[ILUG] VMS is older than Unix - I think not !

[Niall O Broin]

On Tue, Feb 27, 2001 at 01:54:51PM +0000, Charles Sharp wrote:
> Nick Moffitt wrote:
> > 
> > begin  David Murphy quotation:
> > > You and I may not run them, but there are many non-unix Oses out
> > > there that are alive and well. If VMS is so dead, can you let Compaq
> > > know?
> > 
> >         VMS is not as old as Unix.
> 
> [Begin quote from the OpenVMS FAQ, Part 1/5]
> ...
> VMS version X0.5 was the first released to customers,
> in support of the hardware beta test of the VAX-11/780,
> in 1977.  VAX/VMS Version V1.0 shipped in 1978, along
> with the first revenue-ship 11/780s.
> ...
> [End quote]
> 
> Given that Unix wouldn't see a paying customer base for a
> few more years, I'm not sure that this statement holds.

The first version of UNIX was written in 1969. What we might care to call
the first modern-like Unix (third edition - it had pipes) was written in
1973 and in 1974 The UNIX Time-Sharing System is published in CACM by Ken
Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.

In 1975 AT&T officially began licensing UNIX to universities, who were
paying customers, even if they didn't pay very much. Berkeley had been using
Unix for a couple of years already.

SCO was founded in 1978 to sell Unix on PC hardware.


Yeah, I think the statement  "VMS is not as old as Unix."  holds quite well.



Regards,



Niall