Where does this come from, and can I check it?

The pipe, added to Unix in 1973, connects one program's output straight into another's input. The figure is taken from Computer History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.

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Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.

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The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.

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Unix pipes let small programs cooperate

The pipe, added to Unix in 1973, connects one program's output straight into another's input Doug McIlroy suggested that programs should be joined like garden hoses, and Ken Thompson implemented pipes in Unix within a night. The mechanism is a buffer in memory that one process writes and another reads, so tools can be chained without temporary files. That idea shaped the command line and the habit of building large jobs from small single purpose programs. It sits in Mondo's technology collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.

Where this comes from

Computer History Museum

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Tags: unix, software, command-line

Unix pipes let small programs cooperate: the short answers

Where does this come from, and can I check it?: The pipe, added to Unix in 1973, connects one program's output straight into another's input. The figure is taken from Computer History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
Is this really a technology fact?: Yes. It sits on the Technology shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
What else can I read about it?: The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.