WEBVTT - Techstuff Classic: Spotlight on Dennis Ritchie 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.080 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.120 --> 0:00:17.439 I'm your host Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:19.720 How Stuff Works and I heart Radio and I love 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.520 all things tech, and it's time for another classic episode 0:00:23.520 --> 0:00:27.840 of tech Stuff. This episode originally published on July two 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:32.800 thousand twelve. It's titled Spotlight on Dennis Ritchie. So who 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:36.800 was Dennis Ritchie and what were his contributions to technology? 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:40.000 As it turns out, they were many and they were significant. 0:00:40.159 --> 0:00:43.000 So Chris Ballette and I sit down and talk about 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:47.960 this influential technologist. Enjoy. Jonathan and I were talking about 0:00:47.960 --> 0:00:49.800 topics to record and we thought, you know, we should, 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:54.200 we should um talk about one of the most famous 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:57.440 or non famous famous people there are in tech. Yeah, 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.880 this is a guy who was incredibly influential in technology. 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:07.759 In fact, without him, our technological landscape would be totally 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.000 different as far as computer science goes. And this is 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.800 this is, of course, the the late great Dennis Ritchie 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:19.039 Dennis McAllister Ritchie UH and or d M R as 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:23.040 he was sometimes known UH. Tragically, Dennis Ritchie passed away 0:01:23.120 --> 0:01:26.360 last year and In fact, his his body was discovered 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.800 a week after Steve Jobs passed away, and so his 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:34.839 death was somewhat eclipsed by Steve Jobs's death because Steve 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:37.800 Jobs had a real cult of personality around him for 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:43.040 various reasons. Right, he sort of embodied personified, if you will, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.760 the corporation of Apple, and so very much was identified 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:52.480 with that brand. Now, Dennis Ritchie, his contributions, you could argue, 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.640 went far beyond Steve Jobs as contributions. In fact, a 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.400 lot of programmers out there were very much upset that 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:05.200 his passing did not receive the same sort of coverage 0:02:05.440 --> 0:02:07.400 that Steve Jobs did. But Steve Jobs was a much 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:11.200 more public figure, and um it was was sort of 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.720 a marketing genius as well, not sort of, he was 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.400 a marketing genius and whereas Dennis Richie was sort of 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.840 an architect of of what computers do today, and and 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:27.560 it was a different two different types of people. Yeah, 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.079 And doing some research on on Dennis Ritchie, I feel 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:35.200 like that's probably the way he preferred things. He wasn't 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.720 really the kind of of public personality type. He wasn't 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:43.840 necessarily looking for, uh, the public plaudits. Um, Although I 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.320 think he probably enjoyed being appreciated by by others. UM. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:52.120 And of course, really Steve Jobs and Apple wouldn't be 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:55.600 where they, you know, where they were at the time 0:02:55.639 --> 0:03:00.280 of Steve's passing last year, UM without the efforts Dennis 0:03:00.360 --> 0:03:03.160 Richie and many others who worked with him. Very true, 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:05.680 very true. And as you say, Dennis Ritchie was a 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:08.079 very private man, so was Steve Jobs. But Steve Jobs 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:10.200 would also put himself out in front of crowds in 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:12.799 order to talk about products. That's not what Dennis Richie did, 0:03:12.960 --> 0:03:15.880 although he did write one of the most famous books 0:03:15.880 --> 0:03:19.720 and programming, which we will get into. So Steve had 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.000 a public face that's right, very very well put. And 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.519 I have to say that before I really dive into here, 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:30.600 I found one article in particular incredibly informative and touching 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:33.040 really about Dennis Richie. And there are there are a 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:34.840 lot of articles out there that have been written since 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:37.680 his passing, But the one in particular that I want 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.040 to mention because a lot of my information came from 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:43.920 this article was written by Cade Mets of Wired and 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:47.160 it's called Dennis Ritchie the Shoulders Steve Jobs Stood On, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.880 and it's an excellent read. So I highly recommend you 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:55.320 go to Wired and check that out before before you 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.880 turn this podcast off, write that down because it's a 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:02.000 really good article. Yeah. I think that. Um, a lot 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:06.360 of the articles that came out immediately following Dennis Ritchie's 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:11.120 passing had sort of a Steve jobs connection simply because 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:14.200 they passed at that time there a week of each other. