Nostalgic technologies article

[Rich Alderson]

> From: Ian King
> Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 3:06 PM

>> From: Ethan Dicks
>> Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 1:55 PM

>> On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Mark Tapley <mtapley at swri.edu> wrote:

>>> Compuserve

>  [snip]

>> The article also says "For those of us who were CompuServe users back
>> when its user IDs consisted of lots of digits and a mysterious comma,
>> it's a depressing fate."  I haven't memorized my old PPN, but I do
>> have it in easy reach at home on the subscriber label of ancient
>> copies of "Online" magazine.

> And what were those mysterious IDs?  CompuServe was run on DEC PDP-10
> systems, and these IDs were standard DEC user IDs!  In the format
> [group, user], this ID structure was used across many DEC OS products,
> including TOPS-10/20, RSX-11 and VMS.  It's a shame he didn't mention
> (or know?) that....

I have to point out that TOPS-20 does not, in the general case, use PPNs.
There is a UI command to translate between usernames and faux PPNs, but
this has been a relic since TOPS-20 v.3A (c. 1977--current version is
7.1, c. 1995).

Other than TOPS-20, which did not originate at DEC, almost all DEC
operating systems used PPNs, including those on the 18-bit and 12-bit
families.

                                                                Rich