Cal TSS Archive

Abstract

This is an archive of scanned copies of most of the known records from the CAL Timesharing System project, which took place in the Computer Center of the University of California, Berkeley, between 1968 and 1971. The system ran on a Control Data Corporation 6400 with Extended Core Storage and Central Exchange Jump. For a history of the project, see [MR2023].

The physical records were donated to the Computer History Museum, Lot #2022.0154. Their organization is described in [McJ2022].

Contents

1. Project plans and proposals
2. Reports and announcements
3. Design memos
   1. Prehistory
   2. ECS system
   3. Final system
      1. Architecture
      2. Disk files
      3. Directories
      4. Executive
4. Documentation
   1. ECS system
   2. Bead
   3. SCOPE simulator
   4. User subsystems
   5. Programming languages
   6. Final system
   7. System operation
5. Humor
6. Chronological
   1. "A basic time sharing system"
   2. Designing the ECS system
   3. The ECS system begins to run
   4. Designing the disk system
   5. The disk system begins to run
   6. Development is discontinued
   7. Afterward
7. Source code
8. Theses
9. Papers
10. Hardware
11. People
12. Photos
13. References
14. Citations

1 Project plans and proposals

1. Sturgis. May 4, 1967. "This paper is a general description of what I think needs to be done to produce a time sharing operating system for our CDC 6400 with ECS, that will be commensurate with the capabilities of the machine." 670504-timesharing-hes
2. Sturgis. February 20, 1968. "This is the proposed body of a letter from Prof. Graham to myself (HES). He wants approval or comments from Ken Hebert [and] Gene Albright. Phase 1: Design; Phase 2: Limited System; Phase III: Better System." 680220-mhg-to-hes
3. [Malbrain.] "Proposal for batch system." Early 1970? Early proposal for simple batch system: no tapes or job queuing; low-level disk system to be implemented below the Bead; SNOBOL program used for ? 70-batch-proposal-km
4. [Vaughan.] "Evaluation of work yet to be done on the ECS system as of 30 March 70." Last page of memo dated April 13, 1970; followed by 4 pages on allocation block operations, file page dirty bits, deliver of interrupt datum, change unique name issues, and allocator issues. March 30, 1970. 700330-evaluation-vv
5. [Vaughan.] "September system." [June 1970?] Notes on content of September system: low-level disk system, less swapping, pseudo-close, and space control; directory less subprocess descriptors, ECS goodies, global objects, and accounting; disk dump and load; command processor and subprocess descriptors ("a la bead"), line collector, login, logout, and accounting; Scope simulator; disk recovery. 7006-sept-sys-vv
6. [Vaughan.] "Reconstituted list of things to be done on the ECS level of Cal TSS." June 1, 1970. "Stuff needed for the operation of the 'September System'." Apparently distributed with a copy of the first page of 700330-evaluation-vv attached. 700601-reconstituted-list-vv
7. [Malbrain?] "Batch system." [June 1970?] "It is planned to have a running TSS BATCH system by August 15, 1970, running under the TSS 'September' system." 7006-batch-system-km
8. [Malbrain.] "Peripheral Device Processor: Preliminary Specifications." December 1, 1970. Proposal for a batch system handling card reader, printer, job queues, tape, and operator console. 701201-pdp-km
9. [Vaughan.] "General Discussion of the Initial User Version of CAL-TSS, Available around 15 March '71." March 9, 1971. "The whole project could conceivably be canceled because of computer center funding difficulties, but on the assumption that it is not cancelled, we proceed to discuss its availability, pas, present, and future." 710309-initial-user-version-discussion-vv
10. [Sturgis.] "Immediate mopping up." March 15, 1971. 710315-mopping-up-hes
11. [Sturgis.] "Major problems." March 17, 1971. "L/D/R has error on final call; L/D/R opens too many files on dump (can't dump); can't destroy directories." 710317-major-problems-hes
12. [Vaughan.] "Considerations concerning CAL TSS support of users during spring quarter of '71." March 18, 1971. Lots of things still weren't ready but Vaughan was looking ahead to logistics for user support. 710318-support-considerations-vv
13. [Sturgis.] "Projects related to command processor." May 5, 1971. "I) Errors will be interpreted and fancy messages printed. ..." Section VI)C) says "Implement Pauls subprocess descriptor object. Use my specifications of Feb 24, 1971. Old style, as just a file will also be retained." 710505-cmmd-projects-hes
14. [Vaughan]. "Proposed charges for TSS. October 8, 1971. "Effective Monday, 25 Oct 71." CPU $130/hour; ECS $0.29/1000 words-hour, temporary disk $0.47 per 1000 sector-hours; connect time $2/hour; permanent disk space $9.30/1000-sector-month. 711008-proposed-charges-vv

2 Reports and announcements

15. Gray. "Progress Report on 6400 CAL Time-Sharing System." October 11, 1969. 691011-progress-jng
16. Gray. "(Lack of Visible) Progress Report: CAL-6400-TSS." January 15, 1970. 700115-progress-jng
17. Gray. "CAL Progress Report." April 15, 1970. 700415-progress-jng
18. Gray. "Progress Report - CAL-TSS." June 1, 1970. "I am resigning as director of CAL effective today, Howard Sturgis who, along with Butler Lampson, was the principle architect of TSS is replacing me. The job is thankless, draining, mundane, and unpleasant." 700601-progress-jng
19. Sturgis. "About Cal TSS." January 6, 1971. Sturgis's first status report as project director. 710106-about-hes
20. Subcommittee on Time Sharing. "Report to: Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Computing." February 27, 1971. 710227-subcommittee-on-time-sharing-elw
21. [Vaughan.] "Facilities available." March 15, 1971. Status report on readiness of various subsystems. 710315-facilities-avail-vv
22. [Vaughan.] "Where ECS space is going." July 22, 1971. Measurements. 710722-ecs-usage-vv-hes
23. Sturgis. CAL TSS Report. August 1, 1971. "The purpose of this report is two-fold: first, to make available detailed infocmation concerning the present status of CAL TSS, and second, to provide a basis for management discussion of the future course of development for CAL TSS. Since the TSS staff is small, not all projects can be pursued at once." 710801-cal-tss-report-hes
24. [Vaughan.] August 1, 1971. Measurements of sizes of subprocesses in a "disk process". 710801-disk-proc-vv
25. —. CAL Time-Sharing System: Status and Information. August 13, 1971. "CAL TSS is currently available weekdays from 2-6 PM." [Room 227 has been changed to 223.] 710813-status-and-info-vv.pdf
26. [Vaughan.] Memo to users of CAL TSS. Circa September 10, 1971. Announces coming end of free use, new SYSMES feature, and "Introduction to CAL TSS" document; includes forms: Application for Use of CAL TSS; CAL TSS User Survey. 710910-memo-to-users-vv
27. —. [System status.] November 1, 1971. "1 NOV 71 COMMAND PROCESSOR NEWU COMMAND; 20 OCT 71 CHARGING FOR CAL TSS" 711101-status-vv
28. —. CAL Time-Sharing System: Status and Information." October 19, 1971. "CAL TSS will be run from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays. The hours from 12 to 6:00 will be reserved for customers." 711019-status-and-info-vv
29. [Vaughan or Sturgis.] "CAL TSS Rates: Effective 25 Oct '71." October 20, 1971. From the SYSMES file. 711020-rates-vv
30. —. CAL Time-Sharing System Status. November 29, 1971. "CAL TSS has been discontinued pursuant to a decision formulated in the Chancellor's office." 711129-status-vv
31. Vaughan. "System staff et al." November 30, 1971. 711130-future-vv
32. Sturgis. File system throughput. December 6, 1971. "On Saturday I conducted some timing tests. I wrote a BCPL program to do one word IO." 711206-file-system-timing-hes
33. Kenneth J. Hebert "Staff notice." December 8, 1971. "Effective immediately, Vance Vaughan will assume the responsibilities of Chief Programmer. I hope that you all will give him your utmost support in this most trying position." 711208-promotion-kjh
34. Richard Colman. "Computer System Cut." Daily Californian, December 10, 1971. 711210-cut-dc
35. M. Stuart Lynn. "CDC 6400 Departure". September 3, 1982. "The CDC 6400 is no more." 820903-cdc-6400-departure-msl

    3 Design memos

    Design: Prehistory

36. Sturgis. November 15, 1967."What follows is a description of a basic time sharing system, as seen by a knowledgeable user." Last two pages are hand-drawn diagrams of process interactions, dated November 17, 1967. 671115-basic-timesharing-hes
37. [Sturgis.] February 27, 1968. Early disk file system notes. 680227-filesystem-hes
38. [Sturgis.] February 28, 1968. More early disk file system notes. 680228-more-filesystem-hes
39. [Sturgis.] February 29, 1968. Capabilities, basic objects. 680229-basic-objects-hes
40. [Sturgis.] February 29, 1968. Calculations based on size of 6638 disk. 680229-disk-size-calculations-hes
41. [Sturgis.] March 3, 1968. Notes on disk file representation. 680303-disk-file-rep-hes
42. [Sturgis.] March 4, 1968. More notes on disk file representation. 680304-more-disk-file-rep-hes

