Michigan Terminal System
Encyclopedia
The Michigan Terminal System (MTS) is one of the first time-sharing
computer operating system
s. Initially developed in 1967 at the University of Michigan
for use on IBM S/360-67, S/370 and compatible mainframe computers, it was developed and used by a consortium of eight universities in the United States
, Canada
, and the United Kingdom
over a period of 33 years (1967 to 1999).
, and compatible computers can be described as a multiprogramming
, multiprocessing
, virtual memory
, time-sharing
supervisor (University of Michigan Multiprogramming Supervisor or UMMPS) that handles a number of resident, reentrant programs. Among them is a large subsystem, called MTS (Michigan Terminal System), for command interpretation, execution control, file management, and accounting. End-users interact with the computer's resources through MTS using terminal, batch, and server oriented facilities.
The name MTS refers to:
MTS was used on a production basis at 12 or 13 sites in the United States
, Canada
, the United Kingdom
, Brazil
, and possibly Yugoslavia
and at several more sites on a trial or benchmarking basis. MTS was developed and maintained by a core group of eight universities that comprised the MTS Consortium.
The University of Michigan ceased operating MTS for end-users on June 30, 1996. By that time, most services had moved to client/server-based computing systems, typically Unix for servers and various Mac, PC, and Unix flavors for clients. The University of Michigan shut down its MTS system for the last time on May 30, 1997.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
(RPI) is believed to be the last site to use MTS in a production environment. RPI retired MTS in June 1999.
Today MTS is not readily available, but still runs using IBM S/370 emulators such as Hercules
, Sim390, and FLEX-ES.
services on IBM 7090
hardware under the control of the University of Michigan Executive System
(UMES), but was interested in offering interactive services using time-sharing
. At that time the work that computers could perform was limited by their lack of real memory storage capacity. When IBM introduced its System/360
family of computers in the mid-1960s, it did not provide a solution for this limitation and within IBM there were conflicting views about the importance of and need to support time-sharing.
A paper titled Program and Addressing Structure in a Time-Sharing Environment by Bruce Arden
, Bernard Galler
, Frank Westervelt (all associate directors at UM's academic Computing Center), and Tom O'Brian building upon some basic ideas developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was published in January 1966. The paper outlined a virtual memory
architecture using dynamic address translation (DAT) that could be used to implement time-sharing.
After a year of negotiations and design studies, IBM agreed to make a one-of-a-kind version of its S/360-65 mainframe computer with dynamic address translation (DAT) features that would support virtual memory
and accommodate UM's desire to support time-sharing. The computer was dubbed the Model S/360-65M. The "M" stood for Michigan. But IBM initially decided not to supply a time-sharing operating system for the machine. Meanwhile, a number of other institutions heard about the project, including General Motors
, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory
, Princeton University
, and Carnegie Institute of Technology (later Carnegie Mellon University
). They were all intrigued by the time-sharing idea and expressed interest in ordering the modified IBM S/360 series machines. With this demonstrated interest IBM changed the computer's model number to S/360-67
and made it a supported product. With requests for over 100 new model S/360-67s IBM realized there was a market for time-sharing, and agreed to develop a new time-sharing operating system called TSS/360
(TSS stood for Time-sharing System) for delivery at roughly the same time as the first model S/360-67.
While waiting for the Model 65M to arrive, UM Computing Center personnel were able to perform early time-sharing experiments using an IBM S/360-50 that was funded by the ARPA
CONCOMP (Conversational Use of Computers) Project. The time-sharing experiment began as a "half-page of code written out on a kitchen table" combined with a small multi-programming system, LLMPS from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
, which was modified and became the UM Multi-Programming Supervisor (UMMPS) which in turn ran the MTS job program. This earliest incarnation of MTS was intended as a throw-away system used to gain experience with the new IBM S/360 hardware and which would be discarded when IBM's TSS/360
operating system became available.
Development of TSS took longer than anticipated, its delivery date was delayed, and it was not yet available when the S/360-67 (serial number 2) arrived at the Computing Center in January 1967. At this time UM had to decide whether to return the Model 67 and select another mainframe or to develop MTS as an interim system for use until TSS was ready. The decision was to continue development of MTS and the staff moved their initial development work from the Model 50 to the Model 67. TSS development was eventually canceled by IBM, then reinstated, and then canceled again. But by this time UM liked the system they had developed, it was no longer considered interim, and MTS would be used at UM and other sites for 33 years.
Several sites ran more than one MTS system: NUMAC ran two (first at Newcastle and later at Durham), Michigan ran three in the mid-1980s (UM for Maize, UB for Blue, and HG at Human Genetics), UBC ran three or four at different times (MTS-G, MTS-L, MTS-A, and MTS-I for general, library, administration, and instruction).
Each of the MTS sites made contributions to the development of MTS, sometimes by taking the lead in the design and implementation of a new feature and at other times by refining, enhancing, and critiquing work done elsewhere. Many MTS components are the work of multiple people at multiple sites.
In the early days collaboration between the MTS sites was accomplished through a combination of face-to-face site visits, phone calls, the exchange of documents and magnetic tapes by snail mail
, and informal get-togethers at SHARE
or other meetings. Later, e-mail, computer conferencing using CONFER
and *Forum, network file transfer, and e-mail attachments supplemented and eventually largely replaced the earlier methods.
The members of the MTS Consortium produced a series of 82 MTS Newsletters between 1971 and 1982 to help coordinate MTS development.
Starting at UBC in 1974 the MTS Consortium held annual MTS Workshops at one of the member sites. The workshops were informal, but included papers submitted in advance and Proceedings published after-the-fact that included session summaries. In the mid-1980s several Western Workshops were held with participation by a subset of the MTS sites (UBC, SFU, UQV, UM, and possibly RPI).
The annual workshops continued even after MTS development work began to taper off. Called simply the "community workshop", they continued until the mid-1990s to share expertise and common experiences in providing computing services, even though MTS was no longer the primary source for computing on their campuses and some had stopped running MTS entirely.
A copy of MTS was also sent to the University of Sarajevo
, Yugoslavia, though whether or not it was ever installed is not known.
