Blog series about TOPS-10
44 views
Skip to first unread message
Lars Brinkhoff
Apr 12, 2026, 2:17:42 AM (3 days ago) Apr 12
to PiDP-10
Noah Smith
Apr 13, 2026, 6:27:34 PM (yesterday) Apr 13
to PiDP-10
Thanks for this link Lars!:)
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
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,
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
1:25 AM (18 hours ago) 1:25 AM
to PiDP-10
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
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages