From ROLL at QZCOM.BITNET Mon Apr 20 16:16:00 1987 From: ROLL at QZCOM.BITNET (Peter Lothberg STUPI) Date: 20 Apr 87 16:16 +0200 Subject: alas, poor SAIL-KA In-Reply-To: <187812.870420.CENT@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Message-ID: <247761@QZCOM> Mark Crispin bought the KA10 with the BBN pager. He wanted to have a KA10 front panel, and we took the pager to attach to one of our working KA10:s. From CENT at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Mon Apr 20 06:24:18 1987 From: CENT at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Pandora B. Berman) Date: Apr 20 87 00:24:18 EDT Subject: alas, poor SAIL-KA Message-ID: <187812.870420.CENT@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> i sent LES at SAIL some info about old MAC PDP-10s.... ---------- Date: Apr 16 87 1253 PDT From: Les Earnest Subject: re: PDP10 history project To: CENT at AI.AI.MIT.EDU .... Incidentally, the Computer Museum already has a PDP-6 -- we gave them ours. At the time I thought that it was the only one left in the world. We recently killed our KA10 and sold it to a collector for $500, including the BBN pager..... From GUMBY at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Fri Apr 17 14:41:07 1987 From: GUMBY at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (David Vinayak Wallace) Date: Apr 17 87 08:41:07 EDT Subject: Same old Shit Message-ID: <186662.870417.GUMBY@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> (as of today you can't say that on the radio any more) AI crashed with the usual "Freeing packet still in use!" See crash PKTFRE if you care From MRC%PANDA at SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU Thu Apr 16 09:29:35 1987 From: MRC%PANDA at SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU (Mark Crispin) Date: Apr 16 87 00:29:35 PDT Subject: Announcement of the DEC 10 and PDP-6 history project (PROJECT-10262) In-Reply-To: <185625.870416.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Message-ID: <12294897588.8.MRC@PANDA> I am involved peripherally with this project. There is NO attempt to shortchange or ignore ITS, WAITS, and TENEX. But!! We will need *papers* from people in these communities in order to fairly cover these operating systems. Otherwise, I will write up something really brief. For ITS, in a few short paragraphs I'll talk about DDT as the command decoder, PCLSR'ing, and the environment that led to the creation of EMACS. I think such coverage WOULD shortchange ITS. There are lots of important concepts that can and should be discussed in detail -- PCLSR'ing, ITS virtual memory (not as good as TOPS-20/Tenex, but quite advanced for its time), canonical terminals/SUPDUP/CRTSTY, symbolic system calls, CHEOPS, Knight TV system, ... TECO and TECO-based editors should be a paper in itself. ------- From ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Thu Apr 16 08:04:00 1987 From: ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Alan Bawden) Date: Apr 16 87 02:04:00 EDT Subject: Announcement of the DEC 10 and PDP-6 history project (PROJECT-10262) Message-ID: <185625.870416.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> The following message was forwarded to me (it was originally sent to AIList I think) with the suggestion that I should redistribute it to whatever mailing lists of PDP-10 hackers I knew of. I don't know anything more about this than what is revealed here. It does kind of sound like these guys are planning on writing a history of PDP-10's that only mentions TOPS10 and TOPS20 and fails to consider ITS and WAITS and perhaps shortchanges TENEX. But I suspect that this is merely a shortcoming of this announcement. Date: 16 Mar 1987, 00:00 From: "Joe Dempster, DTN: 336.2252 AT&T: 609.665.8711" Subject: Announcement of the DEC 10 and PDP-6 history project (PROJECT-10262) This message originates from 2 sources: Les Earnest Computer Science Department STANFORD UNIVERSITY Stanford, CA 94305 415.723.9729 ARPA: LES at SAIL.STANFORD.EDU Joe Dempster DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION 6 Cherry Hill Executive Campus Route 70 Cherry Hill, NJ 08002 609.665.8711 ARPA: DEMPSTER at MARLBORO.DEC.COM (MARKET) The goal of this project is to publish an analysis and history of the evolution, implementation and use of Digital's 36 bit systems. This period began with the PDP-6 in 1964 and continues today with TOPS 10/20 development, which is scheduled to end in 1988. We are working aggressively to finish the project, and have it published, by March/April 1988. This will require that the completed manuscript be ready to go into the publication cycle by August 1987! The project will attempt to answer the following questions: 1. In what markets/applications were these systems used? 2. Who were the users of these systems and what impact did roughly 2,500 TOPS 10/20 systems have on their organizations? 3. Who were the principle system architects of these systems? What features, and if there had been sufficient time to implement them, would have significantly improved the architecture? 