Early timesharing/BBS systems

From: Al Kossow <aek_at_spies.com>
Date: Sat Jul 17 12:09:26 2004

This is an area I'm working on in trying to bring some of these
systems back to life through simulation. MIT had a timeharing
PDP-1 system, as well as CTSS on a modified 7090 in the early
60's. BBN also had timesharing on a PDP-1. CTSS's replacement
was Multics. UC Berkeley modified an SDS 930 to add memory
protection and developed the GENIE timesharing system in the
mid 60's. SDS sold the 940, as the modified 930 was called
with modified versions of the GENIE software. The most well
known 940 systems were at SRI (which eventually was sold to
the folks who did the Community Memory Project), BBN, and
Tymshare. Tymshare migrated from their 940s to DEC10's in
the 70's. The people who did the 940 at UCB started Berkeley
Computer Corporation and produced one prototype of their
BCC500 system, which was moved to the University of Hawaii
after BCC folded, and many of the people formed the core of
the computer group at PARC. Dartmouth produced their BASIC
timesharing system in the mid 60's, about the same time as
GENIE. IBM produced TSS-360, the less said about that, the
better.. DEC timesharing monitors for the PDP-6 evolved into
the timesharing monitor on the PDP-10, which later became
TOPS-10. BBN's TENEX operating system for the PDP-10 later
became TOPS-20. Smallish timesharing systems were also produced
which included TSS/8 for the PDP-8, which was inspired by a
phd thesis Gordon Bell supervised at CMU, which sort of evolved
into RSTS (originally called EDUSYSTEM 100) and RSTS/E.
Received on Sat Jul 17 2004 - 12:09:26 BST