TOPS-10 SMP [Was Re: The computer jargon file]
jmfb...@aol.com
In article <8ao8r4$qns$3...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>In article <38c4b9be$0$2...@nntp1.ba.best.com>,
> in...@best.com (Joe Smith) wrote:
<snip>
>>>Joe Smith? Did you put the story in your collection?
>>
>>It might be in one of these two files:
>> http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/usenet/history
>> http://www.inwap.com/pdp10/usenet/stories
>>
>>I'm afraid that the stuff in /pdp10/usenet/ is not very well organized.
>
>'s OK. I managed to find my copy. I've done an edit so
>I'd appreciate if you would substitute the new edit for the
>old edit. Not much changed...a few typos and the 1.8 to a 0.8.
>I still haven't figured out names of people and whatever else
>I marked with a question mark.
>
>I'll post it using my follow-up icon but I'm going to change
>the title. I've reread it and it's not written very well.
>I don't have the energy to do a rewrite.
>
>My apologies to those who are reading it again; I'm feeling
>better about reposting it because there's a new old fart on
>the block who just started reading the newsgroup.
[begin story]
[Version 0.4]
;Edit 0.4 Fix typos and change to 1 + 1 = 0.8
Once upon a time there was a company affectionately
called DEC that attracted and hired productive people.
Instead of tying their efforts down with rules and
paperwork, this company encouraged its people to think
and create. It allowed people to do real work. We
made fine stuff and we made money selling that stuff.
Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP) was a tightly coupled
system architecture that allowed any CPU to do any task,
as opposed to a master/slave architecture. TOPS-10
SMP had few exceptions, such as setting the time at
system startup. To indicate that this was a new
software design, the major monitor version number
that implemented this architecture was incremented
from 6.xx to 7.xx. We called this monitor, the piece of
the operating system that was always resident in core, 7.01.
Our customers first saw SMP as V7.01. The fact that
they ever saw it is a testament of the high regard
that DEC had for two men, James M. Flemming (JMF)
and Antony Wachs (TW); a respect that was eliminated
in a company known as Digital. This is the story
of what happened, based on personal observation
and what was told to me by JMF and TW.
Sometime, during the 6.03 development cycle and the advent
of the KL10 CPU, Jim noticed that the speed of service to
users was not very good. After we shipped 6.03, Jim did
his usual "stare at the SYSDPY" displays and created a
performance data base (I think with the help of CDO) for
further performance analysis. SYSDPY was a program
that displayed static and variable system data on a video
terminal; Chuck O'Toole did some of the formatting of
SYSDPY and also wrote a FORTRAN program that
analyzed the data ??is this correct, Chuck??
What he found absolutely floored him. When one added a
second KL10 CPU, one did not get twice the service; his
analyses showed that one only got 0.8 the expected
performance. He made slides and gave a talk about this
for DECUS stating that 1 KL + 1 KL = 0.8 KLs. Now, if
there was anything that TOPS-10 developers couldn't stand,
it was degradation of performance. JMF and TW worked
the 3:00-12:00 shift so they could have the PDP-10
systems stand alone, and probably started to talk
about improvements during those wee small hours of
the A.M. when not much else was going on. Since
I was working on the accounting project in another
part of the building, I couldn't listen in on all of
their brainstorming sessions.
I remember JMF had to work really hard to convince
TW that bit-diddling the master/slave implementation
wouldn't give the performance improvements that JMF
wanted. He firmly believed that adding another CPU
to a configuration should give the system a 100%
increase of work, not 80%. Hence, SMP was born.
There was a flurry of activity. The tasks that had
to be done in order to implement SMP were written on
the backs of unpunched IBM computer cards. Keeping
lists and marking changes in listings was the best
use of cards in DEC's opinion.
One of those tasks was to make each device driver
reentrant so that the code could be run at any time
on any CPU; the data and the code had to be separated.
The two men split up the work by negotiation.
One of those negotiations was deciding who would do
FILSER, the file service routines. As a result of those
negotiations, Jim was obliged to do a lot of device drivers
just so Tony would do FILSER. In those days, nobody
touched the disk service routines without great trepidation,
lots of magic incantations and the blessings of TW who,
at the time, was considered the father of TOPS-10 due to
his longevity in the group. Jim didn't want any part of the
file system work. I don't remember how they decided who
would do SCNSER, the terminal I/O module, since
neither one wanted any part of that piece of TOPS-10.
I suspect that there was probably a wish for RCC (Bob
Clements) to come back but, instead, we managed to
hire somebody. This was an accomplishment since the
part of the PDP-10 development budget alloted to TOPS-10
was very, very small.
I remember that Jim would use his weekend work time to
make device drivers such as DTASER, the DECtape device
driver, reentrant. Jim always went into work Saturday and
Sunday mornings but he only did "fun stuff" on the weekends,
his play time.
Those development days were lively with laughter,
fights, ups and downs. A big up was the day that
the guys got the monitor to print its dot after TW
ran his macroes over the sources; we used this major
code adjustment time as an opportunity to get rid
of all the feature test switches that had become
a pain in the ass. There were just some things
that we didn't want customers to be able to turn
on and there were some things that we didn't want
customers to turn off. These feature test switches
were an archaic legacy of DEC's support commitments.
A big down was the day that the guys finally figured
out the reason for a particular set of crashes was a
race condition caused by the KL not having a write-thru
cache. That was a time when the guys thought that
they wouldn't be able to ever implement SMP; if a solution
wasn't found, we had to can the project. Jim finally
got the idea of the spin-lock mechanism to solve that
problem. JMF and TW were told many years later that
this could have been patented but the lawyers decided
it wasn't worth the trouble since the sources had
been shipped. Back in those days, if the sources
were shipped, the thinking was that the contents
was public domain. That thinking changed but I
don't remember why (if I ever knew).
The development cycle had reached the stage when Jim
and Tony were ready to talk about the product at Spring
DECUS, 1978. ??I think this is the correct year but would
like some verification??
We did all the preparations for the talk. I was the one
who did all the overheads and, believe me, getting JMF
to keep those slides readable was an effort. We attended
the party-line talks; these were the pre-DECUS meetings
where the product managers told us what we could talk
about, and, more importantly, what we couldn't talk
about. It one wanted to go to DECUS, one had to attend
one of these party-line sessions. We were to find out
later that these sessions were not complete.
Jim and Tony were very excited about telling the TOPS-10
customers about SMP. In those days, the corporate climate
with respect to TOPS-10 was not good. We felt like we were
being attacked from all sides so the anticipation of
presenting a really good idea to our customers was
important to them.
Jim and Tony did their talk about SMP. Then we went
to the product panel session. Jim and Tony sat together
towards the front of the room. I sat three chairs down
from our manager, Chuck Turley; the chairs between Chuck
and me were vacant.
The product manager, Dave ?????, gave the presentation.
One of his slides said that 6.04 was the last TOPS-10
monitor. I can't begin to describe the impact that
that slide had on the audience. After some questions,
one customer asked, "Is 6.04 the last TOPS-10 monitor?"
Dave said, "Yes." The same customer then asked, "Is SMP
in 6.04?" Dave said, "No."
I asked Chuck if he knew that this was coming. He nodded
his head miserably. I said, "Do you understand what
that implies?" Again, he nodded his head. I said,
"Did Jim and Tony know about this?" He shook his head.
I said, "Why didn't you tell them?" He said, miserably,
"We didn't know how to tell them."
The meeting broke up shortly after that. I sought out
Jim and Tony and we retired to a nook in the bar. I
didn't know how to comfort them; I was in shock myself.
I must digress here for just a minute to mention that
most of the customers left us alone in our misery. I
would like to thank them for that small gesture of
understanding. We didn't want to hobnob just then.
