From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 22591 invoked from network); 11 May 2022 19:58:18 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (45.79.103.53) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 11 May 2022 19:58:18 -0000 Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id E853E9BCD9; Thu, 12 May 2022 05:58:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5618B9BA54; Thu, 12 May 2022 05:57:24 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 7B7ED9BA54; Thu, 12 May 2022 05:57:20 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mercury.lcs.mit.edu (mercury.lcs.mit.edu [18.26.0.122]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 69A7E9BA39 for ; Thu, 12 May 2022 05:57:18 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 11178) id 594E218C085; Wed, 11 May 2022 15:57:17 -0400 (EDT) To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org Message-Id: <20220511195717.594E218C085@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> Date: Wed, 11 May 2022 15:57:17 -0400 (EDT) From: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu (Noel Chiappa) Subject: Re: [TUHS] Capitalization question: UNIX/Unix and MULTICS/Multics? X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.26 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" > From: Dan Cross > In Kernighan's Unix memoir, on page 9, he touches briefly on the > typography of "Unix": > "(Multics was originally spelled MULTICS ..." > Here, he is talking about interning at MIT in 1966. bwk would certainly > know better than me, but I can find no historical reference to this > "MULTICS" spelling; is anyone familiar with that? I looked at my early Multics stuff, and it's "Multics" almost everywhere: - "GE-645 System Manual", GE, 1968 - "The Multics Virtual Memory", GE, 1970 - "Introduction to Multics", MIT MAC TR-123, 1973 However, in my "A New Remote-Access Man-Machine System", on the title papge it says "Reprints of the MULTICS system presented at the" [FJCC, 1965]. No clue as to who printed it, or when - and all the FJCC papers themselves use "Multics". I have yet to ask Jerry Saltzer, but I suspect that if it ever was 'MULTICS', it was at a _very_ early stage, and was formally changed even before the FJCC papers (which were themselves very early). BTW, ISTR hearing that it was 'Unix' originally, and the 'UNIX' spelling was adopted at the insistence of Bell lawyers. So I went looking for an early (i.e. PDP-7 era) scanned document, to see what it was then, and all I could find was: https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Distributions/Research/McIlroy_v0/UnixEditionZero.pdf which seems to be from just after the PDP-7 -> PDP-11/20 transition, and it uses 'UNIX'. Would the Bell lawyers have already been involved at that stage? Noel