Dennis Ritchie Essay, Research Paper

Overview

While at AT & A ; T Bell Laboratories, Dennis Ritchie, along

with Ken Thompson, developed the UNIX computing machine runing system for minicomputers.

He subsequently developed the scheduling linguistic communication called C, which has become a

practical criterion in the microcomputer/workstation market place.

Dennis Ritchie was born on Sept. 9, 1941 in Bronxville, New York. After

making undergraduate and alumnus work in natural philosophies and applied mathematics

at Harvard University, Ritchie joined Bell Labs in 1968.

In the mid-1960s, Bell Labs entered into a partnership with Honeywell,

General Electric, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT )

to develop an operating system for a big computing machine that could manage

up to a 1000 coincident users and could run 24 hours a twenty-four hours, 365

yearss a twelvemonth. Ritchie and Ken Thompson were involved in the design from

the Bell Labs side. Unfortunately, none of the companies had a computing machine

that could manage the development of their plan. Finally, Bell Labs

was convinced to purchase a $ 100,000-plus PDP 11/20 by promises from Ritchie

and Thompson that their group would develop a word processing system for

the lab. In 1969, Ritchie and Thompson gave the lab their word processing

plan, but in the interim managed to develop the UNIX system, which

was their ultimate end all along.

UNIX was a major progress in calculating, giving users characteristics and maps

unavailable earlier. In add-on, it was simple and proved that a little

operating system could be portable, machine independent, and low-cost.

It had a profound impact on the development of DOS, the Mac OS, Windows

NT, and other runing systems.

In 1972, Ritchie created the C scheduling linguistic communication and, in 1973, Thompson

rewrote the UNIX runing system meats in C. The tremendous popularity

of C in the computing machine industry has resulted in it going virtually the

standard scheduling linguistic communication in the microcomputer/workstation market.

Unix, because it is written in the C linguistic communication, is more portable & # 8212 ; less

machine-specific & # 8212 ; than other runing systems. In 1976, Ritchie and

Thompson realized that this portability was a discovery. UNIX could

be used on any machine and clients were no longer required to utilize the

operating system that came prepackaged with the hardware they bought.

This was a extremist alteration at a clip when every computing machine and its operating

system were inseparable. By 1977, more than 500 sites were running UNIX.

As caput of Bell Lab & # 8217 ; s Calculating Techniques Research section,

Ritchie continued to work on runing systems during the late 1980s and

early 1990s, including Berylliums

ll Lab’s Plan 9. Plan 9 is UNIX’s reply

to competition from other runing system engineerings like Microsoft & # 8217 ; s

Windows NT. It contains much of the engineering that was left out of UNIX,

such as networking and distributed calculating. Despite its name, which

is a bantering testimonial to the campy cult movie “ Plan 9 from

Outer Space, ” Plan 9 is a serious enterprise that combines some of

the best engineering and technology endowment in the industry.

Awards and Books

In 1988, Ritchie was inducted into the DATAMATION Hall of Fame in acknowledgment

for doing a major part to information processing and its corollary

engineerings. In 1989, PC Magazine recognized Ritchie with its

Lifetime Achievement Award for Technical Excellence. In 1994, Ritchie

was a receiver of the Computer Pioneer Award from the International Electrical

& A ; Electronic Engineering ( IEEE ) Computer Society. In add-on, he

is a Bell Laboratories Fellow.

In 1971, Ritchie and Thompson wrote the UNIX Programmer & # 8217 ; s Manual

and in the early 1970s Ritchie co-authored The C Programming Language

with Brian Kernighan.

Drumhead

Dennis Ritchie remains at AT & A ; T ( under its new name & # 8211 ; Lucent Technologies,

Inc. ) as caput of the System Software Research Department, where he is

working on Bell Lab & # 8217 ; s latest offering, Inferno. Inferno is a mini-operating

system that lets anything from workstations to set-top boxes to hand-held

devices entree synergistic communications and amusement services.

Bibliography

Kopf, David “ Inferno: Fiery New Network OS, or Merely

More Hot Air ” America & # 8217 ; s Network, June 1, 1996

“ The 20 Most Important Peoples ” Byte, September

1995

Spafford, Eugene “ UNIX and Security: The Influences

of History ” Information Systems Security, September 1, 1995

Lee, J.A.N. “ IEEE Computer Society Awards Presented

at 1994 Supercomputer Conference ” IEEE Annals of the History of Computing,

Summer 95

Patrizio, Andy “ Bell Labs Hopes Plan 9 OS Gains a

Cult Audience ” Personal computer Week, April 10, 1995

“ Unix ” Microsoft? Encarta, Funk & A ; Wagnall & # 8217 ; s

Corporation, 1994

“ C ( computing machine ) ” Microsoft? Encarta, Funk & A ;

Wagnall & # 8217 ; s Corporation, 1993

Garfinkel, Simson L. “ Programs to the Peoples ”

Technology Review, February 1, 1991

Machrone, Bill “ Lifetime Achievement ” Personal computer Magazine,

January 17, 1989

Ritchie, Dennis “ What Lies Ahead ” Byte, January

1989

Runyan, Linda “ The Datamation Hall of Fame ”

Datamation, September 15, 1988