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From: jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,comp.arch
Subject: Re: XDS940 computer
Summary: Tymshare had several.
Message-ID: <1915@tardis.Tymnet.COM>
Date: 11 Jun 91 01:17:06 GMT
References: <1991Jun5.231450.25856@digi.lonestar.org> <13933@goofy.Apple.COM>
Reply-To: jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith)
Organization: BT Tymnet, San Jose, CA
Lines: 24

In article <13933@goofy.Apple.COM> johana!tsw@apple.com (Tom Watson) writes:
>Yes, real old times, the SDS 940 (they were not sold after Xerox took over 
>as far as I know).  Tymshare used a whole bunch of these.  At one time 
>they had a whole bunch on a computer floor in Cupertino (over 20?).  Dial 
>in ports came in from all over the country, and the networking was the 
>beginning of Tymnet. 

At one time, TYMNET hosts 1 through 21 were all 940's.  (Hosts 22-39 were
PDP-10's, and hosts 40-48 were IBM-370's.)  In 1986, all the 940's were
shut down as Tymshare (at that point called "McDonnel Douglas Network
Systems Company) moved their main Data Center from Cupertino to Fremont.

We had been using host 8 as the master for periodic jobs, so when it
shut down, we had to implement 'cron' and 'SUBMIT' for the PDP-10's.

Some of the system utilities are written in a compiled language called
"SIMPLE".  The compiler ran on both the 24-bit and 36-bit machines.
Anyone else work with SIMPLE?

-- 
Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms@tardis.tymnet.com or jms@gemini.tymnet.com
BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms
PO Box 49019, MS-C51    | BIX: smithjoe | CA license plate: "POPJ P," (PDP-10)
San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous disclaimer: "My Amiga 3000 speaks for me."