blarson@usc-oberon.UUCP (Bob Larson) (09/11/86)
[net.arch added, net.micro.atari16 and net.micro.amega deleted.] In article <79@mtxinu.UUCP> ed@mtxinu.UUCP (Ed Gould) writes: >>> I hate to tell you folks, but Andy Bechtolsheim here at Sun has a patent >>> (applied for and granted) on using the untranslated addresses as the >>> RAS addresses and doing the MMU address translation before the column >>> addresses are needed for CAS. >> >>How the hell can the patent office grant patents like this? [...] >>the idea is too obvious. [...] > >If it's so obvious, why didn't anyone think of it before Andy did? I won't claim to have thought of it before Andy did, but I did think it up independently. (But can't prove it, and didn't try to patent it since I didn't think it was patentable.) The real test of the validity of a patent is in court. (But sometimes the threat of a suit is enough, since even if you win it might cost you more that settling out of court.) Does anybody have proof of having or using this idea before Andy's patent? -- Bob Larson Arpa: Blarson@Usc-Eclb.Arpa or blarson@usc-oberon.arpa Uucp: (ihnp4,hplabs,tektronix)!sdcrdcf!usc-oberon!blarson
reese@kim.Berkeley.EDU (Reese E. Faucette) (09/13/86)
>>>> I hate to tell you folks, but Andy Bechtolsheim here at Sun has a patent >>>> (applied for and granted) on using the untranslated addresses as the >>>> RAS addresses and doing the MMU address translation before the column >>>> addresses are needed for CAS. >>> >>>How the hell can the patent office grant patents like this? [...] >>>the idea is too obvious. [...] >> >>If it's so obvious, why didn't anyone think of it before Andy did? >Does anybody have proof of having or using this idea before Andy's >patent? well, when i was a sophomore at caltech in 1981, a guy taking the microprocessor lab with me built a 68000 system with exactly this memory management scheme. i am sure his project proposal is still on file with the professor of that class... -reese
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (09/14/86)
> well, when i was a sophomore at caltech in 1981, a guy taking the > microprocessor lab with me built a 68000 system with exactly this > memory management scheme. i am sure his project proposal is still on > file with the professor of that class... If you have to dig into the prof's files to find out about it, it's not an issue for Andy's patent. The intent of the patent system is that you can patent anything that you invent which is neither well-known nor an obvious derivative of something well-known, and has not been patented before. Whether somebody else claims to have invented it too is irrelevant; that becomes relevant only if the other person also applied for a patent (placing priority in doubt) or published the idea (making it well-known). The one respect in which this might actually be significant is as a minor item of contributing evidence to a contention that the technique is "obvious to one skilled in the art", i.e. an obvious derivative of well- known stuff. Multiple independent invention by non-wizards might strengthen such an argument. Warning: the above contains serious oversimplifications. Furthermore, I am not a patent lawyer; consult an expert before doing anything rash. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
peters@cubsvax.UUCP (Peter S. Shenkin) (09/15/86)
In article <utzoo.7123> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >> well, when i was a sophomore at caltech in 1981, a guy taking the >> microprocessor lab with me built a 68000 system with exactly this >> memory management scheme. i am sure his project proposal is still on >> file with the professor of that class... > >If you have to dig into the prof's files to find out about it, it's not >an issue for Andy's patent. It's then known as a "trade secret." If you figure out someone else's trade secret, you can patent it. The original purpose of the patent system was to encourage disclosure of new inventions; giving the inventor exclusive rights for a period of time was seen as an inducement to this end. Of course, as Henry points out, if the scheme was published or presented publicly, then it's not patentable, because it has already been disclosed. (...though I believe an inventor can file for a patent up to one year after he's disclosed his invention in public....) Irrelevant to this newsgroup of course; sorry. And no, I'm not a patent attorney either. Peter S. Shenkin Columbia Univ. Biology Dept., NY, NY 10027 {philabs,rna}!cubsvax!peters cubsvax!peters@columbia.ARPA
gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) (09/15/86)
Andreas Bechtolsheim holds US Patent # 4,527,232 which is on the Sun-2 MMU.