[As a warning to the reader, I would like to make one
thing clear before I continue. TW was the only person
in the whole world throughout all time that was allowed
to call me Babs (he pronounced it Bobs); Jim never even
tried. So, just because it's now in print, does not mean
that it will be permissable to call me that name.]
At one point, Tony asked, "What are we going to do, Babs?"
He had such a lost look on his face that I told him the
truth. I said, "Fuck'em." You see, I was pissed; I
was livid; I was beyond expressing my anger and disgust
with the way these guys had been treated by our management.
How dare they not tell Jim and Tony what was being planned.
How dare they let Jim and Tony go to DECUS and talk about
SMP, giving the customers the idea of a hint of deceit
and the impression of ineptness. How dare they allow
Jim and Tony to embarrass themselves because of their
[the managers'] cowardice? I was furious. And,
besides that, they were cancelling TOPS-10 which was a
revenue backbone of Digital Equipment Corporation.
So, back to the bar scene.
I said, "Fuck'em." Tony said, "Yea. Yea. YEA. FUCK'EM".
Then Jim said, "You know, TW, I always wanted to
have a calling card that said, 'Have EDDT, will travel'.
One of my favorite TV shows was _Have Gun, Will Travel_
and I always thought that the slogan 'Have EDDT, will
travel' was sexy."
Tony got a thoughtful look on his face and the guys
started talking about a business where their expertise
in debugging and developing TOPS-10 could be exchanged
for money. We started planning then and there. SMP
would be delayed for a while but the game plan was to
get a customer to allow us to use their hardware so
that further development could continue; we had our
eye on the ORNL site for that. Since Jim and Tony
both had families, a source of income was required.
We figured that plenty of customers would want them
to solve their problems. We figured that we
wouldn't have to advertise; word-of-mouth would be
sufficient. My part would be to take the phone calls,
handle the scheduling, and be responsible for the
financial end of the business. If anything else came
up, I would handle that, too. Picking up all the loose
ends was already one of my functions at DEC. On top of
that, I would keep my job with DEC and garner lists and
information about customers with problems. Then
Tony said he had to go home (his beer limit was two).
I do not know what was said in the early morning
sessions that JMF and TW must have had. That Friday,
JMF and TW agreed that we all go away and think about
the proposal and talk with the wives. A meeting with
the wives was set for that next Sunday night at TW's
house. It was agreed that, if even one person voted
nay to the proposal, we wouldn't go ahead with it.
Meanwhile, I had to figure out how I could answer my
phone at home (my personal phone number was going to
be the customer contact) while I was working in Marlboro.
I started to think about the financial aspects of running
a business. Neither Jim nor Tony knew the rudiments of
business management. Jim didn't know how not to spend
money, and Tony didn't know how to spend money. I
quailed at the thought of having to argue business
sense to either of these men. I began to have my
doubts about the success of this business venture.
Then I thought about the impact of my saying nay on
these two men. I didn't want to hurt them; a vote
of nay would crush them. It was conceivable that I
would lose their friendship. It was guaranteed that
I would get undercut at work. I took the coward's
way out and decided to vote last. If one of the
wives said nay, I wouldn't have to vote.
We had the Meeting With the Wives that Sunday night;
Jim and Tony gave it this title. After a lot of
discussion, it was time to vote. The wives voted yea.
Tony and Jim voted yea. Then they all looked at me and
I wanted to melt through the virtual hole in the floor.
With a sinking feeling, I voted nay. Jim and Tony were
shocked. I gave them my reasons saying that I didn't
think that we knew how to run a business. After
a little more discussion, TW ended the meeting saying
there wasn't anymore to be said. I went home. Tomorrow
was Monday, another work day.
That next morning, JMF and TW got together to talk
again. I don't know what they said; I didn't really
want to ever know what they said. They did decide
to go to their manager and told me so. I said, "If
I were you, I'd go to the top and not waste a damn
second on middle management." TW suggested the next
level up. I suggested they start with Ken. JMF
and TW comprimised and got an appointment with the
head guy of LCG (I don't remember his name and
would appreciate help with this one).
