"This is extraordinary news for all nerds, computer scientists and the Open Source community: the source code of the MULTICS operating system (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), the father of UNIX and all modern OSes, has finally been opened [get it here]. Multics was an extremely influential early time-sharing operating system started in 1964 and introduced a large number of new concepts, including dynamic linking and a hierarchical file system. It was extremely powerful, and UNIX can in fact be considered to be a 'simplified' successor to MULTICS (the name 'Unix' is itself a hack on 'Multics'). The last running Multics installation was shut down on October 31, 2000."
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2005-12-14
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To be fair, he did specify 'OS hobbyists.' What an OS hobbyist is willing to do, and will find fun, is not representative of what most people are willing to do...
Edited 2007-11-12 19:12 UTC
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PL/I is hardly a difficult language to understand. It's similar to ALGOL in some respects, which eventually led to varieties of Pascal and Modula. Having some knowledge of data languages will help also, but once again, there isn't a whole lot that shouldn't be apparently to those who know C and SQL.
MULTICS was an interesting operating system but it always seemed buggy and unstable. Hopefully, the opening of the source code will help others avoid mistakes with a quick history lesson.
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I'm sure Microsoft wont release the Windows 3.11 source code because there's still bits of it in Vista. ;-)
Forget that. There is still a crapload of DOS in Vista. Microsoft's operating systems just collect more cruft as they release newer versions. All because they are bent on supporting legacy software which, oddly enough, doesn't work very well most of the time.
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I can't tell if you're being sarcastic for humorous effect, or if you actually believe that...
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He's serious!
Come on!!! it's no secret that Microsoft goes a long way (or so they say) to make sure that legacy applications run on Windows... I'd day MS programmers have to support APIs going back to MS-DOS 3.0... and we all know how good Microsoft Software is in general... so no wonder things fail anyway.
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I can't tell if you're being sarcastic for humorous effect, or if you actually believe that...
Believe what? It's all true. Almost the entire DOS operating system is still in Vista. Look for yourself. You can still run "edit" and execute 16-bit executables. As far as compatiblity goes it's a nightmare for Vista. Financial software, antivirus programs, pre-2003 Office, various games, etc that have been designed for XP no longer work on Vista.
Edited 2007-11-13 22:53
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2007-02-22
My comp sci professors are going to flip, I know -- we've had to study it before. (EDIT: Especially the two professors who still know PL/1.)
They have a license (MIT-style, natch), but I think it's best to consider it shared source, not open source, as a curtosy for donating this for history.
I wonder how long it'll be before we can run this on an emulator of some sort...?
Edited 2007-11-12 17:36 UTC
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being as much of MULTICS is from BEFORE software patents were even allowed by the patent office, opening it up would be the prior art doom for a good chunk of the software industry. Many companies like IBM only started collecting patents in the 70's and 80's in earnest.. the original good stuff was long in public domain, but kept private because nobody release the source. A release like this would show how big a sham software patents really are.
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Good point!
It may be that if some software developer is attacked by Microsoft or others for infringing a software patent, the developer may now be able to dig through the Multics code and prove that the technique or algorithm was in regular use BEFORE the patent was issued. This release may well protect some innocent people.
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Nope, it's a type of candy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tootsie_Pop
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"""
"""
LOL :-)
The old Multics machines didn't use memory sticks, of course. One could add and remove memory *cabinets*. One imagines that when that didn't work right, the firemen, fire trucks, and water spray might have been quite realistic. ;-)
Edited 2007-11-12 22:45
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As a side note I, by no mean, had the intention to dwarf the awesome achievements of Multics or its influence on the development of other OS, specially Unix, implying that it is good only to restrain IP trolls. It actually was, in many aspects, way ahead of its time. Some of things it pioneered or greatly improved (the understand of):
- hierarchal file system;
- ACL and MAC;
- system backup policies;
- rings and memory protection;
- symmetric multiprocessing;
- paging and memory management;
- dynamic linking;
- a full character set.
Truly awesome for such a that old system. Perhaps, because of its high target, and the low power of that time hardware, it could not experience a bigger success.
Anyway, it will live as much as the History of Operating System will, being a sound milestone on OS development.
Member since:2006-04-14
No - its demise was caused by the direct and concerted effort of Honeywell (who had acquired GE's computer business) to kill it because it was seen as a competitor of its own GCOS (GECOS back in the GE days) mainframe OS. GE, and later Honeywell, had built 600/6000 series mainframes with special hardware modifications specifically designed to support MULTICS.
Particularly in the Government space, MULTICS was very highly regarded and was the OS preferred by many. Honeywell almost lost a very large Government contract because they tried to push GCOS down a customer's throat when they really wanted and insisted on MULTICS.
As for performance, I never heard of any complaints regarding how MULTICS ran on the 6000 series mainframes - only kudos.
MULTICS was a true time-sharing OS. GCOS was a batch oriented OS with a timesharing subsystem (TSS) tacked on later and which became the rationalization used by Honeywell as to why MULTICS was no longer needed. Many, many customers mourned the demise of MULTICS, and Honeywell lost many customers when it died.
By the way, those who worked on MULTICS at Honeywell referred to themselves, and were referred to by others as Multicians. It is rumored that a number of these Multicians' feet did not touch the ground when they walked.
Edited 2007-11-12 22:18
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It's nice for historical purposes, the same way looking at a centuries old earthenware jug is nice. After looking at it and the nice feelings have ebbed we put it back on the shelf and not look at it again for another 10 50 years and THEN we look at it again and it would be even nicer !
You can't run it on any hardware, uses a language many of us are unfamiliar - of what present day value it can contribute to computer research I am waiting for someone to tell me. It's something that you put on display in a museum, as a computer scientist, nerd and enthusiasts forgive me for not jumping up and down with joy and being overtly excited.
p.s oh and I forgot to thank M.I.T for their contribution to computer history. ( in all serious though :-) , i don't want to sound ungrateful..
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GCC can compile PL/1 code
I thought that was a joke, but to my surprise it's true: http://pl1gcc.sourceforge.net/
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For all your information about Multics:
http://www.multicians.org/
In particular:
Multics ran on specialized expensive CPU hardware that provided a segmented, paged, ring-structured virtual memory. The system is a symmetric multiprocessor with shared physical and virtual memory. Standard Honeywell mainframe peripherals and memory were used.
(http://www.multicians.org/general.html)
Also: http://www.multicians.org/fjcc1.html
I remember reading once that a few megabytes (of 8-bit bytes) is enough, so most of the problems in emulating the hardware will be the CPU and MMU.
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Apparently someone has worked on GE-635 emulator to run Multics, much before this source release.
http://orangesquid.net/projects/ge635/
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2006-04-21