INRIA, the French national institute for research in computer science and control in Grenoble, France ran MTS on a trial basis, as did the University of Waterloo
in Ontario, Canada, Southern Illinois University
, the Naval Postgraduate School
, Amdahl Corporation
, ST Systems for McGill University
Hospitals, Stanford University
, and University of Illinois in the United States, and a few other sites.
on the following computers in production, benchmarking, or trial configurations:
The University of Michigan installed and ran MTS on the first IBM S/360-67 outside of IBM (serial number 2) in 1967, the second Amdahl 470V/6 (serial number 2) in 1975, the first Amdahl 5860 (serial number 1) in 1982, and the first factory shipped IBM 3090-400 in 1986. NUMAC ran MTS on the first S/360-67 in the UK and very likely the first in Europe. The University of British Columbia (UBC) took the lead in converting MTS to run on the IBM S/370 series (an IBM S/370-168) in 1974. The University of Alberta installed the first Amdahl 470V/6 in Canada (serial number P5) in 1975.
MTS was designed to support up to four processors on the IBM S/360-67
, although IBM only produced one (simplex and half-duplex) and two (duplex) processor configurations of the Model 67. In 1984 RPI updated MTS to support up to 32 processors in the IBM S/370-XA (Extended Addressing) hardware series, although 6 processors is likely the largest configuration actually used. MTS supports the IBM Vector Facility
, available as an option on the IBM 3090 and ES/9000
systems.
In early 1967 running on the single processor IBM S/360-67 at UM without virtual memory
support, MTS was typically supporting 5 simultaneous terminal sessions and one batch job. In November 1967 after virtual memory support was added, MTS running on the same IBM S/360-67 was simultaneously supporting 50 terminal sessions and up to 5 batch jobs. In August 1968 a dual processor IBM S/360-67 replaced the single processor system, supporting roughly 70 terminal and up to 8 batch jobs. By late 1991 MTS at UM was running on an IBM ES/9000-720 supporting over 600 simultaneous terminal sessions and from 3 to 8 batch jobs.
MTS can run under VM/CMS and some MTS sites did so, but most ran MTS on native hardware without using a virtual machine.
UMMPS, the supervisor, has complete control of the hardware and manages a collection of job programs. One of the job programs is MTS, the job program with which most users interact. MTS operates as a collection of command language subsystems (CLSs). One of the CLSs allows for the execution of user programs. MTS provides a collection of system subroutines that are available to CLSs, user programs, and MTS itself. Among other things these system subroutines provide standard access to Device Support Routines (DSRs), the components that perform device dependent input/output.
The earliest versions of MTS Volume I and II had a different organization and content from the MTS volumes that followed and included some internal as well as end user documentation. The second edition from December 1967 covered:
The following MTS Volumes were published by the University of Michigan Computing Center and are available as PDFs:
Various aspects of MTS at the University of Michigan were documented in a series of Computing Center Memos (CCMemos) which were published irregularly from 1967 through 1987, numbered 2 through 924, though not necessarily in chronological order. Numbers 2 through 599 are general memos about various software and hardware; the 600 series are the Consultant's Notes series—short memos for beginning to intermediate users; the 800 series covers issues relating to the Xerox 9700 printer, text processing, and typesetting; and the 900 series covers microcomputers. There was no 700 series. In 1989 this series continued as Reference Memos with less of a focus on MTS.
A long run of newsletters targeted to end-users at the University of Michigan with the titles Computing Center News, Computing Center Newsletter, U-M Computing News, and the Information Technology Digest were published starting in 1971.
There was also introductory material presented in the User Guide, MTS User Guide, and Tutorial series, including:
MTS distributions included the updates needed to run licensed program products and other proprietary software under MTS, but not the base proprietary software itself, which had to be obtained separately from the owners. Except for IBM's Assembler H, none of the licensed programs were required to run MTS.
The last MTS distribution was D6.0 released in April 1988. It consisted of 10,003 files on six 6250 bpi magnetic tapes. After 1988 distribution of MTS components was done in an ad hoc fashion using network file transfer.
To allow new sites to get started from scratch two additional magnetic tapes were made available, an IPLable boot tape that contained a minimalist version of MTS plus the DASDI
and DISKCOPY utilities that could be used to initialize and restore a one disk pack starter version of MTS from the second magnetic tape. In the earliest days of MTS the standalone TSS
DASDI and DUMP/RESTORE utilities rather than MTS itself were used to create the one disk starter system.
There were also less formal redistributions where individual sites would send magnetic tapes containing new or updated work to a coordinating site. That site would copy the material to a common magnetic tape (RD1, RD2, ...), and send copies of the tape out to all of the sites. Sadly the contents of most the redistribution tapes seem to have been lost.
In its earliest days MTS was made available for free without the need for a license to sites that were interested in running MTS and which seemed to have the knowledgeable staff required to support it.
In the mid-1980s licensing arrangements were formalized with the University of Michigan acting as agent for and granting licenses on behalf of the MTS Consortium. MTS licenses were available to academic organizations for an annual fee of $5,000, to other non-profit organizations for $10,000, and to commercial organizations for $25,000. The license restricted MTS from being used to provide commercial computing services. The licensees received a copy of the full set of MTS distribution tapes, any incremental distributions prepared during the year, written installation instructions, two copies of the current user documentation, and a very limited amount of assistance.
Only a few organizations licensed MTS. Several licensed MTS in order to run a single program such as CONFER. The fees collected were used to offset some of the common expenses of the MTS Consortium.
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
computer operating system
Operating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s. Initially developed in 1967 at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
for use on IBM S/360-67, S/370 and compatible mainframe computers, it was developed and used by a consortium of eight universities in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
over a period of 33 years (1967 to 1999).
Overview
The software developed by the staff of the University of Michigan's academic Computing Center for the operation of the IBM S/360-67, S/370System/360
The IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family first announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and sold between 1964 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific...
, and compatible computers can be described as a multiprogramming
Multiprogramming
Computer multiprogramming is the allocation of a computer system and its resources to more than one concurrent application, job or user ....
, multiprocessing
Multiprocessing
Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor and/or the ability to allocate tasks between them...
, virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
, time-sharing
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
supervisor (University of Michigan Multiprogramming Supervisor or UMMPS) that handles a number of resident, reentrant programs. Among them is a large subsystem, called MTS (Michigan Terminal System), for command interpretation, execution control, file management, and accounting. End-users interact with the computer's resources through MTS using terminal, batch, and server oriented facilities.
The name MTS refers to:
- MTS the UMMPS Job Program with which most end-users interact;
- MTS the software system, including UMMPS, the MTS and other Job Programs, Command Language Subsystems (CLSs), public files (programs), and documentation; and
- MTS the time-sharing service offered at a particular site, including the MTS software system, the hardware used to run MTS, the staff that supported MTS and assisted end-users, and the associated administrative policies and procedures.
MTS was used on a production basis at 12 or 13 sites in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and possibly Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
and at several more sites on a trial or benchmarking basis. MTS was developed and maintained by a core group of eight universities that comprised the MTS Consortium.
