23 Aug
2026
23 Aug
'26
1:47 a.m.
Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some aspects
about operating systems since the 1950s.
To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes:
https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026
VCFSW has the talk archived here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ
Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights:
- overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what it
looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be curious if
others knew more about it)
- 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about that
specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us all vs RAND
corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware patents (that's a
very short version of it)
- today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the difference
and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I could tell from the
manuals
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS (see
footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but "verified" in
the past year
- I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a
cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that said, I
suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's work on the
DP2200
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk. But
there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides:
- Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive it
more properly?)
- I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before
1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to
those
pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ]
- I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just couldn't
make it fit
- AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these in
the wild?),
Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting oldsayings.info
(with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking around some ideas, but
it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got tired of
waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting closer, I see them
running it ranch by ranch.
Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year.
-Steve
23 Aug
23 Aug
10:02 p.m.
On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 2:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally
called UNICS (see
footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but "verified" in
the past year
How was this verified? When I tried to find contemporary documentation
I couldn't find any and Ken Thompson said that it went directly from 'Ken's
New System" to Unix without 'unics' when I emailed him in 2020 before my
history of unix talk at FOSDEM. At the time, I could just find third-hand
stories about the "unics" story.
There's no footnotes in the pdf and I can't open the ppt file, so I'm
curious
what you've found.
Warner
24 Aug
24 Aug
12:07 a.m.
Warner,
(slide 24 in the PPT)
https://www.reddit.com/r/unix/comments/1t826y8/emailed_ken_thompson_about_t…
Not the most assuring source, but it is from earlier this year and
apparently directly from Ken. But my interpretation is this spelling was
never actually written down or even typed, just an in-house office
reference for maybe hours/days at most. Ken himself may have never used
this, he refers to bwk.
On Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 12:02 AM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 2:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of)
originally called UNICS (see
footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but "verified" in
the past year
How was this verified? When I tried to find contemporary documentation
I couldn't find any and Ken Thompson said that it went directly from 'Ken's
New System" to Unix without 'unics' when I emailed him in 2020 before my
history of unix talk at FOSDEM. At the time, I could just find third-hand
stories about the "unics" story.
There's no footnotes in the pdf and I can't open the ppt file, so I'm
curious
what you've found.
Warner
11:38 a.m.
On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 4:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
Sorry, I should probably look through the preso before replying, but are
you perhaps thinking of "Tymnet", a product of Tymeshare, Inc. (with an
'e')?
KJ
8:09 p.m.
Hmm, I hadn't ever heard of anything referred to as "Tymnet." The
product I came across was (I believe) a follow on or derivative of BTS (SDS
940), starting c. 1967 Tymeshare (with a y). I had assumed it was
US-based, but possibly am mistaken.
-Steve
On Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 1:38 PM Ken Seefried <seefriek(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 4:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
Sorry, I should probably look through the preso before replying, but are
you perhaps thinking of "Tymnet", a product of Tymeshare, Inc. (with an
'e')?
KJ
8:14 p.m.
On Mon, 2026-08-24 at 22:09 -0500, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
Hmm, I hadn't ever heard of anything referred to
as "Tymnet." The
product I came across was (I believe) a follow on or derivative of
BTS (SDS
940), starting c. 1967 Tymeshare (with a y). I had assumed it was
US-based, but possibly am mistaken.
I did a little bit of digging and found this:
Tymshare was an independent computer time-sharing company founded in
1964 by Tom O'Rourke and Dave Schmidt, former engineers from General
Electric. Tymnet was developed later as a proprietary packet-switched
data communications network built and operated by Tymshare itself. [1
[1], 2 [2], 3 [3]]
I had thought they were maybe CDC-based, but there were based on SDS
(formerly GE?) 940 and DEC PDP-10.
— Van
-Steve
On Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 1:38 PM Ken Seefried <seefriek(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 4:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
> cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> >
> > I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late
> > 1960s kind
> > of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system,
> > maybe for
> > inventory or check-processing?).
