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The Michigan Terminal System (MTS) is one of the first
time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...
computer
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s.. Developed in 1967 at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
for use on
IBM S/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
-67, S/370 and compatible
mainframe computer A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterpris ...
s, it was developed and used by a consortium of eight universities in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, and the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
over a period of 33 years (1967 to 1999)..


Overview

The University of Michigan Multiprogramming Supervisor (UMMPS) was developed by the staff of the academic computing center at the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
for operation of the IBM S/360-67, S/370 and compatible computers. The software may be described as a
multiprogramming In computing, multitasking is the concurrent execution of multiple tasks (also known as processes) over a certain period of time. New tasks can interrupt already started ones before they finish, instead of waiting for them to end. As a result ...
,
multiprocessing Multiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units (CPUs) within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor or the ability to allocate tasks between them. There ar ...
,
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
,
time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...
supervisor that runs multiple resident,
reentrant Reentrant or re-entrant can refer to: *Re-entrant (landform), the low ground formed between two hill spurs. *Reentrancy (computing) in computer programming *Reentrant mutex in computer science *Reentry (neural circuitry) in neuroscience *Salients ...
programs. Among these programs is the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) for command interpretation, execution control, file management, and accounting. End-users interact with the computing resources through MTS using terminal, batch, and server oriented facilities. The name MTS refers to: *The UMMPS Job Program with which most end-users interact; *The software system, including UMMPS, the MTS and other Job Programs, Command Language Subsystems (CLSs), public files (programs), and documentation; and *The time-sharing service offered at a particular site, including the MTS software system, the hardware used to run MTS, the staff that supported MTS and assisted end-users, and the associated administrative policies and procedures. MTS was used on a production basis at about 13 sites in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
, the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
,
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, and possibly in
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
and at several more sites on a trial or benchmarking basis. MTS was developed and maintained by a core group of eight universities included in the MTS Consortium. The University of Michigan announced in 1988 that "Reliable MTS service will be provided as long as there are users requiring it ... MTS may be phased out after alternatives are able to meet users' computing requirements". It ceased operating MTS for end-users on June 30, 1996. By that time, most services had moved to client/server-based computing systems, typically Unix for servers and various Mac, PC, and Unix flavors for clients. The University of Michigan shut down its MTS system for the last time on May 30, 1997."MTS Timeline"
''Information Technology Digest'', University of Michigan, pp.10-11, Volume 5, No. 5 (May 13, 1966)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...
(RPI) is believed to be the last site to use MTS in a production environment. RPI retired MTS in June 1999. Today, MTS still runs using IBM S/370 emulators such as
Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...
, Sim390, and FLEX-ES.


Origins

In the mid-1960s, the University of Michigan was providing
batch processing Computerized batch processing is a method of running software programs called jobs in batches automatically. While users are required to submit the jobs, no other interaction by the user is required to process the batch. Batches may automatically ...
services on
IBM 7090 The IBM 7090 is a second-generation transistorized version of the earlier IBM 709 vacuum tube mainframe computer that was designed for "large-scale scientific and technological applications". The 7090 is the fourth member of the IBM 700/7000 ser ...
hardware under the control of the
University of Michigan Executive System The University of Michigan Executive System, or UMES, a batch operating system developed at the University of Michigan in 1958, was widely used at many universities. Based on the General Motors Executive System for the IBM 701, UMES was revised ...
(UMES), but was interested in offering interactive services using
time-sharing In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users at the same time by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking.DEC Timesharing (1965), by Peter Clark, The DEC Professional, Volume 1, Number 1 Its emergence a ...
."A History of MTS—30 Years of Computing Service"
Susan Topol, ''Information Technology Digest'', Volume 5, No. 5 (May 13, 1996), University of Michigan
At that time the work that computers could perform was limited by their small real memory capacity. When IBM introduced its
System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
family of computers in the mid-1960s, it did not provide a solution for this limitation and within IBM there were conflicting views about the importance of and need to support time-sharing. A paper titled ''Program and Addressing Structure in a Time-Sharing Environment'' by
Bruce Arden Bruce Wesley Arden ( – ) was an American computer scientist. Arden enlisted in the U.S. Navy during World War II (1944-1946) as a Radar Technician Third Class in California, Chicago, and Kodiak, Alaska. He graduated from Purdue University ...
,
Bernard Galler Bernard A. Galler ( in Chicago – in Ann Arbor, Michigan) was an American mathematician and computer scientist at the University of Michigan who was involved in the development of large-scale operating systems and computer languages includi ...
, Frank Westervelt (all associate directors at UM's academic Computing Center), and Tom O'Brian building upon some basic ideas developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was published in January 1966. The paper outlined a
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
architecture using dynamic address translation (DAT) that could be used to implement time-sharing. After a year of negotiations and design studies, IBM agreed to make a one-of-a-kind version of its S/360-65 mainframe computer with dynamic address translation (DAT) features that would support
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
and accommodate UM's desire to support time-sharing. The computer was dubbed the Model S/360-65M. The "M" stood for Michigan. But IBM initially decided not to supply a time-sharing operating system for the machine. Meanwhile, a number of other institutions heard about the project, including
General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...
's (MIT)
Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and dev ...
,
Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
, and Carnegie Institute of Technology (later
Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...
). They were all intrigued by the time-sharing idea and expressed interest in ordering the modified IBM S/360 series machines. With this demonstrated interest IBM changed the computer's model number to S/360-67 and made it a supported product. With requests for over 100 new model S/360-67s IBM realized there was a market for time-sharing, and agreed to develop a new time-sharing operating system called
TSS/360 The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 is a discontinued early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of custom ...
(TSS stood for Time-sharing System) for delivery at roughly the same time as the first model S/360-67. While waiting for the Model 65M to arrive, UM Computing Center personnel were able to perform early time-sharing experiments using an
IBM System/360 Model 50 The IBM System/360 Model 50 is a member of the IBM System/360 family of computers. The Model 50 was announced in April 1964 with the other initial models of the family, and first shipped in August 1965 to the Bank of America. Models There are fo ...
that was funded by the ARPA CONCOMP (Conversational Use of Computers) Project. The time-sharing experiment began as a "half-page of code written out on a kitchen table" combined with a small multi-programming system, LLMPS from MIT's
Lincoln Laboratory The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and dev ...
, which was modified and became the UM Multi-Programming Supervisor (UMMPS) which in turn ran the MTS job program. This earliest incarnation of MTS was intended as a throw-away system used to gain experience with the new IBM S/360 hardware and which would be discarded when IBM's
TSS/360 The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 is a discontinued early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of custom ...
operating system became available. Development of TSS took longer than anticipated, its delivery date was delayed, and it was not yet available when the S/360-67 (serial number 2) arrived at the Computing Center in January 1967. At this time UM had to decide whether to return the Model 67 and select another mainframe or to develop MTS as an interim system for use until TSS was ready. The decision was to continue development of MTS and the staff moved their initial development work from the Model 50 to the Model 67. TSS development was eventually canceled by IBM, then reinstated, and then canceled again. But by this time UM liked the system they had developed, it was no longer considered interim, and MTS would be used at UM and other sites for 33 years.


