix is there in the background, whether it’s on the Apple computer we’re using or on the server at the company that hosts our website, even it is in the guise of Linux, which is a language derived from Unix.

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