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x'1D' (29): The Subtasking Monitor and Environment Switch
I received the following message from Ralph Sayle the other day. Ralph and I share the same birthday, October 14th. From: Ralph Austin Sayle To: Jeff Ogden Subject: Two items for the mts archives Greetings Jeff and since our birthdays are a month and a few days away, I won’t mention them. But recently I found the answer to the grandchildren’s question “what did you do when you worked.” First off I must declare I had no children and they had no children but I do have a former great nephew whose wife works with information systems at SFU. He is slightly amused at how things used to work... like me. So two items for the MTS archives: Jeff Berryman’s 1980 paper on “Using the Subtasking Monitor for MTS DSRs” and my very recent “summary” of “What was the Environment Switch”. Jeff’s paper was his blueskying of what shortly was named Environment Switch. I never read it at the time but did my implementation from his stripped down diagram. My summary is larger than it needs to be because it backs up to explain the Resource Manager terms, tools, timelines and people. This is documentation that should be elsewhere but isn’t. Historians say that a history should be written a 100 years after an event. I waited nearly 40 years and if I waited any longer, there’d be neither an audience nor a writer. Whew! ---------- The two PDFs included in Ralph's message:
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x'1B' (27): MTS-UM Message System CPU Use
Gavin Eadie sent the following note at 1:08 am on September 9,, 2019: From: Gavin Eadie To: Jeff Ogden Subject: Digging through old floppies, I found this .. |
x'1A' (26): MTS Status Lights
From: Jon Sell I’m thinking of putting this on eBay and donating the proceeds to the Bentley Historical Library. I’m afraid it won’t get a lot of attention or a good price without some promotion. Am I delusional or does anyone else think this would be a collectible for well healed Michigan graduates who suffered through late nights at the North Campus Computing Center? I’m looking for ideas. How did I get this? Took it out of the dumpster after my office was bulldozed to make room for an on ramp to the Information Superhighway, as they used to call the Internet. Why does my brain keep saying Don’t Panic? Jon Sent from my iPhone From: David Hetrick Brings back memories (MS CCS 1977), submitting jobs until the green light went off, then punching cards until it came back on. Alas, I am not well-heeled. Dave Hetrick - University of Michigan - retired |
x'19' (25): Social Software Timeline and Old Memories – Seen on Infocult, the Social Software Timeline
From: http://www.group42.ca/social_software_timeline.
Group 42: A site by Dale McGladdery
Social Software Timeline and Old Memories
Submitted by Dale on July 18, 2007 - 11:34am
Seen on Infocult, the Social Software Timeline. I'd forgotten how much "text only" computing history there is. Scary, I actually used The Michigan Terminal System. Everyone called it MTS and it was a trivia question answer to know what MTS stood for. I think the only major competing three letter acronym of the day, at least in Canada, was Manitoba Telephone System. MTS was used for academic computing by Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the University of BC (UBC). I worked at SFU in the early 80's. I don't remember ever using CONFER but a programmer at UBC (Alan Ballard, I think) wrote a program called Forum that took off like wild fire. I hope I'm not mis-remembering but I believe he wrote it over a weekend. The user interface completely blew away any bulletin board software of the day. |
x'18' (24): E-mail from Daniel Boulet, 17 March 2016
From: Daniel Boulet A copy of the MTS article from Everything2.com is available here:Subject: Fixed an error in my Everything2 writeup that you reference on the Michigan Terminal System Archive site Date: March 17, 2016 at 1:38:23 PM EDT To: mts-comments@umich.edu I ran across the Michigan Terminal System Archive site earlier today. Talk about a walk down memory lane! Thanks to everyone involved in creating, building and maintaining the site. I did the ego thing of looking for references to my last name and found two. One of them on https://sites.google.com/site/michiganterminalsystem/myths discusses how I got the full name of UMMPS wrong on my Everything2 writeup at http://everything2.com/user/dabcanboulet/writeups/System%252F370 It turns out that I made the same mistake on a second Everything2 writeup that is referenced on your site's Documents page at https://sites.google.com/site/michiganterminalsystem/documentation ). I have fixed both Everything2 writeups. Cheers! -Danny P.S. The Everything2 site looks like it is gradually dying. I don’t have anywhere else right now to put my Everything2 article reminiscing about MTS. I have no idea if this is appropriate from your perspective but you should feel free to copy the contents of http://www.everything2.com/user/dabcanboulet/writeups/Michigan+Terminal+System to your site or somewhere else if you want to preserve it. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4t_NX-QeWDYNFktZEZCeUJZdVk https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B4t_NX-QeWDYR291LVU3cWlEcXc |
