And to be clear, I am not saying, OS's were *never* stored on punchcards. I am sure it made sense sometimes. I was thinking that today, most punchcards you come upon will not have an OS on them. Most often punchcards were used for data or programs
On Sun, Mar 1, 2026 at 2:12 PM Steve Lewis via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > > Well, emulators for CTSS are out there, so someone got that source code > somehow. Maybe that's a place to start, digging into how that code was > obtained (is it even in ASCII?) > . > In the runtime emulation of CTSS I see, it notes a KSR-37 being used (in > the operation of the OS, not for its development). So that's late 60's era. > > But kind of mentally running the origin of CTSS back to 1961 - maybe there > were Model 28 TTY's available, or the IBM 709 series had their own terminal > (which in either case would be pre-ASCII). > > Also reading early usage of ASR-33, it seems it was referred to just as > "Model 33" early on - I see in 1964 Datamation it being referred to as > that. But yes, still relatively expensive for the time. IBM's teletype > cost I'd guess is essentially absorbed into the overall cost of the system, > not really a line item separate purchase. > > I still think it's a good bet that MULTICS at some point existed in the > form of punch cards. (as also SCOPE, AOSP, and Atlas Supervisor). > > -Steve > > > > > > On Sun, Mar 1, 2026 at 3:24 AM ben via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On 2026-03-01 12:34 a.m., Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote: > > > So studying about 1960s operating systems recently, it occurred to me > > that > > > the ASR-33 wasn't really "a thing" until the late 1960s. Yes, they > > > technically existed since 1963, but even going through 1960s Datamation > > > issues - you don't see a lot of ads or mention of ASR-33 until 1965. > > > > > > The IBM 1050 maybe existed in 1961 for the IBM 709, but even so - general > > > thought is that CTSS (operating system) was largely initially developed > > > using punch cards. > > > > > > So - are there any archives or collections of these original punch cards? > > > Or are they essentially all gone/destroyed, since in general after some > > > code was "perfected" it was likely then archived to tape? > > > > > > Anyway, apologies - it was just something that only recently occurred to > > > me, that basically all of the original operating systems originated on > > > punch cards: CTSS, Supervisor, AOSP, SCOPE, even MULTICs. So - do any of > > > those decks of cards still exist in archive? Would be neat to see a > > photo > > > of those - except it would be a shoebox of punch cards like any other, I > > > suppose. > > > > > > Or is this wrong, and the top tier teams making these OS's, probably had > > > teletypes and all the magnetic tape they wanted? > > > > > > -Steve > > > > It was only the small guys like DEC that had TTY's. > > The UK seemed to love 5 hole paper tape. > > IBM was cards until the 1980's, like a on vintage IBM 1130. > > 7 track mag tape was standard until the IBM 360 came out. > > > > The high cost of core memory limited operating systems to be simple > > batch systems until the late 60's.Then it was big money for time sharing. > > The *Cloud* at 10 cps, never worked that well. > > A lot of the stuff is somebody's intellectual property, thus it is lost > > to the world for many reasons. > > Ben. > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
