From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,3cd3b8571c28b75f X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-08-30 15:57:29 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!headwall.stanford.edu!newshub.sdsu.edu!elnk-nf2-pas!newsfeed.earthlink.net!wn14feed!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.203!attbi_feed3!attbi.com!rwcrnsc54.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3F512BD1.8010402@attbi.com> From: "Robert I. Eachus" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.0; en-US; rv:1.0.2) Gecko/20021120 Netscape/7.01 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: A Customer's Request For Open Source Software References: <3F44BC65.4020203@noplace.com><20030822005323.2ff66948.david@realityrift.com> <20030822020403.625ffbf5.david@realityrift.com> <3F4657AD.1040908@attbi.com> <3F4828D9.8050700@attbi.com> <3F4EA616.30607@attbi.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.34.139.183 X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-Trace: rwcrnsc54 1062284247 24.34.139.183 (Sat, 30 Aug 2003 22:57:27 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 22:57:27 GMT Organization: Comcast Online Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2003 22:57:28 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:41992 Date: 2003-08-30T22:57:28+00:00 List-Id: Alexander Kopilovitch wrote: > What is not so wonderful about Multics? That it is almost mythical in part, > somehow like ancient Greece - famous, with obvious conceptual heritage, but > unreachable for observation and study. I had accounts on various Multics systems, and at one point I had half a dozen project accounts distributed among three Multics systems. (HI-Multics in Minneapolis, MN System-M in Phoenix, AZ and BCO-Multics in Billerica, MA.) Later I added an account at MIT-Multics (Cambridge, MA). Then I moved to Stratus Computer. VOS, the "native" operating system for Stratus products was closely based on PrimOS, which in turn was based on Multics. So Multics features were widely available, even if Multics systems were not. I would love to have an operating system for today's x86 processors that took the Multics approach. But the problem would be that most applications would be ported versions of applications that were designed around file systems, so you would have to materialize a file system for them. :-( Could be done, but I think the better approach is to design applications that don't require a file system first. -- Robert I. Eachus "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure." -- Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." -- Rush Limbaugh