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Who introduced named files?

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  Who introduced named files? Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-11 13:14 +0000
    Re: Who introduced named files? Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-11 08:56 -0500
      personal histories [was Re: Who introduced named files?] Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-06-11 19:08 -0400
        Re: personal histories Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-11 18:58 -0500
          Re: personal histories Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-06-12 19:04 -0400
            Re: personal histories Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-13 05:51 -0700
            Re: personal histories Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-16 10:59 -0500
    Re: Who introduced named files? John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-11 17:15 +0000
      Re: Who introduced named files? Douglas Miller <durgadas311@gmail.com> - 2020-06-11 10:24 -0700
      Re: Who introduced named files? rst@panix.com (Robert Thau) - 2020-06-14 19:36 +0000
    Re: Who introduced named files? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-11 23:53 -0700
      Re: Who introduced named files? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-12 00:12 -0700
        Re: Who introduced named files? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-12 00:30 -0700
          Re: Who introduced named files? Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-06-12 07:35 +0000
            Re: Who introduced named files? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-12 06:40 -0700
              Re: Who introduced named files? Dallas <dallas@texas.usa> - 2020-06-12 09:03 -0500
                Re: Who introduced named files? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 07:49 -0700
            Re: Who introduced named files? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-06-15 22:10 +0000
          Re: Who introduced named files? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-12 07:49 -0700
            Re: Who introduced named files? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-12 15:35 -0700
              Re: Who introduced named files? John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-13 00:08 +0000
                Re: Who introduced named files? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-06-12 17:15 -0700
                  Re: Who introduced named files? Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-06-13 05:46 +0000
                  Re: Who introduced named files? Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-14 13:58 +0100
              Re: Who introduced named files? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-06-13 05:51 -0700
                Re: Who introduced named files? John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-06-13 14:45 +0000
    Re: Who introduced named files? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2020-06-12 13:25 -0500
    Re: Who introduced named files? Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2020-06-13 15:18 -1000

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#211925

In article <e584abd5-8028-4db7-a77a-7a02805ff436o@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>However, what about named files on tape?

IBM had named files on 1/2" magtape around 1960. See the note I sent a
day or two ago.  The main point was to be sure that the tape in the
drive was the one the program expected.

I'm pretty sure that LINCtape was the first randomly accessible tape
system so it would have been the first filesystem on tape. DECtape was
probably the last.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#211926

On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 6:08:10 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:

> I'm pretty sure that LINCtape was the first randomly accessible tape
> system so it would have been the first filesystem on tape. DECtape was
> probably the last.

There was a DECtape II. It used the Philips Compact Cassette.

Also, I think there were filesystems on tape using those cartridges that HP 
invented.

John Savard

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#211931

On Fri, 12 Jun 2020 17:15:40 -0700, Quadibloc wrote:

> On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 6:08:10 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:
> 
>> I'm pretty sure that LINCtape was the first randomly accessible tape
>> system so it would have been the first filesystem on tape. DECtape was
>> probably the last.
> 
> There was a DECtape II. It used the Philips Compact Cassette.

No, it didn't. It used a form factor that was smaller in area but 
thicker, with a metal backplate. Similar to (but not the same as) the 
later Travan and other drives.

There *was* also a Compact Cassette based system, but it wasn't branded 
DECtape II. It was the TU60.

See: http://www.psych.usyd.edu.au/pdp-11/media.html

(I have a couple of DECtape II cartridges somewhere)

-- 
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
 http://www.mirrorservice.org

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#211941

On 13/06/2020 01:15, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 6:08:10 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:
> 
>> I'm pretty sure that LINCtape was the first randomly accessible tape
>> system so it would have been the first filesystem on tape. DECtape was
>> probably the last.
> 
> There was a DECtape II. It used the Philips Compact Cassette.
> 

I'm fairly sure (senior moment?)  That I had to write a device
driver for a home grown OS in about 1977 on a PDP11.