Those were two very nervous people. They didn't tell
anybody about the meeting (their normal habit would have
been to tell at least the supervisor). They spent their
time drinking coffee (which didn't help nerves), walking
around, and fussing. These men never fussed. Finally,
the late morning meeting happened.
They sat down with this guy and told him about the
"6.04 is the last TOPS-10 monitor" announcement.
The guy said, "Yea, so?" Jim and Tony said, "What
do you plan for us to work on after 6.04?". Jim
and Tony proceeded to tell him that they were
seriously thinking about leaving DEC.
Now, apparently, that thought hadn't crossed management's
mind when planning this outrageous announcement. I
can't explain the idiocy; there are times when people
just don't make sense to me and this was one of those
times. The managers (those directly above Jim and Tony)
who did think this thought, didn't say anything. The
politics of getting rid of TOPS-10 were very thick and
tricky then. So silence was the easiest and safest
course to take at that time; I understand this thinking.
After that meeting, as TW would say, the fit hit the
shan. It was not a goal to lose Jim and Tony. At
that time, there were still people who were aware
that the products these guys produced made money. I
do know that somebody pointed out that most of the
budget for TOPS-10 involved Jim and Tony. If
they were going to be funded anyway, they might as
well do something like SMP (they were not welcome
in the -20 group and they did not want to work on TOPS-20).
So, to keep these two men as employees, DEC turned the
TOPS-10 SMP project back on.
From that time on, I did everything I could to smooth
the efforts of the TOPS-10 monitor group in my spare
time. That work involved from being a sounding board
at design sessions to getting cups of coffee for the
guys during intense debugging efforts. It was an
interesting time; it was an exacting time; it was
hell; it was heaven. It was frustrating; it was
satisfying. It was rarely boring; it was life.
When Tony Wachs died, I cried for three days and three
nights. Then, for three months after that, I cried
whenever Jim wasn't around because he didn't like to see
me cry. When Jim Flemming died, I cried for two years
and a month. These men were my best friends. I still
miss them.
[end of story]
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
John Everett
lots of stuff about the political climate at DEC around the time of
6.04/7.01...
>
Barb, I really enjoyed your missive. As you know I was close to both TW and
JMF. I shared an office with Tony as early as 1966, and actually interviewed
Jim when he was looking to join DEC. Jim and I subsequently shared an office
soon after he came to Maynard.
I left DEC (and the TOPS-10 Monitor group) an 1974 to take a job with First
Data; subsequently acquired by ADP. By 1978 (the era you discussed), ADP was
busy creating a product based upon the KS-10. We were a TOPS-10 shop and it
was abundantly clear that DEC placed no importance in supporting TOPS-10 on
the KS. Through my inside contacts (TW and JMF) I learned that although DEC
was promising ADP a KS version of TOPS-10, no one was actually working on it.
Over the period when we (ADP) were negotiating and working closely with DEC to
get TOPS-10 implemented on the KS, TW and JMF were bringing SMP to fruition.
As our (ADP Network Services) entire business was based upon TOPS-10 (and as
the largest TOPS-10 shop then extant) we were VERY concerned about what we
perceived to be a lack of serious committment to TOPS-10.
Think about it; here was DEC's largest single 36-bit customer negotiating to
buy over one hundred KS-10s; and DEC is clearly not committed to the operating
system upon which we totally dependent. Not very far-sighted thinking, was it?
Seeing the handwriting on the wall, we proposed buying TOPS-10 in total from
DEC, a proposal they took seriously. We actually had a number of meetings on
the subject. High on the list of concerns was the disposition of personnel, TW
and JMF included. Had this gone to completion they might have just ended up
being employees of ADP.
In the end, common sense prevailed at DEC and a re-committment was made to
TOPS-10; at least in the short term. We were never privy to DEC internal
thinking, we just found out that at some point TOPS-10 was off the table.
