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From: st...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.misc
Subject: Does anyone still use Multics??
Message-ID: <6392@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 3 Dec 88 03:24:53 GMT
Reply-To: st...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett)
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With the recent discussions about old GE systems and where GECOS came
from, I started to wonder if anyone still used Multics on any systems. Are
there any sites out there that run Multics?? Is there any source code
available for it (since I'm asking). I presume it would have been written
in something like FORTRAN.
We hypothesized that maybe Bell Labs or MIT might be.
Well, just curious.
Thanks in advance,
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farber
From: far...@linc.cis.upenn.edu (David Farber)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Does anyone still use Multics??
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Date: 3 Dec 88 21:07:23 GMT
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In article <6...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> st...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett)
writes:
>
>available for it (since I'm asking). I presume it would have been written
>in something like FORTRAN.
>
Multics was NOT written in Fortran. It was written in PL/1 (initially
according to the NPL spec then the full PL/1 spec). It was probably
the first PL/1 compiler written afterthe Share/IBM 3x3 spec.
Dave
David Farber; Prof. of CIS and EE, U of Penn, Philadelphia, PA
19104-6389 Tele: 215-898-9508; FAX: 215-274-8192 "The fundamental
principle of science, the definition almost, is this: the sole
test of the validity of any idea is experiment." -- R. P. Feynman
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husc6!think!barmar
From: bar...@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Does anyone still use Multics??
Message-ID: <32902@think.UUCP>
Date: 5 Dec 88 18:31:46 GMT
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In article <6...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> st...@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett)
writes:
> With the recent discussions about old GE systems and where GECOS came
>from, I started to wonder if anyone still used Multics on any systems. Are
>there any sites out there that run Multics?? Is there any source code
>available for it (since I'm asking). I presume it would have been written
>in something like FORTRAN.
>
> We hypothesized that maybe Bell Labs or MIT might be.
Honeywell Bull still has about 50 Multics customers, and a total of
about 70 systems (there are a few internal systems, and some customers
have more than one). MIT discontinued its Multics service last
winter. As far as I know, Bell Labs NEVER had a Multics system of
their own (they got out of the project pretty early).
There are still five Multics systems at the Pentagon, several each at
Ford Motor Company and Electronic Data Systems (the computer
subsidiary of GM, which also runs GM's internal computer systems), and
about 40 systems in Europe (mostly in France).
Officially, Multics development has been capped. However, there is
still a small group in Honeywell Bull doing support for the existing
customers. ("Small" is relative, since there's never been more than
about 120 people in the Honeywell Multics development organization.)
There's also a group at the University of Calgary's Advanced Computing
Technology Centre doing contract work (Honeywell committed to this
before Multics was capped).
About 95% of the source code of Multics is in PL/I. A Multics system
comes with full source code. I don't know of any other way to get a
significant portion of it. I'm not sure why you'd want it, either.
Not that it's bad, but what makes Multics so good is not the actual
code, but the design. The code is not very portable, either; there's
lots of implementation-dependent code and specialized Multics
extensions, and there aren't many other full PL/I compilers out there,
anyway.
Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.
bar...@think.com
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From: ma...@babbage.acc.virginia.edu (Alex Colvin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Does anyone still use Multics??
Summary: PL/multics, PL/I(G)
Message-ID: <438@babbage.acc.virginia.edu>
Date: 6 Dec 88 14:21:56 GMT
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just a gnit to pick ...
Multics PL/I wasn't full PL/I, either IBM or ANSI. Effectively, Multics
defined the compileable subset of PL/I. This is responsible for the
success (such as it is) of PL/I outside IBM.
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From: bar...@think.COM (Barry Margolin)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.misc
Subject: Re: Does anyone still use Multics??
Message-ID: <33004@think.UUCP>
Date: 7 Dec 88 00:45:13 GMT
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<438@babbage.acc.virginia.edu>
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In article <4...@babbage.acc.virginia.edu> ma...@babbage.acc.virginia.edu (Alex Colvin)
writes:
>Multics PL/I wasn't full PL/I, either IBM or ANSI. Effectively, Multics
>defined the compileable subset of PL/I. This is responsible for the
>success (such as it is) of PL/I outside IBM.
The language Multics was originally implemented in was a PL/I subset
(called EPL), but a full ANSI PL/I compiler was later written, around
1968 or 1969. It was revised extensively (to take advantage of new
hardware features) in 1972.
Barry Margolin
Thinking Machines Corp.
bar...@think.com
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