x'17' (23): FORTRAN protest @ UM
An online article taken from the Michigan Engineer Alumni Magazine: https://www.facebook.com/michigan.engineering/photos/a.98459823323.89852.51664048323/10153750827538324/ Throwback Thursday, mid 80s Chemical engineering professor Brice Carnahan (PhD ’65) introduced computer programming lectures concerning the Michigan Algorithm Decoder (MAD) language beginning in 1960. The lectures proved so popular that they lasted until 1985 – by which time the topic had long since switched to FORTRAN. These computing center employees and student “picketers” (photographed sometime in the early 1980s) believed FORTRAN was old-fashioned, and preferred the more modern Pascal. But the protest was “only semi-serious,” according to Jeff Ogden, a former computing center employee, and Carnahan was good natured about it. “Alas for those protesters, Pascal fell by the wayside, and FORTRAN continued for many years,” says chemical engineering emeritus professor James Wilkes (MSE ChE ’56, PhD ’63). This throwback is featured in the latest issue of The Michigan Engineer magazine. If you’ve seen it, please let us know what you think. ![]() 1 Reply Carol Kamm Used
both Fortran and Algol-W early on (i.e. late 70s). Pretty sure I had
classes with at least some of these guys - they look really familiar. Suzanne Botkin McGhee This brought back memories of learning both fortran and pascal in college. yikes. Jerome Gilbert Engineering 102 FORTRAN from freshman year 1975, remember it well! Aaron Decker Fortran was alive and was the focus in our 1990 intro to programming class @ U of M Connie Skinner-Klunder I had to take Fortran in 1987 and NEVER used it after Elizabeth C Hainey Brice was one of my advisors in grad school - great guy! Greg Brand I learned Fortran in 2004 for CEE 303 Janice Austin I had Professor Carnahan for Fortran in 1996 and Professor Wilkes for Fluid Mechanics in 1997. Lee Burnham gotta love geek humor Jim Buczkowski Not me! Although I can identify with Fortran! A Harvey Bell IV The text was called the MAD Primer! Like · Reply · October 15 at 8:28pm ======================================================================================= Some background: On Thu, Jun 18, 2015 at 11:13 AM Randy Milgrom wrote: Dan -- any help you can provide with these photos would be much appreciated. (If you'd like me to stop asking you these kinds of questions, please just let me know.) Thanks very much, Randy Randy Milgrom Bicentennial Project Editor and Writer Office of Communications & Marketing University of Michigan College of Engineering -------------------- From: Dan Atkins Date: Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 11:08 PM Subject: Re: help with photo ID To: Randy Milgrom Sorry I can't help with these. They are from the computing center IBM mainframe days and I was not involved in that. Here are some old timers from the competing center that might be of help: Gavin Eadie Greg Marks Randy Frank Toby Teorey -------------------- From: Randy Milgrom Subject: Fwd: help with photo ID Date: June 22, 2015 at 10:14:09 AM EDT To: gavin, gmarks63, frank, teorey Hello all, Please see [above]. Dan Atkins suggested that you might be able to shed some light on some of the photos in the link I've provided. I would appreciate it very much if you might take the time to peruse them and offer any information you might have. In addition (and even more importantly, actually), I also have provided a pdf of several other photos we are contemplating using for our two-page "throwback" spread in the next issue of Michigan Engineer magazine. I am particularly interested in knowing as much as possible about the photo with the several students (I assume they're students) who are carrying signs concerning the merits and demerits of Fortran and Pascal. Thank you in advance for any insight you might be able to provide Randy Randy Milgrom Bicentennial Project Editor and Writer Office of Communications & Marketing University of Michigan College of Engineering 734.764.3944 -------------------- Date: June 22, 2015 at 10:52:43 AM EDT To: Jeff Ogden Subject: Fwd: help with photo ID (a) you might be better at recognizing some of this (I see Fred Swartz in the PDF), and (b) I don’t know what’s behind this, but thought you want to know about it .. Gav -------------------- On Jun 22, 2015, at 10:14 AM, Randy Milgrom <rhmilgro@umich.edu> wrote: I am particularly interested in knowing as much as possible about the photo with the several students (I assume they're students) who are carrying signs concerning the merits and demerits of Fortran and Pascal. -------------------- From: Jeff Ogden Date: June 22, 2015 at 10:46:56 PM EDT To: Randy Milgrom Cc: Gavin Eadie Subject: Re: help with photo ID I'm going to reply in two or three separate messages. This is the first reply and I'll tell you what I know about the "protest" (page 4 of the Throwback PDF). As I remember it, the protest was only semi-serious. It was in response to the free lectures on an Introduction to "Fortran programming and MTS" that was being given and which had been given for years at the start of the term by Brice Carnahan, a Professor of Chemical Engineering. I think the the U-M Computing Center may have sponsored the lectures over the years, but I don't think I ever