Talk:History of CP/CMS

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This is a subarticle of a pending new CP/CMS article. As the overview says, it is long. I decided to err on the side of too much detail, given the fact that source material is hard to find, and because there is a lot of misinformation about CP and VM. Some of the citation details might make more sense on discussion pages, but some of these quotes are so pithy it would be a shame to bury them in areas where most readers don't go. (Obviously, feel free to recast material in other ways or in subarticles if you feel that would be more appropriate.) I will be back here to tidy up over the ensuing weeks. Trevor Hanson 23:54, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Family tree

Does the family tree belong here, given the number of OSes not derived from CP/CMS? Note also that the ones that are listed as CP/CMS-derived also have other influences, such as TOPS-10 influencing CP/M, and VMS influencing Windows NT. (Yes, it's listed as "simplified", but I think it's a bit over-simplified.) Guy Harris 06:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The family tree is sort of an alpha version. I think that many of these time-sharing systems had important impacts on each other, and I wanted to have a bunch of links in one place to the major articles, showing family relationships where they existed. There are so many systems that it's easy to lose sight of how they co-evolved. I was thinking about this especially from the perspective of a newcomer, to whom most of the names would be – just names. Your examples of TOPS-10, CP/M, VMS, and NT are perfect ones. I wanted to have a single list where all these would appear. I struggled with graphic representations that would show multiple influences, but these got too complex. I tried flat lists without relationships, but these lost the benefit of a two-dimensional list. I agree that its current state isn't ideal. However I do think that some master list of time-sharing platforms, including precedence of major versions, would be a good thing. Do you disagree? Perhaps it doesn't belong on each one of the systems, but in some big "relationship of time-sharing systems" article – the way we have tables like Comparison of virtual machines. In fact, having just said that, I guess that's the logical approach. I still think that some kind of template belongs on the bottom of many of these articles, however, encouraging the reader to see each system in the context of many evolving families. I dunno. I'll think about it some more. I was more concerned with getting the core facts and citations nailed down in the content of these articles, some of which had major errors. The family tree started as a shorthand way of keeping track of other systems to cross-reference. Anyway, more thoughts to follow. Thanks for your observations which are right on the money. Trevor Hanson 06:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I think a list of that sort (although I might call it "multi-user systems", or something to indicate that, even in an era with relatively little traditional time-sharing, the concepts continue - my PowerBook and my wife's iBook are running one of those OSes, although most of the "time-sharing" logins are me ssh'ing into her iBook to test something or to fix something) would be a good thing. I'd put it into an article of its own, as you suggest, so as not to tie it to any particular time-sharing OS. Guy Harris 08:16, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

See latest change to the end of CP/CMS, and its link to time-sharing system evolution. I think this provides something more like what I had in mind. I resisted changing to the term "multi-user systems" since the term "time-sharing" is historically so important. Though perhaps this is a backward-looking perspective. Anyway, I think things are in better shape now. The big table obviously needs plenty of editing but I've already sunk too much time into WP for the current cycle! Trevor Hanson 02:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)