4. What impact did the decision to continue to examine design extensions to the architecture have on the usefulness and acceptability of these systems. This is in contrast to a more common practice today to work from a detailed design specification, sometimes dated, building follow-on systems which provide increased performance through the use of new component technologies and packaging techniques. 5. What part of the overall design (TOPS10/20) was technology dependent and what can still be considered "unequaled" in relation to other computer architectures still undergoing active development? 6. What type of development environment (both HW and SW) supported and contributed to the evolution of 36 bit systems? 7. What influence did TOPS 10/20 have on other vendors system development? This history will undoubtedly be assembled from many sources and participants. Some information will be anecdotal; there will be interviews with the people involved (users and developers) and technical papers will be solicited. Of course there will also be the packaging and assembly of facts as we see them. The result will hopefully have sufficient depth to serve as: 1. An introductory or advanced text on system design and hardware/system software implementation. 2. A analysis of the success and difficulties of marketing complex systems into a very crowded market of competing alternatives. 3. A catharsis for those of us who have contributed to the development and use these systems and who will now move onto new computing architectures and opportunities. In addition to interviewing directly 25-50 developers, users and product managers we will continue to work to identify contributors and significant events up to when the final draft is submitted to the publisher. Two "topics" are already under development: 1. Rob Gingell from SUN is working on a paper which looks at extensions to TOPS 20 which would have enhanced its capabilities. 2. Frank da Cruz and Columbia are summarizing 10 years of experience and development of TOPS 20 systems. Some effort will also be made to detail the process which lead to their selection of a follow-on architecture to TOPS 20. There is a need to develop additional topics which represent the use and application of the technology (TOPS 10/20) in other areas. Specific recommendations are welcome as are proposals to develop them. A short abstract should accompany any such proposal. Every effort will be made to work with individuals or organizations interested in making such a contribution. There will be a standalone (no network connections) DECSYSTEM 2020 (YIPYIP) dedicated to supporting the project. This system has a 3 line hunt group, with all lines accessible from a single number (201.874.8612). Both YIPYIP and MARKET will have "public" directories for remote login (DEMPSTER.PROJECT-10262 LCGLCG). MARKET can be accessed by modem (617.467.7437), however disk quota is limited. MARKET's primary purpose is ARPAnet TELNET access. YIPYIP is a dedicated PROJECT-10262 system. MAIL can also be sent to DEMPSTER on either system. YIPYIP and MARKET will keep a running summary of ideas and comments up on Columbia's BBOARD software. KERMIT also runs on each system for uploads. SAIL.STANFORD.EDU will support ARPAnet transfers to a "public" area: FTP CONNECT SAIL.STANFORD.EDU SEND AFN.EXT DSK: AFN.EXT [PUB,LES] SAIL runs WAITS, an operating system similiar to TOPS 10. File names are limited to 6 characters and extensions limited to 3. Implementation details: 1. User input is welcomed and desired from all application and geographic areas. 2. Input from past and present developers is also desired. 3. Throughout the project a secondary goal will be to build a list of users/locations (installation date, duration and disposition) of PDP-6 and KA, KI, KL and KS systems. Serial numbers, if available, are requested. 4. We anticipate that this project will generate a large volume of information (which we hope will arrive electronically). Some information, for any number of reasons, may not be in line with the project's stated goals. Therefore, all notes, interview material and submissions will be donated to the Computer Museum in Boston at the the completion of the project to be available for future reference and research. Ideas, contributions, suggestions and criticism are welcome. As these 36 bit systems were the products of a multitude of people, so too will be the writing of their history. From ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU Wed Apr 1 01:21:04 1987 From: ALAN at AI.AI.MIT.EDU (Alan Bawden) Date: Mar 31 87 18:21:04 EST Subject: [KLOTZ%OZ.AI.MIT.EDU: sys;system mail] In-Reply-To: Msg of Mon 30 Mar 87 14:54:07 EST from David Chapman Message-ID: <176953.870331.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> Nothing you could tell me about when DDT and PWORD handle newlines in the presence or absence of SYSTEM MAIL would supprise me. I've looked at that code once before trying to make both programs do the same thing, and I was unable to do that. If anyone else thinks they want to straighten this out, I can suggest about 8 other projects that would be more useful.