OMSI (was: OS8 Source listing)

DEC had quite a place at OMSI in at least in the 1973 through late 1970's timeframe. OMSI had a Straight-8, with quite a bit of RAM, one of the fixed head disk drives (was it RA32?), a few DECTape drives, and a Tektronix 4002 as a console terminal, as well as a Centronix dot matrix printer, and if I recall correctly, even one of the small Calcomp drum plotters. I don't know what happened to the Straight-8, but it was quite heavily used when I was there. OMSI had computer programming classes and used the 8 for teaching assembly and BASIC programming. They also had a rather heavily configured PDP 11/45 running some fairly early version of RSTS, with a dial-in modem bank, and a number of terminals in a "terminal room" as well as a terminal in a museum exhibit that was connected to the 11. OMSI did a lot of development work, especially related to development of a PASCAL compiler on the 11. I also know that they did quite a bit of modification to OS/8 on the PDP 8. I remember seeing source listings for both OS/8 and RSTS on green-line paper around the place. They also had a number of those DEC logic labs, along with tons of software and documentation for the 8 and 11. I once found a bug in RSTS that allowed me to capture PPN's and passwords from any dial-up terminal. I ended up finding the [1,2] (systems operator) password at one point, and due to teenage foolishness on my part, ended up getting caught. OMSI had DEC Systems Engineers all over this issue, sending some of their expert RSTS guys to OMSI figure out the bug and get rid of it. OMSI apparently had some pretty good pull with DEC, and I believe was well-supported by DEC. Eventually, the folks that were involved with the development of PASCAL ended up spinning off their own company called Oregon Software, and ended up taking over OMSI's 11/45, but leased services back to OMSI at a very low rate. I'm not at all sure of how the whole business deal worked, but at around that time, I graduated from high school and went to work at Tektronix, and he much more computer toys to play with at Tek then OMSI had, and kind of lost touch with the whole thing. One person that I fondly remember was a man who was the head of the computing department at OMSI at the time was named Rusty Whitney. I was involved with him when I got caught for "breaking in" to the OMSI RSTS system. He was really great in dealing with the situation. I Googled him just now, and found his Linked-In page: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rusty-whitney/8/93/397 He was the founder of Oregon Software. I'd bet that he has some great stories to tell about those days. I'm going to try contacting him to see if he remembers the whole RSTS hacking situation. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com > -----Original Message----- > From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk- > bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Zane H. Healy > Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:16 AM > To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts > Subject: RE: OS8 Source listing > > > > > The thing I noticed is that the mods seem to have been done by the > group at > OMSI (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry). I'd really love to see > details on OMSI's involvement with DEC computers. I spent a lot of my > childhood there, and I can guarentee I never saw any sign of any DEC > computers during the timeframe they'd have been doing such things. > > Zane >