knew the details. Certainly the lectures were open to the entire University and not just to CoE. Brice often collaborated with Jim Wikes, another Chemical Engineering Professor. Brice and Jim collaborated on some of the lectures, but I can't remember if Jim was involved during the protest. Both Brice and Jim are Emeritus, still around, and respond to e-mail. Here is an announcement for one of the series of lectures given at the start of the Winter Term 1984, but I can't say that it was this series for which the protest occurred. This is from the Computing Center Newsletter, 2 January 1984, page 16: Here is a paragraph from chapter 12 of Jim's book, A Century of Chemical Engineering at The University of Michigan - A Miscellany of Contributions from Historical Documents, Students, Alumni, Staff, Faculty, and Friends 1898–2002, compiled by James O. Wilkes Arthur F. Thurnau Professor Emeritus, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2002, pages 285-286. The Carnahan evening computing lectures. As an outgrowth of the Ford Foundation project, Brice Carnahan presented a famous and highly popular series of six two-hour evening lectures in the U–M Natural Science Auditorium on computers and programming, first in “MAD” and later in FORTRAN; one memorable lecture was given in a Batman costume to compensate for a time conflict with the premier hour of the Batman television series. These evolving lectures were attended each term by about 300 students, faculty, staff, and lay persons who needed a quick, non-credit introduction to computers and programming; the series began in 1960 and lasted for 25 years, until fall 1984, well into the PC era. Jim Wilkes also presented several of these lectures in the final years of the series. Chapter 12 of Jim's book contains lots of information on and photographs of computing at the CoE and at Michigan, so here is a PDF of Chapter 12: The protesters were pushing the idea that Fortran was an old-fashioned and dying language and that people at U-M should be taught about and move on to using more modern languages such as Pascal. I know Brice came out after the lecture to talk to the "protesters". He was good natured about it and seemed to enjoy it. I remember the protest, but wasn't a participant. The photograph was taken outside the Natural Science Auditorium on main campus. I know Jim Bodwin (not pictured), another U-M Computing Center staff member, participated. I'm guessing that Jim's wife, Diane Bodwin, another Computing Center staff member, may have participated. I have e-mail addresses for both Jim and Diane, if you would like to check with them. Gavin is right, the second person in from the left is Fred Swartz. He was a staff member at U-M's academic Computing Center where Gavin and I also worked. I don't recognize the other folks for certain, but the first person on the left might be Shawn KcKee. Today, Shawn is a Research Scientist in the Physics Department in LS&A, he could have been a student back in the days of the protest. I don't recognize any of the other three folks in the page 4 photo. Gavin was also correct when he said that the U-M's academic Computing Center was not part of or directly associated with the College of Engineering. You might take a look at these two URLs for additional information about this: http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/myths#TOC-Myth:-MTS-was-developed-by-programmers-at-the-UM-College-of-Engineering http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/myths/correction-from-bert-herzog -Jeff -------------------- From: Jeff Ogden Date: June 22, 2015 at 11:23:49 PM EDT To: Randy Milgrom Cc: Gavin Eadie Subject: Re: help with photo ID This is the second reply and I'll tell you what I know about the rest of the Throwback PDF images. The images on pages 1, 2, and 3 look like an old time telephone switchboard. The U-M's Bentley Historical Library wrote a booklet, A Century of Connectivity at the University of Michigan, Nancy Bartlett, Nancy Deromedi, Alice Goff, Christa Lemelin, Brian Williams, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan, December 2007, 40 pages. It covers a lot of U-M's telephone, computing, and networking history. A version of the photo appears on page 17 of the booklet with a note that says: Walter Donnelly, Wilfred B. Shaw, Ruth W. Gjelsness, eds., The University of Michigan: An Encyclopedic Survey (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,1953), 3: 1228. The photos on pages 5 and 6 are beginning of term registration at Waterman Gym on Main Campus before the days of CRISP when everything was done by hand or with punch cards. I don't know anything about the photo on page 7. The photo on page 8 includes Apple Macs, probably the 512K "fat" Macs. You can see the words "UM Comp Center" in white stenciling on the side of the "floppy" disk drive that is bolted to the side of the Mac. I've no idea where the photo was taken. It looks nicer that the Computing Center's typical public site in those days. It might be in the Michigan Union or League or it could be in a residence hall. It sort of looks like a library. Gavin might know more. He was in charge of the Computing Center's microcomputer support in those days, while I was responsible for the public sites. Deb Masten may know more. Deb