catflap.org Online Dictionary Query

  Ken Thompson
       
           The principal inventor of the Unix operating
          system and author of the B language, the predecessor of
          C.
       
          In the early days Ken used to hand-cut Unix distribution
          tapes, often with a note that read "Love, ken".  Old-timers
          still use his first name (sometimes uncapitalised, because
          it's a login name and mail address) in third-person reference;
          it is widely understood (on Usenet in particular) that
          without a last name "Ken" refers only to Ken Thompson.
          Similarly, Dennis without last name means Dennis Ritchie
          (and he is often known as dmr).
       
          Ken was first hired to work on the Multics project, which
          was a huge production with many people working on it.  Multics
          was supposed to support hundreds of on-line logins but could
          barely handle three.
       
          In 1969, when Bell Labs withdrew from the project, Ken got fed
          up with Multics and went off to write his own operating
          system.  People said "well, if zillions of people wrote
          Multics, then an OS written by one guy must be Unix!".  There
          was some joking about eunichs as well.
       
          Ken's wife Bonnie and son Corey (then 18 months old) went to
          visit family in San Diego.  Ken spent one week each on the
          kernel, file system, etc., and finished UNIX in one month
          along with developing SPACEWAR (or was it "Space Travel"?).
       
          See also back door, brute force, demigod, wumpus.
       
          (1999-01-26)