With fewer resources than their MIT brethren,
Unix developers had customized the software to ride
atop a motley assortment of hardware systems:
everything from the 16-bit PDP-11-a machine considered
fit for only small tasks by most AI Lab hackers-to
32-bit mainframes such as the VAX 11/780. By 1983, a
few companies, most notably Sun Microsystems, were even
going so far as to develop a new generation of
microcomputers, dubbed "workstations," to take
advantage of the increasingly ubiquitous operating system.
To facilitate this process, the developers in charge of
designing the dominant Unix strains made sure to keep
an extra layer of abstraction between the software and
the machine. Instead of tailoring the operating system
to take advantage of a specific machine's resources-as
the AI Lab hackers had done with ITS and the
PDP-10-Unix developers favored a more generic,
off-the-rack approach. Focusing more on the
interlocking standards and specifications that held the
operating system's many subcomponents together, rather
than the actual components themselves, they created a
system that could be quickly modified to suit the
tastes of any machine.
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