It was probably during this period of corporate schizophrenia that the
infamous "6.04 is the end of the line" pronouncement was made. Had DEC stuck
to that policy ADP would probably have acquired the rights to TOPS-10 and
continued its development.
I'm pretty certain that at some point over the intervening years I shared that
story with TW and JMF, but don't know if it ever received wide distribution.
I'd be curious to know if either of them ever shared it with BAH.
--
jeverett<AT>wwa<DOT>com (John Everett) http://www.wwa.com/~jeverett
Sarr J. Blumson
John Everett <jeve...@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com> wrote:
>
>Seeing the handwriting on the wall, we proposed buying TOPS-10 in total from
>DEC, a proposal they took seriously. We actually had a number of meetings on
>the subject. High on the list of concerns was the disposition of personnel, TW
>and JMF included. Had this gone to completion they might have just ended up
>being employees of ADP.
Which probably wouldn't have been much of an improvement. At least DEC was
interested in making _something_. ADP was incapable of taking on any
project that would take more than 6 weeks to produce revenue.
It's not only old DEC employees who look back on those years with such
fondness. :-)
--
--------
Sarr Blumson sa...@umich.edu
voice: +1 734 764 0253 home: +1 734 665 9591
ITD, University of Michigan http://www-personal.umich.edu/~sarr/
519 W William, Ann Arbor, MI 48103-4943
jmfb...@aol.com
jeve...@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com (John Everett) wrote:
>In article <8aqqjs$mlb$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com says lots
and
>lots of stuff about the political climate at DEC around the time of
>6.04/7.01...
>>
>
>Barb, I really enjoyed your missive.
Good.
>As you know I was close to both TW and
>JMF. I shared an office with Tony as early as 1966,
>and actually interviewed Jim when he was looking to
>join DEC. Jim and I subsequently shared an office
>soon after he came to Maynard.
>
>I left DEC (and the TOPS-10 Monitor group) an 1974 to
>take a job with First Data; subsequently acquired by ADP.
>By 1978 (the era you discussed), ADP was
>busy creating a product based upon the KS-10. We were a
>TOPS-10 shop and it was abundantly clear that DEC placed
>no importance in supporting TOPS-10 on
>the KS. Through my inside contacts (TW and JMF) I learned
>that although DEC was promising ADP a KS version of TOPS-10,
>no one was actually working on it.
Around that time, there was rec cut and a guy was hired from
diagnostics. But he didn't really have any idea what
a monitor and timesharing meant. The supervisor at that
time was getting himself into a nervous breakdown.
>
>Over the period when we (ADP) were negotiating and working
>closely with DEC to get TOPS-10 implemented on the KS, TW
>and JMF were bringing SMP to fruition.
>As our (ADP Network Services) entire business was based
>upon TOPS-10 (and as the largest TOPS-10 shop then extant)
>we were VERY concerned about what we
>perceived to be a lack of serious committment to TOPS-10.
>
>Think about it; here was DEC's largest single 36-bit customer
>negotiating to buy over one hundred KS-10s; and DEC is clearly
>not committed to the operating system upon which we totally
>dependent. Not very far-sighted thinking, was it?
>
>Seeing the handwriting on the wall, we proposed buying
>TOPS-10 in total from DEC, a proposal they took seriously.
>We actually had a number of meetings on
>the subject. High on the list of concerns was the disposition
>of personnel, TW and JMF included. Had this gone to completion
>they might have just ended up being employees of ADP.
>
>In the end, common sense prevailed at DEC and a re-committment was made to
>TOPS-10; at least in the short term. We were never privy to DEC internal
>thinking, we just found out that at some point TOPS-10 was off the table.
>
>It was probably during this period of corporate schizophrenia that the
>infamous "6.04 is the end of the line" pronouncement was made.
>Had DEC stuck to that policy ADP would probably have acquired
>the rights to TOPS-10 and continued its development.
