Message-ID: <52C41B218DE28244B071A1B96DD474F628016E@DC-SRVR1.dotcast.com>
From: Marty Fouts <marty@dotcast.com>
To: "'root@chaos.analogic.com'" <root@chaos.analogic.com>,
        Michael Rothwell <rothwell@holly-springs.nc.us>
Cc: Linux kernel <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: RE: Advanced Linux Kernel/Enterprise Linux Kernel
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 10:18:06 -0800
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Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org


Dick Johnson wrote:

> The original DEC was "given" to W. M. Ritchie and his staff in
> "Department 58213". He wanted to use it for games. To do so, required
> him to write some sort of OS, which became Unix.

A typo, I assume.  That's D(ennis) Ritchie.

> As I said, when Multics was designed, the only criteria as to
> get it to work on a DEC. It didn't. To use this development as
> an example of "enterprise computing" is absurd and belies its
> well documented history.

How odd then, that Corbato's '65 paper specifically describes it as a
research effort on a GE system, and both Ritchie and Thompson have written
to similar effect and Glasser et al wrote 

In the late spring and early summer of 1964 it became obvious that greater
facility in the computing system was required if time-sharing techniques
were to move from the state of an interesting pilot experiment into that of
a useful prototype for remote access computer systems. Investigation proved
computers that were immediately available could not be adapted readily to
meet the difficult set of requirements time-sharing places on any machine.
However, there was one system that appeared to be extendible into what was
desired. This machine was the General Electric 635.

Multics grew out of research into the design of timesharing systems at MIT,
and is from the same family of systems as ITS.  It had a long and
interesting history and was supported by Honeywell into the 90s.

There were several other interesting OSes developed in that time frame, such
as SDS's CP/V for the Sigma series, but most of them were not described in
the literature and so are long forgotten.

Marty
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