MTS Consortium

MTS was developed, maintained, and used by a consortium of eight universities in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom:"How did sites learn about and make the decision to use MTS?"
an item in the discussion section of the Michigan Terminal System Archive
*
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
(UM), 1967 to 1997, US *
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
(UBC), 1968 to 1998, Canada *NUMAC (
University of Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a UK public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick univer ...
,
University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...
, and
Newcastle Polytechnic , mottoeng = A lifetime of learning , established = 1877 - Rutherford College of Technology1969 - Newcastle Polytechnic1992 - gained university status , type = Public , budget = ...
),"How computers have changed since 1968"
''ITS News'', Computing and Information Services, Durham University, 29 January 2005. Northumbrian Universities Multiple Access Computer (N.U.M.A.C.), a collaboration between of the universities of
Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...
(DUR),
Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...
(UNE) and
Newcastle Polytechnic , mottoeng = A lifetime of learning , established = 1877 - Rutherford College of Technology1969 - Newcastle Polytechnic1992 - gained university status , type = Public , budget = ...
that shared a S/360-67 at Newcastle starting in 1969
1969 to 1992, United Kingdom *
University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...
(UQV), 1971 to 1994, Canada *
Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...
(WSU), 1971 to 1998, US *
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute () (RPI) is a private research university in Troy, New York, with an additional campus in Hartford, Connecticut. A third campus in Groton, Connecticut closed in 2018. RPI was established in 1824 by Stephen Van ...
(RPI), 1976 to 1999, US *
Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a public research university in British Columbia, Canada, with three campuses, all in Greater Vancouver: Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, and Vancouver. The main Burnaby campus on Burnaby Mountain, located from ...
(SFU), 1977 to 1992, Canada *
University of Durham Durham University (legally the University of Durham) is a collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university in Durham, England, Durham, England, founded by an Act of Parliament in 1832 and incorporated by royal charte ...
(NUMAC), 1982 to 1992, United Kingdom Several sites ran more than one MTS system: NUMAC ran two (first at Newcastle and later at Durham), Michigan ran three in the mid-1980s (UM for Maize, UB for Blue, and HG at Human Genetics), UBC ran three or four at different times (MTS-G, MTS-L, MTS-A, and MTS-I for general, library, administration, and instruction). Each of the MTS sites made contributions to the development of MTS, sometimes by taking the lead in the design and implementation of a new feature and at other times by refining, enhancing, and critiquing work done elsewhere. Many MTS components are the work of multiple people at multiple sites. In the early days collaboration between the MTS sites was accomplished through a combination of face-to-face site visits, phone calls, the exchange of documents and magnetic tapes by
snail mail The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal sy ...
, and informal get-togethers at SHARE or other meetings. Later, e-mail, computer conferencing using
CONFER The abbreviation ''cf.'' (short for the la, confer/conferatur, both meaning "compare") is used in writing to refer the reader to other material to make a comparison with the topic being discussed. Style guides recommend that ''cf.'' be used onl ...
and *Forum, network file transfer, and e-mail attachments supplemented and eventually largely replaced the earlier methods. The members of the MTS Consortium produced a series of 82 ''MTS Newsletters'' between 1971 and 1982 to help coordinate MTS development.Michigan Terminal System (MTS) subseries
Computing Center publications, 1965-1999, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
Starting at UBC in 1974 the MTS Consortium held annual ''MTS Workshops'' at one of the member sites. The workshops were informal, but included papers submitted in advance and ''Proceedings'' published after-the-fact that included session summaries.MTS (Michigan Terminal System) 1970-1986 series
Computing Center (University of Michigan) records, 1952-1996 and 1959-1987, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
In the mid-1980s several ''Western Workshops'' were held with participation by a subset of the MTS sites (UBC, SFU, UQV, UM, and possibly RPI). The annual workshops continued even after MTS development work began to taper off. Called simply the "community workshop", they continued until the mid-1990s to share expertise and common experiences in providing computing services, even though MTS was no longer the primary source for computing on their campuses and some had stopped running MTS entirely.


