[inforoots] CDC operating system for CDC 6000 series systems

[Richard Friedman]

I was a member of the NYU Courant Institute systems group (along with 
Peter Capek!)
on the serial #4 CDC 6600 (1965), and then the systems group at the 
Lawrence Berkeley
Lab (1968-1982) on the 6600/7600.

The UC Berkely campus 6400 ran a version of SCOPE while  at LBL we ran 
our own heavily
modified operating system (BKY)  based on a precursor of KRONOS. Both 
systems used
7-8-9 cards to mark an end-of-record in an input card deck, and 6-7-8-9 
as end-of-file. But
this was common with all CDC systems going back to the early Chippewa 
system COS.

I've never heard of TOOS. But it probably was a specialized version of 
SCOPE. There were
a few back then.

I still have a piece of the LBL 7600, an "RF" module. I thought it was 
appropriate.
Somewhere I still have the original COS manual that Max Goldstein handed 
me in
1965. Some of this history is described in my blog entries from last year...

--
RIchard Friedman  http://blogs.sun.com/rchrd

Brian Knittel wrote:
> We used a homegrown OS called "BKY" at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory 
> on a CDC machine that was retired in the mid 80's. I THINK it was a 
> 6600. Maybe it was a 7600. But, hmm, I thought LBL had the 6600, and 
> Livermore had the 7600. It's irritating that I can't remember these 
> details now.  
>
> I do remember that the day after it was decomissioned, I saw its two-
> round-screen operator's console and other cabinets sitting outside in 
> the rain in the lab's salvage yard. I remember feeling shocked that 
> it was being treated with such disrespect, after all the work that 
> machine had done to advance particle physics.
>
> Down the hill, the UC Berkeley campus had a CDC 6400 that was running 
> either BKY or SCOPE. Which OS used the 6-7-8-9 card as an end-of-job 
> marker? BKY or SCOPE or both?  
>
> Brian
>
> =
>
>