Design: ECS system

43. [Sturgis.] July 14, 1968. Map, operation, capability, objects. 680714-map-oper-capab-hes
44. [Sturgis.] July 16, 1968. Process, subprocess. 680716-proc-subproc-hes
45. [Lampson.] July 18, 1968. "Allocate ECS as follows: ..." 680718-alloc_ecs-bwl
46. [Lampson.] "Scope compatibility for symbolic file." 1968? Sample code and timing for conversion from eight seven-bit ASCII characters per word to ten six-bit Display Code characters per word. The estimate was nine microseconds per character. 68-scope-compat-bwl
47. [Sturgis.] July 18, 1968. "Allocate fixed peripherals by list scheme ..." 680718-alloc-fixed-periphs-hes
48. [Sturgis.] August 22, 1968. Timing estimates. 680822-timing-estimates-hes
49. [Sturgis.] "Sensitive code versus interrupt routines." September 3, 1968. 680903-blocking-interrupts-hes
50. [Sturgis.] "PPU interrupt procedure." September 3, 1968. 680903-ppu-interrupt-hes
51. [Sturgis.] "Event channels." September 3, 1968. 680903-event-channels-hes
52. [Sturgis.] "ECS System structure." September 5, 1968. 680905-ecs-system-struct-hes
53. [Sturgis.] "Modification of operation; atomic action." September 10, 1968. "See 7/14/68." 680910-modify-oper-hes
54. [Lindsay.] "Subprocess error handler." September 11, 1968. 680911-error-handler-bgl
55. [Sturgis.] "Error handling." September 11, 1968. 680911-error-handler-hes
56. [Lampson.] "Swapping and charge for ECS." September 11, 1968. 680911-swapping-charge-ecs-bwl
57. [Sturgis.] "Process." September 19, 1968. 680919-process-hes
58. [Sturgis.] "Stack now contains." September 27, 1968. Determination of new top of full path when a call or interrupt is being pushed onto the stack. 680927-top-of-full-path-hes
59. [Sturgis.] Event channel algorithms. October 3, 1968. 681003-get-put-event-hes
60. [Lindsay.] Implementation notes on processes, allocation blocks, etc. October 8, 1968. Second page lists task assignments, listing Malbrain and Simonyi for the first time. 681008-process-alloc-block-etc-bgl
61. [Sturgis.] ECS layer specification. November 1, 1968. Suddenly the ECS system as we know it appears in a series of specifications for the various principal objects. The specifications are typewritten, unsigned (but by Howard?), and follow a similar numbered outline format. Numbers 4, 5, and 7 have not been found. 681101-ecs-layer-spec-hes
    • Introduction. SPEC series, undated, 2 pages. "This is a preliminary, unofficial description of the ECS 'layer' of the CAL time-sharing system on a 6400 with central exchange jump and Extended core storage." #intro
    • Event Channel. SPEC 1, October 28, 1968, 5 pages. #event-channel
    • Capability List. SPEC 2, October 28, 1968, 3 pages. #capability-list
    • Operations. SPEC 3, October 28, 1968, 8 pages. #operations
    • Subprocess. SPEC 6, October 28, 1968, 2 pages. #subprocess
    • Subprocess Map. SPEC 8, October 28, 1968, 5 pages. #subprocess-map
    • Process. SPEC 9, November 1, 1968, 11 pages. #process
    • File. SPEC 10, October 29, 1969, 5 pages. #file
    • Allocation Block. SPEC 11, October 29, 198, 3 pages. #allocation-block
62. [Lindsay.] Design notes. August–December 1968. 46 pages covering a variety of topics. 68-notes-bgl
63. [Lindsay.] Blank compaction. January 9[, 1969?] Various aspects of text file representation; notes "approved". 690109-blank-compaction-bgl
64. [Sturgis.] Speed freaks. January 15[, 1969?] "When speed freaks are running they will be permitted to only read files, write files, put an event on an EC, hang on an EC." 690115-speed-freaks-hes
65. [Lindsay.] "Scope Sim[ulator]." Undated, circa January 1969? "Be able to run Compass & Fortran and load them with Fortran library." Also describes a simple directory for ECS files (with a file type indicating SCOPE or "system standard text") and a command processor apparently integrated with SCOPE simulator. Instead, this became the Bead. In a different hand is written "DO THE SIMPLE THING." 6901-scope-simulator-bgl
66. [Lindsay.] ECS system data structure diagrams. Undated, circa winter 1969. Process, subprocess, event channel, clocks, process in ECS. 69-ecs-sys-data-structures-bgl
67. [McJones.] "Operations". Undated, circa winter 1969. Operation data structure diagram. 69-operations-prm
68. [Lindsay.] Design notes. January–February 1969. 5 pages covering various topics. 69-notes-bgl
69. —. "Controlling Extended Core Storage Access Limits." August 20, 1969. Explains why direct user access to ECS is hobbled by 64-word granularity of ECSRA and ECSFL. 690820-ecs-access-limits
70. [Standiford?] "Option bit assignments." August 20, 1969. Table of option bit assignments for the various object types. 690820-opt-bit-assign
71. [Gray.] "[Addendum to] Systext standard." 1970? 70-systext-changes-jng
72. [Vaughan.] "User interface, command processor, human engineering." 1970? Sets down requirements for mechanism for user to control time used by subsystem, etc. 70-user-interface-vv
73. [Sturgis.] "Tentative changes to ECS system." March 5, 1970. Design notes for return parameter authorization. Vaughan's copy notes: "He settled for return with parameters." 700305-new-sys-calls-hes
74. [Sturgis.] "New ECS facility (version 3)." March 12, 1970. Design notes for capability-creating authorizations. 700312-cca-hes
75. [Sturgis.] "New ECS facility." March 12, 1970. More design notes for return parameter authorization and block data and capability parameters. 700312-new-sys-calls-hes
76. [Vaughan, Lindsay, and Redell.] "ECS-List." March 30, 1970. List of changes (bug fixes, additions, etc.) to ECS system. 700330-ecs-list-vv
77. [Gray.] "Disk meeting." April 1, 1970. Scheme for blocking interrupts for a period of time. 700401-blocking-interrupts-jng
78. [Vaughan.] "Interrupts." 1970? Notes for redesign. 70-interrupt-redesign-vv
79. [Vaughan.] "Interrupts." April 2, 1970. 700402-interrupts-vv
80. [Vaughan.] April 20, 1970. Notes on various ECS system redesign issues: dirty bit, ECS compaction, bent files, CPU time accunting, global interrupt inhibit, direct access to ECS, reallocation of ECS. 700420-ecs-sys-issues-vv
81. [Vaughan.] "2 CP disaster sheet." Undated, circa early 1970? 70-2-cp-disaster-vv
82. [Vaughan.] "Speed phreaques, scheduling, compactification, ECS code, DAE, & other theological questions made simple." Undated, circa early 1970? 70-speed-freaks-vv
83. [McJones.] "Operations." June 3, 1970. Operation data structure diagram. 700603-operations-prm
84. [Redell and Lindsay.] "EDITBIN specification file." September 22, 1970. Diagram of file used to control editing of system tape? Also lists of module names. 700922-editbin-spec-ddr
85. [Sturgis.] "Proposal: Observable states of a subprocess." November 18, 1970. Proposal for redesign of return to a subprocess. 701118-observable-states-hes
86. [Sturgis.] "Actions in the event of a panic." November 24, 1970. "Bead 4.1 stuff. Later (4.2?) errors replaced with 'return with interrupt.'" 701124-bead-41-panic-hes
87. [Sturgis.] "A proposal for the values of a call stack entry and their manipulation by the return operations." November 30, 1970.
    • Original. 701130-call-stack-hes
    • With Vaughan's annotations. 701130-call-stack-with-vv-notes-hes
88. [Sturgis.] "Interrupt handling code at the command level in the new system." December 4, 1970. 701204-interrupt-handling-hes
89. [Lindsay.] 1970? Proposal for interrupt priorities based on magnitude of high-order part of class code. 70-interrupt-proposal-bgl
90. [Vaughan.] "Chapter XXimvldc of the continuing interrupt hassle." December 7, 1970. 701207-interrupts-vv
91. [Vaughan.] "ECS operation timing." December 7, 1970. For display user clocks and write file. 701207-ecs-action-timing-vv
92. [Lindsay.] "User direct ECS access." Undated, circa 1970. 70-direct-ecs-access-bgl
93. [Vaughan.] "Questions on which you are invited to express opinions in the next few days." February 1, 1971. Includes updated version of 700601-reconstituted-list-vv. 710201-ecs-system-questions-vv
94. [Vaughan.] "AB's Mark III." February 1971. 7102-ab-mk-iii-vv
95. [Vaughan.] "New stack logic." February 22, 1971. Call stack manipulation changes based on 701118-observable-states-hes. 710222-new-stack-logic
96. [Vaughan.] Block gone from file in map problem. February 22, 1971. Originally distributed with 710222-new-stack-logic. 710222-latest-on-maps-vv
97. [Vaughan.] "Control of CPU time." February 22, 1971. A process is now descheduled when its CPU time runs out. Originally distributed with 710222-new-stack-logic. 710222-control-of-cpu-time-vv
98. [Redell.] "CP time cutoff." Undated, circa February 1971? Describes a mechanism similar to 710222-control-of-cpu-time-vv. Did this precede or follow? 71-cp-time-cutoff-ddr
99. [McDaniel.] "ECS global register and protection." July 22, 1971. Cover note from Vaughan and proposal from McDaniel for storing some process state bits in ECS global register. 710722-global-register-gam
100. [Sturgis.] "Line collector." Undated, circa 1971. Vaughan: "debeaded" line collector. "This line collector uses code copied from GREYCODE,XTEXT the same as the old Bead. 71-debeaded-line-coll-hes
101. [Sturgis.] "Calls on the TTY line collector." November 8, 1971. 711108-line-coll-hes
102. [McDaniel.] "Modified scheduler."
     • Original document. Undated, circa August 1971. 7108-modified-sched-gam
     • "Correction." Undated, circa August 28, 1971. 710824-modified-sched-corrected-gam
103. [McDaniel?] "Proposal for Modification of ECS System Timed Event Channels (TEVS)." November 4, 1971. 711104-timed-event-proposal-gam

Design: Final system

Design: Final system: architecture

104. [Sturgis.] "Disk representation of file." May 1, 1969. 690501-file-rep-hes
105. [Sturgis.] January 22, 1970. "Objects in directories, note on ecs goodie, representation of files, directories, access keys, ecs goodies, directory structure for an entry, directory operations, subprocess descriptor." 700122-directories-hes
106. [Sturgis.] "Subprocess descriptor." February 19, 1970. 700219-subproc-desc-hes
107. [Sturgis.] "Directory object descriptions." February 19, 1970. "Implementation algorithms another time." 700219-dir-objs-hes
108. [Sturgis.] April 23, 1970. "Open and close, general; directories; disk files; subprocess descriptors; access keys; global ECS object; ECS goodie." 700423-disk-sys-objects-hes
109. [Sturgis.] "[Global] ECS object implementation." March 5, 1970. Design notes for representing ECS objects in disk system directories. 700305-ecs-goodie-api-hes
110. [Sturgis.] "ECS goodie implementation." March 5, 1970. 700305-ecs-goodie-impl-hes
111. [Sturgis.] "'Disk process' structure." March 19, 1970. 700319-disk-proc-struc-hes
112. [Sturgis.] "General description of actions with respect to directories." April 17, 1970. 700417-directory-actions-hes
113. [Sturgis.] "Directory structure." April 17, 1970. 700417-directory-structure-hes
114. [Sturgis.] "Specific actions for directories." April 17, 1970. 700417-directory-action-specifics-hes
115. [Sturgis.] "Subprocess descriptors." April 30, 1970. 700430-subproc-desc-hes
116. [Sturgis.] "Dump-load." June 1, 1970. 700601-dump-load-hes

