Common UNIX Printing System

Introduction

The History of Printing in Unix

In the beginning of human history, knowledge was passed from person to person and generation to generation through direct, spoken communication. Over the millennia this knowledge transfer has changed from drawings on walls of caves, stone tablets, scrolls, and finally flat, printed, paper. Improvements in communication have driven technological and social change.

Throughout the history of computing, printed communication has played a major role in the development and improvements in computers and peripherals. It is not surprising, then, that in the early days of Unix the first killer app was a word processor. With word processing, lawyers, academics, journalists, and scientists were able to better ...