Jargon file v2.1.5 28 NOV 1990 -- part 5 of 6

[Tony Rems]

In article <1990Dec11.165727.5357 at odi.com> dlw at odi.com writes:
>In article <1990Dec10.173546.25184 at maths.tcd.ie> darragh at maths.tcd.ie (Darragh J. Delany) writes:
>
>   If I remember rightly the very name Unix was a pun on Multics
>   which was the epitomy of what an efficient operating system
>   should not have been.
>
>The word is spelled "epitome", and Multics was so efficient that its
>emulator for the alternative operating system that could run on that
>hardware (namely GCOS-3) actually ran programs FASTER than GCOS-3
>did itself.  The name "Unix" was meant to mean "a little version
>of Multics".  It had to be little, to fit on a PDP-7.

>From page 3 of 
"The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating System"

"Even the name "UNIX" is merely a pun on Multics; in areas where 
Multics attempted to do many things, UNIX tried to do one thing well."


Sounds reasonable to me.  

-Tony