>
>I'm pretty certain that at some point over the intervening
>years I shared that story with TW and JMF, but don't know
>if it ever received wide distribution.
>I'd be curious to know if either of them ever shared it with BAH.
>
Nope. I never heard, darn those guys. Do you know that, if
we had known about your (ADP's) interest we would have been
making a trip to Ann Arbor and telling DEC to go screw themselves?
The only thing that stopped us was our ignorance of doing
the mundane business stuff. We would have been more than happy
to let ADP do it for us :-). At least, that's my opinion. We
spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out a company who would
be willing to provide us hardware and machine stand-alone time
to do SMP. That was the crux of the whole effort. EDDT would
be filling the larders while the guys worked on the real development
effort.
/BAH
Jim Thomas
>
> /BAH>My apologies to those who are reading it again; I'm feeling
> /BAH>better about reposting it because there's a new old fart on
> /BAH>the block who just started reading the newsgroup.
Being the "old fart" in question and wanting to comment but not
having posted with Netscrape before, we'll see how this comes out .... :-)
>
> /BAH>Sometime, during the 6.03 development cycle and the advent
> /BAH>of the KL10 CPU, Jim noticed that the speed of service to
> /BAH>users was not very good. After we shipped 6.03, Jim did
> /BAH>his usual "stare at the SYSDPY" displays and created a
> /BAH>performance data base (I think with the help of CDO) for
> /BAH>further performance analysis.
>
Hmmm, you mention 1978 - that sounds right for 7.01 but not for
the KL. I worked at Marlboro in 1974 and 1975 and the 1025/1026
(I think those were the serial numbers) appeared while I was there.
I know this was the case 'cause I got to fix BASIC which, being a
good, old style program, made use of the extra bits in BLT pointers
which were being absconded with by the new segment stuff.
>
> /BAH>What he found absolutely floored him. When one added a
> /BAH>second KL10 CPU, one did not get twice the service; his
> /BAH>analyses showed that one only got 0.8 the expected
> /BAH>performance.Those development days were lively with laughter,
> /BAH>fights, ups and downs. A big up was the day that
> /BAH>the guys got the monitor to print its dot after TW
> /BAH>ran his macroes over the sources;
Another high point was the first time 1025 (the "boot CPU") was
powered down and 1026 kept running :-)
Jim "Nothead" "Boyer-Moore search in Texas TECO" Thomas
Erno Palonheimo
>My apologies to those who are reading it again; I'm feeling
>better about reposting it because there's a new old fart on
>the block who just started reading the newsgroup.
Do not ignore us newbies who are interested in the PDP-10
architecture, software and all the related stuff. :-) I've became
really interested about PDP-10 machines, read a lot of documents about
them (our institute used to have one, but it suffered a fate that
really makes me angry even now) and tried to study the machine
language, operating system, utilities and everything in as deep detail
as possible, though that isn't much because whatever I learn, I cannot
experiment.. But, back to the point, I really enjoyed reading the
story - and I haven't seen it before in this newsgroup
(alt.sys.pdp10).
By the way, are there any machines on the Internet running TOPS-10
or TOPS-20 that are publicly accessable (i.e. ones where a person with
no prior real experience on PDP-10, just like me, could get an account)?
--
Erno Palonheimo - Helsinki University of Technology - + 358 50 560 4765
jmfb...@aol.com
Jim Thomas <tho...@cfht.hawaii.edu> wrote:
>jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>
>>
>> /BAH>My apologies to those who are reading it again; I'm feeling
>> /BAH>better about reposting it because there's a new old fart on
>> /BAH>the block who just started reading the newsgroup.
>
>Being the "old fart" in question and wanting to comment but not
>having posted with Netscrape before, we'll see how this
>comes out .... :-)
It appears to have bopped over here OK. For those of you
who may not remember the real name, may I introduce Nothead to
you all.