I am pretty sure that the idea of translating virtual addresses while
the row address is being presented to memory, is about as old as DRAMs.
I have never seen a design that hung static RAMs directly in the path
to memory, with no bypass, and with no cacheing or other auto-loading:
they are loaded by software instructions that reference particular
addresses or address spaces. This idea could be original with Andy.
Another unique thing in his design is having two levels of static RAM
to cut down on the size of the RAMs required, while still having a small,
manageable page size.
Not having the patent in front of me, I don't know whether this is what
it claims as proprietary, or something else. Typically the claims sections
are written in as broad a language as possible and then fought out in court
if anybody cares.
I don't know if they filed for patent protection in Canada. I do know that
the patent is NOT owned by Stanford, but by Sun.
I advise MMU designers to get a copy of this patent. Enforcing the patent
would be a dandy way for Sun to put a competitor out of business if it
ever became worth the bother.
John Gilmore, Nebula Consultants
--
John Gilmore {sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu jgilmore@lll-crg.arpa
May the Source be with you!lamaster@nike.uucp (Hugh LaMaster) (09/17/86)
Does anyone know what the current patent law provides for the time period
of exclusive use? How long after the patent is granted before others can
freely use the patent? Does anyone know when this particular patent was
granted and when it runs out?
Hugh LaMaster, m/s 233-9, UUCP: {seismo,hplabs}!nike!pioneer!lamaster
NASA Ames Research Center ARPA: lamaster@ames-pioneer.arpa
Moffett Field, CA 94035 ARPA: lamaster%pioneer@ames.arpa
Phone: (415)694-6117 ARPA: lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable man
adapts the world to himself, therefore, all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw
("Any opinions expressed herein are solely the responsibility of the
author and do not represent the opinions of NASA or the U.S. Government")josh@polaris.UUCP (Josh Knight) (09/20/86)
In article <610@nike.UUCP> lamaster@pioneer.UUCP (Hugh LaMaster) writes: >Does anyone know what the current patent law provides for the time period >of exclusive use? How long after the patent is granted before others can >freely use the patent? Does anyone know when this particular patent was >granted and when it runs out? U.S. patents provide 17 years protection for the holder of the patent. It may very well be different in other countries. As has been pointed out, if you can show "prior art" the patent may not stand up against a challenge. Many computer manufacturers don't use the patents they hold on clever ideas to prevent others from using the ideas; rather they use these patents as bargaining chips when negotiating cross licensing agreements. Essentially all manufacturers of 370 plug compatbile machines have such agreements with IBM; it's only a question of who pays whom how much in addition. A patent came to our attention recently: it looks very much like a "branch history table" but was issued about 15 years AFTER what folks around here consider "the BHT patent". The company that holds the patent almost certainly has a cross license agreement with IBM, so it seems unlikely that any one will ever figure out whether they are really the same or not. Whilst we're asking questions, how old is the SUID bit patent? Anybody know the number? -- Josh Knight, IBM T.J. Watson Research josh@ibm.com, josh@yktvmh.bitnet, ...!philabs!polaris!josh
campbell@sauron.UUCP (Mark Campbell) (09/22/86)
Ritchie's SUID parent is numbered 4,135,240 and was dated January 16, 1979. Protection of data file contents. Abstract: An improved arrangment for controlling access to data files by computer users. Access permission bits are used in the prior art to separately indicate permissions for the file owner and nonowners to read, write and execute the file contents. An additional access control bit is added to each executable file. When this bit is set to one, the identification of the current user is changed to that of the owner of the executable file. THe program in the executable file then has access to all data files woned by the same owner. This change is temporary, the proper identification being restored when the program is terminated. -- Mark Campbell Phone: (803)-791-6697 E-Mail: !ncsu!ncrcae!sauron!campbell
welland@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Bob Welland) (09/24/86)
The Zilog Z8000 MMU (Z8010) does not use the lower 8 address bits in its translation process. Most of the Zilog documents show the low order address bits going around the MMU and into "Memory Control". It seems obvious to me that any self respecting hardware designer would assert RAS as soon as possible in there "Memory Controller" (There is no horrible maximum RAS to CAS time). As I understand it, this is the part of the Sun patent that gets everyone upset. Is there someone out there with a Zilog application note that shows DRAMs explicitly ? I only have 1983 manuals but I know the Z8000 is from around 1978 ... Robert Welland Toy Engineer (I am told) Whatever I should disclaim I do here and now with the disclaim - r.
