Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

[Noel Chiappa]

    > On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 12:28 PM Erik E. Fair <fair-tuhs@netbsd.org> wrote:

    > The Honeywell DDP-516 was the computer (running specialized software
    > written by Bolt, Bernanek & Newman (BBN)) which was the initial model of
    > the ARPANET Interface Message Processors (IMP).

The IMPs had a lot of custom interface hardware; sui generis serial
interlocked host interfaces (so-called 1822), and also the high-speed modem
interfaces. I think there was also a watchdog time, IIRC (this is all from
memory, but the ARPANET papers from JCC cover it all).

       Noel

[TUHS] 516-TSS documents

[clemc]

Thanks Warren   This is great stuff

On Thu, Nov 26, 2020 at 9:03 PM Warren Toomey <wkt at tuhs.org> wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 05:29:22PM -0800, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> > Well, it's a very rainy day and since COVID is keeping me home I just
> > fed my 516-TSS notebooks into the scanner.  It's about 17MB of stuff.
> > Not sure what to do with it since I don't have a place to serve it and
> > since they're scanned images they're too big to post.  Here's the list
> > of documents; email me if you're wanting something in a hurry while the
> > archive stuff is figured out.  Note that the smell of mildew wasn't
> > preserved in the scanning process.
>
> All, with Jon's permission I've placed a copy of these documents at
> https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Other/516-TSS/
>
> Cheers, Warren
>
-- 
Sent from a handheld expect more typos than usual
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[TUHS] 516-TSS documents

[wkt]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 05:29:22PM -0800, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> Well, it's a very rainy day and since COVID is keeping me home I just
> fed my 516-TSS notebooks into the scanner.  It's about 17MB of stuff.
> Not sure what to do with it since I don't have a place to serve it and
> since they're scanned images they're too big to post.  Here's the list
> of documents; email me if you're wanting something in a hurry while the
> archive stuff is figured out.  Note that the smell of mildew wasn't
> preserved in the scanning process.

All, with Jon's permission I've placed a copy of these documents at
https://www.tuhs.org/Archive/Documentation/Other/516-TSS/

Cheers, Warren

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

[Jon Steinhart]

Dennis Boone writes:
>  > 516-TSS is a little-known but groundbreaking and influential
>  > operating system that was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories.
>
> Can you put any dates to the creation / development of this system?
> Even some estimate of its maturity when you first saw it would be of
> interest.
>
> There was a timeshared os for the Series 16 developed by a group at Tech
> Square, I think the NASA center that was there, late '60s.  It involved
> some custom memory mapping hardware.  The os became the basis of Prime's
> offering in the early 70s.
>
> De

This was also late 60s as far as I know.  The documents are dated, and the
first one is in June 1968.

It was a fully functional system when I first started using it.  Heinz may
be able to say more about it if he remembers.

In many respects it wasn't a hugely interesting system in itself as much
as it was a platform for the development of many other interesting
technologies.

Jon

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

[Dennis Boone]

 > 516-TSS is a little-known but groundbreaking and influential
 > operating system that was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories.

Can you put any dates to the creation / development of this system?
Even some estimate of its maturity when you first saw it would be of
interest.

There was a timeshared os for the Series 16 developed by a group at Tech
Square, I think the NASA center that was there, late '60s.  It involved
some custom memory mapping hardware.  The os became the basis of Prime's
offering in the early 70s.

De

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

[George Michaelson]

https://photos.app.goo.gl/dS2d4sEJQ5oWx8bo7

-G

On Mon, Nov 23, 2020 at 12:28 PM Erik E. Fair <fair-tuhs@netbsd.org> wrote:
>
> The Honeywell DDP-516 was the computer (running specialized software written by Bolt, Bernanek & Newman (BBN)) which was the initial model of the ARPANET Interface Message Processors (IMP).
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_Message_Processor
>
>         Erik Fair

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

[Erik E. Fair]

The Honeywell DDP-516 was the computer (running specialized software written by Bolt, Bernanek & Newman (BBN)) which was the initial model of the ARPANET Interface Message Processors (IMP).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interface_Message_Processor

	Erik Fair

[TUHS] 516-TSS Documents

[Jon Steinhart]

