SDS 940 BASIC (was Re: Which Dec Emulation is the MOST useful and Versatile?)

[Al Kossow]

On 10/25/17 11:55 AM, Rich Alderson via cctalk wrote:

> Noel, do have a reference for "some commercial time-sharing system in the
> Boston area"?  From Paul Allen's autobiography, the Harvard system was followed
> immediately by their move to Albuquerque, where they leased time on the local
> school board's PDP-10, and that's what my friends who worked for Micro-soft
> back then have told me, as well.

Harvard had an SDS 940, which shipped with a version of Berkeley's timesharing
system. Tymshare's version of that system was significantly improved, and included
"Super BASIC". SDS's OS was replaced with Tymshare's at Harvard because the original
was so bad, and so they were exposed to that version of BASIC. PA told me that was
the influence for M-S's BASIC extensions.