took over the responsibility for public sites when I left the University. She is still with U-M ITS. I don't know anything about the photo on page 9. -Jeff -------------------- From: Jeff Ogden <jco@umich.edu> Date: June 22, 2015 at 11:44:38 PM EDT To: Randy Milgrom Cc: Gavin Eadie Subject: Re: help with photo ID Oops, I got the note on the photo from the Bentley library booklet wrong, it is actually: Telephone operators, Systems History (Display Photos and Documents), Box 68, Information Technology Division Records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. -Jeff -------------------- On Jun 22, 2015, at 10:46 PM, Jeff Ogden wrote: Gavin is right, the second person in from the left is Fred Swartz. He was a staff member at U-M's academic Computing Center where Gavin and I also worked. I don't recognize the other folks for certain, but the first person on the left might be Shawn KcKee. Today, Shawn is a Research Scientist in the Physics Department in LS&A, he could have been a student back in the days of the protest. I don't recognize any of the other three folks in the page 4 photo. -------------------- Gavin wrote: .. I’ll go out on a limb and say the rightmost person is Mark Hersey who programmed IBM PCs for the Computing Center. .. Even further out on that branch, could the second from right be Dave Martin (white shirt in this pic)? -------------------- From: Jeff Ogden Date: June 23, 2015 at 1:01:30 AM EDT To: Gavin Eadie Subject: Re: help with photo ID I wondered if that was Dave Martin. It might be, but I wasn't certain enough to say for sure or even speculate. -Jeff -------------------- From: Gavin Eadie Date: June 22, 2015 at 12:13:32 PM EDT To: Randy Milgrom Cc: Jeff Ogden Subject: Re: help with photo ID I wouldn’t bet they are students! At least, the “Pascal” person is Fred Swartz who worked for the Computing Center when I arrived here (late ‘70s). The other faces are more and less familiar, but I can't place their names easily. There are certainly people who’ll do a better job, however. Dan’s list of possible sources is good, but not optimal for Computing Center history (and some of your other pictures relate to the CC and not CoE). I’ve forwarded your email to Jeff Odgen and copied him on this reply. One place to check for CC history is this site, mostly Jeff’s work: http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org I’m curious what you’re doing for the Bicentennial Project for two reasons. One is that I’m curious in general; the other is that the Computing Center and College of Engineering have been mixed up in previous “historical” material over the last decades. The two organizations weren't organizationally connected, nor worked in the same areas. Gavin Eadie PS: I just noticed Dan wrote “.. old timers from the competing center that might be of help.” Maybe a Freudian slip .. It did feel sometimes like competition !! -------------------- On Tue, Jun 23, 2015 at 12:59 AM, Jeff Ogden wrote: This is the third and final reply and I'll tell you what I know about the images in Google Docs folder that you sent a link for. 1.jpg is a photo taken on the second floor machine room of the U-M Computing Center Building on North Campus (now the School of Information North). The photo was taken looking to the northwest. We are looking at the remote console for the IBM S/360-67 computer. The computer and its local console are up on the third floor of the building. You can also see an IBM magnetic tape drive, either 7- or 9-track and a fancy IBM paper tape reader/punch with vacuum column feeds to the left of the mag tape drive, something you didn't see very often. Racks of user magnetic tapes are in the background. The person facing us in the photo is Charles Engle. He is talking to Mike Alexander. Charles and Mike were both senior staff members at the U-M Computing Center. Not sure who that is standing in front of the paper tape reader/punch. This photo appears on page 4 (the copyright page) in the booklet from the Bentley Historical Library with a note that says "IBM 360/67, Box 68, Information Technology Division Records, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan." 2.jpg may be the loading dock at the North University Building. 3.jpg was taken on the second floor of the Computing Center building on North Campus looking to the southwest. We are looking at three strings of removable pack disk drives. 4.jpg was taken on the second floor of the Computing Center building on North Campus looking to the northeast. It is looking at the same remote console for the IBM S/360-67, paper tape reader/punch, 7- and 9-track magnetic tape drives, just from a different angle. There is a teddy bear on the top of a cabinet in the center of the photo. The cabinet holds a DEC PDP-8 based Data Concentrator. The story is told here: https://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/gallery/gallery7.html (Dave Mills was a staff member at the Computing Center while he was a PhD student in Computer and Communication Sciences (LS&A) at Michigan). I think that the person in the foreground with a mag tape in his hand is John Schaefer, an Operations Manager at the Computing Center. Not sure who the person in the background is. 5.jpg was taken on the third floor of the Computing Center during the installation of the Amdahl 470v/6 computer. 