david@ukma.uky.csnet (David Herron, NPR Lover) (09/27/86)
In article <727@sauron.UUCP> campbell@sauron.UUCP (Mark Campbell) writes: >Ritchie's SUID parent is numbered 4,135,240 and was dated January 16, 1979. > >Protection of data file contents. hmmmm... I guess the patent office didn't know about JACCT on TOPS-10. The first time I hears of the SUID I thought "what a nifty general way to do JACCT". Is there a difference? [For those of you who aren't old DEC-10 hackers... JACCT means "Job Always Control-C Trapped". That was apparently an EXTREMELY old feature of it. Anyway, it was a bit which would be set in the user's priveledges (actually it was off in another word of the user data structure...) when the user executed a special program (anything executed from a [1,*] directory whose name was mentioned on a list which was compiled in the kernal (PRVTAB)). The bit gave the user equivalent to [1,2] priveledges (i.e. anything the user wanted to do). The reason the Job was Always Control-C Trapped was was for old versions where a user could run a jacct program, control-c, then ddt it and be able to do anything he wanted... Control-C trapping stopped the user from doing that, so the user can now only do what the jacct'd program wanted to do.] Now, using this facility one can 'emulate' the SUID facility to an extent. You run the program, you instantly have full access to all files, you can also change user-id easily, etc. So you do so. Then when you're done the program changes back and exits. (dropping the jacct status, etc...) It's of course trivial to emulate the jacct facility on suid. As I see it suid is merely a refinement of jacct... not a new thing. Have I missed something? (BTW, jacct is a very old facility... I first ran into it in 1977 when I first got on a tops-10 machine... I'm not sure how long beforehand it was in tops-10) -- David Herron, cbosgd!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET, david@ms.uky.csnet (I'm also "postmaster" at all those addresses) (And "news" and "netnews" and "uucp" and ....)
philm@galbp.UUCP (Phillip Mathews) (09/30/86)
In article <> reese@kim.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Reese E. Faucette) writes: >>>>> I hate to tell you folks, but Andy Bechtolsheim here at Sun has a patent >>>>> (applied for and granted) on using the untranslated addresses as the >>>>> RAS addresses and doing the MMU address translation before the column >>>>> addresses are needed for CAS. >>>> >>>>How the hell can the patent office grant patents like this? [...] >>>>the idea is too obvious. [...] There are two ways to get a patent in this country--invent something new or hire a *GOOD* patent attorney--c.f patent #4488662 on which i am listed as co-inventor. This patent is for a 7474 used to de-glitch the wait/ready line of a Z80SIO. Pure b***s*** invented by the patent attorney (the de-glitching was mine--tthe b***s*** is the patent attorney's)
marcus@ihlpl.UUCP (Hall) (09/30/86)
In article <727@sauron.UUCP> campbell@sauron.UUCP (Mark Campbell) writes: >Ritchie's SUID parent is numbered 4,135,240 and was dated January 16, 1979. I remember that the HP2000 system that we used at my high school allowed a file to be put into a state known as "LOCKED". This allowed the program to access data files that were also in a "LOCKED" state and owned by me. This appears to be essentially the same idea as the SUID bit, and it was running in 1976. I guess that since it didn't really change your id to be the program owner but was a special case in access of files (i.e. such programs could not create new files owned by the program's owner, etc.) it isn't quite the same, but the action certainly is awfully close. Marcus Hall ..!ihnp4!ihlpl!marcus
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (10/02/86)