The University of Michigan ceased operating MTS for end-users on June 30, 1996. By that time, most services had moved to client/server-based computing systems, typically Unix for servers and various Mac, PC, and Unix flavors for clients. The University of Michigan shut down its MTS system for the last time on May 30, 1997.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
(RPI) is believed to be the last site to use MTS in a production environment. RPI retired MTS in June 1999.
Today MTS is not readily available, but still runs using IBM S/370 emulators such as Hercules
Hercules emulator
Hercules is a computer emulator which allows software designed for IBM mainframe computers and for plug-compatible mainframes to run on other types of computer hardware: notably on low-cost personal computers...
, Sim390, and FLEX-ES.
Origins
In the mid-1960s, the University of Michigan was providing batch processingBatch processing
Batch processing is execution of a series of programs on a computer without manual intervention.Batch jobs are set up so they can be run to completion without manual intervention, so all input data is preselected through scripts or command-line parameters...
services on IBM 7090
IBM 7090
The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation...
hardware under the control of the University of Michigan Executive System
University of Michigan Executive System
The University of Michigan Executive System, or UMES, a batch operating system developed at the University of Michigan in 1958, was widely used at many universities...
(UMES), but was interested in offering interactive services using time-sharing
Time-sharing
Time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
. At that time the work that computers could perform was limited by their lack of real memory storage capacity. When IBM introduced its System/360
System/360
The IBM System/360 was a mainframe computer system family first announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and sold between 1964 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover the complete range of applications, from small to large, both commercial and scientific...
family of computers in the mid-1960s, it did not provide a solution for this limitation and within IBM there were conflicting views about the importance of and need to support time-sharing.
A paper titled Program and Addressing Structure in a Time-Sharing Environment by Bruce Arden
Bruce Arden
Bruce W. Arden is an American computer scientist.He graduated from Purdue University with a BS in 1949 and started his computing career in 1950 with the wiring and programming of IBM's hybrid at the Allison Division of General Motors...
, Bernard Galler
Bernard Galler
Bernard A. Galler was an American mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Michigan who was involved in the development of large-scale operating systems and computer languages including the MAD programming language and the Michigan Terminal System operating system.He attended the...
, Frank Westervelt (all associate directors at UM's academic Computing Center), and Tom O'Brian building upon some basic ideas developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was published in January 1966. The paper outlined a virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
architecture using dynamic address translation (DAT) that could be used to implement time-sharing.
After a year of negotiations and design studies, IBM agreed to make a one-of-a-kind version of its S/360-65 mainframe computer with dynamic address translation (DAT) features that would support virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
and accommodate UM's desire to support time-sharing. The computer was dubbed the Model S/360-65M. The "M" stood for Michigan. But IBM initially decided not to supply a time-sharing operating system for the machine. Meanwhile, a number of other institutions heard about the project, including General Motors
General Motors
General Motors Company , commonly known as GM, formerly incorporated as General Motors Corporation, is an American multinational automotive corporation headquartered in Detroit, Michigan and the world's second-largest automaker in 2010...
, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
's (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory
Lincoln Laboratory
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as...
, Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, and Carnegie Institute of Technology (later Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States....
). They were all intrigued by the time-sharing idea and expressed interest in ordering the modified IBM S/360 series machines. With this demonstrated interest IBM changed the computer's model number to S/360-67
IBM System/360 Model 67
The IBM System/360 Model 67 was an important IBM mainframe model in the late 1960s. Unlike the rest of the S/360 series, it included features to facilitate time-sharing applications, notably a DAT box to support virtual memory and 32-bit addressing...
and made it a supported product. With requests for over 100 new model S/360-67s IBM realized there was a market for time-sharing, and agreed to develop a new time-sharing operating system called TSS/360
TSS/360
The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 was an early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of customers in 1967, it was never officially released as a supported product...
(TSS stood for Time-sharing System) for delivery at roughly the same time as the first model S/360-67.
While waiting for the Model 65M to arrive, UM Computing Center personnel were able to perform early time-sharing experiments using an IBM S/360-50 that was funded by the ARPA
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military...
CONCOMP (Conversational Use of Computers) Project. The time-sharing experiment began as a "half-page of code written out on a kitchen table" combined with a small multi-programming system, LLMPS from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory
Lincoln Laboratory
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and development activities focus on long-term technology development as well as...
, which was modified and became the UM Multi-Programming Supervisor (UMMPS) which in turn ran the MTS job program. This earliest incarnation of MTS was intended as a throw-away system used to gain experience with the new IBM S/360 hardware and which would be discarded when IBM's TSS/360
TSS/360
The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 was an early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of customers in 1967, it was never officially released as a supported product...
operating system became available.
Development of TSS took longer than anticipated, its delivery date was delayed, and it was not yet available when the S/360-67 (serial number 2) arrived at the Computing Center in January 1967. At this time UM had to decide whether to return the Model 67 and select another mainframe or to develop MTS as an interim system for use until TSS was ready. The decision was to continue development of MTS and the staff moved their initial development work from the Model 50 to the Model 67. TSS development was eventually canceled by IBM, then reinstated, and then canceled again. But by this time UM liked the system they had developed, it was no longer considered interim, and MTS would be used at UM and other sites for 33 years.
MTS Consortium
MTS was developed, maintained, and used by a consortium of eight universities in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom:- University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
(UM), 1967 to 1997, US - University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(UBC), 1968 to 1998, Canada - NUMAC (University of Newcastle upon TyneUniversity of Newcastle upon TyneNewcastle University is a major research-intensive university located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England. It was established as a School of Medicine and Surgery in 1834 and became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne by an Act of Parliament in August 1963. Newcastle University is...
, University of Durham, and Newcastle PolytechnicNorthumbria UniversityNorthumbria University is an academic institution located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the North East of England. It is a member of the University Alliance.- History :...
), 1969 to 1992, United Kingdom - University of AlbertaUniversity of AlbertaThe University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
(UQV), 1971 to 1994, Canada - Wayne State UniversityWayne State UniversityWayne State University is a public research university located in Detroit, Michigan, United States, in the city's Midtown Cultural Center Historic District. Founded in 1868, WSU consists of 13 schools and colleges offering more than 400 major subject areas to over 32,000 graduate and...
(WSU), 1971 to 1998, US - Rensselaer Polytechnic InstituteRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteStephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
(RPI), 1976 to 1999, US - Simon Fraser UniversitySimon Fraser UniversitySimon Fraser University is a Canadian public research university in British Columbia with its main campus on Burnaby Mountain in Burnaby, and satellite campuses in Vancouver and Surrey. The main campus in Burnaby, located from downtown Vancouver, was established in 1965 and has more than 34,000...