> >
> >
> >
> Sorry, I should probably look through the preso before replying,
> but are
> you perhaps thinking of "Tymnet", a product of Tymeshare, Inc.
> (with an
> 'e')?
>
> KJ
>
[1] 1
https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-computers/7/181
[2] 2 https://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/t-z/tymshare-inc/
[3] 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet
9:03 p.m.
On Tue, Aug 25, 2026, at 3:14 AM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote:
--
Daniel Moniz <dnm(a)pobox.com>
On Mon, 2026-08-24 at 22:09 -0500, Steve Lewis via
cctalk wrote:
Norm Hardy has a number of pages on Tymshare and Tymnet from his time (ahem) there, this
page is a decent single entry point to spider out from (see the second paragraph):
http://www.cap-lore.com/Past.html
Hmm, I hadn't ever heard of anything referred
to as "Tymnet." The
product I came across was (I believe) a follow on or derivative of
BTS (SDS
940), starting c. 1967 Tymeshare (with a y). I had assumed it was
US-based, but possibly am mistaken.
I did a little bit of digging and found this:
Tymshare was an independent computer time-sharing company founded in
1964 by Tom O'Rourke and Dave Schmidt, former engineers from General
Electric. Tymnet was developed later as a proprietary packet-switched
data communications network built and operated by Tymshare itself. [1
[1], 2 [2], 3 [3]]
I had thought they were maybe CDC-based, but there were based on SDS
(formerly GE?) 940 and DEC PDP-10. On Mon, Aug
24, 2026 at 1:38 PM Ken Seefried <seefriek(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 4:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
> cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> > I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late
> > 1960s kind
> > of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system,
> > maybe for
> > inventory or check-processing?).
> >
> >
> >
> Sorry, I should probably look through the preso before replying,
> but are
> you perhaps thinking of "Tymnet", a product of Tymeshare, Inc.
> (with an
> 'e')?
>
> KJ
>
[1] 1
https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-computers/7/181
[2] 2 https://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/t-z/tymshare-inc/
[3] 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet 
11:05 p.m.
Van Snyder wrote:
Steve Lewis wrote:
> Ken Seefried wrote:
>> Steve Lewis wrote:
>>> I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late
>>> 1960s kind of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange"
>>> system, maybe for inventory or check-processing?).
You can find lots of information Tymshare and Tymnet in the book
"The Tym Before" by Nathan Gregory.
https://www.nathangregoryauthor.com/tym-before
>> Sorry, I should probably look through the
preso before replying, but
>> are you perhaps thinking of "Tymnet", a product of Tymeshare, Inc.
>> (with an 'e')?
Tymnet was an outgrowth of Tymshare (without an e), initally to support
their network of timesharing computers. The timesharing busieness wound
down, but the network remained.
> Hmm, I hadn't ever heard of anything referred
to as "Tymnet." The
> product I came across was (I believe) a follow on or derivative of
> BTS (SDS 940), starting c. 1967 Tymeshare (with a y). I had assumed
> it was US-based, but possibly am mistaken.
Tymnet at some point ended up in the hands of British Telecom.
Tymshare was an independent computer time-sharing
company [...]
I had thought they were maybe CDC-based, but there were based on SDS
(formerly GE?) 940 and DEC PDP-10.
Nothing to do with GE. SDS was bought by Xerox and became XDS.
Tymshare started on SDS 940 computers. They got the timesharing system
from Berkeley's Project Genie and developed it further, calling it
TYMCOM. They bought the Computer Center Corporation which ran on PDP-10
computers. Tymshare ported over some of their stuff to the 10 and
called the system TYMCOM-X; the earlier 940 system was now called
TYMCOM-IX. They also had IBM mainframes.
9:22 p.m.
was the Pitney-Bowes 440/Raytheon 520 the only computer to have an
operating system on high speed bidirectional paper tape?
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On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 3:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some aspects
about operating systems since the 1950s.
