Trivial Net - Computer and Tech Trivia for Geeks

UNIX version 7

December 26th, 2007

Question: What University ’stole’ Version 7 of UNIX before it was released?

• University of California, Berkeley
• University of Waterloo
• Georgia Institute of Technology
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Answer: University of Waterloo

Dennis Ritchie came to Waterloo to give a talk to the Computer Science Club about the then ’soon-to-be-released’ version 7. For his demos, he dialed up Bell Labs; he was very careful to hide the phone number, however, because he didn’t have a password on his account back then. Everybody was suitably impressed and Ritchie returned to New Jersey. A month later, the Computer Science Club’s long distance phone bill arrived, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Entry Filed under: Trivia