"Henderson, Jordan (Contractor) (DAASC)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> RSX came about just about the same time as Unix, and I would be surprised
> if anything from Unix made it into the RSX design or implementation.
> Unix people like to harken back to it's origins in 1969, but those first
> few years were really unrecognizably Unix. I believe there was no shell
> like we know today until much later. I think RSX came about in 1970 or
> 1971, but that may have initially be RSX-11S. It seems that I recall
> that Cutler actually didn't get involved until RSX-11M, but I'm fuzzy
here.
I believe Cutler was in RSX from the beginning. In fact, I believe he was
working on it when he still worked for DuPont. My recollection of the RSX
"phylogenetic tree" is something like:
RSX-11A -> RSX-11B -> RSX-11C -> RSX-11D -+-> IAS
|
+---------------------------------+
|
+-> RSX-11M -+-> RSX-11M+ -+-> VAX-11 RSX
| |
+-> RSX-11S +-> P/OS
| |
+-> VMS +-> VAX Coprocessor RSX
"compat. |
mode" +-> Micro RSX
The rumor is that at one point RSX was supposed to come in three sizes:
Large (RSX-11D, which was the mainline version at that point), Medium
(hence RSX-11M) and Small (RSX-11S, which is a proper subset of M with no
file system support, no multiuser protection, and only minimal command-line
support). Cutler liked M, and was in the throes of adding 22-bit addressing
support, when the decision was made that this would not be done for M.
Cutler got wind of the decision, and told his secretary late one week to
hold all his mail. He then worked through the following three-day weekend,
and on the following Tuesday, when he opened his mail and read the
cease-and-desist order, he responded that the work had already been
completed.
I'm not sure how to fit VMS on here. Probably as a dotted line from 11M,
since it's not binary-compatible. Of course, A, B, C, and D aren't either,
but if you held your tongue right most of the others are, at least for
user-mode code. I've heard of something called RSX-15 for the PDP-15, but
never seen it or known anything but the name. And I believe A-C may have
been more like siblings. I've never seen any of them but 11A, and it bears
the same relation to the others as "pre-C" Unix bears to "real" Unix. That
is, much less than you'd expect.
Rumor has it, though, that the name "PIP" came from CP/M. So should this be
added?
And _don't_ ask me who named P/OS.
> VMS clearly got some ideas from TOPS-10, which lifted some ideas from
> Multics. Many claim that Unix got some things from Multics, but I'm not
> sure what that would be (although I'm not an expert in Multics, by any
> means). So, possibly there's some commonality from that angle.
I'm not sure how much of the guts came from TOPS-10. I believe they added
the ability to parse TOPS-10 filespecs (with angle brackets instead of
square ones, and a second dot in lieu of the semicolon) as a crumb to the
TOPS-10 people after the Jupiter project was cancelled. And this in turn
tells me that the author of VMS Install was an old TOPS-10 programmer.
> Actually, I think that Cutler was somewhat anti-TOPS-10 and anything that
> made it in from there was probably underground through the many people
> who worked on VMS who had once worked on TOPS-10.
I don't know about Cutler. I recall a story about Gordon Bell going through
DEC's TOPS-10 support area and becoming livid at a poster advertising a VAX
vacuum cleaner (British), captioned "VAX SUX".
A further story says that DEC's legal department considered suing the
vacuum cleaner people for trademark infringement - but when they found out
the vacuum cleaner was there first, they became all consiliatory of a
sudden. In the U.S., a duplicate name is not an infringement unless the
products are similar enough to cause them to be confused in the
marketplace. Which is why Playtex could sell a "Free Spirit" bra and Sears
Roebuck a "Free Spirit" bicycle at the same time. Maybe British law is
different, or maybe this tells us something about DEC's perception of their
product.
Tom Wyant
This communication is for use by the intended recipient and contains
information that may be privileged, confidential or copyrighted under
applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby
formally notified that any use, copying or distribution of this e-mail,
in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender
by return e-mail and delete this e-mail from your system. Unless
explicitly and conspicuously designated as "E-Contract Intended",
this e-mail does not constitute a contract offer, a contract amendment,
or an acceptance of a contract offer. This e-mail does not constitute
a consent to the use of sender's contact information for direct marketing
purposes or for transfers of data to third parties.
Francais Deutsch Italiano Espanol Portugues Japanese Chinese Korean
http://www.DuPont.com/corp/email_disclaimer.html
