Wordmul: Wordle for Multics

portal.mozz.us

37 points·todsacerdoti··3 comments

Well. Didn't expect to see this.

https://www.multicians.org/multics.html

> Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) was a mainframe time-sharing operating system begun in 1965 and used until 2000. Multics began as a research project and was an important influence on operating system development. The system became a commercial product sold by Honeywell to education, government, and industry.

> Multics was a prototype of a Computer Utility, providing secure computing to remote users at their terminals. Multicians still miss the elegant, consistent, and powerful programming environment; some Multics features are only now being added to contemporary systems.

That site contains a huge amount of information about Multics, including a simulator which allows you to run it.

Multics represents a path not taken, an OS Unix diverged from and which is, therefore, neglected in standard histories. Work done on Multics was groundbreaking for its time, and it deserves more attention than it gets these days, especially since there are various myths about it still floating around:

https://www.multicians.org/myths.html

> Myth: Multics failed in 1969. Bell Labs quit, Multics survived.

Indeed, most UNIX people kind of sell the history that Multics was done after Bell Labs dropped out, while in reality it continued for several years, including getting a DoD security assessment where PL/I gets praised for being a safer alternative than C, regarding its string and array support.

Nobody's yet written the book of the history of Multics, right? Seems like a major gap in the record.

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