13 Mar
2019
13 Mar
'19
12:05 p.m.
I echo the reliability requirement. Classified ad sales was the biggest revenue generator
back then so Newpapers would throw a lot of development money at them to make them
reliable. A classified sales rep would be on the phone to a customer, taking the text of
the ad and typing it directly into the system so you couldn't afford the system to
suddenly crash.
This happened to us. when the CSE system was replaced with one from Ctext using pc's
and OS/2 starting about 1097. After a while, the sales reps started jotting down of the
text on notepads because they knew the system might fail at any time.
Anyway you did have a very fun and cool job.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 13, 2019, at 11:49, Paul Koning <paulkoning
at comcast.net> wrote:
Early 1979. I worked on TMS-11 from summer 1978 to summer 1980, as
"firefighter" -- traveling on-site support and software repair. I was scheduled
for CMS-11 training early 1979, but instead the Valley News developed a serious bug so I
was sent there to learn on the spot. :-)
Supposedly the Valley News was one of the biggest classified systems in the country, 50+
pages of ads on the peak day. DEC also had a system in Melbourne, Australia (I think) at
News Corp, which was somewhat bigger still. Or perhaps that was a bid that didn't
turn into a sale? Not sure. Still, those systems didn't have 300 terminals, the
likely limit was 100 or so I think. So if you had 330 I can see why that would be custom.
TMS-11 used 11/70 systems running IAS (trimmed down to look like RSX-11/D, the
timesharing part yanked out), with either VT61/t and/or VT71 terminals. The latter have
an LSI-11 inside to do full file local editing.
There was Typeset-10, I'm not sure how many customers that had but they were big.
Chicago Tribune, I think?
It was interesting to do field work for customers who need their system to be very
reliable because they have to produce "product" every single day. Pretty
amazing to get a job like that fresh out of college.
paul
On Mar 13, 2019, at 2:37 PM, Wayne S
<Wayne.Sudol at hotmail.com> wrote:
Paul, what was the timeframe when you worked on the system in Van Nuys?
I worked for a large newspaper starting in 1978 and they made their own 330 seat
Classified Sales Entry system because there wasn't anything out there that was big
enough.
It used Zentec ZMS-90 programmable terminals feeding Series /1 mini's that then fed
IBM 3032 mainframe.
I was wondering if DEC had that system available during that time.
Sent from my iPhone