[COFF] [TUHS] Re: DECtapes under the UNIX room floor

[Lars Brinkhoff via COFF]

Phil Budne wrote:
> CTSS (the progenitor of both Multics and DEC timesharing systems) had
> a "chronolog" device (attached as a magtape drive?) that supplied the
> current time, month and day (but not year!), while even large (million
> dollar) DEC timesharing systems in the 1970's and 80's expected a
> human operator to be present to enter the date and time.

Fun fact.  Early ITS had a modem device, and used it to dial out to CTSS
to get the time and date from the login prompt.  Later ITS got its own
clock device with a separate power supply.