MTS sites

In addition to the eight MTS Consortium sites that were involved in its development, MTS was run at a number of other sites, including: * Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas (CBPF) within the
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico The Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq, pt, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, earlier ) is an organization of the Brazilian federal government under the Ministry of Scienc ...
(CNPq), Brazil * Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (EMBRAPA), Brazil *
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
(HP), US *
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
(MSU), US *
Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory located approximately northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Maryland, United States. Established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center, GSFC empl ...
,
National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...
(NASA), US A copy of MTS was also sent to the
University of Sarajevo The University of Sarajevo ( Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian: ''Univerzitet u Sarajevu'' / Sveučilište u Sarajevu / Универзитет у Сарајеву) is a public university located in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is the larges ...
, Yugoslavia, though whether or not it was ever installed is not known.
INRIA The National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology (Inria) () is a French national research institution focusing on computer science and applied mathematics. It was created under the name ''Institut de recherche en informatiq ...
, the French national institute for research in computer science and control in Grenoble, France ran MTS on a trial basis, as did the
University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...
in Ontario, Canada,
Southern Illinois University Southern Illinois University is a system of public universities in the southern region of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its headquarters is in Carbondale, Illinois. Board of trustees The university is governed by the nine member SIU Board of Tr ...
, the
Naval Postgraduate School The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a public graduate school operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California. It offers master’s and doctoral degrees in more than 70 fields of study to the U.S. Armed Forces, DOD ci ...
,
Amdahl Corporation Amdahl Corporation was an information technology company which specialized in IBM mainframe-compatible computer products, some of which were regarded as supercomputers competing with those from Cray Research. Founded in 1970 by Gene Amdahl, a for ...
, ST Systems for
McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Universit ...
Hospitals,
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and
University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
in the United States, and a few other sites.


Hardware

In theory MTS will run on the IBM S/360-67, any of the IBM S/370 series which include virtual memory, and their successors. MTS has been run on the following computers in production, benchmarking, or trial configurations: *IBM: S/360-67, S/370-148, S/370-168, 3033U, 4341, 4361, 4381, 3081D, 3081GX, 3083B, 3090–200, 3090–400, 3090–600, and ES/9000-720 *Amdahl: 470V/6, 470V/7, 470V/8, 5860, 5870, 5990 *Hitachi: NAS 9060 *Various S/370 emulators The University of Michigan installed and ran MTS on the first IBM S/360-67 outside of IBM (serial number 2) in 1967, the second Amdahl 470V/6 (serial number 2) in 1975, the first Amdahl 5860 (serial number 1) in 1982, and the first factory shipped IBM 3090–400 in 1986. NUMAC ran MTS on the first S/360-67 in the UK and very likely the first in Europe. The University of British Columbia (UBC) took the lead in converting MTS to run on the IBM S/370 series (an IBM S/370-168) in 1974. The University of Alberta installed the first Amdahl 470V/6 in Canada (serial number P5) in 1975. By 1978 NUMAC (at University of Newcastle upon Tyne and University of Durham) had moved main MTS activity on to its IBM S/370 series (an IBM S/370-168). MTS was designed to support up to four processors on the IBM S/360-67, although IBM only produced one (simplex and half-duplex) and two (duplex) processor configurations of the Model 67. In 1984 RPI updated MTS to support up to 32 processors in the IBM S/370-XA (Extended Addressing) hardware series, although 6 processors is likely the largest configuration actually used. MTS supports the IBM Vector Facility, available as an option on the
IBM 3090 The IBM 3090 family is a family of mainframe computers that was a high-end successor to the IBM System/370 series, and thus indirectly the successor to the IBM System/360 launched 25 years earlier. Announced on 12 February 1985, the press releas ...
and
ES/9000 The IBM System/390 is a discontinued mainframe product family implementing the ESA/390, the fifth generation of the System/360 instruction set architecture. The first computers to use the ESA/390 were the Enterprise System/9000 (ES/9000) ...
systems. In early 1967 running on the single processor IBM S/360-67 at UM without
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very l ...
support, MTS was typically supporting 5 simultaneous terminal sessions and one batch job. In November 1967 after virtual memory support was added, MTS running on the same IBM S/360-67 was simultaneously supporting 50 terminal sessions and up to 5 batch jobs. In August 1968 a dual processor IBM S/360-67 replaced the single processor system, supporting roughly 70 terminal and up to 8 batch jobs."Organization and features of the Michigan Terminal System"
M. T. Alexander, p. 586, ''Proceedings of the May 1972 AFIPS Spring Joint Computer Conference''
By late 1991 MTS at UM was running on an IBM ES/9000-720 supporting over 600 simultaneous terminal sessions and from 3 to 8 batch jobs. MTS can be
IPL The Indian Premier League (IPL), also known as TATA IPL for sponsorship reasons, is a men's T20 franchise cricket league of India. It is annually contested by ten teams based out of seven Indian cities and three Indian states. The leagu ...
-ed under
VM/370 VM (often: VM/CMS) is a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules (emulator), Hercules emulator for personal computers. The ...
, and some MTS sites did so, but most ran MTS on native hardware without using a
virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
.