Design: Final system: disk files

117. [Redell.] "Disk Driver Buffer File." November 2, 1969. Hand-drawn diagram; compare with later 700728-disk-driver-spec-ddr. 691102-disk-driver-buffer-file-ddr
118. [Vaughan.] Pseudo-close. Undated; circa spring 1970? Table of good and bad properties of "magic" and manual pseudo-close. 70-magic-pseudo-close-vv
119. [Vaughan.] Notes on new disk system. Undated, circa March 12, 1970. 7003-disk-system-notes-vv
120. [Redell.] 3-D rendering of swappable file. Undated, circa spring 1970. Pointer blocks, active blocks in ECS and on disk, and backup blocks on disk. 70-3d-swapped-file-drawing-ddr
121. [Redell.] "Disk allocation routines." Undated, circa 1970? Internal procedures to get or free disk space for file header blocks, pointer blocks, and data blocks; register-based parameter-passing conventions; and diagrams of disk allocation tables. 70-disk-allocation-ddr
122. [Redell.] Disk allocation register-based parameter passing conventions? Undated, circa 1970? This is very similar to the corresponding page of 70-disk-allocation-ddr; presumably it is an earlier or later version. 70-disk-allocator-interface-ddr
123. [Redell.] "Free DDS Block." Undated, circa 1970? Diagram of free chain for DDS (Disk Data Structure) blocks. 70-free-dds-block-ddr
124. [Lindsay.] "File Claim." Undated, circa mid 1970? Complete design document for a per-file shared/exclusive "advisory" lock. Includes introduction, programming interface, internal data structure, and flow charts. 70-file-claim-bgl
125. [Lindsay.] Notes and flowchart for exchanging contents of two files ("shazam"). Undated, circa mid 1970? See 700716-new-low-level-disk-file-actions-ddr. 70-shazam-notes-flowchart-bgl
126. [Redell and Lindsay.] "Page Switch and Pointer Pages." July 5, 1970. Diagram of ECS version (Disk Data Structure) of a pointer block, with detail views showing various data-block and pointer-block situations. 700705-page-switch-and-ptr-pages-ddr-bgl
127. Redell and Lindsay. "Low Level Disk System Actions." July 9, 1970. This copy has Lindsay's annotations. 700709-low-level-disk-actions-ddr-bgl
128. [Redell.] "New low-level disk file actions." July 16, 1970 Exchange contents of two files ("shazam"); fix current content of file (flush to disk). 700716-new-low-level-disk-file-actions-ddr
129. [Redell?] "Disk driver specifications." July 28, 1970. Describes format of disk driver buffer file, request events, and response events, as well as the protocol for using them. 700728-disk-driver-spec-ddr
130. [Lindsay.] File display actions. Undated, circa mid 1970? Display disk file status, status of n-th open disk file, and n-th attached block of file. Includes diagram of returned data, and copy of FHR record on which this was based. 70-file-display-actions-bgl
131. [Lindsay.] File open flowchart. Undated, circa mid 1970? Rough handwritten flowchart; compare with 70-file-action-flowcharts-bgl. 70-file-open-flowchart-bgl
132. [Lindsay.] File action flowcharts. Undated, circa mid 1970? Careful handwritten flowcharts for create, open, create data block, attach, and FRETURN read. Includes list of low level disk system actions, diagram of Local File Table. 70-file-action-flowcharts-bgl
133. [Lindsay.] Extract of file creation source code; some test cases. Original coding sheets for portion of file creation action. Compare with this label "create21" with label "CREATE20" on page 14 of CREATE. 70-create-code-and-tests-bgl
134. [Redell.] Flowcharts for disk system TERMINATOR process. Undated, circa 1970? Flowcharts of Central TERMINATOR and Local/Driver interface for each of: header block write and read, pointer block read, data block read and write; also local/driver interface for header block write and read, pointer block read. Also register-based calling conventions and some data structure diagrams. 70-disk-sys-terminator-ddr
135. [Redell.] "HELPER Internals." Undated, circa 1970? Processing of pointer blocks for close and pseudo-close in Disk Data Structures (DDS). 70-helper-internals-ddr
136. [Lindsay.] Design notes. April–August 1970. 19 pages covering various topics, mostly disk system related. 70-notes-bgl
137. [Lindsay.] Design notes. 1970–1971. 79 pages covering various aspects of the disk system. 71-notes-bgl
138. [Redell.] "Load; Recovery." November 9, 1970. Enumerates steps to load file system from tape and to recover an inconsistent state of the file system. 701109-load-recovery-steps-ddr
139. [Redell.] "Destroy in User-disk-service subproc." November 29, 1970. Enumerates 7 steps, ending with sending an event to CLOSER daemon process to finish the work. 701129-destroy-file-ddr
140. [Lindsay and Redell.] Dump tape management. Undated, circa late 1970? First page is Lindsay's description of daily/weekly/monthly file system dumps (backups); second page is Redell's diagram of the procedure. 70-dump-tape-mgmt-bgl-ddr
141. [Redell.] New disk file actions. Undated, circa early 1971? Audit, declare accounting file, disk contents ready. 71-new-disk-file-actions-ddr
142. [Redell.] Disk system data structure diagrams. Mostly undated; one dated February 16, 1970 and one February 9, 1971. Disk system global data overview, FHR (file header record), DAR (disk accounting record), LFH (local file header), FHB (file header block), pointer block, and in-disk data structure. 7102-disk-sys-data-structures-ddr
143. [Redell.] "Response event from TERMINATOR; I/O Table Entry; HELPER Request Event." February 9, 1971. Diagrams of three one- or two-word structures. On this copy Redell has added ACCOUNTANT request event and USER-INDEX field of disk-driver request event. 710209-terminator-helper-events-ddr
144. [Redell.] "Disk Accounting Record; Disk System Internal Accounting Calls." February 9, 1971. Disk accounting record diagram is hand-drawn; compare with (later?) 71-disk-accounting-record-ddr. Calls are OPENDAR, CLODAR, DARSPA (adjust space). 710209-disk-acctng-records-and-calls
145. [Redell.] "DAR: Disk Accounting Record." Undated, circa 1971. Diagrams of Disk Accounting Record layouts.
     • Version with accompanying descriptions of the fields; last word is unused. 71-disk-accounting-record-ddr
     • Version with accompanying description of DF:EOCC (Display Process ECS Status (see ACCNT in disk system) and [allocation block?] diagram by Vaughan; last word contains two fields. 71-disk-accounting-ddr-vv
146. Redell. "Creation and destruction of accounting blocks." February 9, 1971. 710209-accounting-blocks-ddr
147. [Redell.] "DABUF: Disk Accounting Block/Record Buffer." February 18, 1971. Assembly language declarations. 710218-dar-buf-ddr
148. [Redell and Lindsay.] "Proposed actions relating to accounting."
     • February 21, 1971. 710221-disk-actng-ddr-bgl
     • March 3, 1971. 710303-disk-actng-ddr-bgl
149. [Redell.] "To remove Allocator from FRETRW." Undated, circa 1971? Enumerates steps to perform some restructuring of disk system code. 71-remove-allocator-from-fretrw-ddr
150. [Redell.] "Notes: Pseudo-close; Exchange contents." Undated, circa 1971? Proposes centralizing pseudo-close code in user subprocess to avoid deadlock with TERMINATOR daemon; describes implementation of "Exchange contents of two files." 71-pseudo-close-and-exchange-notes-ddr
151. Redell. Closing down a disk process. March 3, 1971. 710303-disk-proc-end-ddr-bgl
152. Redell and Lindsay. Accounting block services.
     • November 9, 1970. Create, destroy, fund process, move space, display. 701109-acctng-block-svc-oper-ddr
     • April 22, 1971; page 7 updated May 4, 1971. Create, activate, destroy, display, move disk space down/up, increment charge meter, set accounting tag. 710422-actng-blk-svc-ddr-bgl
153. [Redell or Lindsay.] "Declare process swapped-ECS cross-section." Undated, circa 1971. Description of disk file action. 71-decl-proc-swapped-ecs-xsec
154. [Lindsay.] Notes on forced swapping of a process. Undated, circa 1971? 71-swapping-bgl

Design: Final system: directories

155. [McJones.] "Directory." June 29, 1970. Preliminary interface specification and internal data structure.
     • Original. 700629-directory-prm
     • Annotated by McJones. 700629-directory-annotated-prm
156. [McJones.] "Name tag system." December 10, 1970. Design for static and dynamic name tag implementation; only the latter was implemented. 701210-name-tag-system-prm
157. [McJones.] October 19, 1971. Instructions for building the directory system. 711019-maintaining-dir-sys-prm

Design: Executive system

158. [Sturgis.] "System and system part of user process initialization."
     • Original. Undated, circa September 1970. 700920-sys-init-hes
     • Updated to include "control processes" as well as user processes. September 28, 1970. 700928-sys-init-hes
159. [Sturgis.] "Tentative basic command processor." September 11, 1970. 700911-tent-basic-cmmd-hes
160. [Sturgis.] "Syntax of parameters [for new command processor.]" December 5, 1970. "Read gently." 701205-param-syntax-hes
161. [Sturgis.] "WARNING: New syntax for commands." Undated, but after 701205-param-syntax-hes. 70-new-cmmd-syntax-hes
162. [Sturgis.] "Bead naming conventions; Bead calls (directory actions)." December 7, 1970. Simulating Bead calls in the new system. 701207-bead-sim-hes
163. [Sturgis.] "Proposal for proprietary subprocesses." February 24, 1971. 710224-prop-subp-hes
164. [Sturgis.] "Current root directory structure." February 24, 1971. Subdirectories OPERATE, CLASS, S ("soon to be called PUBLIC"), and TDLIST; also PUB.KEY (access key). 710224-current-rootd-hes
165. Sturgis. "Preliminary proposal for testing system subprocesses of user processes." June 8, 1971. 710608-testing-sys-subprocs-hes
166. [Sturgis.] Multiprocess test framework: BCPL source code. Undated, circa summer 1971. Coordination framework for running a command in multiple processes and retrieving the reports. Written in BCPL, but probably not finished. 71-test-runner-hes
167. Sturgis, “A note on charging.” August 17, 1971.
     • Draft. 710813-charging-draft-hes
     • Final. 710817-charging-hes
168. [Vaughan.] "User Profile." Undated, circa 1971? Diagram of user profile data structure recording user information including accounting. Includes note from Bridge to Vaughan proposing staffing for dumping the dayfile (accounting information). 71-user-profile-vv-whb.pdf
169. —. "List of privileged operations." November 3, 1971. Covers ECS system and higher layers; line printer listing (edited on the system). 711103-priv-ops
170. [Standiford.] "Proposed change to Builder." November 9, 1971. New interpretation of scratch-file size. 711109-builder-proposal-kps

4 Documentation

Documentation: ECS system

171. [Bentley, Gray, Lindsay, Redell, Sturgis.] Overview of the CAL Time Sharing System. Unpublished draft, superseded by 691010-overview-bwl.
     • First draft, typed and handwritten. Circa fall 1969. 6910-overview-draft-1
     • Second draft, retyped. Incomplete; ends in section 3.4. Circa fall 1969. 6910-overview-draft-2
172. Lampson. "An Overview of the CAL Time-Sharing System." October 10, 1969. Reprint of [Lam69], with a progress report (similar to 691011-progress-jng) appended. 691010-overview-bwl
173. —. "CAL Time-Sharing System Users Guide." November 1969. Actually, this is the programming reference manual.
     • Draft, circa May 1969. Missing Files. 6905-users-guide-draft
     • Final. From yellow binder labeled "Teletype Room Copy," with various corrections. 6911-users-guide
     • Annotated. From Vaughan's black 3-ring binder, with a list of errors in the manual and many pages describing new or changed ECS actions. 71-users-guide-annotated-vv
174. —. "CAL-TSS Internals Manual." November 1969.
     • Draft, May-July 1969. Missing Allocation of ECS, Processes, Subprocesses, Class codes, and Maps. 6905-internals-draft
     • Draft, September 1969. 6909-internals-draft
     • Final. From yellow binder labeled "Teletype Room Copy," with various corrections. 6911-internals
     • Annotated. From Vaughan's canvas 3-ring binder, with his errata and extensive notes for work he did during 1970 and 1971. Includes original copies of various memos he issued during that period. 71-internals-annotated-vv
175. [Sturgis.] TS Interrupt System. September 2, 1969. Interface between peripheral processor code (device drivers) and user processes. Probably originally for inclusion in Internals Manual.
     • Draft, June 23, 1969. 690623-int-sys-draft-hes
     • Final. 690902-int-sys-hes
176. [Sturgis.] "S-device user interface." November 5, 1969. Specification of device interface to be used for tape drives, printers, card readers, card punches, and the console display. 691105-s-dev-hes
177. [Standiford.] "TSS Display Driver - Revision A." July 6, 1970. 700706-disp-driv-rev-a-kps
178. Vaughan. "Change to indirect C-list specifications." July 20, 1970. 700720-new-indir-clist-vv
179. Vaughan. August 10, 1970. Updates for ECS system documentation: capability-creating operations, return with parameters, block data and capability parameters, indirect capability parameters. 700810-ecs-sys-updates-vv
180. [Vaughan.] Undated; circa fall 1970? Jump Call, Special Return, Find Nth Son of a given Subprocess, Zero a capability.
     • Original. 70-new-ecs-actions-vv
     • Vaughan's annotation of Jump Call. 70-new-ecs-actions-vv-comments-vv
181. [Vaughan.] Internal Changes. Undated. SUBPROC dostk, CAPAB error modifier conventions, ECSACT,XTEXT conventions. 70-internal-changes-vv
182. Vaughan. "Allocation blocks." January 4, 1971. "Proposed User's Manual sections for allocation blocks." 710104-alloc-block-vv
183. McDaniel. "The Cal TSS interrupt system." Circa spring 1971. 71-int-sys-gam

Documentation: Bead

184. [Malbrain.] "The Bead." Undated, circa summer 1969. "The Bead is the first subprocess created in every process when the system is initialized. Its function is to act as an interim monitor package to coordinate file activity and naming, elementary utilities, and be a command processor for the user." 69-bead-km
185. —. The BEAD Users Guide. December 18, 1969. 691218-bead-ug-km
186. [Malbrain.] "Interim system version 3.0." Undated, circa 1970. "The primary changes occur in the BEAD and IPROC. Space is tightly controlled to alleviate garbage collection problem. ... The BEAD has two new commands: 'SPACE, n' and 'TRIM'". 70-interim-system-30-km
187. [Sturgis.] "Bead 4.0." Undated, circa 1970. "Differences from Bead 3.1 (those that I can think of)." Document apparently edited on Cal TSS and printed on TTY. 70-bead-40-hes
188. [Sturgis.] "How to make a new system tape for Bead 4.0." Undated, circa 1970. All-caps listing on TTY; edited on the system. First mention of Builder? 70-make-sys-tape-bead-40
189. [McDaniel.] Bead error classes and numbers. Undated, circa 1970. "One of the most frequent questions heard around TSS teletypes is 34.64.95 BEAD ERROR! BEAD HERE! What the hell does THAT mean???" 70-bead-errors-gam
190. [Sturgis.] "Errors in BEADS." Undated, circa 1971. 71-errors-in-beads-hes
191. [Vaughan.] "BEADS Errors." Undated, circa 1971? 71-beads-errors-vv

Documentation: SCOPE simulator

192. —. "Preliminary SCOPE Manual." November 5, 1969. The SCOPE simulator made it possible to run programs designed for CDC's SCOPE batch system. 691105-scope-prelim-km
193. —. "SCOPE Manual." January 21, 1970. "This document describes the SCOPE simulator under the interim system. A knowledge of the SCOPE 3.1 manual is assumed." 700121-scope-km
194. [Malbrain.] "SCOPE 3.0." Undated, circa 1970. 70-scope-30-km