Would you people all referencing systems which had/have SUID-ish features "way back in 1976" note that UNIX and SUID pre-dates 1976*, I am not sure exactly when it was introduced but very early 70's is a good guess (the patent may have been dated 1979 but that's the date the patent was granted, not the date all prior claims starts at.) For example, someone mentioned a similar feature in TOPS-10, UNIX completely predates TOPS-10 as far as I know tho not it's predecessor TENEX, the person didn't mention whether this feature was in TENEX. Just because TOPS-10 got old and died doesn't mean its older than UNIX. Having had experience with some of these other similar schemes I would say they would be very weak prior claims in that they mostly stunk. It's like saying round tires shouldn't be patented cause someone had come up with a square tire earlier...Be careful, it's the precise description of the thing, not "a patent on a way to access a priv'd file" which is what these arguments seem to be reducing it to to make their point. There is also an attitude problem here. Yes, a patent does indeed give certain rights to the patent holder. It also gives certain rights to the patent non-holder. A major reason for patents is to encourage inventors to publish the details of their invention, with protection, so the general public may benefit. It also puts some limits on those protections (time limit, must be utilized etc.) You people speak like it's some sort of con-job of no benefit to the industry in general, that's patently untrue :-) -Barry Shein, Boston University * I used UNIX with SUID around 1976-7, V6.
bill@stride.UUCP (Bill Rainey) (10/02/86)
The SUID patent was filed for on July 9th, 1973. -- Bill Rainey Stride Micro UUCP: cbosgd!utah-cs!utah-gr!stride!bill ARPA: stride!bill@utah-gr.arpa
ddb@starfire.UUCP (David Dyer-Bennet) (10/03/86)
In article <1611@bu-cs.bu-cs.BU.EDU>, bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: > > Would you people all referencing systems which had/have SUID-ish > features "way back in 1976" note that UNIX and SUID pre-dates 1976*, > > For example, someone mentioned a similar feature in TOPS-10, UNIX > completely predates TOPS-10 as far as I know tho not it's predecessor > TENEX, the person didn't mention whether this feature was in TENEX. > Just because TOPS-10 got old and died doesn't mean its older than UNIX. TENEX was derived from tops-10, not the other way around. Tops-20 was derived from Tenex. Unix was developed partly because they couldn't get Bell to buy them a pdp-10 to play with (read the standard early unix history article), so I believe that tops-10 predates unix significantly. -- David Dyer-Bennet, former DEC LCG employee -- David Dyer-Bennet Usenet: ...ihnp4!umn-cs!starfire!ddb Fido: sysop of fido 14/341, (612) 721-8967 Telephone: (612) 721-8800 USmail: 4242 Minnehaha Ave S Mpls, MN 55406
leichter@yale.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) (10/03/86)
Bsrry Shein writes about TOPS-10 as "a descendent of TENEX" and perhaps not as old as Unix. This has the history quite confused. I used TOPS-10 in 1969 or so; at the time it was already at Version 5 or thereabouts. JACCT was already there; I don't know exactly when it was introduced. TOPS-10 itself descended from earlier OS's for the PDP-15 (?), which, for all I know, already had JACCT or some analogue. TENEX was considerably later, and while not a direct descendent of TOPS-10 had some similarities. It was TOPS-20 that descended from TENEX. None of this has anything to do with the patentability of SUID. Clearly, the original idea in SUID is NOT that some programs can be privileged - in one form or another, that's been present in every OS with any idea of protection - but that "privilege" is not a unique things belonging only to the OS, but something any user has, in some sense, and can share. Years ago, an article appeared - in Software Practice and Experience, I believe - which described a game of some sort, with a master list of high scores. A challenge was given: Maintain such a master list, given the constraints that (a) anyone who runs the game program can have their score recorded; (b) no one can spoof the records by accessing the master list directly; (c) any user, without special privileges, can create a new master list for his version of the game. These constraints are easy to satisfy on Unix with a SUID program. To this day, they are quite difficult to satisfy on most other systems. (Often, they simply CANNOT be satisfied.) -- Jerry
billw@navajo.UUCP (10/04/86)
Actually TOPS10 is close to 20 years old, making it consdierably older than UNIX. TENEX was the predecessor to TOPS20, both of which come after TOPS10. The first version of TOPS20 was in 1976 or 77, and it doesn't have anything like SUID (nor does TENEX). BillW, a TOPS20 and TOPS10 systems programmer. Still.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (10/04/86)