These are in Warren's hands now and he'll let us know where their permanent
home ends up being.  Since these are pretty much uncirculated unlike the UNIX
documents I wrote a README to go along with them which Heinz reviewed so it's
the best that two aging sets of memories can do.  Here it is:

- - -

516-TSS is a little-known but groundbreaking and influential operating system
that was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories.  I came across this system
because Carl Christensen and later Heinz Lycklama were major contributors to
it, and they were also advisors for the Bell Labs Explorer Scout Post at
Murray Hill.  I was a member of that post which allowed us to play with
computers on Monday evenings, and 516-TSS was what most of us used.  Through
a series of amazingly lucky events, I ended up working as a summer student
for Carl and Heinz and got to contribute to the system.  Long before the term
"code spelunking" was coined Carl and Heinz taught us both code and spelunking.

This is not a complete set of 516-TSS documents, it's a couple of notebooks
that I found in a box in the basement.  Probably my ancient work-at-home copy.

I don't know enough history to know if it was the first, but 516-TSS was an
early department-level time-sharing system.  It was built around a Honeywell
DDP-516.  While other time-sharing systems predate 516-TSS, they weren't
systems that one's department could afford.  CTSS certainly came earlier,
but it used a monster IBM 7090 mainframe.  In round numbers, a 7090 cost
$3,000,000 dollars, a DDP-516 cost $50,000.

516-TSS was also a virtual memory system; again not the first but a rarity
in that era.  My recollection is that it used the 516's index register as
the base address register, and there was some complicated mucking around
that a program had to do if it needed to use the index register including
disabling interrupts and eventually restoring the register from .PRESB
(present base address), one of those weird things stuck in my memory from
long ago.

I believe that the system's development predated UNIX although I remember
our department getting a PDP-11/45 running UNIX Version 3 in the summer of
1973. This machine was acquired so that Doug Bayer and Heinz Lycklama could
develop the MERT operating system.

The 516 was a testbed for a lot of novel technologies.  It had a local area
network called the ring which was later made to work on PDP-11s including
Ken and Dennis's machine up in the attic of building 2.  It was also used
to develop the GLANCE graphics terminals.  My recollection is that one of
the main drivers behind getting the ring to work on PDP-11s and UNIX was so
that Ken could get a GLANCE-G terminal for playing chess.  Sandy Fraser's
Spider network was developed there.  It supported a number of novel
applications including Dick Hause's DTE graphics editor; way ahead of its
time.  I remember that one GLANCE terminal was fitted with an array of LEDs
and photodiodes to make an early version of a touch screen.

While it wasn't exactly work related, a number of the people in the department
had purchased property up in Vermont for ski cabins.  An important use of the
516-TSS system and GLANCE-G terminals was to figure out survey closures.  The
property surveys were ancient, of the "from the big rock to the left of the
tree that's no longer there" sorts of things, so figuring out the actual
property lines was an interesting problem.

The 516 also had a wide area network which consisted of picking up the phone
and calling the computer center.  It had a monster GE-635 or maybe 645 left
over from the Multics project.  It may have been renamed to be a Honeywell
6070 with Honeywell's acquisition of GE's computer business.  The computer
center kept department costs down by hoarding all of the really expensive
peripherals.  For example, we didn't have a card punch; that was effectively
done via remote job entry.  We didn't have a graphics printer either, so when
I was working on GPLOT I'd submit remote jobs to the computer center for
printing.  Matter of fact, I don't think that we even had a printer in our
department; we sent stuff up to the computer center for printing.  Although,
in those days many terminals used paper.  The 516 console was an ASR-33.
There was also the ability to send jobs to the computer center and have it
call back with results.  This early approach to a WAN showed up as the tss
command in UNIX.

One of the missions of the department was the development of an all-digital
telephone exchange which is why some of the documents describe programs that
assist with digital filter design.  Both Jim Kaiser and Hal Alles were in the
department.  One of the side-effects of all this was Hal figuring out how to
use the filter hardware connected to a LSI-11/03 to make sound, followed by
Dave Hagelbarger building a very interesting keyboard for it, culminating in
a visit by Stevie Wonder trailed by a large number of screaming secretaries.
No sexism intended, it was a different world back then.  The LSI-11 was one
of the motivations for Heinz to create the LSX operating system.

