[Info-vax] Dennis Ritchie has passed on.

[George Cornelius]

In article <c25a46e4-a3a3-433d-b03e-4d45c72a8486 at m1g2000vbm.googlegroups.com>, Rich Jordan <jordan at ccs4vms.com> writes:
> Dennis Ritchie has passed away.  He was (one of?) the creator(s) of
> the C programming language and also a primary developer of Unix.

There are various interesting items at dmr's Bell Labs pages at

 http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/dmr/ .

At

 http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/mdmpipe.html

he excerpts from a 1964 memo by a fellow Bell Labs employee to whom
he gives the credit for Unix pipes:

>Here is the page-on-the-wall, retyped. A PDF scan (pretty big at 49K) scan of 
>the original lets you see that it was produced on a typewriter (and also the 
>damage over the years, and that the duplicated "when" phrase is historically 
>accurate). 
>                             - 10 - 
>
>                   Summary--what's most important. 
>
>
>To put my strongest concerns into a nutshell: 
>
>
>1. We should have some ways of connecting programs like garden hose--screw in 
>another segment when it becomes when it becomes necessary to massage data in 
>another way. This is the way of IO also. 

[...]

>M. D. McIlroy 
> October 11, 1964 
>
>
>What did Doug mean, and what came from the thoughts? 
>
>
>Point 1 is the interesting one. It provides the historical background for 
>Doug's encouragement of the Unix pipe notation. The linked paper gives 
>appropriate credit; in interviews, Doug has been explicit in saying that he 
>very nearly exercised managerial control to get pipes installed. 

[...]

>Point 1's garden hose connection analogy, though, is the one that ultimately 
>whacked us on the head to best effect.

And you can go here for dmr and friends' critique of the VAX
architecture based on information from DEC nondisclosure sessions:

 http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/vax1.html

George