The C Change

Command Line Heroes

Episode | Podcast

Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 07:05:09 +0000

<p>C and UNIX are at the root of modern computing. Many of the languages we’ve covered this season are related to or at least influenced by C. But C and UNIX only happened because a few developers at Bell Labs created both as a skunkworks project. Bell Labs was a mid-twentieth century center for innovation. <a href="https://twitter.com/jongertner?lang=en">Jon Gertner </a>describes it as an “idea factory.” One of their biggest projects in the 1960s was helping build a time-sharing operating system called Multics. <a href="https://twitter.com/joymlrankin?lang=en">Dr. Joy Lisi Rankin</a> explains the hype around time-sharing at the time—it was described as potentially making computing accessible as a public utility. Large teams devoted years of effort to build Multics—and it wasn’t what they had hoped for. Bell Labs officially moved away from time-sharing in 1969. But as Andrew Tanenbaum recounts, a small team of heroes pushed on anyways. C and UNIX were the result. Little did they know how much their work would shape the course of technology.</p><p>That's all for Season 3. If you want to dive deeper into C and UNIX, you can check out all our bonus material over at <a href="https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes">redhat.com/commandlineheroes. </a>You’ll find extra content for every episode. Follow along with the <a href="https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes/season-3/the-c-change#transcript-tray">episode transcript. </a>Subscribe to the <a href="https://www.redhat.com/forms/?config=19411">newsletter </a>for more stories and to be among the first to see announcements about the podcast. See you soon for Season 4.</p>