(SFU), 1977 to 1992, Canada - University of Durham (NUMAC), 1982 to 1992, United Kingdom
Several sites ran more than one MTS system: NUMAC ran two (first at Newcastle and later at Durham), Michigan ran three in the mid-1980s (UM for Maize, UB for Blue, and HG at Human Genetics), UBC ran three or four at different times (MTS-G, MTS-L, MTS-A, and MTS-I for general, library, administration, and instruction).
Each of the MTS sites made contributions to the development of MTS, sometimes by taking the lead in the design and implementation of a new feature and at other times by refining, enhancing, and critiquing work done elsewhere. Many MTS components are the work of multiple people at multiple sites.
In the early days collaboration between the MTS sites was accomplished through a combination of face-to-face site visits, phone calls, the exchange of documents and magnetic tapes by snail mail
Snail mail
Snail mail or smail is a dysphemistic retronym—named after the snail with its slow speed—used to refer to letters and missives carried by conventional postal delivery services. The phrase refers to the lag-time between dispatch of a letter and its receipt, versus the virtually instantaneous...
, and informal get-togethers at SHARE
SHARE (computing)
SHARE Inc. is a volunteer-run user group for IBM mainframe computers that was founded in 1955 by Los Angeles-area IBM 701 users. It evolved into a forum for exchanging technical information about programming languages, operating systems, database systems, and user experiences for enterprise users...
or other meetings. Later, e-mail, computer conferencing using CONFER
CONFER (software)
CONFER is one of the first and one of the most sophisticated computer conferencing systems. It was developed in 1975 at the University of Michigan by then graduate student Robert Parnes. The CONFER system continued to be a widely used communication tool until 1999...
and *Forum, network file transfer, and e-mail attachments supplemented and eventually largely replaced the earlier methods.
The members of the MTS Consortium produced a series of 82 MTS Newsletters between 1971 and 1982 to help coordinate MTS development.
Starting at UBC in 1974 the MTS Consortium held annual MTS Workshops at one of the member sites. The workshops were informal, but included papers submitted in advance and Proceedings published after-the-fact that included session summaries. In the mid-1980s several Western Workshops were held with participation by a subset of the MTS sites (UBC, SFU, UQV, UM, and possibly RPI).
The annual workshops continued even after MTS development work began to taper off. Called simply the "community workshop", they continued until the mid-1990s to share expertise and common experiences in providing computing services, even though MTS was no longer the primary source for computing on their campuses and some had stopped running MTS entirely.
MTS sites
In addition to the eight MTS Consortium sites that were involved in its development, MTS was run at a number of other sites, including:- Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas FisicasCentro Brasileiro de Pesquisas FísicasThe Brazilian Center for Physics Research is a physics research center sponsored by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development , linked to the Ministry of Science and Technology. CBPF was founded in 1949 from a joint effort of Cesar Lattes, José Leite Lopes, and...
(CBPF) within the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoConselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e TecnológicoThe Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico is an organization of the Brazilian federal government under the Ministry of Science and Technology, dedicated to the promotion of scientific and technological research and to the formation of human resources for research in the...
(CNPq), Brazil - Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa AgropecuáriaEmpresa Brasileira de Pesquisa AgropecuáriaThe Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária is a state-owned company affiliated with the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, which is devoted to pure and applied research on agriculture. EMBRAPA conducts agricultural research on many topics including animal agriculture and crops...
(EMBRAPA), Brazil - Hewlett-PackardHewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(HP), US - Michigan State UniversityMichigan State UniversityMichigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
(MSU), US - Goddard Space Flight CenterGoddard Space Flight CenterThe Goddard Space Flight Center is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA. GSFC,...
, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), US
A copy of MTS was also sent to the University of Sarajevo
University of Sarajevo
The University of Sarajevo is the first university in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was originally established in 1531 as a Madrasah or Islamic Law college, with a modern university being established and expanded on top of that in 1949. Today, with 23 faculties and around 55,000 enrolled students, it...
, Yugoslavia, though whether or not it was ever installed is not known.
INRIA, the French national institute for research in computer science and control in Grenoble, France ran MTS on a trial basis, as did the University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
in Ontario, Canada, Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University
Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...
, the Naval Postgraduate School
Naval Postgraduate School
The Naval Postgraduate School is an accredited research university operated by the United States Navy. Located in Monterey, California, it grants master's degrees, Engineer's degrees and doctoral degrees...
, Amdahl Corporation
Amdahl Corporation
Amdahl Corporation is an information technology company which specializes in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products. Founded in 1970 by Dr. Gene Amdahl, a former IBM employee, it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu since 1997...
, ST Systems for McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
Hospitals, Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, and University of Illinois in the United States, and a few other sites.
Hardware used
In theory MTS will run on the IBM S/360-67, any of the IBM S/370 series, and its successors. MTS has been runon the following computers in production, benchmarking, or trial configurations:
- IBM: S/360-67IBM System/360 Model 67The IBM System/360 Model 67 was an important IBM mainframe model in the late 1960s. Unlike the rest of the S/360 series, it included features to facilitate time-sharing applications, notably a DAT box to support virtual memory and 32-bit addressing...
, S/370-148, S/370-168, 3033U, 4341, 4361, 4381, 3081D, 3081GX, 3083B, 3090-200, 3090-400, 3090-600, and ES/9000-720 - Amdahl: 470V/6, 470V/7, 470V/8, 5860, 5870, 5990Amdahl-People:*Douglas K. Amdahl*Gene Amdahl, formulator of Amdahl's law of parallel computing and founder of Amdahl Corporation-Companies:*Amdahl Corporation, a manufacturer of IBM-mainframe-compatible computers...
- Hitachi: NAS 9060HitachiHitachi is a multinational corporation specializing in high-technology.Hitachi may also refer to:*Hitachi, Ibaraki, Japan*Hitachi province, former province of Japan*Prince Hitachi and Princess Hitachi, members of the Japanese imperial family...
- Various S/370 emulators
The University of Michigan installed and ran MTS on the first IBM S/360-67 outside of IBM (serial number 2) in 1967, the second Amdahl 470V/6 (serial number 2) in 1975, the first Amdahl 5860 (serial number 1) in 1982, and the first factory shipped IBM 3090-400 in 1986. NUMAC ran MTS on the first S/360-67 in the UK and very likely the first in Europe. The University of British Columbia (UBC) took the lead in converting MTS to run on the IBM S/370 series (an IBM S/370-168) in 1974. The University of Alberta installed the first Amdahl 470V/6 in Canada (serial number P5) in 1975.
