Re: System UICs

Stephen Hoffman <seaohveh@hoffmanlabs.invalid> writes:

BTW(1), UICs are a design that originated in the 1970s and quite probably
earlier

"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).  To that time, DEC systems
were oriented to the single user, with offline accounting for files (on paper
tape or DECtape).

The PPN concept was kept on the successful PDP-10 follow-on product, and
adopted by the creators of TSS/8 for the PDP-8i (who were developers on the
second generation DECsystem-10) in 1970; its use then spread to the PDP-15 and
the PDP-11 as the UIC in RSX-15 and RSX-11.

--
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