comshare - archive.computerhistory.org

Report to the Computer History Museum on the Information Technology Corporate Histories Project Time‐Sharing Sector

Comshare

Company Details

Contributors

There are no contributors for this company in the collection

Timeline 1966

Milestones

Comshare founded by Rick Crandall and Bob Guise (February

Name: Comshare Sector: Time-Sharing Description

Comshare was founded in February, 1966 in Ann Arbor, MI by Richard (Rick) Crandall and Bob Guise to commercialize the time-sharing operating system technology for SDS computers being developed at U.C. Berkeley. Guise undertook the responsibility of running the company while Crandall went to California to work with Tymshare, SDS, and U.C. Berkeley on a joint project to develop the time-sharing operating system, a copy of which was then given to each of the four partner organizations in August, 1966. In November 1968, Comshare became one of the first software/services companies to go public. In August 1970, Guise exited the company and Crandall was appointed CEO. Comshare successfully further developed and marketed time-sharing services well into the 1980s. However, in the late 1970s, as computing power became less expensive, many of Comshare’s customers wanted to be able to run the applications they were buying as a service from Comshare on their own in-house computers. Anticipating the decline of the time-sharing market, Crandall undertook the process of changing Comshare’s business model from time-sharing services to software products enabling another growth spurt for Comshare which continued to successfully market software products until its sale to GEAC in 2003.

Facilitators Luanne Johnson

Statistics Contributors (0), Events (21), Stories (0), Documents (9), References (2), Discussions (0 threads, 0 posts)

Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009


1966) Rick Crandall and Bob Guise founded Comshare in February 1966 in Ann Arbor MI to commercialize the time-sharing operating system Technology for SDS computers being developed at U.C. Berkeley. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall Joint project to develop a time-sharing operating system (1966) Guise took on the responsibility for running the company and Crandall went to Palo Alto to work on a joint project to develop a time-sharing operating system for the SDS 940 with Tymshare, UC Berkeley, and SDS (Scientific Data Systems). At the conclusion of the development project, each of the four partners went its own way with a copy of the system they had all developed. Related References Recollections of the beginning of the time-sharing industry Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Financial Data

SDS provided free computer rental for six months (1966) In support of the efforts of Comshare and Tymshare to commercialize the time-sharing operating systems, SDS gave them six months of free rental for the SDS 940 computers they were using, a value equal to $35,000 per month, the rental cost of these computers. Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1967

Financial Data

Comshare received an investment of more than $1 million (1967) Comshare received an investment of more than $1 million from the Weyerhauser family. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Technology

Comshare developed a store-and-forward device to circumvent telecom regulations (1967)


Telecommunications regulations prohibited attaching a multiplexer to telephone lines but did not prohibit attaching a computer. Comshare circumvented this regulation by replacing multiplexers, devices that divide a line into multiple pieces, with a device that stored bits as they came in and then pulled them right back out again and sent them on. Since this met the technical definition of a computer, the Bell system was forced to allow Comshare to connect it to their lines. Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1968

Milestones

Comshare went public (November 1968) Comshare went public in November 1968. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Financial Data

Comshare opened offices around the country overextending itself (1968) Comshare began to open offices around the country, overextending itself financially and exhausting the cash received from the public offering. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Marketing and Competition

Comshare had 3% of the time-sharing services market (1968) A survey by Auerbach Corporation showed that Comshare had 3% of the time-sharing services market in 1968. Related Documents Computer Time Sharing Grows Up

1969

Industry Relations

Comshare joined ADAPSO (1969) Comshare, which had been a founding member of the Computer Timesharing Services Association, became a member of ADAPSO when


that association merged with ADAPSO. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1970

Milestones

Crandall took over as CEO (August 1970) Crandall took over as CEO after Guise was forced out by the financial backers. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1971

Financial Data

Comshare turned the corner to profitability (March 1971) Comshare turned the corner to profitability by March 1971 through a combination of better operating discipline, some cost reductions, and instituting a more process-oriented sales effort under new sales management. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1977

Industry Relations

Crandall became Chair of ADAPSO's Long-Range Planning Committee (1977) In 1977, Crandall became the Chair of the ADAPSO Long-Range Planning Committee, which he was instrumental in forming. He continued to serve in this position until 1990. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography

1978


Milestones

Crandall visited Xerox PARC and saw a demo of graphical user interfaces (1978) Crandall visited Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, saw a display of graphical user interfaces such as a mouse and icons, and decided that Comshare needs to provide this level of usability to its executive customers. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems [Memo on Crandall visit to Xerox PARC] Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Industry Relations

Crandall was elected President of ADAPSO (1978) Crandall was elected President of ADAPSO. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents 25 Years, ADAPSO Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1979

Milestones

Comshare decided to switch its business model to software (1979) In 1979, on a management canoe trip in Ohio, Comshare management decided to change its business model from selling time-sharing services to selling software products which incorporate graphical user interfaces that will appeal to executive and professional customers using decision support systems. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Industry Relations

Crandall became Chair of ADAPSO's Image committee (1979) From 1979 until 1981, Crandall served as Chair of ADAPSO's Image Committee working with John Imlay, CEO of MSA, to improve the industry's image, especially in the financial community.


Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography

1982

Milestones

System W, Comshare's first software product, was launched (1982) In 1982, Comshare launched its first software product, System W, a decision support system which ran on IBM computers. It was available to customers either on Comshare's time-sharing service or as a software product to be installed on their own computers. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1984

Milestones

Comshare signed a joint marketing agreement with IBM (January 1984) In 1984, Comshare signed an agreement with IBM to jointly market Commander EIS, a graphical user interface-based executive information system. This agreement, the first one entered into by IBM following its 1982 announcement of an initiative to partner with software companies, generated considerable publicity for Comshare and firmly established it as a software company. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Products and Services

Comshare launched Commander EIS (1984) In 1984, Comshare launched Commander EIS (Executive Information System) which coupled a graphical menu system for reporting and analysis with a mainframe-based server to store and crunch the data. Commander EIS sold to many of America's largest corporations and eventually supported DOS, OS/2, and Macintosh clients. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography


1986

Technology

Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offered a Micro-Mainframe Link (July 28, 1986) Ashton-Tate announced the introduction of a micro-to-mainframe link to permit data exchange between Ashton-Tate's dBASE II, dBASE III PLUS, and Framework II with Comshare's System W decision support software. Related Documents Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offer Micro-Mainframe Link

2003

Milestones

Comshare sold to GEAC (2003) Comshare was sold to GEAC in 2003 for $52 million in cash. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography

Stories

There are no stories for this company in the collection

Documents

Title: [Photo of Rick Crandall at an SDS 940 computer] Author: Created: 1966 Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a992a2644a6e.JPG (Size: 1.68 MB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Photo of Rick Crandall sitting at an SDS 940 computer in 1966. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: [Photo of a billboard advertising Comshare] Author: Created: 1968 Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a9940a27ca30.jpg (Size: 199 KB)


Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: This billboard was posted on a main highway in Houston, TX during the whole year 1968 and part of 1969 per an email from Rick Crandall on 08/29/09. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: Computer Time Sharing Grows Up Author: William D. Smith Created: February 17, 1969 Publisher: New York Times Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a99233378e7c.pdf (Size: 334 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Photocopy of an article from the New York Times, Feb. 17, 1969. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comshare had 3% of the time-sharing services market Title: [Memo on Crandall visit to Xerox PARC] Author: R. Crandall Created: October 16, 1978 Publisher: Comshare Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a9926b694d95.pdf (Size: 195 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Comshare Description: Memo written by Rick Crandall describing the work on graphical user interfaces that he observed on a visit to Xerox PARC in 1978. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: 25 Years, ADAPSO Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: ADAPSO Donated By: Luanne Johnson Filename: doc-4a999544836ef.pdf (Size: 4.90 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: Copyright:


Description: Hardback book, 1986. ADAPSO: the computer software and services industry association. The book provides a series of snapshots from ADAPSO's 25 year history in parallel with the first 30 years of the software and services industry. See p. 20 for photo of Rick Crandall as ADAPSO President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crandall was elected President of ADAPSO Title: Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offer Micro-Mainframe Link Author: Judy Marie Merrill Created: July 28, 1986 Publisher: Ashton-Tate Donated By: Ed Esber Filename: doc-4a992508472a8.pdf (Size: 1.33 MB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Press release announcing the introduction of a micro-to-mainframe link to permit data exchange between Ashton-Tate's dBASE II, dBASE III PLUS and Framework II with Comshare's System W decision support software. The link, a new release of Comshare's W/Information Gateway, was interactive, enabling data to be both downloaded and uploaded between Ashton-Tate microcomputer software products and a System W host database. The link was the result of a joint development and marketing agreement between the two companies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offered a Micro-Mainframe Link Title: SDS 940 Timesharing Computer Control Panel (1966) Author: Rick Crandall Created: November 1996 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a99434c10936.pdf (Size: 241 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Description of the control panel for an SDS 940 computer used by Comshare to provide time-sharing services in the 1960s. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: Oral history interview with Richard Crandall Author: Paul Ceruzzi


Created: May 3, 2002 Publisher: Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota Donated By: Filename: doc-4b7d79b0f2b62.pdf (Size: 12 KB) Pages: 25 Cataloguer: Copyright: Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota Description: A pioneer in timesharing, Richard Crandall, a University of Michigan graduate, formed Comshare and was its CEO for over 25 years. He describes the evolution of Comshare from its focus on interactive use of computers, through its transition to marketing software products, and to its eventual concentration on executive use of personal computers for business management information and decision support systems. He was Chairman of ADAPSO and its leader in strategic planning as well as an active participant in many committees including the Industry Image Committee. He organized and has been the coordinator of a software company CEO Roundtable since 1994. This oral history was sponsored by the Software History Center in conjunction with the Center's ADAPSO reunion (3 May 2002). Citation: Richard L. Crandall, OH 339. Oral history interview by Paul Ceruzzi, 3 May 2002, Washington, D.C. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson February 18, 2010 Title: Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Author: Rick Crandall Created: June 2009 Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a991dfe46c2b.pdf (Size: 8.09 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Rick Crandall Description: Paper by Rick Crandall describing Comshare's development of an Executive Information System called Commander EIS in the early 1980s. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comshare decided to switch its business model to software Comshare signed a joint marketing agreement with IBM Crandall visited Xerox PARC and saw a demo of graphical user interfaces System W, Comshare's first software product, was launched

References

There are no references for this company in the collection

Discussions

There are no discussions for this company in the collection


Comshare

Company Details

Contributors

There are no contributors for this company in the collection

Timeline 1966

Milestones

Comshare founded by Rick Crandall and Bob Guise (February

Name: Comshare Sector: Time-Sharing Description

Comshare was founded in February, 1966 in Ann Arbor, MI by Richard (Rick) Crandall and Bob Guise to commercialize the time-sharing operating system technology for SDS computers being developed at U.C. Berkeley. Guise undertook the responsibility of running the company while Crandall went to California to work with Tymshare, SDS, and U.C. Berkeley on a joint project to develop the time-sharing operating system, a copy of which was then given to each of the four partner organizations in August, 1966. In November 1968, Comshare became one of the first software/services companies to go public. In August 1970, Guise exited the company and Crandall was appointed CEO. Comshare successfully further developed and marketed time-sharing services well into the 1980s. However, in the late 1970s, as computing power became less expensive, many of Comshare’s customers wanted to be able to run the applications they were buying as a service from Comshare on their own in-house computers. Anticipating the decline of the time-sharing market, Crandall undertook the process of changing Comshare’s business model from time-sharing services to software products enabling another growth spurt for Comshare which continued to successfully market software products until its sale to GEAC in 2003.

Facilitators Luanne Johnson




1966) Rick Crandall and Bob Guise founded Comshare in February 1966 in Ann Arbor MI to commercialize the time-sharing operating system Technology for SDS computers being developed at U.C. Berkeley. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall Joint project to develop a time-sharing operating system (1966) Guise took on the responsibility for running the company and Crandall went to Palo Alto to work on a joint project to develop a time-sharing operating system for the SDS 940 with Tymshare, UC Berkeley, and SDS (Scientific Data Systems). At the conclusion of the development project, each of the four partners went its own way with a copy of the system they had all developed. Related References Recollections of the beginning of the time-sharing industry Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Financial Data

SDS provided free computer rental for six months (1966) In support of the efforts of Comshare and Tymshare to commercialize the time-sharing operating systems, SDS gave them six months of free rental for the SDS 940 computers they were using, a value equal to $35,000 per month, the rental cost of these computers. Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1967

Financial Data

Comshare received an investment of more than $1 million (1967) Comshare received an investment of more than $1 million from the Weyerhauser family. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Technology

Comshare developed a store-and-forward device to circumvent telecom regulations (1967)


Telecommunications regulations prohibited attaching a multiplexer to telephone lines but did not prohibit attaching a computer. Comshare circumvented this regulation by replacing multiplexers, devices that divide a line into multiple pieces, with a device that stored bits as they came in and then pulled them right back out again and sent them on. Since this met the technical definition of a computer, the Bell system was forced to allow Comshare to connect it to their lines. Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1968

Milestones

Comshare went public (November 1968) Comshare went public in November 1968. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Financial Data

Comshare opened offices around the country overextending itself (1968) Comshare began to open offices around the country, overextending itself financially and exhausting the cash received from the public offering. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall


Comshare had 3% of the time-sharing services market (1968) A survey by Auerbach Corporation showed that Comshare had 3% of the time-sharing services market in 1968. Related Documents Computer Time Sharing Grows Up

1969

Industry Relations

Comshare joined ADAPSO (1969) Comshare, which had been a founding member of the Computer Timesharing Services Association, became a member of ADAPSO when


that association merged with ADAPSO. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1970

Milestones

Crandall took over as CEO (August 1970) Crandall took over as CEO after Guise was forced out by the financial backers. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1971

Financial Data

Comshare turned the corner to profitability (March 1971) Comshare turned the corner to profitability by March 1971 through a combination of better operating discipline, some cost reductions, and instituting a more process-oriented sales effort under new sales management. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1977

Industry Relations

Crandall became Chair of ADAPSO's Long-Range Planning Committee (1977) In 1977, Crandall became the Chair of the ADAPSO Long-Range Planning Committee, which he was instrumental in forming. He continued to serve in this position until 1990. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography

1978


Milestones

Crandall visited Xerox PARC and saw a demo of graphical user interfaces (1978) Crandall visited Xerox PARC in Palo Alto, saw a display of graphical user interfaces such as a mouse and icons, and decided that Comshare needs to provide this level of usability to its executive customers. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems [Memo on Crandall visit to Xerox PARC] Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Industry Relations

Crandall was elected President of ADAPSO (1978) Crandall was elected President of ADAPSO. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents 25 Years, ADAPSO Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1979

Milestones

Comshare decided to switch its business model to software (1979) In 1979, on a management canoe trip in Ohio, Comshare management decided to change its business model from selling time-sharing services to selling software products which incorporate graphical user interfaces that will appeal to executive and professional customers using decision support systems. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

Industry Relations

Crandall became Chair of ADAPSO's Image committee (1979) From 1979 until 1981, Crandall served as Chair of ADAPSO's Image Committee working with John Imlay, CEO of MSA, to improve the industry's image, especially in the financial community.


Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography

1982

Milestones

System W, Comshare's first software product, was launched (1982) In 1982, Comshare launched its first software product, System W, a decision support system which ran on IBM computers. It was available to customers either on Comshare's time-sharing service or as a software product to be installed on their own computers. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Oral history interview with Richard Crandall

1984

Milestones

Comshare signed a joint marketing agreement with IBM (January 1984) In 1984, Comshare signed an agreement with IBM to jointly market Commander EIS, a graphical user interface-based executive information system. This agreement, the first one entered into by IBM following its 1982 announcement of an initiative to partner with software companies, generated considerable publicity for Comshare and firmly established it as a software company. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography Related Documents Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Oral history interview with Richard Crandall


Comshare launched Commander EIS (1984) In 1984, Comshare launched Commander EIS (Executive Information System) which coupled a graphical menu system for reporting and analysis with a mainframe-based server to store and crunch the data. Commander EIS sold to many of America's largest corporations and eventually supported DOS, OS/2, and Macintosh clients. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography


1986

Technology

Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offered a Micro-Mainframe Link (July 28, 1986) Ashton-Tate announced the introduction of a micro-to-mainframe link to permit data exchange between Ashton-Tate's dBASE II, dBASE III PLUS, and Framework II with Comshare's System W decision support software. Related Documents Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offer Micro-Mainframe Link

2003

Milestones

Comshare sold to GEAC (2003) Comshare was sold to GEAC in 2003 for $52 million in cash. Related References Richard L. (Rick) Crandall Biography

Stories

There are no stories for this company in the collection

Documents

Title: [Photo of Rick Crandall at an SDS 940 computer] Author: Created: 1966 Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a992a2644a6e.JPG (Size: 1.68 MB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Photo of Rick Crandall sitting at an SDS 940 computer in 1966. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: [Photo of a billboard advertising Comshare] Author: Created: 1968 Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a9940a27ca30.jpg (Size: 199 KB)


Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: This billboard was posted on a main highway in Houston, TX during the whole year 1968 and part of 1969 per an email from Rick Crandall on 08/29/09. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: Computer Time Sharing Grows Up Author: William D. Smith Created: February 17, 1969 Publisher: New York Times Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a99233378e7c.pdf (Size: 334 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Photocopy of an article from the New York Times, Feb. 17, 1969. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comshare had 3% of the time-sharing services market Title: [Memo on Crandall visit to Xerox PARC] Author: R. Crandall Created: October 16, 1978 Publisher: Comshare Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a9926b694d95.pdf (Size: 195 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Comshare Description: Memo written by Rick Crandall describing the work on graphical user interfaces that he observed on a visit to Xerox PARC in 1978. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: 25 Years, ADAPSO Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: ADAPSO Donated By: Luanne Johnson Filename: doc-4a999544836ef.pdf (Size: 4.90 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: Copyright:


Description: Hardback book, 1986. ADAPSO: the computer software and services industry association. The book provides a series of snapshots from ADAPSO's 25 year history in parallel with the first 30 years of the software and services industry. See p. 20 for photo of Rick Crandall as ADAPSO President. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crandall was elected President of ADAPSO Title: Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offer Micro-Mainframe Link Author: Judy Marie Merrill Created: July 28, 1986 Publisher: Ashton-Tate Donated By: Ed Esber Filename: doc-4a992508472a8.pdf (Size: 1.33 MB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Press release announcing the introduction of a micro-to-mainframe link to permit data exchange between Ashton-Tate's dBASE II, dBASE III PLUS and Framework II with Comshare's System W decision support software. The link, a new release of Comshare's W/Information Gateway, was interactive, enabling data to be both downloaded and uploaded between Ashton-Tate microcomputer software products and a System W host database. The link was the result of a joint development and marketing agreement between the two companies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ashton-Tate and Comshare Offered a Micro-Mainframe Link Title: SDS 940 Timesharing Computer Control Panel (1966) Author: Rick Crandall Created: November 1996 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a99434c10936.pdf (Size: 241 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Description of the control panel for an SDS 940 computer used by Comshare to provide time-sharing services in the 1960s. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Title: Oral history interview with Richard Crandall Author: Paul Ceruzzi


Created: May 3, 2002 Publisher: Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota Donated By: Filename: doc-4b7d79b0f2b62.pdf (Size: 12 KB) Pages: 25 Cataloguer: Copyright: Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota Description: A pioneer in timesharing, Richard Crandall, a University of Michigan graduate, formed Comshare and was its CEO for over 25 years. He describes the evolution of Comshare from its focus on interactive use of computers, through its transition to marketing software products, and to its eventual concentration on executive use of personal computers for business management information and decision support systems. He was Chairman of ADAPSO and its leader in strategic planning as well as an active participant in many committees including the Industry Image Committee. He organized and has been the coordinator of a software company CEO Roundtable since 1994. This oral history was sponsored by the Software History Center in conjunction with the Center's ADAPSO reunion (3 May 2002). Citation: Richard L. Crandall, OH 339. Oral history interview by Paul Ceruzzi, 3 May 2002, Washington, D.C. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson February 18, 2010 Title: Advent of Graphical Executive Information Systems Author: Rick Crandall Created: June 2009 Publisher: Donated By: Rick Crandall Filename: doc-4a991dfe46c2b.pdf (Size: 8.09 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Rick Crandall Description: Paper by Rick Crandall describing Comshare's development of an Executive Information System called Commander EIS in the early 1980s. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 29, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comshare decided to switch its business model to software Comshare signed a joint marketing agreement with IBM Crandall visited Xerox PARC and saw a demo of graphical user interfaces System W, Comshare's first software product, was launched

References

There are no references for this company in the collection

Discussions



General Electric Information Services (GEIS)

Company Details

Contributors

Contributor John Ahlstrom

Date Joined June 1, 1968 Job Description

I was a customer of GEISCO not an employee. Accomplishments

From June to Sept 1968 I was working for a Harvard Professor, Otto Eckstein, doing feasibility studies for starting an interactive(time-sharing) economic consulting company. I was trying to find a time-sharing service with computers with enough core and powerful enough to solve a system of 500+ non-linear equations, to run the regression packages that estimated the parameters of the equations and

Name: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Sector: Time-Sharing Description

The precursor of General Electric Information Services began as a business unit within General Electric formed to sell excess computer time on the computers used to give customer demos. In 1965, Warner Sinback recommended that they begin to sell time-sharing services using the time-sharing system (Mark 1) developed at Dartmouth on a General Electric 265 computer. The service was an instant success and by 1968, GEIS had 40% of the $ 70 million time-sharing market. The service continued to grow, and over time migrated to the GE developed Mark II and Mark III operating systems running on large mainframe computers. By the mid-1970s, the GEIS network was providing business-to-business applications to customers throughout the world on its own global network. EDI services were started in the 1980's and grew to be the dominant part of the business. In June 2002, the investment firm Francisco Partners acquired Global eXchange Services (GXS), the successor to GEIS, from GE and began operating it as an independent firm.

Facilitators Karol Hines - Email


Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 11, 2005


that had enough disk storage to hold the company's and its customers' economic data. I got connected with a GE 605 time-sharing operation offering service on one or more 605s - a computer you can't find out much about. In 1978 I was on the board of directors of a chain of computer stores -- CompuShop -- that ultimately reached 54 stores from Houston to Chicago to Calgary to Sunnyvale. The founder, Warren Winger, had worked for GEISCO for 6 or 8 years, including 2 in Tokyo with Dentsu (is that right?), till they wanted to transfer him from Dallas to LA. He read a story in the Wall Street Journal about computer stores and decided to start one instead of transferring. In the forum I'll tell about CompuShop's use of GEISCO for financial management and planning.

Date Left June 1, 1986 Date Entered November 24, 2007

Contributor Maurizio Ammannato

Date Joined February 1974 Job Description

- Markleting and Sales mgr positions - Primarely in Italy but also in Paris and London - Launch of Internet business services - Various GE courses (i.e. AMMS) in Crotonville

Accomplishments - Corporate Image - New services introduction in Europe - Launch of Quickcomm (1st commercial e-mail services), EDI (Electronic Data Interchange)

Date Left May 2001 Date Entered October 11, 2005

Contributor Mike Darrish

Date Joined March 1, 1984 Job Description

I was a VAN consultant in Atlanta, worked for Walt Sapranov and Steve Bain, with John Conlon in Atlanta, and with Skip Lawson and Irene Aronian in the DC area offices in 1984 - 1985 time frame.

Accomplishments Helped justify and sell various network customers, contributing knowledge of SNA and how it might interact with the GEIS proprietary network. I worked on the project to extend Mark*Net to SNA and got a WWW (Walt W. Williams - president at the time) award for my contributions.

Date Left June 15, 1985 Date Entered June 13, 2007


Contributor Roger Dyer


Joined GEIS Ltd (UK) in 1969. Computer business sold to Honeywell in 1970, stayed with Honeywell IS Ltd until 1973. Involved in a startup of a GEIS competitor in the UK - Cyphernetics. Left in 1975, joined Mark Century Co. in the UK (a GE subsidiary) in a technical support role. 1975-1976 Rockville, Md working on the Fortran 77 project. 1976-1978 Technical support of Honeywell UK based out of Amstelveen, Netherlands. 1979-1981 Customer Quality Manager, in the Rockville QA organization. 1981-1983 Marketing Manager for Mark III service. 1983-1985 Quality Assurance again. 1985-1988 Major Account support manager within the new Mark III department. 1988-1989 Amstelveen Supercenter Manager 1989-1992/3 Manager, Distributed Systems (bringing UNIX to GEIS), 1992/3-1995 Manager, Platform Engineering/Mark III Engineering 1995-1996 - Manager, EDI Migration 1996-1997 - Consulting roles of GTE, Indian outsourcing, troubleshooting, producing technology roadmaps, etc. 1997-1999 - Manager, RAILINC Program 1999-2001 - Director, Programs 2001 - date Gloriously retired.

Accomplishments Worked on companywide email system design 1976 (this was the fourth system GEIS had, previously systems were essentially departmental). Converted this to QuikComm (commercial product) when this was allowed by the regulators.

Date Left August 2001 Statistics

Stories (1) Date Entered April 19, 2005

Contributor Jim Goff

Date Joined December 1980 Job Description

Senior Foreground Techniques Specialist Manager Maintenance Engineering Manager Network Support Manager MarkIII Support Client Services

Accomplishments The parts I hope to bring out is the period before I joined GEIS and was a member of The GE Computer Department in Phoenix.

Date Left September 1996


Date Entered October 11, 2005

Contributor Freddy Nurski

Date Joined April 1984 Job Description

Country Manager Belgium-Luxemburg Director Key Accounts EMEA Managing Director Retail Supply Chain EMEA

Accomplishments - sale and implementation of DHL's first worldwide tracking&tracing network - General Motors EDI roll-out Europe - Strategic key account planning - change management

Date Left March 1999 Date Entered November 4, 2005

Contributor Danny Randall


Performed facilities type of services for many years at the HQ Bldg. and the offsite bldgs. such as Metro North, Choke Cherry, Vitro, TOs A, B, C, & D.

Accomplishments The major moves of many field offices and off site offices.

Date Left October 29, 1989 Date Entered December 19, 2006

Contributor John Zinchak

Date Joined January 3, 1959 Job Description

I joined the Information Processing Business (which later became GEIS)in January 1965 in marketing planning business development.

Accomplishments * Coordinated both external and internal users of the GE developmental time-sharing system. * Performed the initial time sharing competitive analysis and pricing recommendations. * Helped launch the first commercial time sharing system in New York city. * Recommended Numerical Control programming as the first business application.


* Recommended that computer graphics terminals would be the wave of the future replacing existing teletypes.

Date Left September 14, 1968 Date Entered May 26, 2009

Timeline

1963

Technology

GE developed a new message switching system (1963) A message switching system, called the Datanet-30 (DN-30), that could handle as many as 40 teletypwriters at once was developed by General Electric's Computer Department. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Dartmouth students developed BASIC (1963) The BASIC programming language (Beginners All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) was developed by a team of Dartmouth undergraduate students under the direction of mathematics professor John Kemeny and his assistant Thomas Kurtz. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1964

Milestones

Warner Sinback transfers to GE's information processing business (1964) Warner Sinback accepted a transfer from his previous position at GE to the information processing business which was selling batch processing using excess time available on the computers used for demos at their computer centers. Related Documents Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 Time-Sharing Operating System Developed at Dartmouth (May 1964) DTSS (Dartmouth Time-Sharing System) developed by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz at Dartmouth on a GE-225 and DN-30 provided by GE using their BASIC programming language, was born on May 1, 1964 at 4:00 am. Related References


Computer: A History of the Information Machine Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1965

Milestones

Sinback recommends entering the time-sharing business (April 1965) After evaluating various opportunities for turning the information processing business into a profit center instead of a cost center, Warner Sinback recommended to GE management that they go into the time-sharing business. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 Commercial time-sharing service goes online (September 1965) Over Labor Day weekend in 1965, the GE time-sharing system, which up to that point had been used only by GE employees over their private telephone network, was moved to the Phoenix field center, where it was connected to a telephone circuit so it could be offered commercially. The system immediately overloaded the telephone system in downtown Phoenix. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 GE information services moved to DC (October 1965) In the third quarter of 1965, GE announced that the Information Services business would move from Phoenix to the Washington, DC area (Bethesda, MD) to separate it from the GE computer business. There were conflicts between the two businesses because the computer salesmen wanted to move customers off the time-sharing service to an in-house computer and the Information Services business wanted to keep them as time-sharing customers. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 First commercial offering of Timesharing (September 1965) GE offers the first commercial time-sharing service to the public. First from GE-235/DN-30 systems in Phoenix and, two months later, from New York City. Both systems quickly became filled to capacity with customers. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


1966

Milestones

Information Processing separated from Computer Dept (1966) IPB separated from the Computer Department and became Information Processing Centers Business (IPCB). Eight months later, it became the Information Services Department. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


GEIS runs an ad that perturbs IBM (1966) GEIS ran an ad in a trade journal that said: Would you like to access a million dollar computer? IBM was so perturbed by this ad that within a month they ran a full page ad in the Wall Street Journal that said: Would you like to access a five million dollar computer? Related Documents Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004

1967

Milestones

Local service added in International locations (1967) Local time-sharing service set up in London, Toronto and Montreal. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Rapid expansion of time-sharing systems (1967) Time-sharing systems were installed at a rate of nearly one per month. More than a dozen additional centers were opened in the US by the end of 1967 including ones in Los Angeles; Teaneck, New Jersey; and Brook Park, Ohio. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Organization and Management

S&H Green Stamps - the first sales commission plan (1967) At the first general sales meeting, held in the Poconos, S&H green stamps were distributed as commission "payments" to the sales representatives. Related Stories Tales of early sales incentives



Early customers used service for problem solving (1967) Used primarily for problem solving by engineers and scientists, ISD service's early time-sharing customers included Hughes Aircraft, Shell Development, Chrysler and General Motors, Boeing Aircraft, Bechtel Corporation and AT&T. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1968


GEIS sales force was 50% women (1968) Warner Sinback initiated a pro-active policy to recruit women employees with the result that by about 1967 or 1968, the GEIS sales force was 50% women. Related Documents Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 GEIS has 40% of the time-sharing services market (1968) According to a 02/17/1969 New York Times article, in 1968 GEIS had 40% of the time-sharing market, which had a total value of $ 70 million. Related Documents Computer Time Sharing Grows Up Additional systems in Europe and Australia (1968) Paul Leadley negotiated distribution agreements that led to the opening of ten additional centers in Europe and Australia during 1968. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] 100,000 users (1968) By the end of 1968, there were more than 50 time-sharing systems installed worldwide, serving 100,000 users in 85 metropolitan areas on 4 continents. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

People

Bill Eaton and Paul Leadley in leadership roles (1968) Bill Eaton was named General Manager of the Information Services Department, and Paul Leadley was charged with building the business internationally.


Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Technology

MARK II service introduced (1968) MARK II service upgraded using GE-635's while the original GE-265 service became known as MARK I. Mark II had many improvements including more memory for larger problems and faster problem solution. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1969

Milestones

Information Services Business Division created (1969) Information Services Department elevated to Information Services Business Division (ISBD). Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Acquisitions and Partnerships

Honeywell distributes products (1969) Agreement signed making Honeywell distributor of ISBD products in most countries outside the U.S. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

External Factors

Timesharing market saturated (1969) By mid-1969, the market had become flooded with time-sharing capacity, and the growth rate suddenly dropped staggeringly. Profits plummeted and companies sold out and failed. By the end of 1969, ISBD had lost millions. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


DSS established (1969) Datanet Software Services (DSS) was established to offer programs written by outside industry experts. In 1971 DSS became Network Software Services (NSS). Related Documents


20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

People

Paul Sage and Dr. George Feeney lead ISBD and IND (1969 ca.) Paul Sage became general manager of the ISBD (Information Services Business Division). The technical operations of the Mark I and Mark II services were organized under the Information Networks Department, headed by Dr. George Feeney. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Technology

Experimental network initiated (1969) Network I, the first experimental system for the network which would tie all of GEIS's computer centers together, was initiated on a single Mark II system in the Cleveland (Brook Park) center. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004

1970

Milestones

All GEIS computer centers coalesced into a single network (1970) With the successful implementation of the network, GEIS began closing their 17 smaller computer centers and moved down to three: Brook Park (near Cleveland), OH, Teaneck, NJ, and Los Angeles, CA. The Los Angeles and Teaneck centers were closed (1972 and 73 respectively) and the entire time-sharing business was based in the Brook Park Supercenter. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 GEIS Network established worldwide (1970) Between 1970 and 1972, GE Information Services Network established worldwide services and became the largest commercial teleprocessing computer network enabling People around the world to get timely business data rapidly using computer terminals and business telephones. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


GE sold computer manufacting (1970)


GE's computer manufacturing operations were sold to Honeywell, Inc. who became the distributor for GE information services in countries where GE's computer manufacturing subsidiaries had been the distributors - primarily Europe and Australia. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Arthur Peltosalo brought in to save ISBD (1970) Arthur Peltosalo was made general manager of ISBD in early 1970. Despite raising prices, cutting costs and taking write-offs, he was unable to avoid implementing the largest reduction in force in the business's history. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Technology

First satellite hookup (September 1970) The first satellite hookup of the GEIS network via COMSAT connected the Cleveland computer center with the London computer center in February, 1970 and was announced to the public on September 24th. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004

1971


GE time-sharing reached Japan (1971) GE time-sharing services reached Japan through a special MARK I licensing agreement with Dentsu Advertising Co., Ltd. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

People

Sandra Kurtzig is pulled off the Bell Labs account (1971) Sandra Kurtzig, who later went on to found ASK Computer Systems, was pulled off as sales representative to the Bell Labs account because GE felt that her ability to sell the customer time-sharing services was interfering with their ability to sell additional mainframe computers. Related References CEO: Building a $ 400 Million Dollar Company from the Ground Up.


Technology

UPS installed at Brook park (1971) An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) was installed at the Brook Park Supercenter. The UPS isolated the network system from any power fluctuations and outages that could lead to equipment failure. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1972

Milestones

Profits begin to soar again (1972) Profitability begins to soar once again and continued to increase through 1985. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


TSO started (1972) Technical Services Operation (TSO) emerged from the "puppy farm". Within 2 months, the group had sparked $ 700,000 in new revenue. This group was renamed System Development and consulting in 1975. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Era of expanded capabilities and tools (1972) An era of expanded capability ad powerful tools began in 1972 and continued for the next 5 years. The orientation moved from scientific problem solving to business applications and to building integrated systems. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Mark III Service introduced (1972) Mark III Service was introduced along with the Foreground/Background concept. This was the combination of the networking and interactive computing services of MARK II (Foreground) with the versatile batch processing capability of GCOS (Background). Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


1974

Milestones

Second Supercenter opened in MD (1974) The second Supercenter opened in Rockville, Maryland. Headquarters were set up in the same building and 500 employees moved in from Bethesda. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

People

Chris Brook credited with network design (1974 ca.) Of the many individuals who had worked and would continue to work on the network's Technology, its overall software and architectural design can fairly be credited to Chris Brook. Brook designed a network whose basic configuration continued to exist beyond 1985. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


DMS introduced (1974) The Database Management System (DMS) was introduced. This was the third generation of random file access tools. DMS provided an unprecedented friendly interface for managing files with the Hierarchical Indexed Sequentila Access Method (HISAM). Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Technology

IBM Model 158 added to network (1974) An IBM Model 158 was added to the MARK III network. It's background batch-processing capabilities were introduced as the CRISP III/70 Service. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1975

Milestones

Expansion to Spain and Mexico (1975) With Spain and Mexico hooked up to the MARK III network, it was serving 18 countries on 4 continents.


Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] International Training Center opened (1975) The International Training Center opened in Rockville, Maryland. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Joint venture with Dentsu (1975) Dentsu and ISBD formed a joint venture company, ISI-Dentsu, Ltd., for distributing MARK III Service in Japan. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Financial Data

Revenue break through (1975) In 1975, revenue surpassed the $ 100 million mark. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Major sales campaign (1975) A major sales campaign, IMPACT, was rolled out at the end of 1975. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Technology

Debut of Cluster System Technology (1975) Cluster System Technology debuted after two years of development work. This was a major technical breakthrough that significantly improved system load balancing availability, and reliability. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1976


Crossfile replaces various internal e-mail systems (October 1976) Crossfile (or XFL) replaced COMCOM, NM and Memosys and provided a communication link between the US and European GEISCO locations.


Related Stories Crossfile and QuikComm

1977

Milestones

European center opened (1977) Because of negative feedback from European customers about being dependent on a computer based in Cleveland, OH, GEIS established a second computer center in Amstelvein, The Netherlands. This also resulted in operational efficiencies because it allowed load balancing across different time zones. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004

1978


First Markmakers bash (1978) San Diego was the sit of the first Markmakers bash. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Service extends to Far East (1978) Worldwide network service extends to Hong Kong and Singapore. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Introduction of MARKLINK (1978) The MARKLINK System was introducced, providing the only distributed data processing available from a single source. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1979


GEISCO is formed (1979) On January 1st, ISBD became the General Electric Information Services Company (GEISCO) and entered a joint venture with Honeywell.


Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Mitrol a subsidiary of GEISCO (1979) Mitrol, Inc., became a General Electric Information Services' subsidiary. Implementing Mitrol Industrial Management Systems (MIMS) on MARK 3000 Service. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


European Marketing Operation opened (1979) The European Marketing Operation opened in London to serve customers through-out Europe. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] MARK III Service reached Saudi Arabia (1979) MARK III Service reached Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and was now serving 24 countries on 5 continents. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


MARK 3000 (tm) Service arrived (1979) MARK 3000 (tm) Service arrived using the IBM 3033 central processor and the multiple virtual storage (MVS) operating system. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1980


QuickComm e-mail product launched (1980) By 1980 the regulators realized that international data lines and usage made their rules obsolete and CrossFile, the internal e-mail system, was launched as a the commercial product QuickComm. Related Stories Crossfile and QuikComm

1981


Milestones

First use of public data communications networks (1981) MARK III Service became accessible in Bermuda, Bahrain, the Phillippines, Portugal, and New Zealand marking the first use of public data communications networks. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Acquisitions made to expand software services offerings (1981) GEISCO acquired four companies to better supply complete software services - Lambda Technology, Inc.; Energy Enterprises of Denver, Inc.; Banking Systems, Inc.; and Software International Corp. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1982

Milestones

QUIK-COMM extended to Europe (1982) Negotiations with Post, Telephone, & Telegraph (PT&T) operations in 1981 and 1982 extended the QUICK-COMM System to Europe and elsewhere. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Network accessed via Personal Computers (1982) The PC revolution led to large purchases of IBM personal computers. The network was then accessible through IBM PC's, the Apple II Plus, and a myriad of other personal computers. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


GEISCO wholly owned subsidiary of GE (1982) GEISCO became a wholly owned subsidiary of GE with the corporate buyout of Honeywell's interest. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1984

Milestones


U.S. teleprocessing network unbundled (1984) The U.S. teleprocessing network was unbundled to provide MARK*NET (tm) value added network (VAN) service. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Expanded international access (1984) Agreements with three international Record Carriers provided expanded international access capabilities to nearly 60 countries. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] ICSO merged into GEISCO (1984) Integrated Communication Services Operation (ICSO), for leasing and maintaining hardware, merged into GEISCO. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] ICSO entered Tenant Services business (1984) ICSO entered the Tenant Services business by forming relationships with MCI, Inte-Com, and Wang Laboratories, Inc. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Large contracts with Clearing House Associations (1984) Calwestern Automated Clearing House Association (CACHA) contracted for electronic funds transfer services among its 780 member banks, credit unions and Savings & Loans. An agreement with NACHA quickly followed. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


Professional Services renamed (1984) GEISCO Professional Services was renamed to General Electric Consulting (GECON). Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]



Additional Office Automation products introduced (1984) WPXchange, PC Mailbox and other office automation products were introduced adding to the capabilities of QUIK-COMM. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

1985

Milestones

First mass market product introduced (1985) GEISCO's first "mass market" product, General Electric Network for Information Exchange (GEnie) was introduced. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


More business relationships (1985) Throughout 1984 and 85, GEISCO formed business relationships to expand business. Relationships were formed with Wang Laboratories, Inc., for office automation; with Apple Computer, Inc., on Applelink and DealerTalk; and with NEC to link the Japanese VAN with GEISCO's network. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


GEISCO positioned for continued growth (1985) The wide array of product & service offerings position GEISCO for continued growth. These include Manufacturing and Distribution EDI, International Trade, Medical Claims, Retail Systems, Information Providers, Applications Integration, Office and COrporate Systems, Dealer and Client Systems, Network Services and many more. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]

Technology

EDI commercialized (1985) Electonic Data Interchange (EDI) was developed and commercialized to provide a standard computer-to computer exchange protocol for business documents. Related Documents 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum]


1999

Technology

GEIS sets up extranets (1999) GEIS sets up extranets for companies such as Tesco, Dayton-Hudson and Nuovo Pignone to help streamline communications with their trading partners. Related Documents Entering the Extranet Era: How Extranets Can Help Create the Intelligent Supply Chain

2002

Milestones

Acquisition by Francisco Partners (September 2002) Francisco Partners, the world's largest Technology buyout fund, and GE announced the completion of Francisco Partners' acquisition of GE Global eXchange Services, a business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce leader. Global Exchange Services (GXS), as the company will be known, will operate as an independent, privately-held business based in Gaithersburg, MD. Related References Francisco Partners Completes Acquisition of Global eXchange Services From GE

Stories

Title: Crossfile and QuikComm Author: Malcolm Davies (via Roger Dyer) Created: April 19, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: CrossFile was the name given to the first GEIS-wide email system designed in 1976. Previously, there had been multiple systems on a per department basis. The (very small) team was lead by Malcolm Davies, who was my manager at Mark Century in London. George Feeney (then CEO) tapped Malcolm because of the simplicity, reliability and performance of the Interrnational email system that Malcolm maintained and enhanced, which had been prototyped (I think) by Dick van den Berg in the Netherlands. The following story came from Malcolm: "GEIS established international computer time sharing access, with a circuit from White Plains to Goonhilly, in December 1969. From the inception of Mark II in the UK, there were requests from companies to establish basic communications applications to reduce the costs associated with


Telex. The Common Carriers strenuously opposed applications where “message content’ was the sole purpose. The CEPT cartel, which licensed the carriers, also declared that this was illegal. [CEPT was the controlling committee of the governmental post and telegraph organizations which gave licences and set rates for international postage, telex and telephone calls. They also decided how much of the cost of such communications would be shared between governments e.g. if you called from England to France it determined how much of the price went to the GPO and how much to the PTT. CEPT, founded in the 1870’s in Paris, used the Gold Franc as its internal unit of currency] CEPT finally had to address the fact that transatlantic (and in 1973 pacific) private data circuits were an established fact and decided merely to impose a tariff of 10 gold centimes per 1k characters of ‘textual message’ transmitted which was not modified by ‘substantial’ data processing. By 1976 it was apparent that this was a failing rearguard action to preserve their monopolistic telex tariffs. The main challenger was a little private communications provider in the US called Microwave Communications Inc (afterwards known as MCI). Back in 1971 GEIS Europe had installed (quite legally since it was internal to GE) a messaging system to link their European offices and personnel. This system, COMCOM, was written by Dick van den Burg in Holland (he just retired from GXS in September 2004) and ran very well and saved thousands of dollars in telephone calls across Europe. Additionally, in the US, Operations had established a communications system called Network Messenger (NM) to link computer centers and NCC’s. In May of 1976 George Feeney thought that MCI’s activities in flaunting the common carrier rules would quickly open up the whole field of computer aided communications to commercial operation. I was summoned from London to Rockville at short notice (literally 30 hours) to give George a presentation on messaging systems. The meeting lasted about 2 hours with Hench, Leadley, Castle and Marshall attending. He decided to go ahead and asked me to set up a development and marketing team. This was another of George’s experiments to see the effects of having a multi discipline team under a single leader develop a product. The team was myself and Roger Dyer as designers/developers, Brian Garnichaud and Roberta Jankowski to handle Marketing and Logistics and a Documentation and Testing person (anyone recall the name?). We agreed on a specification by June (when I was allowed to return to London for the first time for my wedding) and we had the system code complete in August. By that time word had come down from GE Corporate Legal (Schlotterbeck?) that whereas a small company like MCI could flaunt CEPT regulations, a highly visible company like General Electric could not afford to do this. [Don’t forget that the phases of the moon court case in which GE colluded with Westinghouse to fix bids for power generation equipment and 7 VP’s went to jail, was still fresh in Corporate minds] The project went ahead as an internal system to replace COMCOM and NM (there was also Memosys [RJD]). George had intended this phase anyway as a means of testing and stretching the system. We had all the logistics plans (to create a company wide directory of user id’s and distribute them), and conducted training sessions world wide in September and October 1976 when CrossFile or XFL (as the product was first called), went live. It was a great success and stood up to the load well. By December we had our first spam with big diagrams of Xmas trees crafted from asterisks, plus signs and other special characters that took 5 minutes to print out at 10 cps. We added a ‘delete unopened’ feature straightaway. The system was strictly character text messages; there were no screens or graphics in those days. By 1980 it was obvious that international data lines and usage had long made the arcane rules of CEPT obsolete and XFL was launched as the commercial product QuickComm." To add to Malcolm's story - XFL was originally designed with a maximum of 1250 users, with 4 character addresses and pw's. Due to the growth of GEIS the address list was significantly expanded - I think the last version could take probably 4 times that number - and had encryption added in about 1979-80 as there was concern that operations people could read executive "secret" emails. I came up with a multipass, randomized key word and randomized packet size


encrytion algorithm that was light on processing (we were expected to minimize resource use for internal projects), yet difficult to break. This hurt me when XFL processing was moved to Amstelveen and I had to spend time with the lawyers who were wrapped around the axle about exporting "restricted" technology - which is how any encryption algorithm was viewed even one for internal use. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Roger Dyer April 19, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Crossfile replaces various internal e-mail systems QuickComm e-mail product launched Title: Tales of early sales incentives Author: Leo Kotschenreuther Created: October 10, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: (The following story was extracted from an e-mail I received from Leo Kotschenreuther. Karol Hines) The first (and only ?) general sales meeting was held in the Poconos, I think it was in 1967. There they distributed, among other things, books of S&H green stamps - the first commission plan. We teckies also received a few. The trouble came when income tax day rolled around. We had to pay taxes on the value of these books (around $2 each) and some salesmen had sold much. I have a miner's hard hat obtained at the Washington IPC meeting held in 1968 in Easton Md. At that meeting, two guys did a presentation of "The World's Best Database System" i.e. Mark Delta. One was Dick Lewis. If a salesman found a prospect, he was to report it to Headquarters and receive no commission. If he sold them Mark II, he received a commission. Guess how many Mark Delta referrals were made? By that time, Mark II was considered "fit to sell"; previously, we would not tell our Mark I customers about it. I n the sales office, we did marketing research for Headqurters (just a few blocks away). We would invite our biggest customers for a free lunch at Bish Thompson's resturant across the street. After the meal and drinks, a short presentation was made. The clients ALWAYS liked the proposed new product. Ray Lewis was the sales manager. In the early days, there was no Engineering Development Facility. The Washington IPC had one and then 2 Datanet 30/GE 235 systems (later called Mark I). For Datanet 30 patches, you needed a system outage. Testing of these patches could be done only after 2400 and before about 0500 or 0600. Patches for the Basic, Algol, and Fortran II compilers or the utility programs could be and sometimes were loaded "on the fly". Clients would see just a little slower response. Patches were in the form of punched cards. The only terminal available to users was a TTY Model 33 and you had to rent them from the telephone company. Later, GE rented terminals so that clients could use the system as soon as possible. About that time, there were full page ads in the Washington Post. GE had developed "The World's Best Time Sharing/Remote Batch System" i.e. 3D Resource. It was to be sold "by the bottle" or "by the drink". Ray made a deal with the local IS&S that they would sell the clock customers and we the time sharing. This worked out well and I think we sold a little time. In Philly however, a salesman sold Mark II to a client. The next day, another GE salesman arrived at the


same client to sell 3D Resource. He stated that Mark II was no good. We heard that that salesman was fired. GEIS had a General Manager who lost track of accounts payable (a GE NONO !). I think that his name was Bill Eaton. He was summarily fired. In the sales office on a Monday, a new salesman arrived. We gave him some manuals and signed him up for classes in Fortran and Basic. On Thursday, he received a pink slip. Thus, Art Peltosaro (the hatchet man) arrived. There would be a different user number/password/telephone number for each Mark I system. Large customers had an account on both systems W and X in case of an outage. Mark II CPU\s were installed in Teaneck NJ, Los Angeles and Cleveland. Each Mark II system could have up to 4 remote concentrators (Compat Corp. Long Island made them specifically for us). WIPC had one. There could be 48 simultaneous users on an RC so that 192 was possible. The Brook Park facility started out as a small rented warehouse. We kept adding to it and finally bought it. It was decided to install a Mark III facility in the DC area and it went to Rockville. It was decided to buy a large farm several miles to the north for construction of a new large campus. By this time, the luster was off for Time sharing and the facility was never built. GEIS probably make more money from the land sale to GE Capital then it ever did with time sharing. I could go on and on... having spent 25 years on the payroll starting in Sept 1967. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S&H Green Stamps - the first sales commission plan

Documents

Title: Time Sharing Management, and Management Science Author: G. J. Feeney Created: February 1967 Publisher: Management Science Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a049e6d77696.pdf (Size: 263 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Management Science Description: Copy of “Time Sharing, Management and Management Science”; G. J. Feeney ; A talk delivered at the Int’l mtg of I.M.S, 9/6/1966 Accession: 102658914 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: 1968... The Year of Numerical Control - Sales Bulletin Author: Created: 1968 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department


Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a049bf3041f8.pdf (Size: 5.23 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: Sales Bulletin (9 issues) Accession: 102658912 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: The Field of Numerical Control Author: Created: 1968 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a24e07774.pdf (Size: 1.31 MB) Pages: 10 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: Reprints - Various publications Accession: 102658917 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Numerical Control Parts Programming with REMAPT Author: Created: 1968 ca. Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a072ea3d88a9.pdf (Size: 1.03 MB) Pages: 10 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: Transcript of presentation given on “Numerical Control Parts Programming with REMAPT” – no author, no date, no venue – probably same as presentation at Technical Conference or the Numerical Control Society Accession: 102658930 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: GE Time-Sharing Service Background Kit Author: Created: April 3, 1968 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Time-Sharing Service Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0364c619e1f.pdf (Size: 2.24 MB) Pages: 23


Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Time-Sharing Service Description: Press Background kit – “Numerical Control Parts Programming with GE Time-Sharing Service” – with glossy photos Accession: 102658911 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 7, 2009 Title: [Press Release announcing expansion of its time-share service] Author: Created: April 3, 1968 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0729a185e49.pdf (Size: 174 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Department Description: GE announces expansion of its computer time-sharing service…numerical controls capabilities Accession: 102658925 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: GE Announces NC Tape Programming Service Via Time-Shared Computer Author: Created: May 1968 Publisher: Metalworking Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a123a7cc3.pdf (Size: 1.18 MB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: Copyright: Metalworking Description: Reprint "GE Announces NC Tape Programming Service Via Time-Shared Computer" Accession: 102658916 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: News-Share - May 1968 Author: Created: May 26, 1968 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09a8d1ec7cf.pdf (Size: 417 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share, Employee Newsletter


Accession: 102658954 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: GE's '67 Timesharing Gains Author: Ray Connolly Created: June 1968 Publisher: Electronic News Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a049d4d1af25.pdf (Size: 235 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Electronic News Description: Reprint "GE's '67 Timesharing Gains" Accession: 102658913 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Time Sharing: The Swing to Service Author: A. M. Greene Created: August 1968 Publisher: Iron Age Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a049fed71097.pdf (Size: 1.91 MB) Pages: 10 Cataloguer: Copyright: Iron Age Description: Reprint "Conversation with a Computer" Accession: 102658915 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - Jan-June 1969 Author: Created: 1969 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0886343db7b.pdf (Size: 2.94 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (4 issues) Accession: 102658938 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009


Title: Fast-Fax - July-Dec 1969 Author: Created: 1969 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0886e16b14a.pdf (Size: 8.89 MB) Pages: 46 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (10 issues) Accession: 102658939 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: News-Share - 1969 Author: Created: 1969 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09a9aa4b01f.pdf (Size: 2.87 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share (6 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658955 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Speakers' Biographies Author: Created: 1969 ca. Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a072fb76d0b5.pdf (Size: 1.53 MB) Pages: 11 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: 2(nd) National Sales Conference, Speakers’ biographies Accession: 102658931 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Computer Time Sharing Grows Up Author: William D. Smith Created: February 17, 1969 Publisher: New York Times


Donated By: Richard L. Crandall Filename: doc-4242d5ac43d26.pdf (Size: 334 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Photocopy of an article from The New York Times, Feb. 17, 1969. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson March 24, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GEIS has 40% of the time-sharing services market Title: Numerical Control Programming with a Time-Sharing Computer Author: E. L. McCleary Created: April 4, 1969 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a072d80f21f3.pdf (Size: 1.66 MB) Pages: 11 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: Transcript with slides of presentation given by E.L. McCleary at the Technical Conference or the Numerical Control Society Accession: 102658929 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Optional Abbreviated Sign-on and System Commands for MARK I Author: Created: June 1969 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a07349ba2836.pdf (Size: 596 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: Customer Bulletin No. 38, “Optional Abbreviated Sign-on and System Commands for MARK I” Accession: 102658936 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Print Out Author: Created: June 1969 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems, Time-Sharing Service Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0732eb46c1d.pdf (Size: 693 KB)


Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems, Time-Sharing Service Description: First Issue of "Print Out", the Employee Newsletter from the Time-Sharing Service Central Region Accession: 102658934 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Look to Time-Sharing in Preparing N/C Tapes Author: Robert M. Miller Created: August 1969 Publisher: Automation Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a319d6730.pdf (Size: 921 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Automation Description: Reprint "Look to Time-Sharing in Preparing N/C Tapes" Accession: 102658918 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - Jan-June 1970 Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088763e7aa4.pdf (Size: 8.24 MB) Pages: 41 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (9 issues) Accession: 102658940 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - July-Dec 1970 Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0888133bc4c.pdf (Size: 8.92 MB) Pages: 44 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (10 issues)


Accession: 102658941 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: MARK II Terminal Operations Instructions Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a072b6de6379.pdf (Size: 1.45 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Description: MARK II Terminal Operations Instructions (4 sheets) Accession: 102658927 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jan-Jun 1970 Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09aa4bb1e57.pdf (Size: 2.45 MB) Pages: 10 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share (4 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658956 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jul-Dec 1970 Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09aae1757d1.pdf (Size: 8.20 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share (17 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658957 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009


Title: Who's Who Author: Created: 1970 ca. Publisher: General Electric Information Services Marketing Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a07306b6c117.pdf (Size: 2.71 MB) Pages: 18 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Marketing Department Description: 3(rd) National Sales Conference, Who’s Who Accession: 102658932 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Machine Tool Topics Author: Created: January 1970 Publisher: General Electric Company - Industrial Sales Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0731977d517.pdf (Size: 821 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Company - Industrial Sales Division Description: “Machine Tool TOPICS – A Newsletter for the Machine Tool Industry Accession: 102658933 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Print Out - Central Region Managers Meet Author: Created: March 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems, Time-Sharing Service Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0733d94c3e1.pdf (Size: 659 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems, Time-Sharing Service Description: “Print Out”, the Employee Newsletter of the Time-Sharing Service Central Region Accession: 102658935 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: NC: Management's Key To The 70's Author: Created: April 1970 Publisher: Numerical Control Society


Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a072c862c960.pdf (Size: 599 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Numerical Control Society Description: Conference Program, “7th Annual Meeting and Technical Conference of the Numerical Control Society” April 8-10, Boston, MA Accession: 102658928 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: What General Electric Didn't Sell Author: Created: June 15, 1970 Publisher: Forbes Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a3ccd526c.pdf (Size: 447 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Forbes Description: Reprint "What General Electric Didn't Sell" Accession: 102658919 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Now, CAM Author: Created: July 1970 Publisher: Tooling & Production Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a48696c42.pdf (Size: 364 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Tooling & Production Description: Reprint "Now, CAM" Accession: 102658920 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Leader - Dec 1970 Author: Created: December 1970 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088ccade57f.pdf (Size: 860 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer:


Copyright: General Electric Information Services Description: Leader, GE Co IT Customer newsletter Accession: 102658949 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - Jan-June 1971 Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088885731f6.pdf (Size: 6.03 MB) Pages: 30 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (8 issues) Accession: 102658942 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - July-Dec 1971 Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088904c62f1.pdf (Size: 6.65 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (8 issues) Accession: 102658943 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Leader - Feb-Nov 1971 Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088d8404973.pdf (Size: 4.97 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Description: Leader, GE Co IT Customer newsletter (6 issues) Accession: 102658950 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jan-Jun 1971 Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09abe95e8ac.pdf (Size: 5.42 MB) Pages: 22 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share (11 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658958 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jul-Dec 1971 Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09ac7bb9c44.pdf (Size: 7.40 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share (14 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658959 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Payoff for time sharing at Ex-Cell-O Author: Created: July 1971 Publisher: Tooling & Production Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a5dff1122.pdf (Size: 554 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Tooling & Production Description: Reprint "Payoff for time sharing at Ex-Cell-O" Accession: 102658922 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Time Sharing Makes NC Capability as Near as a Telephone


Author: Created: July 1, 1971 Publisher: Iron Age Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a5215fd60.pdf (Size: 587 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Iron Age Description: Reprint "Time Sharing Makes NC Capability as Near as a Telephone" Accession: 102658921 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - Jan-June 1972 Author: Created: 1972 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a08898cc879c.pdf (Size: 7.29 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (8issues) Accession: 102658944 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - July-Dec 1972 Author: Created: 1972 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0889ee8673d.pdf (Size: 4.15 MB) Pages: 18 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (5 issues) Accession: 102658945 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Leader - 1972 Author: Created: 1972 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088e1fbbb7e.pdf (Size: 6.05 MB)


Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Description: Leader, GE Co IT Customer newsletter (5 issues) Accession: 102658951 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jan-Jun 1972 Author: Created: 1972 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09ad2f2db6c.pdf (Size: 7.19 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: News-Share (14 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658960 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jul-Dec 1972 Author: Created: 1972 Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09add403308.pdf (Size: 9.10 MB) Pages: 42 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description: News-Share (15 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658961 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Sales Bulletins - Numerical Control and Hazeltine 2000 Terminals Author: Created: 1972 ca. Publisher: General Electric Information Service Department Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088536204ac.pdf (Size: 600 KB) Pages: 19 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Service Department Description:


2 misc. Sales Bulletins – one announces GE’s agreement with Hazeltine to market their 2000 Video Display Terminal (VDT) Accession: 102658937 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: NC machine carves an antenna mold Author: Created: March 6, 1972 Publisher: American Machinist Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a04a6a5e0fd6.pdf (Size: 630 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: American Machinist Description: Reprint "NC machine carves an antenna mold" Accession: 102658923 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 8, 2009 Title: [Important Pricing Announcement to Customers of General Electric Mark II Information Service] Author: Created: April 1, 1972 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a072aaaadc3e.pdf (Size: 43 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Pricing of MARK II Information Service Accession: 102658926 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - Jan-June 1973 Author: Created: 1973 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088a67698b3.pdf (Size: 4.35 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (8 issues) Accession: 102658946 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - July-Dec 1973 Author: Created: 1973 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088ae14bfac.pdf (Size: 2.62 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems Description: “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin (8 issues) Accession: 102658947 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Leader - Apr-May 1973 Author: Created: 1973 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088ef9ec503.pdf (Size: 3.02 MB) Pages: 16 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Description: Leader, GE Co IT Customer newsletter Accession: 102658952 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jan-Jun 1973 Author: Created: 1973 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09ae8d7c230.pdf (Size: 12.01 MB) Pages: 54 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: News-Share (17 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658962 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: News-Share - Jul-Dec 1973


Author: Created: 1973 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09af39e8707.pdf (Size: 11.85 MB) Pages: 56 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: News-Share (17 issues), Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658963 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Update - Jan-June 1974 Author: Created: 1974 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09b435edab4.pdf (Size: 9.06 MB) Pages: 47 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (9 issues) Accession: 102658964 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1974 Author: Created: 1974 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09b525ef4e2.pdf (Size: 9.12 MB) Pages: 50 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (12 issues) Accession: 102658965 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (May 27, 1974) Author: Created: May 27, 1974 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-437a21fa90002.pdf (Size: 753 KB)


Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.10) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651929 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651929.update.1974-05-27 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 15, 2005 Title: Update - Jan-June 1975 Author: Created: 1975 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09b5df6cbb1.pdf (Size: 9.67 MB) Pages: 52 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (13 issues) Accession: 102658966 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1975 Author: Created: 1975 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09b6923af18.pdf (Size: 15.26 MB) Pages: 75 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (11 issues) Accession: 102658967 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (February 3, 1975) Author: Created: February 3, 1975


Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-437911a444511.pdf (Size: 1.06 MB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.27) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651930 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651930.update.1975-02-03 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (February 18, 1975) Author: Created: February 18, 1975 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43791a6830c94.pdf (Size: 1.11 MB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.28) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651931 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651931.update.1975-02-18 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (December 8, 1975) Author: Created: December 8, 1975 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4379265430c90.pdf (Size: 1.67 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS)


Description: Newsletter (305.49) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651932 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651932.update.1975-12-08 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Jan-June 1976 Author: Created: 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a09b75493b49.pdf (Size: 16.73 MB) Pages: 82 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (11 issues) Accession: 102658968 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 12, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1976 Author: Created: 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b4c229e49a.pdf (Size: 11.22 MB) Pages: 56 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (5 issues) Accession: 102658969 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (January 5, 1976) Author: Created: January 5, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-437929a670434.pdf (Size: 1.55 MB)


Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.51) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651933 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651933.update.1976-01-05 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (April 30, 1976) Author: Created: April 30, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43792b0b77960.pdf (Size: 1.73 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.58) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651934 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651934.update.1976-04-30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (May 17, 1976) Author: Created: May 17, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43792c4641e01.pdf (Size: 1.65 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.59) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651935


Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651935.update.1976-05-17 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (June 2, 1976) Author: Created: June 2, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43792d6cafbd3.pdf (Size: 1.55 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.60) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651936 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651936.update.1976-06-02 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (June 30, 1976) Author: Created: June 30, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43792ead57d92.pdf (Size: 1.66 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.61) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651937 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi


Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651937.update.1976-06-30 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (September 2, 1976) Author: Created: September 2, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43792fdcca981.pdf (Size: 2.23 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.63) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651938 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651938.update.1976-09-02 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (October 12, 1976) Author: Created: October 12, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4379311341dff.pdf (Size: 1.64 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.64) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651939 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651939.update.1976-10-12 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005


Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (November 1, 1976) Author: Created: November 1, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43793268b9810.pdf (Size: 2.43 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.65) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651940 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651940.update.1976-11-01 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (November 23, 1976) Author: Created: November 23, 1976 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4379438ea5f91.pdf (Size: 2.64 MB) Pages: 14 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.67) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651941 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651941.update.1976-11-23 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Leader (Summer 1977) Author: Created: 1977 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer


Filename: doc-43790d4741e01.pdf (Size: 4.73 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Booklet; Summer 1977, Vol 8, No 2 (301.22). "Published for Information Services customers to inform them of new features and services." Accession: 102651928 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651928.leader.1977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Jan-Sep 1977 Author: Created: 1977 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b4cb959190.pdf (Size: 9.09 MB) Pages: 44 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (7 issues) Accession: 102658970 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (January 17, 1977) Author: Created: January 17, 1977 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4379350175251.pdf (Size: 713 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.68) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651942 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi


Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651942.update.1977-01-17 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: On-line computer programs NC 6 times faster than manual Author: Created: March 1977 Publisher: Canadian Machinery and metalworking Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0728404b73c.pdf (Size: 502 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Canadian Machinery and metalworking Description: Reprint "On-line computer programs NC 6 times faster than manual" Accession: 102658924 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 10, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (March 25, 1977) Author: Created: March 25, 1977 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-437936369c352.pdf (Size: 837 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.70) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651943 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651943.update.1977-03-25 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (June 3, 1977) Author: Created: June 3, 1977 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-437937d807481.pdf (Size: 1.64 MB) Pages: 8


Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.72) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651944 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651944.update.1977-06-03 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Jan-June 1978 Author: Created: 1978 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b4d3eef0e8.pdf (Size: 7.92 MB) Pages: 38 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (5 issues) Accession: 102658971 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1978 Author: Created: 1978 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Business Division Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b4dbfd0dc7.pdf (Size: 5.97 MB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Business Division Description: Internal newsletter (4 issues) Accession: 102658972 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (February 17, 1978) Author: Created: February 17, 1978 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS)


Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43793b0cecc60.pdf (Size: 1.61 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.82) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651945 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651945.update.1978-02-17 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (March 17, 1978) Author: Created: March 17, 1978 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43793c09d93e2.pdf (Size: 1.50 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.83) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651946 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651946.update.1978-03-17 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (December 15, 1978) Author: Created: December 15, 1978 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43793d46ecc62.pdf (Size: 1.60 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description:


Newsletter (305.92) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651947 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651947.update.1978-12-15 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Custom Applications Interface - 1979 Author: Created: 1979 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1310fac4b76.pdf (Size: 7.16 MB) Pages: 40 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter - (3 issues) Accession: 102659014 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Global Focus - 1979 Author: Created: 1979 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a130dc162f0d.pdf (Size: 1.27 MB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Selling Mark III Service Internationally (2 issues) Accession: 102659010 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Update - Jan-June 1979 Author: Created: 1979 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b4e3b2168e.pdf (Size: 9.11 MB) Pages: 44


Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (6 issues) Accession: 102658973 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1979 Author: Created: 1979 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b4f0abd956.pdf (Size: 20.31 MB) Pages: 100 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (7 issues) Accession: 102658974 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (January 19, 1979) Author: Created: January 19, 1979 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-43793efb68f01.pdf (Size: 1.56 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.93) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651948 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651948.update.1979-01-19 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Update - Information Services Business Division (February 16, 1979) Author: Created: February 16, 1979 Publisher: General Electric Information Services (GEIS)


Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4379401915ee1.pdf (Size: 1.66 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2005-11-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: General Electric Information Services (GEIS) Description: Newsletter (305.94) "For General Electric Employees Only." Accession: 102651949 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-11-08 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\GEIS\source\102651949.update.1979-02-16 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson November 14, 2005 Title: Global Focus - 1980 Author: Created: 1980 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a130e46d6609.pdf (Size: 2.26 MB) Pages: 11 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Selling Mark III Service Internationally (2 issues) Accession: 102659011 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Update - Jan-June 1980 Author: Created: 1980 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b50917c055.pdf (Size: 20.79 MB) Pages: 96 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (9 issues) Accession: 102658975 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1980


Author: Created: 1980 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b510231ea0.pdf (Size: 5.03 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (4 issues) Accession: 102658976 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Fast-Fax - Aug 1970 Author: Created: August 1980 Publisher: General Electric Information Systems Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a088b6eefc96.pdf (Size: 2.24 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Systems “FAST-FAX” Sales Bulletin Accession: 102658948 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: Update - Jan-June 1981 Author: Created: 1981 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b5184e6381.pdf (Size: 5.80 MB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (4 issues) Accession: 102658977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1981 Author: Created: 1981 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b524c74cc1.pdf (Size: 11.34 MB) Pages: 72


Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (8 issues) Accession: 102658978 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jan-June 1982 Author: Created: 1982 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b52dd649b8.pdf (Size: 9.73 MB) Pages: 56 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (7 issues) Accession: 102658979 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Special Edition 1982 Author: Created: 1982 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b538e76ace.pdf (Size: 2.63 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (2 issues) Accession: 102658980 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - 1983 Author: Created: 1983 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b5421b6d66.pdf (Size: 4.97 MB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (3 issues) Accession: 102658981


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jan-June 1984 Author: Created: 1984 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b54bfd8bcf.pdf (Size: 11.95 MB) Pages: 64 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (6 issues) Accession: 102658982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Update - Jul-Dec 1984 Author: Created: 1984 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0b55422df26.pdf (Size: 6.96 MB) Pages: 40 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter (4 issues) Accession: 102658983 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 13, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Feb 1985 Author: Created: February 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8cbaeeccb.pdf (Size: 5.41 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658986 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009


Title: Spectrum - Mar 1985 Author: Created: March 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8d6ae6f34.pdf (Size: 4.33 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658987 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Apr 1985 Author: Created: April 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8de72e62b.pdf (Size: 3.11 MB) Pages: 16 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658988 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: MGR - Jul 1985 Author: Created: July 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a130f26c1f97.pdf (Size: 1.40 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: News and Information for Managers at GE Information Services Company Accession: 102659012 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Jul 1985 Author: Created: July 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer


Filename: doc-4a0c8e6e2e0a6.pdf (Size: 4.51 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658989 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Sep 1985 Author: Created: September 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8ef499f83.pdf (Size: 5.22 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658990 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Oct 1985 Author: Created: October 1985 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8bf8e87e1.pdf (Size: 5.24 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658985 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: 20 Years of Excellence [special edition of Spectrum] Author: Created: December 1985 Publisher: GEIS Donated By: David Sherman Filename: doc-425c3381a0995.pdf (Size: 15.61 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description:


Spectrum, December 1985. A special edition commemorating the Twentieth Anniversary of General Electric Information Services Company, published by Employees Communication, General Electric Information Services Company, publication number 0308.10. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 12, 2005 Title: AED World - 1986 Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1311d44d13d.pdf (Size: 2.43 MB) Pages: 10 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Applications Engineering Department, Employee Newsletter – 2 issues Accession: 102659015 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Leader - Q2 1986 Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a089043a9c7b.pdf (Size: 3.53 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Description: Leader, GE Co IT Customer newsletter Accession: 102658953 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 11, 2009 Title: MGR - 1986 Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a13103632283.pdf (Size: 9.79 MB) Pages: 60 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: News and Information for Managers at GE Information Services Company (5 issues) Accession: 102659013 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James


May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Feb 1986 Author: Created: February 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8f8ddb18a.pdf (Size: 6.76 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658992 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Mar 1986 Author: Created: March 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8ff946d00.pdf (Size: 4.93 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658993 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Apr 1986 Author: Created: April 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c90675ce59.pdf (Size: 5.11 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658994 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Jun 1986 Author:


Created: June 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c90d68505a.pdf (Size: 4.98 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658995 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Jul 1986 Author: Created: July 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c914f5ac88.pdf (Size: 6.34 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658996 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Aug-Sep 1986 Author: Created: September 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c91c65a5dd.pdf (Size: 5.20 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658997 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Oct 1986 Author: Created: October 1986 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c926000285.pdf (Size: 5.48 MB) Pages: 24


Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102658998 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Jan-Feb 1987 Author: Created: February 1987 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a2473fef2963.pdf (Size: 5.14 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee newsletter Accession: 1025658999 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson June 1, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Mar-Apr 1987 Author: Created: April 1987 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1306c1897c2.pdf (Size: 4.88 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Jul-Aug 1987 Author: Created: August 1987 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1307686d712.pdf (Size: 6.04 MB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659001


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Update International - Aug 1987 Author: Created: August 1987 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a0c8aa37ed4d.pdf (Size: 1.62 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Internal newsletter Accession: 102658984 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 14, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Sep-Oct 1987 Author: Created: October 1987 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1307e8824ea.pdf (Size: 5.10 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659002 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Mar 1988 Author: Created: March 1988 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a13086329473.pdf (Size: 5.94 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659003 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009


Title: Spectrum - Oct 1988 Author: Created: October 1988 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1308de2127c.pdf (Size: 5.05 MB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: réalités - 1989 Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a130b9019641.pdf (Size: 2.58 MB) Pages: 16 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter (3 issues) Jul, Aug and Oct Accession: 102659008 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Jun 1989 Author: Created: June 1989 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a13095a5d1a0.pdf (Size: 4.87 MB) Pages: 27 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: réalités - 1990 Author: Created: 1990 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer


Filename: doc-4a130cf2a0ecb.pdf (Size: 3.93 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter (4 issues) Jan, Mar, Aug and Markmakers Accession: 102659009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Feb 1990 Author: Created: February 1990 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a1309dc787be.pdf (Size: 4.13 MB) Pages: 23 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Spectrum - Dec 1990 Author: Created: December 1990 Publisher: General Electric Information Services Company Donated By: Roger Dyer Filename: doc-4a130a4ce0721.pdf (Size: 5.10 MB) Pages: 26 Cataloguer: Copyright: General Electric Information Services Company Description: Employee Newsletter Accession: 102659007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Janice James May 19, 2009 Title: Entering the Extranet Era: How Extranets Can Help Create the Intelligent Supply Chain Author: Created: 1999 Publisher: GE Information Services, Inc. Donated By: Maurizio Ammannato Filename: doc-434b3c416b610.pdf (Size: 309 KB) Pages: 18 Cataloguer: Copyright: GE Information Services, Inc.


Description: A White Paper prepared by GE Information Services, Inc. Donated electronically by Maurizio Ammannato, Valmadrera, Italy -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines October 10, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GEIS sets up extranets Title: Sinback, Warner - Interview September, 2004 Author: Luanne Johnson Created: September 24, 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4325fe91ad4c1.pdf (Size: 144 KB) Pages: 18 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Interview with Warner Sinback by Luanne Johnson on September 24, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All GEIS computer centers coalesced into a single network Commercial time-sharing service goes online European center opened Experimental network initiated First satellite hookup GE information services moved to DC GEIS runs an ad that perturbs IBM GEIS sales force was 50% women Sinback recommends entering the time-sharing business Warner Sinback transfers to GE's information processing business Title: The Launch of GE Time-Sharing Author: John Zinchak Created: June 2009 Publisher: Donated By: John Zinchak Filename: doc-4a678ad925f0d.pdf (Size: 2.97 MB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: Copyright: John Zinchak Description: John Zinchak's personal memoir of his contribution to the launch of GE's time-sharing service and of his career after GEIS. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 22, 2009


References

Title: CEO: Building a $ 400 Million Dollar Company from the Ground Up. Author: Sandra L. Kurtzig (with Tom Parker) Created: 1991 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Kurtzig, Sandra L. with Tom Parker. CEO: Building a $ 400 Million Dollar Company from the Ground Up. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1991. See pp. 15, 30-34 re working as a salesperson for GE Computer Time-Sharing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 11, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sandra Kurtzig is pulled off the Bell Labs account Title: Computer: A History of the Information Machine Author: Martin, William Campbell-Kelly, Aspray Created: 1996 Publisher: New York: Basic Books Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Campbell-Kelly, Martin and William Aspray. Computer: A History of the Information Machine. New York: Basic Books, 1996. See pp. 209-210 re Dartmouth Time-Sharing System. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 11, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Time-Sharing Operating System Developed at Dartmouth Title: Francisco Partners Completes Acquisition of Global eXchange Services From GE Author: Created: September 27, 2002 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Press release from Francisco Partners dated September 27, 2002. http://www.franciscopartners.com/master.php?section=news&page=news&id=4&news_id=107 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 21, 2005

Discussions


National CSS

Company Details

Name: National CSS Sector: Time-Sharing Description

National CSS was founded by Bob Bernard and Ken Bridgewater in 1966 as Computer Software Systems, performing technical consulting services. In 1967 they were joined by Dick Orenstein and started to create a timesharing company using IBM's 360/67 with a system based upon the CP67 and CMS programs developed by IBM's Cambridge Science Center. NCSS focused on providing its customers with remote, online interactive program development capability including source language program debugging and later the use of 4GL products. NCSS went public in 1970, and after some serious downsizing during the recession of the early 1970s became a strong, profitable company during the mid and late 1970s. NCSS was sold to Dun & Bradstreet in 1979 and continued as a separate division within D&B.

Facilitators Nicholas Rawlings - Email


Entered By:

Luanne Johnson

December 23, 2004

Contributors

Contributor Richard Bayles

Date Joined May 1968 Job Description

VP, Systems Development


VP, Planning & Budgeting VP, Controller

Date Left March 1981 Statistics

Stories (1) Date Entered January 23, 2006

Contributor Donald Biancamano

Date Joined November 1976 Job Description

Technical Representative at Cleveland and Cincinnati offices; Asst Product Manager at corporate headquarters. Left and rehired as Sales Representative at Washington, DC office. Left and performed Nomad training/consulting for the company into the early '90s.

Accomplishments Member of the infamous Final marketing and support group.

Date Left June 1983 Statistics

Stories (1) Date Entered September 12, 2007

Contributor Bill Bloom

Date Joined April 1970 Job Description

Data Comm tech Data Comm Mgr Voice Comm Mgr Sr. Telecom Mgr Accomplishments

Initiated and maintained data comm service to many cities; built, managed and maintained voice network

Date Left June 1984 Date Entered January 23, 2006

Contributor Judd Boykin

Date Joined January 1999 Job Description Date Left January 1999


Date Entered January 23, 2006 Contributor Alan Brigish

Date Joined March 1970 Job Description

Branch Manager - Toronto and Montreal for first 5 months. Branch Manager, Connecticut and New York (not NYC) 1970-1. Area Manager 1971-72 responsibility added for Boston. Managing Director CSS International 1972-1976 Director for Corporate Development 1976-79.

Accomplishments Created and managed London and Paris operations, connected to US by transatlantic cable, launching worlds 2nd (after GEIS) international timesharing service. First attempt to expand into Germany (Bonn. Aquired Zytron Corp (not sure how much of an accomplishment that was worth!). (1977?) Acquired TSI.

Date Left May 1979 Statistics

Discussion Posts (8)

Contributor Christian Delannoy

Date Joined September 1, 1976 Job Description

I was with the French subsidiary of National CSS, called "CSS France" till 1978 Accomplishments

a lot of VP/CSS and NOMAD use, mainly. ISPICE too, along with Logcap, Prophecy and other CSS softwares for french customers

Date Left October 1, 1978 Date Entered May 17, 2007

Contributor Harold Feinleib

Date Joined September 1968 Job Description

Headed up Development Accomplishments

Developed VP/CSS and associated sub-components Developed NOMAD Date Left January 1980


Statistics

Discussion Posts (2) Date Entered January 23, 2006

Contributor Richard Glazer


Director of Marketing Accomplishments

Created Marketing, Education, Commercial Consulting and Proprietary Products Departments. Wrote the sales training outline course. Concluded deals with external sources for software products to be made available on NCSS system such as ISPICE, Optical Design, and Ramis. Wrote Manufacturing Planning Software based on Bill of Materials Processor - used by Pitney Bowes to run its copier division manufacturing systems. Initiated the plan for the creation of NOMAD (National Css Owned and Maintained Application Database).

Date Left October 1971 Statistics


Contributor Burton Grad

Date Joined October 1979 Job Description

consultant Date Left June 1980 Statistics

Stories (2) , Discussion Posts (14) Date Entered September 16, 2005

Contributor Doug Grant


I started out working for Kate Kalin in Fortran Marketing, After a while I moved over to the NOMAD Development Group, which had just released NOMAD. I spent the rest of my career at NCSS/D&B working in the NOMAD group, except for two years during which I worked for Harol Feinlieb's company Non-Procedural Systems.

Accomplishments I gradually grew to understnd more and more of NOMAD so I became its Development Manager. Many of the things I worked on were legacies from Nick


Pissaro, so you could say that I learned by trying to understand what he had been doing. Eventually, for example, we rewrote the SCHEMA processor so that it ran in the environment of the general syntax processor SYNSCAN. I also spent a large amount of time working in the report writer.

Date Left 1985 Date Entered May 29, 2006

Contributor Trevor Hanson

Date Joined August 30, 1977 Job Description

Systems programmer; originally worked in VP; later worked on NOMAD/CSS device support and other issues. Later, left NCSS to start a business with Larry Smith, an important NCSS figure. (Larry died in 1996.)

Date Left December 15, 1979 Date Entered September 13, 2006

Contributor Karol Hines


IT Corporate Histories Project Sector Facilitator. Statistics

Stories (2) , Documents (3) , References (1) Date Entered April 5, 2005

Contributor Gary Holland


Technical Representative Technical Manager CSS Europe Sales Representative CSS Europe Consultant CSS Europe

Accomplishments Technical half of 2-person team to establish subsidiary in Europe, based in London

Date Left September 1974 Statistics


Contributor Ernest Keet

Date Joined February 1979


Job Description

President, Turnkey Systems Inc., division of National CSS from its aquisition in 2/79; Member of National CSS Executive Committee from 2/79 until D&B acquisition of NCSS in 6-79

Accomplishments Became President of Software Products Group of Dun & Bradstreet with the June 1979 acquisition of National CSS by D&B


Stories (1) Date Entered February 21, 2006

Contributor Ruth Morley

Date Joined January 1970 Job Description

Tech Rep RAMIS consultqant District Tech Rep manager NOMAD consultant DB Manager Computer Division

Accomplishments Apart from surviving - I became very knowledgeable on database technology - worked with many clients - gained a broad knowledge of time sharing - mini computers and finally PCs

Date Left August 1988 Statistics

Stories (1) , Discussion Posts (1) Date Entered January 23, 2006

Contributor Dick Orenstein

Date Joined June 1967 Job Description

Founder, Vice President, President & CEO, Chairman, Chairman of the Exec. Comm. I did a bit of everything, and, more important anything that needed to be done.

Accomplishments It was the early days ... I brought financial discipline, new product development (funding for NOMAD), international expansion and extensive empoloyee training among other things.

Date Left May 1979

Contributor Nicholas Pisarro, Jr.



Systems Programmer, Sr. Systems Programmer, Consulting Programmer Accomplishments

Key performance enhancements, Ported Mainframe compilers to VP/CSS, Wrote Key components of NOMAD

Date Left March 1981 Date Entered January 23, 2006

Contributor Robert Rainer

Date Joined August 1972 Job Description

Developer assigned to extend VP/CSS to support network spooling with console commands entered by users, specifically modifying enhanced versions of the modules MRIOEXEC and MVIOEXEC. I was brought on brought on board by Allen Conners and reported to Martin Sidwell and John Skodin (no guarantees on the name spellings).

Date Left August 1973 Date Entered July 13, 2008

Contributor Nicholas Rawlings


Manager, Systems Programming Scientific Programmer Officially joined CSS in 8/68 as a systems programmer. (I'd unofficially joined in 2/68.) Director, Product Marketing. Product Manager Manager, NOMAD development Director, R&D Joined Must Software, '87, VP R&D

Accomplishments Implemented, in 1966-67, a 16 user time-sharing system, using SDS9300 and SDS930, following the Dartmouth model. At CSS, developed debuggers, terminal handlers, and NOMAD.

Date Left July 1997 Statistics

Stories (6) , Discussion Posts (10) Date Entered January 23, 2006

Contributor Alan Rievman


Date Joined November 1968 Job Description

CFO On 08/21/07, Alan Rievman sent the following via email: I was CFO of NCSS for its entire life. (Entered 08/22/07 by Luanne Johnson, Facilitator)

Accomplishments Managed all fund raising for the company from the first private placement through a second private placement--the IPO, various other banking and leasing transactions and the convertible debenture offering. Participated in many of the interactions with the financial community. Developed internal financial systems that enabled NCSS to grow and prosper. Participated in negotiations for acquistions of companies, hardware leases and software license agreements

Date Left January 1981 Statistics


Contributor Jon Rosen

Date Joined November 15, 1971 Job Description

Technical representative in the Los Angeles office of NCSS. I worked there until April 1974, when I left to work for Mathematica as first a consultant and then the Western Regional Manager of the RAMIS Division. At NCSS, I initially helped customers use various compilers (Fortran, Cobol, PL/I) and quickly became the Los Angeles expert in the use of RAMIS.

Accomplishments I worked with 20th Century Fox to build a financial model for forecasting the success of film projects, and I worked with Bechtel Corporation to build (in RAMIS) a document retrieval system for construction project documents. I also was on the initial field team that met in Norwalk in last 1973 to brainstorm the design goals for the replacement system for RAMIS, ultimately the NOMAD project (although it wasn't called NOMAD at that time ;-) I knew many of the key members of that project including Nick Rawlings, Nick Pisarro, Kate Kalin and Hal Feinlieb (although I am not sure how many of them will remember me clearly as the field team was pretty large - I do know that Nick R will remember me as we have corresponded over the years on occasion).

Date Left April 1, 1974 Statistics

Discussion Posts (1) Date Entered August 21, 2007

Contributor James Steuert

Date Joined August 14, 1974


Job Description I was hired to work on the Nomad project, which was a skunk-works project at 441 Summer St, Stamford, Ct storefront. I introduced relational concepts from papers by Al Kraning and myself of MIT. I designed and coded much of the original Nomad software, along with Jud Boykin. The original team of 5 included Hal Feinleib, Jud Boykin, Mike Bayuk, Nick Pisarro, and myself. No one from the NCSS company in Norwalk was allowed to visit or talk to the Nomad developers. I worked there from August 1974 through 1978. It was a really fun project, 100's of thousands of lines of 370 assembler code. Eric Neikrug and Nick Rawlings came to the Nomad project later, after the first release.

Accomplishments As a team, the 5 of us designed the original Nomad product, which was very well received. I introduced the internal interfaces, getitem, printitem, etc, which were copied from MIT's relational database sytem, and provided much of the flexibility of the Nomad system (define fields, flexible printing, table lookup fields, similar to the Multics RDMS "data strategy modules". We also provided very efficient algorithms for file storage, sorting, and retrieval, (I implemented a btree for Nomad as well). Jud Boykin implemented most of the report writing functionality, I implemented much of the infrastructure.

Date Left July 15, 1978 Date Entered April 10, 2011

Contributor Bob Weissman


Director-Corp Development, Controller, President & CEO Date Left January 1980 Statistics


Timeline

1966

Milestones

Computer Software Systems Founded (1966) Computer Software Systems, the predecessor company to NCSS, was founded by Bob Bernard and Ken Bridgewater to perform technical consulting services. Related Stories The Beginnings with Bob Bernard


Related Documents Description of National CSS Initial office was outgrown quickly (1966) The original office at 111 High Ridge Road in Stamford, CT was quite small. Rapid growth soon required a move to 460 Summer St, in Stamford. Related Stories More on the early days of CSS

1967


Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT (1967) Dick Orenstein developed a text editor for Perkins Elmer which he and Bob Bernard attempted to sell to ITT for their time-sharing system. The sale to ITT wasn't successful but seeing how cumbersome the ITT software was convinced Dick and Bob that they could be more successful than ITT in providing time-sharing services. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents National CSS Timeline

People

Dick Orenstein joined NCSS (1967) Dick Orenstein joined the company and they began to plan to provide time-sharing services. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents Description of National CSS

1968

Milestones

Release of CP/CMS by IBM (May 1968) May 1968: Release of CP/CMS on the 360/67 by IBM as a "Type III" product. Related Documents National CSS Timeline Agreement with IBM for 360/67 (June 1968)


Dick Orenstein contacted Dick Glazer, the IBM salesman for Perkin-Elmer, and told him they wanted to place an order for a 360/67. Glazer's boss Hugh Saxton kicked him out of the office when he said he was considering this sale. IBM eventually accepted the order contingent on paying a three-month deposit. Dick Glazer left IBM to go to work for NCSS shortly thereafter. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents National CSS Timeline IBM 360/67 delivered in November (1968) When the IBM 360/67 was delivered in November of 1968, they had to hire a crane and remove the windows to get the big, heavy boxes to the second floor where the computer room was. Related Stories Harold Feinleib Memoir Began Offering Time-Sharing Service (1968) December 1968: Began service with a two-week "free trial". Probably on 12/2 after spending Thanksgiving weekend installing the system. The first day on which they charged for services was December 16, 1968. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents National CSS Timeline

Financial Data

Venture Funding Obtained (1968) Bob Bernard and Dick Orenstein were able to obtain $ 600,000 in venture funding from Clark, Dodge & Co. in 1968. The transaction was concluded just days before the $ 150,000 deposit was due on the IBM 360/67. IBM would not deliver the computer without a three-month deposit. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents [Burton Grad's notes from 12/20/04 dinner meeting]


Early Customers (1968) Early customers: Optcon, FNCB (now Citibank), Standard Oil, AT&T, PE, Mathematica, Riverside Research. Related Documents National CSS Timeline


Comments: From: Nicholas Rawlings Date: Jan 24, 2006 @ 01:56:04 PM Subject: Another early customer And don\'t forget Sikorsky .... Ad in Time Magazine (1968) They ran an ad written by David Lyon in the local edition of Time magazine which promised 4 to 40 times more computing power. This ad was instrumental in getting customer attention including Motorola, located in Phoenix, Arizona. The client had seen the ad when on a business trip to New York and wanted the service so badly that Motorola offered to pay all the communications costs so that NCSS could provide the service to them in Arizona. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents [Burton Grad's notes from 12/20/04 dinner meeting] Comments: From: Nicholas Rawlings Date: Jan 24, 2006 @ 02:07:37 PM Subject: Our first Ad, by David Lyon Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 12:59 pm David\'s advertisement pictured (as a cartoon) a horse in a bath tub. It told a story attributed to Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens, in which Mark Twain had a dead horse hauled to his second story bath tub. He did that so that when someone discovered it, and exclaimed, \"there\'s a dead horse in your bath tub!,\" he (Mark) could respond, calmly, \"yes, I know that.\" The point was that people should know all about CSS and their wonderful time-sharing service, so that when others \"discovered\" this, they (the ad readers) could calmly say, \"yes, I know.\" Some of us thought it was brilliant. Others considered it totally lame and a big waste of our few precious dollars. Marketing Before the Computer Arrived (1968) Dick Orenstein and Joe McCarthy were able to make sales calls prior to delivery of their computer by demonstrating the system's capabilities via a connection to IBM's Scientific Center. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein

People

Initial Hires (1968) Initial hires: Dick Bayles (IBM), Harold Feinleib (MIT's Lincoln Laboratory), Nick Pisarro (Rensselaer Polytech), Robert Jesurum (MIT Lincoln Laboratory). Also Nick Rawlings, Eric Walstead, and Joe McCarthy, a


former IBM salesman. Alan Rievman began assisting with financial reports on a part-time only consulting basis because he had a non-compete agreement with his former employer. Alan joined NCSS on a full-time basis when his non-compete agreement ran out. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Harold Feinleib Memoir Related Documents National CSS Timeline

Technology

VP/CSS (1968) Prior to the arrival of the computer, the NCSS technical staff modified the IBM operating system, CP/CMS, to create their own version, renamed VP/CSS. This work was carried on with systems provided to them by IBM at Yorktown Heights, NY. Related References National CSS Products and Miscellaneous information Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein

1969

Milestones

System Running at Full Capacity (March 1969) March 1,1969: The system was running at full capacity but was just generating enough revenue to cover the cost of renting the computer. Harold Feinleib and Nick Pisarro worked on changing the dispatching algorithm. Robert Jesurum worked on optimizing paging from a high-speed drum device. These changes increased the efficiency of the computer and made it possible to increase the workload and therefore the billing cycles. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Harold Feinleib Memoir Related Documents National CSS Timeline Commitment to Open Sunnyvale Data Center (June 1969) June 1969: Committed to opening a Sunnyvale data center which became operational in September 1969. Bob Field managed this effort. Related Stories Sunnyvale Data Center Related Documents National CSS Timeline

Financial Data


Second Round of Financing (June 1969) In June 1969 with the original money running out, they went back to Clark, Dodge for additional funding. The second round of financing was for $ 850,000. Since Clark, Dodge got 17% of the company, this valued the company at $ 5,000,000. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein

People

David Fehr Joined the Company (1969) After reading about NCSS in the trade press, David Fehr wrote to them saying that it was the kind of company he'd like to work for. He was hired to represent NCSS in Boston. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein


Interactive Fortran Offered (1969) Offered interactive Fortran based on Bob Bernard's modifications to the Digitek compiler. Related Stories Interactive Fortran , the debugger was brilliant Related Documents National CSS Timeline

1970

Milestones

Public Offering Effective (1970) January 8, 1970: Public offering effective. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents National CSS Timeline Dick Orenstein Becomes CEO (August 1970) August 1970: Dick Orenstein becomes CEO. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein


Related Documents National CSS Timeline Night of the Long Knives (June 1970) In the summer of 1970, NCSS management responded to the slowing of business as a result of the recession with a "Night of the Long Knives" when staff was reduced from 160 to about 65. Alan Rievman as the chief financial officer was instrumental in convincing management of the necessity of doing this and in developing the cut plans. This reduction in force was a key decision in permitting the company to survive and making it financially successful. Related Stories From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Related Documents [Burton Grad's notes from 12/20/04 dinner meeting]


First Foray into the International Market (February 1970) Employees were hired to open operations in France and England, and brought to Stamford for training. Before the training was complete, the company decided to expand to Toronto and Montreal instead.


Ramis was introduced (1970) Introducing Ramis in 1970 was a major factor in building usage of the system. Related Documents [Burton Grad's notes from 12/20/04 dinner meeting]

1971


Product Marketing is formed (1971) Early in 1971, Sam Hasty was hired to form a Product Marketing group. Most of the People in the group were the systems programers who had worked on VP, CSS or the Fortran and Cobol development environments. Among the initial members were Judd Boykin, Hal Feinleib, Mike Bayuk, Mike Field, Nick Pisarro, and Nick Rawlings. Related Stories Product Marketing is formed

Technology

Installation of First Operational Duplex 67 (1971) Installation of first operational duplex 67 (actually 2/3's of the MOL triplex


system). The team came up with a simplifying algorithm that increased perfomance over the initial algorithm very significantly. Related Documents National CSS Timeline

1972


Interactive COBOL Offered (1972) Interactive COBOL offered. Related Documents National CSS Timeline Applications Work Begun (1972) Began some applications work: word processing (slightly modified the CP/CMS which included SP system (script)), Infotab, Ramis (?). Related Documents National CSS Timeline

Technology

Began Design of Nomad (June 1972) Began design of Nomad after encountering the intractability of the Ramis vendor (Mathematica). A separate group was formed for this effort and moved to a separate location: Harold Feinleib, Dick Bayles, Nick Pisarro, Judd Boykin and Michael Bayuk. Related Documents National CSS Timeline

1973


Launched NOMAD (1973) Launched NOMAD. Related Stories Nomad launched - the name came later Related Documents National CSS Timeline

1975

Milestones

Robert Weissman becomes CEO (1975)


January 1, 1975: Robert Weissman becomes CEO. Related References Robert Weissman Oral History Related Documents National CSS Timeline [Burton Grad's notes from 12/20/04 dinner meeting]


Nomad faces Competition from Focus (October 1975) Almost simultaneous with the release of NOMAD in October of 1975, a product came on the market, licensed by Tymshare that looked very attractive to our Ramis customers. This product was Focus. Tymshare provided incentives to lure Ramis customers from NCSS. Related Stories 1975 NOMAD competition from Focus Nomad vs. Focus

1976


Relations with AT&T (1976 ca.) At an ADAPSO Reunion in 2004, Joe Markoski recalled that AT&T complained about being "kept out" of the timesharing business. Related Stories Telecommunications Issues

1977


Socal Installation (1977) Socal installation. Related Documents National CSS Timeline Comments: From: Martin Sidwell Date: Mar 9, 2006 @ 07:48:40 AM Subject: SOCAL Installation The SOCAL (Standard Oil of California) installation was much earlier than the timeline says. It was done over the end of year holiday in Dec 1970/Jan 1971 by John Skodon and Robin Ellams. I went with them to install the \"OS Batch\" system I\'d developed. This was the first deployment of VP/CSS at a customer site and was followed by installations at Bank of


America and Pacific Telephone.

Technology

Packet Switched Network (1977) Installed a packet-switched network. Related Documents National CSS Timeline Comments: From: Martin Sidwell Date: Mar 9, 2006 @ 08:17:16 AM Subject: Packet Switching Network This was much earlier than the timeline says. John Skodon originated the idea in 1970 after learning about the ARPANET (which evolved into the Internet). Some technical documentation about it had just come into the public domain although there were only four (repeat 4) computers connected to it at that time. The key benefit of the technology to us was operational. Our existing network used multiplexed lines that terminated in a single VP/CSS system. A customer dialling our multiplexor in New York got to a system in Stamford, CT, for example, and one in San Francisco got to a system in Sunnyvale, CA, a problem for customers with offices on both coasts who wanted to share files. It was a problem for us because as usage grew and we added more VP/CSS systems, we had to reconfigure the network and move customers from one system to another, which compounded their problems with sharing files. If we replaced out multiplexor network with a packet-switching one, any user would be able to get to any host system. I designed a variant of the packet/message protocal in the spring of 1971, Dave Noveck developed the VP/CSS part of the software and a couple of people developed the mini software (we used DEC PDP-11s instead of the Honeywell minis first used on the ARPANET). The network was put into production late in 1972.

1978

Milestones

Bernie Goldstein Becomes Chairman (1978) Bernie Goldstein becomes Chairman. Related References Bernard Goldstein Oral History Biography: Bernard "Bernie" Goldstein Related Documents National CSS Timeline Comments:


From: Alan Brigish Date: Jan 24, 2006 @ 02:53:39 PM Subject: Bernie was tough! Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:21 pm The toughest boss I ever had. Dave Fehr was a pussycat in comparison. But he sure knew his stuff! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Bob Weissman Date: Jan 24, 2006 @ 02:55:45 PM Subject: When did Bernie join? Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:32 pm ... As I recall it, Bernie joined in 1978

1979

Milestones

NCSS Sold to Dun & Bradstreet (May 1979) NCSS sold to Dun & Bradstreet. Related References Robert Weissman Oral History Bernard Goldstein Oral History Related Documents National CSS Timeline

Acquisitions and Divestitures

Acquisition of Turnkey Systems, Inc. (February 1979) Acquired Turnkey Systems, Inc. (tsi), a software product company with a product line that included Task/Master, a telecommunications monitor, Key/Master, a data entry program, and Docu/Master, a full-text storage and retrieval system. Related References A Personal Recollection of Software's Early Days (1960-1979): Part 1

Stories

Title: Sunnyvale Data Center Author: Richard Bayles Created: January 28, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Bob Field was West Coast marketing VP (of Pacific CSS, Inc.). Dick Bayles spent three months in Sunnyvale building data center and installing equipment. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Richard Bayles January 28, 2005


Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Commitment to Open Sunnyvale Data Center Title: A Progressive Company Author: Donald Biancamano Created: September 14, 2007 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I joined NCSS in 1976 at the Cleveland branch office as a technical representative (we were called Tech Reps). After having worked for two old, established companies, where women were exclusively secretaries, I came into the world of DP, where women were evident in all areas of the company: programmers, marketers, managers, sales representatives, and yes, secretaries. Although working with a bunch of cigarette-smoking, secretary-ogling cronies was great for male bonding, this was definitely a refreshing change. I'm not sure if NCSS was unique in this aspect - I think think women were fairly well established in the industry in general. NCSS was obviously ahead of its time in software technology, and it also displayed the same innovation in other business areas. In the late 1970's we were early adopters of such concepts as Solution Selling and Train The Trainer, which are widely used today. We were trained to be "customer-centric", and I'm absolutely sure Bank of America considered their applications running on VP/CSS to be "mission critical". All new Tech Reps at that time were sent for a week to the Tarrytown Conference Center in New York. As I remember, it was a week of heavy technical training, role playing, teaching evaluations, and good food. In addition to a high speed introduction to the company and its products, it was a rite of passage for Tech Reps. Everyone in sales offices attended district sales meetings, held several times a year. At these meeting we were updated on the company direction, trained in the latest technical topics, and drilled in sales and support techniques by the sales management. The toughest parts were the role plays. Nothing builds courage like sitting in on a mock sales call in front of a crowd of fellow sales and technical representatives. Nothing builds humility like enduring the ensuing critique by the managers. This was good preparation for just about anything the business world can throw at a person. I have never had a fluttery stomach, racing heart, or sweaty palms since those days. All in all, I believe NCSS' version of the Tech Rep function was the best preparation a young person could have for a career in DP. We were trained and called upon to consult with customers, design applications, write programs, solve problems, and write documents. And, we had to be able to eat lunch with a customer without making a mess or injuring someone. I can attribute most of the skills I use to this day to my training at NCSS. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Donald Biancamano September 14, 2007 Title: Harold Feinleib Memoir Author: Harold Feinleib Created: March 4, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story:


Harold Feinleib describes his own background in the computer industry before coming to NCSS and what he and Nick Pisarro did to speed up the performance of VP/CSS so that it could generate enough revenue to more than cover its rental and other costs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines August 17, 2005 Related Documents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Technical History of National CSS Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IBM 360/67 delivered in November Initial Hires System Running at Full Capacity Title: Telecommunications Issues Author: Burton Grad Created: May 2, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Telecommunications Issues Workshop ADAPSO Reunion Transcript May 2-4, 2004 In the above referenced workshop attended by Joe Markoski, Dave Sherman, Bob Weissman, Warner Sinback , Mike Nugent and David Allison the following issue of the mid 1970s was described by Joe Markoski: We pursued fair competition which was basically to keep the telephone companies from cross-subsidizing their competitive computer service offerings or reserving communications facilities for their services and denying them to other companies. One of the debates I remember was with AT&T, which was an ADAPSO member. The AT&T representative said, “Why are you trying to keep us out of the business?” And Dave Sherman said, “ You’re standing on my air hose, that’s why.” And that’s the way we viewed it at that point in time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Burton Grad January 23, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Relations with AT&T Title: Consulting with Harold Feinleib Author: Burton Grad Created: September 16, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I worked as a consultant at National CSS in the late 1970s, primarily consulting with Harold Feinleib on a major development project. After NCSS was acquired by D&B my consulting assignment ended. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Burton Grad September 16, 2005 Title: Acquisition of Turnkey Systems Author: Ernest (Lee) Keet Created: February 21, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: In late 1978 Tunkey Systems’ (TSI’s) board of directors consisted of Dennis Sisco, Leslie Franz Kelley, me, and two outsiders: Stew Greenfield and Dave Fehr. Stew had started the Citicorp Sprout funds and was by then a well-known venture capitalist. He was trying to raise $25 million for a new fund, Oak Investment Partners, but the tough financial times had him cooling his heels. Although Oak subsequently became a series of multi-billion dollar funds, the first $25 million took forever to raise, so we had the benefit of Stew’s counsel for several years. Dave was then a VP at National CSS. I had invited Bob Weissman, National CSS’ CEO, to join our board, but he pled time constraints and offered Dave. National CSS was interested in turning VP/CSS into a software product so it seemed like a good learning opportunity for Dave. Dennis Sisco had recently been made VP of Corporate Development at TSI. Our goal was to find a merger or acquisition partner. Dave Fehr told me that National CSS might be an interested acquirer and that if we were interested he would recuse himself and get someone else to do the analysis and if appropriate, the negotiations. National CSS had lots of attractions to us. First they were a local firm – we were in Norwalk and they were in Wilton, Connecticut, neighboring cities. Second, they did not have but wanted a foot in the software products marketplace and we were firmly established there with worldwide distribution. Third, they had a large client base consisting largely of corporate users, and there was the supposition that this was a prospect list that Turnkey Systems could mine. Fourth, they had a timesharing service that we had tried and wanted, but could not afford. Last, they were a cash-rich publicly traded company. Dennis was a star in his new role. He made Turnkey Systems look like something precious, something not to be lost to competition, something worth its weight in gold. Bob Weissman had recruited Bernie Goldstein to National CSS as Chairman, and Bernie became their negotiator. Bernie is a legendary deal doer. He had amassed a personal fortune by acquiring data centers under the United Data Center umbrella, and having sold United was between successes. Bob convinced him that National CSS needed to grow through acquisitions, or itself be acquired, but in any event that Bernie could play a key role and make some nice additional money in the process. Dennis and Bernie were a real duo. Dennis, nearly humorless, incredibly smart, as determined as a bulldog and Bernie, wily, an actor’s actor, and experienced in deal-doing beyond compare. In the end we got a very good deal, a share-for-share swap of Turnkey stock for National CSS stock at the current NASD market valuation for NCSS of $24 per share. The deal was agreed in December of 1978 and closed in February of 1979. I became President of the Software Products Group, a new role, reporting to Bob Weissman, with the goal of rapidly building our product line by internal growth and acquisition. Dennis went to work for Bernie in Corporate Development.


I became a member of the Executive Committee, something Bob agreed to but promptly forgot. In the spring of 1979 Dun & Bradstreet decided that it had to acquire a timesharing company. George Feeney, who had come to D&B as a VP in charge of technology, had previously started GE timesharing, and he believed that timesharing was the future of computing for corporations. He desperately wanted to acquire the biggest company in the business, Tymshare Inc., a public company several times the size of National CSS. Tymshare’s CEO, Tom O’Rourke, rebuffed D&B’s advances and fell into the arms of McDonnell Douglas, so George turned his eye to the #2 player, National CSS. All of this happened immediately after our acquisition, so close in fact that to this day there are people who believe that I, or at least Bob Weissman, knew that a deal was in the works. Bob assures me this is not true and I can attest that on a flight back from somewhere with Bob a few days before our deal closed in February I asked him point blank if there was anything at all, even something that need not be disclosed for immateriality, that was in the works that I should know of and he said “no”. I had followed the Tymshare dance in the press so I was not unaware that D&B was on the prowl, and when I got a call in May on a Sunday evening at 8:30 pm from Bob I was surprised but jumped quickly to a few speculative conclusions. “Lee, I am so sorry. I forgot you completely. We are over in the conference room having an Executive Committee meeting and I think you should get here if you can.” When the elevator doors opened on the executive suite level, Bob was there to greet me. “We have heavy stuff to discuss,” he said. “Let me guess”, I replied, “D&B has made us an offer”. “And do you know the price?” Bob asked. “$48 per share”, I said, taking a wild guess that a 100% premium would insure that no other bidder would snatch this one away. So Bob escorted me into the meeting and announced to the assemblage “Lee just arrived and told me that D&B has made an offer for NCSS at $48 per share. Either he is clairvoyant or our cover is blown”. Once everyone got over the shock of my educated, but deadly accurate, guess we debated the merits of $48 cash for a $24 stock, quickly concluded that our fiduciary duty to shareholders demanded a ‘yes’, and the deal was quickly consummated. Turnkey Systems shareholders got instant liquidity for their shares, at double the negotiated sale price. I received many happy phone calls, one from a very lubricated Ralph Butts (the project manager for the packaging of Key/Master) hailing my praises and insisting that I was a Machiavellian genius, knowing well in advance of our sale to NCSS that D&B was going to buy the whole thing. When National CSS acquired Turnkey Systems I signed a two-year employment agreement and we had a two-year earn-out. I subsequently learned that earn-outs stink, from both sides' viewpoint, but it was an easy way for Dennis and Bernie to close the last gap in the negotiations and I went along. The problem was, that with the D&B acquisition the shares in the earn-out pool were now converted to cash, and the performance measures to determine the earn-out payments were distorted by the even increased pressure to grow quickly through acquisition. In fact, in quick order I had acquired Program Products Inc. from Information Science Inc. and Synergetics, Inc. a privately held company, in order to round out the product line of the Software Products Group. I then started to build two other legs to my software products stool – applications and desktop suites. Determining which profits and which sales came from which company made earn-out accounting a nightmare. Thanks to Peter Lessler, then NCSS’ counsel, we solved the earn-out issues amicably, and Duke Drake, then D&B’s Chairman and CEO asked me if I would stay past the two-year employment period. I agreed to re-up with the clear understanding that I would leave in 1983, which I did, after we had completed the acquisition of McCormack & Dodge and the separation of the operations reporting to me into three business units each with its own manager. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Ernest Keet February 21, 2006 Title: Nomad vs. Focus Author: Ruth Morley Created: July 22, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I have read Nick's comments about NOMAD and FOCUS and agree with all but the last comment. Yes FOCUS succeeded ultimately because Gerry controlled his company - it was a software company and not confused by trying to maintain old time sharing revenues at the same time as sell software. However certainly we were able to defeat FOCUS in many situations. I believe that in the early days NOMAD was technically superior to FOCUS and heading in the right direction with its relational capabilities. Our mistakes were many - don't go into selling NOMAD on in-house machines (guard TS revenues), therefore of course - don't make NOMAD run on in-house OS - and ultimately don't develop a PC version early enough (John Skodon submitted a proposal when I worked for him (sorry - not good on dates). Of course, ultimately, the selling of DBCS to MUST killed the chances for the future of the product. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Ruth Morley March 8, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nomad faces Competition from Focus Title: From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Author: Dick Orenstein Created: January 14, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: From the Very Beginning … from My Vantage Point By: Dick Orenstein 1/14/05 Facilitators note: This is Dick's story about how NCSS got started from when he hooked up with Bob Bernard in 1967 until his being appointed President in 1970 at the age of 29. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines March 9, 2005 Related Documents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Very Beginning...From My Vantage Point. By Dick Orenstein, 1/14/05 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ad in Time Magazine Agreement with IBM for 360/67 Began Offering Time-Sharing Service David Fehr Joined the Company Dick Orenstein Becomes CEO Dick Orenstein joined NCSS Initial Hires Marketing Before the Computer Arrived Night of the Long Knives


Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT Public Offering Effective Second Round of Financing System Running at Full Capacity Venture Funding Obtained VP/CSS Title: The Beginnings with Bob Bernard Author: Nicholas Rawlings Created: May 9, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Computer Software Systems, the predecessor company to NCSS, was founded by Bob Bernard and Ken Bridgewater to perform technical consulting services. Bob Bernard was the Manager for Scientific Computing at Perkin-Elmer, in Norwalk, CT, having graduated from WPI in the late 50's. When I joined PE in June of '61 (I was 16 and about to start at Williams College in the fall,) he had three LGP30's and access to a 7090 in the CEIR building in NYC, where he ran heavy-computing ray-trace programs for the optical designers. He taught me ACT, the Fortran-like programming language for the LGP30's. I wrote programs for the engineers and maintained those LGP30's, whose punch pins were constantly breaking. (LGP was Librascope of General Precision.) Bob was a big supporter of the LGP30 User Group, in which was Tom Bell from Dartmouth. They became friends and moved, together, to the follow-on to the LGP30: the RPC4000, in '63 (from Royal Precision Corporation.) In '64, Tom showed Bob his Timesharing System, which consisted of a Datanet30 driving the TTY ASR35's, which were manned by Dartmouth students, connecting them to a central GE computer - a GE 235. The programming language was Basic. I went with Bob on a visit to Dartmouth, in the summer of '65, and Bob told me he intended to copy that design with SDS computers. Scientific Data Systems, in Santa Monica, CA, had scientific computers that PE bought, 910's and 920's, to upgrade their RPC4000's. By the time ('66) they announced the follow-on machines, the 930 and the 9300, Bob had decided to leave PE, but to stay on as a consultant. Bob worked with Digitec's Dave McFarland on Fortran compilers, but wanted, instead, to pursue the TimeSharing work he'd started at PE. He joined with Eric Walstead (a Computer Ed teacher from Norwalk Tech), Ken Bridgewater - I've forgotten how he joined, and Dick Orenstein to form Computer Software Systems. Eric joined with the intention of forming a computer training arm of CSS. He had held several classes at Perkin-Elmer, where he'd caught Bob's eye. (One of Eric's proteges was Katherine B. Kate Kalin, who was one of our best COBOL advocates when she joined two years later.) Bob's replacement as Manager of the Scientific Computing Center at PE was Harvey Albright, and I reported to him, officially. In reality, I took direction from Bob, as we began this major effort to build - essentially from scratch - a timesharing system on the SDS computers. Dick wrote the file system for the disk, and I coded the terminal handling for the 930 (TTY and IBM1050,) together with the drivers for the communications pipe between the 930 and the 9300. Bob wrote the 9300's dispatcher. By '67, I had a small group of programers working for me on what, by then, was a running system, with 16 simultaneous users plus a batch stream. PE loved it. (Around the same time, some folks at Berkeley were playing with an SDS940My team was by then about 5 people, including May Guimond and Nick Pisarro, Jr - though Nick was still finishing up at RPI. I was the hiring manager for Bob and his team, by then.


Our IBM salesman was Dick Glazer. He'd been following both our work and that of the Cambridge CP67/CMS team at IBM, and when we started looking at the follow-on machine to the 9300 (SDS had come out with its Sigma line,) he had us (me, Bob, and Dick Orenstein) run up to Cambridge to see CP/CMS. We fell in love. We met Dick Bayles and Mike Field (they showed us what they had) and we pulled them aside to tell them that we were going to make their toy into something spectacular. They hardly believed us. That was in November of '67. After that, things started rolling quickly. When Nick Pisarro asked for a fulltime job at PE, I got him to try, instead, for CSS. We knew he'd be great, for he had a great deal of IBM experience from his RPI work. We hired Dick Bayles (for CP) and Hal Feinleib (for CMS), had Dick G. work on IBM to allow us to lease one of their precious 360/67's, and got working on the venture capital. At the end of March of '68, I gave PE four month's notice - with an agreement to continue to consult to them for a further four months, but as a CSS employee. We rented space at 111 High Ridge Road in Stamford and began the work of modifying the Fortran compiler so that we could run PE's Fortran programs. Bob and Nick P did that work, while Hal and Dick B started putting together a CP/CMS system that would be reliable. So, Bob was employee #1, Ken #2, Dick O #3. #4 was Eric Walstead. Dick B was #5, Hal was #6, and Nick P was #7. Those three started around the same time: June of '68. Joe McCarthy was #8 and I (Nick Rawlings) was #9. I started in July. Doug Kuhn may have been #10. He was hired to sell batch time on our computer. That never happened, but he went on to be one of our best Time-Sharing salesmen. Trace Tindsman, Alan Rievman, and Dick Glazer were three early insiders during the summer of '67 who joined only after the first year. Trace was our assigned IBM technical helper. Dick was our IBM salesman. Alan was Bob's personal accountant whose advice we sought and got, but who couldn't join right away because of other commitments. Pat Jordan was another of the first 30 - a programmer. Bob Fields was probably our third salesman and one of the first 30. We hired him when he sold Alan a year's worth of computer (Hollerith) cards, for Alan was known to be quite conservative in his spending, so we figured Bob must have been good. It was quite a while before Bob Jay (he later changed his name to Jesurum) joined. I'd guess he was employee 100. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Nicholas Rawlings March 8, 2006 Title: More on the early days of CSS Author: Nicholas Rawlings Created: May 10, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The office at 111 High Ridge Road in Stamford was quite small, and we were a growing bunch and so had to move, soon, to 460 Summer St, in Stamford. While at 111, though, we'd begun many important projects, all in 360 assembler. Among the first projects was one helped by a loaner from IBM: Trace Tinsman. Trace wrote our FILEDEF command, with help from Nick P and Hal. That was one of our first and best extensions to the user interface. It was quite some time before Trace switched from IBM to become one of


our employees. He later became part of our Product Marketing Department and played a role in the early designs for what became NOMAD, though he left before that product was developed. I worked on the CP and CMS console support, trying to make certain our Perkin-Elmer users, with their teletypes and 2741's could use our service. We hired salesmen before we had much of anything to sell. After our VP of sales, the first few included Doug Kuhn and Bob Fields. My recollection is that we hired Bob away from IBM when Alan Rievman bought a two year supply of hollerith cards from him. Alan was very tight with the funds, at that time, and anyone who could sell him what we didn't need was worth hiring. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Nicholas Rawlings January 24, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Initial office was outgrown quickly Title: Interactive Fortran , the debugger was brilliant Author: Nicholas Rawlings Created: May 19, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: One of our first target customers (for Interactive Fortran) was Perkin-Elmer, especially the engineers who had written hundreds of Fortran programs using the SDS extensions to the Fortran language. Those extensions were not in IBM's Fortran, and so in order to get that business, we had to make the extensions. Bob Bernard made them, with help from Nick Pisarro. They were all done by the time our computer arrived in late '68, but the debugger took longer. FDEBUG, as we called it, relied on changes Bob designed to the CMS interrupt handler and the simple IBM DEBUG facility, as well as changes to the Fortran compiler to have it generate a file (we called it an FLIST) of variable names and labels from the compiled program. To debug his program, a programmer would load it and then invoke the debugger, providing it with the FLIST. He could set a breakpoint at any label, which would cause a special illegal instruction to be placed on the first part of that statement. When that special illegal instruction was executed, the debugger would recognize it as its own and allow the user to gain control. He could display and change the value of any variables, set other breakpoints, and say GO. FDEBUG would place another illegal instruction (or two, if the breakpoint had been at a conditional branch instruction,) put the original instruction back in place, and then restart the program. When it saw its illegal instruction once again, FDEBUG would put the good one back, put an illegal one back in at the breakpoint location, and then restart the program - all without interacting with the user. This was brilliant and it was a huge breakthrough in the ease of debugging Fortran programs. No one else matched it for years! Worldwide! Before then, the program had to change in order to debug it - and that change often moved the bug one was trying to isolate. Bob's brilliant idea revolutionized debugging in a way few recognize today, but at the time it was almost unbelievable. While we continued to make improvements, this initial offering in the spring of '69 was significant in our success. When we moved from Fortran to COBOL, we used the same breakpoint technology. The work to produce a CLIST, as we called it, was my job, under Judd Boykin's direction at the time, but we would have had nothing without Bob's original work. Again, users could debug their programs in


the exact form that they would be run - not in emulation or interpretation. It was a huge and amazingly powerful invention. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Nicholas Rawlings January 24, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interactive Fortran Offered Title: Nomad launched - the name came later Author: Nicholas Rawlings Created: May 19, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: We tracked product usage on VP/CSS by having each MODULE that CSS executed send its name to VP. There was a table that VP kept with product names and associated charge rates. When a user asked (either programatically or by issuing the QUERY TIME command,) we told him not the CPU time, but the ARU time he'd consumed. ARU stood for Application Resource Unit and it was one-to-one for "non-surcharged" products and higher, or lower - though rarely, for surcharged products. Nomad's first product charges happened in May of 1975, under the product name 441SUM. Our development group worked at a storefront in Stamford, at 441 Summer Street. My recollection is that the first user was Ira Katz, but I could be wrong. We hadn't settled on the name NOMAD by then, though when we officially relased the product in October of '75, a bunch of us dressed as arabs and the name was fixed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Nicholas Rawlings January 24, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Launched NOMAD Title: 1975 NOMAD competition from Focus Author: Nicholas Rawlings Created: May 24, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: While NOMAD was being developed, NCSS had an agreement with Mathematica that gave us the exclusive right to sell RAMIS usage on commercial timesharing. People could buy Ramis to run on their own computer - for something like $70K - or they could use it on our system and pay a royalty. Many of our competitive companies, including Tymshare, wanted to attract our Ramis customers, but they could not. Tymshare actually came out with a product in late '75 that they had developed as a 4GL. It was said to be relational, as well. It never got off the ground. They had another way to compete, though, and at this one they were successful. Almost simultaneous with the release of NOMAD in October of '75, a product came on the market, licensed by Tymshare that looked very attractive to our Ramis customers. It was said to be 100% compatible with whatever Ramis code our customers had, even with the same restrictions - some said it had the same bugs. Tymshare offered a 50% discount to any of our customers who would switch to this product. Many did, and we suffered some major losses.


The product was called Focus, and it came from a new company by the name of Information Builders and it was headed by the fellow we all knew had written most of Ramis at Mathematica: Gerry Cohen. One rumor was that Gerry had recently fought with Dick Cobb for leadership of Mathematica and had left when he didn't get it. His new product was the one with which NOMAD competed most heavily for the next 25 years, though it has been improved greatly since those days when it looked surprisingly identical to Ramis. It's the clear winner in the race and Gerry's vision is what made that possible. My hat goes off to him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Nicholas Rawlings February 1, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nomad faces Competition from Focus Title: Product Marketing is formed Author: Nicholas Rawlings Created: July 22, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: In our early days, we had sales folks selling, programmers programming, and tech reps (technical representatives) working in sales teams to keep the customers happy. We also had an admin/finance group. We had very little in the way of marketing, other than that initial advertisement that brought us a bunch of customers. Around early 1971, we hired a fellow by the name of Sam Hasty and put under him a group of programmers to form a Product Marketing group. Mostly, these were about half of the systems programmers who had worked on VP or CSS or the Fortran and Cobol development environments. Among the initial members were Judd Boykin, Hal Feinleib, Mike Bayuk, Mike Field, Nick Pisarro, and me. Each of us was given a "product line" to develop and to sell to our sales force. Hal had a line of financial products (FININF, for one), Judd had his chunk, Mike Field's "line" was VP/CSS itself, and I had the "programming languages" line-up, with Nick P. helping me. There was another guy, Reggie Barrow, who had a set of scientific products, including the lens design products and some circuit analysis products. Mike Bayuk was given documentation and education responsibility for all products. I recall that Trace Tinsman had the responsibility for the product line that included Ramis, but that Russ Gloerson was in that team as well. In addition to Nick Pisarro, my team included for Cobol, Kate Kalin (who, sadly, died just this last winter), for Fortran, Ron Sones, and for PL/I and Assembler, Nick P (later Maria Wigglesworth Hemmings took PL/I). We added Basic and had Nancy Zorbe take care of that. To track just what revenue we were getting from each product and product line, as well as to enable us to surcharge different products at their appropriate rates, we put into both VP and CSS a tracking mechanism. The first method was for VP to notice whenever a user "attached" a proprietary disk, for that attachment meant he was going to run a package of some form. VP would look in a table it had of names and product factors. If, say, the attached disk was Ramis, VP might find a table entry for RAMIS and a factor of 125 for CPU. That 125 meant that the user's CPU consumption would be multiplied by 1.25 before coming up with the number of "application resource units" or ARU's to charge him. There might be factors for disk or printer I/O, as well. VP would produce an accounting record at the start and end of this attachment, and we charged accordingly. We also allowed products to call CSS (who would, in turn, pass the information to VP and thence to our accounting records,) to say "charge this user 27 units". The units might be the


number of cells in a spreadsheet or the number of manholes in a sewer network. In that surcharge table was a rate for each product's units, something I dubbed a GRONK. That's what a dinosaur from the BC comic strip always said, but I used the word as a way of naming the generic unit. We called the table the GRONK TABLE. For a year or so, we only measured the products for which there was a surcharge, calling all the rest OTHER. That OTHER, though, represented about 85 to 90% of our revenue, so we wanted to know more. We changed CSS to tell VP the name of each MODULE (e.g. a compiler or some other command) a user was running, and, in the case of his running the EDIT module, we'd have CSS tell VP the filetype (e.g. FORTRAN or COBOL or DATA or RAMIS) of the file being editted. If he was running his own program, we'd have CSS tell VP the name of its first CSECT, which would allow us to distinguish between a FORTRAN and a PL/I or COBOL run. With these mechanisms in place, we could identify about 75% what it was that users were spending their money on. We then reasoned that if we knew what 75% of one guy's usage was for, and that 30% of that 75% was FORTRAN and 70% was RAMIS, we could allocate the unattributed 25% by the same 30/70 ratio between Fortran and Ramis. We could attribute not only his online charges, but also his disk storage charges, as well. Using this attriubution method, we could get a reasonably good picture, for the first time, really, of just where our revenue was coming from. Not surprising to me (for I was the Other Product Manager,) the vast majority of our revenue came from people writing, debugging, and then running their own programs, mostly Fortran. At Ramis's height (around 1975,) it accounted for at most 10% of our revenue. Even NOMAD had a tough time hitting 25%. Sam Hasty left around the end of 1972, replaced by Bill Huther, who, among other things, decided that most of our product lines were going nowhere and that Hal, Judd, and Mike Bayuk had better find something better to do if they were to stay working for CSS. NOMAD was one of the outcomes. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Nicholas Rawlings January 24, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Product Marketing is formed

Documents

Title: Computer Software Systems Annual Report 1969 Author: Created: June 1970 ca. Publisher: Computer Software Systems, Inc. Donated By: Nicholas Pisarro Filename: doc-44333b5575d10.pdf (Size: 3.73 MB) Pages: 25 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: First Annual Report to shareholders of Computer Software Systems, Inc. CSS became a publicly traded company on Jan. 8, 1970. Financial results are reported as of Feb. 28, 1970. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Karol Hines April 4, 2006 Title: National CSS Timeline Author: Dick Orenstein Created: December 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Dick Orenstein Filename: doc-41d46d9f54e9a.pdf (Size: 58 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Dick Orenstein's notes on National CSS history, December, 2004 (with comments from Bob Bernard and Dick Bayles). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson December 30, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Agreement with IBM for 360/67 Applications Work Begun Began Design of Nomad Began Offering Time-Sharing Service Bernie Goldstein Becomes Chairman Commitment to Open Sunnyvale Data Center Dick Orenstein Becomes CEO Early Customers Initial Hires Installation of First Operational Duplex 67 Interactive COBOL Offered Interactive Fortran Offered Launched NOMAD NCSS Sold to Dun & Bradstreet Packet Switched Network Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT Public Offering Effective Release of CP/CMS by IBM Robert Weissman becomes CEO Socal Installation System Running at Full Capacity Title: [Burton Grad's notes from 12/20/04 dinner meeting] Author: Burt Grad Created: December 20, 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Burt Grad Filename: doc-41dc42fff1296.pdf (Size: 46 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description:


Notes taken by Burt Grad at a dinner meeting on 12/20/04 attended by Bob Bernard, Alan Brigish, Harold Feinleib, Dick Glazer, Gary Holland, Dick Orenstein, Nick Pisarro, and Bob Schraer for the purpose of organizing the NCSS history project. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 5, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ad in Time Magazine Night of the Long Knives Ramis was introduced Robert Weissman becomes CEO Venture Funding Obtained Title: Description of National CSS Author: Bob Bernard Created: December 27, 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Bob Bernard Filename: doc-41dc47f512fe8.pdf (Size: 59 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Email from Bob Bernard with modifications to the NCSS description drafted by Burt Grad. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 5, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computer Software Systems Founded Dick Orenstein joined NCSS Title: From the Very Beginning...From My Vantage Point. By Dick Orenstein, 1/14/05 Author: Dick Orenstein Created: January 14, 2005 Publisher: Donated By: Dick Orenstein Filename: doc-422fd82791f26.pdf (Size: 48 KB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Facilitators note: This is Dick's story about how NCSS got started from when he hooked up with Bob Bernard in 1967 until his being appointed President in 1970 at the age of 29. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines March 9, 2005 Related Stories -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Very Beginning … Dick Orenstein Title: A Technical History of National CSS