My recollection is that on Dave's keyboard each key was an antenna, and that
there was strip of ribbon cable underneath where each wire was driven by a
different bit on a binary counter.  This allowed the position of each key to
be determined which I think was way ahead of its time.  I don't think that
any commercially available keyboards did this at the time, they were all just
on/off.  Dave also designed the GLANCE keyboard which spoiled me for life.
I don't remember how he did it, but the keys had a really good feel where once
they got pushed past a certain point they snapped down.  I do recall that there
was a small solenoid mounted on the circuit board so that the keys gave a
satisfying click that you could feel in your fingers.  Another of Dave's gizmos
was the chess board that he made for Ken.  My recollection is that there was a
tuned circuit in the base of each chess piece and an antenna grid in the board
so that the PDP-11 could read the position of each piece.

Some of the success of the 516 system was that other departments used it.  I
spent some time working an a 516-based integrated circuit test system where
the test equipment stations were on the ring.  Seems really dumb now, it's hard
to believe that there was a time in which a computer cost more than a wafer
stepper.

In addition to his work on 516-TSS, Carl Christensen was one of the people who
interviewed Ken Thompson for a job at the labs and gave a thumbs up.

The 516-TSS documents don't have author names, just initials.  Here's who they
are to the best of my recollection.

ADH	Dick Hause
CC	Carl Christensen
DJB	Doug Bayer
DRW	Dave Weller
EPR	?
HL	Heinz Lycklama
JCS	John Schwartzwelder
JES	Jon Steinhart
JFK	Jim Kaiser
JHC	Joe Condon
JVC	John Camlet
LIS	?
MAS	?
RFG	Rudy Garcia

There is one mysterious document in the collection about a "memory service unit".
I had this filed under "zapper".  To the best of my recollection it was the PROM
programmer that we used to burn the microcode PROMs for the GLANCE terminals.

Jon Steinhart, 11/20/2020

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS documents

[Jason T]

On Wed, Nov 18, 2020 at 7:30 PM Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote:
>
> Well, it's a very rainy day and since COVID is keeping me home I just
> fed my 516-TSS notebooks into the scanner.  It's about 17MB of stuff.
> Not sure what to do with it since I don't have a place to serve it and
> since they're scanned images they're too big to post.  Here's the list
> of documents; email me if you're wanting something in a hurry while the
> archive stuff is figured out.  Note that the smell of mildew wasn't
> preserved in the scanning process.

Hi Jon - I'd be happy to host them at my site here:
http://vtda.org/docs.  I'd just need you to suggest the best
classification for the docs.  I can also OCR them if you have not done
so already.

-j

Re: [TUHS] 516-TSS documents

[Grant Taylor via TUHS]

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On 11/18/20 6:29 PM, Jon Steinhart wrote:
> Well, it's a very rainy day and since COVID is keeping me home I 
> just fed my 516-TSS notebooks into the scanner.  It's about 17MB 
> of stuff.  Not sure what to do with it since I don't have a place to 
> serve it and since they're scanned images they're too big to post. 
> Here's the list of documents; email me if you're wanting something 
> in a hurry while the archive stuff is figured out.  Note that the 
> smell of mildew wasn't preserved in the scanning process.

Let me know if there is something I can do to help archive / host 
things.  Be that hosting, transferring, something else.

There are options.



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die


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[TUHS] 516-TSS documents

[Jon Steinhart]

Well, it's a very rainy day and since COVID is keeping me home I just
fed my 516-TSS notebooks into the scanner.  It's about 17MB of stuff.
Not sure what to do with it since I don't have a place to serve it and
since they're scanned images they're too big to post.  Here's the list
of documents; email me if you're wanting something in a hurry while the
archive stuff is figured out.  Note that the smell of mildew wasn't
preserved in the scanning process.

