[geeks] Oldest OS Still Developed

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2006 at 11:40:56PM +0100, Mike Meredith wrote:
> Depends which systems programmers you mean :) From the earliest days of
> MVS, it was running under VM because in part of the lack of prototype
> 370s for them to use. This at a time when IBM were 'hoping' that S/370
> customers wouldn't need virtual machines.

Ouch, but I wonder what they were running on. 360/67's were even harder
to find, I've only seen one in my life, and I've seen many "regular"
360's and 370s.

> 
> My father (who I think always worked on the MVS side of things ... well
> after MVS was born at least) almost certainly encountered VM at Yorktown
> Heights between 1974-1976 if not earlier, and quickly grew addicted to
> having his 'own' S/370.

CP/67 was around about 1968.

> Melinda Varian has a fascinating paper on the history of VM on her page
> at :-

I'll have to look it up. I've met her, probably 20 years ago or longer.

> Hit 'em over the head hard enough with a brick and even the dumbest
> corporate type will see the light ... with the exception of DEC ones :)

Yes, :-)

> I was under the impression that it was DEC dropping the 36-bit line that
> caused their customers to revolt, and look into alternatives. Pre-VMS I
> don't think DEC had a UNIX product, even if some of their customers were
> running it. I think it was only later that DEC went with the flow, and
> launched Ultrix for the VAX ... well after BSD was running on the VAX.

Yes, it was in the Ultrix days. As for Unix on the VAX, my boss at Hebrew U.
had the original tape from the first working Unix Instalation in Israel.

Geoff.

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