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Folklore references to CP67 at Lincoln Labs

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Anne & Lynn Wheeler

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Dec 9, 2007, 8:14:00 AM12/9/07
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a few (out of a large number) lincoln lab folklore from Melinda's paper
at
http://www.princeton.edu/~melinda/

footnote on 360/67 SLT instruction

"The 360/67 SLT instruction RPQ was designed at Lincoln by Jack
Nolan. He was interested in using it for database list processing. Once
it was implemented, IBM found use for it to process lists in the CP
nucleus. I don't know if it was ever used by TSS or for any applications
program." (J.M. Winett, private communication, 1990.)

... snip ...

footnotes on two cp67 commercial timesharing companies (Arnow was
director of computing at Lincoln):

Almost immediately after that, two "spinoff" companies were formed by
former employees of Lincoln Lab, Union Carbide, and the IBM Cambridge
Scientific Center, to provide commercial services based on CP/CMS. Dick
Bayles, Mike Field, Hal Feinleib, and Bob Jay went to the company that
became National CSS.

Harit Nanavati, Bob Seawright, Jack Arnow, Frank Belvin, and Jim March
went to IDC (Interactive Data Corporation). Although the loss of so many
talented people was a blow, the CSC people felt that the success of the
two new companies greatly increased the credibility of CP-67

... snip ...

lots of past posts mentioning cp67&vm370 commercial timesharing
(including ncss and idc)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#timeshare

The SLT (or search list) was used in CP67 kernel to search internal
kernel storage management tables for best-fit. It was dropped when CP67
added storage allocation "subpool" logic ... which was orders of
magnitude faster than searching lists ... even with hardware
instruction. minor recent topic drift mentioning list search overhead:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#14 What do YOU call the # sign?

I have an old SHARE Lincoln Labs software contribution document for
LLMPS listing Belvin and Winett as authors. Recent folklore reference
that MTS implementation was scaffoled off LLMPS:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#54 new 40+ yr old, disruptive technology

misc. past posts mentioning SLT
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000d.html#47 Charging for time-share CPU time
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#15 OS/360 (was LINUS for S/390)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#23 why the machine word size is in radix 8??
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#33 Very CISC Instuctions (Was: why the machine word size ...)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#71 IBM 9020 FAA/ATC Systems from 1960's
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#14 index searching
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#48 Microcode?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002f.html#54 WATFOR's Silver Anniversary
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002h.html#87 Atomic operations redux
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#35 SR 15,15 was: IEFBR14 Problems
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#17 IBM 3090 : Was (and fek that) : Re: new computer kits
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005b.html#28 Relocating application architecture and compiler support
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005c.html#35 [Lit.] Buffer overruns
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006e.html#40 transputers again was: The demise of Commodore
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006j.html#21 virtual memory
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#15 The SLT Search LisT instruction - Maybe another one for the Wheelers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007q.html#17 The SLT Search LisT instruction - Maybe another one for the Wheelers

for other topic drift ... an updated "database" hardware instruction
support from current principles of operation (trees instead of lists,
courtesy of Luther):
http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/DZ9ZR003/A.7?SHELF=DZ9ZBK03&DT=20040504121320

back in days working on the original RDBMS/SQL
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#systemr

there were a number of similar efforts on other database organization
efforts (that shared some of the same objectives as system/r) that I
also got to work on. One of them used some ideas similar to Luther's ...
and, in fact, had him in to consult on some of the implementation.

Dave Wade

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Dec 9, 2007, 6:32:48 PM12/9/07
to
I always feel sad that although I can see relics of both steam and water
power in a number of museums, all within a few miles of my house, The only
computer history I can see is a replica of "Babe". I also feel sad that much
of recent computer history is being lost at an alarming rate. For those who
get UK TV what would Tony Robinson find if in 50 years, he excavated the old
ICL factory at Gorton. Bugger all I would think. I sometimes think our
children know more about Rome than about the development of computers, and
recently, when I was teaching a class "ICT" the would not believe me when I
said we all shared one computer when I was at University!

From what I see the remaining rump of manufacturers still think these things
have value. Fujitsu don't seem to want to release George. For gods sake why!
And as for Michigan Terminals System, why on earth is that still not
available....

Any way does CP67 still exist anywhere and is it worth tinkering with
Hercules to do 360/67 emulation, or is it lost for ever....

"Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote in message
news:m3ejdwo...@garlic.com...

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

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Dec 9, 2007, 7:59:09 PM12/9/07
to
"Dave Wade" <g8...@yahoo.com> writes:
> Any way does CP67 still exist anywhere and is it worth tinkering with
> Hercules to do 360/67 emulation, or is it lost for ever....

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#18 Folklore references to CP67 at Lincoln Labs

somewhat related post
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#23 T3 Sues IBM To Break its Mainframe Monopoly

when i created a cp67 bootable tape for distribution ... some reference
in this old email references moving from doing cp67-based internal
distributions to vm370-based internal distributions
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006v.html#email731212
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007w.html#email750102

referenced in these recent posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#6 Open z/Architecture or Not

... i would have exectuable kernel image and appended on the tape would
be all the files & source needed to recreate the executable kernel image
(including the procedures to process the source)

up thru the 80s, i had a few of these old tape images, some even triple
replicated in the (same) datacenter library. This was the source for the
cp67 multi-level source management provided to Melinda in fall of 85 ...
reference from vmshare archive
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/read?fn=HISTORY&ft=MEMO&line=49
in this thread:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=HISTORY&ft=MEMO

i deny all knowledge related to the 2nd post in the above. However,
slightly futher down in the above thread may be familiar names from
this n.g.

but shortly after the above reference ... the datacenter went thru some
operational difficulties ... where mount requests for "scratch" tapes
somewhat randomly pulled tapes from the tape library ... and nearly all
my archive tapes with data from the 60s & 70s were wiped out (including
my old cp67 archives). some old posts mentioning the trauma:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003i.html#13 A Dark Day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#14 A Dark Day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003j.html#45 Hand cranking telephones
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003m.html#12 Seven of Nine
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#59 A POX on you, Dennis Ritchie!!!
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006w.html#42 vmshare

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

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Dec 11, 2007, 2:08:53 PM12/11/07
to
Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> up thru the 80s, i had a few of these old tape images, some even triple
> replicated in the (same) datacenter library. This was the source for the
> cp67 multi-level source management provided to Melinda in fall of 85 ...
> reference from vmshare archive
> http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/read?fn=HISTORY&ft=MEMO&line=49
> in this thread:
> http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare/browse?fn=HISTORY&ft=MEMO

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#29 Folklore references to CP67 at Lincoln Labs

target drift, somewhat related to cp67 source management ... one of the
people that worked on it ... mentioned here
http://alum.mit.edu/ne/noteworthy/profiles/mockapetris.html

sort of drifts to this recent news item

DNS Attack Could Signal Phishing 2.0
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20071211/tc_pcworld/140465
DNS Attack Could Signal Phishing 2.0
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,140465-c,onlinesafety/article.html
DNS attack could signal Phishing 2.0
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/121107-dns-attack-could-signal-phishing.html
DNS attack could signal Phishing 2.0
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/12/11/DNS-attack-could-signal-Phishing-2.0_1.html

note that one of the original purposes for SSL ... a few related
posts here
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#sslcert
and here
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subpubkey.html#catch22

... was as countermeasure to some number of integrity issues in DNS (and
related exploits).

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