Here is a list of internet sites of interest to Multicians.
Social Networking
groups.io mailing list "Multicians"
The closed groups.io mailing list multicians has been set up for Multicians to contact each other. It currently has 173 members. To join it, send mail to multicians+subscribe@groups.io including a brief message about your contribution to Multics.
Once you are approved by the moderator, you can post messages, and can receive messages sent to the group as individual emails or a daily digest.
Members can view the archive of past messages at 
https://groups.io/g/multicians,
and can also use other features of the group, including file and picture storage, chat, databases, and polls.
Messages sent to the group are not indexed by search engines, and user mail addresses are not harvestable by spammers.
Signing up to the mailing list does reveal your address to other members of the group (unlike registering on the Multicians website).
The moderator cannot change your groups.io account settings: you have to do this yourself.
See the groups.io members manual.
LinkedIn group "Multicians"
The LinkedIn group multicians has been set up for Multicians who use the LinkedIn social networking site.
It currently has 293 members.
To join the group, send mail to the editor.
Group members may contact other members and participate in discussions.
Your posts to the group may become visible on the web. Use the mailing list for messages you'd rather keep among family. (But see above.)
(10/10/19) LinkedIn has changed its rules for groups again. Groups are now either unlisted or listed. The multicians group is listed, meaning it will show on your profile. Any group member can invite their connections to join the group. (Please use this power wisely... there is a credit card skimming application called multiCS: that doesn't count.)
feb_wwide
The feb_wwide mailing list is for present and former employees of Bull, GE, Honeywell, and related companies. It focuses on computer history and preserving the story of past accomplishments. Most of the postings are in French.
YouTube channel "Multicians"
The YouTube channel named Multicians has been set up by Paul Green to host videos by Multicians.
It also has a playlist that points to other Multics-related videos.
alt.os.multics
alt.os.multics is a public USENET newsgroup for discussion of the Multics operating system. There is very little traffic on this group any more.
Facebook fan page for Multics
There is a public fan page for Multics on Facebook.
It currently has 533 fans.
Any Facebook user may become a "fan" of Multics.
Doing so puts you on Facebook's list.
Additional Information About Multics
- Gunkies.org Wiki article on Multics
- Nice article by Noel Chiappa.
- Honeywell 6180 (DPS-8) Machine Simulator Project
-
Harry Reed's project to build an open source software simulator for the Multics CPU has succeeded in booting Multics and compiling a PL/I program.
(11/09/14)
The simulator is available for download along with a Quick Start kit. (02/27/17) - Multics Source Code
-
Bull HN has provided the source code for the final Multics release, MR 12.5 of November 1992 to MIT.
It is available at MIT "for any purpose and without fee" provided that the copyright notice and historical background are preserved in all copies.
(11/09/07)
An Index to the Multics Source at MIT is available.
A Release 12.7 GitHub source code repository from Dan Cross and Doug Wells for use on the Multics Simulator is available.
- Multics Manual Collection
-
Al Kossow has posted scans of the Multics CPU manual, AL39, the Multics Commands manual, AG92,
and many other Honeywell Multics manuals. (03/19/03)
Bitsavers.org also contains binary images of the boot and diagnostic tapes
included with the DOCKMASTER system when it was provided to the Computer History Museum.
(12/25/07)
Bob Mabee has produced a smaller searchable PDF of AL39 from the compin source.
- Multics Interface Simulator in Python
-
John Cooper created a Multics interface simulator in Python.
He can log in and run games that he recoded from PL/I to Python.
His simulator has user accounts, a file system, and dynamic linking.
Source is available on GitHub.
- Project MAC 50th Anniversary
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MIT held a 50th anniversary celebration of Project MAC/ LCS/ CSAIL in Cambridge, MA on May 28 & 29, 2014.
Daniel Dern wrote a nice article on the May 2014 Project MAC anniversary and Multics reunion for the Boston Globe's web site.
Articles and Web pages About Multics
- CIO Blast from the Past: 40 years of Multics, 1969-2009
- An article from CIO Magazine by Rodney Gedda, an interview with Professor Corbató on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of starting Multics service at MIT. Nice picture of Corby. (11/11/09)
- The Last Multics Machine
- A nice article from "On This Day" In Engineering History by "Moose", describing the history of Multics. (10/31/07)
- "The Multics Operating System" in Bruce Schneier's blog
- A brief article mentioning Multics and pointing to the Karger/Schell 2002 paper. A wide range of comments. (09/21/07)
- "Multics" in Wikipedia
- A pretty accurate article, mostly written by Noel Chiappa of MIT. (09/01/05)
- Multicians.org and the History of Operating Systems
- A review of this website, and of Multics, by Colby College professor Thomas Haigh for Iterations, a publication of the Charles Babbage Institute. (09/13/02) this article is no longer available at the Babbage Institute Web site as of 08/22/21.
- The Multics-Installation at the Center for Data-Processing of the Johannes-Gutenberg-University of Mainz
- Bernd Ulmann has a bunch of pictures of the Mainz machine and a nice story of how he and his friend Ingo got involved with the DPS-8. (11/14/02, 6K, 16 pictures)
- A fond goodbye to Multics
- Dan Bricklin's web log article for 10/31/00.
- 1989 Video Lecture on Multics History
- A 1:47 YouTube movie of a lecture on Multics given by John Gintell at the ACM Greater Boston Chapter. Includes Q&A with audience. Slides for the talk are available as a PDF.
- System R and MRDS
- Paul McJones's summary of MRDS on his System R web site.
- Orange Book
- The Department of Defense Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD 5200.28-STD, December 1985. Describes levels of security for computer systems. Multics was the first system to get a B2 rating.
- UC Davis History of Computer Security Project
- Seminal papers in the field of computer security in PDF format, including several about Multics.
- History of Bull
- An interesting and detailed chronology and history of Machines Bull and its descendants, created by former Bull employees and brought to our attention by the late Jean Bellec.
Multicians
- Interview of Peter Neumann by Marcus Ranum
- Peter is one of the principal investigators for the DARPA CRASH project, a clean-slate rethinking of operating systems and hardware.
- Publications of Jerome H. Saltzer
- A comprehensive bibliography of Jerry Saltzer's writings, many of them about Multics or in the Multics spirit. (03/21/11)
- The late Dennis Ritchie's home page
- One of our distinguished alumni. His home page includes classic papers on the beginnings of Unix, and manuals for QED and BCPL.
- My Career in Computer Architecture
-
A very fine autobiographical essay by MIT Prof. Jack B. Dennis, who proposed some of the fundamental ideas that led to Multics.
I am proud of the role I played in the activities that led to the construction of Multics.
(2003) - In their own words: Unix pioneers remember the good times new
- A very nice 2013 article in NetworkWorld by J D Sartain with quotes from some of the Unix developers who we worked with on Multics.
MIT Laboratory for Computer Science (CSAIL)
- Architects of the Information Society
- Chapter One of the book Architects of the Information Society: Thirty-Five Years of the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT (1999; MIT Press) by Simson Garfinkel, edited by Hal Abelson, chronicles the history and achievements of LCS.
- Project MAC and LCS publications
- These publications are now provided on a server run by the MIT Libraries. See the Multics Bibliography for pointers.
- 1975 LCS Brochure.
-
Scanned and put online by MIT Prof. Peter Szolovits.
Other Operating Systems
Contemporary with Multics, influences on Multics, or influenced by Multics
- The PLATO System
- The PLATO system at University of Illinois demonstrated time-sharing in 1961. Brian Dear has a blog about PLATO history and has written a book on it.
- Stories About the B5000 and People Who Were There
- The Burroughs 5000 had segmentation, high level language, multiprocessor organization, and many other innovations in the early 60s. Richard Waychoff wrote a fascinating memoir of the system and the people who built it.
- CTSS
-
MIT's Compatible Time-Sharing System on the 7094 was the immediate ancestor of Multics.
The IEEE Computer Society History Committee prepared a document in June 2011 in honor of the 50th anniversary of CTSS:
Compatible Time Sharing System (1961-1973) Fiftieth Anniversary Commemorative Overview
(48 pages, 3MB PDF),
edited by Dave Walden and Tom Van Vleck.
It contains an extensive bibliography and interviews with
Corby, Marge Daggett, Bob Daley, Peter Denning, David Alan Grier, Dick Mills, Roger Roach, Allan Scherr, and Tom Van Vleck.
- CTSS on a Simulated 7094
- Dave Pitts has a version of CTSS running on a 7094 simulator created by Paul Pierce. You can log in, execute commands, and compile and execute MAD and FAP programs. (07/08/10)
- Five part blog posting about CTSS history and the creation of MAIL
- Errol Morris (Noel's brother) in his New York Times blog, June 2011. (06/20/11)
- Errol Morris interview on NPR about CTSS MAIL
- Interviewed on WBUR, Boston. (06/20/11)
- DTSS
-
The Dartmouth Time-Sharing System, begun in 1963, also ran on GE computers.
There is a new project to re-create an emulated DTSS Version 1.
- CP/CMS
-
CP/CMS ran on the IBM 360/67 and was also developed in
Tech Square.
See also Melinda Varian's VM and the VM Community,
an outstanding memoir about the history of CP/CMS, the people who built it,
the machine it ran on, and its descendants.
- Dave Tuttle's memories of CP/CMS
- Dave Tuttle was a key developer on CP/CMS and VM/370. He created a nice web site with photos and memories of the IBM CSC in Tech Square from 1968 to 1976... no longer available.
