From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: beebe@math.utah.edu (Nelson H. F. Beebe) Date: Tue, 31 Jan 2017 14:17:16 -0700 Subject: [TUHS] PDP-10 in the news today Message-ID: Nigel Williams asks on the TUHS list today: >> ... >> Is it a reasonable claim that the PDP-10 made time-sharing "common" >> (note it says "the machine")? I'm presuming that "common" should be >> read as ubiquitous and accessible (as in lower-cost than >> competing/alternative options from other manufacturers or even DEC). >> >> I'm wondering if it was really the combination of the PDP-11 >> (lower-cost more models) and Unix ("free" license to universities) >> that propelled time-sharing, at least at universities. >> ... I worked on the IBM ATS (Administrative Terminal System) for text processing in the early 1970s, and for several years, on the CDC 6400 under both SCOPE and KRONOS operating systems. Those were mainframe environments, but users scattered around campus accessed them via glass terminals, so that was certainly time sharing. Later, for 12 years (1978--1990), I also worked on TOPS-20 on the PDP-10, and that too was time sharing, with most users having a terminal on their desks. We also had PDP-11 and LSI-11 systems, but they ran DEC proprietary operating systems, and were generally dedicated to particular research hardware. It was only in the early 1980s that my institution also began to run Unix systems, initially Wollongong BSD on VAX 750s, and then in 1987, with our first Sun workstations running SunOS. Thus, for me at least, Unix time sharing came a dozen years late (though it was still welcome, and remains so today). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Nelson H. F. Beebe Tel: +1 801 581 5254 - - University of Utah FAX: +1 801 581 4148 - - Department of Mathematics, 110 LCB Internet e-mail: beebe at math.utah.edu - - 155 S 1400 E RM 233 beebe at acm.org beebe at computer.org - - Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0090, USA URL: http://www.math.utah.edu/~beebe/ - -------------------------------------------------------------------------------