Article 6428 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: news3.best.com!news2.best.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!chnws03.mediaone.net!24.128.1.101!cyclone.ne.mediaone.net!24.128.44.7!typhoon.ne.mediaone.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: VIROS? And Primary Protocol. References: From: Ric Werme X-Newsreader: NN version 6.5.0 CURRENT #119 Lines: 22 Message-ID: Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 02:42:30 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.218.4.112 X-Complaints-To: abuse@mediaone.net X-Trace: typhoon.ne.mediaone.net 951273750 24.218.4.112 (Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:42:30 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 21:42:30 EST Organization: Road Runner Xref: news3.best.com alt.sys.pdp10:6428 Daniel Seagraves writes: >Question, the DTE20 docs mention an operating system called VIROS. >What was that? Another '10 OS? Did it get canned or something? >I misread it as VIRUS the first time around. :P TENEX had to be renamed. (Well, I don't know if it _had_ to be, but marketing secrecy essentially ruled here.) VIROS was the original codename, I think. The trade press got wind of it and the name was changed to SNARK. ("They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; They pursued it with forks and hope;", see http://home.earthlink.net/~lfdean/carroll/snark/fit8.html.) When SNARK escaped, we switched to KRANS (Snark spelled backward), but cooler heads managed to get it back to SNARK. Near the announcement time, there was a wonderful article in the trade press that managed to merge snippets of both VAX and SNARK. It have referred to a 36 bit PDP-11 or something equally silly. -- Ric Werme | werme@nospam.mediaone.net http://people.ne.mediaone.net/werme | ^^^^^^^ delete Article 6431 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: news3.best.com!news2.best.com!feed1.news.rcn.net!rcn!207-172-245-34 From: jmfbahciv@aol.com Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: VIROS? And Primary Protocol. Date: Wed, 23 Feb 00 10:31:35 GMT Organization: UltraNet Communications, Inc. Lines: 44 Message-ID: <890ibf$2db$1@bob.news.rcn.net> References: X-Trace: xkPaq6iFSikHymiioZOzIKb4NdpeRFaIfnGmZZa9+mA= X-Complaints-To: abuse@rcn.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 23 Feb 2000 12:03:59 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress Version 1.0 Beta #4 Xref: news3.best.com alt.sys.pdp10:6431 In article , Ric Werme wrote: >Daniel Seagraves writes: > > >>Question, the DTE20 docs mention an operating system called VIROS. >>What was that? Another '10 OS? Did it get canned or something? >>I misread it as VIRUS the first time around. :P > >TENEX had to be renamed. (Well, I don't know if it _had_ to be, but >marketing secrecy essentially ruled here.) Well, it did keep them busy and out of the hair of the people who were doing the real work :-)...but only for a while. > VIROS was the original >codename, I think. The trade press got wind of it and the name was >changed to SNARK. ("They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care; >They pursued it with forks and hope;", see >http://home.earthlink.net/~lfdean/carroll/snark/fit8.html.) When SNARK >escaped, we switched to KRANS (Snark spelled backward), but cooler heads >managed to get it back to SNARK. I remember watching all this and being amazed at all the programmer time that was spent on choosing names so that "they" wouldn't find out what 341 was doing. The new name would always leak out to a customer within a week of a glorious renaming vote. The only way to keep the new name a secret (mind you, the project wasn't a secret) would have been to duct tape marketing's mouths. > >Near the announcement time, there was a wonderful article in the trade >press that managed to merge snippets of both VAX and SNARK. It >have referred to a 36 bit PDP-11 or something equally silly. Maybe that's where Palmer got the idea that the DECsystem-1070 was a 32-bit machine. /BAH Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.