Message-ID: <393F04A1.2A71E151@accesscom.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2000 19:27:45 -0700
From: Paul West <pdub@accesscom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Eric Fischer <enf@pobox.com>
CC: pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Subject: Re: unix precursors
References: <m21z29f90d.fsf@localhost.localdomain> <200006072250.RAA82201@shell-1.enteract.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-pups@minnie.cs.adfa.edu.au
Precedence: bulk

Eric Fischer wrote:
> 
> I've read somewhere that
> the system is supposed to be similar to the PDP-1 time sharing
> system developed at MIT, but the only documentation I've located
> on that is Mario Bonghi's master's thesis, which seems to have been
> written before the hardware was even upgraded to be able to run
> the software it describes.

The book "Computer Engineering" by Bell, Mudge and McNamara gives
another reference for the MIT PDP-1 timesharing system:

J.B. Dennis,
"A Multiuser Computation Facility for Education and Research"
Comm. ACM, vol. 7 no. 9 (Sept. 1964), pp 521-529.

BTW, there apparently were two different timesharing systems developed
for the PDP-1, the second one coming from Bolt, Beranek, and Newman
(BBN). "Computer Engineering" gives this reference for the BBN system:

J. McCarthy, S. Boilen, E. Fredkin, and J.C.R. Lieklider
"A Timesharing Debugging System for a Small Computer"
AFIPS Conference Proceedings, SJCC 1963, vol 23, pp 51-57.

Yes, that is John McCarthy of LISP fame.

Paul