Article 5548 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: news3.best.com!news1.best.com!144.212.100.101.MISMATCH!newsfeed.mathworks.com!news.mv.net!not-for-mail From: Dan Murphy Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: MLO - MRO move. (was Re: TU10/20/7x et al) Date: 06 Aug 1999 13:00:23 -0400 Organization: MV Communications, Inc. Lines: 115 Message-ID: References: <7n4a1k$d0u$1@autumn.news.rcn.net> <379FA894.1BC2466@erols.com> <7npckn$iou$1@autumn.news.rcn.net> <1mZn3.227$Ty1.6123@ord-read.news.verio.net> <37A118B3.C0B4E833@erols.com> <7ns1ub$r1f$2@autumn.news.rcn.net> <%0jo3.319$Ty1.9173@ord-read.news.verio.net> <7o1gn7$hk4$1@autumn.news.rcn.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: opost.com X-Trace: pyrite.mv.net 933958856 2290 207.22.41.2 (6 Aug 1999 17:00:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@mv.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 6 Aug 1999 17:00:56 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Xref: news3.best.com alt.sys.pdp10:5548 I haven't been lurking that much recently, so I'm not sure I got the original question. However, here are a couple salient timestamps: Jan 2, 1973 - I started at DEC as a regular employee. For the 3 months prior to that, I had worked on a fixed-price fixed-time contract to port TENEX to the KI-10. As of Jan 2, John Leng and the other powers-that-be had already decided to do a "new" OS for the next generation of 36-bit hardware. This decision got made during my 3-month contract when: (1) it became clear that TENEX really could be made to work on the KI-10, and (2) IBM announced "virtual memory", thus making all the DEC marketeers believe they hadda have it asap. (I love it when things like this happen...) Over the course of the next few months, Peter Hurley joined me in the "new os" group. We were working for the engineering manager, Fred Wilhelm, at the time, not for SWE under Peter Conklin. Tom Hastings also began devoting most of his time to the project as I recall, although he continued to report to PFC. Peter and I had offices on 5-5 along with the hardware engineers. During the first year, Arnie Miller and Len Bosack joined the group also. March 1, 1974 (approx) - Our group moved to MRO. This date is easy as it was about two weeks after our first (and only) child was born. Sara and I had both been working in the Mill, but she was out on maternity leave when the move to MRO happened. At the point we moved, I *think* I had had a small amount of access to actual KL-10 hardware, but I'm not real clear on that. I think there was a prototype down the hall on 5-5 that I did a bit of hacking on. We continued to use a KI-10 for quite a bit of the work of beefing up the OS that wasn't very machine-dependent. When we got to MRO, I think it was just the four of us (dlm, pmh, asm, lb) working directly on the OS. Supervisors came and went, and I can't recall exactly when. Tom Hastings was supervisor for a while when we were in the Mill. Then, Howard Steadman was hired. Lou Cohen was in there somewhere after we were in MRO, and then Dick Snyder. Peter Hurley became supervisor when Snyder moved up. I stayed as technical honcho through first few releases and only lost my good sense for a while in the early '80s when I was TOPS-20 supervisor for a year. Also, don't ask me to nail down dates for the various names! Ugh. I know that Fred Wilhelm came up with VIROS while we were still in the Mill, and it was John Leng who always made it sound like VIRUS when he said it. (Not intentionally; it just came out that way.) SNARK and the later name madness was foisted on us only after we'd moved to MRO though; of that I'm sure. (Hey, I just checked and viros.com is available! Anybody want to grab it? Such a cool name. snark.com is taken, but it sucks anyhow.) Anyhow, hope that helps with some of the nostalgia. dlm jmfbahciv@aol.com writes: > In article , > werme@werme.ne.mediaone.net (Ric Werme) wrote: > >jeverett@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com (John Everett) writes: > > > >>In article <7ns1ub$r1f$2@autumn.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com says... > > > >> Dan Murphy lurks here and sometimes > >>contributes, so he can confirm that he joined DEC while we were still in > >>Maynard. I believe he brought TENEX through the VIROS and SNARK phases of > its > >>lifecycle while still in the mill. > > > >No way!. I joined DEC in July 1974. At that point the -10 group > >had moved to Marlboro long enough before so that no one talked about them > >being in the mill. I didn't join the group for 9 months. At that time, > >VIROS was the code name, it changed to SNARK, KRANS, and back to SNARK > >all during my tenure in Marlboro. Well, maybe SNARK came about when I > >was was in MR one a week. > > That all happened during the time that Peter Hurley was supervisor > of the -20 group. The code names were the idiots' idea of keeping > the new OS development a secret. All that subtrafuge was a PITA > because the same people who insisted on secrecy were the ones who > asked for special permission to talk to particular customers about > it. Every coded name change produced manhours worth of work to > run macros over the documents to reflect the latest. It was also > caused by a reluctance of unknown persons to want to call the > product TOPS-anything. > > > > >I can't recall what shape the KL was in when I moved to MR, otherwise I > would > >have piped up earlier. > > > I'll say it again. At that time JMF and Dan were writing their > KLSERs and related code using the KLs that were in the > engineering lab (not the software lab). There were two KLs > there but I don't know if the second one was runnable at the > time. There was a lot of contention between hardware and software > because the hardware types claimed to need the hardware to develop > the hardware but didn't seem to understand that they wouldn't > be selling a single CPU without the software. I don't think > those hardware types ever learned because Jim ran into the > same problem later with one of the VAX flavors and Alpha. > We always had that problem with peripherals. Marketing always > promised the first hardware to a customer but refused to let > software engineering have it hooked up to our systems before > first customer ship. Then, when the hardware didn't work due > to no software, the fit hit the shan. And it happened every > damn time. Markerteers never had an ability to learn. > > /BAH > > Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail. Article 3020 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: nntp1.ba.best.com!news1.best.com!newsfeed.mathworks.com!panix!news.panix.com!not-for-mail From: Rich Alderson Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: PDP-10 in an FPGA chip, starting (was Re: PC CRAP) Date: 02 Jan 2001 14:39:29 -0500 Organization: Systems Administration, XKL LLC, Redmond WA 98052 Lines: 11 Sender: alderson+news@panix3.panix.com Message-ID: References: <3A3A338C.8DE7FFA5@bartek.dontspamme.net> <92h6pp$ql6$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> <92i6mi$ib$1@i4got.pechter.dyndns.org> <92i87u$1duf$1@citadel.in.taronga.com> <92jcoe$1nj$1@i4got.pechter.dyndns.org> <92kojt$csh$6@bob.news.rcn.net> <87r92p7wmq.fsf@k9.prep.synonet.com> <6un1dc9swv.fsf_-_@chonsp.franklin.ch> <3A4F9C13.4E9C02C3@trailing-edge.com> <92pqre$8ah$2@bob.news.rcn.net> <3A509D31.7CA23886@bartek.dontspamme.net> <6uitnykefe.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> NNTP-Posting-Host: panix3.panix.com X-Trace: news.panix.com 978464369 4582 166.84.0.228 (2 Jan 2001 19:39:29 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@panix.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Jan 2001 19:39:29 GMT X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.7 Xref: nntp1.ba.best.com alt.sys.pdp10:3020 Neil Franklin writes: > - TOPS-10 for the KI, as both TOPS-20 and Linux or NetBSD will not fit > into 256kword. Tops-20 v. 3A or earlier will fit in 256K, as will TENEX. Just have to find them. TENEX is probably easier at this point... -- Rich Alderson alderson+news@panix.com "You get what anybody gets. You get a lifetime." --Death, of the Endless