>
>>
>> /BAH>Sometime, during the 6.03 development cycle and the advent
>> /BAH>of the KL10 CPU, Jim noticed that the speed of service to
>> /BAH>users was not very good. After we shipped 6.03, Jim did
>> /BAH>his usual "stare at the SYSDPY" displays and created a
>> /BAH>performance data base (I think with the help of CDO) for
>> /BAH>further performance analysis.
>>
>
>Hmmm, you mention 1978 - that sounds right for 7.01 but not for
>the KL. I worked at Marlboro in 1974 and 1975 and the 1025/1026
>(I think those were the serial numbers) appeared while I was there.
>I know this was the case 'cause I got to fix BASIC which, being a
>good, old style program, made use of the extra bits in BLT pointers
>which were being absconded with by the new segment stuff.
One of the flavors of 6-level monitors supported KLs. However,
they ran master/slave and turned out to be, IIRC, slower than
master/slave KI when comparing actually work getting done.
>
>>
>> /BAH>What he found absolutely floored him. When one added a
>> /BAH>second KL10 CPU, one did not get twice the service; his
>> /BAH>analyses showed that one only got 0.8 the expected
>> /BAH>performance.Those development days were lively with laughter,
>> /BAH>fights, ups and downs. A big up was the day that
>> /BAH>the guys got the monitor to print its dot after TW
>> /BAH>ran his macroes over the sources;
>
>Another high point was the first time 1025 (the "boot CPU") was
>powered down and 1026 kept running :-)
Yea. Looking back on it now, we quickly got used to reconfiguring
systems on the fly for stand-alone, field service, etc.
Just for clarification, 1025 wasn't the "other" CPU. It was
1042. 1025 was the hardware engineering CPU.
/BAH
John Everett
says...
>
>Which probably wouldn't have been much of an improvement. At least DEC was
>interested in making _something_. ADP was incapable of taking on any
>project that would take more than 6 weeks to produce revenue.
C'mon Sarr, weren't you still around when we were creating the SMP KS-10? That
project took YEARS. Of course in the end it didn't produce much revenue. :-)
jmfb...@aol.com
jeve...@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com (John Everett) wrote:
>In article <ChdA4.2457$D7.6...@news.itd.umich.edu>, sa...@engin.umich.edu
>says...
>>
>>Which probably wouldn't have been much of an improvement.
>>At least DEC was
>>interested in making _something_. ADP was incapable of taking on any
>>project that would take more than 6 weeks to produce revenue.
>
>C'mon Sarr, weren't you still around when we were
>creating the SMP KS-10? That
>project took YEARS. Of course in the end it didn't
>produce much revenue. :-)
>
SMP was precluded.
On a slightly more serious note....Would Jim and Tony have
been able to work for ADP? My only exposure to them was
via First Data before ADP bought them...and they had weird
ideas of what a general purpose timesharing would do. One
of the guys there was my chairman for the Usage Accounting
DECUS session.
/BAH
/BAH
John Everett
>
>>C'mon Sarr, weren't you still around when we were
>>creating the SMP KS-10? That
>>project took YEARS. Of course in the end it didn't
>>produce much revenue. :-)
>>
>How the hell did you do that? I thought Lewine made sure that
>SMP was precluded.
Don't know how Don would have done that. All it took was a shared memory
interface, courtesy of those nice folks at Systems Concepts (Mike, Stu, and
company).
>On a slightly more serious note....Would Jim and Tony have
>been able to work for ADP? My only exposure to them was
>via First Data before ADP bought them...and they had weird
>ideas of what a general purpose timesharing would do. One
>of the guys there was my chairman for the Usage Accounting
>DECUS session.
The weird idea was that we could use it to make money. It wasn't until I
joined First Data (soon acquired by ADP) that I learned how little DEC
understood about the commercial use of a PDP-10. DEC's TOPS-10 accounting
software was clearly designed for an academic environment because it was
woefully inadaquate for commercial use. Over the years I was with ADP it was
clear from my discussions with my old friends at DEC that they never really
understood the reasons for multiple billing algorithms.
