1 Mar
2026
1 Mar
'26
1:16 p.m.
On Sun, 2026-03-01 at 14:18 -0600, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
I've seen OS's loaded from vinyl records and
reel-to-reel, just never
imaged one being loaded from any kind of paper. :)
IMSAI and ALTAIR S-100 computer enthusiasts loaded code from audio tape
in "Kansas City" format. Computer magazines published programs in bar
code that you could scan into your computer with a light-pen bar-code
reader and a ruler.
But as far as I can
tell, CTSS and Atlas Supervisor were probably "single digit
installations". The first widely-deployed OS possibly was possibly
CDC's
scope (meaning, more than a few hundred installations). Even MULTICS
had a
fairly limited install base (as far as I can determine).