MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY PROJECT MAC The Multiplexed Information and Computing Service: Programmers! Manual PART | INTRODUCTION TO MULTICS ‘This research vas supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense under ARPA Order No, 2095 which was monitored by ONR Contract No. NOOOL4-70-A-0362-0006 Revision: 14 Date: 9/30/73© Copyright 1973, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Honeywell Information Systems Inc All rights reserved Page iiPREFACE The Nultics project was begun in 1964 by the Computer Systems Research group of M.1.T. Project MAC. The goal was to create a prototype of a computer utility. In 1965, the project became a cooperative venture of M.1.T. Project MAC, the General Electric Company Computer Department (now Honeywell Information Systems Inc.) and the Bell Telephone Laboratories. In 1969, at the end of the research phase of the project, Bell Telephone Laboratories ended Its active involvement. Also in 1969, the M.1.T. Information Processing Center began to offer Multics as a computing service within the M.1.T. community. In 1973, after developing a new hardware base for Multics, Honeywell announced that it would market Multics as a commercial product. The Multics system owes its genesis to a small team of computer scientists who had the vision to lay out a plan which for 1965 was startlingly ambitious. This team consisted-of the authors of a set of landmark papers published in the 1965 Fall Joint Computer Conference. Since that time literally hundreds of individuals have contributed to the Multics project, but no individual stands out so clearly in contribution as does Professor Fernando J. Corbato, who took responsibility for gulding the design and implementation of Multics from its initial proposal through to the time when Honeywell began to market the system. The project would not have been possible without the considerable commitments of resources and talent made by the several organizations. These commitments were made on the recommendations of Professor Robert M. Fano, then director of Project MAC, Dr. John W. Weil, then of General Electric, and Or. Edward E. David, Jr., then of the Bell Telephone Laboratories. The Information Processing Techniques office of the Advanced Research Projects Agency provided the primary financial support ‘to Project MAC, and the Office of Naval Research provided contract supervision. This technical report is a snapshot of The Introduction to the users' manual for the Multics system. It is being published in this form as a convenient method of