We're talking late 70s over to early 80s. A crucial period actually for
computers in many regards. Yes, there was definitely a 'British is Best', Britain
First' purchasing policy. Either for government
institutions like Radar Establishments, like the police,
All this kind of stuff. And particularly for educational
establishments. The feeling was computers are expensive
So, if we can spend a lot of money it might
as well be fed back into the British economy by buying
British. [This] certainly applied to universities. One or
two were allowed to escape [this policy] I think the University of Newcastle, on the computer
science front, was allowed to have an IBM. So, of course,
was the University of Cambridge. I can't remember what happened at Oxford.
it was a way for me to find out by the back door
about the advantages, in a way, of sharing a hardware platform with
not just other universities but other government institutions.
And in one of the previous videos I've talked about how we only felt
able to use Algol 68 as a teaching language
because that well-known government institution, bless them, the Royal
Radar Establishment (RRE) had actually put a huge amount of effort
into setting up a very good Algol 68 compiler.
And of course it had to be on ICL machinery. They were a government
establishment, so were we. So we benefited from that a lot.
>> Sean: How did you get into Unix you went to
to the [United] States didn't you?. Can you tell me about it?
>> DFB: Yes, it's true. I went over to the States in 1978 for the whole calendar year
and visited, in short order and it was all highly educational,
A visit to Oklahoma State University where they'd written an Algol
68 compiler. So, given my interest in those days that was a no-brainer but i
then thought: "No! No! If i'm going to be away for a year
I want the California experience [as well]. And so I finagled my way into doing some
teaching, [for the second 6 months] at UCLA, of course, in Los Angeles.
But also in the Cal State system. Cal State
Northridge is a well-known California State [institution] and I did,
I lectured all sorts of computer things there
I taught Fortran in Oklahoma and so on. It was weird actually but in some ways
at Nottingham we were a little bit ahead of the curve there.
Because before I left [the UK] we'd taken our first tentative steps
into getting this thing called UNIX, which enabled you,
on an underpowered PDP-11 to sort of run your own
programming experience. Multi-user [too] but only on dumb [character-based] terminals.
Yeah, a multi-user multitasking operating system
hopelessly under-powered machinery but it sort of worked and this was ...
it must have been about '76 when we bought,
first of all, a PDP 11/05 just to get used to having our own computer
of some sort. It could do Assembler programming. But I think just more or
less as I got in the plane for America, colleagues
told me that: "No, we're going to get that [PDP 11/05] upgraded to a
PDP 11/35 as quickly as possible. And that, when we do, we will be ready
to receive this operating system called UNIX, done by
Bell Labs. And people said to me: "Dave, you'll
find, just like why did a radar establishment have to
support your compiler?" You'll now be saying "Why does a
telephone company have to be the people that provide me
with a little Operating System that I can feel happy with?
And, yeah, it was ... it was as Yogi Berra once said:
"Like deja vu all over again ! " Oklahoma State they were saying "Wow, you know
you're ahead of us [in a way]. We want to go [and try] UNIX [but] we can't get approval.
All this kind of stuff. So, when I came back [to the UK] in 1979
- very cold winter and all that - it really was a liberation to know that
while we might have to rely on the Computing Centre for a lot of
bulk teaching [support] and running programs, nevertheless we could start to do
our own thing on PDP-11s, with an eye to the future. But even so we
couldn't on a PDP 11/35 give a bulk service
to our Compsci undergrads. We continued running
Algol 68 on ICL machinery with a huge extended
overlap with us getting UNIX. Because we couldn't become
self-hosting on UNIX or have enough big powerful machines until well
after this era. We were made very aware that we were getting this [UNIX OS] for a few
hundred dollars because it came from Bell Labs.
Bell Labs was a so-called 'regulated monopoly'
and that meant they were caught in the crossfire from everywhere.
They must not be seen to be using their massive leverage and "obscene telephone bills"
to squash little startup Telcos,
they must not get in the way of IBM because there was a suspicion that
y'know when people said to Bell: "well what
are you doing for the public good?" They [Bell] thought it was a nice cool idea to
say look we've got, basically, a computer science research
department we're not a computer company but these researchers ... it really was a
bit like Malvern's Radar Defence Establishment:
"We are not a computing company, absolutely not!"
But we have developed some software that universities might find interesting.
So we're proposing, for the public good, to virtually give away this software if
anybody's interested. And it it's a start and IBM won't see it
as a threat. So, we're all right. You can get hold
of this [UNIX} so long as you are a bona fide degree-giving
institution, you can get hold of this UNIX.
You must have, of course, a PDP11, - got to keep America's balance of
payments in the black - and it must be at least a PDP 11/35
- not the most minimal [PDP11] you could get. If you do that
this UNIX will get you started in the great world of
multi-user [computing] on simple terminals. You can do your own thing!
You'll run out of steam after about four or five users
but nevertheless it's all yours! So we cheerfully signed up for this and this
- as i say it was back in 1979 - it's all about to happen.
