The management of disk storage for deciduous segments was tricky, and while the bugs were being worked out, an extra RPVS on an ad hoc basis could never hurt. The BOS facility that allowed the execution of a script of BOS commands, named after the corresponding CTSS facility, created by Louis Pouzin . Runcoms could call other runcoms but not return. This facility kept MIT's Multics running during the Big Snow of February 1978. Multics was unique in its concept of a gracefully evolving process in which cleanliness of the address space was left up to the programs.
Most OSs run user programs in a rubber room, and hose the place down after the program exits.
The run unit was a compromise between these approaches, allowing the comfortable room to continue for Multicious programs but providing a rubber room for those whose habits required one. A Multics BCPL version of runoff was written by Doug McIlroy . Ancestor of UNIX troff . RWS Jargon for Read-Write Sequence .