Talk:MCP (Burroughs Large Systems)

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Copies of substantially the same article exist in several locations including Fact Archive; many of those sites cite Wikipedia as the source, so it is difficult to tell now if this is a copyvio. Someone better equipped to research the history may want to have a closer look. --Kgf0 19:08, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

How is this page not wikified? Just wondering since a cursory look reveals no non-wiki markup. But then again, WTF do I know? Thirdgen 09:45, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I added a link to Category:Computing by operating system and only later noticed that it was already linked to Category:Operating system. I'm not quite sure what is supposed to be in the former Category so I'm going to leave it as it is and let someone correct me if I'm wrong. --JeffW 22:51, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

I added an OS Infobox (is this a template?). I invented the term priced source for the source model because unlike closed source the source can be had for a price. I also used menu-based interface for the default UI because the default interface for the user, MARC, consists of a menu, unlike a command line interface, but it is requires the menu choices be entered as text, unlike a GUI. --JeffW 19:39, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moving page to MCP (Operating System)

I'm proposing to move this page to the name "MCP (Operating System)" because no one calls it the Master Control Program. I'm not sure how many people know that that's what it stands for. As I understand it, the only way to make it show up on the Category: Operating systems page as MCP is to change the name of the page. I won't move it for four days to give anyone who wants to a chance to comment (and because as a new user I can't use the move command for four days anyway).--JeffW 04:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Since I proposed this move I've discovered that Burroughs actually had three OSs called MCP, one each for their large, medium, and small systems. So would the names of MCP (Burroughs Large Systems), etc. be ok. Would it be better to have MCP (Burroughs Operating Systems) in the Operating System category with that page linking to MCP (Large Systems)? --JeffW 12:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

MCP was the generic term Burrouhs used for their operating systems. They usually shared the same general philiosphy but implementation and features differed considerably. The large systems MCP was the first and probably the model for the others. There were MCP's for the medium systesm B2x00, B3x00 and B4x00, another for the B1x000, one for B700 systesm followed by the CMS MCP which had implementations on the B[8|9]0, B[8|9]00 and B1[8|9]00 computers in the mid 1970's. 18:09, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

The Name is "Master Control Programm" as the manual says ;) greetz alex http://www.cs.virginia.edu/brochure/images/manuals/b5000/brochure/b5000_broch.html

[edit] Open Source?

I worked as a Burroughs systems programmer in the 80s and had a B6700 and B6800. At least then, and I imagine still, all of the source code for all the systems programs was available and in fact that was how you did MCP and other component patches and upgrades, i.e. recompilation. There was/is no reason to protect the sources because they only run on the B machines. -juan@acm.org

[edit] First open source OS?

I'm not sure I buy the claim that MCP was the first open-source OS. In particular, IBSYS was available in open source on the IBM 7090, introduced in 1959, and it descended in part from an OS developed by SHARE members on the 709. Further, it was not common for operating systems code to be shipped in binary only form in that era; that practice did not start until the late 1970s in the IBM world, and it was hardly unique in that regard. Jay Maynard 00:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)