From: iking@killthewabbit.org (iking@killthewabbit.org)
Subject: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 20:13:05 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <9cea91b5-f4ee-46a3-80b3-899b1ee00d69.maildroid@localhost> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20140617013840.GB3947@mercury.ccil.org>
Well, the University of Oregon might disagree with you about the PDP-7. They ran the DECsys monitor, which ISTR was the first such software product from DEC outside the 36-bit line (the PDP-6 and -7 were introduced in the same year). U of O took delivery of their -7 in 1966 and it saw active service for at least three decades, with over thirty doctorates earned based on research performed on the system. Hardly useless....
It's always been a bit of a mystery to me why Thompson and Ritchie decided they needed to write a new executive - UNICS - rather than use DECsys. True, DECsys isn't anything to shout about and Unix is clearly more useful - but IMHO Spacewar! could have been coded in the DECsys 'environment'. I infer that they saw broader utility and application in a more capable executive - which obviously turned out to be true!
The U of O PDP-7 is the one currently residing at the Living Computer Museum (I used to maintain it).
And what's wrong with OS/8? Minimal, yes - what do you want, Windows Vista? :-) - Ian
Sent from my android device.
-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>
To: Gregg Levine <gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com>
Cc: tuhs at minnie.tuhs.org
Sent: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 6:38 PM
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Happy birthday, core dumped
Gregg Levine scripsit:
> I know I've seen the Star system rig before. But the Xerox Alto one is
> new to me. Wasn't the PDP-7 the fellow where UNIX really got its start
> on before they moved it to a PDP-11?
It was. The 18-bit systems were the red-headed stepchild of the DEC world.
The PDP-1, PDP-4, and PDP-7 systems had no DEC-supplied operating system,
and the PDP-9 only a minimal one, about like OS/8. Not until the terminal
18-bit system, the PDP-15, were PDP-11 class operating systems provided.
Consequently, the Bell Labs PDP-7 was essentially useless.
--
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan at ccil.org
Awk!" sed Grep. "A fscking python is perloining my Ruby; let me bash
him with a Cshell! Vi didn't I mount it on a troff?" --Francis Turner
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2014-06-17 3:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 25+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2014-06-15 18:19 Norman Wilson
2014-06-16 16:13 ` iking
2014-06-16 22:01 ` Gregg Levine
2014-06-17 1:38 ` John Cowan
2014-06-17 1:56 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2014-06-17 3:13 ` iking [this message]
2014-06-17 12:14 ` John Cowan
2014-06-18 16:21 ` Ian King
2014-06-18 11:06 Doug McIlroy
2014-06-18 14:43 ` iking
2014-06-18 14:48 ` Dan Cross
2014-06-18 18:21 ` A. P. Garcia
2014-06-18 15:03 Norman Wilson
2014-06-18 14:00 ` Larry McVoy
2014-06-18 16:58 ` Cory Smelosky
2014-06-18 15:55 ` Larry McVoy
2014-06-18 15:14 ` Dan Cross
2014-06-18 16:50 ` scj
2014-06-18 18:43 ` John Cowan
2014-06-18 17:48 Douglas Comer
2014-06-18 22:38 ` Cory Smelosky
2014-06-18 21:21 Noel Chiappa
2014-06-18 22:55 ` John Cowan
2014-06-19 1:49 Doug McIlroy
2014-06-20 13:05 Douglas Comer
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