MTS was designed to support up to four processors on the IBM S/360-67
IBM System/360 Model 67
The IBM System/360 Model 67 was an important IBM mainframe model in the late 1960s. Unlike the rest of the S/360 series, it included features to facilitate time-sharing applications, notably a DAT box to support virtual memory and 32-bit addressing...
, although IBM only produced one (simplex and half-duplex) and two (duplex) processor configurations of the Model 67. In 1984 RPI updated MTS to support up to 32 processors in the IBM S/370-XA (Extended Addressing) hardware series, although 6 processors is likely the largest configuration actually used. MTS supports the IBM Vector Facility
Vector processor
A vector processor, or array processor, is a central processing unit that implements an instruction set containing instructions that operate on one-dimensional arrays of data called vectors. This is in contrast to a scalar processor, whose instructions operate on single data items...
, available as an option on the IBM 3090 and ES/9000
IBM ES/9000 family
IBM ES/9000 is the family of IBM mainframes, introduced in 1990, as the first implementations of the ESA/390 architecture, and developed to accommodate VSE/ESA, VM/ESA and MVS/ESA operating systems. New hardware features included implementation of ESCON fiber optic channels...
systems.
In early 1967 running on the single processor IBM S/360-67 at UM without virtual memory
Virtual memory
In computing, virtual memory is a memory management technique developed for multitasking kernels. This technique virtualizes a computer architecture's various forms of computer data storage , allowing a program to be designed as though there is only one kind of memory, "virtual" memory, which...
support, MTS was typically supporting 5 simultaneous terminal sessions and one batch job. In November 1967 after virtual memory support was added, MTS running on the same IBM S/360-67 was simultaneously supporting 50 terminal sessions and up to 5 batch jobs. In August 1968 a dual processor IBM S/360-67 replaced the single processor system, supporting roughly 70 terminal and up to 8 batch jobs. By late 1991 MTS at UM was running on an IBM ES/9000-720 supporting over 600 simultaneous terminal sessions and from 3 to 8 batch jobs.
MTS can run under VM/CMS and some MTS sites did so, but most ran MTS on native hardware without using a virtual machine.
Features
Some of the notable features of MTS include:- The use of Virtual memory and Data Address Translation (DAT) on the IBM S/360-67 in 1967.
- The use of multiprocessing on an IBM S/360-67 with two CPUs in 1968.
- Programs with access to (for the time) very large virtual address spaces.
- A straight forward command language that is the same for both terminal and batch jobs.
- A strong device independent input/output model that allows the same commands and programs to access terminals, disk files, printers, magnetic and paper tapes, card readers and punches, floppy disks, network hosts, and an audio response unit (ARU).
- A file systemFile systemA file system is a means to organize data expected to be retained after a program terminates by providing procedures to store, retrieve and update data, as well as manage the available space on the device which contain it. A file system organizes data in an efficient manner and is tuned to the...
with support for "line files" where the line numbers and length of individual lines are stored as metadataMetadataThe term metadata is an ambiguous term which is used for two fundamentally different concepts . Although the expression "data about data" is often used, it does not apply to both in the same way. Structural metadata, the design and specification of data structures, cannot be about data, because at...
separate from the data contents of the line and the ability to read, insert, replace, and delete individual lines anywhere in the file without the need to read or write the entire file. - A file editor ($EDIT) with both command line and "visual" interfaces and pattern matching based on SNOBOL4 patterns.
- The ability to share files in controlled ways (read, write-change, write-expand, destroy, permit).
- The ability to permit files, not just to other user IDs and projects (aka groups), but to specific commands or programs and combinations of user IDs, projects, commands and programs.
- The ability for multiple users to manage simultaneous access to files with the ability to implicitly and explicitly lock and unlock files and to detect deadlocks.
- Network host to host access from commands and programs as well as access to or from remote network printers, card readers and punches.
- An e-mail system ($MESSAGE) that supports local and network mail with the ability to send to groups, to recall messages that haven't already been read, to add recipients to messages after they have been sent, and to display a history of messages in an e-mail chain without the need to include the text from older messages in each new message.
- The ability to access tapes remotely, and to handle data sets that extend across multiple tapes efficiently.
- The availability of a rich collection of well-documented subroutine libraries.
- The ability for multiple users to quickly load and use a collection of common reentrant subroutines, which are available in shared virtual memory.
- The availability of compilers, assemblers, and a Symbolic Debugging System (SDS) that allow users to debug programs written in high-level languages such as FORTRAN, Pascal, PL/I, ... as well as in assembly language.
- A strong protection model that uses the virtual memory hardware and the S/360 and S/370 hardware's supervisor and problem states and via software divides problem state execution into system (privileged or unprotected) and user (protected or unprivileged) modes. Relatively little code runs in supervisor state. For example Device Support Routines (DSRs, aka device drivers) are not part of the supervisor and run in system mode in problem state rather than in supervisor state.
- A simulated Branch on Program Interrupt (BPI) instruction.
Programs developed for MTS
The following are some of the notable programs developed for MTS:- Awit, a computer chess program written in Algol W by Tony Marsland.
- Chaos, one of the leading computer chess programs from 1973 through 1985. Written in FORTRAN Chaos started at RCA Systems Programming division in Cinnaminson, NJ with Fred Swartz and Victor Berman as first authors, Mike Alexander and others joined the team later and moved development to MTS at the UM Computing Center.
- CONFER IICONFER (software)CONFER is one of the first and one of the most sophisticated computer conferencing systems. It was developed in 1975 at the University of Michigan by then graduate student Robert Parnes. The CONFER system continued to be a widely used communication tool until 1999...
, one of the first computer conferencing systems. CONFER was developed by Robert Parnes starting in 1975 while he was a graduate student and with support from the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT). - FakeOS, a simulator that allows object modules containing OS/360 SVCs, control blocks, and references to OS/360 access methods to execute under MTS.
- Forum, a computer conferencing system developed by staff of the Computing Centre at the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(UBC). - GOMMAD programming languageMAD is a programming language and compiler for the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709, IBM 7090, UNIVAC 1107, UNIVAC 1108, Philco 210-211, and eventually the IBM S/370 mainframe computers. Developed in 1959 at the University of Michigan by Bernard Galler, Bruce Arden and Robert M. Graham, MAD is a...
(Good Old Mad), a compiler for the 7090 MAD languageMAD programming languageMAD is a programming language and compiler for the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709, IBM 7090, UNIVAC 1107, UNIVAC 1108, Philco 210-211, and eventually the IBM S/370 mainframe computers. Developed in 1959 at the University of Michigan by Bernard Galler, Bruce Arden and Robert M. Graham, MAD is a...
converted to run under MTS by Don Boettner of the UM's Computing Center. - IF (Interactive Fortran), developed by the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
Computing Centre.