To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes:
https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026
VCFSW has the talk archived here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ
Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights:
- overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what it
looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be curious if
others knew more about it)
- 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about that
specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us all vs RAND
corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware patents (that's a
very short version of it)
- today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the difference
and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I could tell from the
manuals
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS (see
footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but "verified" in
the past year
- I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a
cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that said, I
suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's work on the
DP2200
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk. But
there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides:
- Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive it
more properly?)
- I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before
1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to
those
pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ]
- I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just couldn't
make it fit
- AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these in
the wild?),
Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting oldsayings.info
(with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking around some ideas, but
it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got tired of
waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting closer, I see them
running it ranch by ranch.
Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year.
-Steve
--
--Carey
25 Aug
25 Aug
11:02 a.m.
Steve et al.
I'm not exactly sure how it fits into this discussion, but you ought to take a look at
the Lockheed MIS system, which is now an IEEE milestone at:
https://ethw.org/Milestones: Pioneering_Medical_Information_System,_1965-1974
Its prototype began in 1966 and was fully operational by 1968, running at the Mayo Clinic
on an SDS-92 and operating about five terminals and several printers. It was then ported
to an IBM/360 M40 and was in production on an IBM S/370 M155 about 1972.
Essentially, MIS software was a transaction processing supervisor that took over control
of the hardware and turned it into a multi-processing transaction processor which by the
mid-70s was in production servicing four different hospitals with hundreds of terminals.
A block diagram of the system architecture is on sheet 52 of this document:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GogbWimvoNvh2n1550Qxa0wmHVDtZWVM/view?usp=…. As it
says, "This software is organized in three basic groups—each of which operates
relatively independently from the others on a time-shared basis—and communicates with the
others by passing messages back and forth." In the IBM DOS era, DOS was just one of
the three "basic groups" with the others being a terminal handling group and a
transaction processor. How they managed to run it on later IBM OSs is a bit of a mystery,
but it ran on IBM mainframes until 2020!
It died this century, mainly because management never extended its capability into the
physician's office.
From a UX perspective, it was renowned for its response time and ease of use, and most
current users familiar with MIS say its performance still isn't matched by today's
medical informatics systems.
tom
On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 3:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some
aspects about operating systems since the 1950s.
To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes:
https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026
VCFSW has the talk archived here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ
Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights:
- overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what
it looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be
curious if others knew more about it)
- 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about
that specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us
all vs RAND corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware
patents (that's a very short version of it)
- today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the
difference and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I
could tell from the manuals
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS
(see footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but
"verified" in the past year
- I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a
cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that
said, I suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's
work on the
DP2200
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s
kind of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system,
maybe for inventory or check-processing?).
Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk.
But there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides:
- Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive
it more properly?)
- I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before
1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to
those pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ]
- I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just
couldn't make it fit
- AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these
in the wild?),
Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting oldsayings.info
(with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking around some ideas,
but it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got
tired of waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting
closer, I see them running it ranch by ranch.
Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year.
-Steve
--
--Carey
26 Aug
26 Aug
9:32 p.m.
Tom, thanks for the notes on Lockheed MIS! I'm on travel and very limited
bandwidth, but looking forward to reading up on these over the next few
months. Thanks Lars on the "Tym Before" book, I hadn't come across that
yet.
Carey: nope was not aware of a "paper tape" OS (nor the use of
bi-directional papers tapes). I've used the QIC (DC300) tapes on the
IBM5100, and some 9-tracks on Harris systems, which are bi-directional.
I've seen plenty of taped-back-together paper tape repairs, I can't imagine
how long it would last in a bi-directional system of any kind of high speed
:) I guess it's why original rolled paper tapes can be hard to find - the
ones that got used just wore out. Like that donated tape from Bill with
original Altair BASIC always looked fairly beat up to me. Fan-fold seems
to have maybe held up longer?
Thanks all !