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.600 there there There wasn't a connection connection like these guys 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.880 hung out all the time. It wasn't like it wasn't 0:04:19.920 --> 0:04:23.120 like Jobs was and Ritchie all right, yeah, I think 0:04:23.120 --> 0:04:26.200 you come back at the local coffee shop. No, but 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:30.160 I think there there's a tie in simply because uh 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.599 those two events were uh so close together. But um, yeah, 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.560 let's let's talk about about Dennis here. He was born 0:04:38.680 --> 0:04:44.000 September nine in uh in New York, Bronxville, New York, yep, yep. 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:46.880 And he was and he passed away in New Jersey 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:50.839 and Berkeley Heights on October and October. Yeah, we don't 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:54.480 know exactly when because his body was found tragically, so 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:59.039 we don't know exactly the day. His father was Alistair E. Ritchie, 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:03.560 who was a scientist and an authority on switching circuit theory, 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:09.960 and he was an employee with Bell Laboratories or laboratories. Yes, 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:15.480 it's it's funny to me going going towards the traditional there. 0:05:15.520 --> 0:05:18.040 His father was Alistair and his middle name was mac Alistair, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:23.400 which son of Alistair. Very well done. I like that, yes, um. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:25.479 And it was one of those just a little trivia 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:27.520 type facts that you pick up when you're when you're 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.080 researching someone like that. But nicely done, guys. He he 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.960 was an apt student and he attended Harvard University. He 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:38.920 graduated with degrees in physics and applied mathematics. And then 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.120 when he decided to go into graduate school, also at Harvard, 0:05:42.440 --> 0:05:45.760 he began to work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:48.359 m i T. And he worked in their computer center. 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:50.239 And as he worked in the computer center, he became 0:05:50.320 --> 0:05:52.760 so interested in computer science he decided that was what 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:55.720 he wanted to focus in as opposed to pure mathematics, 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:59.839 although the two two fields have a lot in common 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.640 one another. And this is this is another illustration of 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.919 how much, how much of an effect that these computer 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.840 pioneers had um when he was going when he had 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:13.240 made that decision he wanted to get into computer science 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:15.080 It wasn't like he said, Oh, I'm going to go 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:17.720 to UH, to Harvard or m I team get my 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.640 computer science degree. There wasn't a computer science degree at 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:25.760 that time. UM, it's thanks to people like these that 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.919 we have such a strong computer science field. And in fact, 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:34.200 the work they did end up being the syllabus for 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.479 for for those computer science degrees. I mean, like his 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:42.039 his work on the on programming is one of the 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:48.120 fundamental UH foundation blocks for learning about programming and computer 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.800 science today. So while he uh is going through this 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:55.320 graduate work, he ends up getting a PhD from Harvard. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:07:00.560 His dissertation was called program Structure and Computational Complexity, which 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.160 was something he really did excel at that became a 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.039 focus of his. While he was there working through this, 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:13.400 he got a a request, a recruitment request from Sandia 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:19.760 National Laboratories. And Sandia National Laboratories was a weapons research 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:25.000 and testing company, and so they were offering him bookoo's 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:28.480 of cash to be part of their team. But this 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.880 was in the nineteen sixties and Richie kind of had 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:35.440 this philosophy that perhaps a weapons testing facility might not 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:37.360 be the place he would want to end up in, 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:41.120 and so he turned it down, although we we just 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:45.040 mentioned Sandy National Laboratories a short time ago on a 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:51.160 podcast about supercomputers. So instead he went and joined a 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:55.280 different lab, Bell Labs, same place as Dad had worked, 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.880 and he joined in nineteen sixty seven, and uh he 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:04.480 was first put on a project where he was going 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.840 to be working with a team from m I T 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.280 along with a fellow named Ken Thompson. Now that's a 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.120 very important name as well. Thompson and Ritchie together have 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.280 done a lot of work and laid that groundwork on 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:23.760 