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From: vancleef@iastate.edu (Van Cleef Henry H)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Who the hell wrote CP/M?
Message-ID: <1991Apr11.050024.26814@news.iastate.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 91 05:00:24 GMT
References: <9104061042.AA71762@f170.n771.z3.fidonet.org>
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Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
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In article <9104061042.AA71762@f170.n771.z3.fidonet.org> Jeremy_Harding@f101.n770.z3.fidonet.org (Jeremy Harding) writes:
>FSC-Control: EID:f699 16857164
>I speak with authority. I have used TOPS-10 for 8 years as a systems 
>programmer, and CP/M for 5-6 years. I have used RSX11M for 5 years, and have 
>seen RT-11 in use as well.  CP/M looks like an early offshoot of TOPS-10 (

I am glad that someone in this business can speak with authority.  I
would not presume to do so.  When I can't remember something, my
daughter tells me that "Alzheimer's disease is great, dad.  You meet new
friends every day."  I worked for Ben Gurley at DEC on the PDP-1, and
recall that the machine was sold without any software---somebody at MIT
(can't remember name) wrote a compiler for it.  My recollection is that
the PDP-10 is a derivative of the PDP-6, and that this in turn was
preceded by a one-off PDP-3 experiment.  These were Ben Gurley's
designs.  He died in 1963.  The PDP-11 was drawn up by a committee---I
was a junior member of that committee; this was in 1969.  There was an
o/s running on a PDP-6 in the DEC mill in the late 60's that, I think,
was the precursor of TOPS-10.  As I recall, it had things found in CP/M
and RSX such as "pip."  My comments are based on recollections of 11-13
years ago, when I used TOPS-10, RSX, RSTS, and CP/M.  I think the last I
used these was around 1982, and have long since forgotten command
details, just the impression that CP/M seemed most like RSX.  

The real answer will have to come from someone involved with hatching up
CP/M, which I wasn't.

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