Still, no info on Honeywell ADMIRAL OS? And no love for the IBM 1800 w/
TSX/MPX? (I recall reading where I think one of these was used to control
the traffic light system somewhere in New York)
-Steve
On Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 1:10 PM Tom Gardner via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Steve et al.
I'm not exactly sure how it fits into this discussion, but you ought to
take a look at the Lockheed MIS system, which is now an IEEE milestone at:
https://ethw.org/Milestones:
Pioneering_Medical_Information_System,_1965-1974
Its prototype began in 1966 and was fully operational by 1968, running at
the Mayo Clinic on an SDS-92 and operating about five terminals and several
printers. It was then ported to an IBM/360 M40 and was in production on an
IBM S/370 M155 about 1972.
Essentially, MIS software was a transaction processing supervisor that
took over control of the hardware and turned it into a multi-processing
transaction processor which by the mid-70s was in production servicing four
different hospitals with hundreds of terminals. A block diagram of the
system architecture is on sheet 52 of this document:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GogbWimvoNvh2n1550Qxa0wmHVDtZWVM/view?usp=….
As it says, "This software is organized in three basic groups—each of which
operates relatively independently from the others on a time-shared
basis—and communicates with the others by passing messages back and
forth." In the IBM DOS era, DOS was just one of the three "basic groups"
with the others being a terminal handling group and a transaction
processor. How they managed to run it on later IBM OSs is a bit of a
mystery, but it ran on IBM mainframes until 2020!
It died this century, mainly because management never extended its
capability into the physician's office.
From a UX perspective, it was renowned for its response time and ease of
use, and most current users familiar with MIS say its performance still
isn't matched by today's medical informatics systems.
tom
On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 3:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some
aspects about operating systems since the 1950s.
To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes:
https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026
VCFSW has the talk archived here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ
Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights:
- overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what
it looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be
curious if others knew more about it)
- 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about
that specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us
all vs RAND corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware
patents (that's a very short version of it)
- today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the
difference and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I
could tell from the manuals
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS
(see footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but
"verified" in the past year
- I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a
cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that
said, I suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's
work on the
DP2200
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s
kind of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system,
maybe for inventory or check-processing?).
Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk.
But there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides:
- Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive
it more properly?)
- I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before
1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to
those pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ]
- I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just
couldn't make it fit
- AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these
in the wild?),
Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting
oldsayings.info
(with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking
around some ideas,
but it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got
tired of waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting
closer, I see them running it ranch by ranch.
Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year.
-Steve
--
--Carey
25 Aug
25 Aug
7:24 a.m.
Are you aware of the paper tap operating system on the Pitney Bowes
440/Raytheon 520 computer? a high speed biderectinal paper tape
reader with teels like tape and a monitor to load programs and reload
itself after a job. sork could be accpeted on card reader or console.
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On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 3:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some aspects
about operating systems since the 1950s.
To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes:
https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026
VCFSW has the talk archived here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ
Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights:
- overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what it
looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be curious if
others knew more about it)
- 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about that
specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us all vs RAND
corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware patents (that's a
very short version of it)
- today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the difference
and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I could tell from the
manuals
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS (see
footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but "verified" in
the past year
- I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a
cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that said, I
suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's work on the
DP2200
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk. But
there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides:
- Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive it
more properly?)
- I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before
1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to
those
pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ]
- I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just couldn't
make it fit
- AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these in
the wild?),
Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting oldsayings.info
(with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking around some ideas, but
it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got tired of
waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting closer, I see them
running it ranch by ranch.
Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year.
-Steve
--
--Carey
29 Aug
29 Aug
3:08 p.m.
On 8/23/26 03:47, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
I never found too much info about "tymshare"
(apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
I think this is the company which was the carrier involved in Clifford
Stoll's "Cuckoo's Egg" story. Nit picking time billing lead to finding
a hacker guy.
My friend Ron Vivier who was a co-worker before the issue moved to the
Bay area and is mentioned in Cliff's book. He worked at Microdata in
Irvine when I worked with him and moved north and went to work for tymshare.
