This episode we are taking a trip back to UNIX world. We're looking at IDRIS, the first clone of UNIX. It was supposed to be highly compatible, but use no code from Bell Labs. IDRIS ran on everything from the Intel 8080 up to the IBM System/370. There was even a version that could run MS-DOS programs. Sound too good to be true? Well, that may be the case.

Selected Sources:

https://archive.org/details/aquartercenturyofunixpeterh.salus_201910/page/n196/mode/1up - A Quarter Century of UNIX

https://github.com/hansake/Whitesmiths-Idris-OS - Co-Idris disk images and executables

In 1970 a little language called BLISS emerged from Carnegie Mellon University. It was a systems language, meant for operating systems and compilers. It was designed, in part, as a response to Dijkstra's famous Go To Considered Harmful paper. It had no data types. It used the most bizzare form of the pointer I've ever seen. And it was a direct competitor to C. Sound interesting, yet?

Selected Sources:

https://bitsavers.computerhistory.org/pdf/dec/decus/pdp10/DECUS-10-118-PartII_BlissReadings_Dec71.pdf - Readings on BLISS

https://www.cs.tufts.edu/~nr/cs257/archive/ronald-brender/bliss.pdf - A History of BLISS

In 1961 Texas Instruments unveiled the Molecular Electronic Computer, aka: Mol-E-Com. It was a machine that fit in the palm of your hand, but had all the power of a much larger computer. This was in an age of hefty machines, which made the achievement all the more marvelous. How was this even possible? It was all thanks to the wonders of molecular electronics, and a boat load of funding from the US Air Force.

Selected Sources:

https://web.archive.org/web/20160304071831/http://corphist.computerhistory.org/corphist/documents/doc-496d289787271.pdf - Invention of the Integrated Circuit, Kilby

https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD0411614/page/n15/mode/2up - Investigation of Silicon Functional Blocks, TI

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0273850.pdf - Silicon Semiconductor Networks, TI