[HECnet] Hooking up TOPS-20 to HECnet?

[Johnny Billquist]

On 2013-09-23 23:56, Pontus wrote:
On 09/23/2013 04:29 PM, Clem Cole wrote:

On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 3:10 AM, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se
<mailto:pontus at update.uu.se>> wrote:

      I recall that it was a KA10,
      but did KA10's run TOPS-20?


I think you are right, but my memory is fuzzy on all this now.     IIRC
with the MIT/BBN pager modification, KA10's could run ITS or TENEX
(aka twinex - which was the Tops-20 pre-cursor ).   Folks like dvk or
supnik are likely to remember, so I'll try to remember to ask one of
them when I see them next.   A number of DARPA contractors had modified
processors and I'm pretty sure it took a processor modification to run
TENEX.

I loved TENEX until I was seduced by UNIX   -- maybe its the X in the
name that takes you to darkside ;-)


I found the passage in the book, page 107 in this edition, sadly it
doesn't say much :(

<quote>
Instead, I sat and watched the hacker deliberately connect to the MX
computer, a PDP-10 at the MIT artificial intelligence labs in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. He logged in as user Litwin and spent almost an hour
learning how to operate that computer. He seemed quite unaccustomed to
the MIT system, and he'd frequently ask for the automated help facility.
In an hour, he'd learned little more than how to list files.
Perhaps because artificial intelligence research is so arcane, he didn't
find much. Certainly the antique operating system didn't provide much
protection - any   user could read anyone else's files. But the hacker
didn't realize this. The sheer impossibility of understanding this
system protected their information.
</quote>

"Sheer impossibility" - makes me think ITS :) Further on he comes back
to the PDP-10:

<quote>
MIT. I'd forgotten to warn them. I called Karen Sollins of their
computer department and told her about Friday night's intrusion. "Don't
worry," she sais, "there's not much on that computer, and we're throwing
it away in a few weeks."
<quote>

So anyone really interested should find Karen Sollins.

I think I actually logged in to MX once or twice. Yes, that was indeed ITS... For some reason I also think it was a KS, but I could be wrong on that one...

The ITS machines at MIT all seemed to have two letter names. I definitely had an account on AI.

And yes, ITS can appear cryptic beyond belief.

	Johnny