Features

Some of the notable features of MTS include: *The use of Virtual memory and Dynamic Address Translation (DAT) on the IBM S/360-67 in 1967. *The use of multiprocessing on an IBM S/360-67 with two CPUs in 1968. *Programs with access to (for the time) very large virtual address spaces. *A straightforward
command language A command language is a language for job control (computing), job control in computing. It is a domain-specific language, domain-specific and interpreted language; common examples of a command language are shell script, shell or batch programming ...
that is the same for both terminal and batch jobs. *A strong device independent input/output model that allows the same commands and programs to access terminals, disk files, printers, magnetic and paper tapes, card readers and punches, floppy disks, network hosts, and an audio response unit (ARU). *A
file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...
with support for " line files" where the line numbers and length of individual lines are stored as
metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
separate from the data contents of the line, and the ability to read, insert, replace, and delete individual lines anywhere in the file without the need to read or write the entire file."A file system for a general-purpose time-sharing environment"
G. C. Pirkola, ''Proceedings of the IEEE'', June 1975, volume 63 no. 6, pp. 918–924,
*A file editor ($EDIT) with both command line and "visual" interfaces and pattern matching based on SNOBOL4 patterns.MTS Volume 18: ''MTS File Editor''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 210 pp.
*The ability to share files in controlled ways (read, write-change, write-expand, destroy, permit)."The Protection of Information in a General Purpose Time-Sharing Environment"
Gary C. Pirkola and John Sanguinetti, ''Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Trends and Applications 1977: Computer Security and Integrity'', vol. 10 no. 4, pp. 106-114
*The ability to permit files, not just to other user IDs and projects (aka groups), but to specific commands or programs and combinations of user IDs, projects, commands and programs. *The ability for multiple users to manage simultaneous access to files with the ability to implicitly and explicitly lock and unlock files and to detect deadlocks. *Network host to host access from commands and programs as well as access to or from remote network printers, card readers and punches. *An e-mail system ( $MESSAGESYSTEM) that supports local and network mail with the ability to send to groups, to recall messages that haven't already been read, to add recipients to messages after they have been sent, and to display a history of messages in an e-mail chain without the need to include the text from older messages in each new message.MTS Volume 23: ''Messaging and Conferencing in MTS''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
*The ability to access tapes remotely, and to handle data sets that extend across multiple tapes efficiently.MTS Volume 19: ''Magnetic Tapes'' (The description of floppy-disk support has been removed from this volume.)
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
*The availability of a rich collection of well-documented subroutine libraries.MTS Volume 3: ''System Subroutine Descriptions''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
*The ability for multiple users to quickly load and use a collection of common reentrant subroutines, which are available in shared virtual memory. *The availability of compilers, assemblers, and a Symbolic Debugging System (SDS) that allow users to debug programs written in high-level languages such as FORTRAN, Pascal, PL/I, ... as well as in assembly language. *A strong protection model that uses the virtual memory hardware and the S/360 and S/370 hardware's supervisor and problem states and via software divides problem state execution into system (privileged or unprotected) and user (protected or unprivileged) modes. Relatively little code runs in supervisor state. For example, Device Support Routines (DSRs, aka device drivers) are not part of the supervisor and run in system mode in problem state rather than in supervisor state. *A simulated Branch on Program Interrupt (BPI) instruction.MTS Volume 14: ''360/370 Assemblers in MTS''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan


Programs developed for MTS

The following are some of the notable programs developed for MTS:MTS Volume 2: ''Public File Descriptions''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
*Awit, a computer chess program written in Algol W by Tony Marsland. *Chaos, one of the leading computer chess programs from 1973 through 1985. Written in FORTRAN Chaos started at RCA Systems Programming division in Cinnaminson, NJ with Fred Swartz and Victor Berman as first authors, Mike Alexander and others joined the team later and moved development to MTS at the UM Computing Center. * CONFER II, one of the first computer conferencing systems. CONFER was developed by Robert Parnes starting in 1975 while he was a graduate student and with support from the
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
'
Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT)
and School of Education. *FakeOS, a simulator that allows object modules containing OS/360 SVCs, control blocks, and references to OS/360 access methods to execute under MTS. *Forum, a computer conferencing system developed by staff of the Computing Centre at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
(UBC). * GOM (Good Old Mad), a compiler for the 7090 MAD language converted to run under MTS by Don Boettner of the UM's Computing Center.''GOM: Good Old Mad''
Donald Boettner, June 1989, University of Michigan Computing Center, 110p.
*IF (Interactive Fortran), developed by the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
Computing Centre."IF: An Interactive FORTRAN compiler"
, Ron Hall, ''SHARE 41 Proceedings'', 15 August 1973, Miami Beach, Florida, 8 pages.
* MICRO Information Management System, one of the earliest relational database management systems implemented in 1970 by the Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations (ILIR) at the University of Michigan.''MICRO Information Management System (Version 5.0) Reference Manual''
M.A. Kahn, D.L. Rumelhart, and B.L. Bronson, October 1977, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations (ILIR), University of Michigan and Wayne State University
*MIDAS (Michigan Interactive Data Analysis System), an interactive statistical analysis package developed by Dan Fox and others at UM's Statistical Research Laboratory. *
Plus Plus may refer to: Mathematics * Addition * +, the mathematical sign Music * ''+'' (Ed Sheeran album), (pronounced "plus"), 2011 * ''Plus'' (Cannonball Adderley Quintet album), 1961 * ''Plus'' (Matt Nathanson EP), 2003 * ''Plus'' (Martin Ga ...
, a programming language developed by Alan Ballard and Paul Whaley of the Computing Centre at the University of British Columbia (UBC)."The Plus Systems Programming Language"
Alan Ballard and Paul Whaley, in ''Proceedings of Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) Congress 84'', June 1984.
''UBC PLUS: The Plus Programming Language''
Allan Ballard and Paul Whaley, October 1987, University of British Columbia Computing Centre, 198pp.
*TAXIR, an information storage and retrieval system designed for taxonomic data at the University of Colorado by David Rogers, Henry Fleming, Robert Brill, and George Estabrook and ported to MTS and enhanced by Brill at the University of Michigan. *Textform, a text-processing program developed at the University of Alberta's Computing Centre to support device independent output to a wide range of devices from line printers, to the Xerox 9700 page printers, to advanced phototypesetting equipment using fixed width and proportional fonts. *VSS, a simulator developed at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
's Computing Centre that makes it possible to run OS/MFT, OS/MVT, VS1, and MVS application programs under MTS.


