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> 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.
/P
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