Documentation: User subsystems

195. [Gray.] Line collector key bindings. Undated, circa 1969. Key bindings for backing up, copying or skipping by various amounts. 69-line-collector-key-bindings-jng
196. Morris. "Editor Commands." Undated, circa 1969. Handwritten; has Substitute rather than Change. 69-ed-cmmds-jhm
197. [Morris.] Handwritten editor documentation. Undated, circa summer 1969? Subtitute is crossed out and replaced with Change. 69-editor-jhm
198. —. Quick start guide. Undated, circa summer 1969? "This is a preliminary description of the use of SNOBOL4 under the Time Sharing System." Three-page guide to use of Bead, Editor, and SCOPE simulator to prepare and run a SNOBOL4 program . 69-short-guide
199. [Standiford.] "TSS Printer Driver." November 5, 1969.
     • Handwritten draft, undated. 691105-print-driv-kps
     • Final. 691105-print-driv-kps
200. [Standiford.] "TSS Display Driver." Late 1969? 69-disp-driv-kps
201. [Sturgis.] "Interim Disk System: Preliminary Manual." Undated, circa January 1970. 7001-interim-disk-sys-hes
202. [Standiford.] "TSS display driver: Programming considerations—an amendment to previous document of late 1969." Undated. Distributed with an attached copy of 69-disp-driv-kps. 70-disp-driv-amend-kps
203. [Standiford.] "TSS Display Driver: Operators Guide." Undated. 70-disp-op-guide-kps
204. [Standiford?] "TSS PP DUMP and TSS PP DUMP-TAPE SCANNER." Undated, circa 1970? 70-pp-dump-kps
205. [Morris.] "The Text Editor." July 9, 1970. 700709-ed-jhm
206. Morris. "The Idiot's Guide to TSS." Fall 1970? 7009-idiots-guide-jhm
207. [Standiford.] "Savetss." Undated, late 1971? "Savetss is a Fortran program for retrieving files from a TSS DISK DUMP TAPE." Written after TSS was cancelled? 71-savetss-kps

Documentation: Programming languages

208. [Malbrain and McJones.] "COOL-AID." 1969? Reference manual for unfinished PL/360-like assembler. 69-cool-aid-km-prm
209. [Bridge.] "BASIC." May 1971. Section E of Part 4 of Volume III (The 6400 Computer System) of the Cal Computer Center Users Guide. BASIC ran interactively under TSS and in batch mode on SCOPE. 7105-cal-basic-whb
210. J. H. Morris[, Jr]. BCPL Users Guide. Computer Center, University of California, Berkeley. December 1969. This initial port ran only under SCOPE; see also 7105-cal-bcpl-jhm. 6912-bcpl-users-guide-jhm
211. [Morris, borrowing from Canady and Ritchie.] "BCPL." May 1971. Section F of Part 4 of Volume III (The 6400 Computer System) of the Cal Computer Center Users Guide. This version ran natively under TSS. 7105-cal-bcpl-jhm
212. Bridge, McDaniel, and McJones. "CAL Lisp: Preliminary Description." June 1971? Incomplete design for a LISP 1.5 implementation for CAL TSS (class project). 7106-cal-lisp-whb-gam-prm
213. Earley and Caizergues. "VERS Manual: Version 4". October 1971.
     • Manual. 7110-vers-manual-v4-je-pc
     • Examples. 7110-vers-examples

Documentation: Final system

214. Sturgis. "Command processor preliminary document." 1971?
     • Handwritten draft. 71-cmmd-prelim-handwritten-hes
     • Typed, with corrections by Sturgis and Vaughan. 71-cmmd-prelim-typed-hes
215. [Redell.] Command processor complex preliminary document. 1971?
     • Handwritten draft. 71-cpc-handwritten-ddr
     • Typed. 71-cpc-typed-ddr
216. [Sturgis.] Grammar for command language. Undated, circa 1971. 71-cmmd-grammar-hes
217. [McJones.] Documentation of basic directory actions. Undated, circa January 1971. Open, close, access, access via scan list, create disk file, create directory, move space, increment charge meter, set accounting tag, display disk accounting record, return clocks. 7101-dir-actions-prm
218. [McJones.] Documentation of directory display actions. February 9, 1971. Display: n-th entry, named entry, access pairs, successor pointer. 710209-dir-actions-prm
219. [Vaughan.] "Portrait of a subprocess descriptor." Spring 1971? 71-portrait-subproc-desc-vv
220. —. "Summary documents." Brief summaries: Idiot's Guide, Editor, BASIC; appendices: getting back to command processor; using line collector.
     • April 5, 1971: 710405-summary-documents-vv
     • May 25, 1971, with cover letter from Vaughan asking for feedback: 710526-summary-documents-vv
221. [Sturgis.] "SPACE command in CMMD." May 5, 1971. Command for controlling swapped ECS space, fixed ECS space, MOT slots, and temporary disk space. 710505-space-cmmd-hes
222. [Sturgis.] "New version of CMMD." May 17, 1971. 710517-new-cmmd-hes
223. [Gould.] Instructions for running BASIC on the CAL Time-Sharing System. May 1971. Prepared for her spring 1971 CS1 course. Covered finding a teletype, logging in, editing, interpreting error messages, etc. 7105-instructions-for-basic-leg
224. —. Time-Sharing System Manual. Part 3 of Volume III (The 6400 Computer System) of the Cal Computer Center Users Guide.
     • [Lindsay.] "Exclusively open a disk file (DF:XOPN)." Undated, circa January 1971. Not "advisory", in contrast with file claim operations. 71-df-xopn-bgl
     • [Bentley.] System calls and file actions draft pages, January-February 1971. 7102-tss-manual-draft-mab
     • Published version, May 1971; Appendices C and D added in November. 7105-tss-manual
225. [Sturgis.] "New facilities available from command processor." June 6, 1971. New operations available to subsystems. 710606-new-cmmd-facilities-hes
226. [Sturgis. "New commands in SERVICES." June 11, 1971. New commands: SHAZAM, CHAIN, UNCHAIN, and SOFTL. 710611-new-services-cmmds-hes
227. [Bentley and Vaughan, editors.] "Introduction to CAL TSS." July 1971; updated October and November 1971. General concepts, examples, and subsystem summaries for Editor, BASIC, SCOPE simulator, and command processor Services and Bead Ghost. Early drafts evolved out of Chapter 1 of 7105-tss-manual (see first section of 71-cookbook-vv). 7111-intro-mab-vv
228. [Vaughan.] Assorted CAL TSS files. 1970-1971.
     • "CAL TSS Cookbook." Undated, 1971. Vaughan's personal copy of user-oriented information: documentation, status and information, bug reporting and diagnosis, consulting, etc. Includes only surviving copy of 7111-intro-mab-vv. 71-cookbook-vv
     • "Resource control and accounting on CAL TSS." Circa 1970
       • Red pen on 11"x14" paper. 70-rsrc-ctrl-accntng-red-pen-vv
       • Typed and pencil on 8.5"x11" paper. 5th page is actually by Jim Gray. 70-rsrc-ctrl-accntng-typed-vv-jng
     • "Current tasks". Blue notebook with to-do lists, list of changes to ECS system from December 1970 through June 1971, source code for tests of various ECS actions (see also TESTS source code). 71-blue-notebook-current-tasks-vv
     • "Pending horrors, etc." Circa fall 1971. "Various considerations", "system uglies", and "pending changes." 71-pending-horrors-etc-vv
     • "NEWSYS Notes." Circa 1970. Vaughan's data structure diagrams, flowcharts, and notes for his ECS system redesign activities of 1970. 70-newsys-notes-vv
     • "Oper Docs." March 13, 1971. To-do list and originals for problem-diagnosis information in 71-operators-manual. 710313-oper-docs-vv
     • "Users". 1971. Lists of users, multiplexor ports, and related information. 71-users-vv
     • "User Surveys." October 1971. Filled-out surveys by users and potential users. 7110-user-surveys-vv
     • "TSS Applications." October–November 1971. Filled-out applications for accounts on CAL TSS. 7111-user-applications-vv
     • CAL TSS charging examples. September-November 1971. 15 TTY listings showing charges for various comomon actions. 7110-cal-tss-charging-examples
     • REACT example. September 13, 1971. Run of a SNOBOL haiku-writing program, with charging information. 710913-react-examples-vv
229. [McJones.] Documentation of bulk directory actions. October 27, 1971. Access multiple owned objects, get/put multiple disk addresses. Were these to optimize LOAD/DUMP/RECOVER? 711027-dir-actions-prm
230. [Sturgis.] "New features in CMMD." October 27, 1971. TEST mode; TTYON, TTYSON, TTYOFF, NEWMASTER, SYSDOWN, FORCEOUT commands. 711027-new-cmmd-features-hes
231. [McJones.] "Option bits". November 3, 1971. Directory option bit assignments. 711103-dir-option-bits-prm

Documentation: System operation

232.  [?] ECS deadstart dump programs. Undated, circa early 1969. A deadstart program was entered into a 12x12 array of toggle switches on the 6400. This one apparently loaded a program from tape that would dump the contents of ECS to the printer. 69-ecs-dead-start-dump-info
233. [Vaughan.] List of various documents in reverse chronological order. August 26, 1971. 710826-doc-list-vv
234. Vaughan. System Maintenance. October 15, 1971. "Currently the naive TSS systems programmer is unable to contruct arbitrary parts of the operating system or user subsystems unless he has ritten some or all of the code for that system." 711015-system-maintenance-vv
235. [Vaughan.] "Accounting info." November 1, 1971. Annotated TTY listing showing how to dump accounting information. 711101-actng-info-vv
236. [Vaughan.] "SaveDF prior to load." Accompanied 711101-actng-info-vv? 711101-savedf-notes-vv
237. [Sturgis.] "To be done on Sunday 8pm." Undated, presumably before Sunday, November 24, 1971? Outlines steps to create new user directories with funds, based on list from Jim Markison in the Computer Center Accounting Department. 7111-accounting-setup-hes
238. —. CAL-TSS operator's manual. Initial version was September 10, 1970; various updates through November 1971. Includes short procedures and trouble-shooting information, deadstart tape log (one-page form for each time a system programmer wrote, tested, and installed a new deadstart tape), and bug list/failure log (one-page form for each system crash). 71-operators-manual

5 Humor

239. Richard Brautigan. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. April 27, 1970. Photocopied and distributed to the staff by Vaughan. 700427-brautigan-vv
240. Redell. "Cal-TSS 20th Anniversary Trivia Quiz." December 14, 1991. 911214-trivia-quiz-ddr
241. Redell. "Answers to Cal-TSS 20th Anniversary Trivia Quiz." September 2015. 201509-trivia-answers-ddr

6 Chronological order

This section repeats all the documents in the previous section in a single chronological sequence.

6.i "A basic time sharing system"

The earliest documents, by Howard Sturgis, take up various aspects of a time-sharing system (including process scheduling, a disk-based file system, low-speed terminal i/o, and capabilities), but don't mention subprocesses or (multilevel) operations.

1. [Sturgis.] May 4, 1967. "This paper is a general description of what I think needs to be done to produce a time sharing operating system for our CDC 6400 with ECS, that will be commensurate with the capabilities of the machine. 670504-timesharing-hes
2. [Sturgis.] November 15, 1967. "What follows is a description of a basic time sharing system, as seen by a knowledgeable user." Last two pages are hand-drawn diagrams of process interactions, dated November 17, 1967. 671115-basic-timesharing-hes
3. [Sturgis.] February 20, 1968. "This is the proposed body of a letter from Prof. Graham to myself (HES). He wants approval or comments from Ken Hebert [and] Gene Albright. Phase 1: Design; Phase 2: Limited System; Phase III: Better System." 680220-mhg-to-hes
4. [Sturgis.] February 27, 1968. Early disk file system notes. 680227-filesystem-hes
5. [Sturgis.] February 28, 1968. More early disk file system notes. 680228-more-filesystem-hes
6. [Sturgis.] February 29, 1968. Capabilities, basic objects. 680229-basic-objects-hes
7. [Sturgis.] February 29, 1968. Calculations based on size of 6638 disk. 680229-disk-size-calculations-hes
8. [Sturgis.] March 3, 1968. Notes on disk file representation. 680303-disk-file-rep-hes
9. [Sturgis.] March 4, 1968. More notes on disk file representation. 680304-more-disk-file-rep-hes

6.ii Designing the ECS system

In May 1968 Professor Martin Graham, (then Associate Director of the Computer Center) and Howard Sturgis met with Butler Lampson to discuss his involvement in the timesharing project that they were about to initiate. [Graham to Vice-Chancellor Sammet, May 16, 1968, Chancellor's Office Records, Bancroft Library, CU-149. Box 121, folder 9]

In the next series of documents, by Howard Sturgis, Butler Lampson, and Bruce Lindsay, Cal TSS begins to take shape: swapping controlled by a map, subbprocesses, errors and interrupts, and more.

