http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0201547775.01.TZZZZZZZ.jpg
By PeterSalus.  ISBN:0201547775

A gripping tale of how a system grew from a PDP with 4kB of core to today's 4GB workstations.  It does a pretty good job of conveying the spirit and design in which the system was conceived.

The book pretty approachable to the nonspecialist -- it doesn't assume you know what an ioctl(2) is, or even ls(1).  But I'm not sure how interesting it would be to people who don't like Unix at least a little bit.  It's more enjoyable if you can think `wow, imagine dc(1) running off a paper tape' as you go.

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We now have a GigaSecondOfUnix, measuring from the time(2) epoch. The clock struck 10^9 seconds in September 2001. 2^30 seconds (the computer engineer's ''Giga'') is a while later.

From 1970/01/01 00:00:00,
	* 10^9 seconds -> 2001/09/09 01:46:40
	* 2^30 seconds -> 2004/01/10 13:37:04

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Salus' latest, TheDaemonTheGnuAndThePenguin, also covers UnixHistory.

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CategoryBook CategoryUnix

See also: TheUnixHatersHandbook