BTW, the timesharing model sucks if you're forced into it. Never ending
charges for service vs. having a system. In the early 80s i went to
work with a company which had a timesharing business they'd inherited.
We had minicomputer which at the time for cost considerations and needs
allowed for sharing the resources. But some companies were predatory
and not nice with rates or services.
Our business went away when the PC version of the Pick Operating system
came out and the customers drifted away onto their own owned machines.
FWIW one customer which had been on our system for years was Western
Digital
thanks
Jim
30 Aug
30 Aug
8:46 a.m.
Looked at microprocessor code development on TymShare for my postgrad days
in Bangor University, in sunny North Wales, 1974-1977.
Realised early on that 'on the meter' coding was not a good economic model,
which rationalised the purchase of an intellec MCD 4/40 and a TTY instead.
Coding then was down to how much midnight oil you were willing to burn,
rather than how much it cost the research grant budget.
And I've still got the original intellec running on my adjacent home office
desk!
Regards
Sid Jones
-----Original Message-----
From: jim stephens via cctalk
Sent: Saturday, August 29, 2026 11:08 PM
To: Steve Lewis via cctalk
Cc: jim stephens
Subject: [cctalk] Re: OS/timeshare discussion (VCF)
On 8/23/26 03:47, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
I never found too much info about "tymshare"
(apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
I think this is the company which was the carrier
involved in Clifford
Stoll's "Cuckoo's Egg" story. Nit picking time billing lead to finding
a hacker guy.
My friend Ron Vivier who was a co-worker before the issue moved to the
Bay area and is mentioned in Cliff's book. He worked at Microdata in
Irvine when I worked with him and moved north and went to work for tymshare.
BTW, the timesharing model sucks if you're forced into it. Never ending
charges for service vs. having a system. In the early 80s i went to
work with a company which had a timesharing business they'd inherited.
We had minicomputer which at the time for cost considerations and needs
allowed for sharing the resources. But some companies were predatory
and not nice with rates or services.
Our business went away when the PC version of the Pick Operating system
came out and the customers drifted away onto their own owned machines.
FWIW one customer which had been on our system for years was Western
Digital
thanks
Jim
10:09 a.m.
On Aug 29, 2026, at 6:08 PM, jim stephens via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 8/23/26 03:47, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
Timesharing is an OS structural model. It isn't a charging model, and you're
confusing computer usage charging schemes with operating system structures.
My primary experience with timesharing is DEC's RSTS system, which indeed had
mechanisms allowing system owners to implement usage charging, but nothing of the sort was
done at the university where I used it. Nor was there a charging scheme for usage on the
University of Illinois PLATO system, which is essentially a special purpose timesharing
system.
On the other hand, the U of I did implement a charging system on their OS/370 batch
system.
In other words, OS structure (single user interactive vs. single user batch vs. multi user
batch vs. timesharing) is completely orthogonal to usage charging vs. no usage charging.
paul
I never found too much info about
"tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
I think this is the company which was the carrier
involved in Clifford Stoll's "Cuckoo's Egg" story. Nit picking time
billing lead to finding a hacker guy.
My friend Ron Vivier who was a co-worker before the issue moved to the Bay area and is
mentioned in Cliff's book. He worked at Microdata in Irvine when I worked with him
and moved north and went to work for tymshare.
BTW, the timesharing model sucks if you're forced into it. Never ending charges for
service vs. having a system. In the early 80s i went to work with a company which had a
timesharing business they'd inherited. We had minicomputer which at the time for
cost considerations and needs allowed for sharing the resources. But some companies were
predatory and not nice with rates or services.
20
days inactive
27
days old
14 comments
11 participants
participants (11)
-
Carey Schug -
Daniel Moniz -
jim stephens -
Ken Seefried -
Lars Brinkhoff -
Paul Koning -
Sid Jones -
Steve Lewis -
Tom Gardner -
Van Snyder -
Warner Losh