6.jpg was taken at the UNYN public site in the basement of the Michigan Union. We are looking at Apple Macs, probably the "fat" Macs. 7.jpg was taken at the Computing Center in the North University Building on Main Campus. I don't recognize the people in the photo, but they are working with power cables for the IBM S/360-67. I'm guessing that 12.jpg is an IBM 7090, possibly at the Computing Center in the North University Building on Main Campus or at Willow Run. Don Boettner, Len Harding, or Bruce Arden, all old time Computing Center staff members, could probably say for sure. I don't know anything about 8.jpg, 9.jpg, 10.jpg, or 11.jpg. Hope this is helpful. Several of these photos are from the time when I was an undergrad student at Michigan and before I became a staff member at the Computing Center. Some of the folks that have been around longer than I have might be able to recognize more people or confirm some of my guesses. These include Scott Gerstenberger, Mike Alexander, Len Harding, Don Boettner, and Gary Pirkola. Most of these folks are in the U-M directory, but if not, I can provide e-mail addresses. You'll find short bio sketches for some of the Computing Center staff members mentioned in this message or previous messages here: http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/people. There are more photos here: http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/images. In particular the photos here http://picasaweb.google.com/103267580193222253134/UMComputingCenter?feat=embedwebsite include many photos of computers and other equipment at the Computing Center. -Jeff -------------------- From: Randy Milgrom Date: June 23, 2015 at 10:44:55 AM EDT To: Jeff Ogden Cc: Gavin Eadie Subject: Re: help with photo ID Jeff, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate this. All the time and effort you put into your responses! I cannot thank you enough. And thank you, Gavin, for forwarding my request to Jeff. I hope that both of you will be willing to be available for other questions I may have over the course of the next couple of years. Thanks again, Randy Randy Milgrom Bicentennial Project Editor and Writer Office of Communications & Marketing University of Michigan College of Engineering |
x'16' (22): Michigan Digital Automatic Computer (MIDAC)
Michigan Digital Automatic Computer
From the Virtual Museum Histories of Information Technology project at the University of Michigan
In 1951, under collaborative sponsorship from the Wright Air Development Center and the United States Air Force, the Willow Run Research Center of the Engineering Research Institute, University of Michigan began development of the Michigan Digital Automatic Computer (MIDAC) with the intention of producing a machine to assist with “the solution of certain complex military problems.” MIDAC was the sixth such digital automatic computer at a research university, and the first computer of its kind in the Midwest. Using the MIDAC was no simple task—a team of scientists and researchers were required to determine if a problem could be solved using the MIDAC. Perhaps the most striking feature of the MIDAC was its shear size and mechanical components. The MIDAC required 12 tons of refrigeration equipment to cool its 500,000 connections and tubes. Additionally, its main memory storage device was a rotating magnetic “drum,” which could store just 6,000 “words,” or short segments of data. The MIDAC became functional in 1953, and was operated by Willow Run’s Digital Computation Department under the leadership of John Carr III until 1958 when the Air Force removed the equipment. MIDAC: Automatic ComputerBooklet: Willow Run Research Center, Engineering
Research Institute, University of Michigan,
A New Research Toolundated, perhaps 1952, 16 pages, PDF Hathi Trust Michigan Alumnus Volume 60, 1953/1954, pages 76 and 77 Hathi Trust
Video: The story of the UM's high-speed electronic computer "Midac" built under the sponsorship of the U.S. Air Force. https://bentley.mivideo.it.umich.edu/media/1_0bzmst3w Michigan Report, University of Michigan Television Original: kine pos, b/w, sound, 00:14:37, 1955 Guest: Professor John Carr, Willow Run Laboratories Producer - director: Don Hall Moderator: Dan Ritz (?) Technical supervisor: Fred Remley Graphic artist: Thomas Coates Also see: |
x'15' (21): Did MTS require a special version of the S/360-67 to run?
Here is the backup e-mail on the topic. The topic came up on the Hercules 390 Yahoo Group e-mail list and later there was a series of private messages and an item posted in the Myths and Misconceptions section of the MTS Archive web site.
The cast of characters:
From: Richard Chycoski - Richard On Dec 13, 2014, at 12:52 AM, Dave G4UGM wrote on the Hercules 390 Yahoo group: Whilst MTS used the 360/67 in a special way it was just a standard 360/67 with DAT and 32-bit addressing. However the 360/67 did start life as a modified 360/65.
There is one feature of MTS that folk’s mistake for a hardware modification, as it is implemented via a Pseudo OP code in assembler.
It is explained in:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MTS_system_architecture
in the section entitled “Branch on Program Interrupt” (BPI), but it DOES NOT require any hardware modification.
