Steve et al. I'm not exactly sure how it fits into this discussion, but you ought to take a look at the Lockheed MIS system, which is now an IEEE milestone at: https://ethw.org/Milestones: Pioneering_Medical_Information_System,_1965-1974
Its prototype began in 1966 and was fully operational by 1968, running at the Mayo Clinic on an SDS-92 and operating about five terminals and several printers. It was then ported to an IBM/360 M40 and was in production on an IBM S/370 M155 about 1972. Essentially, MIS software was a transaction processing supervisor that took over control of the hardware and turned it into a multi-processing transaction processor which by the mid-70s was in production servicing four different hospitals with hundreds of terminals. A block diagram of the system architecture is on sheet 52 of this document: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GogbWimvoNvh2n1550Qxa0wmHVDtZWVM/view?usp=sharing. As it says, "This software is organized in three basic groups—each of which operates relatively independently from the others on a time-shared basis—and communicates with the others by passing messages back and forth." In the IBM DOS era, DOS was just one of the three "basic groups" with the others being a terminal handling group and a transaction processor. How they managed to run it on later IBM OSs is a bit of a mystery, but it ran on IBM mainframes until 2020! It died this century, mainly because management never extended its capability into the physician's office. >From a UX perspective, it was renowned for its response time and ease of use, >and most current users familiar with MIS say its performance still isn't >matched by today's medical informatics systems. tom On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 3:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hey gang, a few months ago I presented about timeshare and some > aspects about operating systems since the 1950s. > > To buzz through a PDF or PPT version of the notes: > https://github.com/voidstar78/VCF2026 > > VCFSW has the talk archived here: > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE235ti9XQ > > Sorry being a bit dull as a speaker, but a few highlights: > > - overview of Douglass Ross "Director Tape" for Whirlwind (only "what > it looked like" evidence that I was ever able to find, would be > curious if others knew more about it) > > - 1965 Honeywell ADMIRAL OS: while I couldn't find much info about > that specific OS, what I did find what Honeywell went to bat for us > all vs RAND corp, putting an end some concerns about ENIAC hardware > patents (that's a very short version of it) > > - today we fight about \ vs / slashes, when MULTICS split the > difference and used > (greater than symbol), at least as far as I > could tell from the manuals > > - some verification that UNIX was (sort of) originally called UNICS > (see footnotes in the PPT notes), never formally written down but > "verified" in the past year > > - I made a claim that Datapoint CTOS (1972) was the only OS ever on a > cassette tape (not to be confused with the late 1970s CTOS) - that > said, I suppose the MCM/70 did as well; really admires Mattis Lind's > work on the > DP2200 > > > I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late 1960s > kind of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, > maybe for inventory or check-processing?). > > > Tons of other OS's, obviously couldn't cover them all in a VCF talk. > But there are a bunch of addendum notes after the end of the slides: > > - Mike Muuss ENIAC archive (at a .mil ftp if anyone wants to archive > it more properly?) > - I still claim that the word "operating system" was never used before > 1960; the "SOS" or "share OS" was a name applied later (1962ish) to > those pre-1960s concepts [ afaik ] > - I couldn't fit in a bit about squozed :) really wanted to, just > couldn't make it fit > - AOSP, EXEC II, IBM 1800 derivatives (anyone ever see one of these > in the wild?), > > > Oh, not officially launched yet, but I'm now self hosting oldsayings.info > (with a telnet front-end at port 42525). Kicking around some ideas, > but it's reliably staying up now with Starlink as the ISP. I got > tired of waiting for fiber - but the county workers are getting > closer, I see them running it ranch by ranch. > > > > Cheers, wish could have made it to VCF West this year. > -Steve -- --Carey
