The path of computing innovation

Kelly McNeill writes “In 1968, Brian Kernigan and Dennis Ritchie managed to cobble together a simple little operating system, which they hoped would give them some of the best features of Multics. The two started with a PDP-8 (because it was cheap), and within a few years had evolved it into a utilitarian operating system. Unfortunately, AT&T was a tightly regulated monopoly and was not allowed to sell UNIX for fear that it might gain a monopoly of both telecommunications technology and computer technology. How ironic that Microsoft now threatens to control both.”