In the late 1960s a combined project between researchers at MIT, Bell Labs and General Electric led to the design of a third generation of computer operating system known as MULTICS (MULTiplexed Information and Computing Service). It was envisaged as a computer utility, a machine that would support hundreds of simultaneous timesharing users. They envisaged one huge machine providing computing power for everyone in Boston. The idea that machines as powerful as their GE-645 would be sold as personal computers costing only a few thousand dollars ....