> hmmmm... I guess the patent office didn't know about JACCT on TOPS-10... > > The first time I hears of the SUID I thought "what a nifty general > way to do JACCT". Is there a difference? The generalization is precisely the invention that justifies the patent. Any number of systems had magic bits saying "run this as root". Dennis was the first one to notice that the facility could be made much more versatile -- among other things, it could safely be made available to the ordinary users -- if it meant "run this as the owner of the file" instead. This means one can have protected subsystems without each and every one needing to be trusted with (transient) superuser privileges. The generalization looks obvious and trivial only after you've been told about it and gotten used to the idea. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) (10/04/86)
Mea Culpa, I confused TOPS-20's descendancy from TENEX with TOPS-10's. Sorry for the error. The point still stands that the people I was responding to who are mentioning SUID-ish features they have seen in the mid-late 70's and propose that these pre-date UNIX's SUID patent of 1979 have their history backwards. That was my only point, sorry about getting the PDP-10 O/S's TOPSy-turvy, as is typical with these things I believe you can delete that claim from my note and the rest of the note still stands on its own two feet. -Barry Shein, Boston University
jason@hpcnoe.UUCP (Jason Zions) (10/06/86)
Jerry Leichter says: > I used TOPS-10 in 1969 or so; at the time it was already at Version 5 or > thereabouts. JACCT was already there; I don't know exactly when it was > introduced. TOPS-10 itself descended from earlier OS's for the PDP-15 (?), > which, for all I know, already had JACCT or some analogue. TOPS-10 didn't really descend from any OS; it was sort of written from scratch with an interesting set of constraints. Someone from DEC wrote a book discussing the design of the early versions of TOPS-10; fascinating reading. If TOPS-10 were to descend from any DEC OS, it would be the one that ran on the PDP-6, the predecessor to the PDP-10 (well, predecessor to the KA-10). If memory serves, the PDP-15 was a pair of -11's hooked up in tandem (in the same way a PDP-12 was a pair of PDP-8's in tandem). Exactly what the PDP-15 and PDP-12 were used for, I couldn't tell you. (Here I am, correcting a correction. If someone corrects me, we may set a record for levels of digression. This is net.arch, not net.ancient.history! ) -- This is not an official statement of Hewlett-Packard Corp., and does not necessarily reflect the views of HP. It is provided completely without warranty of any kind. Lawyers take 3d10 damage and roll a saving throw vs. ego attack. Jason Zions Hewlett-Packard Colorado Networks Division 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 102 Ft. Collins, CO 80525 {ihnp4,seismo,hplabs,gatech}!hpfcdc!hpcnoe!jason
deller@vrdxhq.UUCP (Steven Deller) (10/10/86)
In article <610003@hpcnoe.UUCP>, jason@hpcnoe.UUCP (Jason Zions) writes: > Jerry Leichter says: > > > I used TOPS-10 in 1969 or so; at the time it was already at Version 5 or > > thereabouts. JACCT was already there; I don't know exactly when it was > > introduced. TOPS-10 itself descended from earlier OS's for the PDP-15 (?), > > which, for all I know, already had JACCT or some analogue. > > TOPS-10 didn't really descend from any OS; it was sort of written from > scratch with an interesting set of constraints. Someone from DEC wrote a book > discussing the design of the early versions of TOPS-10; fascinating reading. > > If TOPS-10 were to descend from any DEC OS, it would be the one that ran on > the PDP-6, the predecessor to the PDP-10 (well, predecessor to the KA-10). > If memory serves, the PDP-15 was a pair of -11's hooked up in tandem (in the > same way a PDP-12 was a pair of PDP-8's in tandem). Exactly what the PDP-15 > and PDP-12 were used for, I couldn't tell you. > > (Here I am, correcting a correction. If someone corrects me, we may set a > record for levels of digression. This is net.arch, not net.ancient.history! ) Sorry to correct you, but your information is so far off