Re: Advanced Linux Kernel/Enterprise Linux Kernel

From: Michael Meissner (meissner@spectacle-pond.org)
Date: Tue Nov 14 2000 - 12:06:41 EST

On Tue, Nov 14, 2000 at 11:41:33AM -0500, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Nov 2000, Michael Rothwell wrote:
>
> > "Richard B. Johnson" wrote:
> > > Multics??? [..] way too many persons on this list who know the history of
> > > Unix to try this BS.
> >
> > So, you're saying their nine goals were bullshit? Multics had a lot of
> > problems. But it did a lot of ground-breaking. Perhaps you should reply
> > to the nine goals, or the general topic of "Enterpriseness," rather than
> > merely express your irrelevant hatred for Multics.
> >
>
> Relating some "nine goals of 'Enterprise Computing'" to Multics is
> the bullshit. When Multics was being developed, the singular goal
> was to make an operating system that worked on DEC Equipment without
> having to use DEC software. The emphasis was on trying to make it
> work period.

Ummm, the way I parse the above statement, you are saying that Multics was
developed to work on DEC equipment without having to use DEC software. Maybe
we are inhabiting parallel universes, but I'm pretty sure that in my universe,
Multics ran first on GE computers, and then on Honeywell computers when
Honeywell bought the division from GE. Note, DEC did bid for the Multics
contract but was turned down. Maybe you are thinking of Tenex or UNIX?

The original machine was a GE-645, which was a segmented, virtual memory system
using 36 bit words. The operating system and system software was written in
PL/1. Bell Labs had bought a GE-645 and was one of the three development
partners (along with GE and MIT) until they withdrew in April 1969. You might
want to browse:

        http://www.multicians.org/

for more of the history of Multics. 

-- 
Michael Meissner, Red Hat, Inc.
PMB 198, 174 Littleton Road #3, Westford, Massachusetts 01886, USA
Work:	  meissner@redhat.com		phone: +1 978-486-9304
Non-work: meissner@spectacle-pond.org	fax:   +1 978-692-4482
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