AWhat changed
Multics was an attempt to make a computer a dependable shared utility. This paper explains how its designers connected goals such as continuous operation, controlled sharing and expandable capacity to implementation choices and years of experience. It also discusses revisions and incomplete goals. The contribution is an account of a working system and the lessons extracted from building it, rather than a claim that every feature of the original vision had been delivered.
Scientific scope
Multics was an attempt to make a computer a dependable shared utility. This paper explains how its designers connected goals such as continuous operation, controlled sharing and expandable capacity to implementation choices and years of experience. It also discusses revisions and incomplete goals. The contribution is an account of a working system and the lessons extracted from building it, rather than a claim that every feature of the original vision had been delivered. The exact three-author 1972 implementation and experience paper. Multics was a collective MIT, Bell Laboratories and GE/Honeywell project; paper authorship does not transfer all project credit. Planned protection hardware and delivered facilities are distinct. Reported system figures describe that installation and period, not a modern performance benchmark.
Evidence
The linked original works support the scoped statement and contribution attribution. WRS has not independently replayed experiments or reconstructed a full mathematical proof. The exact three-author 1972 implementation and experience paper. Multics was a collective MIT, Bell Laboratories and GE/Honeywell project; paper authorship does not transfer all project credit. Planned protection hardware and delivered facilities are distinct. Reported system figures describe that installation and period, not a modern performance benchmark.
Contributors
- The named authors in the research record · SCIENCE: Source-listed authors for the exact contribution; experimental subjects are not autonomous scientific authors. Source support and predecessor work retain separate roles. Individual effort shares and unresolved identities are not inferred.
Provisional WRS assessment, edition 2026-10-23.3. Independent expert calibration is pending. This grade does not certify correctness or assign ownership.
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