[Technical] Notebooks for New Staff - DET needs to help

[Clark, Ian C]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tech-bounces at edulists.com.au 
> [mailto:tech-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Con Zymaris
> Further, Multics'immediate predecessor was a direct influence 
> on VMS, which in turn was a major influence on Windows NT.
> 
> more here:
>  http://www.faqs.org/docs/artu/ch03s02.html

But this says it all, Con! By this diagram, Multics is only influential
on Unix, and Unix clones like Linux.

As far as the rest of computing goes, this diagram claims CTSS, the
early realtime OS, is the important ancestor. ( Note that as I've said
before, genuine innovation is rare in IT, and academics come up with the
idea first, others just follow with implementations: see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-sharing )

What of Multics? According to the diagram, it's only the General
Electric/Bell Labs descendant, just like TOPS is the DEC descendant, and
VM/CMS is the IBM descendant (and only partly - OS 360 was the other
parent), each with their own paths. CPM and the Apple OS were different
again.

The diagram also says that of CTSS's children, VMS was connected to
TOPS, not Multics, which is affirmed by this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOPS-10  

The only way you can keep out telling us that Multics is somehow the
mother of all these OSes is to pick up all the arrows on the picture and
rearrange them ....    ;-)

> And IPX/SPX is now essentially dead. 

You can't have it both ways, Con. Multics is dead too! They work so well
they still have their analogues in the seven layer OSI model, don't you
worry about that!  And the addressing scheme they used (MAC addresses
form part of their "IP" addresses) would make perfect sense in IPv6!
:-)

> But TCP/IP, which came from the same groups which hubbed 
> around the creation of Multics and DARPA and Unix, reigns 
> supreme. Which had more influence?

TCP/IP was never developed on Multics. It was first developed on VAX
machines running its descendant Unix, then the final de facto standard
on BSD Unix was written by Bill Joy, years after people had given up on
Multics as a failure.

Cheers,
Clarky


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