- MicroMicro DBMSMicro was one of the earliest set theoretic/relational database management systems. Its major underpinnings and algorithms were based on the set-theoretic model of David Childs of the University of Michigan's CONCOMP Project. It was also influenced to a lesser extent by the relational model made...
, one of the earliest relational database management systems implemented in 1970 at the University of Michigan. - MIDAS (Michigan Interactive Data Analysis System), an interactive statistical analysis package developed by Dan Fox and others at UM's Statistical Research Laboratory.
- Plus, a programming language developed by Alan Ballard and Paul Whaley of the Computing Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
- TAXIR, an information storage and retrieval system designed for taxonomic data at the University of Colorado by David Rogers, Henry Fleming, Robert Brill, and George Estabrook and ported to MTS and enhanced by Brill at the University of Michigan.
- Textform, a text-processing program developed at the University of Alberta's Computing Centre to support device independent output to a wide range of devices from line printers, to the Xerox 9700 page printers, to advanced phototypesetting equipment using fixed width and proportional fonts.
- VSS, a simulator developed at the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
's Computing Centre that makes it possible to run OS/MFT, OS/MVT, VS1, and MVS application programs under MTS.
Programs that run under MTS
The following are some of the notable programs ported to MTS from other systems:- APL VS, IBM's APL VS compiler program product.
- ASMH, a version of IBM's 370 assembler with enhancements from SLAC and MTS.
- COBOL VS, IBM's COBOL VS compiler program product.
- CSMP, IBM's Continuous System Modeling Program.
- Fortran, the G, H, and VS compilers from IBM.
- GASP, a FORTRAN based discrete simulation package.
- MPS, IBM's Mathematical Programming System/360.
- NASTRANNastranNASTRAN is a finite element analysis program that was originally developed for NASA in the late 1960s under United States government funding for the Aerospace industry. The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation was one of the principal and original developers of the public domain NASTRAN code...
, finite element analysis program originally developed by and for NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
. - OSIRIS (Organized Set of Integrated Routines for Investigations with Statistics), a collection of statistical analysis programs developed at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research (ISR).
- PascalSB, the Stony Brook Pascal compiler.
- Pascal/SLAC, the Pascal compiler from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.
- Pascal VS, IBM's Pascal VS compiler program product.
- PL/I Optimizing Compiler from IBM.
- REDUCE2, an algebraic language implemented in LISPLispA lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...
. - SAS (Statistical Analysis System).
- SHAZAMSHAZAM (software)SHAZAM is a comprehensive econometrics and statistics package for estimating, testing, simulating and forecasting many types of econometrics and statistical models...
, a package for estimating, testing, simulating and forecasting econometrics and statistical models - SIMSCRIPT II.5SIMSCRIPT II.5SIMSCRIPT II.5 is the latest incarnation of SIMSCRIPT, one of the oldest computer simulation languages. Although military contractor CACI released it in 1971, it still enjoys wide use in large-scale military and air-traffic control simulations....
, a free-form, English-like, general-purpose discrete event simulation language. - SPIRESSpiresSpires may refer to:* SPIRES, a database for publications in High-Energy Physics* Speyer , a city in Germany* The Spires, a commercial conference centre, operated out of Church House, Belfast by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland...
(Stanford Public Information Retrieval System), a database management system. - SPSSSPSSSPSS is a computer program used for survey authoring and deployment , data mining , text analytics, statistical analysis, and collaboration and deployment ....
(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) - TELL-A-GRAPH, a proprietary conversational graphics program from ISSCO of San Diego, CA.
- TEX, Don KnuthDonald KnuthDonald Ervin Knuth is a computer scientist and Professor Emeritus at Stanford University.He is the author of the seminal multi-volume work The Art of Computer Programming. Knuth has been called the "father" of the analysis of algorithms...
's TeXTeXTeX is a typesetting system designed and mostly written by Donald Knuth and released in 1978. Within the typesetting system, its name is formatted as ....
text-processing program. - TROLL, econometric modeling and statistical analysis
Programming languages available under MTS
MTS supports a rich set of programming languages, some developed for MTS and others ported from other systems:- ALGOL WALGOL WALGOL W is a programming language. It was based on a proposal for ALGOL X by Niklaus Wirth and C. A. R. Hoare as a successor to ALGOL 60 in IFIP Working Group 2.1. When the committee decided that the proposal was not a sufficient advance over ALGOL 60, the proposal was published as A contribution...
- ALGOL 68ALGOL 68ALGOL 68 isan imperative computerprogramming language that was conceived as a successor to theALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a...
- APL (IBM's VS APL)
- AssemblerAssembly languageAn assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
(360/370: G, H, Assist; DEC PDP-11) - BASICBASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
(BASICUM, WBASIC) - BCPLBCPLBCPL is a procedural, imperative, and structured computer programming language designed by Martin Richards of the University of Cambridge in 1966.- Design :...
(Basic Combined Programming Language) - CC (programming language)C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
- COBOLCOBOLCOBOL is one of the oldest programming languages. Its name is an acronym for COmmon Business-Oriented Language, defining its primary domain in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments....
(ANSI, VS, WATBOLWatcomWatcom International Corporation was founded in 1981 by three former employees of the Computer Systems Group at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada...
) - EXPL (Extended XPLXPLXPL is a dialect of the PL/I programming language, developed in 1967, used for the development of compilers for computer languages. It was designed and implemented by a team with , James J. Horning, and at Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz...
) - FORTRANFortranFortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
(G, H, VS, WATFOR, WATFIV) - GASP (A FORTRAN-based discrete simulation language)
- GOM (Good Old Mad, the 7090IBM 7090The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation...
Michigan Algorithm Decoder ported to the S/370 architecture) - GPSS/HGPSSGeneral Purpose Simulation System is a discrete time simulation language, where a simulation clock advances in discrete steps...
(General Purpose Simulation System V) - ICON
- IF (Interactive FORTRAN, an incremental compiler and environment for executing and debugging FORTRANFortranFortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...
programs, developed at the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
) - MAD/I (an expanded version of the Michigan Algorithm Decoder for the IBM S/360 architecture that is not compatible with the original 7090IBM 7090The IBM 7090 was a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computers and was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 was the third member of the IBM 700/7000 series scientific computers. The first 7090 installation...
version of MAD, see also GOM above)
- MPS, IBM's Mathematical Programming System/360
- MTS LISPLispA lisp is a speech impediment, historically also known as sigmatism. Stereotypically, people with a lisp are unable to pronounce sibilants , and replace them with interdentals , though there are actually several kinds of lisp...
