internet archaeology
contents
screenshots from the golden age
browser circa 2010 (source):
xfce + arch linux (2010) (source):
openbox grows up (2007) (source):
2008 era openbox setups (source):
unix history + archival
the hidden early history of unix
The Hidden Early History of Unix (youtube)
this was a talk discussing the unix heritage society, which houses a collection of all known Unix artifacts (docs, binaries, notes, tapes, etc), and the discovery of a bunch of super early unix source code and design docs found after it was thought to have been lost to time. some of the original pdp-7 design docs were found in robert morris sr.’s things after he passed and then the original source for the v0 of unix written for the pdp-7 was found. all of these discoveries were made between 2010-2020 and allowed for the reconstruction of the pdp-7 toolchain and kernel, as well as portions of the userland sources (see pdp-7 revival section below).
(fun fact: robert morris sr. was a security researcher at bell labs in the 60s and was the creator of crypt and /etc/passwd! he was also the father of the robert morris that would write the infamous morris worm in the 90s.)
the unix heritage society (tuhs)
the unix heritage society houses a collection of all known Unix artifacts (docs, binaries, notes, tapes, etc) and hosts a mirror online.
bitsavers.org
preservation of paper and media artifacts related to unix but more general computer history. has been scanning paper docs for almost 20 years.
warner’s random hacking blog
the personal blog (last updated 2023) of the guy that gave the Early History of Unix talk linked above and hosts the tuhs archive. here’s a post about original PDP-7 Unix.
pdp7-unix revival from discovered sources
a preservation/reconstruction of original unix v0 for the pdp-7. Successfully completed the project over several years as new discoveries were made and more stuff was found. github repo.
history of unix git repository
A Repository with 44 Years of Unix Evolution.
the history and evolution of the unix operating system made available as a git repo, covering the period from 1970 as a 2.5 thousand line kernel and 48 commands, to 2025 as a widely-used 41 million line system. the 2 gb repository contains about 850 thousand commits and more than eight thousand merges.