computer science. They were originally working with his team from 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:25.880 m I T. Thompson, by the way, also worked for 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.920 Bell Labs. They were working with his team from m 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.959 I T to build a new operating system called Multics 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:37.880 m U L T I c S. However, halfway through 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:41.439 the project, funding gets pulled it. It just decided the 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.320 project wasn't moving fast enough or it wasn't going to 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.040 budget at any rate. For some reason or another, the 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:51.679 project was was trashed and Richie and Thompson were a 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.080 little put off by this because they wanted to build 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:59.080 an operating system that would support their programming efforts across 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:01.839 multiple platform forms and that was a real problem because 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:04.400 back in these days, in the sixties, a lot of 0:09:04.440 --> 0:09:08.240 these computers had proprietary operating systems that worked only upon 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:11.760 that computer, So the machine and the operating system were 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:15.680 married together. You didn't find the same operating system across 0:09:15.800 --> 0:09:19.080 multiple types of machines, kind of the way you could 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:23.000 argue Apple works, you know, because the Apple OS and 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:27.480 the hardware are so closely aligned. Right right. Um, Now, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.600 did you mention who had been funding Multics? I did not. 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.199 That would be the Advanced Research Projects Agency or a 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:41.000 Gosh that names sounds familiar. So since since poltics gets pulled, 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:44.480 they decided they wanted to continue and try and build 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.800 their own operating system. Now there's something else I wanted 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.720 to mention about multics though, was it was a time 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.000 sharing system which means that you go and hang out 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:57.640 there and have a nice vacation. No, it means that 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.720 you have multiple terminals that hook up to us centralized 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.960 computer and that as you are working on stuff, you 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:09.360 get time allotted to you to access the computer's processing power. Yeah, 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.640 so when you're working on it, that means nobody else 0:10:12.760 --> 0:10:15.920 is well. Although they way these time sharing systems worked 0:10:15.960 --> 0:10:18.040 is that it would switch back and forth so quickly 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:21.520 as to seem like everyone's working simultaneously. But in truth, 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:24.760 if you were to really divide up the time, very 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.959 specific moments would be allocated to each user depending on 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.440 how many users there are for that particular system. Yeah, 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.400 but it was it was single tasking. Um. And something 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.920 else to note too is that this was in a 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:40.920 time when UM, the programmer would need to create a 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:44.520 series of punched cards to to uh to put this 0:10:44.559 --> 0:10:48.000 into the machine. So you're programming is done on punched cards, 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:52.360 and then you give it to someone to compile for 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:54.440 you and put into the machine. So once you're done 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.240 writing the program, you hand off the deck of cards 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.680 and go work on something else. And then the through 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.280 the compiling process, you find out whether or not your 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.680 program works exactly. So the so the programmer Dennis Ritchie 0:11:06.760 --> 0:11:09.040 realized that there are important things going on here. He 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:13.160 wanted to change. He wanted to have more of an impact. 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.800 He wanted to feel like he was more engaged with 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:18.680 the process. He also felt like, UM, he wanted to 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:23.199 work with other people collaboratively on the computer system. UM 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.680 and uh. You know, these were things that influenced his 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:31.040 and and Ken Thompson's decision making where they wanted to 0:11:31.080 --> 0:11:34.400 do with this next operating system. So Thompson starts to 0:11:34.440 --> 0:11:36.960 work on this, and he starts to build this operating 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.600 system using assembly language. But here's the problem is simply 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.040 language just did not give the full amount of control 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:46.360 that they needed to build out an operating system that 0:11:46.400 --> 0:11:50.679 could manage all the data across all the different parts 0:11:50.679 --> 0:11:53.440 of this operating system. Because you gotta remember, the operating 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:56.360 system handles data that's coming from user input, it's handling 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.640 data from the file system, from from any storage that 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:02.920 is connected to this computer. Uh, it has to handle 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.080 the data that comes out of the processing after the 