How the Mac was born... supposedly...

[Jim Leonard]

Mark Davidson wrote:
> Also, and I know this sounds picky, but it's not "Coherent Unix"... it's 
> "Coherent".  It has NO AT&T code in it.  The Mark Williams Company wrote 
> most of the code themselves, and eventually added support for X Windows 
> before the company folded.  Even the C compiler was theirs (and if I 
> remember correctly, they had a great C compiler for Intel chips).

You are absolutely right; it was indeed called just "Coherent".  I added the 
Unix as a reminder as to what Coherent was.  As for no AT&T code, you are also 
100% right, and in fact I believe either K or Ritchie himself (can't remember 
which one) came to MWC offices to verify it.

> I had many happy months working with Coherent in those days (back when a 
> "real" port of Unix would cost thousands of dollars), and was sorry to 
> see it go.

Yes, our founder made the fatal mistake of investing in X when he probably 
should have spent the money on a working TCP/IP implementation.

The manual, if you can grab a copy, remains one of the very best Unix manuals 
in existence.  It is extremely well-written by Fred Butzen, and is extremely 
comprehensive in not only the options to various commands but (more 
importantly) Unix design concepts.  It was great for total beginners; in fact, 
I remember toward the end that Linux users were ordering Coherent just to get 
the manual, because Linux documentation in 1994 was nearly non-existent.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
Want to help an ambitious games project?             http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at             http://www.mindcandydvd.com/