Least We Forget: MULTICS - (nf)

[emjej at uokvax.UUCP]

#R:sri-arpa:-160800:uokvax:6100035:000:1145
uokvax!emjej    Jul  8 16:51:00 1984

/***** uokvax:net.unix / sri-arpa!ARPA /  1:41 pm  Jul  6, 1984 */
...there may be many valuable concepts that
didn't make it into UNIX and that could be of use to us now.  Anyone have a
dusty old MPM or MSPM lying around?
/* ---------- */

No (and I wish I did have more info on Multics, too), but I would like to
point out a facility of OS-9 that reminds me greatly of Multics segments,
namely the OS-9 memory module.

Said beast is a position-independent (by fiat), usually re-entrant hunk of
program (or data) with surrounding descriptor and checksum. Perhaps it's a
product of "salvation through suffering" (i.e. wishing to provide a multi-
tasking Unix-like OS on 6809 boxes that didn't necessarily have memory
management, so that they couldn't start out putting things at absolute
addresses in initial versions and then move up to machines with virtual
memory or memory management hardware so they could perpetuate the charade
of absolute addresses), but in any case it allows the sort of dynamic linking
I understand Multics is capable of. It's begging for a language on the order
of Modula-2/CLU/Russell to run on it.

					James Jones