Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!gatech!ukma!nrl-cmf!ames!haven!ncifcrf!nlm-mcs!adm!xadmx!lazear@gateway.mitre.org
From: lazear@gateway.mitre.org
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re:  GCOS field
Message-ID: <17692@adm.BRL.MIL>
Date: 2 Dec 88 19:21:36 GMT
Sender: news@adm.BRL.MIL
Lines: 11

GCOS stands for  GE Comprehensive Operating System, which changed to
General Compre. OS when Honeywell bought out GE's old 600 computer
line long ago.  GCOS remains the Honeywell OS of (their) choice.

The GCOS mainframes required some user ID stuff when remote jobs were
submitted and the GCOS field in the passwd file was a repository
for that info.  The "Programmer's Workbench" version of Unix made
extensive use of this for submitting jobs to the Murray Hill facility,
I believe.

	Walt (Lazear@mitre.org)