
48-Year-Old Multics operating system resurrected - MilnerRoute
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/17/07/09/0414245/48-year-old-multics-operating-system-resurrected
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DrScump
Some may not be aware that UNIX was named as a sort of take-off on Multics.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix)

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Theodores
24 year old website resurrected - not seen a link to Slashdot in a long time.

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brudgers
Direct link to the Multicians website,
[http://multicians.org/](http://multicians.org/) and Multics source code
[http://web.mit.edu/multics-history/](http://web.mit.edu/multics-history/)

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Animats
Aw. Finally. I wonder if some of the Multics fans I once knew are still alive
to see this.

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agumonkey
Just when the Xerox restoration is done,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adEr2aRwHnI&index=17&list=PL...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adEr2aRwHnI&index=17&list=PL-_93BVApb58I3ZV67LW3S_JEMFnDrQDj)

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oldmancoyote
Having been compelled to program Multics, I am appalled that anyone would want
to resurrect it. One of the happiest days of my life was when my employer got
rid of it. I think they gave it to Iran. : )

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verri
Could you tell use something more about its flaws compared to other operating
systems of the era?

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oldmancoyote
Sure. While Multics was a wonderful operating system for folks who were into
systems programming and similar activities, for those of us who were trying to
write applications it was a nightmare. It was wonderfully flexible, but nearly
impossible to understand from the application programmer's perspective. In
reading the doc you'd find something you didn't understand so you'd followed
the reference to the next piece of doc, and then on to the next and so on.
After about 4 levels of this I'd have a headache and give up.

For all it's problems the IBM 360 was much more accessible. Initially, the doc
was of little use, but by this time, IBM has its act together and there were
some truly useful docs.

Multics, for all its brilliance, was nearly useless for many.

