Lyle scores a WIN for our hobby!

[Jay West]

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