From: "George R. Gonzalez" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Univac OS, the funny bits Lines: 100 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Message-ID: NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.118.121.151 X-Complaints-To: abuse@attbi.com X-Trace: sccrnsc04 1037374947 24.118.121.151 (Fri, 15 Nov 2002 15:42:27 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 15:42:27 GMT Organization: AT&T Broadband Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 15:42:27 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!feed2.news.rcn.net!rcn!wn11feed!worldnet.att.net!204.127.198.204!attbi_feed4!attbi.com!sccrnsc04.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120852 Way back around 1974 I had the chance to very briefly poke at a Univac system. I don't recall the name, but it had these really amazing features. Some of my favorites: All commands had to be typed with IIRC either one or two leading @ signs. This made a smidgen of sense, as they'd decided that in a batch job, the commands should be interspersed with the input data. Instead of having some data-delimiter cards, such as @@DATA-BEGINS, @@DATA-ENDS, they decided it was better to have the command cards stand out. Never mind what happens if a user submits a subscription renewal card with an @ overpunched in column 1. But this @-sign convention IIRC (and I may be wrong), also carried over into interactive mode! What a pain to type @ before every command! ------ System was supposed to support 300+ users. With 30 users, the response time for a simple command like "give me a directory listing" was on the order of 5 minutes. That was okay for the stystem testers, as they weer all poor students, paid by the hour. Not so good for anybody actually trying to get something done. ------- The job control commands were mighty optimistic. You could not only specify a job priority, but also specify a time you'd like it done by! Apparently they had never read of the Turing halting problem, and the undecideability thereof. Apparently if your job was running and it was getting close to your deadline time, the system would keep upping your priority. I never did try asking for the job to be done by yesterday. Dang. -------- Almost all file operations were handled by the very overloaded @ASG command. Like most commands, it had a slew of order-dependent parameters. Now most might have ordered the parameters in some rational order, with the sub-command first, then its relevant parameters. Nope. The first five paramters were the infrequently used ones, the sixth was the actual sub-command code.. So to rewind a file, it was @ASG,,,,,G and so on. -------- The sytem was really good about giving you error messages. There were thousands of them. All in 12-digits of hex. There was no on-line error code to error message guide. You had to page thru the paper manuals. --------- When you created a file, you could specify its initial size. The manual went into quite some detail about how the size was the product of three numbers, I forget now, something like the "granule", which was like 64 sectors, and two other semi-arbitrary units. A little math showed that you could request 400-gazillion bytes, this in the day of 60MB dishwasher-sized disk drives. A few keystrokes, and yes, you could ask for that many bytes, and in a few seconds the system would crash, as you, the lowly end-user, had reserved every free byte of disk space. --------- Often you'd dial-up the system and find you'd gotten somebody else's session, where they'd hung up and the system hadnt noticed the loss of carrier. This was mighty annoying, as our own connection would drop out several times a day, and we'd be left wondering what somebody else might be doing to our files. The systems folks said this was an unsolvable problem. An enterprising user found a way of fixing this problem. They spent about 15 minutes every morning dialing up, getting somebody elses session a good 25% of the time. Then they'd run REVERSO, a little program that would reverse the text on each line of every text file in that user's directory. After about 3 days of this, the systems folks got tired of the complaints, and surprise, surpruise, they found a way to fix this security hole. -------- The default for the @CAT command (list file directory) was to list everybody's files! And since file protection was optional, most of the files listed were writeable! Talk about making a system hacker-friendly! -------- I wonder how many of those systems they sold? My condolences to anybody that had to use them. ###### From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 16:35:27 +0000 (UTC) Organization: A poorly-installed InterNetNews site Lines: 32 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: spies.com X-Trace: 15 Nov 2002 09:02:20 -0800, spies.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!msc1.onvoy!onvoy.com!arclight.uoregon.