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===BASH: A Simple History=== '''by Ralph E. Figueroa''' Linux has a long history with its shells. There is the '''KORN Shell''' (ksh), '''C Shell''' (csh) and quite a few others which are still used to this day, and yet none has had as much coverage in the mainstream of tech media as the '''BASH''' or '''B'''ourne '''A'''gain '''SH'''ell. In respects to the idea of the shell, it is supposed to be the interface between human and computer. If we were to go back to 1969, when Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie were first creating UNIX on a PDP 7, one would find mainframes using teletype systems to interface directly with the computer. Television/Video monitors on these machines were either used for early CAD/CAM design or were an added luxury of the times. Computers were mostly still too expensive for the general public to own. The vast majority of computers were either used by government entities, engineering firms, companies that were in the areas of finance or insurance, and a small group of Universities (with the exception of small companies and/or individual hobbyists who were able to gain access to these machines). Batch Processing and Time Sharing were the thing, yet by 1969, as the cost of having video terminals drastically decreased, these much friendlier peripherils started to be used more often as the primary interface, versus the teletype, swiftly bringing the end to the latter in favor of its less noisy and non-mechanical counterpart. A video terminal would oftentimes be connected using a cable, such as an RS-232 serial cable and commands would be issued directly to the mainframe to perform various functions or execute programs, with real time feedback being provided on screen versus the delayed response from printed type. However, it would take 2 years for Ken Thompson to create the first Unix Shell, '''The Thompson Shell''' (1971). According to WIKIPEDIA<sup>1</sup>, the Thompson Shell was "a simple command interpreter, not designed for scripting..." yet, somehow developers discovered that they could create scripts with a little tweaking. Development on the '''Bourne shell''' started in 1976, later on being released in 1979, with Version 7 of Unix<sup>2</sup>, where it would replace the Thompson Shell oficially. Some of the new features that were added included: # Allowing shell scripts to be used as filters. # Ability to program control flow and variables. # Providing an environment mechanism which allowed the establishment of startup context.<sup>3</sup> Bash started it's development thanks due in part to Richard Stallman, of GNU fame, being dissatisfied with the former developer of a prior shell project, "For a year and a half, the GNU shell was 'just about done'. The author made repeated promises to deliver what he had done, and never kept them. Finally I could no longer believe he would ever deliver anything."<sup>4</sup> Brian Fox would begin coding Bash on January 10, 1988 while he was an employee of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)<sup>5</sup>. It was released as version 0.99 and has been offered by the FSF freely since its intial release. During the first half of 1989, Chet Ramey would start to contribute to the shell until 1995, where he would become its chief contributor and maintainer, as he started to develop version 2.0. Public release of 2.0 would occur on December 23, 1996. As of today's writing, Bash is still maintained by Chet Ramey and apparently he is also owned by cats and dogs (who isn't when they have pets)<sup>6</sup>. In our recent past meetings at the JaxLUG, we have been attempting to inform and educate the public on the uses of this very powerful and versatile tool. Many of our attendees may be very familiar with the story I have written today, but it is my hope that maybe some interesting fact may have been gleamed from this brief article. Our next meeting will be on August 16, 2023, where we will take our next journey, scripting in BASH. Hope to see you all there! ''Ralph is currently working for XFINITY/COMCAST as an Inside Sales Agent. Back in 2016, he graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology with a Masters in Information Technology (MBA) and prior to that, obtained his Bachelors in Philosophy from the University of North Florida in 2013 (BA). His hobbies include electronics, playing guitar and some occasional gaming on both Linux and non-Linux computers. He is currently the Vice-President of the Jacksonville Linux User Group.
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