The Multicians web site presents the story of the Multics operating system for people interested in the system's history, especially Multicians. The site's goals are to
- preserve the technical ideas and advances of Multics so others don't need to reinvent them.
- record the history of Multics, its builders, and its users before we all forget.
- give credit where it's due for important innovations.
- remember some good times and good people.
The Multicians web site contains 487 HTML files (see the Site Map) comprising over 540K lines, 1795 PDF files, and 670 graphic images. The site has benefited from the contributions of many authors. Contributions are invited: if you have a correction, fact, date, name, anecdote, or picture, please share it with Multicians everywhere by sending mail to the editor.
The late Harry Reed and Charles Anthony reached a major milestone on the Multics simulator on Saturday 08 November, 2014.
Their hardware simulator booted Multics MR 12.5 software,
came to operator command level, entered admin mode,
created a small PL/I program, compiled and executed it, and shut down.
DPS8M Simulator Release 3.1.0 is now available. See the Release Notes.
There have been multiple updates to Multics software for the simulator:
the latest version is MR 12.8, August 2023.
Anyone can try out a simulated Multics or install the simulator on their own computer.
DPS8M Simulator Release 3.1.0 is now available. See the Release Notes.
There have been multiple updates to Multics software for the simulator:
the latest version is MR 12.8, August 2023.
Anyone can try out a simulated Multics or install the simulator on their own computer.
Open Source for Multics is hosted at MIT,
courtesy of Bull HN.
It is available "for any purpose and without fee" provided that the copyright notice and historical background are preserved in all copies.
Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) was a mainframe time-sharing operating system begun in 1965 and used until 2000. Multics began as a research project and was an important influence on operating system development. The system became a commercial product sold by Honeywell to education, government, and industry.
Multics was a prototype of a Computer Utility, providing secure computing to remote users at their terminals. Multicians still miss the elegant, consistent, and powerful programming environment; some Multics features are only now being added to contemporary systems.
Recent Changes
- 05/24
- Multicians: Nate Adleman died Sept 19, 2022.
- 05/15
- Simulator: Release 3.1.0 of the DPS8M simulator was released.
- 05/12
- Multicians: Richard Gardner died in 2025.
- 05/05
- Multicians: Art Bushkin died in Feb 2024.
- 04/27
- Multicians: Added entry for Giangaleazzo Triulzi.
- 04/25
- Multicians: Added entry for Eduardo Mills.