Unix command timeline

Selected commands, together with occasional contextual notes.

1st Edition Unix (November 1971)

ar

as

cal

cat

chdir

chmod

chown

cmp

cp

date

dc

df

du

ed

find

init

ld

ln

ls

mail

mkdir

mkfs

mount

mv

nm

od

pr

rm

rmdir

roff

sh (Thompson shell)

sort

stat

strip

su

umount

wc

Also, precursors of fsck and reboot.

2nd Edition Unix (June 1972)

(10 installations, "with more expected".)

dpd (data-phone daemon - first use in Unix of '-d' suffix)

echo

exit

login

man

nroff

strip

stty

3rd Edition (February 1973)

kill

passwd

ps

split

uniq

yacc

Also crypt(3).

4th Edition (November 1973)

comm

file

grep

nice

nohup

sleep

sync

tr

wait

Also printf(3).

The manual was formatted with troff for the first time.

5th Edition (June 1974)

dd

diff

eqn

lpd

lpr

pwd

tee

Also introduced the sticky bit.

6th Edition / Version 6 Unix (May 1975)

bc

chgrp

cron

newgrp

tbl

units

1BSD (March 1978)

ex (Bill Joy, 1977)

expand

fold

head

soelim

7th Edition / Version 7 Unix (January 1979)

at

awk

basename

diff3

expr

join

lex

lint

make

pcc

sed

sh

tail

tar (replacing tp)

test

touch

Also man(7).

2BSD (April 1979)

3BSD (December 1979)

4BSD (November 1980)

4.1BSD (June 1981)

4.2BSD (August 1983)

ftpd

netstat

telnetd

tftpd

8th Edition / Version 8 Unix (February 1985)

cut

ksh

seq

telnet

vi

4.3BSD (June 1986)

inetd

ping

syslogd

4.3BSD-Tahoe (June 1988)

fstat

System V Release 4 (October 1988)

4.3BSD-Reno (July 1990)

column

m4

4.4BSD (June 1993)

-Encumbered, June 1993; -Lite, March 1994; -Lite Release 2, 1995.

sysctl

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