AT&T Bell Laboratories programmers Kenneth Thompson and Dennis Ritchie
developed the UNIX operating system on a spare DEC minicomputer.  UNIX
combined many of the timesharing and file management features offered
by Multics, from which it took its name. (Multics, a projects of the mid-
1960s, represented the first effort at creating a multi-user, multi-tasking
operating system.)  The UNIX operating system quickly secured a wide
following, particularly among engineers and scientists.