🚀 go-pugleaf

Original statement:

   As far as I know the machines under discussion generally belong
   to the Multics/Tenex/Unix school of thought that on the one hand,
   there is memory, and on the other hand, there are files.
                                                    -- Barns at OFFICE


Comments:

   Multics does not view files as something fundamentally different
   from memory.  Rather, it was the first system to support a uniform
   single-level memory system consisting of variable size objects
   (segments) from 4096 bytes to 1 megabyte in length. Files were
   simulated in Multics for compatibility reasons only, and files
   were constructed out of segments.
                                     -- Paul A. Karger <PAK at MIT-MC>

   An important correction for all of you who have never used Multics,
   and are constantly assuming that it is like UNIX or TENEX.  It is
   not. Barns, for example, says that Multics/TENEX/Unix differentiate
   between files and memory (and that the S/38 doesn't).  Multics was
   the first system to do away with the concept of file--Multics "files"
   are merely part of its large virtual memory, and are accessed via
   pointers.  S/38 has few new ideas in this area, and a lot of crocks.
   Pish tush.                                         -- DPR at MIT-XX

     You are completely wrong in classifying Multics in this group.
   In Multics, there is absolutely no distinction between "memory"
   and "files"; there are just segments, which live in a hierar-
   chical file system and are addressed directly.  The System 38
   is a spiritual descendant of Multics in this regard.
     Just because an idea is old-fashioned does not mean you should
   identify it with Multics.  For all Multics's problems and extreme
   age, it is STILL ahead of its time in some ways.  Sorry for the
   irrelevance of this message, but I couldn't just let this go by...
                                  -- Daniel L. Weinreb <dlw at MIT-AI>