Columbia Kermit/kermit.zip/dtss/notes.txt

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Date: Tue 16 Sep 86 13:11:57-EDT
From: Frank da Cruz <[e-mail]>
Subject: Announcing Kermit for DTSS
To: [e-mail]

A new version of Kermit has been written for GE mainframes running
the Dartmouth Timesharing System (DTSS) in "Virtual PL/1" (VPL1) by Philip
Koch of the Dartmouth Kiewit Computer Center.  This is a relatively esoteric
Kermit since there are not very many DTSS installations, and of them, few
have VPL1 compilers.  However, brief instructions are included for
converting to non-virtual PL/1.  There's no manual or help file, but there
are some comments at the beginning of the source file, which is in
KER:DTSS.PL1 on CU20B.  Thanks to Philip Crowell of Dartmouth for sending
the program to us on tape.

---------------------------------

Date: 16 Aug 2011 05:59:06 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Thomas E. Kurtz)
Subject: About DTSS
To: [e-mail] (Frank da Cruz)
Cc: [e-mail] (Marion Bates),
X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.68 on 128.59.28.170

--- Frank da Cruz <[e-mail]> wrote:
>  but my original notes say it was for a Honeywell 6000, but I
>  don't see any references to Honeywell machines in your DTSS
>  website or the Wikipedia DTSS page, only GE-200 series
>  machines. What kind of machine was DTSS running on in 1986?
>
>  One more question (just our of curiosity): did DTSS ever run
>  at any sites other than Dartmouth?
--- end of quote ---

I am not sure of the dates, but perhaps Tom Byrne has a better notes
or a better recollection...

DTSS ran on the GE-265 hardware from 1964 through about 1969, when it
became fully operational on the GE-635 hardware.  (The GE-265 consisted of
a GE-235 central processor plus a Datanet-30 front end; hence, 265.)

The GE-635 was installed in 1966 or early 1967 in the new Kiewit Center
building.  (The GE-265 version continued to run from the basement of College
Hall and serve the campus for the next several years.)

The GE-635 hardware was to be used by GE to develop their version of a
time sharing system (which they called Mark II) during the day; Dartmouth
students had at the machine at night.  GE and Dartmouth were developing
competing operating systems, GE for their commercial customers, and Dartmouth
for its own use.  Dartmouth did develop a BASIC compiler plus additional
application software for the GE project.  GE had personnel on site -- I've
forgotten the names.

After about a year, GE finished its development work and turned over its
shift to its commercial customers.  There was some friction concerning the
hour at which the hardware got turned over to Dartmouth for its continued
development work.

I believe this continued until about 1969 when (a) GE had transferred its
commercial customers to other GE-635 sites, and (b) Dartmouth finally finished
its initial development of what we now called DTSS.  (DTSS as an acronym was
patterned after MIT's CTSS = Compatible Time Sharing System, which really was
just a front end on their batch processing setup with smaller time slices.)

Around 1970 Dartmouth was approached by Admiral Calvert of the Naval Academy
(Annapolis) with a plan to install a copy of DTSS at that site.  He had
managed to obtain the necessary hardware on an inter-agency transfer and
wanted to provide the same computing access to the midshipmen that, as was now
widely known, we had available to Dartmouth students.  A software maintenance
contract was signed for $1500 a month -- there was no fee for the software
itself inasmuch as, having been supported by the NSF, the U. S. government
had, in some sense, access to the work.  In any case, Dartmouth had no idea,
at that time, that DTSS had commercial value.  That changed quickly.

Shortly it was decided to form a company, DTSS, incorporated, to determine if
other organizations might be interested in leasing the DTSS software.  Bob
Hargraves became its president.  I believe that, eventually, about 15
companies did lease the software.  (DTSS, Inc., was eventually sold to Met
Life.)

Somewhere along the line, Honeywell purchased the GE computer hardware
business, and developed the H-6000 as the successor hardware.  DTSS continued
to run and serve the campus.

In 1984, I think it was, Dartmouth became an Apple Macintosh university.
Student and faculty computing began to migrate to personal computers.  Indeed,
about that time, True BASIC (inc) was formed, and developed BASIC compilers
for the IBM PC and the Apple Macintosh.  With the increasing use of servers,
eventually numbering several hundred, the H-6000 fell into disuse and was
finally retired.

