The History of the First Computer Shell

BASH? PowerShell? It all traces back to 1963. And the work of an amazing Frenchman, CTTS, and Multics.

Powerful, “Command Line” computer interfaces have been around for — what seems like — forever. Interfaces where you can run multiple commands, one after another (in a batch)… where you can have simple “scripts” to tie those commands together.

That sort of “Shell” comes in so many forms… from SH and BASH on UNIX-like (and Linux) systems… to COMMAND.COM and PowerShell on Windows.

The text “Shell” is everywhere. And has been for longer than most can even remember.

But it had to start somewhere. Someone had to make the first “Shell”.

This is that story.

And that story starts… with a man. His name is Louis Pouzin.

The Man

Louis Pouzin was born, in 1931, in a small town in almost the smack-dab-middle of France: Chantenay-Saint-Imbert.

Louis Pouzin. With a sweet mustache. Photo credit: Jérémie Bernard