From: Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
To: Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com>
Cc: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] Alternative Implementation Proposal for Unix/370 (BTL, 1979)
Date: Fri, 6 May 2022 07:21:21 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAAOGWQiMnTY3QvQEDZjkKwmQW+XYBJS3GoNQnixXDQ=YBAqbPw@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <6493122A-B704-4039-8F4C-8C6FEAEC5220@ronnatalie.com>
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Let's not mix whales and turkeys.
TSS was IBM's attempted answer to Multics - built specifically for
time-sharing, way too complex, and suffering from second-system syndrome.
It never reached product status, but there were a few icustomer
nstallations. Bell Labs Indian Hill was one - so that's why TSS was the
base of their UNIX port.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSS_(operating_system)
TSO was the Time-Sharing Option - by far the most common time-sharing
environment for IBM, since it was an add-on to their mainstream OS family -
MFT, MVT, MVS, etc. I had the joy(?) of using TSO for my 3 summers with
the El Paso Natural Gas company. TSO is the system that earned the 'dead
whale down a beach' line from Steve Johnson; it was truly awful. I'm sure
there was some TSO somewhere in BTL as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Sharing_Option
The most sane time-sharing choice, and also the best for OS development,
was VM/CMS. But for most of its life, IBM was trying to kill VM in favor
of the others. AFAIK, there was no VM installation in BTL. See Melinda
Varian's wonderful history of VM.
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/neuvm.pdf
On Fri, May 6, 2022 at 1:08 AM Ron Natalie <ron@ronnatalie.com> wrote:
> They liked kicking a dead whale down the beach.
>
> > On May 6, 2022, at 09:39, arnold@skeeve.com wrote:
> >
> > Tom Lyon via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> wrote:
> >
> >> I was (re?)introduced to Chuck Haley recently and discovered he had a
> copy
> >> of a Bell Labs memo from himself, London, Maranzaro, and Ritchie. They
> >> suggest that the path pursued to get UNIX running in/under TSS/370 was
> the
> >> hard way to go.
> >>
> >> Enjoy:
> >>
> http://charles.the-haleys.org/papers/Alternate_Implementation_Proposal_for_Unix370.pdf
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> - Tom
> >
> > So, why, given the letter from these folks, including DMR, did they go
> > ahead and use the TSS solution anyway?
> >
> > Just wondering.
> >
> > Arnold
>
>
--
- Tom
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next prev parent reply other threads:[~2022-05-06 14:24 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2022-05-05 21:32 Tom Lyon via TUHS
2022-05-05 23:01 ` Adam Thornton
2022-05-06 22:54 ` Kevin Bowling
2022-05-06 7:35 ` arnold
2022-05-06 8:08 ` Ron Natalie
2022-05-06 14:21 ` Tom Lyon via TUHS [this message]
2022-05-06 15:51 ` Tom Ivar Helbekkmo via TUHS
2022-05-06 15:33 Noel Chiappa
2022-05-07 19:03 ` arnold
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