1.5 (a new implementation of LISP 1.5 developed at the UM's Mental Health Research InstituteMental Health Research Institute (Michigan)The Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience Institute at the University of Michigan is an interdisciplinary research institute, which played a key role in the development of general systems theory...
, MHRI) - PascalPascal (programming language)Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...
(VS, JB) - PIL, PIL/2 (Pitt Interpretive Language)
- PL/IPL/IPL/I is a procedural, imperative computer programming language designed for scientific, engineering, business and systems programming applications...
(F and OPT from IBM, PL/C from Cornell UniversityCornell UniversityCornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
) - PL/MPL/MThe PL/M programming languageis a high-level language developed byGary Kildall in 1972 for Intel for its microprocessors....
- PL360PL360PL360 is a programming language designed by Niklaus Wirth for the IBM System/360 computer. It provides facilities for specifying exact machine language instructions and registers similar to assembly language, but also provides features commonly found in high-level languages, such as complex...
- PlusPlus (programming language)Plus is a "Pascal-like" system implementation language from the University of British Columbia , Canada, based on the SUE system language developed at the University of Toronto, circa 1971.- Description :...
(A "Pascal-like" system implementation language from the University of British ColumbiaUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
(UBC) based on the SUE system language developed at the University of Toronto, circa 1971) - PrologPrologProlog is a general purpose logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics.Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is declarative: the program logic is expressed in terms of...
- SimulaSimulaSimula is a name for two programming languages, Simula I and Simula 67, developed in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo, by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard...
- SUE
- SNOBOL4 (String Oriented Symbolic Language)
- SPITBOL (Speedy Implementation of SNOBOLSNOBOLSNOBOL is a generic name for the computer programming languages developed between 1962 and 1967 at AT&T Bell Laboratories by David J. Farber, Ralph E. Griswold and Ivan P. Polonsky, culminating in SNOBOL4...
) - UMIST (University of Michigan Interpretive String Translator, based on TRAC)
System architecture
| State | Mode | VM | Interrupts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| User programs | problem | user | on | on |
| Command Language Subsystems (CLSs), Device Support Routines (DSRs), System Subroutines |
system | |||
| Job programs (MTS, PDP, DMGR, RM or HASP, ...) | on or off | |||
| Supervisor (UMMPS) | supervisor | n/a | off | off |
| S/360-67 or S/370 hardware | ||||
UMMPS, the supervisor, has complete control of the hardware and manages a collection of job programs. One of the job programs is MTS, the job program with which most users interact. MTS operates as a collection of command language subsystems (CLSs). One of the CLSs allows for the execution of user programs. MTS provides a collection of system subroutines that are available to CLSs, user programs, and MTS itself. Among other things these system subroutines provide standard access to Device Support Routines (DSRs), the components that perform device dependent input/output.
Manuals and documentation
The lists that follow are quite University of Michigan centric. Most other MTS sites used some of this material, but they also produced their own manuals, memos, reports, and newsletters tailored to the needs of their site.End-user documentation
The manual series MTS: The Michigan Terminal System, was published from 1967 through 1991, in volumes 1 through 23, which were updated and reissued irregularly. Initial releases of the volumes did not always occur in numeric order and volumes occasionally changed names when they were updated or republished. In general, the higher the number, the more specialized the volume.The earliest versions of MTS Volume I and II had a different organization and content from the MTS volumes that followed and included some internal as well as end user documentation. The second edition from December 1967 covered:
- MTS Volume I: Introduction; Concepts and facilities; Calling conventions; Batch, Terminal, Tape, and Data Concentrator user's guides; Description of UMMPS and MTS; Files and devices; Command language; User Programs; Subroutine and macro library descriptions; Public or library file descriptions; and Internal specifications: Dynamic loader (UMLOAD), File and Device Management (DSRI prefix and postfix), Device Support Routines (DSRs), and File routines
- MTS Volume II: Language processor descriptions: F-level assembler; FORTRAN G; IOH/360; PIL; SNOBOL4; UMIST; WATFOR; and 8ASS (PDP-8 assembler)
The following MTS Volumes were published by the University of Michigan Computing Center and are available as PDFs:
- MTS Volume 1: The Michigan Terminal System, 1991
- MTS Volume 2: Public File Descriptions, 1990
- MTS Volume 3: Subroutine and Macro Descriptions, 1989
- MTS Volume 4: Terminals and Networks in MTS, 1988 (earlier Terminals and Tapes)
- MTS Volume 5: System Services, 1985
- MTS Volume 6: FORTRAN in MTS, 1988
- MTS Volume 7: PL/I in MTS, 1985
- MTS Volume 8: LISP and SLIP in MTS, 1983
- MTS Volume 9: SNOBOL4 in MTS, 1983
- MTS Volume 10: BASIC in MTS, 1980
- MTS Volume 11: Plot Description System, 1985
- MTS Volume 12: PIL/2 in MTS, 1974
- MTS Volume 13: The Symbolic Debugging System, 1985 (earlier Data Concentrator User's Guide)
- MTS Volume 14: 360/370 Assemblers in MTS, 1986
- MTS Volume 15: FORMAT and TEXT360, 1988
- MTS Volume 16: ALGOL W in MTS, 1980
- MTS Volume 17: Integrated Graphics System, 1984
- MTS Volume 18: MTS File Editor, 1988
- MTS Volume 19: Tapes and Floppy Disks, 1993
- MTS Volume 20: PASCAL in MTS, 1989
- MTS Volume 21: MTS Command Extensions and Macros, 1991
- MTS Volume 22: Utilisp in MTS, 1988
- MTS Volume 23: Messaging and Conferencing in MTS, 1991
- MTS Reference Summary, a ~60 page, 3" x 7.5", pocket guide to MTS, Computing Center, University of Michigan
- The Taxir primer : MTS version, Brill, Robert C., Computing Center, University of Michigan
- Fundamental Use of the Michigan Terminal System, Thomas J. Schriber, 5th Edition (revised), Ulrich's Books, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI, 1983, 376 pp.
- Digital computing, FORTRAN IV, WATFIV, and MTS (with *FTN and *WATFIV), Brice Carnahan and James O Wilkes, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1968–1979, 1976 538 p.
