On Day 1 of #Unix50, Timothy Roscoe presented an interesting talk concerning the implications of running the brilliantly simple Unix design that was an apt fit on the hardware of yesteryear on the increasingly complex systems of today.

Having spent a career cogitating on operating system design, Tim's recherche description of the dichotomous relationship between the Unix philosophy and modern hardware should prove thought-provoking for anyone involved in systems or even application programming. For as Tim proposes:

Don't ask: how can I get Unix to work on this hardware landscape? Ask: what is the moral equivalent of Unix, for this hardware landscape …

However, something else happened that summer which you won’t find in most history books… a Bell Labs researcher named Ken Thompson created the first version of Unix, which turned out to be one of the most important pieces of computer software ever invented.

This year, we celebrate 50 years of Unix! It was the summer of 1969 that Ken Thompson finished what came to be known as Unix over a three week period when his wife took his kid to visit the in-laws for summer. It wouldn't be hyperbole to suggest that what Ken accomplished literally revolutionised computing.

Bell Labs is …