From: Jeff Ogden
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 11:36 AM
To: Shirley Fenton
Subject: questions about status of programming language compilers developed at Waterloo
 
Hello,
 
I'm not at all sure I'm directing this note to the correct place, but I am hoping you can point me in the right direction. I am looking for information on the current status of several programming language compilers that were originally developed at the University of Waterloo.
 
I am a retired staff member from the academic Computing Center at the University of Michigan.  I've been working with several of my former colleges to preserve and make the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) available to the public. MTS is the virtual memory time-sharing operating system for the IBM S/360-67, S/370, and compatible mainframe computers that was developed and used at U-M and several other universities from 1967 to 1999.  In July 2011 U-M made our effort a project of its Office for the Vice President for Research and gave permission for MTS to be made widely available.  In late December 2011 we released the MTS source and object code distributions from 1968 through 1988. We were pleasantly surprised when several individuals successfully used this material to run MTS using the Hercules S/370 emulator under Mac OSX, Windows, and Unix/Linux just a few days after the material became available. We are now working to make the version of MTS that was in use at U-M in 1996 available and to make the distributions more complete.
 
MTS used several programming language compilers that were developed at the University of Waterloo.  These compilers were never included in MTS distributions due to licensing restrictions.  We would like to include these compilers in the versions of MTS we are making available, but to do that we need to get permission from the current rights holders or confirm that the compilers have been released into the public domain or are available under a public license.
 
The difficulty we have is that we aren't sure who the current rights holders are and so we aren't sure who to ask about this.  Do you know or can you point me to someone who might?
 
The Waterloo compilers that were used with MTS are:
 
*PROLOGC                          Edinburgh syntax Waterloo Prolog
*PROLOGW                         Waterloo syntax Prolog compiler
*WATBOL                             Waterloo COBOL
*WATFOR and *WATFIV      Waterloo FORTRAN
*WBASIC                              Waterloo Basic
 
More information about MTS and our efforts to preserve and make it more widely available are available at these URLs:
 
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Terminal_System
 
     http://archive.michigan-terminal-system.org/
 
Thanks for your help.
 
  -Jeff Ogden

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From: "Shirley Fenton"
Subject: RE: questions about status of programming language compilers developed at Waterloo
Date: February 25, 2012 12:27:54 PM EST
To: "'Jeff Ogden'"
Cc: "Don Cowan", "Doug Mulholland"

Hi Jeff,
 
I am not the right person but I can help. I have copied Don Cowan and Doug Mulholland, both of the Computer Systems Group, who should be able to answer your questions.
 
Don and/or Doug: Will you please respond to Jeff? Thanks.
 
All the best in your work and endeavors with making MTS public.
 
Best regards,
Shirley Fenton
 
Shirley Fenton, BES, MA
VP, National Institutes of Health Informatics
Research Associate, CSG, University of Waterloo

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From: Don Cowan
Subject: Re: questions about status of programming language compilers developed at Waterloo
Date: February 25, 2012 12:37:04 PM EST
To: "'Jeff Ogden'"
Cc: Doug Mulholland

Hi Jeff
I am the person responsible for this software. Doug Mulholland and I will put our heads together on this next week and get back to you shortly.
Don Cowan

Donald Cowan Phd, DSc, PEng, Distinguished Professor Emeritus 
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science/Department of Biology
Davis Centre 3333
Waterloo Ontario          
University of Waterloo         
Canada N2L 3G1                

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From: Don Cowan
Subject: Re: questions about status of programming language compilers developed at Waterloo
Date: February 27, 2012 4:16:36 PM EST
To: "'Jeff Ogden'"
Cc: Doug Mulholland

Hi Jeff
We have decided that you can distribute the software with MTS under one condition. We would like to receive a copy. Please let me know if you need further information.
Don Cowan

Donald Cowan Phd, DSc, PEng, Distinguished Professor Emeritus 
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science/Department of Biology
Davis Centre 3333
Waterloo Ontario          
University of Waterloo         
Canada N2L 3G1