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The RFC refers to "the Harvard PDP-10 System" and "Harvard's PDP-1"
in the first paragraph, and the "MITDG PDP-6/10" (so that's 2
machines but eventually MIT had a gaggle of PDP-10s) in the second
paragraph. And of course MIT had a PDP-1, where Spacewar was
developed and first played. I don't know the arrival/exit dates of
the machines.<br>
<br>
Here are some dates, but I don't know if they are just samples based
on the earliest DECUS submission from there, or installation dates.
The Harvard museum (which has pieces of the Mark I) may know more
about when different machines were installed and removed.<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp1/PDP-1_SerialNumbers.txt">http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp1/PDP-1_SerialNumbers.txt</a><br>
<blockquote type="cite">Sites known to have PDP-1's based on DECUS
submissions:<br>
...<br>
Harvard University Dec 64<br>
...<br>
MIT Lincoln Laboratory Group 22 May 65<br>
MIT Laboratory For Nuclear Science Apr 65<br>
MIT Project MAC Jul 64<br>
MIT RLE Sep 65</blockquote>
<br>
By serial number:
<blockquote type="cite">
05 PDP-1C MIT (RLE)<br>
26 PDP-1C MIT<br>
37 PDP-1C MIT Lincoln Labs 11/65<br>
40 PDP-1C MIT (MAC) 64(?)<br>
41 PDP-1C Harvard<br>
53 PDP-1 MIT<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Side note: I saw the MIT PDP-6 with its chess trophies on top of it
during the Blizzard of '78. (After I interviewed at DEC, I made my
way from Marlborough through the rapidly-intensifying snow to
Cambridge to visit someone from High School. I ended up crashing on
a dorm sofa from the day the blizzard hit until the airport in
Boston reopened which was about a week.) The PDP-6 had a sign on it
that said something like "This machine is old and flaky so don't
touch it unless you know what you are doing."<br>
<br>
- Aron<br>
<br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 8/16/25 10:57, Clem Cole wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAC20D2MKY8a=MJ4jNMzLbokLzWtiuOds7zJM8VT=5372b7i2yA@mail.gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div dir="auto">Right. What I do not know is what early machines
Harvard had from DEC. MIT had the 18 and 36 bit series which
was what I was implying. The key point though is that if
Harvard was the root of the PTY tree it would have been on one
of those systems not a Unix system because Unix did not come to
Harvard until 1974 and RFC 89 was 1971 and RFC 46 in 1970<br
clear="all">
<br clear="all">
<div>
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"
data-smartmail="gmail_signature">Sent from a handheld expect
more typos than usual</div>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
<div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at
8:50 PM Aron Insinga <<a href="mailto:aki@insinga.com"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">aki@insinga.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div> The <a
href="https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc89"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc89</a>
mentions a PDP-6 and PDP-10s which are 36-bit twos
complement machines, and a DEC PDP-1 which was an 18-bit
one's complement machine. The "graphics-oriented" PDP-1
probably had the well-known Type 30 display which used a
large round radar-type CRT thanks to the Project SAGE
tradition, but there were a couple of other graphics
display options for the PDP-1.<br>
<a href="https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/graphics/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/graphics/</a></div>
<div><br>
<br>
- Aron<br>
<br>
<br>
<div>On 8/15/25 23:35, Clem Cole wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Watch
the dates - that's not UNIX. In 1973, Version 4
Unix is first released outside of BTL, so the
Harvard system being talked about in RFC 89 is
probably an 18 bit ??PDP6 maybe??. </div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, Aug 15, 2025
at 8:24 PM Bakul Shah via TUHS <<a
href="mailto:tuhs@tuhs.org" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">tuhs@tuhs.org</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>From RFC 89 (dated 19 January 1971) titled
"Some historic moments in networking":
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div><font face="Menlo"> Second, the Harvard
system has temporarily implemented this
remote</font></div>
<div><font face="Menlo"> network console
interface feature using a DEC style
pseudo-teletype</font></div>
<div><font face="Menlo"> (PTY).</font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>From RFC 46 (dated April 1970) titled
"'ARPA Network Protocol Notes":</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div><font face="Menlo"> 3. A standard way
for a newly created process to initiate
pseudo-</font></div>
<div><font face="Menlo"> typewriter
communication with the foreign process
which requested</font></div>
<div><font face="Menlo"> its creation.</font></div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<div>On Aug 15, 2025, at 6:49 PM, ron
minnich <<a
href="mailto:rminnich@gmail.com"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">rminnich@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:</div>
<br>
<div>
<div>
<div dir="ltr">was there ever a telnet
or other remote access program that
predated ptys on Unix? Was telnet the
driving force for ptys? Did the folks
implementing Unix networking bring in
ptys before, or as part of, or after
networking, i.e. did folks building
networking for Unix realize they
needed ptys once they started working
on telnet, or did they plan for ptys
from the get go? I was an observer for
some of this stuff, but as a
20-year-old at UDEL I was also quite
out of the loop.
<div><br>
</div>
<div> I also realize there were
multiple Unix networking efforts, so
this question is somewhat
simplistic.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>
<div>I'm assuming rsh came a bit
later.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On
Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 4:19 PM Tom
Lyon <<a
href="mailto:pugs78@gmail.com"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">pugs78@gmail.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Yeah, I was thinking
that 4.1c BSD must've had them for
rlogin and telnet.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Which got me looking for
Fabry and Bill Joy's
design/planning documents for
4.2, which are not in the TUHS
archives.</div>
<div>Anyone got them??</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On
Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Warner Losh <<a
href="mailto:imp@bsdimp.com"
target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">imp@bsdimp.com</a>>
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="auto">At the very
least, 4.2BSD had them for
telnet and rlogin. They were
static, though. You had to
MAKEDEV enough units.
<div dir="auto"><br>
</div>
<div dir="auto">Warner</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr"
class="gmail_attr">On Fri,
Aug 15, 2025, 5:00 PM ron
minnich <<a
href="mailto:rminnich@gmail.com" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">rminnich@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">That was my
guess. I figured the
people who did the work
are on this list, and
primary sources rule.</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr"
class="gmail_attr">On
Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at
3:56 PM Ron Natalie <<a
href="mailto:ron@ronnatalie.com" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">ron@ronnatalie.com</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
class="gmail_quote"
style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<div>
<div>I think that
wikipedia history
is somewhat
garbled when it
comes to the UNIX
implementations.
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
<br>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
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