Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!apple!amdahl!terry
From: terry@uts.amdahl.com (Lewis T. Flynn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Next computer (Re: CISC Silent Spring)
Message-ID: <8dmK02o886EM01@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
Date: 7 Feb 90 18:25:36 GMT
References: <8859@portia.Stanford.EDU> <20571@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <49956@sgi.sgi.com> <4791@helios.ee.lbl.gov>
Reply-To: terry@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Lewis T. Flynn)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 23

In article <4791@helios.ee.lbl.gov> antony@lbl-csam.arpa (Antony A. Courtney) writes:

[some interesting points about computer systems evolution]

>is also what made UNIX so spiffy.  Researchers wrote Multics.  It sucked.  But
>people learned an awful lot about what should and shouldn't be in an OS and
>how to implement OSs.  Then people scrapped it and wrote UNIX based on things

I couldn't let this pass. Multics may not have been a commercial success, but
it hardly sucked. Its main problem may have been that Honeywell (who inherited
it when they bought the GE computer division) was never more than lukewarm
about it and tried to kill it umpteen times over the years. They seem to have
finally succeeded. but as late as '87 or so there were still over a hundred
systems running it. Only something with a great deal to offer could generate
such loyalty to orphan software (and hardware, if I remember correctly).

I would speculate that if matters had been only slightly different in one
of several possible places, Multics would be the system we were all using
and writing software for.

Terry

disclaimer: As far as I know, Amdahl has no opinion on Multics.