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.spies.com!unknown!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120946 From article , by "George R. Gonzalez" : > Way back around 1974 I had the chance to very briefly poke at a Univac > system. I don't recall the name, but it had these really amazing features. Sounds like Exec-8. Most likely on an 1108 or 1106 "@" is "master space" in Univac speak. > > I wonder how many of those systems they sold? > AFAIK it is the only computer architecture still being sold with 1's compl arithmetic. > My condolences to anybody that had to use them. > Imagine working at the consultant's desk at a midwest university computer center, and having to support demand and batch users trying to get their work done on them. Fortunately, they bought a DEC GT46 graphics system a few years later and I was able to switch to supporting that. Someone loaned me a pretty complete set of 70's Exec-8 manuals so I'm hoping to have them up to look at soon. I have the 1108 and 1110 system summaries, and would like to locate a copy of the same for the 1106. @@X,TIO ###### Message-ID: <3DD52875.A1CE1FAD@earthlink.net> From: jchausler X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 45 Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 17:06:09 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 168.191.123.200 X-Complaints-To: abuse@earthlink.net X-Trace: newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net 1037379969 168.191.123.200 (Fri, 15 Nov 2002 09:06:09 PST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 09:06:09 PST Organization: EarthLink Inc. -- http://www.EarthLink.net Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-han1.dfn.de!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!wn11feed!wn12feed!worldnet.att.net!207.217.77.102!newsfeed2.earthlink.net!newsfeed.earthlink.net!stamper.news.pas.earthlink.net!newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120863 Al Kossow wrote: > Sounds like Exec-8. Most likely on an 1108 or 1106 That it does, but I only got to play with Exec II which actually worked quite well. Fast too! We ran a set of benchmarks on it (on an 1108) and on a 360/67 running MFT / Hasp. The 1108 left the 360 in the dust. This was in the late 60's up through 1971. At that time Exec-8 was, I was told, not reliable enough to use. What's more, our 1108 had only one memory cabinet (64K 36 bit words) and I was told Exec-8 needed at least two memory cabinets to live in. Now if you really wanted to see slow, IBM TSS on the 67 was a pig. I got to act as a test user during a TSS trial (each test user got a script of commands to follow, I believe each script was identical) Basically it was unusable. One might think from this that the technology of time sharing was new and one could expect this kind of thing. However, the PDP-10 was doing just fine with TOPS-10 or whatever it was called (we weren't running TENEX but beyond that I don't recall) and then there was GE Timesharing which although I have no personal experience, I was told at the time did quite well. There was some well known service bureau running it and selling time on them north of Pittsburgh back then. I recall they were changing over to PDP-10's due to GE giving up the market. I visited them about this time but don't recall why. > "@" is "master space" in Univac speak. Shown in the Exec II docs as an upside down delta. Normal spaces were shown as a normal delta. I don't recall what was printed on the 1108's console printer (a TTY 35RO). Chris AN GETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE $$ ###### From: peter@abbnm.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits Date: 15 Nov 2002 19:16:20 GMT Organization: ABB Network Management Lines: 18 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: grendel.eng.baileynm.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!headwall.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-proxy.abbnm.com!web.eng.baileynm.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120889 In article , George R. Gonzalez wrote: > But this @-sign convention IIRC (and I may be wrong), also carried over into > interactive mode! What a pain to type @ before every command! You don't need to speak in past tense. You can still buy a 36-bit Univac/Sperry/Unisys 1100 compatible system from Unisys today. If only the HP-Compaq merger had been as successful as the "failed" Sperry- Burroughs one. -- I've seen things you people can't imagine. Chimneysweeps on fire over the roofs of London. I've watched kite-strings glitter in the sun at Hyde Park Gate. All these things will be lost in time, like chalk-paintings in the rain. `-_-' Time for your nap. | Peter da Silva | Har du kramat din varg, idag? 'U` ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: "Richard C. Steiner" Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits References: Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.7.3 (SunOS) Date: 15 Nov 2002 20:13:07 GMT Lines: 68 Organization: VISI.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Nov 2002 14:13:07 CST NNTP-Posting-Host: debc3172.newsreader.visi.com X-Trace: DXC=e]=SD>CBI`f[OH]=26_Z8jOG;lf4n<5gjhD3OXm`l_bhY@\D2ag?5fkOdc:M[DI2dnE>iV4185L=j X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!news.tele.dk!news.tele.dk!small.news.tele.dk!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!news-1.mpls.visi.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120925 > All commands had to be typed with IIRC either one or two leading @ signs. In OS2200 (the modenr incarnation of Exec 8), commands with a single leading @ sign (or "master space") are interpreted as normal commands, and @@ commands are "transparent commands" that can be used from inside programs without having to shell to the OS prompt. (That's an oversimplication, but it's largely true) > But this @-sign convention IIRC (and I may be wrong), also carried over into > interactive mode! What a pain to type @ before every command! True, users in DEMAND mode who aren't using a shell like CTS, IPF, or CSHELL need to enter ECL commands preceded by an @ sign. But I certainly didn't operate that way (I used CSHELL). > Almost all file operations were handled by the very overloaded @ASG command. When working with disk files, you typically only used "@ASG,A" to assign a file active to your run or "@ASG,T" to create a temporary file. > The sytem was really good about giving you error messages. There were > thousands of them. All in 12-digits of hex. Octal, actually. > There was no on-line error code to error message guide. > You had to page thru the paper manuals. Not in "modern" times (the OS2200 EXEC tends to spit out an error code followed by its text equivalent). The @FAC processor was also sometimes available to decode facilities errors (disk-related). > The default for the @CAT command (list file directory) was to list > everybody's files! The @CAT command in OS1100 and OS2200 is the Catalog command used to actually create a new file in the MFD (Master File Directory). The equivalent for the "directory" command is @PRT,T. > I wonder how many of those systems they sold? The UNIVAC 1100, Unisys 2200, and Unisys Clearpath IX systems are likely the direct descendants of the one you're describing, and those are still in fairly common use in the airline industry and other places. > My condolences to anybody that had to use them. It's really not as bad as it might appear at first glance. ECL (short for Executive Control Language) is fairly straightforward and provides a set of fairly reasonable default values, and with a modern shell one can create aliases, scripts, and other constructs to aid in doing things from the command prompt. I sometimes found myself doing a mix of Unix and ECL syntax like the following: PRT,TL SOME*FILE. | GREP substring-I-wanted | MORE -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Eden Prairie, MN Written online using slrn 0.9.5.4! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers From: "Richard C. Steiner" Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits References: Message-ID: User-Agent: slrn/0.9.7.3 (SunOS) Date: 15 Nov 2002 20:14:27 GMT Lines: 12 Organization: VISI.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 15 Nov 2002 14:14:27 CST NNTP-Posting-Host: debc3172.newsreader.visi.com X-Trace: DXC=?jiV4185L=j X-Complaints-To: abuse@visi.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!nntp-out.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!news-1.mpls.visi.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120926 In article , Peter da Silva wrote: > You can still buy a 36-bit Univac/Sperry/Unisys 1100 compatible system from > Unisys today. Yes. The Clearpath IX. :-) -- -Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Eden Prairie, MN Written online using slrn 0.9.5.4! The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then. ###### From: "keep-it-clean" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers References: Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits Lines: 25 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 02:23:04 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 12.89.72.128 X-Complaints-To: abuse@worldnet.att.net X-Trace: bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net 1037413384 12.89.72.128 (Sat, 16 Nov 2002 02:23:04 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 02:23:04 GMT Organization: AT&T Worldnet Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!snoopy.risq.qc.ca!chi1.webusenet.com!news.webusenet.com!cyclone1.gnilink.net!wn13feed!worldnet.att.net!bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:120988 I also remember the "master space" upside-down delta at the front of Exec 8 JCL cards (I hope 'JCL' isn't copyrighted by IBM :-), the ASG command, the octal error messages, etc. Back in the early 70s, I used two different 1108 systems....one at Case-Western in Cleveland [was it