base that it requires correcting. The PDP-15 and PDP-12 were not at all how you describe them. The PDP-15 was an 18-bit computer, derived from the 18-bit PDP-9, which derived from the 18-bit PDP-7 (one of the original UNIX base machines), which had a common ancestor with the 36-bit PDP-6 in the PDP-4. The PDP-15 primarily added 8 index registers and slight modifications to the instruction set to handle them, plus some better I/O controls. The PDP-15 was the base machine for RSX-15 (later RSX-15PLUS or just RSX-PLUS), which was the operating system predecessor to RSX-11D (later IAS). Hank Krejci (Hank are you out there?) was one of the primary developers. I programmed an Electrocardiogram over-the-phone analysis system using it (including dialback to doctor's offices and the like -- heady stuff for 1972). The PDP-9 instruction set was a glorified PDP-8 instruction set, i.e. hardly any instructions -- the first RISC archtecture :-). The PDP-12 was a 12-bit computer derived from the LINC-8. The LINC-8 was a join of the Laboratory INteractive Computer developed at MIT (I believe) and the PDP-8. The LINC instruction set had a number of innovative instructions, particularly the "add two 12-bit integers plus the overflow carry" which provided an easy method for efficient multiple-precision arithmetic. It also included a single instruction to read a tape block with or without wait (can you say Linctape -- identical to DECtape except that DECtape wound from the left reel to the right -- clever way around a patent :-) ), and several single instructions for efficient CRT displaying of data. I firmly believe the LINC was one of the earliest innovators of application-relative CISC. The LINC-8 ran LINC code when decoding instructions in the 2nd of the eight 1K banks. The PDP-12 allowed running either LINC or PDP-8 instructions anywhere; each instruction set had one additional instruction that switched to the other instruction decode mode. Anyone in their right mind used the CISCish LINC set for all real work. The PDP-8 was only used for I/O and "preexisting" code. This ability to switch the instruction mode anytime led to the (trivial) pursuit of trying to write machine code that did something useful when executed in PDP-8 mode, and something else useful when executed as LINC mode. This was not always so trivial; the base machine only had 8K 12-bit words. (Yea, we all KNEW there would be MB of memory to burn one day, but at the time 8K of 12-bit words and a 32K word disk -- not 32M word -- was all you could afford for $20,000!!). This trivial pursuit is, not suprisingly, very similar to the trivial pursuit seen in another news group of trying to write high-level code that means "useful" things to two different languages; history always repeats itself. We had an multitasking system running on the PDP-12 that did real-time patient monitoring of 4 patients for ECG, cardiac output, blood pressure, temperature, plus several background jobs, including doing listings on the ASR-33. Yes, it was a true multitasking system, and included an aggregate 2K A/D samples per second (with only 8K you had to process and dispose of the raw data real fast), real-time annotated displays (it really helped algorithm development to see the ECG waveform with cursor marks and numeric values, and to be able to freeze the display any time), and "human-friendly" interactive diagnosis. See the 1971 Proceedings of the ACM Conference, p 682, if you really care (it doesn't hurt to do a little looking at history, just to give yourself some perspective). Anyway, I always thought designers of instruction sets could learn something from the PDP-12 (the PDP-11 instruction set seems to have learned some of its instruction set there). For the RISC proponents, there was a very nice instruction set architecture proposed at U of Washington around that same time, that provided for dropping into and out of (similar to PDP-8/LINC) a very effiecient, minimal instruction set, that was "optimum" for computation of expressions -- always thought that CISC and RISC might do better co-existing than either does alone -- particularly an appliction-related CISC and expression evaluation RISC. Finally, for those of you not wise enough to have hit "n" before now :-), the TOPS-10 system was