Articles Available
Technical articles about features of Multics written by Multicians.
See Stories for 87 stories about Multics and Papers for 46 published conference papers about Multics.
(most recent first)
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"The GE-635s at Project MAC and BTL" Using the GE-635 in early Multics development.
(Tom Van Vleck, 05/11/22) -
"Execution Environment" The execution environment for Multics programs. Hardware architectural support and system conventions.
(Tom Van Vleck, 12/07/22) -
"Multics Failure Recovery" How Multics recovered from hardware and software failures.
(Tom Van Vleck, 12/07/22) -
"Development Process" The Multics development process.
(Tom Van Vleck, 04/07/22) -
"Communications and Networking" The evolution of Multics communication and networking facilities.
(Tom Van Vleck, 12/07/22) -
"B2 Security Evaluation" The history of Multics security features and the NCSC Orange Book security evaluation of Multics in the mid-80s.
(Tom Van Vleck, 01/17/23) -
"Development Process History" History of the Multics development process.
(Tom Van Vleck, 02/02/22) -
"PL/I" The history of EPL, Version 1 and Version 2 PL/I, as well as related topics.
(Tom Van Vleck, 12/07/22) -
"Code Auditing" The informal code review process used in Multics.
(Tom Van Vleck, 12/07/22) -
"Debug Breakpoint Handling" The sequence of events in a debug breakpoint.
(Gary Dixon, 13 Feb 2017) -
"The Reduction Compiler" A tool we used to build tools in Multics.
(Gary Dixon, 12/07/22) -
"Trouble Report System" The system for handling Multics trouble reports.
(Gary Dixon, 04/27/21) -
"The Multics Scheduler" Three generations of Multics scheduling algorithms.
(Bob Mullen, 25 Jan 2016) -
"The B2 Final Evaluation Report" Report on NSA Evaluation of Multics security.
(Tom Van Vleck, 28 Apr 2015) -
"Final Evaluation Report of Honeywell Multics MR 11.0" 36 MB PDF.
(NCSC, 01 June 1986) -
"Multics Bootstrap Loading" The evolution of Multics bootstrap loading and BOS.
(Tom Van Vleck, 01 Mar 2013) -
"Multics and Hyperchannel" A project at ASEA to connect Multics to Modcomp computers via Hyperchannel.
(Olin Sibert, 19 May 2004) -
"Record Stocks and the Physical Volume Scavenger" Record Stocks in Multics. Pages are allocated to segments so crash recovery is safe and fast.
(Olin Sibert, 19 May 2004) -
"Multics Library Processes and Tools" How Multics source and object libraries were managed.
(Olin Sibert, 24 Apr 2006) -
""And They Argued All Night..."" The history of the Internet. An article for Matrix News.
(Mike Padlipsky, 2000) -
"Priority Scheduling" HLSUA Presentation, Forum XXV.
(Harry Quackenboss, 18 Oct 1977) -
"Multics Leap Year Calculations" Y2K was anticipated as early as 1966.
(Jerry Saltzer, 05 Jan 2000) -
"The who command" The Multics who command.
(Tom Van Vleck, 08 Sep 1997) -
"Home Terminals" Over 50 years of logging in from home.
(Tom Van Vleck, 09 Jul 2001) -
"Printer Software" Printers, listings, and crash dumps.
(Tom Van Vleck, 27 Feb 1996) -
"The New Storage System" 1975 project to replace the file storage system.
(Tom Van Vleck, 12 Feb 1995) -
"Multics Virtual Memory - Tutorial and Reflections" Summary of the Multics virtual memory design.
(Paul Green, 1995) -
"Multics History" PDF slides from John Gintell's lecture on Multics History to the ACM Greater Boston Chapter. Also
available on YouTube.
(John Gintell, 16 Nov 1989) -
"Observations about Software Maintenance" A talk to the Ada SIG by Paul Stachour about the Multics Way.
(Paul Stachour, 26 Mar 1984) -
"Multics Data Security" Security controls in Multics. Published in Scientific Honeyweller (Vol. 2 No. 2) and as Honeywell doc GA01.
(David M. Jordan, Jun 1981)