18 Mar
2013
18 Mar
'13
11:25 a.m.
On 03/18/2013 12:07 AM, Vincent Slyngstad wrote:
A friend sent me a list today of documents he has,
wondering if they are
of interest to classic computer folk. Most of these categories are
outside my expertise, so I'm asking here if these should get archived,
and if so who volunteers to do it :-).
I'm certain that Al K. will be interested in those not already on bitsavers.
CDC "Modify" is a great illustration of what happens when a company
allows regional rivalries cam suck the life out of development budgets.
MODIFY was a CVS-type utility that exactly paralleled (and probably
was a derivative of) the UPDATE utility. MODIFY was used by MACE/KRONOS
people and UPDATE was used by SCOPE/NOSBE people. UPDATE and SCOPE were
pretty much West Coast products and KRONOS/MACE were east-of-the-Rockies
projects.
SCOPE is a descendant of the old Chipppewa OS and MACE/KRONOS was a
product bootlegged by Greg Mansfield and Dave Callender of the CDC Arden
Hills (MN) ops. "MACE" is an acronym for "Mansfield's Answer for
Customer Engineering". I'd met Dave Callender (whose real interest was
bats and knew Greg Mansfield quite well (he eventually ended up at
Cray). Both thought that they had a good idea and found it easier to
bootleg a compatible (to SCOPE) product than convince the administration
that they had a better way.
Eventually, this lead to a rivalry, then an attempt to merge the two
(largely compatible) OS projects, costing thousands of man-hours and a
two-culture dichotomy in program development. I can't help but think
that this hurt CDC greatly.
--Chuck