Programs that run under MTS

The following are some of the notable programs ported to MTS from other systems: *APL VS, IBM's APL VS compiler program product. *ASMH, a version of IBM's 370 assembler with enhancements from SLAC and MTS. *COBOL VS, IBM's COBOL VS compiler program product. *CSMP, IBM's Continuous System Modeling Program. *Fortran, the G, H, and VS compilers from IBM. *GASP, a FORTRAN based discrete simulation package. * Kermit,
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
's communications software and protocol *MPS, IBM's Mathematical Programming System/360.''MPS/360 Version 2, Linear and Separable Programming User's Manual'' (GH20-0476), 1971, IBM Corporation *
NASTRAN NASTRAN is a finite element analysis (FEA) program that was originally developed for NASA in the late 1960s under United States government funding for the aerospace industry. The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation (MSC) was one of the principal and o ...
, finite element analysis program originally developed by and for
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...
. *OSIRIS (Organized Set of Integrated Routines for Investigations with Statistics), a collection of statistical analysis programs developed at th
University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research
(ISR). *PascalSB, the Stony Brook Pascal compiler. *Pascal/SLAC, the Pascal compiler from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. *Pascal VS, IBM's Pascal VS compiler program product. *PL/I Optimizing Compiler from IBM. *REDUCE2, an algebraic language implemented in
LISP A lisp is a speech impairment in which a person misarticulates sibilants (, , , , , , , ). These misarticulations often result in unclear speech. Types * A frontal lisp occurs when the tongue is placed anterior to the target. Interdental lisping ...
. * SAS (Statistical Analysis System). * SHAZAM, a package for estimating, testing, simulating and forecasting econometrics and statistical models *
SIMSCRIPT II.5 SIMSCRIPT is a free-form, English language, English-like general-purpose simulation language conceived by Harry Markowitz and Bernard Hausner at the RAND Corporation in 1962. It was implemented as a Fortran preprocessor on the IBM 7090 and was desi ...
, a free-form, English-like, general-purpose discrete event simulation language. *
SPIRES The Stanford Physics Information Retrieval System (SPIRES) is a database management system developed by Stanford University. It is used by universities, colleges and research institutions. The first website in North America was created to allow re ...
(Stanford Public Information Retrieval System), a database management system. *
SPSS SPSS Statistics is a statistical software suite developed by IBM for data management, advanced analytics, multivariate analysis, business intelligence, and criminal investigation. Long produced by SPSS Inc., it was acquired by IBM in 2009. C ...
(Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) * TELL-A-GRAPH, a proprietary conversational graphics program fro
ISSCO
of San Diego, CA. *TEX,
Don Knuth Donald Ervin Knuth ( ; born January 10, 1938) is an American computer scientist, mathematician, and professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is the 1974 recipient of the ACM Turing Award, informally considered the Nobel Prize of computer sci ...
's
TeX Tex may refer to: People and fictional characters * Tex (nickname), a list of people and fictional characters with the nickname * Joe Tex (1933–1982), stage name of American soul singer Joseph Arrington Jr. Entertainment * ''Tex'', the Italian ...
text-processing program. *TROLL, econometric modeling and statistical analysis


