I was at MIT in the late 60's, using Multics when Bell Labs decided to pull out. A problem, in retrospect, was the use of PL/I as the primary language. PL/I was a language designed by a committee, and it showed. It would never have made a plausible systems programming language. But Multics was a lot more fun to use than CTSS, which it replaced.

On Sat, Sep 1, 2018 at 5:27 PM, jcs <lists@irreal.org> wrote:

Will Senn <will.senn@gmail.com> writes:

So, it looks like someone has gone and started running a multics instance:

http://lists.nycbug.org/pipermail/semibug/2018-August/000288.html

That’s interesting, and y’all may even have been aware of it. But, I was thinking that Multics was a failed predecessor of unix and it’s craziness an inspiration for how unix isn’t multics... straighten me out :)

Failed only in the sense that the Labs withdrew from the project. Honeywell, which bought out GE's computer division, sold Multics systems, although I don't remember them being very successful.

The real mystery is what it's running on. Multics originally ran on the GE/H 600(0) systems. I doubt any are still around. It's probably a simulator but I've never heard of one for the H6000.