derived from the PDP-6 OS with substantial influence from Project MAC. It in NO way derived from the PDP-15, which was released 2 years after TOPS-10 had reached release 5. The PDP-15 had DOS-15 (derived from DOS/BATCH-9 and KMS-9) and RSX-15 as mentioned before. I am also on shaky ground about the exact derivation of TOPS-10 - I just dug up a copy of DECSystem10 User's Handbook (yes, I'm a hell of a pack rat), but could not find any proper reference for the OS derivation. However, it is true that the PDP-6 was the PDP-10 predecessor (both were 36-bit), and as said earlier, the PDP-4 was the predecessor to the PDP-6 (and the PDP-7). Just in case you wonder about the other PDP numbers: PDP-1 was an 18-bit architecture that could be said to be the predecessor of the PDP-4. It used real old discrete logic B-series 10MHz boards. Hmmm -- 10MHz clock rate in 1962, and now we have, wonder of wonders, 16.67Mhz "high-speed" micros -- haven't come as far as some may think in 25 years. PDP-2 and PDP-3 were aborted -- never finalized. PDP-5 was Edson DeCastro's first design -- it preceeded the PDP-8. Edson went on to found Data General when his version of the "new instruction set architecture" lost out to Gordon Bell's PDP-11. Sorry if I am slighting other designers -- they are the best known. PDP-13 was never born -- the number was excluded. PDP-14 was a non-computer, methodology for building discrete logic systems from R and S series flip-chips (DTL logic). After the PDP-15, came VAX. Sorry to be so long typed (as in long winded, nothing to do with 32-bit integers), but I hate to see drastically incorrect information on the net. And anyway, this has far more content and utility than either the discussion on very large memory (as least the trivial digression on the number of electrons in the universe), and the one on what average to use for benchmarks (if you cannot resist averaging benchmarks with no basis for weighting, only the geomtric mean is defensible -- we did not really need 20 articles stating this simple fact :-) ). Good night. -- {verdix,seismo,umcp-cs}!vrdxhq!deller
rentsch@unc.UUCP (Tim Rentsch) (10/11/86)
Just a note in the interest of historical accuracy. The JACCT bit on PDP-10's has been around a long long time. I first used a PDP-10 in 1970, and the JACCT bit was in the operating system then. (btw, JACCT is mnemonic for Job ACCounTing bit, since originally the only program which ran with JACCT was the login/logout programs.) I believe JACCT existed ever since the days of the PDP-6 (1968? 1966? anyone know?), and it had the same function, BUT it did not then trap control-C's -- they instead were translated to escapes! [For those of you out there in netland to know the pleasure of running your own jacct'ed programs -- cheers. today's hackers never had it so good.]
grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (10/11/86)
In article <2197@vrdxhq.UUCP> deller@vrdxhq.UUCP (Steven Deller) writes: >In article <610003@hpcnoe.UUCP>, jason@hpcnoe.UUCP (Jason Zions) writes: >> Jerry Leichter says: >> >> >> If memory serves, the PDP-15 was a pair of -11's hooked up in tandem (in the >> same way a PDP-12 was a pair of PDP-8's in tandem). Exactly what the PDP-15 >> and PDP-12 were used for, I couldn't tell you. >> >Sorry to correct you, but your information is so far off base that it requires >correcting. The PDP-15 and PDP-12 were not at all how you describe them. > >The PDP-15 was an 18-bit computer, derived from the 18-bit PDP-9, which >derived from the 18-bit PDP-7 (one of the original UNIX base machines), which >had a common ancestor with the 36-bit PDP-6 in the PDP-4. The PDP-15 >primarily added 8 index registers and slight modifications to the instruction >set to handle them, plus some better I/O controls. Perhaps this person was confused by the PDP-15/76, which was a PDP-15 with a small PDP-11 (/05?) built in as an I/O processor. The PDP-11 was somewhat modified so the parity bits in its memory and data paths could be used to pass the 18 bit data used by the PDP-15. > PDP-14 was a non-computer, methodology for building discrete logic > systems from R and S series flip-chips (DTL logic). Noooo, the PDP-14 was a 'programmable' industrial controller. The PDP-16 was the do-it-yourself 'computer' using register transfer