[ih] Fwd: As Flag Day approaches at CMU

[Guy Almes]

   Very interesting; thanks,
	-- Guy

On 9/6/25 4:32 PM, Jack Haverty wrote:
> Yes.  I left MIT in June 1977 and it had been in place for a while by 
> then, and had spread to include the MIT-ML and MIT-MC machines. There 
> may be more info at https://its.victor.se/wiki/ or the associated 
> mailing list.   /Jack
> 
> 
> On 9/6/25 13:04, Guy Almes wrote:
>> Jack,
>>   Thanks very much.
>>   So this was in place by the mid-70s, right?
>>     -- Guy
>>
>> On 9/6/25 3:15 PM, Jack Haverty via Internet-history wrote:
>>> ITS at MIT circa early 1970s used a naming convention for files --
>>> <device>:<directory>;<name1> <name2> So, for example, I logged in to
>>> MIT-DM as JFH.  My files on disk were things like DSK:JFH;THESIS TJ6
>>> File names were limited to alphanumerics of 6 characters or less
>>> (motivated by what you could encode into a 36-bit PDP-10 memory 
>>> location).
>>>
>>> Once the ARPANET and NCPs appeared, the 'net was a new toy, so people of
>>> course experimented with how to use it.  I don't remember the details or
>>> timing (sometime in early 1970s), but at but at some point the Message
>>> Of The Day announced a new capability - you could use files on some
>>> other ITS machine just by using a different <device> to specify the DSK
>>> on some other ITS machine.
>>>
>>> So, for example, from the MIT-AI machine a user could get to my file on
>>> the DM machine by specifying DM:JFH;THESIS TJ6.
>>>
>>> Similarly, from my account on MIT-DM, I could get to another machine's
>>> files by using a name such as AI:TK;NEWS ITS to get at Tom Knight's file
>>> on the AI machine.
>>>
>>> This provided more flexibility than FTP.  You could use a remote file in
>>> any program that knew how to use files on devices.  To the program, the
>>> remote disk looked and behaved like a local disk. (More or less -
>>> problems of "global LANs" were still be be surfaced)
>>>
>>> I don't recall at all how this worked, or who implemented it. IIRC, it
>>> took advantage of an interprocess communication capability called the
>>> "JOB/BOJ device", which enabled one program to open a JOB device, and
>>> another program to open the corresponding BOJ (JOB reversed) device, and
>>> send whatever they liked back and forth.  But I don't remember details.
>>>
>>> We also had the ability for one process (aka "job") to map some or all
>>> of another process' address space into its own address space.  I can't
>>> recall if anyone got motivated to get that working across the ARPANET
>>> though.   If so, it would probably have been done using the same
>>> internal mechanisms that got the remote file systems capability.
>>>
>>> However, for anyone curious, the ancient ITS system is online and has
>>> even been resurrected so you can look at the code or even run it on your
>>> modern computer - see https://github.com/PDP-10/its
>>>
>>> Jack Haverty (JFH at MIT-DM in the 70s)
>>>
>>> On 9/6/25 09:28, Guy Almes via Internet-history wrote:
>>>> Noel,
>>>>   So this was a real networked file system (and not just lots of FTP)?
>>>>   Very interesting,
>>>>     -- Guy
>>>>
>>>> On 9/6/25 11:35 AM, Noel Chiappa via Internet-history wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>      > From: Guy Almes
>>>>>
>>>>>      > There are probably a number of ARPAnet sites where the ARPAnet
>>>>>      > served this LAN role in the pre-Ethernet days.
>>>>>
>>>>> Notably MIT, where the 4 ITS machines shared their file systems 
>>>>> over the
>>>>> ARPANET.
>>>>>
>>>>>     Noel
>>>>> -- 
>>>>> Internet-history mailing list
>>>>> Internet-history at elists.isoc.org
>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/ 
>>>>> listinfo/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://elists.isoc.org/ 
>>>>> mailman/listinfo/>
>>>>> internet-history__;!!KwNVnqRv! 
>>>>> C8xpr0pcWUCRUGu5ny4SaIVDwdiMWrntxKhWopeJnt_Ni81FeTKeUj6hb30- 
>>>>> W92d1QCtfI- NdmswzrIufFLHCtXfTXzJRA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/ 
>>>>> __https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/ 
>>> internet-history__;!!KwNVnqRv! 
>>> C8xpr0pcWUCRUGu5ny4SaIVDwdiMWrntxKhWopeJnt_Ni81FeTKeUj6hb30- 
>>> W92d1QCtfI- NdmswzrIufFLHCtXfTXzJRA$> >> <https://urldefense.com/v3/ 
>>> __https://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/internet-history__;!! 
>>> KwNVnqRv!C8xpr0pcWUCRUGu5ny4SaIVDwdiMWrntxKhWopeJnt_Ni81FeTKeUj6hb30- 
>>> W92d1QCtfI-NdmswzrIufFLHCtXfTXzJRA$>
>>>>>> -
>>>>> Unsubscribe:https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://app.smartsheet.com/ 
>>>>> b/ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://app.smartsheet.com/b/>
>>>>> form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b? 
>>>>> The*20list*20to*20be*20unsubscribed*20from=Internet- 
>>>>> history__;JSUlJSU!! KwNVnqRv! 
>>>>> C8xpr0pcWUCRUGu5ny4SaIVDwdiMWrntxKhWopeJnt_Ni81FeTKeUj6hb30- 
>>>>> W92d1QCtfI-NdmswzrIufFLHCtVmthkWew$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/ 
>>>>> __https://app.smartsheet.com/b/ 
>>>>> form/9b6ef0621638436ab0a9b23cb0668b0b? 
>>>>> The*20list*20to*20be*20unsubscribed*20from=Internet- 
>>>>> history__;JSUlJSU!!KwNVnqRv! 
>>>>> C8xpr0pcWUCRUGu5ny4SaIVDwdiMWrntxKhWopeJnt_Ni81FeTKeUj6hb30- 
>>>>> W92d1QCtfI-NdmswzrIufFLHCtVmthkWew$>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>