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larsbrinkhoff / its-manual

ITS Reference Manual
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Typo in "ITS machines throughout history" #3

Open NoelChiappa opened 12 months ago

NoelChiappa commented 12 months ago

I couldn't figure out how to edit it, but I'm almost certain the 4 KS machines were AI, MX (later MC), ML and DM, not 'MD'.

larsbrinkhoff commented 12 months ago

You'd think so! But apparently by the time additional KS10 machines were brought in DM had been snarfed for a VAX. (From memory, details may differ.) So the letters were transposed to make it MD.

Let's check a network host table for evidence:

HOST : CHAOS 3132 : MD.LCS.MIT.EDU,MD : DEC-KS10 : ITS :  :
larsbrinkhoff commented 12 months ago

Also SYSTEM; CONFIG >

IFE MCOND MD,[
DEFOPT KS10P==1         ;MD is a KS10.

And TELSER:

        CAIN C,(SIXBIT/MD/)
         MOVEI A,[ASCIZ/MIT Mostly Development PDP-10/]

I haven't yet found the message I read about why DM was taken.

NoelChiappa commented 12 months ago

Wow. I got such a lot of grief when I wanted to name the three new ones I got out of DEC 'Huey, Dewey, and Louie' (after the 3 droids in 'Silent Running'; the names of course are originally from Disney), and I was told in no uncertain terms that the ITS machines had always been AI, MC, ML and DM, and we would not be changing them! To now find out that they gave one of them a new name anyway...

I think we may have still called that machine DM; I looked through KSHACK;KS-ITS MAIL etc and found this in email from Alan:

What happens if you cable up "MD's" drive to ML and try it?

so clearly he thought calling it MD was a crock (and not just because the much-unloved Mike Dertouzos' login was, IIRC, 'MD' :-), and also this:

All kind of worms are crawling out of the woodwork because of various programs that -know- that all ITS machines are named "AI", "MC", "ML", or "DM".

(That was in email about bringing up the MC KS, so the 'DM' KS was already here at that point. Maybe we called it DM for awhile, and only switched it to MD when the people in HQ snatched 'DM' and put it on a VAX?)

Eh, not very important!