10. [Sturgis.] July 14, 1968. Map, operation, capability, objects. 680714-map-oper-capab-hes
11. [Sturgis.] July 16, 1968. Process, subprocess. 680716-proc-subproc-hes
12. [Lampson.] July 18, 1968. "Allocate ECS as follows: ..." 680718-alloc_ecs-bwl
13. [Lampson.] "Scope compatibility for symbolic file." 1968? Sample code and timing for conversion from eight seven-bit ASCII characters per word to ten six-bit Display Code characters per word. The estimate was nine microseconds per character. 68-scope-compat-bwl
14. [Sturgis.] July 18, 1968. "Allocate fixed peripherals by list scheme ..." 680718-alloc-fixed-periphs-hes
15. [Sturgis.] August 22, 1968. Timing estimates. 680822-timing-estimates-hes
16. [Sturgis.] "Sensitive code versus interrupt routines." September 3, 1968. 680903-blocking-interrupts-hes
17. [Sturgis.] "PPU interrupt procedure." September 3, 1968. 680903-ppu-interrupt-hes
18. [Sturgis.] "Event channels." September 3, 1968. 680903-event-channels-hes
19. [Sturgis.] "ECS System structure." September 5, 1968. 680905-ecs-system-struct-hes
20. [Sturgis.] "Modification of operation; atomic act[ion]." September 10, 1968. "See 7/14/68." 680910-modify-oper-hes
21. [Lindsay.] "Subprocess error handler." September 11, 1968. 680911-error-handler-bgl
22. Sturgis. "Error handling." September 11, 1968. 680911-error-handler-hes
23. [Lampson.] "Swapping and charge for ECS." September 11, 1968. 680911-swapping-charge-ecs-bwl
24. [Sturgis.] "Process." September 19, 1968. 680919-process-hes
25. [Sturgis.] "Stack now contains." September 27, 1968. Determination of new top of full path when a call or interrupt is being pushed onto the stack. 680927-top-of-full-path-hes
26. [Sturgis.] Event channel algorithms. October 3, 1968. 681003-get-put-event-hes
27. [Sturgis.] ECS layer specification. November 1, 1968. Suddenly the ECS system as we know it appears in a series of specifications for the various principal objects. The specifications are typewritten, unsigned (but by Howard?), and follow a similar numbered outline format. Numbers 4, 5, and 7 have not been found. 681101-ecs-layer-spec-hes
    • Introduction. SPEC series, undated, 2 pages. "This is a preliminary, unofficial description of the ECS 'layer' of the CAL time-sharing system on a 6400 with central exchange jump and Extended core storage." #intro
    • Event Channel. SPEC 1, October 28, 1968, 5 pages. #event-channel
    • Capability List. SPEC 2, October 28, 1968, 3 pages. #capability-list
    • Operations. SPEC 3, October 28, 1968, 8 pages. #operations
    • Subprocess. SPEC 6, October 28, 1968, 2 pages. #subprocess
    • Subprocess Map. SPEC 8, October 28, 1968, 5 pages. #subprocess-map
    • Process. SPEC 9, November 1, 1968, 11 pages. #process
    • File. SPEC 10, October 29, 1969, 5 pages. #file
    • Allocation Block. SPEC 11, October 29, 198, 3 pages. #allocation-block

Next the focus shifted to detailed design. Malbrain joined the group, and Simonyi attended a few meetings, but did not join the project, nominating his CAL SNOBOL partner McJones in his stead. Around the same time Gray and Morris began contributing. In the spring of 1969, Standiford joined. That summer Redell joined.

28. [Lindsay.] Implementation notes on processes, allocation blocks, etc. October 8, 1968. Second page lists task assignments, listing Malbrain and Simonyi for the first time. 681008-process-alloc-block-etc-bgl
29. [Lindsay.] Design notes. August–December 1968. 46 pages covering a variety of topics. 68-notes-bgl
30. [Lindsay.] Blank compaction. January 9[, 1969?] Various aspects of text file representation; notes "approved". 690109-blank-compaction-bgl
31. [Sturgis.] Speed freaks. January 15[, 1969?] "When speed freaks are running they will be permitted to only read files, write files, put an event on an EC, hang on an EC." 690115-speed-freaks-hes
32. [Lindsay.] "Scope Sim[ulator]." Undated, circa January 1969? "Be able to run Compass & Fortran and load them with Fortran library." Also describes a simple directory for ECS files (with a file type indicating SCOPE or "system standard text") and a command processor apparently integrated with SCOPE simulator. Instead, this became the Bead. In a different hand is written "DO THE SIMPLE THING." 6901-scope-simulator-bgl
33. [Lindsay.] ECS system data structure diagrams. Undated, circa winter 1969. Process, subprocess, event channel, clocks, process in ECS. 69-ecs-sys-data-structures-bgl
34. [McJones.] "Operations". Undated, circa winter 1969. Operation data structure diagram. 69-operations-prm
35.  [?] ECS deadstart dump programs. Undated, circa early 1969. A deadstart program was entered into a 12x12 array of toggle switches on the 6400. This one apparently loaded a program from tape that would dump the contents of ECS to the printer. 69-ecs-dead-start-dump-info
36. [Lindsay.] Design notes. January–February 1969. 5 pages covering various topics. 69-notes-bgl
37. [Sturgis.] "Disk representation of file." May 1, 1969. 690501-file-rep-hes
38. —. "Controlling Extended Core Storage Access Limits." August 20, 1969. Explains why direct user access to ECS is hobbled by 64-word granularity of ECSRA and ECSFL. 690820-ecs-access-limits
39. [Standiford?] "Option bit assignments." August 20, 1969. Table of option bit assignments for the various object types. 690820-opt-bit-assign

6.iii The ECS system begins to run

By the summer of 1969 enough of the ECS system existed to allow a public demonstration exhibiting editing, compiling and execution of Fortran programs from two teletypes simultaneously.

40. [Malbrain.] "The Bead." Undated, circa summer 1969. "The Bead is the first subprocess created in every process when the system is initialized. Its function is to act as an interim monitor package to coordinate file activity and naming, elementary utilities, and be a command processor for the user." 69-bead-km
41. [Gray.] Line collector key bindings. Undated, circa 1969. Key bindings for backing up, copying or skipping by various amounts. 69-line-collector-key-bindings-jng
42. [Morris.] "Editor Commands." Undated, circa 1969. Handwritten; has Substitute rather than Change. 69-ed-cmmds-jhm
43. [Morris.] Handwritten editor documentation. Undated, circa summer 1969? Subtitute is crossed out and replaced with Change. 69-editor-jhm
44. —. Quick start guide. Undated, circa summer 1969? "This is a preliminary description of the use of SNOBOL4 under the Time Sharing System." Three-page guide to use of Bead, Editor, and SCOPE simulator to prepare and run a SNOBOL4 program . 69-short-guide
45. [Sturgis.] "TS Interrupt System." September 2, 1969. Interface between peripheral processor code (device drivers) and user processes. Probably originally for inclusion in Internals Manual.
    • Draft, June 23, 1969. 690623-int-sys-draft-hes
    • Final. 690902-int-sys-hes
46. [Redell.] "Disk Driver Buffer File." November 2, 1969. Hand-drawn diagram; compare with later 700728-disk-driver-spec-ddr. 691102-disk-driver-buffer-file-ddr
47. [Bentley, Gray, Lindsay, Redell, Sturgis.] Overview of the CAL Time Sharing System. Unpublished draft, superseded by 691010-overview-bwl.
    • First draft, typed and handwritten. Circa fall 1969. 6910-overview-draft-1
    • Second draft, retyped. Incomplete; ends in section 3.4. Circa fall 1969. 6910-overview-draft-2
48. Lampson. "An Overview of the CAL Time-Sharing System." October 10, 1969. Reprint of [Lam69], with a progress report (similar to 691011-progress-jng) appended. 691010-overview-bwl
49. Gray. "Progress Report on 6400 CAL Time-Sharing System." October 11, 1969. 691011-progress-jng
50. —. "CAL Time-Sharing System Users Guide." November 1969. Actually, this is the programming reference manual.
    • Draft, circa May 1969. Missing Files. 6905-users-guide-draft
    • Final. From yellow binder labeled "Teletype Room Copy," with various corrections. 6911-users-guide
    • Annotated. From Vaughan's black 3-ring binder, with a list of errors in the manual and many pages describing new or changed ECS actions. 71-users-guide-annotated-vv
51. —. "CAL-TSS Internals Manual." November 1969.
    • Draft, May-July 1969. Missing Allocation of ECS, Processes, Subprocesses, Class codes, and Maps. 6905-internals-draft
    • Draft, September 1969. 6909-internals-draft
    • Final. From yellow binder labeled "Teletype Room Copy," with various corrections. 6911-internals
    • Annotated. From Vaughan's canvas 3-ring binder, with his errata and extensive notes for work he did during 1970 and 1971. Includes original copies of various memos he issued during that period. 71-internals-annotated-vv
52. —. "Preliminary SCOPE Manual." November 5, 1969. The SCOPE simulator made it possible to run programs designed for CDC's SCOPE batch system. 691105-scope-prelim-km
53. [Standiford.] "TSS Printer Driver." November 5, 1969.
    • Handwritten draft, undated. 691105-print-driv-draft-kps
    • Final. 691105-print-driv-kps
54. [Standiford.] "TSS Display Driver." Late 1969? 69-disp-driv-kps
55. [Sturgis.] "S-device user interface." November 5, 1969. Specification of device interface to be used for tape drives, printers, card readers, card punches, and the console display. 691105-s-dev-hes
56. —. "The BEAD Users Guide." December 18, 1969. 691218-bead-ug
57. [Malbrain and McJones.] "COOL-AID." 1969? Reference manual for unfinished PL/360-like assembler. 69-cool-aid-km-prm
58. J. H. Morris[, Jr]. BCPL Users Guide. Computer Center, University of California, Berkeley. December 1969. This initial port ran only under SCOPE; see also 7105-cal-bcpl-jhm. 6912-bcpl-users-guide-jhm
59. —. "SCOPE Manual." January 21, 1970. "This document describes the SCOPE simulator under the interim system. A knowledge of the SCOPE 3.1 manual is assumed." 700121-scope-km
60. [Sturgis.] "Interim Disk System: Preliminary Manual." Undated, circa January 1970. 7001-interim-disk-sys-hes
61. Gray. "(Lack of Visible) Progress Report: CAL-6400-TSS." January 15, 1970. 700115-progress-jng
62. [Standiford.] "TSS display driver: Programming considerations—an amendment to previous document of late 1969." Undated. Distributed with an attached copy of 69-disp-driv-kps. 70-disp-driv-amend-kps
63. [Standiford.] "TSS Display Driver: Operators Guide." Undated. 70-disp-op-guide-kps
64. [Standiford?] "TSS PP DUMP and TSS PP DUMP-TAPE SCANNER." Undated, circa 1970? 70-pp-dump-kps
65. [Malbrain.] "Interim system version 3.0." Undated, circa 1970. "The primary changes occur in the BEAD and IPROC. Space is tightly controlled to alleviate garbage collection problem. ... The BEAD has two new commands: 'SPACE, n' and 'TRIM'". 70-interim-system-30-km
66. [Malbrain.] "SCOPE 3.0." Undated, circa 1970. 70-scope-30-km
67. [Malbrain.] "Proposal for batch system." Early 1970? Early proposal for simple batch system: no tapes or job queuing; low-level disk system to be implemented below the Bead; SNOBOL program used for ? 70-batch-proposal-km
68. [Lindsay.] 1970? Proposal for interrupt priorities based on magnitude of high-order part of class code. 70-interrupt-proposal-bgl
69. [Gray.] "[Addendum to] Systext standard." 1970? 70-systext-changes-jng

6.iv Designing the disk system

In the fall Vaughan and McDaniel joined the project, completing the core team.

