Are you aware of the paper tap operating system on the Pitney Bowes
440/Raytheon 520 computer? a high speed biderectinal paper tape
reader with teels like tape and a monitor to load programs and reload
itself after a job. sork could be accpeted on card reader or console.
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On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 3:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some aspects
about operating systems since the 1950s.
To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes:
https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026
VCFSW has the talk archived here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ
Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights:
- overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what it
looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be curious if
others knew more about it)
- 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about that
specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us all vs RAND
corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware patents (that's a
very short version of it)
- today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the difference
and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I could tell from the
manuals
- some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS (see
footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but "verified" in
the past year
- I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a
cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that said, I
suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's work on the
DP2200
I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s kind
of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, maybe for
inventory or check-processing?).
Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk. But
there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides:
- Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive it
more properly?)
- I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before
1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to
those
pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ]
- I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just couldn't
make it fit
- AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these in
the wild?),
Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting oldsayings.info
(with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking around some ideas, but
it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got tired of
waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting closer, I see them
running it ranch by ranch.
Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year.
-Steve