modules. I'd never seen something so intersting with such completely confusing documentation. They were M series (DTL and/or TTL) modules, please. The R and S were DCD (diode-capacitor-diode) logic used in the original PDP-8 and other products in that timeframe. Now to leave something correctable: (-8 My old PDP-10 manuals leave the operating system almost nameless, alluding to things like Timesharing Monitors 10/40 and 10/15 which had been rechristened as 'The Multiprogramming Disk Monitor' and 'Swapping Monitor'. These had derived from the PDP-6 monitor programs. My PDP-6 manuals are buried too far down to see what they called it. Now was TOPS-10 a new products, or just a marketing name for the older monitor program, along with the revisionistic DECsystem-10 name? -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|caip}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
rpw3@amdcad.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (10/23/86)
In article <877@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>, grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: > ... Now was TOPS-10 a new products, or just a marketing > name for the older monitor program, along with the revisionistic DECsystem-10 > name? Well... a little of both. The "Monitor" (as it was known in those days) had stabilized (?!?!) at version 4S72 (major version 4, "S"wapping support, minor rev 72), and was getting patched to death with bug fixes. (I think the last 4-series we ran at Emory Univ. was 4S72AJ, where "AJ" means the 26+10th patch; they got up to 4S72BN or something finally... yeah, 52+14 patches!.) At that point there was a *massive* rewrite/enhancement/extension, and the major version bumped to "5". At the same time, "Monitor" became "TOPS-10", and "PDP-10" became "DECsystem-10". We're talking about an entirely new TTY driver ["line discipline" to Unix folk], file system (and disk format... worse than the 4.1 ==> 4.2 move), and new batch system, spoolers, etc., so maybe the name change wasn't all that bogus (...but the old hands still called it "the monitor".) It was like jumping from Unix v.6 to Berkeley 4bsd. The new system eventually became rock-solid, but the first releases were murder (worse than 4.2 with no bug fixes!). The 5.01 release wouldn't stay up very long; 5.02C was sort of o.k. for a handful of users, if you didn't try to run the batch system or spoolers ("you did WHAT!?!? (*crash*) (*tinkle*) (*tinkle*)"); 5.02D would survive running with the line printer spooler active; and by 5.03C the system would take a pretty good beating from batch & users and keep on going. As I recall, 5.04 was flakey again, but 5.04A fixed that. 6.01 added paging (in addition to swapping), but had so many "improvements" it took 'til 6.02A to settle down. (Also, 6.02A was the last version that was supported in the non-paging KA-10 processor.) Incidently, even old 4Snn ("10/50 monitor") had the "JACCT" bit ("setuid root") in the late 1960's, but remember that unlike Unix, the list of JACCT programs was compiled into the kernel! (And because TOPS-10 was a "job"-oriented system rather than "process"-structured, the kernel had to really worry about making sure the JACCT bit got turned off no matter how a JACCT program died, to keep the user from inheriting the priviledge.) Let's see, the JACCT programs were LOGIN, LOGOUT, SYSTAT ("ps"), QUEUE ("lpr/lpd"), DAEMON ("init"), and so on. Rob Warnock Consultant {amdcad,sun,fortune}!redwood!rpw3
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (10/26/86)
In article <13475@amdcad.UUCP> rpw3@amdcad.UUCP (Rob Warnock) writes: > version bumped to "5". At the same time, "Monitor" became "TOPS-10", and > "PDP-10" became "DECsystem-10". > > We're talking about an entirely new TTY driver [...] file system [...] > new batch system, spoolers, etc. [...] It was like jumping from Unix > v.6 to Berkeley 4bsd. Well, it couldn't have been that bad then. Up until a few years ago, we were still running v6 on an 11/34. Then we got a vax and switched directly to 4.2BSD. Everyone adjusted without much trouble, programmers and secretaries alike. Problem is, everybody also "adjusted" pretty quickly to the fact that we had 450 Mbytes of disk instead of 10 :-) -- Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016