Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: NeXT and Multics-bashing
Message-ID: <1990Feb8.163600.22429@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <5646@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: Thu, 8 Feb 90 16:36:00 GMT

In article <5646@blake.acs.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes:
>Anyone who claims that "Multics sucked" probably never used Multics or
>only used Multics as a casual user.  If Multics (or, for that matter,
>Tenex) cycles had been available to Dennis Ritchie when he asked for
>them, he never would have written Unix.

Two corrections:  (1) Ken Thompson was the primary author of Unix.
(2) At the time when the concept of Unix was first stirring, both had
access to Multics cycles, since they were among the last Bell Labs folks
involved with Multics.  The problem was that those cycles cost far too
much and thus were clearly not going to be available forever.  (Reference:
"The Evolution of the UNIX Time-sharing System", D.M. Ritchie, AT&T Bell
Labs Tech Journal, Oct 1984, page 1577.)
-- 
SVR4:  every feature you ever |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
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