Dennis M. Ritchie and Ken Thompson. The UNIX Timesharing System

From: Slavik Krassovsky (viatk_at_windows.microsoft.com)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 16:03:36 PST

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    This landmark paper was written in 1974 and provides an overview of the
    new operating system. Special focus in implementation details is given
    to the file system and Shell - command interface program.

      The paper reads as a breeze - it's interesting to read, yet filled
    with nitty-gritty details, (i-node description for example). I really
    appreciated the paragraph where the design considerations and values of
    the project are discussed, I believe the three principals (interactive
    use, reasonable efficiency and "self-host-ability") are still should be
    considered in the operating system design.

      I am curious as to why more internal structures and mechanisms (tasks
    scheduler for example) were not covered in the paper - was it all
    obvious at the time?

      Reliability section certainly looks rather disturbing: I bet all of us
    feel the consequences of this section to this very day, but one never
    knows when a "toy OS" paper would become a major community influencer


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