The path that people think Multics followed. What is left out is that Project MAC was ridiculously ambitious. As in, most operating systems, and probably all m

The path that people think Multics followed. What is left out is that Project MAC was ridiculously ambitious. As in, most operating systems, and probably all multiuser/interactive ones, have Multics in the "tree of inventions" behind them. The issue is that Bell Labs wanted something smaller and more immediately usable and ultimately they got it by accident because few programmers had seen the future and started to miss it.