Dave
Sent: 13 December 2014 09:30 Would it break anything if this would be implemented on current hardware? I know it would help address-verification dramatically. Maybe there are other[s.] From: "Dave G4UGM"To: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 09:34:26 -0000 Subject: RE: [hercules-390] BPI on modern machines (was System 360 Model 67 Reference Card) I am not sure about this. I know MTS ran on 370 hardware so the code works on those "out of the box" as well. I know there were tweaks for 370 mode but not sure if they were in this area... Dave From: Mike Alexander To: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com Date: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 13:53:50 -0500 Subject: Re: [hercules-390] BPI on modern machines (was System 360 Model 67 Reference Card) Thanks, I always thought it was one of my better ideas. It was very useful in MTS, not just in the system, but in programs that ran in MTS. You don’t really need hardware changes for this since it’s extremely easy to implement in the program interrupt handler. Implementing it in either way might break something since it’s possible that some code contains one of those special NOPs for other reasons. This still wouldn’t be an issue unless the immediately preceding instruction got a program interrupt. In 20 years or so of use of this I never heard of a case where it caused problems. Mike From: "Dave G4UGM" To: <hercules-390@yahoogroups.com> Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 08:22:49 -0000 Subject: RE: [hercules-390] BPI on modern machines (was System 360 Model 67 Reference Card) So was it ever implemented in hardware? From: Mike Alexander To: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 14:16:26 -0500 Subject: Re: [hercules-390] BPI on modern machines (was System 360 Model 67 Reference Card) The BPI instruction? Not that I know of. Since there was no significant advantage to having it in hardware we never asked anyone to do it. Mike On Dec 13, 2014, at 3:54 AM, Dave G4UGM wrote: Perhaps you could add something to say MTS used a “standard” 360/67. Many folks seem to thing BPI needs a hardware mod… Dave G4UGM On Dec 13, 2014, at 5:48 AM, Jeff Ogden wrote: We can add something. Where are people expressing their opinion / confusion about BPI and hardware mods? Is there an article or other description somewhere that is causing the confusion? Where do you think that we should add something? On the MTS Archive site? The Myths and Misconceptions page? On Wikipedia? There is a description of BPI in the MTS System Architecture article. Somewhere else? -Jeff On Dec 13, 2014, at 9:51 AM, Dave G4UGM wrote: They generally say “MTS needed a hardware mod” or “MTS ran on special hardware”, and when pressed they say “something to do with interrupt processing”. Got one yesterday on the Hercules 390 group:- “The MTS archive at <http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/documentation/documents> has a downloadable copy of the 360/67 Reference Card. MTS started on a special version of the 360/67, and University of Newcastle was one of the early MTS sites. The MTS site where I worked (Simon Fraser University, near Vancouver, BC) didn't start running MTS until the later '70s, so we didn't have 360/67 reference cards lying around. :-)”
So I am not sure if it’s that’s a typo, or they mean a special version of the 360/65, but the same thing cropped up in 2010, from Rob Tatum who is usually a pretty competent guy From: rhtatum
To: hercules-390@yahoogroups.com Sent: Tue, October 19, 2010 10:33:40 PM Subject: Re: [hercules-390] Current status of MTS ? No, MTS probably won't run under Hercules - I looked up MTS using a google search, and it seems that there was an additional operation code that the folks that created MTS either did themselves or had IBM implement for switching between pieces of MTS, user programs, etc. Someone would have to write the simulation code for that op-code for MTS to run under Hercules-390. Is two enough to be “common”? Dave Wade On Dec 13, 2014, at 10:47 AM, Jeff Ogden wrote: That should be enough to get started. Thanks. -Jeff On Dec 13, 2014, at 12:25 PM, Jeff Ogden wrote: Mike, The S/360-67 at Michigan had an RPQ or perhaps several RPQs. Were they required to run MTS or just performance enhancements? At onetime I think the RPQ was described in MTS Volume 5, but the PDF that I have is a newer version which doesn't include that description. Was Search List (SLT) part of the RPQ? I know that UMMPS emulated the SLT instruction, but I'm not sure when that was added? And I know that UMMPS stopped using STL at some point (probably when S/370 support was added). I added a new item to the Myths and Misconceptions section of the MTS Archive Web site about this. Could you take a look and see if I got it right? http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/myths#TOC-Myth:-MTS-requires-a-special-version-of-the-IBM-System-360-67-to-run -Jeff On Dec 13, 2014, at 1:37 PM, Mike Alexander wrote: I saw that message on the Hercules list and even had a reply typed but decided not to send it. I guess I should have sent it. There were a couple of RPQs on Michigan’s first 67, but none were required for MTS since other 67s that ran MTS didn’t have them. I’m not even sure our later duplex 67 had them. One of them was the SLT instruction, but that was never used much and was never required. All uses of it were under conditional assembly and were optional. The emulation code was added later when we got machines that didn’t have the RPQ so that any user code that used SLT would still work. The system never used the emulation code and I doubt if any user code did. I had a counter on the emulation and never saw it non-zero except when I was testing it. I can’t recall offhand what the other RPQs were, or even for sure if there were any. I think that some things started out as RPQs, but became part of the standard machine. Your new item in M&M looks fine. You could add something to it about SLT. Mike On Dec 13, 2014, at 4:20 PM, Jeff Ogden wrote: OK, thanks. I think there might have been an RPQ for extended floating-point, but