ISTR Skip To File Gap ?????

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#211936

Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Friday, June 12, 2020 at 8:49:41 AM UTC-6, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> 
>>> One Wikipedia article dates this to 1961, crediting both the Burroughs MCP and 
>>> MIT's CTSS as coming up with it at around the same time.
> 
>> Wow, that recently? I assume they have sources, but it seems awfully late
>> in the game.  
> 
> It does seem to me that named files on disk drives would still have been useful 
> even on purely batch systems. So I, too, wonder if there may not have been 
> something around earlier. However, IBM's RAMAC dates from 1956, so there isn't 
> _too_ much room for earlier.
> 
> However, what about named files on tape? While LINCtape, the ancestor of 
> DECtape, dates from 1962 or thereabouts, a perfectly ordinary computer system 
> might have one magnetic tape drive with a tape on it that contains, say, an 
> assembler, a COBOL compiler, and a FORTRAN compiler, and some way to advance the 
> conventional (7-track!) tape to the right one of those.
> 

Probably, originally the “some way” was by file number on the tape.


-- 
Pete

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#211938

In article <897040863.613744950.882309.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org>,
Peter Flass  <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> DECtape, dates from 1962 or thereabouts, a perfectly ordinary computer system 
>> might have one magnetic tape drive with a tape on it that contains, say, an 
>> assembler, a COBOL compiler, and a FORTRAN compiler, and some way to advance the 
>> conventional (7-track!) tape to the right one of those.
>
>Probably, originally the “some way” was by file number on the tape.

Originally, sure, but by 1960-ish tapes had labels with file names.
(These are short files between the data files, not the paper labels.)
See the messages I posted in this thread a few days ago.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#211913

Thomas Koenig wrote:

> I've been looking around a bit, but I cannot find which operating
> system introduced named files.
> 
> OS/360 certainly had them, as did EXEC II.  I would think that
> peole started using them as soon as discs with random access made
> their appearance - does anybody know more?
The LAP6 OS on the LINC computer had named files on LINCtape (similar to 
DECtape) in 1965.  There may have been earlier versions of this system
(file manager, editor, assembler and program loader all in one.)

Jon

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#211939

Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> writes:
> I've been looking around a bit, but I cannot find which operating
> system introduced named files.
>
> OS/360 certainly had them, as did EXEC II.  I would think that
> peole started using them as soon as discs with random access made
> their appearance - does anybody know more?

at least as soon as there was "system" storage devices where items for
different people & programs were stored ... as opposed to dedicated
storage devices (cards, tapes, etc) for specific program execution
(needed to select the data as opposed to select the device).

7094/CTSS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System
The Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS) was one of the first
time-sharing operating systems; it was developed at the MIT Computation
Center. CTSS was first demonstrated on MIT's IBM 709 in November 1961;
service to MIT users began in the summer of 1963 and was operated until
1973.[1] During part of this time, MIT's influential Project MAC also
ran a CTSS service, but the system did not spread beyond these two
sites.

some of the 7094/CTSS people went to 5th to do multics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics
others went to IBM science center to do virtual machines, online
applications, performance, work profile and capacity planning, invented
GML in 1969 (morphs into international SGML after decade and after
another decade mophs into HTML at CERN). 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_CP/CMS


Experimental Time-Sharing System
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System#Experimental_Time-Sharing_System
John Backus said in the 1954 summer session at MIT that "By time
sharing, a big computer could be used as several small ones; there would
need to be a reading station for each user".[2] Computers at that time,
like IBM 704, were not powerful enough to implement such system, but at
the end of 1958, MIT's Computation Center nevertheless added a
typewriter input to its 704 with the intent that a programmer or
operator could "obtain additional answers from the machine on a
time-sharing basis with other programs using the machine
simultaneously".[3]

CTSS filesystem implementation (CP40/CMS & CP67/CMS inherited some
similarities)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System#File_system

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

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