Programming languages available under MTS

MTS supports a rich set of programming languages, some developed for MTS and others ported from other systems: *
ALGOL W ALGOL W is a programming language. It is based on a proposal for ALGOL X by Niklaus Wirth and Tony Hoare as a successor to ALGOL 60. ALGOL W is a relatively simple upgrade of the original ALGOL 60, adding string, bitstring, complex number and r ...
*
ALGOL 68 ALGOL 68 (short for ''Algorithmic Language 1968'') is an imperative programming language that was conceived as a successor to the ALGOL 60 programming language, designed with the goal of a much wider scope of application and more rigorously de ...
* APL (IBM's VS APL) *
Assembler Assembler may refer to: Arts and media * Nobukazu Takemura, avant-garde electronic musician, stage name Assembler * Assemblers, a fictional race in the ''Star Wars'' universe * Assemblers, an alternative name of the superhero group Champions of A ...
(360/370: G, H, Assist; DEC PDP-11) *
BASIC BASIC (Beginners' All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages designed for ease of use. The original version was created by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz at Dartmouth College ...
(BASICUM), WBASIC *
BCPL BCPL ("Basic Combined Programming Language") is a procedural, imperative, and structured programming language. Originally intended for writing compilers for other languages, BCPL is no longer in common use. However, its influence is still ...
(Basic Combined Programming Language) * C *
COBOL COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily us ...
(ANSI, VS,
WATBOL WATBOL is a teaching compiler for the COBOL programming language developed in 1969 at the University of Waterloo. The compiler was a companion product, built under the design philosophy, of Waterloo’s earlier, widely used WATFOR teaching co ...
) *EXPL (Extended
XPL XPL is a programming language based on PL/I, a portable one-pass compiler written in its own language, and a parser generator tool for easily implementing similar compilers for other languages. XPL was designed in 1967 as a way to teach compiler d ...
) * FORTRANMTS Volume 6: ''FORTRAN in MTS''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
(G, H, VS, WATFOR, WATFIV) *GASP (A FORTRAN-based discrete simulation language) * GOM (Good Old Mad, the 7090
Michigan Algorithm Decoder MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder) is a programming language and compiler for the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709, IBM 7090, IBM 7040, UNIVAC 1107, UNIVAC 1108, Philco 210-211, and eventually the IBM S/370 mainframe computers. Developed in 1959 at ...
ported to the S/370 architecture) * GPSS/H (General Purpose Simulation System V) *
ICON An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
*IF (Interactive FORTRAN, an incremental compiler and environment for executing and debugging FORTRAN programs, developed at the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
) * MAD/I (an expanded version of the
Michigan Algorithm Decoder MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder) is a programming language and compiler for the IBM 704 and later the IBM 709, IBM 7090, IBM 7040, UNIVAC 1107, UNIVAC 1108, Philco 210-211, and eventually the IBM S/370 mainframe computers. Developed in 1959 at ...
for the IBM S/360 architecture that is not compatible with the original 7090 version of MAD, see also GOM above) *MPS, IBM's Mathematical Programming System/360 * MTS LISP 1.5 (a new implementation of LISP 1.5 developed at the UM's Mental Health Research Institute, MHRI) *
Pascal Pascal, Pascal's or PASCAL may refer to: People and fictional characters * Pascal (given name), including a list of people with the name * Pascal (surname), including a list of people and fictional characters with the name ** Blaise Pascal, Fren ...
(VS, JB) *PIL, PIL/2 (Pitt Interpretive Language) *
PL/I PL/I (Programming Language One, pronounced and sometimes written PL/1) is a procedural, imperative computer programming language developed and published by IBM. It is designed for scientific, engineering, business and system programming. I ...
(F and OPT from IBM, PL/C from
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
) *
PL/M The PL/M programming language (an acronym of ''Programming Language for Microcomputers'') is a high-level language conceived and developed by Gary Kildall in 1973 for Hank Smith at Intel for its microprocessors. Overview The language incorpor ...
*
PL360 PL360 (or PL/360) is a system programming language designed by Niklaus Wirth and written by Wirth, Joseph W. Wells Jr., and Edwin Satterthwaite Jr. for the IBM System/360 computer at Stanford University. A description of PL360 was published in earl ...
*
Plus Plus may refer to: Mathematics * Addition * +, the mathematical sign Music * ''+'' (Ed Sheeran album), (pronounced "plus"), 2011 * ''Plus'' (Cannonball Adderley Quintet album), 1961 * ''Plus'' (Matt Nathanson EP), 2003 * ''Plus'' (Martin Ga ...
(A "Pascal-like" system implementation language from the
University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...
(UBC) based on the SUE"The System Language for Project SUE"
B. L. Clark and J. J. Horning of the Computer Systems Research Group and Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, ''Proceedings of the SIGPLAN symposium on Languages for system implementation'', 1971, pp.79-88
system language developed at the University of Toronto, c. 1971) *
Prolog Prolog is a logic programming language associated with artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. Prolog has its roots in first-order logic, a formal logic, and unlike many other programming languages, Prolog is intended primarily ...
*
Simula Simula is the name of two simulation programming languages, Simula I and Simula 67, developed in the 1960s at the Norwegian Computing Center in Oslo, by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard. Syntactically, it is an approximate superset of ALGOL 6 ...
*SUE *
SNOBOL4 SNOBOL ("StriNg Oriented and symBOlic Language") is a series of programming languages developed between 1962 and 1967 at AT&T Bell Laboratories by David J. Farber, Ralph E. Griswold and Ivan P. Polonsky, culminating in SNOBOL4. It was one of ...
MTS Volume 9: ''SNOBOL4 in MTS''
University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan
(String Oriented Symbolic Language) *
SPITBOL SPITBOL (Speedy Implementation of SNOBOL) is a compiled implementation of the SNOBOL4 programming language. Originally targeted for the IBM System/360 and System/370 family of computers, it has now been ported to most major microprocessors inclu ...
(Speedy Implementation of
SNOBOL SNOBOL ("StriNg Oriented and symBOlic Language") is a series of programming languages developed between 1962 and 1967 at AT&T Bell Laboratories by David J. Farber, Ralph E. Griswold and Ivan P. Polonsky, culminating in SNOBOL4. It was one of ...
) *UMISTMTS Volume II
second edition, December 1, 1967, University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 415 p.
(University of Michigan Interpretive String Translator, based on
TRAC Trac is an open-source software, open-source, web-based Project management software, project management and bug tracking system. It has been adopted by a variety of organizations for use as a bug tracking system for both free and open-source s ...
)


System architecture

UMMPS, the supervisor, has complete control of the hardware and manages a collection of job programs. One of the job programs is MTS, the job program with which most users interact. MTS operates as a collection of command language subsystems (CLSs). One of the CLSs allows for the execution of user programs. MTS provides a collection of system subroutines that are available to CLSs, user programs, and MTS itself. Among other things these system subroutines provide standard access to Device Support Routines (DSRs), the components that perform device dependent input/output.


Manuals and documentation

The lists that follow are quite University of Michigan centric. Most other MTS sites used some of this material, but they also produced their own manuals, memos, reports, and newsletters tailored to the needs of their site.