- Documentation for MIDAS, Michigan Interactive Data Analysis System, Statistical Research Laboratory, University of Michigan
- OSIRIS III MTS Supplement, Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan
Various aspects of MTS at the University of Michigan were documented in a series of Computing Center Memos (CCMemos) which were published irregularly from 1967 through 1987, numbered 2 through 924, though not necessarily in chronological order. Numbers 2 through 599 are general memos about various software and hardware; the 600 series are the Consultant's Notes series—short memos for beginning to intermediate users; the 800 series covers issues relating to the Xerox 9700 printer, text processing, and typesetting; and the 900 series covers microcomputers. There was no 700 series. In 1989 this series continued as Reference Memos with less of a focus on MTS.
A long run of newsletters targeted to end-users at the University of Michigan with the titles Computing Center News, Computing Center Newsletter, U-M Computing News, and the Information Technology Digest were published starting in 1971.
There was also introductory material presented in the User Guide, MTS User Guide, and Tutorial series, including:
- Getting connected—Introduction to Terminals and Microcomputers
- Introduction to the Computing Center
- Introduction to Computing Center services
- Introduction to Database Management Systems on MTS
- Introduction to FORMAT
- Introduction to Magnetic Tapes
- Introduction to MTS
- Introduction to the MTS File Editor
- Introduction to Programming and Debugging in MTS
- Introduction to Terminals
- Introduction to Terminals and Microcomputers
Internals documentation
The following materials were not widely distributed, but were included in MTS Distributions:- MTS Operators Manual
- MTS Message Manual
- MTS Volume n: Systems Edition
- MTS Volume 99: Internals Documentation
- Supervisor Call Descriptions
- Disk Disaster Recovery Procedures
- A series of lectures describing the architecture and internal organization of the Michigan Terminal System given by Mike Alexander, Don Boettner, Jim Hamilton, and Doug Smith (4 audio tapes, lecture notes, and transcriptions)
Distribution
The University of Michigan released MTS on magnetic tape on an irregular basis. There were full and partial distributions, where full distributions (D1.0, D2.0, ...) included all of the MTS components and partial distributions (D1.1, D1.2, D2.1, D2.2, ...) included just the components that had changed since the last full or partial distribution.MTS distributions included the updates needed to run licensed program products and other proprietary software under MTS, but not the base proprietary software itself, which had to be obtained separately from the owners. Except for IBM's Assembler H, none of the licensed programs were required to run MTS.
The last MTS distribution was D6.0 released in April 1988. It consisted of 10,003 files on six 6250 bpi magnetic tapes. After 1988 distribution of MTS components was done in an ad hoc fashion using network file transfer.
To allow new sites to get started from scratch two additional magnetic tapes were made available, an IPLable boot tape that contained a minimalist version of MTS plus the DASDI
Direct access storage device
In mainframe computers and some minicomputers, a direct access storage device, or DASD , is any secondary storage device which has relatively low access time relative to its capacity....
and DISKCOPY utilities that could be used to initialize and restore a one disk pack starter version of MTS from the second magnetic tape. In the earliest days of MTS the standalone TSS
TSS/360
The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 was an early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of customers in 1967, it was never officially released as a supported product...
DASDI and DUMP/RESTORE utilities rather than MTS itself were used to create the one disk starter system.
There were also less formal redistributions where individual sites would send magnetic tapes containing new or updated work to a coordinating site. That site would copy the material to a common magnetic tape (RD1, RD2, ...), and send copies of the tape out to all of the sites. Sadly the contents of most the redistribution tapes seem to have been lost.
Licensing
MTS is no longer available for license.In its earliest days MTS was made available for free without the need for a license to sites that were interested in running MTS and which seemed to have the knowledgeable staff required to support it.
In the mid-1980s licensing arrangements were formalized with the University of Michigan acting as agent for and granting licenses on behalf of the MTS Consortium. MTS licenses were available to academic organizations for an annual fee of $5,000, to other non-profit organizations for $10,000, and to commercial organizations for $25,000. The license restricted MTS from being used to provide commercial computing services. The licensees received a copy of the full set of MTS distribution tapes, any incremental distributions prepared during the year, written installation instructions, two copies of the current user documentation, and a very limited amount of assistance.
Only a few organizations licensed MTS. Several licensed MTS in order to run a single program such as CONFER. The fees collected were used to offset some of the common expenses of the MTS Consortium.
Archives
- MTS Archive, a collection of documents, photographs, movies, and other materials related to MTS and the organizations and people that developed and used it
- MTS PDF Document Archive at Bitsavers'
- The UM Computing Center Public Collection at the Hathi Trust Digital Library contains full text versions of over 250 documents related to MTS that are available for online viewing.
- The Computing Center collection in the University of Michigan's Deep Blue digital archive contains over 50 items, mostly PDFs, but also a few videos, related to MTS and the U-M Computing Center.
Papers
- A Comparative Study of the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) with Other Time Sharing Systems for the IBM 360/67 Computer, Elvert F. Hinson, Master's thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA., December 1971
- "Measurement and Performance of a Multiprogramming System", B. Arden and D. Boettner, Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, pp. 130–46, October 1969
- Merit Network History
- MTS Bibliography, a list of published literature about MTS
- "MTS - Michigan Terminal System", Donald W. Boettner and Michael T. Alexander, ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Volume 4, Issue 4 (December 1970)
- "The Michigan Terminal System", Donald W. Boettner and Michael T. Alexander, Proceedings of the IEEE, Volume 63, Issue 6 (June 1975), pp. 912–918
- Network Models for Large-Scale Time-Sharing Systems, C. Moore, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Michigan, 1971, 211 p., AAT:72-04937
- Performance Analysis of Multi-level Paging Hierarchies, James Hamilton, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Computer and Communications Sciences, University of Michigan, 1976, 173 p., AAT:76-27489
- "Performance monitoring in a time-sharing system", Tad B. Pinkerton, University of Michigan Computing Center, Communications of the ACM, Volume 12, Issue 11 (November 1969), pp. 608–610, ISSN:0001-0782
- Program behavior and control in virtual storage computer systems, Tad Brian Pinkerton, Ph.D. thesis, Department of Computer and Communications Sciences, University of Michigan, 1968, 167 p., AAT: 68-13378
Web sites
- MTS History, collected by former University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
Computing Center staff member Tom Valerio - Personal perspective on MTS by Dan Boulet a student and later Computing Services staff member at the University of AlbertaUniversity of AlbertaThe University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
- Personal reflections on MTS by Mark Riordan of Michigan State University's Computer Laboratory
- Several articles from the May 13, 1996 issue of the University of Michigan Information Technology Digest, Volume 5, No. 5, giving the history of and reminiscences about MTS, Merit, and UMnet on the eve of MTS's retirement at the University of Michigan, preserved on Web pages created by Josh Simon