OT: TSX

[Alan Cohen]

On Sun, 30 Jan 2005, Alan Cohen wrote:
> > TSX (PDP11) started in the 70's.
> > TSX32 (80386+ platforms) started in the 80's.
> > I've been closely involved with it for over 25 years. I'd be tickled
> > pink to tell you more about it.

On Tue, 2005-02-01 at 16:56, Robert Brockway wrote:
> I made the connection tsx-11.mit.edu of course :)  That was one of the 
> first great repositories of Linux software (along with sunsite.unc.edu).
> I'd be interested to hear.  Unixes often have an interest in alternative 
> OSes.  HUMBUG (http://www.humbug.org.au) even accepts "non maintream 
> OSes" in its constitution.

1970's
------
In the 70's, DEC's PDP-11 had a single user, real time OS called RT-11.
They also had multi-user OS's: RSX-11 (and also RSTS/E)
A lot of people craved for RT-11 functionality in a multi-user
environment, so S&H of Nashville, Tennessee wrote TSX-11. You booted up
RT-11 and then ran a program called TSX.SAV and lo and behold, you were
running TSX.

In terms of commercial programming languages, DEC had DIBOL, it's
version of COBOL. (It was far less of a memory hog than COBOL, and
memory was terribly expensive.)

DISC of Sacremento, California wrote a version of DIBOL called DBL that
ran under TSX.

1980's
------
In the early 80's, DEC was phasing out its PDP11 mini-computer in favour
of the VAX which ran VMS. At the same time, 80x86 micro-computers were
coming on stream.

S&H sent out a letter: "Do you think we should port TSX to the VAX or to
these new-fangled 80x86 machines?"  The overwhelming response was
"forget VAX" and so TSX32 was borne. It ran on 80386+ machines.

In similar fashion to the way you booted up RT-11 and then ran TSX-11,
here you booted up MSDOS and then ran TSX32.EXE

DISC (now called Synergex) ported DBL to TSX32 and to VMS and later to
MSDOS, Windows, Unix and to Linux. (DBL is now called Synergy.)

P.S. In the 1980's, there was no question in my mind: TSX32 ran rings
around XENIX. But that was then. Times have changed.
-- 
Sincerely,
Alan Cohen alan-bdq14YP6qtTV+N59fa8YiVaTQe2KTcn/@public.gmane.org voice: 416-783-9826

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