End-user documentation

The manual series ''MTS: The Michigan Terminal System'', was published from 1967 through 1991, in volumes 1 through 23, which were updated and reissued irregularly. Initial releases of the volumes did not always occur in numeric order and volumes occasionally changed names when they were updated or republished. In general, the higher the number, the more specialized the volume. The earliest versions of ''MTS Volume I and II'' had a different organization and content from the MTS volumes that followed and included some internal as well as end user documentation. The second edition from December 1967 covered: *''MTS Volume I'': Introduction; Concepts and facilities; Calling conventions; Batch, Terminal, Tape, and Data Concentrator user's guides; Description of UMMPS and MTS; Files and devices; Command language; User Programs; Subroutine and macro library descriptions; Public or library file descriptions; and Internal specifications: Dynamic loader (UMLOAD), File and Device Management (DSRI prefix and postfix), Device Support Routines (DSRs), and File routinesMTS Volume I
second edition, December 1, 1967, University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 415 p.
*''MTS Volume II'': Language processor descriptions: F-level assembler; FORTRAN G; IOH/360; PIL; SNOBOL4; UMIST; WATFOR; and 8ASS (PDP-8 assembler) The following ''MTS Volumes'' were published by the University of Michigan Computing Center and are available as PDFs:"Computing Center" collection
within "Archival Collections -- Bentley Library" of the University of Michigan's Deep Blue digital archive
UM Computing Center Public Category
in the Hathi Trust Digital Library
MTS PDF Document Archive
at BitSavers.org
*MTS Volume 1: ''The Michigan Terminal System'', 1991 *MTS Volume 2: ''Public File Descriptions'', 1990 *MTS Volume 3: ''Subroutine and Macro Descriptions'', 1989 *MTS Volume 4: ''Terminals and Networks in MTS'', 1988 (earlier ''Terminals and Tapes'') *MTS Volume 5: ''System Services'', 1985 *MTS Volume 6: ''FORTRAN in MTS'', 1988 *MTS Volume 7: ''PL/I in MTS'', 1985 *MTS Volume 8: ''LISP and SLIP in MTS'', 1983 *MTS Volume 9: ''SNOBOL4 in MTS'', 1983 *MTS Volume 10: ''BASIC in MTS'', 1980 *MTS Volume 11: ''Plot Description System'', 1985 *MTS Volume 12: ''PIL/2 in MTS'', 1974 *MTS Volume 13: ''The Symbolic Debugging System'', 1985 (earlier ''Data Concentrator User's Guide'') *MTS Volume 14: ''360/370 Assemblers in MTS'', 1986 *MTS Volume 15: ''FORMAT and TEXT360'', 1988 *MTS Volume 16: ''ALGOL W in MTS'', 1980 *MTS Volume 17: ''Integrated Graphics System'', 1984 *MTS Volume 18: ''MTS File Editor'', 1988 *MTS Volume 19: ''Tapes and Floppy Disks'', 1993 *MTS Volume 20: ''PASCAL in MTS'', 1989 *MTS Volume 21: ''MTS Command Extensions and Macros'', 1991 *MTS Volume 22: ''Utilisp in MTS'', 1988 *MTS Volume 23: ''Messaging and Conferencing in MTS'', 1991 *''MTS Reference Summary'', a ~60 page, 3" x 7.5", pocket guide to MTS, Computing Center, University of Michigan *''The Taxir primer: MTS version'', Brill, Robert C., Computing Center, University of Michigan *''Fundamental Use of the Michigan Terminal System'', Thomas J. Schriber, 5th Edition (revised), Ulrich's Books, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI, 1983, 376 pp. *''Digital computing, FORTRAN IV, WATFIV, and MTS (with *FTN and *WATFIV)'', Brice Carnahan and James O Wilkes, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 1968–1979, 1976 538 p. *''Documentation for MIDAS, Michigan Interactive Data Analysis System'', Statistical Research Laboratory, University of Michigan *''OSIRIS III MTS Supplement'', Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan Various aspects of MTS at the University of Michigan were documented in a series of ''Computing Center Memos'' (CCMemos)Unit Publications series
Computing Center publications, 1965-1999, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
which were published irregularly from 1967 through 1987, numbered 2 through 924, though not necessarily in chronological order. Numbers 2 through 599 are general memos about various software and hardware; the 600 series are the Consultant's Notes series—short memos for beginning to intermediate users; the 800 series covers issues relating to the Xerox 9700 printer, text processing, and typesetting; and the 900 series covers microcomputers. There was no 700 series. In 1989 this series continued as ''Reference Memos'' with less of a focus on MTS. A long run of newsletters targeted to end-users at the University of Michigan with the titles ''Computing Center News'', ''Computing Center Newsletter'', ''U-M Computing News'', and the ''Information Technology Digest'' were published starting in 1971. There was also introductory material presented in the ''User Guide'', ''MTS User Guide'', and ''Tutorial'' series, including: *''Getting connected—Introduction to Terminals and Microcomputers'' *''Introduction to the Computing Center'' *''Introduction to Computing Center services'' *''Introduction to Database Management Systems on MTS'' *''Introduction to FORMAT'' *''Introduction to Magnetic Tapes'' *''Introduction to MTS'' *''Introduction to the MTS File Editor'' *''Introduction to Programming and Debugging in MTS'' *''Introduction to Terminals'' *''Introduction to Terminals and Microcomputers''


Internals documentation

The following materials were not widely distributed, but were included in MTS Distributions: *MTS Operators Manual *MTS Message Manual *MTS Volume ''n'': Systems Edition *MTS Volume 99: Internals Documentation *Supervisor Call Descriptions *Disk Disaster Recovery Procedures *A series of lectures describing the architecture and internal organization of the Michigan Terminal System given by Mike Alexander, Don Boettner, Jim Hamilton, and Doug Smith (4 audio tapes, lecture notes, and transcriptions)