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:09.520 CPUs processed it. There's a lot of different moving pieces here, 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:15.080 well virtually moving pieces or pieces that are virtual anyway, 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:17.720 there are a lot of pieces and so and so 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.040 the problem is that the assembly language was not sophisticated 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:25.120 enough to do this in an elegant way. So if 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.360 the assembly language isn't doing it, what's your solution. Well, 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.240 if you're Dennis Ritchie, your solution is build a new 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:37.640 programming language. Yeah, the the assembly language was so close 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.600 to the kernel, to the operating system that or to 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.520 the UM I'm sorry to the hardware that it just 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:46.760 made life really difficult. And so he what his solution 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:50.640 didn't take you much farther away, but it was far 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:52.840 enough away that it made a big difference in the 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:56.400 way you would write at the time that he developed, 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.400 and the language he developed was the C programming language. 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.840 At the time that developed that, that was considered a 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.120 high level programming language. Today we would not say that. 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:06.920 We would say it's a much lower level because there 0:13:06.920 --> 0:13:09.760 are higher level programming languages that have been developed since then. 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:12.520 But at the time it was considered a high level 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:16.600 programming language, meaning that it was a further step out 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:21.160 from the physical layer of the computer. And it's kind 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:23.959 of interesting, like first, before he did that, they started 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:27.440 to think about using four trand to try and create 0:13:27.520 --> 0:13:30.160 the Unix operating system by the way, Unix. By the way, 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.360 it was originally spelled un I c S, but because 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.959 we pronounced that Unix, they just replaced the CS with 0:13:37.040 --> 0:13:39.880 an X eventually. Uh so that's why it's spelled you 0:13:40.040 --> 0:13:43.320 in I x UM anyway, And it was a playoff 0:13:43.360 --> 0:13:46.040 the Multics name. That was what they were working on before. 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:48.240 So they tried to use four trend well, four tran 0:13:48.360 --> 0:13:51.160 was as a programming language that was really really well 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:57.000 suited for scientific applications. Uh, and it was too limited 0:13:57.040 --> 0:14:00.000 for them, so they abandoned using for trend. There were 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.920 few other options, but they were again meant for very 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.880 specific applications, and they wanted something more general. So what 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.600 what Richie did was he took, uh, he looked at 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.480 a programming language that Thompson had developed called the B 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:18.720 programming language B as in boy h, which depending upon 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:20.880 which theory you're reading, could have been named after his 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:24.640 wife or a different programming language. Anyway, Richie took that 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:26.760 and then he thought he got stung on the day 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:31.200 that he uh, there you could have been who knows. 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:33.720 I'll get Thompson on the phone. We'll have a chat. 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:35.640 Chris and I have a lot more to say about 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:46.160 Dennis Ritchie, but first let's take a quick break. So 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.920 Richie he ended up taking looking at the B programming language, 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.240 and then he developed his own programming language called C. 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.720 And again, the only reason that he built the C 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.360 programming language, or at least the original intent, was just 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:06.680 so they could build Unix. And it's kind of important 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.960 to realize that because I think based upon everything I've read, 0:15:10.040 --> 0:15:13.200 and granted this is all from secondhand information. It wasn't 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.880 something that Dennis Richie wrote himself. It feels like he 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:22.080 never knew how extensive this language would go throughout the 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.920 computer field. He was doing it for a very practical purpose. 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.000 He needed a different language in order to build the 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:32.680 operating system they wanted to have. So he never really 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.680 realized at the time that C programming language was going 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:40.680 to become such a huge, uh, fundamental part of computer science. 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.520 If he had, maybe he would have felt the pressure 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:47.600 a bit more. Well, actually, in a way, he didn't 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.640 need to feel as pressured. UM. It's good baby that 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.600 he that he was sort of divorced from that. UM. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:57.600 He was he was trying to use this uh, this 0:15:57.680 --> 0:16:00.320 old machine that they had at Bell Labs. It's it 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.640 was a Digital Equipment Corporation also known as Deck PDP 0:16:04.840 --> 0:16:09.080 seven UM and Unix. You know, they put Unix on 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:11.800 that machine, or that was the point of creating Unix, 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.960 was to operate this machine, but also to operate others. UM. 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:18.560 And it wasn't long after that after they were doing 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.920 this that they got a PDP eleven computer. UM. And 0:16:23.000 --> 0:16:26.320 the nice thing about Unix was it was computer independent, 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:28.960 so they would they would be able to use Unix 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:35.680 on multiple different computers, not just that one particular machine. So, um, 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.680 you know they were able to to migrate Unix and 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.880 run it on that other machine and use the programming 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:45.240 language C to write software for it. Yeah, this this 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:50.040 was a fairly new idea. Unix was not the first 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.440 operating system that could be used on different machines, but 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.480 it was one of the first. And I'm sorry I 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:57.840 didn't go interrupted, and I was gonna say if you'll remember, 0:16:57.880 --> 0:17:00.480 we are not long ago. A few weeks we did 0:17:00.640 --> 0:17:04.199 a podcast about the beginnings of the Internet and one 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:06.919 of the first challenges and and and those guys were 0:17:06.960 --> 0:17:12.160 working on on these challenges about the same time as 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:15.440 Richie and Thompson were working on They're trying to solve 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.800 these problems. Um, they had multiple computers in different locations, 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.320 and they all used a different operating system. So you know, 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:27.880 these these computer pioneers were doing something very important. They've 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.040 realized that this is just a pain in the neck, 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:34.399 and you have to find ways to get computers on 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:37.680 the same operating system, running the same programming language. Take 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.680 talking to each other in the same protocol in order 0:17:40.720 --> 0:17:43.359 to get them to work more efficiently well. And also 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.840 the idea behind this is that for programmers it makes 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.199 things way easier because otherwise, if you're a programmer and 0:17:50.240 --> 0:17:53.080 you're going into programming, you had to learn how to 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:57.679 navigate specific operating systems for specific machines, which meant that 0:17:57.720 --> 0:18:01.240 you might be an expert on two, maybe or three 0:18:01.280 --> 0:18:04.879 machines max. Two three different types machines, but then you 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.560 get introduced to another one and the operating system might 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.320 be completely foreign to you because each one had its own. 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:14.640 The approach that that Richie and Thompson had meant that 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.359 the same operating system could be found across multiple different machines. 0:18:18.480 --> 0:18:21.000 You could just learn that one, and once you've learned 0:18:21.040 --> 0:18:23.879 that one, you're good to go. You can program for 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:28.280 all sorts of machines, which was a revolutionary development in 0:18:28.320 --> 0:18:31.160 computer science. You know, it's easy for us to forget 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.080 that now because we're so used to that world, even 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:36.240 though in some ways the old world is kind of 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:40.440 coming back with various manufacturers making very proprietary approaches to 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.760 things so that you can't, you know, the methodology used 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:45.879 to work on one set of devices doesn't work on 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:48.840 another set. We're starting to see that again now, but 0:18:48.920 --> 0:18:52.600 for a long time, it was this philosophy of let's 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:56.520 develop something that's going to work across the entire landscape 0:18:56.560 --> 0:19:00.400 of computers, so that way, uh, you know, people can 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:04.440 really concentrate on mastering programming and not have to worry 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:09.080 about mastering it for just one set of type of 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.880 computational device, whether it's a computer or handheld device, whatever 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:17.040 it is. So that's sort of the development of Unix, 0:19:17.119 --> 0:19:23.520 and uh it got it's hard to explain the impact 0:19:23.600 --> 0:19:25.679 of this operating system. Part of the reason it had 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:30.320 such a huge impact had to do with the constraints 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:33.400 that a T and T was under because you had, 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:36.200 you know, a T and T there the the head 0:19:36.280 --> 0:19:41.160 of what Bell Labs was, parent company of Bell Labs. Uh. 0:19:41.440 --> 0:19:44.520 They the reason why Unix. One of the reasons why 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:47.280 Unix worked so well is that it ended up being 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:52.120 distributed across various research facilities and universities. And the reason 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:55.000 why it was distributed for free is because a T 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:59.600 and T legally could not sell this operating system. And 0:19:59.640 --> 0:20:01.800 the reason and for that is that at the time 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.280 when this was going on, a T and T was 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.360 a telephone monopoly in the United States, and as a 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:12.840 telephone anyway essentially a monopoly. They don't have to be 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:14.639 the only player to be a monopoly, they have to 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:18.640 be the only mega major player, and they certainly were, 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.320 and so they were essentially a monopoly in the United States. 