70. [Vaughan.] "User interface, command processor, human engineering." 1970? Sets down requirements for mechanism for user to control time used by subsystem, etc. 70-user-interface-vv
71. [Sturgis.] January 22, 1970. "Objects in directories, note on ecs goodie, representation of files, directories, access keys, ecs goodies, directory structure for an entry, directory operations, subprocess descriptor." 700122-directories-hes
72. [Sturgis.] "Subprocess descriptor." February 19, 1970. 700219-subproc-desc-hes
73. [Sturgis.] "Directory object descriptions." February 19, 1970. "Implementation algorithms another time." 700219-dir-objs-hes
74. [Sturgis.] "Tentative changes to ECS system." March 5, 1970. Design notes for return parameter authorization. Vaughan's copy notes: "He settled for return with parameters." 700305-new-sys-calls-hes
75. [Sturgis.] "[Global] ECS object implementation." March 5, 1970. Design notes for representing ECS objects in disk system directories. 700305-ecs-goodie-api-hes
76. [Sturgis.] "ECS goodie implementation." March 5, 1970. 700305-ecs-goodie-impl-hes
77. [Sturgis.] "New ECS facility (version 3)." March 12, 1970. Design notes for capability-creating authorizations. 700312-cca-hes
78. [Sturgis.] "New ECS facility." March 12, 1970. More design notes for return parameter authorization and block data and capability parameters. 700312-new-sys-calls-hes
79. [Vaughan.] Notes on new disk system. Undated, circa March 12, 1970. 7003-disk-system-notes-vv
80. [Sturgis.] "'Disk process' structure." March 19, 1970. 700319-disk-proc-struc-hes
81. [Vaughan, Lindsay, and Redell.] "ECS-List." March 30, 1970. List of changes (bug fixes, additions, etc.) to ECS system. 700330-ecs-list-vv
82. [Vaughan.] "Evaluation of work yet to be done on the ECS system as of 30 March 70." Last page of memo dated April 13, 1970; followed by 4 pages on allocation block operations, file page dirty bits, deliver of interrupt datum, change unique name issues, and allocator issues. March 30, 1970. 700330-evaluation-vv
83. [Gray.] "Disk meeting." April 1, 1970. Scheme for blocking interrupts for a period of time. 700401-blocking-interrupts-jng
84. [Vaughan.] "Interrupts." 1970? Notes for redesign. 70-interrupt-redesign-vv
85. [Vaughan.] "Interrupts." April 2, 1970. 700402-interrupts-vv
86. Gray. "CAL Progress Report." April 15, 1970. 700415-progress-jng
87. [Sturgis.] "General description of actions with respect to directories." April 17, 1970. 700417-directory-actions-hes
88. [Sturgis.] "Directory structure." April 17, 1970. 700417-directory-structure-hes
89. [Sturgis.] "Specific actions for directories." April 17, 1970. 700417-directory-action-specifics-hes
90. [Vaughan.] April 20, 1970. Notes on various ECS system redesign issues: dirty bit, ECS compaction, bent files, CPU time accunting, global interrupt inhibit, direct access to ECS, reallocation of ECS. 700420-ecs-sys-issues-vv
91. [Vaughan.] "2 CP disaster sheet." Undated, circa early 1970? 70-2-cp-disaster-vv
92. [Vaughan.] "Speed phreaques, scheduling, compactification, ECS code, DAE, & other theological questions made simple." Undated, circa early 1970? 70-speed-freaks-vv
93. [Sturgis.] April 23, 1970. "Open and close, general; directories; disk files; subprocess descriptors; access keys; global ECS object; ECS goodie." 700423-disk-sys-objects-hes
94. Richard Brautigan. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. April 27, 1970. Photocopied and distributed to the staff by Vaughan. 700427-brautigan-vv
95. [Sturgis.] "Subprocess descriptors." April 30, 1970. 700430-subproc-desc-hes
96. [Vaughan.] Pseudo-close. Undated; circa spring 1970? Table of good and bad properties of "magic" and manual pseudo-close. 70-magic-pseudo-close-vv
97. [Redell.] 3-D rendering of swappable file. Undated, circa spring 1970. Pointer blocks, active blocks in ECS and on disk, and backup blocks on disk. 70-3d-swapped-file-drawing-ddr
98. [Vaughan.] "September system." [June 1970?] Notes on content of September system: low-level disk system, less swapping, pseudo-close, and space control; directory less subprocess descriptors, ECS goodies, global objects, and accounting; disk dump and load; command processor and subprocess descriptors ("a la bead"), line collector, login, logout, and accounting; Scope simulator; disk recovery. 7006-sept-sys-vv
99. [Vaughan.] "Reconstituted list of things to be done on the ECS level of Cal TSS." June 1, 1970. "Stuff needed for the operation of the 'September System'." Apparently distributed with a copy of the first page of 700330-evaluation-vv attached. 700601-reconstituted-list-vv
100. [Malbrain?] "Batch system." [June 1970?] "It is planned to have a running TSS BATCH system by August 15, 1970, running under the TSS 'September' system." 7006-batch-system-km
101. Gray. "Progress Report - CAL-TSS." June 1, 1970. "I am resigning as director of CAL effective today, Howard Sturgis who, along with Butler Lampson, was the principle architect of TSS is replacing me. The job is thankless, draining, mundane, and unpleasant." 700601-progress-jng
102. [Sturgis.] "Dump-load." June 1, 1970. 700601-dump-load-hes
103. [McJones.] "Operations." June 3, 1970. Operation data structure diagram. 700603-operations-prm
104. [McJones.] "Directory." June 29, 1970. Preliminary interface specification and internal data structure.
     • Original. 700629-directory-prm
     • Annotated by McJones. 700629-directory-annotated-prm
105. [Standiford.] "TSS Display Driver - Revision A." July 6, 1970. 700706-disp-driv-rev-a-kps
106. Morris. "The Text Editor." July 9, 1970. 700709-ed-jhm
107. [Redell.] "Disk allocation routines." Undated, circa 1970? Internal procedures to get or free disk space for file header blocks, pointer blocks, and data blocks; register-based parameter-passing conventions; and diagrams of disk allocation tables. 70-disk-allocation-ddr
108. [Redell.] Disk allocation register-based parameter passing conventions? Undated, circa 1970? This is very similar to the corresponding page of 70-disk-allocation-ddr; presumably it is an earlier or later version. 70-disk-allocator-interface-ddr
109. [Redell.] "Free DDS Block." Undated, circa 1970? Diagram of free chain for DDS (Disk Data Structure) blocks. 70-free-dds-block-ddr
110. [Lindsay.] "File Claim." Undated, circa mid 1970? Complete design document for a per-file shared/exclusive "advisory" lock. Includes introduction, programming interface, internal data structure, and flow charts. 70-file-claim-bgl
111. [Lindsay.] Notes and flowchart for exchanging contents of two files ("shazam"). Undated, circa mid 1970? See 700716-new-low-level-disk-file-actions-ddr. 70-shazam-notes-flowchart-bgl
112. [Redell and Lindsay.] "Page Switch and Pointer Pages." July 5, 1970. Diagram of ECS version (Disk Data Structure) of a pointer block, with detail views showing various data-block and pointer-block situations. 700705-page-switch-and-ptr-pages-ddr-bgl
113. Redell and Lindsay. "Low Level Disk System Actions." July 9, 1970. This copy has Lindsay's annotations. 700709-low-level-disk-actions-ddr-bgl
114. [Redell.] "New low-level disk file actions." July 16, 1970 Exchange contents of two files ("shazam"); fix current content of file (flush to disk). 700716-new-low-level-disk-file-actions-ddr
115. Vaughan. "Change to indirect C-list specifications." July 20, 1970. 700720-new-indir-clist-vv
116. [Redell?] "Disk driver specifications." July 28, 1970. Describes format of disk driver buffer file, request events, and response events, as well as the protocol for using them. 700728-disk-driver-spec-ddr
117. [Lindsay.] File display actions. Undated, circa mid 1970? Display disk file status, status of n-th open disk file, and n-th attached block of file. Includes diagram of returned data, and copy of FHR record on which this was based. 70-file-display-actions-bgl
118. [Lindsay.] File open flowchart. Undated, circa mid 1970? Rough handwritten flowchart; compare with 70-file-action-flowcharts-bgl. 70-file-open-flowchart-bgl
119. [Lindsay.] File action flowcharts. Undated, circa mid 1970? Careful handwritten flowcharts for create, open, create data block, attach, and FRETURN read. Includes list of low level disk system actions, diagram of Local File Table. 70-file-action-flowcharts-bgl
120. [Lindsay.] Extract of file creation source code; some test cases. Original coding sheets for portion of file creation action. Compare with this label "create21" with label "CREATE20" on page 14 of CREATE. 70-create-code-and-tests-bgl
121. [Redell.] Flowcharts for disk system TERMINATOR process. Undated, circa 1970? Flowcharts of Central TERMINATOR and Local/Driver interface for each of: header block write and read, pointer block read, data block read and write; also local/driver interface for header block write and read, pointer block read. Also register-based calling conventions and some data structure diagrams. 70-disk-sys-terminator-ddr
122. [Redell.] "HELPER Internals." Undated, circa 1970? Processing of pointer blocks for close and pseudo-close in Disk Data Structures (DDS). 70-helper-internals-ddr
123. Vaughan. August 10, 1970. Updates for ECS system documentation: capability-creating operations, return with parameters, block data and capability parameters, indirect capability parameters. 700810-ecs-sys-updates-vv
124. [Vaughan.] Undated; circa fall 1970? Jump Call, Special Return, Find Nth Son of a given Subprocess, Zero a capability.
     • Original. 70-new-ecs-actions-vv
     • Vaughan's annotation of Jump Call. 70-new-ecs-actions-vv-comments-vv
125. [Vaughan.] Internal Changes. Undated. SUBPROC dostk, CAPAB error modifier conventions, ECSACT,XTEXT conventions. 70-internal-changes-vv
126. [Sturgis.] "Bead 4.0." Undated, circa 1970. "Differences from Bead 3.1 (those that I can think of)." Document apparently edited on Cal TSS and printed on TTY. 70-bead-40-hes
127. [Sturgis.] "How to make a new system tape for Bead 4.0." Undated, circa 1970. All-caps listing on TTY; edited on the system. First mention of Builder? 70-make-sys-tape-bead-40
128. [Lindsay.] Design notes. April–August 1970. 19 pages covering various topics, mostly disk system related. 70-notes-bgl
129. [Lindsay.] Design notes. 1970–1971. 79 pages covering various aspects of the disk system. 71-notes-bgl
130. [McDaniel.] Bead error classes and numbers. Undated, circa 1970. "One of the most frequent questions heard around TSS teletypes is 34.64.95 BEAD ERROR! BEAD HERE! What the hell does THAT mean???" 70-bead-errors-gam
131. Morris. "The Idiot's Guide to TSS." Fall 1970? 7009-idiots-guide-jhm
132. [Sturgis.] "Tentative basic command processor." September 11, 1970. 700911-tent-basic-cmmd-hes
133. [Redell and Lindsay.] "EDITBIN specification file." September 22, 1970. Diagram of file used to control editing of system tape? Also lists of module names. 700922-editbin-spec-ddr
134. [Sturgis.] "System and system part of user process initialization."
     • Original. Undated, circa September 1970. 700920-sys-init-hes
     • Updated to include "control processes" as well as user processes. September 28, 1970. 700928-sys-init-hes
135. [Redell.] "Load; Recovery." November 9, 1970. Enumerates steps to load file system from tape and to recover an inconsistent state of the file system. 701109-load-recovery-steps-ddr
136. [Lindsay and Redell.] Dump tape management. Undated, circa late 1970? First page is Lindsay's description of daily/weekly/monthly file system dumps (backups); second page is Redell's diagram of the procedure. 70-dump-tape-mgmt-bgl-ddr
137. [Sturgis.] "Proposal: Observable states of a subprocess." November 18, 1970. Proposal for redesign of return to a subprocess. 701118-observable-states-hes
138. [Sturgis.] "Actions in the event of a panic." November 24, 1970. "Bead 4.1 stuff. Later (4.2?) errors replaced with 'return with interrupt.'" 701124-bead-41-panic-hes
139. [Redell.] "Destroy in User-disk-service subproc." November 29, 1970. Enumerates 7 steps, ending with sending an event to CLOSER daemon process to finish the work. 701129-destroy-file-ddr
140. [Sturgis.] "A proposal for the values of a call stack entry and their manipulation by the return operations." November 30, 1970. 701130-call-stack-with-vv-notes-hes
141. [Malbrain.] "Peripheral Device Processor: Preliminary Specifications." December 1, 1970. Proposal for a batch system handling card reader, printer, job queues, tape, and operator console. 701201-pdp-km
142. [Sturgis.] "Interrupt handling code at the command level in the new system." December 4, 1970. 701204-interrupt-handling-hes
143. [Sturgis.] "Syntax of parameters [for new command processor.]" December 5, 1970. "Read gently." 701205-param-syntax-hes
144. [Sturgis.] "WARNING: New syntax for commands." Undated, but after 701205-param-syntax-hes. 70-new-cmmd-syntax-hes
145. [Vaughan.] "Chapter XXimvldc of the continuing interrupt hassle." December 7, 1970. 701207-interrupts-vv
146. [Vaughan.] "ECS operation timing." December 7, 1970. For display user clocks and write file. 701207-ecs-action-timing-vv
147. [Sturgis.] "Bead naming conventions; Bead calls (directory actions)." December 7, 1970. Simulating Bead calls in the new system. 701207-bead-sim-hes
148. [McJones.] "Name tag system." December 10, 1970. Design for static and dynamic name tag implementation. 701210-name-tag-system-prm
149. [Lindsay.] "User direct ECS access." Undated, circa 1970. 70-direct-ecs-access-bgl
150. Sturgis. "Command processor preliminary document." 1971?
     • Handwritten draft. 71-cmmd-prelim-handwritten-hes
     • Typed, with many corrections. 71-cmmd-prelim-typed-hes
151. [Redell.] Command processor complex preliminary document. 1971?
     • Handwritten draft. 71-cpc-handwritten-ddr
     • Typed. 71-cpc-typed-ddr
152. [Sturgis.] Grammar for command language. Undated, circa 1971. 71-cmmd-grammar-hes
153. [Sturgis.] "Errors in BEADS." Undated, circa 1971. 71-errors-in-beads-hes
154. [Vaughan.] "BEADS Errors." Undated, circa 1971? 71-beads-errors-vv
155. [Sturgis.] "Line collector." Undated, circa 1971. Vaughan: "debeaded" line collector. "This line collector uses code copied from GREYCODE,XTEXT the same as the old Bead. 71-debeaded-line-coll-hes
156. Vaughan. "Allocation blocks." January 4, 1971. "Proposed User's Manual sections for allocation blocks." 710104-alloc-block-vv
157. Sturgis. "About Cal TSS." January 6, 1971. Sturgis's first status report as project director. 710106-about-hes
158. [McJones.] Documentation of basic directory actions. Undated, circa January 1971. Open, close, access, access via scan list, create disk file, create directory, move space, increment charge meter, set accounting tag, display disk accounting record, return clocks. 7101-dir-actions-prm
159. [Vaughan.] "Questions on which you are invited to express opinions in the next few days." February 1, 1971. Includes updated version of 700601-reconstituted-list-vv. 710201-ecs-system-questions-vv
160. [Vaughan.] "AB's Mark III." February 1971. 7102-ab-mk-iii-vv
161. [Redell.] New disk file actions. Undated, circa early 1971? Audit, declare accounting file, disk contents ready. 71-new-disk-file-actions-ddr
162. [Redell.] Disk system data structure diagrams. Mostly undated; one dated February 16, 1970 and one February 9, 1971. Disk system global data overview, FHR (file header record), DAR (disk accounting record), LFH (local file header), FHB (file header block), pointer block, and in-disk data structure. 7102-disk-sys-data-structures-ddr
163. [Redell.] "Response event from TERMINATOR; I/O Table Entry; HELPER Request Event." February 9, 1971. Diagrams of three one- or two-word structures. On this copy Redell has added ACCOUNTANT request event and USER-INDEX field of disk-driver request event. 710209-terminator-helper-events-ddr
164. [Redell.] "Disk Accounting Record; Disk System Internal Accounting Calls." February 9, 1971. Disk accounting record diagram is hand-drawn; compare with (later?) 71-disk-accounting-record-ddr. Calls are OPENDAR, CLODAR, DARSPA (adjust space). 710209-disk-acctng-records-and-calls
165. [Redell.] "DAR: Disk Accounting Record." Undated, circa 1971. Diagrams of Disk Accounting Record layouts.
     • Version with accompanying descriptions of the fields; last word is unused. 71-disk-accounting-record-ddr
     • Version with accompanying description of DF:EOCC (Display Process ECS Status (see ACCNT in disk system) and [allocation block?] diagram by Vaughan; last word contains two fields. 71-disk-accounting-ddr-vv
166. Redell. "Creation and destruction of accounting blocks." February 9, 1971. 710209-accounting-blocks-ddr
167. [Redell.] "DABUF: Disk Accounting Block/Record Buffer." February 18, 1971. Assembly language declarations. 710218-dar-buf-ddr
168. [Redell and Lindsay.] "Proposed actions relating to accounting."
     • February 21, 1971. 710221-disk-actng-ddr-bgl
     • March 3, 1971. 710303-disk-actng-ddr-bgl
169. [McJones.] Documentation of directory display actions. February 9, 1971. Display: n-th entry, named entry, access pairs, successor pointer. 711027-dir-actions-prm
170. [Vaughan.] "New stack logic." February 22, 1971. Call stack manipulation changes based on 701118-observable-states-hes. 710222-new-stack-logic
171. [Vaughan.] Block gone from file in map problem. February 22, 1971. Originally distributed with 710222-new-stack-logic. 710222-latest-on-maps-vv
172. [Vaughan.] "Control of CPU time." February 22, 1971. A process is now descheduled when its CPU time runs out. Originally distributed with 710222-new-stack-logic. 710222-control-of-cpu-time-vv
173. [Redell.] "CP time cutoff." Undated, circa February 1971? Describes a mechanism similar to 710222-control-of-cpu-time-vv. Did this precede or follow? 71-cp-time-cutoff-ddr
174. [Sturgis.] "Proposal for proprietary subprocesses." February 24, 1971. 710224-prop-subp-hes
175. [Sturgis.] "Current root directory structure." February 24, 1971. Subdirectories OPERATE, CLASS, S ("soon to be called PUBLIC"), and TDLIST; also PUB.KEY (access key). 710224-current-rootd-hes

