[ih] Unix vs. Multics (was - Re: what is and isn't the web, was Rise and Fall of the Gopher Protocol)

[Noel Chiappa]

    > From: Dave Crocker

    > On 8/22/2016 8:00 AM, John Day wrote:
    >> Unix is of course a castrated Multics.

    > I think that's actually a counter-productive view and probably just
    > plain wrong.

Indeed. I am a HYUUGE fan of both systems (although for Unix, more the
earlier ones, i.e. V7 and before, which had a mind-bogglingly high
power/complexity ratio; contemporary Unix is nothing to write home about).

Sadly, though, a lot of Ken and DMR's criticisms of Multics are just plain
wrong - like a lot of the other contemporary opinions of it. (Which is not to
say that it didn't make mistakes - they just aren't the ones you usually
hear.)

    > Multics was a classic "big system" design approach. Unix was a classic
    > "minimal system" design approach.

Exactly.

And now, since this is the Internet-History list, not Computer-History, I
will subside... ;-)

	Noel