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.199 And because they were, they had to operate under what 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:29.080 is called a consent decree, and that consent decree meant 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:33.240 that they could not branch into another industry like computers, 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:37.480 because they already held a monopoly over another industry, so 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:40.960 they could not by law sell this operating system. So 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.920 instead they distributed it freely to these research facilities and universities, 0:20:46.280 --> 0:20:50.080 which and they also offered up a license which allowed 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.520 these these different institutions to take the operating system and 0:20:53.520 --> 0:20:56.840 tweak it to their own needs. So Unix ended up 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:02.240 propagating across a wide array of educational organizations and other 0:21:02.240 --> 0:21:08.199 institutions and became a solid foundation for students who were 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.919 interested in programming because now they suddenly had access to 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:14.879 this operating system platform that they didn't have access to before. 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:17.280 And it was free, so there was no cost to 0:21:17.320 --> 0:21:20.320 the students or to the universities, and it meant that 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:27.280 the whole field of computer science accelerated exponentially because there 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:31.680 was suddenly access to two very sophisticated tools that there 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.720 wasn't before. So we started to see a lot more 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:42.040 people going into programming. Eventually, this actually led to UH 0:21:42.240 --> 0:21:46.320 Richie writing a book, co writing a book, I should say, 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:49.520 and that book is the C Programming Language. But it's 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.800 frequently referred to as the K and R Book. And 0:21:53.920 --> 0:21:56.840 it's called K and R after the last names of 0:21:56.880 --> 0:22:00.240 the two authors, So Dennis Ritchie as the R, the 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:04.200 K is Brian Carnigan and Uh. And so if you've 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:06.480 ever heard anyone or if you are a programmer, you 0:22:06.640 --> 0:22:08.199 think of the K and R Book as being one 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:12.600 of those sacred texts that that everyone values. If you've 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.480 talked to a programmer and you've heard this phrase, that's 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:18.160 what it refers to as the C programming Language. I remember, 0:22:18.320 --> 0:22:22.159 um Lennis tor Volts talked about the K in our 0:22:22.240 --> 0:22:25.280 book like being a big influence on him when he 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:29.960 was getting into programming. And Uh it's widely praised as 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.320 a very accessible book on the subject of programming, and 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:35.960 part of that it's because the C programming language itself 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:40.920 is very relatively simple. It's got a very simple grammar 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:45.240 and syntax and is paired down to just the bare necessities. 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:49.160 Not the song from the Jungle Book. I didn't sing it. 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:53.200 It's going through my head already, but anyway, it's paired down, 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.399 so it's very it's it's very spare. It's meant to 0:22:57.400 --> 0:22:59.639 be that way so that it doesn't take up a 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:02.560 lot of base and everything runs really smoothly and quickly 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:05.280 on a machine. We have a bit more we want 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:08.560 to talk about, as far as Dennis Ritchie goes, and 0:23:08.640 --> 0:23:10.960 so we will do that as soon as we come 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:24.199 back from this quake break. So. Uh. Interestingly enough, A 0:23:24.320 --> 0:23:28.280 T and T releases Unix out right. Well years later 0:23:28.720 --> 0:23:32.520 they were no longer held under the consent decree. Turns 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:34.320 out A T T gut a little bit of a 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:38.320 they had a little breakup with themselves. Breaking up is 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.600 hard to do all over the place. Uh, and lots 0:23:41.640 --> 0:23:43.359 of other companies came out of this whole A T 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:46.400 and T thing. Well, once that happened, they said, hey, 0:23:46.480 --> 0:23:49.520 you know what, we want Unix again. So they started 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:53.959 to try and language they tried to yeah, exactly. They 0:23:53.960 --> 0:23:57.640 tried to re establish their proprietary hold over Unix. As 0:23:57.680 --> 0:24:02.159 a result of that, it's sort of helped first of 0:24:02.200 --> 0:24:05.960 all unichs to being distributed throughout universities. That that kind 0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:08.840 of started that seed of an idea of open source, 0:24:09.600 --> 0:24:13.520 this idea of code that is created and then distributed 0:24:13.520 --> 0:24:16.960 freely and then people can actually manipulate that code under 0:24:17.080 --> 0:24:22.000 certain specific circumstances. And so that's kind of planted that seed. Well, 0:24:22.000 --> 0:24:24.639 once a T and T started try and grab that back, 0:24:25.080 --> 0:24:28.960