31 Jan
2022
31 Jan
'22
11:28 a.m.
On Jan 31, 2022, at 2:01 PM, Tom Gardner via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
There is a discussion of the origin of the term "partition" in storage
devices such as HDDs at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Disk_partitioning#Where_did_the_term_%22p
artition%22_originate?
It seems clear it was used in memory well before HDDs but when it got
started there is unclear.
* IBM PC DOS v2 was an early user in 1983 with FDISK and its first PC
support of HDDs
* UNIX, Apple OS's and IBM mainframe all seem to come later.
Partitioning as a "slice" probably predates IBM PC DOS v2
Would appreciate some recollections about DEC usage, other minicomputers and
the BUNCH.
You can either post directly to Wikipedia or let me know; links to
references would greatly be appreciated
Tom
RSX has partitions; the term goes back at least as far as RSX-11/D. It may well go back
to older versions such as RSX-15, but I haven't looked.
OS/360 came in three flavors, PCP, MFT, and MVT. The OS/360 article describes MFT as
having partitions selected at sysgen time (the acronym stands for "multiprogramming
with a fixed number of tasks, with the concurrent tasks assigned across the available
partitions).
Both of these are memory partitions. The only OS I can think of predating the ones you
mentioned is RT-11, the later versions (V2 did not have them). When did Unix first get
partitions?
paul