I am always confused about what was done in hardware and what was emulated in UMMPS. I wouldn't feel too bad about not sending your note. That was a few years ago now (4) and the original comment started out that MTS probably wouldn't run under Hercules. I think subsequent events have made it quite clear that MTS runs just fine under Hercules. -Jeff On Dec 13, 2014, at 5:07 PM, Mike Alexander wrote: I think that's right that there were floating point related RPQs. There might have been others too. The message I almost replied to was from yesterday. It doesn't matter that I didn't reply since "Dave G4UGM" replied with the same comment I was going to make. Mike On Dec 15, 2014, at 4:03 AM, Jeff Ogden wrote: I found this in my e-mail archive: On Aug 2, 2010, at 6:22 PM, among other things Mike Alexander wrote: Michigan asked for a few things beyond just address translation hardware, including extended precision floating point. There was concern that the base 16 floating point (which had never been used before) would have problems which extended precision might address. These fears turned out to be true (Len will certainly remember the guard digit fight). The other features IBM put in for Michigan were the search list and swap register instructions. When the 370 came out it also had 128 bit floating point, but not quite the same as on the 67. On Dec 13, 2014, at 4:44 PM, Jeff Ogden wrote: See: http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/myths#TOC-Myth:-MTS-requires-a-special-version-of-the-IBM-System-360-67-to-run -Jeff On Dec 13, 2014, at 4:59 PM, Mike Alexander wrote: That looks fine. Mike On Dec 13, 2014, at 5:41 PM, Dave G4UGM wrote: I think that’s fine Jeff, Thanks very much Dave From: Richard Chycoski Sent: 14 December 2014 01:45 To: dave.g4ugm Subject: Re: System 360 Model 67 Reference Card Hi, Dave: I've read this in a number of sources, including <https://www.eecs.umich.edu/cse/publications/Publications/CSE_Booklet.pdf>: Ultimately, IBM’s Model 360/67 was installed at
NUBS in January of 1967. Close cooperation between IBM people and the Computing Center staff produced modifications of this design, which became then the IBM 360/67M, the “M” standing for “Michigan.” The two Computing Center people who were the primary developers of all the details of MTS were Mike Alexander and Don Boettner. One measure of their success is the fact that within a year of the installation of this first IBM360/67M, IBM had orders for forty more. This is also how I heard it described by the MTS old-timers (now we're all old :-), including John Hogg (UBC) and Charlie Benet (UM/UQV/SFU). So that would make it true that UM got 'vanilla' 360/67s, but were later modified and that version sold to others who wanted these added features? - Richard From: "Dave G4UGM" Subject: RE: System 360 Model 67 Reference Card Date: December 14, 2014 3:43:57 AM EST To: "'Richard Chycoski'" Cc: "Jeff Ogden" Ok so if you look at the references in the end of the booklet, you will see it refers to this:- “Susan Topol, “A History of MTS--30 Years of Computing Service,” published in the University of Michigan Information Technology Digest, May 13, 1996 Vol. 5, No. 5).” You will find that article reproduced in its entirety here:- http://web.archive.org/web/20060914022828/http://www.msu.edu/~mrr/mycomp/mts/others/feat02.htm and its clearly been copied wrongly as that says they got a 65M (a model 65 with DAT) which became the 67…. Dave G4UGM On Dec 14, 2014, at 6:24 AM, Jeff Ogden wrote: The Suzan Topol article that Dave mentioned in his reply is a good source for this. I'm sure that UM got a "standard" S/360-67 in December 1966 / January 1967. It may have had some additional RPQs on it, but they were not related to the virtual memory features of the Model 67 and were not required to run MTS. At Dave's urging I added a new item about this to the Myths and Misconceptions section of the MTS Archive web site. Mike Alexander has been following this discussion (he is a member of the mts-comments@umich.edu e-mail group as well as the Hercules 390 e-mail group on Yahoo). Mike looked over the new Myths and Misconceptions item and said it looked fine. There is in fact some uncertainty about what the actual designation of the one-off version of the Model 65 was before it became a standard product from IBM. It may have been the model 65M as stated in the Susan Topol article, but it may have been the Model 66 or 66M or perhaps a mix of all three at different times. But the uncertainty is about the model designation of the preliminary system and not about what Michigan finally received in December 1966 / January 1967. There are a number of other sources for this and related topics:
On Dec 14, 2014, at 11:24 AM, Richard Chycoski wrote: Thanks, Jeff! Given the muddiness of the remembrances, it's not too surprising that several different versions of the story got propagated through the community - sometimes even into print, where it became 'gospel' :-). - Richard On Dec 14, 2014, at 11:29 AM, Gavin Eadie wrote: History is written by the winners? On Dec 14, 2014, at 11:44 AM, Richard Chycoski wrote: Or by the ones with the largest publishing budget - there's even research to suggest that some sections of the Bible in its current form came from copies-of-copies-of-copies of errant manuscripts, because so many copies of the flawed document got propagated, drowning out the earlier (and presumed to be more correct) copies that were later found. Repeat some untruth often enough and it can get to be believed by everyone - too many tyrants have made terrible use of this. As I've gotten older, I've found how 'fluid' memory is - having memories of things that I saw as a kid, then looking at pictures from the actual time/event. Makes the whole idea of an 'eye witness' quite suspect! - Richard |
x'14' (20): Early designation for the S/360-67: 64 vs. 65M, 66, 66M, and 67M
Before the IBM System/360 Model 67 became an officially supported product it was known by several different designations, but after the passage of over 48 years, people's memories differ about exactly what those early designations were.
