@RUTGERS.ARPA:CharlieLevy.es@Xerox.ARPA (03/14/85)
From: CharlieLevy.es@XEROX.ARPA "> For that reason, I'm particularly interested in hearing about how > people get interactive systems (like airline or bank) running in a > world with few or no interactive programming tools. i would be mildy surprised to hear from many of those people [i know are are some] on this net." Well, around 1969 I designed a system to serve 40 users interactively (on teletypes) on a 360/40 with only three partitions. I made my own mini-time-sharing system within one of the partitions. Programming was strictly batch--submit punched cards once a day. It was only a matter of what the product was worth to the company. We had no expectations of interactive programming (especially from IBM), but nevertheless we realized that our customers (warehouse fork-lift jocks) HAD! to have a friendly interactive system that they could run with thumbs an inch thick. By 1975, the system had upgraded to a larger machine, serving 300 users. The development cost was huge, but apparently the payoff was also. Charlie