6.v The disk system begins to run

176. Subcommittee on Time Sharing. "Report to: Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Computing." February 27, 1971. 710227-subcommittee-on-time-sharing-elw
177. [Redell.] "To remove Allocator from FRETRW." Undated, circa 1971? Enumerates steps to perform some restructuring of disk system code. 71-remove-allocator-from-fretrw-ddr
178. [Redell.] "Notes: Pseudo-close; Exchange contents." Undated, circa 1971? Proposes centralizing pseudo-close code in user subprocess to avoid deadlock with TERMINATOR daemon; describes implementation of "Exchange contents of two files." 71-pseudo-close-and-exchange-notes-ddr
179. Redell. Closing down a disk process. March 3, 1971. 710303-disk-proc-end-ddr-bgl
180. [Vaughan.] "General Discussion of the Initial User Version of CAL- TSS, Available around 15 March '71." March 9, 1971. "The whole project could conceivably be canceled because of computer center funding difficulties, but on the assumption that it is not cancelled, we proceed to discuss its availability, pas, present, and future." 710309-initial-user-version-discussion-vv
181. [Vaughan.] "Facilities available." March 15, 1971. Status report on readiness of various subsystems. 710315-facilities-avail-vv
182. [Sturgis.] "Immediate mopping up." March 15, 1971. 710315-mopping-up-hes
183. [Sturgis.] "Major problems." March 17, 1971. "L/D/R has error on final call; L/D/R opens too many files on dump (can't dump); can't destroy directories." 710317-major-problems-hes
184. [Vaughan.] "Considerations concerning CAL TSS support of users during spring quarter of '71." March 18, 1971. Lots of things still weren't ready but Vaughan was looking ahead to logistics for user support. 710318-support-considerations-vv
185. McDaniel. "The Cal TSS interrupt system." Circa spring 1971. 71-int-sys-gam
186. [Vaughan.] "Portrait of a subprocess descriptor." Spring 1971? 71-portrait-subproc-desc-vv
187. —. "Summary documents." Brief summaries: Idiot's Guide, Editor, BASIC; appendices: getting back to command processor; using line collector.
     • April 5, 1971: 710405-summary-documents-vv
     • May 25, 1971, with cover letter from Vaughan asking for feedback: 710526-summary-documents-vv
188. Redell and Lindsay. Accounting block services.
     • November 9, 1970. Create, destroy, fund process, move space, display. 701109-acctng-block-svc-oper-ddr
     • April 22, 1971; page 7 updated May 4, 1971. Create, activate, destroy, display, move disk space down/up, increment charge meter, set accounting tag. 710422-actng-blk-svc-ddr-bgl
189. [Gould.] Instructions for running BASIC on the CAL Time-Sharing System. May 1971. Prepared for her spring 1971 CS1 course. Covered finding a teletype, logging in, editing, interpreting error messages, etc. 7105-instructions-for-basic-leg
190. —. Time-Sharing System Manual. Part 3 of Volume III (The 6400 Computer System) of the Cal Computer Center Users Guide.
     • [Lindsay.] "Exclusively open a disk file (DF:XOPN)." Undated, circa January 1971. Not "advisory", in contrast with file claim operations. 71-df-xopn-bgl
     • [Bentley.] System calls and file actions draft pages, January-February 1971. 7102-tss-manual-draft-mab
     • Published version, May 1971; Appendices C and D added in November. 7105-tss-manual
191. [Bridge.] "BASIC." May 1971. Section E of Part 4 of Volume III (The 6400 Computer System) of the Cal Computer Center Users Guide. BASIC ran interactively under TSS and in batch mode on SCOPE. 7105-cal-basic-whb
192. [Morris, borrowing from Canady and Ritchie.] "BCPL." May 1971. Section F of Part 4 of Volume III (The 6400 Computer System) of the Cal Computer Center Users Guide. This version ran natively under TSS. 7105-cal-bcpl-jhm
193. [Sturgis.] "Projects related to command processor." May 5, 1971. "I) Errors will be interpreted and fancy messages printed. ..." 710505-cmmd-projects-hes
194. [Sturgis.] "SPACE command in CMMD." May 5, 1971. Command for controlling swapped ECS space, fixed ECS space, MOT slots, and temporary disk space. 710505-space-cmmd-hes
195. [Sturgis.] "New version of CMMD." May 17, 1971. 710517-new-cmmd-hes
196. [Sturgis.] "New facilities available from command processor." June 6, 1971. New operations available to subsystems. 710606-new-cmmd-facilities-hes
197. Sturgis. "Preliminary proposal for testing system subprocesses of user processes." June 8, 1971. 710608-testing-sys-subprocs-hes
198. [Sturgis.] "New commands in SERVICES." June 11, 1971. New commands: SHAZAM, CHAIN, UNCHAIN, and SOFTL. 710611-new-services-cmmds-hes
199. [Sturgis.] Multiprocess test framework: BCPL source code. Undated, circa summer 1971. Coordination framework for running a command in multiple processes and retrieving the reports. Written in BCPL, but probably not finished. 71-test-runner-hes
200. Bridge, McDaniel, and McJones. "CAL Lisp: Preliminary Description." June 1971? Incomplete design for a LISP 1.5 implementation for CAL TSS (class project). 7106-cal-lisp-whb-gam-prm
201. [Redell or Lindsay.] "Declare process swapped-ECS cross-section." Undated, circa 1971. Description of disk file action. 71-decl-proc-swapped-ecs-xsec
202. [Lindsay.] Notes on forced swapping of a process. Undated, circa 1971? 71-swapping-bgl
203. [Bentley and Vaughan, editors.] "Introduction to CAL TSS." July 1971; updated October and November 1971. General concepts, examples, and subsystem summaries for Editor, BASIC, SCOPE simulator, and command processor Services and Bead Ghost. Early drafts evolved out of Chapter 1 of 7105-tss-manual (see first section of 71-cookbook-vv). 7111-intro-mab-vv
204. [Vaughan.] "Where ECS space is going." July 22, 1971. Measurements. 710722-ecs-usage-vv-hes
205. [McDaniel.] "ECS global register and protection." July 22, 1971. Cover note from Vaughan and proposal from McDaniel for storing some process state bits in ECS global register. 710722-global-register-gam
206. [Vaughan.] August 1, 1971. Measurements of sizes of subprocesses in a "disk process". 710801-disk-proc-vv
207. Sturgis. "CAL TSS Report." August 1, 1971. "The purpose of this report is two-fold: first, to make available detailed information concerning the present status of CAL TSS, and second, to provide a basis for management discussion of the future course of development for CAL TSS. Since the TSS staff is small, not all projects can be pursued at once." 710801-cal-tss-report-hes
208. —. CAL Time-Sharing System: Status and Information. August 13, 1971. "CAL TSS is currently available weekdays from 2-6 PM." [Room 227 has been changed to 223.] 710813-status-and-info-vv.pdf
209. Sturgis, “A note on charging.” August 17, 1971.
     • Draft: 710813-charging-draft-hes
     • Final: 710817-charging-hes
210. [McDaniel.] "Modified scheduler."
     • Original document. Undated, circa August 1971. 7108-modified-sched-gam
     • "Correction." Undated, circa August 28, 1971. 710824-modified-sched-corrected-gam
211. [Vaughan.] List of various documents in reverse chronological order. August 26, 1971. 710826-doc-list-vv
212. [Vaughan.] "User Profile." Undated; circa 1971? Diagram of user profile data structure recording user information including accounting. Includes note from Bridge to Vaughan proposing staffing for dumping the dayfile (accounting information). 71-user-profile-vv-whb.pdf
213. [Vaughan.] Memo to users of CAL TSS. Circa September 10, 1971. Announces coming end of free use, new SYSMES feature, and "Introduction to CAL TSS" document; includes forms: Application for Use of CAL TSS; CAL TSS User Survey. 710910-memo-to-users-vv
214. Earley and Caizergues. "VERS Manual: Version 4". October 1971.
     • Manual. 7110-vers-manual-v4-je-pc
     • Examples. 7110-vers-examples
215. [Vaughan]. "Proposed charges for TSS. October 8, 1971. "Effective Monday, 25 Oct 71." CPU $130/hour; ECS $0.29/1000 words-hour, temporary disk $0.47 per 1000 sector-hours; connect time $2/hour; permanent disk space $9.30/1000-sector-month. 711008-proposed-charges-vv
216. Vaughan. System Maintenance. October 15, 1971. "Currently the naive TSS systems programmer is unable to contruct arbitrary parts of the operating system or user subsystems unless he has ritten some or all of the code for that system." 711015-system-maintenance-vv
217. —. CAL Time-Sharing System: Status and Information." October 19, 1971. "CAL TSS will be run from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on weekdays. The hours from 12 to 6:00 will be reserved for customers." 711019-status-and-info-vv
218. [McJones.] October 19, 1971. Instructions for building the directory system. 711019-maintaining-dir-sys-prm
219. [Vaughan or Sturgis.] "CAL TSS Rates: Effective 25 Oct '71." October 20, 1971. From the SYSMES file. 711020-rates-vv
220. [McJones.] Documentation of bulk directory actions. October 27, 1971. Access multiple owned objects, get/put multiple disk addresses. Were these to optimize LOAD/DUMP/RECOVER? 711027-dir-actions-prm
221. [Sturgis.] "New features in CMMD." October 27, 1971. TEST mode; TTYON, TTYSON, TTYOFF, NEWMASTER, SYSDOWN, FORCEOUT commands. 711027-new-cmmd-features-hes
222. —. [System status.] November 1, 1971. "1 NOV 71 COMMAND PROCESSOR NEWU COMMAND; 20 OCT 71 CHARGING FOR CAL TSS" 711101-status-vv
223. [Vaughan.] "Accounting info." November 1, 1971. Annotated TTY listing showing how to dump accounting information. 711101-actng-info-vv
224. [Vaughan.] "SaveDF prior to load." Accompanied 711101-actng-info-vv? 711101-savedf-notes-vv
225. [McJones.] "Option bits". November 3, 1971. Directory option bit assignments. 711103-dir-option-bits-prm
226. —. "List of privileged [disk system] operations." November 3, 1971. All-caps line printer listing; edited on the system. 711103-priv-ops
227. [McDaniel?] "Proposal for Modification of ECS System Timed Event Channels (TEVS)." November 4, 1971. 711104-timed-event-proposal-gam
228. [Sturgis.] "Calls on the TTY line collector." November 8, 1971. 711108-line-coll-hes
229. [Standiford.] "Proposed change to Builder." November 9, 1971. New interpretation of scratch-file size. 711109-builder-proposal-kps
230. [Vaughan.] Assorted CAL TSS files. 1970-1971.
     • "CAL TSS Cookbook." Undated, 1971. Vaughan's personal copy of user-oriented information: documentation, status and information, bug reporting and diagnosis, consulting, etc. Includes only surviving copy of 7111-intro-mab-vv. 71-cookbook-vv
     • "Resource control and accounting on CAL TSS." Circa 1970
       • Red pen on 11"x14" paper. 70-rsrc-ctrl-accntng-red-pen-vv
       • Typed and pencil on 8.5"x11" paper. 5th page is actually by Jim Gray. 70-rsrc-ctrl-accntng-typed-vv-jng
     • "Current tasks". Blue notebook with to-do lists, list of changes to ECS system from December 1970 through June 1971, source code for tests of various ECS actions (see also TESTS source code). 71-blue-notebook-current-tasks-vv
     • "Pending horrors, etc." Circa fall 1971. "Various considerations", "system uglies", and "pending changes." 71-pending-horrors-etc-vv
     • "NEWSYS Notes." Circa 1970. Vaughan's data structure diagrams, flowcharts, and notes for his ECS system redesign activities of 1970. 70-newsys-notes-vv
     • "Oper Docs." March 13, 1971. To-do list and originals for problem-diagnosis information in 71-operators-manual. 710313-oper-docs-vv
     • "Users". 1971. Lists of users, multiplexor ports, and related information. 71-users-vv
     • "User Surveys." October 1971. Filled-out surveys by users and potential users. 7110-user-surveys-vv
     • "TSS Applications." October–November 1971. Filled-out applications for accounts on CAL TSS. 7111-user-applications-vv
     • CAL TSS charging examples. September-November 1971. 15 TTY listings showing charges for various comomon actions. 7110-cal-tss-charging-examples
     • REACT example. September 13, 1971. Run of a SNOBOL haiku-writing program, with charging information. 710913-react-examples-vv
231. —. CAL-TSS operator's manual. Initial version was September 10, 1970; various updates through November 1971. Includes short procedures and trouble-shooting information, deadstart tape log (one-page form for each time a system programmer wrote, tested, and installed a new deadstart tape), and bug list/failure log (one-page form for each system crash). 71-operators-manual
232. [Sturgis.] "To be done on Sunday 8pm." Undated, presumably before Sunday, November 24, 1971? Outlines steps to create new user directories with funds, based on list from Jim Markison in the Computer Center Accounting Department. 7111-accounting-setup-hes

