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PDP-10 / its

Incompatible Timesharing System
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Reference manual #2130

Open larsbrinkhoff opened 2 years ago

larsbrinkhoff commented 2 years ago

Write a reference manual type document. It should cover the basics of how to operate ITS itself, and all interesting programs.

To some extent it could build on various .md files in the doc subdirectory.

larsbrinkhoff commented 2 years ago

Outline:

larsbrinkhoff commented 2 years ago

For bonus points: write it with TJ6.

No, I change my mind. TJ6 is mandatory.

eswenson1 commented 2 years ago

Why? Don't we want to be able to produce a PDF?

larsbrinkhoff commented 2 years ago

Because it's the native ITS typesetting program, and it's a way to pay homage to the history of the system.

There should be a PDF coming out of this eventually. I'm sure @sebras' XGP-11 emulator will support that.

larsbrinkhoff commented 2 years ago

Maybe better as a separate repository: https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/its-manual

jslabovitz commented 2 years ago

I'd like to help with this. I have a particular interest in the history of computer/digital typesetting, and it would be fun to actually use some of those early markup languages & processors. I also had the pleasure of using ITS around 1982, when MIT-AI (or -MC?) was my first 'gateway' onto the ARPAnet. However, I've mostly been lurking here, so the best use of my time is probably in organizing, converting, and typesetting, not necessarily coming up with original content — at least not yet.

eswenson1 commented 2 years ago

If you'd like to help, I'd like to offer my hosted ES (ITS) system as a place to use TJ6 and produce some documentation materials. It is hosted at es-its.swenson.org and, since I run PWORD there, you'll need an account (for which you can apply by simply trying to login). You can reach it via SUPDUP and TELNET and if you DM me, I'll give you the details -- it that is of interest to you.

larsbrinkhoff commented 2 years ago

Thank you, @jslabovitz. I found your paper The electric typesetter very interesting, and was glad to see TJ-2 mentioned.

jslabovitz commented 2 years ago

Very kind of you! For anyone else who might be interested: https://johnlabovitz.com/publications/The-electric-typesetter--The-origins-of-computing-in-typography.pdf

larsbrinkhoff commented 1 year ago

Much of the material can be found in these GitHub issues, so there's a lot of copy and pasting that can be done.

There are also these wiki pages:
https://wiki.livingcomputers.org/doku.php?id=its_topics

If someone else were to work on this, I give permission to copy anything I wrote.

larsbrinkhoff commented 1 year ago

Making some progress:

https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff/its-manual/wiki