Where should the type information be: in tags and descriptors 461

(Micheal H. McCabe) writes:

IIRC VS-9 was originally called VMOS (Virtual Memory Operating System) when RCA had it. When Univac took it over, the new name VS-9 was part line, but I did see manuals, including update packages containing the name change.)

I don't recall "Series 80" anywhere - are you sure you're not confusing it with "System 80", which was the 90-30's descendant? Could they have continued calling it the 70 series?

The 9300 (and its de-rated sister the 9200) was Univac's answer to the low end of the IBM 360 line. It was almost but not exactly unlike the 360-20 (although instruction timing charts gave the 9300 roughly the speed of a 360-30). The printer was integrated into the processor cabinet, and the standard card reader and punch looked like similar pieces of furniture, although they were actually free-standing cabinets. The electronics for these peripherals was integrated into the main processor backplane, although other devices (high-speed card punch, paper tape reader, disk and tape drives) could be interfaced through multiplexer or selector channels.

The 9400 got a bit more IBM-like, but had a number of Univac-specific peculiarities. Early models used a Teletype model 35 printing mechanism in the console and used the same plated-wire memory as the 9200-9300. Later models replaced the console printer with Univac's "one-character drum printer", which had a spinning type wheel which moved across the page (part of their DCT-500 Teletype replacement terminal, which ran at 30 characters-second). The term 9480 was applied to systems which were upgraded to semiconductor memory, which reduced the size of 256K of memory from a couple of cabinets to a rack mount unit of about 6U size. (Cycle time remained the same, a quite respectable 600 nanoseconds.) The rows of indicator lights on the early units were neon - their glow gave some nice colour to an otherwise drab machine room.

I was told that the 90-30's non-privileged instructions were bit-for-bit identical with those of the 360-50, and in my years writing buttembly language programs for the beast I never saw any reason to doubt this. (The privileged instructions and I-O architecture were totally different, however.)

The System 80 line added 370-style goodies like MVCL.

OS-3, of course, was very different from IBM 360 OSes. It had JCL, complete withstatements, but the resemblance ended there.

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