6.vi Development is discontinued.

233. —. CAL Time-Sharing System Status. November 29, 1971. "CAL TSS has been discontinued pursuant to a decision formulated in the Chancellor's office." 711129-status-vv
234. Vaughan. "System staff et al." November 30, 1971. 711130-future-vv
235. Sturgis. File system throughput. December 6, 1971. "On Saturday I conducted some timing tests. I wrote a BCPL program to do one word IO." 711206-file-system-timing-hes
236. Kenneth J Hebert. "Staff notice." December 8, 1971. "Effective immediately, Vance Vaughan will assume the responsibilities of Chief Programmer. I hope that you all will give him your utmost support in this most trying position." 711208-promotion-kjh
237. Richard Colman. "Computer System Cut." Daily Californian, December 10, 1971. 711210-cut-dc
238. [Standiford.] "Savetss." Undated, late 1971? "Savetss is a Fortran program for retrieving files from a TSS DISK DUMP TAPE." Written after TSS was cancelled? 71-savetss-kps

6.vii Afterward

239. M. Stuart Lynn. "CDC 6400 Departure". September 3, 1982. "The CDC 6400 is no more." 820903-cdc-6400-departure-msl
240. Redell. "Cal-TSS 20th Anniversary Trivia Quiz." December 14, 1991. 911214-trivia-quiz-ddr
241. Redell. "Answers to Cal-TSS 20th Anniversary Trivia Quiz." September 2015. 201509-trivia-answers-ddr

7 Source code

See source.

8 Theses

Three of the participants based their Ph.D. theses on aspects of CAL TSS:

• Sturgis. A Postmortem for a Time-Sharing System. May 1973. 7401-thesis-hes (via bitsavers.org) [reformatted] [HTML]
• Redell. Naming and Protection in Extendible Operating Systems. September 1974. 7409-thesis-ddr
• Lindsay. Exception Processing in Computer Systems. 1977. 77-thesis-bgl

9 Papers

A report ([GLLS72]) and several papers ([Lam69] and [LS76]) were eventually published.

10 Hardware

CalTSS ran on a standard Control Data Corporation (CDC) 6400 with Extended Core Storage (ECS) and the Central Processor Monitor features (Monitor Address Register, Monitor Flag Bit, and Monitor and Central Exchange Jump instructions). It used CDC controllers and peripherals for disk, tape, card reader, and printers, but used a locally-developed terminal multiplexor.

• Control Data Corporation. Control Data 6400/6500/6600 Computer Systems Reference Manual. February 1967. 6400-cdc
• Control Data Corporation. Control Data 6400 Systems Central Processor Monitor. Undated, circa 1968. 68-cp-mon-cdc
• Control Data Corporation. 6639-A Disk File Controller. From Section IV of Control Data 6000 Series Computer Systems: Peripheral Equipment Reference Manual. Publication Number 60156100, Revision B. 69-6639-a-disk-file-ctlr-cdc
• Control Data Corporation. Control Data 6400/6500/6600 Computer Systems reference card. Pub. No. 60164500. CDC 6000 reference card
• [David Wheeler.] "6400 Multiplexor Reference Manual." 1967? Wheeler was on sabbatical from Cambridge in the mid 1960s and designed this multiplexor, originally used with Berkeley's 7094. Martin H. Graham completed the design and implementation. 6400-mux.djw

11 People

• Marianne Bentley (mab) LinkedIn
• William H. Bridge (whb) LinkedIn
• Paul Caizergues (pc) ACM / dblp / LinkedIn
• Jay Earley (je) Wikipedia / ACM / dblp
• James N. Gray (jng) Wikipedia / ACM Turing Award / dblp / Home page
• Butler W. Lampson (bwl) Wikipedia / ACM Turing Award / dblp / Home page
• Bruce G. Lindsay (bgl) ACM / dblp / LinkedIn
• Karl Malbrain (km) LinkedIn
• Gene A. McDaniel (gam) ACM / dblp / LinkedIn
• Paul R. McJones (prm) ACM / dblp / Home page
• James H. Morris, Jr. (jhm) Wikipedia / ACM / dblp / Home page
• David D. Redell (ddr) ACM / dblp / LinkedIn
• Charles Simonyi (cs) Wikipedia / ACM / dblp
• Keith P. Standiford (kps) ResearchGate / LinkedIn
• Howard E. Sturgis (hes) ACM / dblp / ProofWiki
• Vance Vaughan (vv) Wikipedia (mt Xinu) / Home page

12 Photographs

• 1970-71 2515 Channing Way and 2nd Floor Evans Hall
• 1974 Farewell party for Lindsay
• 1980 Reunion
• 1991 Reunion

13 References

[GLLS72]

James N. Gray, Butler W. Lampson, Bruce G. Lindsay, and Howard E. Sturgis. The control structure of an operating system. Technical Report RC 3949, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York 10598, July 1972. 7207-control-structure-jng

[Lam69]

Butler W. Lampson. On reliable and extendible operating systems. In Proceedings 2nd NATO Conference on Techniques in Software Engineering, Rome, September 1969. Reprinted in The Fourth Generation, State of the Art Report Number 1, pages 421-444. Infotech, 1971. Online at bwlampson.site / 71-reliable-os-Infotech-bwl

[LS76]

Butler W. Lampson and Howard E. Sturgis. Reflections on an operating system design. Communications of the ACM, 19(5):251-265, January 1976. Online at bwlampson.site / ACM Digital Library

[Lin77]

Lindsay. Exception Processing in Computer Systems. 1977. 77-thesis-bgl

[McJ2022]

Paul McJones. CAL Timesharing System Collection. October 2022; updated January 2024. 20221023-labels-prm

[MR2023]

Paul McJones and David Redell. History of the CAL Timesharing System. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Volume 45, Issue 3, July-September 2023, pages 80-91. IEEE (open access)

[Red74]

David D. Redell. Naming and protection in extendible operating systems. Technical Report MAC TR-140, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Project MAC, November 1974. 7409-thesis-ddr / PDF at dtic.mil

[Stu74]

Howard E. Sturgis. A postmortem for a time-sharing system. Technical Report CSL 74-1, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Palo Alto, California, January 1974. 7401-thesis-hes / PDF at bitsavers.org

14 Citations

Last updated October 12, 2022.

• [GLLS72]: 12 citations in Google Scholar
• [Lam69]: 49 citations in Google Scholar
• [691010-overview-bwl]: 13 citations in Google Scholar
• [Red74]: 110 citations in Google Scholar
• [Stu74]: 32 citations in Google Scholar
• [LS76]: 99 citations in ACM Digital Library; 168 citations in Google Scholar
• [Lin77]: 2 citations in Google Scholar