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[ih] Unix vs. Multics (was - Re: what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol)
- Subject: [ih] Unix vs. Multics (was - Re: what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol)
- From: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa)
- Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 12:35:06 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Dave Crocker
> On 8/22/2016 8:00 AM, John Day wrote:
>> Unix is of course a castrated Multics.
> I think that's actually a counter-productive view and probably just
> plain wrong.
Indeed. I am a HYUUGE fan of both systems (although for Unix, more the
earlier ones, i.e. V7 and before, which had a mind-bogglingly high
power/complexity ratio; contemporary Unix is nothing to write home about).
Sadly, though, a lot of Ken and DMR's criticisms of Multics are just plain
wrong - like a lot of the other contemporary opinions of it. (Which is not to
say that it didn't make mistakes - they just aren't the ones you usually
hear.)
> Multics was a classic "big system" design approach. Unix was a classic
> "minimal system" design approach.
Exactly.
And now, since this is the Internet-History list, not Computer-History, I
will subside... ;-)
Noel