Again, I don't recall the dates.  Tom Byrne would have a better memory about
things at Dartmouth, while Bob Hargraves would know more about DTSS, Inc.

The thought has occurred ...  It would be a good project for someone to pull
together the history of Dartmouth computing.  Bits and pieces exist, but no
overall study has been collected or published.  Time is short; most of the
student principals are still around, thought retired.  I am thinking of Sidney
Marshall, Steve Hobbs, etc., etc.  I am also, as well as Bob Hargraves, Tomy
Byrne, John McGeachie.  Another name is Bob Chambers, hired as a marketing
person for DTSS, Inc.  Bob stayed in the area and is now in the real estage
business.  I bought a truck from him when he worked for Miller Auto.  Later,
he founded Fannie Clac, an organization whose purpose was to provide
automobiles at a low cost to lower-income folks; this (charitble) work was
recognized by one of our Presidents (was it Bill Clinton???)  At any rate, he
is still around and will recall things about DTSS, Inc.

That's about it for now.

Regards,

Tom Kurtz

---------------------------------

Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:28:46 EDT
From: Frank da Cruz <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail] (Thomas E. Kurtz)
Subject: Re: Questions about DTSS
In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>

> > --- You wrote:
> > Also I assume that a PL/1 program written for DTSS would run on any
> > GE or Honeywell model where DTSS ran, correct?  In other words that
> > the DTSS version of Kermit is not specific to any particular hardware?
> > --- end of quote ---
>
> The Dartmouth PL/I was built by Phil Koch, and would have run on any copy
> of DTSS.  But, of course, DTSS PL/I ran only on GE (later Honeywell)
> hardware.  I don't know about Kermit.  (What is Kermit?)
>
A 30-year software project at Columbia.  Kermit is communication software
that was almost universally used for file transfer and terminal emulation
in the 80s and 80s, and is somewhat less used today but definitely not dead.
Here is the Kermit website:

  http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/

and here is my current project, making every single Kermit program from
the past 30 years available on the Web:

  http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/archive/

Kermit was probably used at Dartmouth to connect Macintoshes and PCS to
DTSS as terminals, and to send files back and forth.  Well, make that
"certainly", since why else would Philip Koch have written a version of
it for DTSS?  Here it is if you want to take a look:

  http://kermit.columbia.edu/ftp/dtss/dtss.pl1

> Phil Koch went on to become an Apple Fellow, and was instrumental in their
> conversion from their native Mac code to Next Step.  (Recall that Steve
> Jobs started at Apple, went to Next Step, and then returned to Apple.)
>
I recall!  Columbia was a major purchaser of NeXTs, we bought hundreds of
them.  They were very nice, too bad it didn't work out.  Our last ones died
a few years ago.  A lot of people would still be using them if they lasted
longer.

> Re the Computer Museum.  Several years ago, about ten perhaps, Steve Hobbs
> preserved a listing of the BASIC compiler that ran on the GE-235 Time
> Sharing System back in 1964-65 -- it was a listing used by GE just after
> they adopted the Dartmouth software, but was still exactly like Dartmouth
> BASIC circa 1964.  (He also resurrected a copy of Steve Garland's Algol
> compiler for the same hardware.)  A one-time GE programmer was about to
> throw out his old listings when Steve got word of it somehow.
> At any rate, I have them now, or at least photocopies of them.
>
> I constructed a simulation of the 1964 DTSS with simulated yellow teletype
> paper and all.  I first wrote an assembler for the 235.  I then laboriously
> copied the source code from the BASIC listing, and ran it through the
> assembler, making sure that an identical binary was produced.  I then wrote
> an emulation of the GE-235 hardware, and ran the BASIC binary on it.  Thus,
> it is not an emulation of BASIC; it is really the original BASIC running on
> emulated hardware!!!  (My assembler and emulator is written is True BASIC,
> which still runs in a Intel-Windows environment, though no longer on the Mac
> OSX using the Intel chips.)
>
Yes, I read about this in the website, very impressive, almost diabolical!

Frank da Cruz

---------------------------------

NOTE: for more about the DTSS resurrection project, see:

  Dartmouth Time Sharing System... reborn!
  http://dtss.dartmouth.edu/

And for an overview and history see:

  Dartmouth Time Sharing System
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmouth_Time_Sharing_System

The consensus would seem to be that DTSS was the first successful
large-scale timesharing system.

---------------------------------