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

[Dan Weinreb]

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.