just Case Institute of Technology back then?] --- they had a commercial service bureau called Chi Corporation which supported remote batch terminals....and the other from UCC (University Computing Corporation). Algol was still rather common [at least on the Chi system] but FORTRAN was certainly also available and widely used as well as a macro assembler language for those instances where you ***had*** to work at that level. For some reason, I think the UCC systems we used were in East Brunswick, NJ. I also recall a conversational time-sharing functionality from UCC which allowed you to dial in from teletypes, 2741, etc....do some editing, manipulate files, submit/retrieve batch jobs, and so forth (kind of like Wylbur or Mentext or Interact or whatever it was variously called on IBM mainframes).....for some reason, the name "FASBAC" seems like what UCC chose. I think it really ran on a front-end minicomputer which was connected to the Univac 1108(s) but it has been a looooong time ago for sure ! That said, the GE time-sharing system always seemed more "user-friendly". ###### X-Posting-Agent: Hamster/1.3.23.4 From: Nick Spalding Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits Reply-To: Nick Spalding Message-ID: References: X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.93/32.573 enu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 33 Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 11:46:56 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 193.203.142.45 X-Complaints-To: abuse@iol.ie X-Trace: news.iol.ie 1037447216 193.203.142.45 (Sat, 16 Nov 2002 11:46:56 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 11:46:56 GMT Organization: Ireland On-Line Customer Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!solnet.ch!solnet.ch!surfnet.nl!feeder.news.heanet.ie!newsfeed.esat.net!news.iol.ie!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:121011 keep-it-clean wrote, in : > I also remember the "master space" upside-down delta at the front of Exec 8 > JCL cards (I hope 'JCL' isn't copyrighted by IBM :-), the ASG command, the > octal error messages, etc. > > Back in the early 70s, I used two different 1108 systems....one at > Case-Western in Cleveland [was it just Case Institute of Technology back > then?] --- they had a commercial service bureau called Chi Corporation which > supported remote batch terminals....and the other from UCC (University > Computing Corporation). Algol was still rather common [at least on the Chi > system] but FORTRAN was certainly also available and widely used as well as > a macro assembler language for those instances where you ***had*** to work > at that level. > > For some reason, I think the UCC systems we used were in East Brunswick, NJ. > I also recall a conversational time-sharing functionality from UCC which > allowed you to dial in from teletypes, 2741, etc....do some editing, > manipulate files, submit/retrieve batch jobs, and so forth (kind of like > Wylbur or Mentext or Interact or whatever it was variously called on IBM > mainframes).....for some reason, the name "FASBAC" seems like what UCC > chose. I think it really ran on a front-end minicomputer which was > connected to the Univac 1108(s) but it has been a looooong time ago for sure > ! That said, the GE time-sharing system always seemed more "user-friendly". I did some work ca 1971 on a UCC 1108 system located in London from a terminal in Dublin. The terminal consisted of a PDP8, a Dataproducts drum printer and a Datamation(???) card reader. Later on it was an 1106 located in Spiddal, Co. Galway and the terminal was badged as a Harris but with much the same innards. -- Nick Spalding ###### Message-ID: <3DD641B0.91E3F724@yahoo.com> From: Peter Flass X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Univac OS, the funny bits References: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 10 Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 13:01:50 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.194.50.82 X-Complaints-To: abuse@rr.com X-Trace: twister.nyroc.rr.com 1037451710 24.194.50.82 (Sat, 16 Nov 2002 08:01:50 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 08:01:50 EST Organization: Road Runner Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news.imp.ch!news.imp.ch!fr.clara.net!heighliner.fr.clara.net!diablo.netcom.net.uk!netcom.net.uk!diablo.theplanet.net!newsfeed1.cidera.com!Cidera!cyclone.nyroc.rr.com!cyclone-out.nyroc.rr.com!twister.nyroc.rr.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.folklore.computers:121018 Why does this surprise you? Until recently mass storage was too valuable to waste on something like on-line manuals. I doubt many systems had anything on-line. "George R. Gonzalez" wrote: > The sytem was really good about giving you error messages. There were > thousands of them. > All in 12-digits of hex. There was no on-line error code to error message > guide. > You had to page thru the paper manuals.