Multics : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: Multics	by the DICT Development Group
2 results for Multics
From Jargon File (4.2.0, 31 JAN 2000) [jargon]:
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. There is a Multics page at `http://www.stratus.com/pub/vos/multics/tvv/multics.html'.
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]:
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)