TOPS-10

General comments about TOPS-10

The TOPS-10 System was a computer operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for the PDP-10 released in 1964, the resulting systems being referred to as "DECsystem-10"^[1].

TOPS-10 supported shareable memory and allowed the development of one of the first true multi-player computer games. The game was called DECWAR and was a text-oriented Star Trek type game. Users at terminals typed in commands and fought each other in real time.

Another groundbreaking application was called FORUM. This application was perhaps the first so-called "CB simulator" that allowed users to converse with one another in what is now known as a chat room. This application showed the potential of multi-user communication and led to the development of CompuServe's chat application.

TOPS-10 had a very robust API that used a mechanism called UUOs for Unimplemented User Operation. UUOs implemented operating system calls in a way that made them look like machine instructions. The API was called Monitor Calls and was very much ahead of its time like most of the operating system. System programming on DECsystem-10s was simple and powerful thanks to this extremely flexible operating system API.

TOPS-10 had an interesting scheduler with many run queues, unlike OpenVMS for example which has two run queues, and inserts processes into the queue depending on process priority. The TOPS-10 Operating System also included User file and Device independence.

TOPS-10 was a very fast and flexible operating system that was far ahead of its time.

TOPS-10 release history

The final release of TOPS-10 was version 7.04. ^[2]

Latter day implementations of TOPS-10

Hobbyists are now entitled to set up and use TOPS-10 under a Hobbyist's License.^[3]

The easiest way for the hobbyist to run TOPS-10 is to acquire a suitable emulator^[4][5] and an operating system image. ^[6] TOPS-10 may also be generated from archived original distribution "tapes".^{[7] [8]}

Paul Allen maintains several publicly accessible historic computer systems, including a DECsystem-1090 running TOPS-10. ^[9]

Programming languages implemented on TOPS-10

The TOPS-10 assembler, MACRO-10, was bundled with the TOPS-10 distribution.

The following programming languages were implemented on TOPS-10 as layered products:

ALGOL, as ALGOL-10 v10B,^[10] a compiler used for general computing; APL, as APL-SF V2,^[11] an interpreter used for mathematical modelling; BASIC, as BASIC-10 v17F,^[12] an interpreter used for general computing; BLISS, as BLISS-36, a compiler used for systems programming; COBOL, as COBOL-68 and COBOL-74, compilers used for business computing; and FORTRAN, as FORTRAN-10 v11, a compiler used for numerical computing.

The following programming languages were implemented on TOPS-10 as contributions from DECUS members.

FOCAL, as FOCAL-10; FORTH, a threaded interpreted language; IMP72; LISP, an interpreter used for AI programming; PASCAL, a compiler used for computing education; PILOT; SAM76; SIMULA, a compiler used for modeling; and SNOBOL, an interpreter used for string processing.

User utilities implemented on TOPS-10

The following major user utilities were implemeted on TOPS-10:

RMS, Records Management System; and IQL, Interactive Query language.

Notable games implemented on TOPS-10

DECWAR, as noted above; FORUM, as noted above; Mac Hack, a chess program by Richard Greenblatt; and HAUNT, an early role-playing game. ADVENT caused a lot of paper to be used by people drawing maps of the Colossal Cave.

References

1. ^ TOPS-10 The Free Online Dictionary of Computing
2. ^ TOPS-10 Release History
3. ^ Home hobbyist license for Digital's 36b software
4. ^ The Computer History Simulation Project
5. ^ KLH10 PDP-10 Emulator
6. ^ TOPS-10 pre-built image
7. ^ PDP-10 software archive
8. ^ Notes on DEC PDP-10 Emulation
9. ^ CLASSIC COMPUTING
10. ^ DECsystem10/20 ALGOL Programmer's Guide, April 1977
11. ^ APL-SF Language Manual, August 1979
12. ^ DECsystem-10 BASIC Conversational Language Manual, March 1974

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