Maximum PC

Hey all,

I've been noticing that a LOT of today's technology is a direct result of the work done at Bell Labs, and by those same men after Bell was broken up in various other companies.


For example, in 1969 Unix was released by the guys over at Bell Labs. Unix was the first portable OS, and it was fully multi-tasking, multi-user.

Unix brought with it things like the hierarchical file structure, and many other innovations. The fact that it was portable was huge though, no more was the OS built for a specific machine or platform, it could be used on any machine, provided there was a compiler for it.


Speaking of compilers, the C programming language was developed at Bell Labs as well. What percentage of today's software was coded in C? Over 90% IIRC. And that's applicable to Windows and most of it's software as well. Or at least a derivative of C,


How about things created at Xerox by some of the same guys? Things like the Monitor, the Mouse, the GUI. Those three inventions make up a good portion of what made the Apple possible, and from there Windows and Linux.




I just wonder why these guys at Bell Labs get so little credit for what they've done to computer technology this past 40 years. Most people I talk to (besides guys on these forums) don't know what Unix is, or why they have all these things that they take for granted in a PC.



Does anyone have a concise list of all the innovations developed by Bell Labs?



Dan

Here is a page with the Bell Labs (et al) Historical Timelines
broken down by decade, covering the past 80 years.

For whatever reason, the damn url's won't show correctly.

Go to http://www.alcatel-lucent.com and look for 'Historical Timelines'.

Damn, they even developed the first solar cells.