Path: utzoo!yunexus!davecb
From: davecb@yunexus.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Slandering Project MAC (was Slandering Intel)
Message-ID: <2126@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jun 89 12:03:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: yunexus.2126
References: <182@mipos3.intel.com> <76700071@p.cs.uiuc.edu>
Reply-To: davecb@yunexus.UUCP (David Collier-Brown)
Organization: York U. Computing Services
Lines: 37


In article <76700071@p.cs.uiuc.edu> gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
[responding to a discussion involving Intel's idea of segmentation]
>
>Well, if you're going to point fingers, why don't you blame MIT and
>project MAC?  They were the one of the ones that took segmentation to
>outrageous extremes to begin with.  Intel was only copying them.

  I beg to differ.  
  The only similarity between the segments (aka files) defined by
project MAC and the segments used for address-space-extension by intel
is in the name.  Project MAC is not, was not and never will be
responsible for this particular misuse of the terminology.

  To go to the primary sources...  

    In most modern file systems following CTSS, files (as do segments)
    carry unique names, have attributes, are created, destroyed, allowed
    to grow and shrink, have access controls applied to them (i.e., may be
    shared), and are structured in a directory hierarchy. A file system
    maintains this structure and offers retrieval services, backup
    services, and so forth.  Only the difference (albeit very significant)
    that segments are "instantaneously" shareable by virtue of being
    directly addressable in Multics programs distinguishes the segment
    from the file.
    -- from Organick, E. "The Multics System: An Examination of Its
       Structure", Cambridge, Mass (The MIT Press), 1972.

--dave (sources, people, sources!
        we're computer **scientists**, don't forget) c-b
            
        
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@yunexus, ...!yunexus!davecb or
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | {toronto area...}lethe!dave 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | Joyce C-B:
CANADA. 223-8968      |    He's so smart he's dumb.