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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...