UNIX
Most Computer users have a very little concept about Operating Systems. Let us make some light upon a very different Operating system called UNIX. It is much more than the MSDOS. Talking about its history, it was built at the AT&T Laboratories in late 1960s. A design was made by Rudd Canady and later this design was improved to UNIX by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie. Its earlier name was UNICS or Uni-plexed Information and Computing System that finally changed into UNIX. It is written in C language. There were many reasons for the popularity of UNIX. Different commands were there for performing different tasks. More than one command can be connected to perform tasks simultaneously. The system provides pattern-matching feature. One cannot use just file name for pattern matching but also can provide expressions. The wild card characters i.e., “*” and “?” can be used for this. UNIX system treats all file alike. Files can contain anything i.e., text, directory structures etc. the system is portable. Unlike MSDOS, UNIX can be provided to different clients through server. This implies that UNIX is a multi-user system i.e., it can be used simultaneously at more than one system. It is also multi-tasking, i.e., an user can run more than one task process simultaneously. UNIX provides online help facility with a command. This displays name with syntax of specified command.
Alongwith these merits, there are some demerits too with UNIX. As there are different commands to perform different tasks, it makes the list of commands lengthy and difficult to remember each command, about its use and syntax. Of all the commands can be combined with each other. UNIX was designed for programmers but not for any end-user. Only the persons knowing the commands can work on it. It does not provide user-friendly environment as it is offered in today’s Operating Systems like Windows.
Beside all this, UNIX has very strong security system i.e., only the registered users can use the system. The user is provided with login ID and password. So, there is no chance of changing the documents by any user.