From the IBM System/360 Model 67 article in the English version of Wikipedia:
Early designationThere's something wrong here in the early history. The first-announced 360s with virtual memory were designated Model 64 and Model 66, virtual-memory versions of the Model 60 and Model 62. Only a few weeks later, IBM withdrew the 60 completely and replaced the 62 and 70 with the higher-spec'ed 65 and 75; at the same time, the 64 was dropped and the 66 replaced by the 67. This is inconsistent with the story that the 67 was first introduced as a "65M" modification to the 65. It is possible, of course, that "65M" was an early designation for what was announced as the 64 or 66. —Preceding unsigned comment added by John W. Kennedy (talk • contribs) 16:48, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
From "A Faster Cratchit - The History of Computing at Michigan", U-M Research News, January 1976, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, page 14: IBM had at first apparently not planned to include the machine selected by the Computing Center in its line of marketable computers. This computer, labeled the System/360 Model 66M (the M in 66M standing for Michigan), was to be one of a kind built to University of Michigan specifications. Fortunately, the tide of interest in equipment that would allow for efficient time-sharing was on the rise. IBM quickly found that the computer proposed to the University of Michigan in accordance with U-M specifications was attractive to other buyers too. Within months the hardware innovations that were unique to the 360/66M were to become standard features in the newly announced System/360 Model 67 computer. From Atsushi Akera's 2006 Oral History Interview with Bernie Galler, pages 61-66:
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8.1: Some information about LLMPS
On Oct 19, 2014, at 9:36 PM, Jeff Ogden wrote: I've been reading the Computer History Museum's 2009 Oral History Interview of Frank Belvin (http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/03/102702246-05-01-acc.pdf). Frank worked at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and was responsible for the development of LLMPS. He is co-author together with Joel M. Winett of Lincoln Laboratory Multi-Programming Supervisor, Lincoln Manual 78 (ESD-TR-67-14). He went on to co-found IDC [Interactive Data Corporation]. Some background on the development of LLMPS from page 11: My first task (we had gotten a small model System/360) was working with another fellow, Joel Winett, to develop a multi-programming system that we'd use on the small model 360 to replace all the 1401s that were in the batch shop. It was a typical batch shop, you come in with card decks, they get copied to tape, the tapes go over to the mainframe, you run the job, the mainframe produces output, either cards or on a tape, and then you take the tape back to the 1401 and do printout. We had three 1401s supporting this one 7094, and it was Jack's idea that we should cut our teeth on learning the 360 and do something useful by replacing all those 1401s; so Joel and I wrote a multi-programming operating system with the help of several people in our group who wrote various applications. We ended up replacing the 1401s and I remember a smooth running system. I came across this on page 14: And in fact, this little multiprogramming supervisor I mentioned that Joel and I wrote, we contributed that to the SHARE library, and it apparently got heavy use, not only within IBM, but also the University of Michigan picked it up, and it was a little, tiny inside part of the University of Michigan Multi Programming System (UMMPS), which then became the Michigan Terminal System. So we were heavily involved. I had Mike Alexander come out and visit us. We were very open. But that was before we became our own separate commercial company. I think competitiveness at the university and laboratory level is very cooperative, whereas competitiveness outside is your bread and butter, and so you think more carefully about it. And here is another interesting statement from page 31 (the last page of the interview): The most fun I've had other than writing LLMPS [Lincoln Laboratory Multi Programming Supervisor]] at Lincoln Laboratory, were the first years [at IDC], even including going through the layoff process, which was a very painful one. -Jeff |
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