Xref: utzoo comp.unix.questions:10489 comp.os.misc:682 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!calgary!cpsc!freedman From: freedman@cpsc.ucalgary.ca (Daniel Freedman) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.os.misc Subject: Re: Does anyone still use Multics?? Summary: Yes, U. of Calgary still uses Multics - and likes it too! Message-ID: <281@cs-spool.calgary.UUCP> Date: 4 Dec 88 07:16:00 GMT References: <6392@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU> Sender: news@calgary.UUCP Distribution: na Lines: 27 In article <6392@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, steve@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Steve DeJarnett) writes: > > Are there any sites out there that run Multics?? Is there any source code > available for it (since I'm asking). I presume it would have been written > in something like FORTRAN. Well, we have a 5 processor Multics system which we use as a general purpose mainframe. We also do a lot of Multics maintenance and development work for Honeywell (I guess it must be Honeywell Bull these days). Multics itself was written in PL/I except for those bits written in ALM, Multics' assembly language. The funny thing about Multics is that although it is 20 years old, there are oodles of features present on Multics that you won't find anywhere else. Even if you do find them elsewhere, they often aren't as good. I remember being particularly impressed by the whole organization of the system. With all operating systems, one asks one's self "at what level do things stop looking clean and get hacky"? With Multics, it's clean all the way down to the hardware. Incidentally, anyone thinking of writing an emacs should look at Multics emacs. It's the best that I've ever seen (if you are on the net Bernie Greenberg, thankyou). If you have specific questions, feel free to mail them to me, and I'll do my best to answer them, although it's been a little while since I used Multics to write any programs. Dan Freedman University of Calgary Computer Science Department 2500 University Drive N.W. freedman@cpsc.UCalgary.CA Calgary, Alberta, T2N 1N4 ...!{ubc-vision,ihnp4}!alberta!calgary!freedman