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Multics

Start develop
1964
Developer
MIT, General Electric, Bell Labs
Language
Assembler -> PL/I

1960s - Mainframe computers eraโ€‹

In the late 1960s, Bell Labs was involved in a project with MIT and General Electric to develop a multitasking operating system called Multics for the GE-645, allowing multiple users to access the mainframe at the same time.

GE 645 Mainframe Computer

GE 645 (photo description)
GE 645

The operator console is front and center, with a Selectric mechanism and a little panel to the right that has the speedometer and the boot button. Front left is a GE-645 CPU. Another CPU is near the back of the room by the door. To the left of the rear CPU are two x-shaped configurations of cabinets: these are GIOCs. I guess those are memory boxes to the left of the GIOCs. The three-bay cabinets behind the front CPU, on the left side, may be Librafile ('firehose') drums, with drum controllers behind them. The MIT configuration had two PRT202 printers (not four), two card readers, two punches. I have no idea what the device is on the extreme right front, that appears to have three tape reels. I also do not see the RACE file which was installed in the Tech Square machine room for a while but never used. See the detailed configuration memo from 1967.

MISTRAM

The GE-600 line of computers was developed by a team led by John Couleur out of work they had done for the military MISTRAM project in 1959. MISTRAM was a radar tracking system that was used on a number of projects, including Project Apollo.

Birth of Unixโ€‹

Bell Labs, frustrated by the size and complexity of Multics but not its aims, slowly pulled out of the project. Their last researchers who left Multics decided to redo the work, but on a much smaller scale.