Distribution

The University of Michigan released MTS on magnetic tape on an irregular basis. There were full and partial distributions, where ''full distributions'' (D1.0, D2.0, ...) included all of the MTS components and ''partial distributions'' (D1.1, D1.2, D2.1, D2.2, ...) included just the components that had changed since the last full or partial distribution. Distributions 1.0 through 3.1 supported the IBM S/360 Model 67, distribution 3.2 supported both the IBM S/360-67 and the IBM S/370 architecture, and distributions D4.0 through D6.0 supported just the IBM S/370 architecture and its extensions. MTS distributions included the updates needed to run licensed program products and other proprietary software under MTS, but not the base proprietary software itself, which had to be obtained separately from the owners. Except for IBM's Assembler H, none of the licensed programs were required to run MTS. The last MTS distribution was D6.0 released in April 1988. It consisted of 10,003 files on six 6250 bpi magnetic tapes. After 1988, distribution of MTS components was done in an ad hoc fashion using network file transfer. To allow new sites to get started from scratch, two additional magnetic tapes were made available, an IPLable ''boot tape'' that contained a minimalist version of MTS plus the DASDI and DISKCOPY utilities that could be used to initialize and restore a ''one disk pack starter version'' of MTS from the second magnetic tape. In the earliest days of MTS, the standalone TSS DASDI and DUMP/RESTORE utilities rather than MTS itself were used to create the one-disk starter system. There were also less formal ''redistributions'' where individual sites would send magnetic tapes containing new or updated work to a coordinating site. That site would copy the material to a common magnetic tape (RD1, RD2, ...), and send copies of the tape out to all of the sites. The contents of most of the redistribution tapes seem to have been lost. Today, complete materials from the six full and the ten partial MTS distributions as well as from two redistributions created between 1968 and 1988 are available from the Bitsavers Software archiveMTS Distributions
on Bitsavers.org
Overview of MTS Distribution materials
available at Bitsavers.org, accessed 21 January 2012
and from the University of Michigan's Deep Blue digital archive. Working with the D6.0 distribution materials, it is possible to create an IPLable version of MTS. A new D6.0A distribution of MTS makes this easier. D6.0A is based on the D6.0 version of MTS from 1988 with various fixes and updates to make operation under Hercules in 2012 smoother. In the future, an IPLable version of MTS will be made available based upon the version of MTS that was in use at the University of Michigan in 1996 shortly before MTS was shut down.


Licensing

As of December 22, 2011, the MTS Distribution materials are freely available under the terms of the
Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...
Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0). In its earliest days MTS was made available for free without the need for a license to sites that were interested in running MTS and which seemed to have the knowledgeable staff required to support it. In the mid-1980s licensing arrangements were formalized with the University of Michigan acting as agent for and granting licenses on behalf of the MTS Consortium."MTS Licensing Statement"
November 1986, Leonard J. Harding
MTS (Michigan Terminal System), 1968-1996
Box 22, Computing Center records 1952-1996, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan
MTS licenses were available to academic organizations for an annual fee of $5,000, to other non-profit organizations for $10,000, and to commercial organizations for $25,000. The license restricted MTS from being used to provide commercial computing services. The licensees received a copy of the full set of MTS distribution tapes, any incremental distributions prepared during the year, written installation instructions, two copies of the current user documentation, and a very limited amount of assistance. Only a few organizations licensed MTS. Several licensed MTS in order to run a single program such as CONFER. The fees collected were used to offset some of the common expenses of the MTS Consortium.


See also

*
Merit Network Merit Network, Inc., is a nonprofit member-governed organization providing high-performance computer networking and related services to educational, government, health care, and nonprofit organizations, primarily in Michigan. Created in 1966, Mer ...
*
Time-sharing system evolution This article covers the evolution of time-sharing systems, providing links to major early time-sharing operating systems, showing their subsequent evolution. Time-sharing Time-sharing was first proposed in the mid- to late-1950s and first impleme ...


References


External links


Archives


MTS Archive
a collection of documents, photographs, movies, and other materials related to MTS and the organizations and people that developed and used it
MTS distribution archive
at Bitsavers'
MTS distribution archive
at the University of Michigan's Deep Blue digital archive
MTS D6.0A
- A pre-built version of MTS for use with the Hercules S/370 emulator, available from the MTS Archive
MTS PDF Document Archive
at Bitsavers' *Th
UM Computing Center Public Collection
at th
Hathi Trust Digital Library
contains full text versions of over 250 documents related to MTS that are available for online viewing. *Th
Computing Center collection
in the University of Michigan's Deep Blue digital archive contains over 50 items, mostly PDFs, but also a few videos, related to MTS and the U-M Computing Center.


Papers


''A Comparative Study of the Michigan Terminal System (MTS) with Other Time Sharing Systems for the IBM 360/67 Computer''
Elvert F. Hinson, Master's thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA., December 1971
"Measurement and Performance of a Multiprogramming System"
B. Arden and D. Boettner, ''Proceedings of the 2nd ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles'', pp. 130–46, October 1969
Merit Network HistoryMTS Bibliography
a list of published literature about MTS
"MTS - Michigan Terminal System"
Donald W. Boettner and Michael T. Alexander, ''ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review'', Volume 4, Issue 4 (December 1970)
"The Michigan Terminal System"
Donald W. Boettner and Michael T. Alexander, ''Proceedings of the IEEE'', Volume 63, Issue 6 (June 1975), pp. 912–918
"A Faster Cratchit - The History of Computing at Michigan"
Vol. XXVII, No. 1 (January 1976), ''U-M Research News'', 24 pages


Web sites


MTS History
collected by former
University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
Computing Center staff member Tom Valerio
Personal perspective on MTS
by Dan Boulet a student and later Computing Services staff member at the
University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

Personal reflections on MTS
by Mark Riordan of
Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...
's Computer Laboratory
Several articles
from the May 13, 1996 issue of the University of Michigan Information Technology Digest, Volume 5, No. 5, giving the history of and reminiscences about MTS, Merit, and UMnet on the eve of MTS's retirement at the University of Michigan, preserved on Web pages created by Josh Simon
Try-MTS.com
a web site showing how to run MTS under the Hercules emulator, tutorials on using the system and on several of the programming languages available on MTS
Public MTS Terminal
logon and look around like a student would in the 90's {{Time-sharing operating systems Time-sharing operating systems IBM mainframe operating systems Discontinued operating systems Formerly proprietary software History of software University of Michigan 1967 software