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From: John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Don Norman: The Truth About Unix
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2026 10:35:04 -0800
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On Sat, 31 Jan 2026 16:47:17 -0000 (UTC)
cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross) wrote:

> > (I am curious, was Multics truly the first system to make user
> > programs first-class citizens of the command shell? It's such a
> > natural way to do things from a retrospective point of view that it
> > seems hard to imagine *nobody* else coming up with it 'til over a
> > decade into the history of interactive computing...)  
> 
> The real genesis of the idea comes from "RUNCOM" on CTSS, as
> described by Louis Pouzin, who coined the term "shell" to descibe the
> command interpreter he proposed for Multics.  As usual, the
> Multicians web site has first-hand details:

Ah, many thanks. Interesting to see how closely-knit his conception is
in that writeup; the way he describes it almost charts a middle course
between shell-as-formalized-programming-language & shell-as-glue-logic.
Interesting view re: timesharing, as well:

"Time sharing, as it became popular, is a living organism in which any
user, with various degrees of expertise, can create new objects, test
them, and make them available to others, without administrative control
and hassle."