So, I've been collecting images of 'Multics' 'front' panels from around the Internet, intending to do a gallery.
(I should explain that, in common with mainframes of that era, a Multics system had a variety of different kinds of boxes - CPUs, memories, etc - but also others, intended to support the multi-CPU 'utility' concept. It was possible to take, say, a running 3-CPU system, split off a CPU, bring that up as a separate system, then later bring that down, and add it back to the running system! This was actually done at the MIT site, to allow development work in the evenings on the OS software.) The Multicians site has a nice picture of a Multics system with the some of the panels swung open (they're actually 'diagnostic' panels, so would normally be swung shut): http://www.multicians.org/mulimg/h6180-doors-open-big.jpg The CPU is the one in the center (the panel on the left is an IOM, 'I/O Multiplexor', one of the other kinds of box). So, anyway,I had this large collection of pictures, and asked: Tom Van Vleck, the maintainer of the Multicians Web site what the other (non-CPU) panels on offer might be, and his reaction was (roughly) 'some of the CPU panels there might not be Multics CPU panels'. (Honeywell had an entire line, the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_6000_series but most models in that line ran an OS called GECOS (later GCOS), not Multics. So possibly those CPU 'front' panels are from some other 6000 series CPU.) His reasoning was that they don't have the Appending Unit sections: to explain this, Multics used an extra box (the Appending Unit), inserted between the CPU and the memory, to implement the paging and segmentation of Multics, and most 6000-series CPUs did not have this. If you look at this image of what is probably the Multics CPU panel now at the LCM: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/multics/jpg/_1020903.jpg it has an Appending Unit section at the top. (BTW, are there any pictures online of LCM panel? All I could find was the video, which is admittedly ultra-cool.) See the "APU Scroll" section (first full-width section), for the Appending Unit, at the top in this detailed shot: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/multics/jpg/_1020899.jpg It's not an extra panel: the CPU panel on a Multics machine, although the same overall size, has a different configuration, with the APU sections. However, the suspect CPU panels don't have those sections; see an image of one here: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/multics/jpg/multics_panel.jpg with detailed images here: http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/multics/jpg/multics_panel_cu1.jpg http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/multics/jpg/multics_panel_cu2.jpg http://ana-3.lcs.mit.edu/~jnc/tech/multics/jpg/multics_panel_cu3.jpg Which is not _definitive_ that they aren't from a Multics machine, but it certainly raises a big question mark. So, the question is, 'are they Multics panels, just for some reason without the APU section, or what'? So maybe these are from some other Honeywell Series 6000 CPU? If so, does anyone knows which Honeywell 6000 series machine (it pretty much has to be from one of them) they are from? Noel
