UNIX History and Architecture

UNIX architecture is a PC interface architecture which represents the UNIX theory. It might subscribe to specifications such as the Single UNIX standards (SUS) or similar POSIX IEEE specification (Tanenbaum, 1995). Not a single available specification explains all about the UNIX interface PC system. By and large, this has been a heritage of the UNIX feuds. However, there are many systems that are UNIX-like in their development, like GNU/Linux distributions (Kai Hwang, 1993). UNIX and Unix-like structures have been at the core of heated legal wars, and the holders of the UNIX brand. UNIX kernel for instance, has main elements of the operating system, which comprises of many kernel subsystems such as process control, memory control, file control, device control and network control. The UNIX substructures include features like; Concurrency. Virtual memory, Paging and Real-time data system. UNIX history stretch way back in 1965, when Bell Labs in cooperation with MIT and General Electric assembled their best brains together to code a new computer interface, known as Multics, which offers a multi-user, multiprocessor and hierarchical data system, in a continuum of its many features (ISO/IEC, 1996). This then formed an architecture that was seen and independent and opens to the end user. UNIX was first used as a text processing system for the copyright domain at Bell Laboratories, an aspect that justified additional research and development by the coding faction (Butenhof, 1997). In terms of comparisons, both UNIX and Windows systems employ real time screening. Unlike Windows PC system, which is highly susceptible to espionage attacks hence rendering the interface a security threat, UNIX is completely the opposite, because it’s built on a 64 bit an architecture that’s rather rigorous for most hackers to penetrate. When it comes to aesthetic, windows looks more appealing and user friendly, while UNIX is quite is the opposite (Bacon, 1993).

References

Kai Hwang. (1993). Advanced Computer Architecture: Parallelism, Scalability, Programmability. McGraw-Hill.

Jean Bacon (1993). Concurrent Systems: An Integrated Approach to Operating Systems, Database, and Distributed Systems. Addison-Wesley,

Andrew S. Tanenbaum (1995). Distributed Operating Systems. Prentice Hall.

ISO/IEC (1996). Information Technology-Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX): System Application Program Interface (API) (C Language). ANSI/IEEE Std. 1003.1. Edition. 9945-1: IEEE Standards Office.

David R. Butenhof (1997). Programming with POSIX Threads.. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc.