Article 2644 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: nntp1.ba.best.com!news1.best.com!hunter.premier.net!hammer.uoregon.edu!arclight.uoregon.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.corp.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!howland.erols.net!news2.digex.net!digex.net!not-for-mail From: doug@ss1.digex.net (Doug Humphrey) Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: random old ITS mention... Date: 4 Mar 1997 01:34:53 -0500 Organization: Express Access Online Communications USA: 800-969-9090 Lines: 107 Distribution: usa Message-ID: <5fgfqd$rgi@ss1.digex.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: ss1.digex.net Two email messages that I just found while cleaning up some files. ---begin forwarded ancient wisdom--- BABYL OPTIONS: Version:5 Append:1 ^L 1, recent,, Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 02:40:47 EDT From: Alan Bawden Subject: A sad day To: INFO-ITS%AI.AI.MIT.EDU@MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU Reply-to: Alan@Reagan.AI.MIT.EDU Message-ID: <721426.900414.ALAN@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> *** EOOH *** Date: Sat, 14 Apr 90 02:40:47 EDT From: Alan Bawden Reply-To: Alan at Reagan.AI.MIT.EDU To: INFO-ITS%AI.AI.MIT.EDU at MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU Re: A sad day I'm sorry to announce that we're going to shut down the ITS machines at MIT. As we plan for the final shutdown, the file AI:SYS;GOOD BYE will be constantly updated to contain the current plans. What follows is the current contents of that file, and it pretty much explain the situation: ------- Well, the time has finally arrived to shut down the ITS machines for the last time. The hardware is getting old, and the amount of maintenance required to keep things running is getting out of hand. We've been losing ground at an accelerating rate for the last year. The current plan is to turn AI and MC off for good sometime around the end of May. We plan to take a snapshot of AI and MC's filesystem sometime before the final shutdown and to keep this snapshot available on some other file server for a couple of months. People who have a large number of files to evacuate, but who lack efficient network access to AI and MC, are encouraged to simply wait until after this snapshot becomes available. AI's second RP06 (SECOND:) will be fixed soon to make it easier for people to evacuate themselves. Files on ITS backup tapes will be unavailable until someone writes the program to read them. Before the shutdown, modest file retrieval requests (mail to FILE-R@AI) will be considered. Extensive or complicated retrieval requests will have to wait until after the dust settles after the shutdown. Our judgment on these matters will be final. Sorry. All mailing lists will have to be moved elsewhere. If you maintain a mailing list on AI or MC, you can save us some trouble by moving your mailing list yourself as soon as possible. We'll try and do something responsible about those important lists that don't have obvious owners, but don't count on us to save your mailing list for you -- we might decide to just let it perish. Please try not to pester us about the personal inconvenience this causes you. We don't have any suggestions about where you should read your mail now, where you can keep your files, or where you can move your mailing list, and we wish we knew of another PDP-10 that you could use. (If you -must- pester someone, send mail to DOOMSDAY@AI.) We do appreciate your loyalty to ITS during its lifetime at MIT. Stop by sometime and we can talk about the good old days when dinosaurs ruled the machine room. As we continue to plan for doomsday, this file will be updated with the latest news. - Alan 1, recent,, Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 16:28:03 EDT From: Doug Humphrey Subject: the future of ITS To: DOOMSDAY%AI.AI.MIT.EDU@MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU cc: INFO-ITS%AI.AI.MIT.EDU@MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU, KS-OWNERS%AI.AI.MIT.EDU@MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU Message-ID: <723026.900419.DIGEX@AI.AI.MIT.EDU> *** EOOH *** Date: Thu, 19 Apr 90 16:28:03 EDT From: Doug Humphrey To: DOOMSDAY%AI.AI.MIT.EDU at MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU cc: INFO-ITS%AI.AI.MIT.EDU at MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU, KS-OWNERS%AI.AI.MIT.EDU at MINTAKA.LCS.MIT.EDU Re: the future of ITS I would be interested in getting a discussion going on the future of ITS. This would be open to any kind of strange ideas, from running it on existing KS-10 hardware (at MIT or not) to building a PDP-10 software simulator that can run on existing and/or future cpus, like MIPS chips, etc. In short, before these machines go away, and all of the ITS knowledgable people too far away, lets talk about this stuff. Another point is that INFO-ITS and KS-OWNERS lists should continue to live after the ITS systems go into hibernation so that advances in the ITS state-of-the-art can be announced and discussed. Comments, etc? Doug Humphrey digex@mit-ai digex@tumtum.cs.umd.edu