[SIGCIS-Members] help please -- two questions.

[Murray Turoff]

I think about the same time AT&T was building a multiprocessor system as a
secret project, it had multiprocessors in a three dimensional sphere
covering about three stories to cut down the delay in transmissions between
the processors.   It used thin film memories and the single processor was
built to be small so it could also fit into the opening to get it into a
submarine.  I saw the specifications in 1965 when they were putting the
pieces together.

On Tue, Feb 16, 2016 at 11:46 AM, Dave Walden <dave.walden.family at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Question 1:  Does anyone have an idea of how to reach A. J. Critchlow (or
> if he is still alive)?  He was with IBM San Jose when his paper Generalized
> Multiprocessing and Multiprogramming Systems was published in the
> proceedings of the AFIPS 1963 Fall Joint Computer Conference.
>
> This was in a conference session that also included a paper by Melvin
> Conway entitled A Multiprocessor System Design.
>
> Both papers mention the computer operating system function of Fork (in the
> sense of fork-and-join).  In particular, the Conway paper describes the
> capability in a way somewhat like the later implementation for the SDS940
> time-sharing system.  The Conway paper also notes three operating systems
> he had heard had something like the fork capability.
>
> Question 2:  Does anyone know of any *earlier* references in the
> literature to the work Fork used in this sense, or early operating system
> which had this capability.
>
> I am asking these questions on behalf of Linus Nyman who wrote his
> dissertation on forking in a difference sense -- branches of work in the
> software development process.  [Understanding Code Forking in Open Source
> Software – an examination of code forking, its effect on open source
> software, and how it is viewed and practiced by developers”:
> https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/153135 ]
>
> Linus has already asked the second question of various computer historians
> and early operating system developers.  So he doesn't need pointers to
> people of whom he might ask that question.  However, perhaps this much
> larger SIGCIS group of people might include individuals who might have a
> clue about about Critchlow or themselves have insight to
> pre-Critchlow-and-Conway references to forking in the literature.
>
> Thanks, Dave
>
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-- 





*please send messages to murray.turoff at gmail.com <murray.turoff at gmail.com>
do not use @njit.edu <http://njit.edu> addressDistinguished Professor
EmeritusInformation Systems, NJIThomepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff
<http://is.njit.edu/turoff>*
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