[TUHS] Teletypes used for early Unix

[Jonathan Gray]

UNSW terminals mentioned briefly by John in:
Experiences with the UNIX Time-sharing System
Software-Practice & Experience, Vol. 9, No. 9, pp. 701-709, Sep 1979

"The remote-batch load absorbs about 5 per cent of the 11/70 and its
residual capacity is used to serve nearly 50 interactive terminals.
(Most of these are CRTs running at 2400 baud, that have been built
in-house to our own design; each incorporates a high-quality CRT display
and keyboard, and supports full ASCII 96 character set, and a graphics
mode)."

A photo with one? UNSW UNIKEN, 10 Sep 1982
https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-257305977/view?sectionId=nla.obj-261273025
"Computer Science students using computer terminals under the
supervision of Associate Professor John Lions.  There are some 70
terminals in the School's student labs, most of which have been designed
and built there."
A cropped colour version of this photo is used on the wikipedia page
for John Lions, but the unsw.edu.au source of it was removed.
A non-cropped colour version also appears on the cover of the
1979 UNSW Annual Report:
https://digitalcollections.library.unsw.edu.au/nodes/view/171706

References to a serge terminal can be found in:
TUHS Distributions/UNSW/92/ (UNIX Level 7 Source 25/3/81)
src/cmd/tbs/tbs.c
cmd/s.getty.c

On Wed, Jul 30, 2025 at 02:16:13AM +1000, sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au wrote:
> Explaining John’s comment.
> 
> I requested some reports from UNSW Archives in 2021.
> This one, by Keith Titmus in 2000, was a short history of Prof Murray Allen,
> who'd hired John Lions and Ken Robinson in 1972.
> 
> 	08_224_01 MW Allen_Keith-Titmus_2000
> 
> There were some Decwriters at UNSW, but mainly ’Serge’ Terminals in 1978.
> Designed and built by the local staff (Serge P).
> 
> They were in use for 12 years.
> The paint wore off the cabinets, 
> but they’d bought expensive ‘hall effect’ keyboards for them and they kept on and on…
> 
> Elsewhere:
> 	In 1976, "UNSW, by end of year, boasted 200 registered users" on their Unix system.
> 
> > On 30 Jul 2025, at 00:11, Jonathan Gray <jsg at jsg.id.au> wrote:
> > 
> > When John Lions was at Bell Labs on sabbatical:
> > 
> > "Up till now I have been using a tty 43 (this listing)
> > ...
> > there is a noticeable preponderance of hard copy and lack of CRT terminals."
> > John Lions, 15 August 1978
> > AUUGN Vol 1, No 1, p 21
> 
> 
> ===============
> 
> In 1972, Murray was involved with the design of VISICOM, an ME thesis by Serge Poplavsky.
> 
> In 1976 Murray directed the building of 50 terminals for the newly created computing facilities. 
> The first terminal laboratories were the forerunner of the computer laboratories that are now existent. 
> The initial batch of terminals were a hard wired construction, 
> while the next batch of 25 used an early version of microprocessor - the Motorola MC6802, 
> and the third terminal version used the Motorola MC6809.
> 
> The terminals were in use until the first workstations, 
> the Apollo using the Motorola MC68020 microprocessor, 
> began replacing them in 1988.
> 
> ===============
> --
> Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design 
> 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
> PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA
> 
> mailto:sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin
>