Blog series about TOPS-10

[Lars Brinkhoff]

https://timereshared.com/tags/tops-10/

[Noah Smith]

Thanks for this link Lars!:)

Was not aware of this blog before.

And reminds me, learned something about the topic of TOPS-10 and ARPANET from this fantastic comment from Clive Dawson (link below). Clive was a core person for the UT DEC-10 and we're extremely fortunate to be learning from him. Planning a major Oral History Interview with him, will let you know when that's. ready!

https://decwarorg.blogspot.com/2026/03/utcc-arpanet-imp.html?showComment=1774946554344#c3365774343142561059 

Especially this part 
The IMP arrived on the UT campus in 1977 and was installed alongside the DEC-10 in the HRC. This was because originally there were hopes that the DEC-10 would become the first ARPANET host on the Texas node. But DEC never offered support for the ARPANET on the DEC-10’s standard OS, TOPS-10. The only DEC-10 OS's that supported a connection were TENEX (developed at BBN), ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing System at MIT), and several heavily customized versions of TOPS-10 at places like CMU, Harvard, and Wharton. The Stanford AI Lab ran WAITS (the West-coast Alternative to ITS) on their DEC-10s. So the DEC-10 in HRC was never connected to the ARPANET.

Cheers,

Noah

On Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 8:17:42 AM UTC+2 Lars Brinkhoff wrote:

https://timereshared.com/tags/tops-10/

[Lars Brinkhoff]

Noah wrote:

Especially this part 
The IMP arrived on the UT campus in 1977 and was installed alongside the DEC-10 in the HRC. This was because originally there were hopes that the DEC-10 would become the first ARPANET host on the Texas node. But DEC never offered support for the ARPANET on the DEC-10’s standard OS, TOPS-10. The only DEC-10 OS's that supported a connection were TENEX (developed at BBN), ITS (the Incompatible Timesharing System at MIT), and several heavily customized versions of TOPS-10 at places like CMU, Harvard, and Wharton. The Stanford AI Lab ran WAITS (the West-coast Alternative to ITS) on their DEC-10s. So the DEC-10 in HRC was never connected to the ARPANET.

That's right, DEC never supported connecting TOPS-10 to the ARPANET.  I have been in touch with some Harvard and CMU people, but so far none of their custom ARPANET code has turned up.

DEC did pick up TENEX and made TOPS-20 from that.  There was a DEC product called TOPS-20AN which retained the ARPANET code.  So far, no one has tried running that on an emulator.   * * OPEN POSITION * * apply within

[John Otken]

I worked at the TOPS-10 site in HRC starting in 1979.  I recall connecting to MIT via the ARPAnet around that time.  I don't recall the details but Clive would know more.

[Noah Smith]

Hi John, thanks for this note, will contact you directly in a few minutes. We're getting ready for an Oral History Interview with Clive so will be learning much more about all of this soon!:)

Cheers,

Noah

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