Questions tagged [multics]

For questions about the Multics operating system.

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36 votes
4 answers
2k views

How did Multics make library calls available as shell commands?

I was reading Pouzin's comments on the early Multics shell, and I'm a bit confused about this passage: In the same vein, I also felt that commands should be usable as library subroutines, or vice ...
31 votes
6 answers
9k views

What are the major technical difference between Multics and Unix?

From the naming of operating system only i.e Unix = Uniplexed Information and Computing Service vs Multics = Multiplexed Information and Computing Service, I was first having a misconception that the ...
  • 653
11 votes
1 answer
353 views

When was the term Multics (operating system) coined and by whom?

From the history of Multics, I found that Project MAC was established on July 1, 1963 by MIT for the development of the Multics operating system and later GE (General Electric) and AT&T's Bell ...
  • 653
7 votes
0 answers
279 views

When did Multics begin using '>' as a pathname separator?

As described in this question, Multics used > as the separator between components in pathnames, and < as a parent directory indicator in relative paths. However, an early paper describing the ...
  • 12.6k
70 votes
3 answers
9k views

Why did Unix use slash as the directory separator?

The Unix designers came from the GE/MIT Multics project, and Multics inspired some Unix features. In particular, Multics has a hierarchical filesystem, and so does Unix. On Multics, pathnames were of ...
  • 1,635
28 votes
2 answers
2k views

Are there runnable Multics systems available?

I've always read that Multics was a failed precurser of Unix, and was interested in seeing how it looks (as in, what features did Unix remove that Multics had, and did more modern Unixen bring them ...
  • 551