Glossary of Multics acronyms and terms. Entries byTom Van Vleck ([THVV]) unless noted.

KERMIT

Protocol for transferring files to and from PCs over async lines.

kernel

We didn't speak of the "kernel" of the system at first. Our term was usually "supervisor." When ProjectGuardian got underway, there was discussion of isolating the security-critical parts of the supervisor into a "security kernel." OS/360 used the term "nucleus."

kill

The @ character in terminal input "kills" the whole line typed, back to the left margin inedited input mode. (The kill character was ? inCTSS.) (Seeerase)

Kludge

TheESL display, a feature ofCTSS. This device was a vector scope connected to channel D of theIBM 7094, with substantial intelligence in the display controller. It inspired features of theMultics graphics system.

known

[BSG] Asegment is "known" in a process if that process has a segment number for it, as defined by an entry in itsKST. In today's language, a "known segment" is afile system filemapped into the address space of aprocess (but as a segment, not a sub-expanse of linear memory), the only way of accessing files (i.e., segments) in Multics. Making a segment known is also calledinitiating, and making it unknown is calledterminating. Only segments known in an address space can haveSDWs in that process, but not all known segments have SDWs at any given time. See alsoactive.

KOOL

[Daniel Bois] Artificial Intelligence language created by CEDIAG, the BullAI Tools group. The name stands for "Knowledge Object Oriented Language". It is a multi-purpose "Inference Engine" built on Multics first before being ported to Unix, MS-DOS, GCOS, etc ... and before they made a version called KOOL 4x4 which was written in C rather than Lisp.

KST

[BSG] Known Segment Table. A per-processsupervisor data base that defines and stores the mapping betweensegment numbers in that process and files, effectively but not really bypathname, in thefile system (actually a tree ofdirectory entry pointers with unique IDs). It is from this data base thatsegment faults in a process are resolved, i.e., the segment being referenced for the first time identified with a segment in the file system by having itspage table located or created and given anSDW in this process. The size of the KST and the width of the segment number field ofpointer registers limited the number of segments available to a process.

The KST also, for many years, contained what later became the per-ringRNT, which records all names that a user has used to reference a given segment. In the case of directories, which often have similar upper-case and lower-case names, these names were actually returned when pathnames of segments were asked for, in an unpredictable order, resulting in>udd,>UDD, and>user_dir_dir, all names for the same directory, appearing in unpredictable permutation. Seeinitiate andterminate.

[Doug McIlroy] For the glossary, I recall the use of KST as a verb. To be KST'd was to remain linked to an old binary after you'd compiled a new one. That early problem was probably rarely seen by later users. But the agonized shriek of "KST'd again" was often heard during the short time we actually ran Multics at Bell Labs. Seenew_proc.