Re: System UICs

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:

On 10 Jun 2024 16:26:20 -0400, Rich Alderson wrote:

"UIC" is a renaming of the concept of project-programmer number, or PPN,
introduced in DEC systems with the PDP-6, DEC's first multiuser
mainframe product (April 1964 announcement, June 1964 FCS).

So "PPN" was the term used in TOPS-10 (and whatever the PDP-6 precursor OS
was), and also RSTS-11/RSTS/E, as well. It was decimal in the latter; was
it decimal or octal in the PDP-6/10?

I've only seen the PDP-6 OS referred to as "TOPS-6" in one place, but it was a
DEc publication, so...

The PPN consisted of a pair of 6 digit octal numbers.  Project numbers 1-10
were reserved to system usages; system programmers usually had PPNs in the
[10,oooooo] range.  This of course meant that a PPN ttook up a single word.

(On TSS/8, account numbers were usually represented as a 4 digit octal number,
 but this was subdivided into a 2 digit project and a 2 digit programmer number.)

If you ever encountered a CompuServe ID, you were looking at a Tops-10 PPN in a
different syntax.

On the WAITS operating system created at SAIL, PPNs were used, but they
differed from their PDP-6/PDP-10 monitor predecessors in that they were SIXBIT
(truncated ASCII) rather than octal numbers.  Thus, my login PPN on SAIL was
1,RMA (directory was [1,RMA]), but this was represented in memory as 000021,,625541.

"UIC" was the term used in RSX-11, and passed on from there into VMS. That
was octal in both systems.

RSX-15 was the original;  RSX-11 was a reimplementation on the 16-bit hardware.
But yes, VMS got it from RSX-11M, its immediate ancestor.

A separation of terminology indicating some kind of cultural separation
within DEC itself?

Since each product line was a separate culture, by design, that's hardly
surprising.

--
Rich Alderson   news@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen