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And yet TOPS-10 was fairly advanced back in the sixties. It is the common root of RT11, CP/M and PC-DOS / MS-DOS, but also one of the only system that allows t
by rahen 3y ago
And yet TOPS-10 was fairly advanced back in the sixties.
It is the common root of RT11, CP/M and PC-DOS / MS-DOS, but also one of the only system that allows to run batch and time sharing tasks at the same time. IBM couldn't do that, if you needed time sharing, you had the 360/67 but then you couldn't run batches.
Fun fact, Microsoft originally used a KA-10 running TOPS-10 and cross assemblers for software development. The PDP-10 was also a cornerstone of developing NCP/IP, TCP/IP, and early AI.
It's fairly hard nowadays to find 36 bits machines still running, as the 8 bits byte has taken over the world. I think XKL uses an FPGA-based PDP-10 running TOPS-20 on its TOAD2 router, but that's about all I'm aware of.
- skissane 3y ago> I think XKL uses an FPGA-based PDP-10 running TOPS-20 on its TOAD2 router, but that's about all I'm aware of. I’m pretty sure the TOAD2 is a discontinued product. I believe their current routers run a BSD variant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30520851 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30520851
- Aloha 3y agoThere has always been more than a passing resemblance to TOPS-20 and Cisco iOS CLI - while they might run a BSD variant, the feel is the same (so are some of the commands, like systat).
- skissane 3y agoIt is very common for embedded vendors, when changing the underlying OS, to try to keep the UI unchanged. Once upon a time, every IBM mainframe contained a PC running OS/2, which was used to perform system maintenance functions such as startup and shutdown, hardware configuration changes, OS installation, etc. At some point, IBM decided to get rid of OS/2 and replace it with a HTTP server running on x86 Linux – but they had the webapp emulate the OS/2 UI look, so it still looked like OS/2 even though it was now a webapp. (I believe more recently they've refreshed the UI so it doesn't look like OS/2 any more.) So it wouldn't surprise me if, when XKL migrated from TOPS-20 (or possibly it was their own custom PDP-10 OS) to BSD, they kept the CLI as unchanged as possible. It also wouldn't be the first time a Unix application has used a TOPS-20 inspired interface. The most famous example of that is Kermit. Columbia MM is another.
- anthk 3y agoLynx doesn't look very Unixy too.
- Aloha 3y agoIts amusing, early XKL documentation called it "router style user interface" so while it might have been PDP-10 under the surface, it looked like a Cisco Router from the get go, which makes sense considering the market intended for.
- Suzuran 3y agoThis has more to do with Cisco's IOS command line being a direct clone of the TOPS-20 "Exec" than XKL attempting to clone Cisco's interface.
- Aloha 3y agoThe first time I sat down at a TOPS-20 box, I could see the genetic similarity. Also, I was not presuming XKL cloned Cisco - considering the shared provenance of it all.
- zabzonk 3y ago> And yet TOPS-10 was fairly advanced back in the sixties. first release 1970, according to wikipedia. > It's fairly hard nowadays to find 36 bits machines still running, true. one of our system programmers looked at buying our Dec10 but power supply and cooling problems defeated him - it was eventually sold for scrap.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoIt would take unusual dedication, plenty of space, and a huge budget for electricity and air con to run a KL10 at home. I understand the attraction, because they were very popular with users - partly because TOPS-10 was relatively intuitive and could be learned by almost anyone, and timesharing was very much an experience of personal computing. That was a huge deal when most computing still had to go through operators and other expert intermediaries. TOPS-20 was more refined and tried to be even friendlier, with nice features like command completion. Neither was at all UNIXy - a good thing IMO.
- zabzonk 3y agohe was prepared to sacrifice his 2-car garage, but i think the three-phase and other electrics defeated him. of couurse, it wouldn't have been switched on anywhere near all the time. and his girlfriend wasn't keen. perhaps a bit too big for a hobby project?
- shrubble 3y agoIf I remember correctly the DEC supplied power supplies were hugely inefficient, and CompuServe redesigned the power supplies since they were using so many of these systems.
- aap_ 3y ago> first release 1970, according to wikipedia. Under that name. It goes back to the PDP-6 monitor, 1964.
- WalterBright 3y agoI have good memories of playing Star Trek all night on a DECwriter connected to a -10.
- ForOldHack 3y ago>Microsoft originally used a KA-10 running TOPS-10 and cross assemblers for software development - This was before they had Unix ported to their PDPs (Xenix)- and then Vaxes? Ms Piggy? Oh do tell! A lot happened between 1979, and 1984, when Xenix was released...
- pjmlp 3y agoAnd a lot more so, after they decided they didn't want that UNIX business after all.
- larsbrinkhoff 3y agoDo you mean how Microsoft "borrowed" time on PDP-10 computers that were not theirs? I believe they got a DEC-2020 (KS10) later. Ms Piggy was a PDP-11, right?
- rahen 3y agoThat's right, there even used to be a picture of Bill Gates and Paul Allen using the DEC-2020 at the LCM in Seattle. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/DECSYSTEM-20_KL-10_%281974%29.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/DECSYSTE...
- larsbrinkhoff 3y agoSorry to be pedantic here, but that LCM computer is not a DEC-2020, and by looks of it, not the one in the photo either. The 2020 is a small machine with the KS10 processor. The ones in the photos look like some larger KL10 based DEC-20 models: 2040, 2050, 2060, or 2065.
- rahen 3y agoYou're absolutely right, thank you for pointing this out to me. I indeed meant a KL-10 based DEC-20, not a KS-10 2020.