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A project to resurrect Unix on the PDP-7 from a scan of the original assembly code

Language: Assembly

Making NetBSD Multiboot-Compatible (2007) | Aug 2023
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TIL there was a version of UNIX for PDP-7, and PDP-7 did not have MMU, therefore UNIX by definition do not require MMU, and that version of UNIX had been archeologied in a runnable form on GitHub[1]

1: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix
Unix Edition Zero (1971) | Feb 2023
You can run the PDP-7 version and an early slightly frankenstein'ed PDP-11 version in simh: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix https://github.com/DoctorWkt/unix-jun72
Simh/simh: The Computer History Simulation Project | Nov 2017
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> The first version of Unix was designed to run on a machine with in 24KB (that's kilobytes) of core memory

The very first of UNIX actually ran on a machine that couldn't even address that much memory, the PDP-7 has 13 bit addresses so you can only address 8k words of memory directly (1 word = 18 bits). The UNIX (or rather UNICS) kernel ran in 4k and left the other 4k for a user process; every context switch was a swap! If you want to try it out: https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix
The Development of the C Language* by Dennis Ritchie (1996) | Jun 2016
More details on "Primeval" C can be found here: https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/primevalC.html

Just recently, fragments of the earliest Unix OS source code and B interpreter were discovered [0]. Now, the earliest Unix for the PDP-7 and PDP-11 [1] can run under emulation thanks to the incredible efforts of Warren Toomey and others at the Unix Heritage Society [2].

[0] https://github.com/DoctorWkt/pdp7-unix

[1] https://github.com/DoctorWkt/unix-jun72

[2] http://www.tuhs.org