* [COFF] Re: [TUHS] Fwd: How did Bell Labs start to work on Project MAC?
@ 2023-01-24 18:47 Noel Chiappa
0 siblings, 0 replies; 2+ messages in thread
From: Noel Chiappa @ 2023-01-24 18:47 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: coff, crossd; +Cc: jnc
> From: Dan Cross
> From Acceptable Name <metta.crawler@gmail.com>:
Gmail has decided this machine is a source of spam, and is rejecting all email
from it, and I have yet to sort out what's going on, so someone might want to
forward anything I turn up to this person.
>> Did Bell Labs approach MIT or was it the other way around?
I looked around the Multics site, but all I could find is this: "Bell
Laboratories (BTL) joined the Multics software development effort in November
of 1964"
https://multicians.org/history.html
I did look through IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 14, no. 2,
listed there, but it's mostly about the roots of CTSS. It does have a footnote
referring to Doug, about the timing, but no detail of how Bell Labs got
involved.
I have yet to look at the oral history things from Corby, etc which may answer
this in passing.
I'll ask Jerry Saltzer if he remembers; he's about the only person left from
MIT who was around at that point.
>> Did participating in Project MAC come from researchers requesting
>> management at Bell Labs/MIT
At MIT, the 'managers' and the researchers were the same people, pretty much.
If you read the panel transcript in V14N2, Fano was the closest thing to a
manager (although he was really a professor) there was at MIT, and he talks
about not wanting to be involved in managing the thing!
Noel
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 2+ messages in thread
* [COFF] Re: [TUHS] Fwd: How did Bell Labs start to work on Project MAC?
@ 2023-01-24 21:09 Noel Chiappa
0 siblings, 0 replies; 2+ messages in thread
From: Noel Chiappa @ 2023-01-24 21:09 UTC (permalink / raw)
To: coff; +Cc: jnc
> I have yet to look at the oral history things from Corby, etc which may
> answer this in passing.
This page:
https://multicians.org/project-mac.html
links to oral history transcripts from Fano, Corby and Dennis. Only Corby:
https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/107230
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102658041-05-01-acc.pdf
was involved when Bell Labs came on board; he says:
"Also Bell Labs was interested in acquiring a new computer system. They were
quite intrigued and sympathetic to the notions of what we were doing. Ed
David down there was a key figure and an old friend of Fano. They decided to
become partners (pg. 16, CHM interview)
"Simultaneously, Bell Labs had been looking for a new computer acquisition
for their laboratories, and they had been scouting out GE. There was some
synergism: because they knew we were interested they got interested. I think
they first began to look independently of us. But they saw the possibility
of our developing a new operating system together." (pg. 43, CBI interview)
So it sounds like it was kind of a mutual thing, aided by the connection
between Fano and David (who left Bell after Bell bailed on multics).
Noel
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2023-01-24 18:47 [COFF] Re: [TUHS] Fwd: How did Bell Labs start to work on Project MAC? Noel Chiappa
2023-01-24 21:09 Noel Chiappa
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