Excellent news. Thank you for making this happen.
--
Will
On Apr 28, 2016 1:22 PM, "Jay West" <jwest at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Several years ago, Lyle Bickley began negotiations with S&H Computer
Systems
to release TSX-Plus (a 3rd party Multiuser Operating
System for PDP-11's)
as
free software for personal use. As is often the case,
this process can
take
a lot longer than one would expect.
Once Lyle obtained an initial agreement from the owner of TSX-Plus, he
then
had to await the approval from S&H's Board of
Directors. Initially, S&H
chose to only release the source code listings for TSX-Plus (which are now
on
Bitsavers.org). Unfortunately, the machine readable source code itself
had been accidentally lost when S&H changed PDP-11 computer systems
in-house.
Eventually, Lyle was able to obtain the original SMD hard drive from S&H
containing the latest versions of TSX-Plus, and the layered products
COBOL-Plus and RTSORT (and other software that remains private to S&H
Computer Systems). He transferred the TSX-Plus, COBOL-Plus, and RTSORT
files
to an RL02 disk - and using S&H's proprietary
licensing software created a
"personal use, serialized version" of TSX-Plus. This version has ALL the
capabilities and features of the commercially licensed version of
TSX-Plus.
Subsequently, Lyle was authorized to release this "Personal Use" TSX-Plus
distribution only to individuals that he could vouch for as being
non-commercial users.
After another year or so, he was able to obtain the current agreement and
license to make this "Personal Use" TSX-Plus distribution generally
available for non-commercial use.
Please note that TSX-Plus is NOT public domain software; S&H retains all
rights including ownership. They have provided a free personal use license
available through Bickley Consulting West. There is still a paid
commercial
use license available directly from S&H.
We all owe a big "Thanks!" to Harry Sanders at S&H Computer Systems and
his
Board of Directors for making this release a reality
for all vintage
computer folks! Also, the hobby owes huge thanks to Lyle Bickley for
tirelessly pursuing this for us all! I've always been a huge fan of
TSX-Plus
and I'm thrilled there's now a personal
(hobbyist) license thanks to Lyle.
The distribution is at
http://tsxplus.classiccmp.org
Best,
J