- Michigan Terminal System Archive (currently unavailable)
-
The Michigan Terminal System was developed on the late 60s for the IBM 360/67 and used until 1999.
This archive site contains documents, images, discussions, and an extensive bibliography.
(11/01/10)
Josh Simon's site about MTS has additional information.
Volume 1: The Michigan Terminal System, Reference R1001, November 1991 is available online.
- HITAC 5020
- The Hitachi HITAC 5020 system was strongly influenced by Multics. Its descendant, Omicron, has a home page which includes early (1969 and 1971) papers on the 5020 system.
- TENEX and TOPS-20
- Originally developed at BBN. Ran on the PDP-10.
- Phil's PDP10 Miscellany Page
- new A great collection of PDP-10 and related information.
- PDP Planet
- Rich Alderson restored one of Paul Allen's PDP-10s to working order and put it on the Internet running TOPS-10. This is one of several PDP-10s at the Living Computer Museum, which had a fine collection of running vintage computers, including an exhibit of a Multics 6180 control panel blinking its lights.
- updated According to a posting by Rob Schmuck on July 1, 2020, "Last month, the difficult decision was made to shut down Vulcan Arts & Entertainment, including Living Computers in large part due to the ongoing global pandemic."
- updated LCM will not re-open. The collection will be auctioned off.
- TENEX and TOPS-20
- Gordon Bell's DEC history.
- 1982 Bell Labs movie about Unix
- A 30 minute YouTube movie introduced by Vic Vyssotsky, with narration by Brian Kernighan and clips of Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie.
- Primos
- Prime's operating system shows a strong Multics influence.
- Amber
- The operating system produced by the S-1 project at Livermore between 1979 and 1986.
Computer History
Many computing history pages seem to be disappearing from the Web.
- Computing at Columbia Timeline
- A chronological history of computing at Columbia University in New York by Frank da Cruz. Columbia was Herman Hollerith's alma mater, and the original site of the IBM T. J. Watson laboratory. Many good pictures of bygone computers, including the SSEC, the NORC, and many more. (05/23/03)
- GE-625 / 635 Programming Reference Manual
- Ed Thelen's site has an online version of the hardware manual for the ancestor of the 645. (11/04/02)
- Interview with Monte Davidoff
- An interview by The Register about Monte's work with Bill Gates at Microsoft before he joined the Multics team.
- Bob Bemer's Site
-
The late Bob Bemer, "father of ASCII" and prolific inventor,
put up a wonderful site with many stories of the old days, with a few mentions of Multics.
via Wayback Machine.
- The Computer History Museum
- The History Center in Silicon Valley contains a collection of old computers. They have the hardware from DOCKMASTER.
- Charles Babbage Institute
- Great source for computer history information. They have a collection of oral history interviews with computer pioneers, including Corby, Licklider, and others who made Multics possible, and pointers to other historical information.
- The Virtual Museum of Computing
- Maintained by Jonathan Bowen at the University of Reading.
- AN/FSQ-7: the computer that shaped the Cold War new
- Multician Bernd Ulmann has written a comprehensive book on the computer that supported SAGE, ancestor of Whirlwind, ancestor of CTSS.
- An interview with Norman Hardy
- An interview with a time-sharing pioneer. He visited Project MAC in the 60s and mentions the influence of Multics on other systems. via Wayback Machine.
- RADC
- History of the Rome Air Development Center, an early Multics site. 1971 timeline entry describes Multics evaluation. via Wayback Machine.
- Computing's Johnny Appleseed
- "Almost forgotten today, J.C.R. Licklider mentored the generation that created computing as we know it." An article by Mitchell Waldrop from the January 2000 Technology Review. (As of June 2002, Technology Review requires you to pay or be an MIT affiliate to view their archive.)
- Larry Roberts
- The late Dr. Lawrence Roberts is one of the fathers of the Internet. This site has fundamental historical papers and a valuable chronology of the Internet. via Wayback Machine.
- feb_wwide
- This mailing list is for present and former employees of Bull, GE, Honeywell, and related companies. It focuses on computer history and preserving the story of past accomplishments.
- Computer: Bit Slices of a Life
- Herb Grosch, another computer pioneer, describes his career. Some info on the origins of GE's computer department, no mention of Multics. Full 500-page book, hosted at Columbia. (02/20/05) (Herb was the guy who wrote a Datamation article saying Multics was too complicated to be done.)
- Jef Raskin: Holes in the Histories
- The late father of the Macintosh wrote an insightful and cautionary piece about computer history. Don't believe everything you read. (03/02/05) Via Wayback Machine.
- Computer Networks: The Heralds of Resource Sharing
- A 1972 ARPA film describing computer networking, featuring many pioneers and glimpses of old machines. The first person talking in the film is Corby. Then Lick. About 26 minutes long. (03/19/06)