Version 7 of UNIX. I think we did somehow get hold of the previous one,
version 6, but serious usage started with Version 7. To find out more
about this Version 7 that we were getting. How did you find out [about it]
Let me be boring and 'oldie' and say yet again:
There was NO Internet; there were NO Web
pages to tell you about this. There wasn't even email! You had to send
out posters to departments, You had to use
letters. You could send faxes. Right? And you had to say: We are the UK
Unix User Group [UKUUG], principally populated by representatives from
Computer Science departments in UK universities
We all - almost all of us - absolutely longed to have
UNIX. We had persuaded the American UNIX User Group and AT&T,
the ultimate owners of Bell Labs, who ran all the patents and licensing.
They were going to come over and tell us how to get licensed
for an 'academic use only' licence for UNIX.
And what's it all about and it was a superb chat shop
and 'ideas swap shop' as it were. Enjoyed it hugely. The star of the show
was a visitor from AT&T Patents and Licensing, Frank J. Riffel Jr.
I remember [was] his name.
And boy, did he have the job from hell, trying to keep everybody happy. And he said:
"I want to license you all, you're wonderful, you know.
We love universities and I'm in charge of patents and licensing but
i gotta warn you, you must not do any commercial usage with this [academic UNIX].
It is purely for degree-giving teaching only, right?
And he kept on muttering to himself there were " ... a lot of grey areas
and it's my job to stamp them out" and what a heck of a job it was. He said: "Just
remember, you must be a bona fide degree-giving
university institution. Then you will be licensed. No others.
A hand goes up from the audience. A guy I got to know quite well, later on, but he
really was the odd man out. A hand goes up and [a voice] says: "Well how about me?
You've licensed me for Version 6, but i'm not at a University.
>> Riffel: Where are you from, Sir? and he said -- Marcus Gray this guy's name was.
He said: >> Gray: I'm just [from] a college. I'm pre-university,
you know, basically we concentrate [on an age range] from 11 to 18.
I'm at Marlborough College I'm [at] a Public School.
Now i think even the Americans know that there's nothing more
badly named than an English Public School. It is
not [generally] available to the poor and the needy as it probably should be, or [once] was
originally. No, some Public Schools are so expensive
you need serious money to attend them. Principally, Eton is the most famous.
But Marlborough College isn't far behind. I mean
the tuition fees at Marlborough College will make your eyes water.
So this guy [Marcus Gray] said: "No! No! i'm not [from a University] I'm pre-university I'm [from] Marlborough College."
>> Riffel: "But sir, over here [USA], you know, most colleges are like [smaller] Universities".
And Marcus said: >> Gray: "No, it's not the case with me."
And Riffel was getting more and more ruffled (if that's a joke .....) and he said:
>> Riffel: Sir, let me try and summarize. Are you trying to tell me that you are,
more or less, a very expensive version of what I would
call a High School ?". And Marcus said:
>> Gray: "Yes! that's roughly right" He [Riffel] just looked at Marcus and said:
>> Riffel:" Sir, you should not have been licensed !" And he [Riffel] didn't say it but in parenthesis:
I could hear it going on [mentally] in the background: "Oh boy! somebody's going to be
in deep trouble when i get back to Murray Hill, New Jersey".
He said: "Sir, you should not have been
licensed, but Frank J Riffel is a man of his word. I will not take your licence away, Sir."
Truly it [UNIX] did change everything and i
do remember very well we had a lot of conversations at the UK UNIX Group
saying: "Those guys at Bell Labs are just *so* good"
The two of them, obviously, Dennis and Ken. We've talked about them many a time.
They invented the C language for system implementation.
They've developed UNIX and it does things sensibly and this is absolutely great!
Aren't we lucky, I thought, as a community,
to have them being "on our side". And I did think: "I wonder if they'll ever get any
recognition from the ACM, shall we say, about
what they've done?" And I was very pleased - it took till 1983
I think. but eventually so many academics in the US
and all over the world, were using UNIX.
that Dennis and Ken were given the ACM Turing award, It was
actually awarded [presented] to them in '84. But it was won and achieved in 1983. So, in 1984,
they had to give a talk about what their work meant and normally,
when you write a paper to go with your presentation, you thank everybody.
Which Ken did. But then you [usually] go on to say: "Here's how
UNIX came about. Here's the nuts and bolts of what it's like to really run it."
We didn't get that at all. We got thank yous from Ken,
in cryptic terms, but very heartfelt, to a lot of people. But he [essentially] said:
I now just want to point out something to you. Effectively you've got something here
where we use C as a system programming language. So the operating system is
written in a high-level language. Have you any idea the problems that is
going to open you up to? The potential flaws, security holes?
Let me just demonstrate one of these to you you'll be amazed and amused.
And I mean, you know what standards we have on "Computerphile"!
We don't swear! So, I'll allow myself to say that one of
the rather celebrated people [Cory Doctorow] that we're
going to point you at in the next video,
just described Ken's contribution as a: "... total f***ing bombshell !"
And he wasn't wrong. A lot of people couldn't understand why
it was a bombshell. But it really really is. And i'd like to do my
best to explain to you just
what a fundamental earthquake this caused, once people understood
what he was trying to say.