Date: Thu, 7 Mar 96 02:08:12 PST From: carl@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Carl A Baltrunas) To: tops-20@Panda.COM Subject: Shutdown of the last 4 Tymshare KL-10s I'm reprinting here a copy of the message I posted to alt.sys.pdp10 and had forgotten to send off to this list until Joe Smith reminded me today. Date: Sun, 25 Feb 96 03:22:52 PDT Organization: Catalyst Art Reply-To: carl@1unique.com, carl@reststop.com or carl@tymnet.com Well, It is time.... they are seriously pursuing the shutdown of the last four KL-10s at Tymshare, a.k.a. MCI these days. As far as I know there will be no hoopla. The machines are scheduled to be decomissioned, shut down, etc. the end of February 1996. They will do final backups of the data, and then start the process of dismantling the machines. I am not sure if they have a buyer for the parts, but if anyone is interested, please contact me, or Joe Smith at MCI and we will put you in contact with the people who are attempting to sell off the hardware. (possibly to Novadyne for parts, or some other group for scrap). Our current PDP-10 applications have been effectively moved off to *nix, IBM or other platforms. One application has been moved off to an XKL TOAD-1 and other than some growing pains and the unfixed bugs in TOPS-20 that we've aggravated by throwing nearly 200 simultaneous users at it. The lifespan of that application is still under debate, but the XKL team has provided necessary support and bug fixes (much faster than I recall DEC ever coming up with a quick fix) along the way. *** If you are seriously interested in these machines, please *** contact me as soon as possible so that I can pass your name *** off to the people trying to dispose of the equipment. We have 4 KL-10s, at least 4 SA-10 interfaces, numerous memorex 3650 and 3652 disk drives and controllers (I forget the 36xx #) on these systems. No NI or CI interfaces as we have our own custom network interface to TYMNET for connectivity. Some number of STC tape drives and controllers as well. All disk/tape drives have been connected via the SA-10 interface. -Carl Baltrunas, MCI Network Services, San Jose. 408-922-6206, carl@tymnet.com, carl@teststop.com You may also contact Joe Smith, MCI Network Services, San Jose. 408-922-6220, jms@tymnet.com, jsmith@inwap.com =========== An update: 06-Mar-96 I am still not aware that any buyers have been lined up, but do not have an inkling of what MCI might consider these machines to be worth. I have a contact from the Computer History Association of California, The Computer Museum (even with all the hoopla about how machines have been cut up and sold) and one or two others. *** If you are at all interested in paying for the decommissioning or *** shipping of these boxes to some other location, please contact me or *** Joe smith at the addresses given above. =========== This is truly the end of an era of 36-bit computing at Tymshare (or whatever we're called these days). At one time, I counted over 40 PDP-10 processors from KA-10's, KI-10's, KL-10's, KS-10's, Foonly F3's and Foonly F4's running various flavors of TENEX and TYMCOM-X (also called TYMCOM-XX on the KS-10) up and running on the network. Tymshare, Inc. as a timesharing service bureau and custom consulting company with their own flavor of operating system and various utilities built out of the Digital Equipment Corporation TOPS-10 5.02 series monitor has now become another milestone in the history of computing. The last 4 systems were powered off on Friday, March 1st, 1996. These were serial numbers 1354 (F34), 1388 (F38), 1421 (F32) and 1427 (F26) where the numbers in parentheses designate the location "F" for Fremont California, and the 2-digit host numbers were the TYMNET host numbers. A fitting eulogy should be written, and I will be soliciting comments and brief stories from many of the people who worked on these machines over the years (if they can still be contacted) in order to make an attempt at one. TYMCOM-X ran most any language that was available for TOPS-10 and many that were ported from Stanford WAITS (such as SAIL) or rewritten from the SDS-940 such as SIMPL. Tymshare ran DEC's F40 compiler and linker 'LOADER' until the very end, long past even the life that DEC envisioned for the product. Database systems such as Software House's 1022 were available and in full production use until last December 18th (1995) when that production system was brought up on an XKL Systems TOAD-1 [and is still running today :-)]. Other than being an orhpan step-child of an operating system, TYMCOM-X had the best of TOPS-10 and TOPS-20; a quick scheduler, a lean operating system, network connectivity, sharable pages by file, fork, absolute memory or absolute disk page (your choice, depending upon privileges), license or capability flags which could be placed on jobs, forks or programs with more security than TOPS-20 file and directory groups since a program could be setup with directory access privileges which ordinary users could not override. The last major monitor version was P036/E with a couple of revisions and patches. (What decent monitor was ever worth anything without patches ;-) It's an amazing system. And now it is gone. ..but not forgotten. Novadyne Computer Systems is in the throes of disconnecting cables to Memorex 3650 and 3652 disk drives, System Concept's SA-10s, STC tape drives and AMPEX ARM-10 LX memory boxes. At least one system is reported as completely de-installed, the rest will soon follow. No firm date for when the boxes will be dropped off the loading dock... er.. um... I mean.. shipped out to whomever claims them... let's hope that they are either purchased by someone who wants one or more in working order or that they are donated to a worthy Museum or Historical Society. However, they are moving pretty quick to de-install them, I wouldn't wait long if you are interested in getting one of these systems intact. -Carl Carl A Baltrunas; MCI Network Services, DSO; Product & Technical Support (408) 922-6206 Systems Technical Support, San Jose, California. carl@tymnet.com, carl@reststop.com, carl@1unique.com