[1] : Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002)

multics
     multiplexed information and computing service os
     
     

[2] : Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001)

multics /muhl'tiks/ n. from "multiplexed information and computing
   service" an early time-sharing operating system co-designed by a
   consortium including mit, ge, and bell laboratories as a successor to
   ctss. the design was first presented in 1965, planned for operation in
   1967, first operational in 1969, and took several more years to achieve
   respectable performance and stability.

   multics was very innovative for its time -- among other things, it
   provided a hierarchical file system with access control on individual
   files and introduced the idea of treating all devices uniformly as
   special files. it was also the first os to run on a symmetric
   multiprocessor, and the only general-purpose system to be awarded a b2
   security rating by the nsa see orange book.

   bell labs left the development effort in 1969 after judging that
   second-system effect had bloated multics to the point of practical
   unusability. honeywell commercialized multics in 1972 after buying out
   ge's computer group, but it was never very successful: at its peak in
   the 1980s, there were between 75 and 100 multics sites, each a
   multi-million dollar mainframe.

   one of the former multics developers from bell labs was ken thompson,
   and unix deliberately carried through and extended many of multics'
   design ideas; indeed, thompson described the very name `unix' as `a weak
   pun on multics'. for this and other reasons, aspects of the multics
   design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. see also
   brain-damaged and gcos.

   mit ended its development association with multics in 1977. honeywell
   sold its computer business to bull in the mid 80s, and development on
   multics was stopped in 1988. four multics sites were known to be still
   in use as late as 1998, but the last one a canadian military site was
   decomissioned in november 2000. there is a multics page at
   `http://www.stratus.com/pub/vos/multics/tvv/multics.html'.


see also:
operating system ctss orange book second-system effect unix brain-damaged 
gcos 

[3] : The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)

multics
     
         /muhl'tiks/ multiplexed information and
        computing service.  a time-sharing operating system
        co-designed by a consortium including mit, ge and bell
        laboratories as a successor to mit's ctss.  the system
        design was presented in a special session of the 1965 fall
        joint computer conference and was planned to be operational in
        two years.  it was finally made available in 1969, and took
        several more years to achieve respectable performance and
        stability.
     
        multics was very innovative for its time - among other things,
        it was the first major os to run on a symmetric
        multiprocessor; provided a hierarchical file system with
        access control on individual files; mapped files into a
        paged, segmented virtual memory; was written in a
        high-level language pl/i; and provided dynamic
        inter-procedure linkage and memory file sharing as the
        default mode of operation.  multics was the only
        general-purpose system to be awarded a b2 security rating by
        the nsa.
     
        bell labs left the development effort in 1969.  honeywell
        commercialised multics in 1972 after buying out ge's computer
        group, but it was never very successful: at its peak in the
        1980s, there were between 75 and 100 multics sites, each a
        multi-million dollar mainframe.
     
        one of the former multics developers from bell labs was ken
        thompson, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of
        unix.  for this and other reasons, aspects of the multics
        design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers.  see
        also brain-damaged and gcos.
     
        mit ended its development association with multics in 1977.
        honeywell sold its computer business to bull in the mid
        1980s, and development on multics was stopped in 1988 when
        bull scrapped a boston proposal to port multics to a
        platform derived from the dps-6.
     
        a few multics sites are still in use as late as 1996.
     
        the last multics system running, the canadian department of
        national defence multics site in halifax, nova scotia, canada,
        shut down on 2000-10-30 at 17:08 utc.
     
        the jargon file 3.0.0 claims that on some versions of
        multics one was required to enter a password to log out but
        james j. lippard , who was a multics
        developer in phoenix, believes this to be an urban legend.
        he never heard of a version of multics which required a
        password to logout.  tom van vleck 
        agrees.  he suggests that some user may have implemented a
        'terminal locking' program that required a password before one
        could type anything, including logout.
     
        home http://www.multicians.org/.
     
        usenet newsgroup: news:alt.os.multics.
     
        jargon file
     
        2002-04-12
     
     
see also:
time-sharing operating system mit ge bell laboratories ctss 
symmetric multiprocessor hierarchical file system access control virtual memory high-level language 
pl/i security rating nsa honeywell mainframe 
ken thompson unix brain-damaged gcos bull 
platform dps-6 jargon file urban legend lt;homegt; usenet lt;news:alt.os.multicsgt; jargon file 

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