At ADP we were businessmen first and technologists second. Note that ADP
continues its unprecedented record of earnings per share growth (longest in
the history of the NYSE), while DEC no longer exists.
jmfb...@aol.com
jeve...@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com (John Everett) wrote:
>In article <8b2gad$brs$1...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com says...
>>
>>>C'mon Sarr, weren't you still around when we were
>>>creating the SMP KS-10? That
>>>project took YEARS. Of course in the end it didn't
>>>produce much revenue. :-)
>>>
>>How the hell did you do that? I thought Lewine made sure that
>>SMP was precluded.
>
>Don't know how Don would have done that. All it took was a shared memory
>interface, courtesy of those nice folks at Systems Concepts (Mike, Stu,
and
>company).
So, if you had a 4-KS SMP system, would you have had 4 KS boxes
or one?
>
>>On a slightly more serious note....Would Jim and Tony have
>>been able to work for ADP? My only exposure to them was
>>via First Data before ADP bought them...and they had weird
>>ideas of what a general purpose timesharing would do. One
>>of the guys there was my chairman for the Usage Accounting
>>DECUS session.
>
>The weird idea was that we could use it to make money. It wasn't until I
>joined First Data (soon acquired by ADP) that I learned how little DEC
>understood about the commercial use of a PDP-10. DEC's TOPS-10 accounting
>software was clearly designed for an academic environment because it was
>woefully inadaquate for commercial use. Over the years I was with ADP it
>was clear from my discussions with my old friends at DEC that they never
>really understood the reasons for multiple billing algorithms.
Ahem...you never talked with me :-). The guy I was talking about
insisted that the data be mixed mode...nothing else was acceptable.
I ended up chairing my own session because the guy was actively
hostile. Looking back on it, I'm amazed I didn't get overwhelmed.
Ignorance is sometimes a good thing :-).
>
>At ADP we were businessmen first and technologists second.
Right. And that approach might not have tolerated a 2-year
project.
>Note that ADP
>continues its unprecedented record of earnings per
>share growth (longest in
>the history of the NYSE), while DEC no longer exists.
<grin> Someday, we'll talk about what I think went wrong :-).
/BAH
Gene Wirchenko
>In article <XJ6B4.766$ZE4....@ord-read.news.verio.net>,
> jeve...@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com (John Everett) wrote:
[snip]
>>At ADP we were businessmen first and technologists second.
>
>Right. And that approach might not have tolerated a 2-year
>project.
>
>>Note that ADP
>>continues its unprecedented record of earnings per
>>share growth (longest in
>>the history of the NYSE), while DEC no longer exists.
>
><grin> Someday, we'll talk about what I think went wrong :-).
How about now? (More a.f.c. candy. YUM!)
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Eric Smith
> C'mon Sarr, weren't you still around when we were creating the SMP KS-10?
> That project took YEARS. Of course in the end it didn't produce much
> revenue. :-)
I take it that you guys must have produced your own multi-port memory
system for the KS10? Sounds interesting; care to tell us more about it?
jmfb...@aol.com
ge...@shuswap.net (Gene Wirchenko) wrote:
>jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>
>>In article <XJ6B4.766$ZE4....@ord-read.news.verio.net>,
>> jeve...@wwa.DEFEAT.UCE.BOTS.com (John Everett) wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>>At ADP we were businessmen first and technologists second.
>>
>>Right. And that approach might not have tolerated a 2-year
>>project.
>>
>>>Note that ADP
>>>continues its unprecedented record of earnings per
>>>share growth (longest in
>>>the history of the NYSE), while DEC no longer exists.
>>
>><grin> Someday, we'll talk about what I think went wrong :-).
>
> How about now? (More a.f.c. candy. YUM!)
I'll save this subject for dessert. At the moment I'm in
the middle of the meat and potatoes of our meal. Jog
me in a couple of months. :-)
/BAH