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Bell Labs Unix Group Disbanded

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the sad-days-of-history dept.

wandazulu writes "Peter Salus over at UnixReview.com is reporting that AT&T Department 1127, responsible for creating and maintaining Unix, has been officially disbanded. The article provides an interesting "where are they now?" list of the original authors of Unix."

4 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Insensitive by WindBourne · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For politics, and religion is all. She was nothing but a vegtable. I feel sorry for her husband who had to be dragged through the mud by GWB, Jeb, Frist, Focus on the Family, etc. Even after it was over, Jeb tried anything that he could to make him look bad for simply doing what his wife wanted in the first place.

    Personally, I would love to see him sue all of them. But I am guessing that he just wants it over with and to be away from all the idiots.

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    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  2. Re:Serious question... by quanticle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does the invention of the entire C programming language count?

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    We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
  3. Re:we've still got Google, for now by JoeBuck · · Score: 5, Insightful
    No, there isn't high-quality research going on in garages and dorm rooms. Lots of entrepreneurs doing skunk-works projects, and that's great. But they don't have the level of funding, or the long-term perspective, that would let them invent the next laser or the next transistor (both products of Bell Labs), and they are too focused on a quick killing to discover the microwave remnant of the Big Bang (also from Bell Labs).

    We still have the universities, and IBM still has a sizable research division. But the exclusive focus by most of today's companies on the next quarter's revenue means we're eating the seed corn.

  4. Re:we've still got Google, for now by demachina · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An important thread to note here is that none other than Carly Fiorina is the one of the principals in spinning off Lucent and Bell Labs from AT&T. She looked like a superstar for it though in fact Lucent was mostly just a beneficiary of being a telecom/networking company during the bubble when none could fail. Their stock history is interesting from a peak around $80 in 2000 to $2.88 today. Carly's time in the sun at Lucent was from the spinoff in 1996 until she jumped to HP in 1999. Here is a glowing Businessweek article on her when she took the helm at HP then. One interesting quote:

    "she helped to turbocharge product development by the long-coddled Bell Labs engineers."

    A guy told me once on an airplane beware any company or person who makes the cover of Businessweek because it usually means they've peaked and are starting down. He said it in context of SGI and its a rule that worked just as well for Carly.

    Hindsight being 20/20 you have to wonder if Carly didn't get lucky at Lucent thanks to the bubble and she was made to look like a superstar when in fact she was a one women wrecking ball for research and development at both Lucent/Bell Labs and HP and its labs.

    Another Carly theme at Bell Labs, if you go to their web site today they are a case study in out sourcing with their greatest achievement today looking to be the fact that they have labs in China, India and Ireland.

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    @de_machina