516-1-516-DOCUMENTATION.pdf
516-3-DDP-516-PRICE-LIST.pdf
516-4-Disk-Layout.pdf
516-5-System-Table-Formats.pdf
516-6-Segment-Format.pdf
516-8-Disk-Hole-Format.pdf
516-7-DMA-Mnemonics.pdf
516-9-Addresses.pdf
516-10-11-12-Ring-Formats.pdf
516-12-Specifications-For-The-Node-Modem-Interface.pdf
516-13-Trac-Character-Strings.pdf
516-14-GMAP-Assembler-for-the-Multi-Programmed-516.pdf
516-15-A-Suggested-Graphic-Display-with-Keyboard-for-Graphic-Terminals.pdf
516-16-516-Assembler-And-Post-Processor-For-Unsegmented-Programs.pdf
516-18-Format-For-Ring-Interrupt.pdf
516-19-Thread-Save-Blocks.pdf
516-20-Card-Reader-Bootstrap-and-Programs.pdf
516-21-Octal-Package.pdf
516-22-A-Repeater-For-The-Node-Modem.pdf
516-23-CLEAR-CORE-CARD.pdf
516-24-SOROBAN-CARD-READER-TEST-PROGRAM.pdf
516-25-IO-Table.pdf
516-26-Disk-DMA-Queue.pdf
516-27-GE-Disc-Files-For-516-Programming.pdf
516-27-Thread-Table.pdf
516-28-IO-Ring_Device-Codes.pdf
516-29-Five-Bit-Character-Codes.pdf
516-30-Text-Editor.pdf
516-31-Relocatable-Segment-Octal-Package.pdf
516-32-ASCII-Character-Mnemonics.pdf
516-34-Display-List-For-Glance.pdf
516-35-Internal-Megacycle-Clock.pdf
516-36-Node-Modem-Interface-For-Computer-Terminals.pdf
516-38-P8SYS.pdf
516-39-Resource-Monitor-Meters.pdf
516-40-SNAP-Time-Sharing-Calculator.pdf
516-41-516-Segment-Assembler.pdf
516-42-Memory-Service-Unit-Format.pdf
516-43-GEBKUP-and-FLOAD.pdf
516-44-FSNAP-Floating-Point-Time-Sharing-Calculator.pdf
516-45-516-316-Assembler-and-Binder.pdf
516-46-CALC-A-Desk-Calculator-Program.pdf
516-47-Remote-Data-Plotting.pdf
516-48-CODING-FOR-GLANCE-G-Graphics.pdf
516-49-516-Segment-Assembler.pdf
516-50-Use-Of-The-516-Segment-Assemblers-Macros-In-Application-Programs.pdf
516-51-FSNAP-Designers-Guide.pdf
516-51-FSNAP-Users-Guide.pdf
516-52-DESK-A-Desk-Calculator.pdf
516-53-FSEOF-Flag-End-Of-File.pdf
516-54-Context-Editing.pdf
516-55-One-Card-Core-Save-Program.pdf
516-56-PRIME-An-Integer-Factoring-Program.pdf
516-57-Format-For-The-516-Node-T-I-U-Spider-Interface.pdf
516-59-Calling-Procedures-For-Math-Routines.pdf
516-59-INITIALIZATION-OF-THE-516-TSS-SYSTEM.pdf
516-60-SORT-SUBR-FOR-SEGMENTED-PROGRAMS.pdf
516-61-516-TSS-SYSTEM-BOLTED-IN-CORE-SUBROUTINES.pdf
516-63-Display-Controller-Glance-G.pdf
516-65-SOME-DIGITAL-FILTER-APPLICATION-PROGRAMS.pdf
516-66-TSS-516-GE-Communication.pdf
516-67-Node-Format-For-PDP-11.pdf
516-68-DFILE-N-A-Program-for-TSS-516.pdf
516-69-GLANCE-G-COMMUNICATION-FORMAT-TSS-516-TO-SCOPE.pdf
516-70-Routines-to-Perform-Character-String-IO-in-a-FSNAP-Program.pdf
516-71-FSNAP-Debugging-Aids.pdf
516-72-Node-Test.pdf
516-73-Node-IO-Software.pdf
516-75-Display-Text-Editor-DTE.pdf
516-76-LOCAL-DATA-PLOTTING.pdf
516-77-GLANCE-PLOTTING-ROUTINES-GPLOT-GLANCE-CHRGEN.pdf
516-77-V2-GLANCE-PLOTTING-ROUTINES-GPLOT-GLANCE-CHRGEN.pdf
516-78-DUMP.pdf
516-79-New-File-Features-in-FSNAP.pdf
516-81-OPTION-CHANGING-IN-GPLOT.pdf
516-86-MODIFICATIONS-TO-201-DATAPHONE-SOFTWARE.pdf
DDP-516-PROGRAMMERS-REFERENCE-CARD.pdf
DDP-516-Instruction-Set-Summary.pdf
Index.pdf
README