The Multics operating system arose from MIT Project MAC's desire to build an advanced mainframe timesharing system to follow its successful CTSS system on the IBM 7094. The project began in 1964 and was described in a set of six papers at the 1965 Fall Joint Computer Conference. GE was selected as the hardware vendor and Bell Telephone Laboratories also joined the development team. MIT's research was largely funded by the US Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Multics took longer than planned to become operational, and Bell dropped out of the project in 1969, about the time MIT started offering service to users. Multics continued to evolve and spread to additional sites for the next 16 years as a Honeywell commercial product offering. For more information, see http://www.multicians.org.