Author: Harold Feinleib Created: March 4, 2005 Publisher: Donated By: Harold Feinleib Filename: doc-42ae226a5a4a1.pdf (Size: 93 KB) Pages: 9 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Harold Feinleib has prepared the attached paper describing his own background in the computer industry before coming to NCSS. He then describes what he and Nick Pisarro did to speed up the performance of VP/CSS so that it could generate enough revenue to move than cover its rental and other costs. This principally covers the period up to 1970. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson June 13, 2005 Title: Teleconference transcript - Dick Bayles, Judd Boykin, Harold Feinleib, Nick Pisarro, Nick Rawlings Author: Created: May 20, 2005 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-43d5aa4c7796a.doc (Size: 103 KB) Pages: 42 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: On May 20, 2005, 5 of the key people involved in the use of RAMIS and the development and use of NOMAD participated in a 1 and 1/2 hour phone call with a Corporte Histories Project moderator to discuss their recollections of RAMIS and NOMAD. the five participants were: Dick Bayles, Judd Boykin, Harold Feinleib, Nick Pisarro and Nick Rawlings. The moderator was Burton Grad and Karol Hines made the arrangements for the call and its recording and transcription. The attached transcript is a lightly edited version of the phone call by Grad and the participants with some enhancements for clarification and a few items of added information to provide more background on some of the subjects covered. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines January 23, 2006

References

Title: Bernard Goldstein Oral History Author: David Allison Created: May 3, 2002 Publisher: Software History Center Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Citation: Bernard Goldstein, OH 336. Oral history interview by David Allison, 03 May 2002, Washington, D.C. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=325


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 30, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bernie Goldstein Becomes Chairman NCSS Sold to Dun & Bradstreet Title: Robert Weissman Oral History Author: Paul Ceruzzi Created: May 3, 2002 Publisher: Software History Center Cataloguer: Copyright: Charles Babbage Institute Reference: Citation: Robert E. Weissman, OH 344. Oral history interview by Paul Ceruzzi, 3 May 2002, Washington, D.C. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/pdf.phtml?id=310 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson December 23, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NCSS Sold to Dun & Bradstreet Robert Weissman becomes CEO Title: Biography: Bernard "Bernie" Goldstein Author: Thomas Haigh Created: March 2004 Publisher: IEEE Computer Society Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Haigh, Thomas. "Biography: Bernard "Bernie" Goldstein" IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan-Mar 2004): 85-90. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bernie Goldstein Becomes Chairman Title: A Personal Recollection of Software's Early Days (1960-1979): Part 1 Author: Lee Keet Created: December 2004 Publisher: IEEE Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Keet, Ernest E. ("Lee"). "A Personal Recollection of Software's Early Days (1960-1979): Part 1." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Oct-Dec 2004): 46-61. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 21, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acquisition of Turnkey Systems, Inc. Title: National CSS Products and Miscellaneous information Author: Created: 2005 ca. Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Link to Wikipedia information about National CSS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_CSS#Miscellany -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines November 27, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VP/CSS

Discussions

1968 - Pricing for Machine usage Posted by: rjglazer (IP Logged) Date: January 24, 2006 02:01PM Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 8:47 am A discussion took place at the home of Bob Bernard prior to the delivery of the machine - October/November of 1968 timeframe. Bob Bernard, Eric Wallsteadt, Dick Orenstein and Dick Glazer (perhaps others) ran through ideas relating to the pricing structure for machine time. It was decided to charge by the "pure" (executable) second and Bob's initial thought was to charge at 20 cents per second plus an hourly connect charge since a competitor was charging 40 cents per second (including overhead) on a 360/67 machine. Glazer pointed out that the efficiency of the CP/CMS operating system was less than 30% so the available executable seconds per hour was on the order of 400-500 meaning that the maximum the machine could then generate at 20 cents/second was about $100 per hour. If the machine was busy for fifteen hours a day, the dollars generated from sale of machine seconds would have been less than 50,000 on a monthly basis - less than the cost of the machine. We decided to charge at 38 or 40 cents per real second. Even this amount would prove to be less than required to move the company to profitability without the yeoman work later done by Dick Bayles, Hal Feinleib, Nick Pissarro and others in improving the deliverable efficiency of the system to where it could deliver well over 50% of the available seconds.

Re: 1968 - Pricing for Machine usage Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 24, 2006 02:02PM Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:08 am


Interesting analysis. So what did we charge when we went live in December 1969? And does anyone remember what we were charging 10 years later? Re: 1968 - Pricing for Machine usage Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 24, 2006 02:03PM Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 1:15 pm Indeed, CP kept two accumulators for each user, recording how much CPU time each consumed. One was the duartion of "problem state" - something for which there was an actual light on all 360's consoles - it was green. The other was the overhead reasonably attributable to this user from the "systems state" - essentially CP time. Adding these two gave what was known as "total time." Most charging schemes had users pay for both, and we were unique - at least initially - in charging only for problem state. As Hal and others have pointed out, the decision forced us to do something our competitors did not and that was to pour a great deal of effort into keeping the system state light off. I believe that turned out to be one of the keys to our success - not the improvement but the requirement we had for just such improvements. Our competitors (IDC, American Can, Grumman, Boeing) had no such incentive and, as a result, they had systems that, under load, thrashed with high user charges while users got little accomplished. Under an equal user load, our system continued to deliver real work. Re: 1968 - Pricing for Machine usage Posted by: ARievman (IP Logged) Date: August 21, 2007 02:41PM We originally charged 40 cents per second for CPU time, which turned out to be only about 35% of total revenue. Connect Time was $5.00 per hour and Storage was $10 per month. Those 3 items made up all of the revenue. Later on we added a charge for I/O access which I think was $1.30 per thousand accesses. Much later we reduced the size of the "candy bar" and charged $.20 per ARU a fictious measurement. Those charges contributed to all of NCSS reveneues before acquisitions. Re: 1968 - Pricing for Machine usage Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: August 25, 2007 12:54PM We did charge for a host of usages beyond the problem state CPU time. As Alan wrote, a very important source of revenue was disk storage space, which we sold in units of a "cylinder" - something from the very early CMS days where the disk was a 2311 which had a track of just over 3200 bytes. A 2311 had 54 cylinders, each of which stored 120,000 bytes. We soon used 2314 disks, which were 4 times the capacity, but we continued to use the older terminology. Most files were 80-byte-card-image files, so one cylinder was big enough to store 1,500 lines of source- or object-code. Users rented the storage for $10/cylinder/month, and got free backup and restore of any files lost. We gave discounts for bigger sizes and actually charged on the daily, rather than a monthly, basis. One customer saved money by writing all of his files into our spooling space on Fridays, lowering his disk allocation for the weekend, then reading those files back in to


his increased space on Monday. Once we starting charging for spooling I/O’s, he stopped. We charged early on for lines printed and cards punched. Disk I/O charges came a bit later. One brilliant idea - I think it was mine, but I could be wrong – was to provide temporary disk space and charge for it by the minute, something that turned out to be both popular and profitable. I don’t know of any competitor copying us – IBM provided a much less friendly method late in VM’s history. Connect time was clearly an important revenue source. We charged differently for different connect rates, beginning at $10/hour at 110 baud, and going up, I recall, to $50/hour for connection of “high speed” remote printers. Hal Feinleib came up with a fabulous idea that gave us a nice boost some six months into our run: rather than charging by the minute, we charged, as the phone company did, by the 3-minute-or-part-there-of. That brought in several much-needed thousands. We charged for disk in another fashion, as well. One could rent a mountable 2314 and pay for it to be made available on demand, for which we charged considerably less than for an always-available space. We likewise charged for having your own magnetic tape mounted, though that service was at best break-even. Worth noting was our introduction of a much-improved “batch” capability. We reduced CPU charges at non-peak hours and developed a mechanism by which users could schedule their own ids to be logged in automatically at night. In place of running their PROFILE EXEC at login, we ran their BATCH EXEC, at low CPU rates and with no connect charge. This, as with TEMP disks, was a popular and profitable mechanism never copied by either IBM or our competitors. The VM BATCH was ever a useless facility. The Application Resource Unit (ARU) pricing, to which Alan refers, was our way of introducing premium charges for package usage, first done for RAMIS so that we could pass the vendor’s surcharge along. It also allowed us to run different speed machines (158’s and 168’s), while charging users the same independent of the machine. Importantly, it provided a unique opportunity when we delivered NOMAD. Whenever we made NOMAD faster, we could choose how much of the improvement to share with our customers, by adjusting its charges. Make NOMAD 20% faster, then share half the savings with our customers by increasing the “gronk factor” by 10%, and we both win. The reason I write that this was important is that it provided a very real incentive – one not shared by our RAMIS or FOCUS competitors at the time – to make NOMAD as efficient as possible. In later years, we won benchmarks as the result of that early motivation. Nick

IBM's VM/CMS Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:24PM Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:28 pm What effect did IBM's sales of model 67's directly to customers have on NCSS's ability to sell timesharing services to those same customers? Did customers prefer to use IBM's VM/CMS rather than NCSS's VP/CSS?


Did NCSS try to Keep up with IBM's improvements to VM/CMS or did they go their own route? Did NCSS ever consider licensing the use of VP/CSS to other timesharing companies or directly to user compnaies? If so, what was the reasoning and what was the decision?

Re: IBM's VM/CMS Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:27PM Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:30 pm IBM's VM/CMS became a major product in its own right, probably licensing as many as 10,000 copies, particularly for use on DOS machines and particularly in Europe. It was used to run multiple virtual DOS "machines" in a single computer. Re: IBM's VM/CMS Posted by: HFeinleib (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:30PM Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2005 9:10 am burtgrad wrote: What effect did IBM's sales of model 67's directly to customers have on NCSS's ability to sell timesharing services to those same customers? By the time IBM released CP/CMS officially NCSS's business had changed dramatically. Many of our customers had either written specific applications that they ran on our time-sharing system or they had built NOMAD applications. NCSS' primary business shifted to NOMAD durning the latter half of 1970's away from pure program development. Did customers prefer to use IBM's VM/CMS rather than NCSS's VP/CSS? NCSS decided to sell or lease VP/CSS after IBM started marketing CP/CMS. The problem was we didn't view ourselves as a software company, we saw ourselves as a time-sharing company. While VP/CSS was more advanced than CP/CMS we only sold it to a few companies--Bank of America, SOCAL and maybe a couple of others. Our price was quite high because these custmers were big time-sharing users spending 100's of thousands a month on time-sharing. We were quite afraid of converting our own customers to software customers because of the drop in revenue. We didn't see the market for pure software exploding. Did NCSS try to Keep up with IBM's improvements to VM/CMS or did they go their own route? Did NCSS ever consider licensing the use of VP/CSS to other timesharing companies or directly to user compnaies? If so, what was the reasoning and what was the decision? Licensing VP/CSS for In-house use Posted by: GHolland (IP Logged) Date: August 21, 2007 01:30PM Quote: "Did NCSS ever consider licensing the use of VP/CSS to other timesharing companies or directly to user compnaies? If so, what was the reasoning and what was the decision?"


Yes, I recall that NCSS licensed VP/CSS to Bank of America although I wasn't involved in that effort. During the time I was in the European operation, however, there was a full court press put on the British Post office to license VP/CSS for their in-house use. I remember spending a lot of time on demos and training efforts and going back and forth from London to Stamford preparing proposals. I know the proposal wasn't successful, but for the life of me I can't remember why. Semper Ubi Sub Ubi Re: Licensing VP/CSS for In-house use Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: August 21, 2007 04:48PM Oh I recall all to well why we did not get the British Post Office deal. Politics. The Post Office was a quasi British Government entity and we at NCSS were an upstart American company. They wanted VP/CSS, it made perfect sense but the British/US politics killed it at the very highest level. Re: IBM's VM/CMS Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: August 25, 2007 06:48AM An important transition, as already mentioned elsewhere in this NCSS history, was the formation of a Product Marketing group, sometime around 1970. A bunch of us who had been systems programmers working to make CP/CMS work, were transformed into marketers, 'cause we could do anything. We started out reporting to Dick Bayles, but quickly moved under a new guy: Sam Hasty. The idea was that we should bundle our miriad offerings to improve our success rate in sales situations. We put scientific applications (mostly optics design) together under one product manager (Reggie Barrow - where did he come from?), financial apps (FININF) under another (Hal), some bunch of business related apps under Judd Boykin, the database apps, including Ramis, under Trace Tindsman - later Russ Gloersen, the suite of application development languages - Fortran, Cobol, PL/I, Basic, ... - under me, and one area under Mike Field: VP/CSS. He was the product manager whose job it was to get the operating system sold. Mike Bayuk got eductaion and documentation responsibility for all products. We seven reported to Sam. When we moved out of the systems group, we left John Skodon in charge of VP and Alan Connor in charge of CSS, and put them under Dave Fehr - a sales guy who'd done well for us in the Boston area. It all made sense at the time: put successful people into important positions, regardless of the skills required. There were a variety of prospects for our OS, but, to my knowledge, no one seriously considered licensing it to a competitor. I went on a sales call with John Skodon to the CIA, one dark and stormy night. Nothing came of it, but I was truly frightened. Later in our history, as written elsewhere, we turned a Nick Pisarro and John Skodon dream into reality as we had made for us our own 360/67, into which we bundled the operating system. Nick

How did the initial and ongoing funding work?


Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 24, 2006 02:46PM Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:00 am Did Bob have to submit a business plan to obtain the initial funding? If so, does anyone have a copy of it? What restrictions did the investors place on CSS at that time to provide the money? Did they want a seat on the Board of Directors? Was the money all given at once or was it doled out over a period of time? Was CSS formed as a corporation or a partnership? How much money did Bob Bernard and Ken Bridgewater put in to start up the company? Were there additional funds raised before the company went public? How much money was raised and when? Were there other organizations which helped to provide the initial money? If so, did these organizations later provide additional funds? How were the outside investors handled when the company went public? Were they still stockholders when the company was sold to D&B?

Re: How did the initial and ongoing funding work? Posted by: ARievman (IP Logged) Date: August 21, 2007 03:00PM The business plan was a very simple document put together by Bob Bernard, Dick Orenstein and myself. I have no idea what happened to it. The initial capitalization of Computer Software Systems was $5,000 (I think). I think it all came from Bob Bernard, maybe some from Dick Orenstein, but I am not sure. An investor group led by Clarke Dodge a venerable Wall Street firm raised $600,000. Dick Glazer invested $100,000 and Clark Dodge did a second round of financing raising $850,000. That was the toal capitalization before the IPO. Some of the Clarke Dodge investors were still shareholders when NCSS was sold to D & B. All of the money was raised at the same time. Clarke Dodge placed two people on the Board of Directors. Carnot Evans and Bob O'Connor, who had introduced us to Clarke Dodge. The company was always a corporation. The IPO raised $3.5 Million - Much later we sold a $25 Million Convertible Debenture offering. Which was intended as a "war" chest for Bernie Goldstein to run a new acquisition program.

Use of Ramis Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 11:12PM Posted: Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:07 pm


One of the most significant technical developments was NCSS's licensing to sell Timesharing Services using Ramis from Mathematica. I have a number of questions about the history of the use of Ramis by NCSS: When did this happen? What were the terms of the license? Could NCSS modify Ramis or did they have to ask Mathematica to do so? What were the reasons for discontinuing the Ramis license? What kinds of technical issues did NCSS run into in using Ramis on a Timesharing basis rather than for regular batch operation? Was NCSS's focus on using its Timesharing environment for Ramis primarily to develop the applications or to run the applications after they were developed? Was this really used for Ramis debugging (like COBOL DeBug and Fortran DeBug) or was it mostly for operational use? Did customers have to get a license from Mathematica in order to run the programs developed on their own systems after using Ramis in the NCSS Timesharing system to construct and debug the programs? Who were the key people at NCSS who negotiated the Ramis license? Who were the key technical people at NCSS who worked with the Ramis program? Was there a substantial professional services operation in place in order to help customers write programs using Ramis?

Re: Use of Ramis Posted by: HFeinleib (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 11:14PM Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:00 pm Quote: One of the most significant technical developments was NCSS's licensing to sell Timesharing Services using Ramis from Mathematica. I have a number of questions about the history of the use of Ramis by NCSS: When did this happen? What were the terms of the license? Could NCSS modify Ramis or did they have to ask Mathematica to do so? - Mathematica did all development of Ramis. NCSS and its customers used Ramis to develop applications that were run on the NCSS time-sharing system. Quote: What were the reasons for discontinuing the Ramis license? What kinds of technical issues did NCSS run into in using Ramis on a Timesharing basis rather than for regular batch operation?


Was NCSS's focus on using its Timesharing environment for Ramis primarily to develop the applications or to run the applications after they were developed? Was this really used for Ramis debugging (like COBOL DeBug and Fortran DeBug) or was it mostly for operational use? - We sold the use of RAMIS on our time-sharing system to customers who built their own applications and ran them on the NCSS time-sharing system. These applications were mostly to analyze data. RAMIS was an early database mananagement system with a command language enivironment to load information and run reports. Quote: Did customers have to get a license from Mathematica in order to run the programs developed on their own systems after using Ramis in the NCSS Timesharing system to construct and debug the programs? - They did if they wanted to run RAMIS on their in-house system. But they could run their applications on the NCSS time-sharing system. NCSS would pay a royalty to Mathematica. Quote: Who were the key people at NCSS who negotiated the Ramis license? Who were the key technical people at NCSS who worked with the Ramis program? Was there a substantial professional services operation in place in order to help customers write programs using Ramis? Re: Use of Ramis Posted by: bleurose (IP Logged) Date: August 21, 2007 01:06PM Was there a substantial professional services operation in place in order to help customers write programs using Ramis? I was a Senior Tech Rep in the Los Angeles office from 1971-74. There was a group of specially trained tech reps who helped customers with Ramis applications but I don't know if it would be described as substantial. There was a lady named Joanne Saeger who was our local office Ramis specialist when I joined in November 1971 (she had only been there a few months). As a general Tech Rep, I didn't specifically have to help with Ramis, but I was intrigued by it, as someone who had spent about 6 years writing Fortran and Cobol programs, and Ramis looked much more powerful (similar to how a someone might view SQL vs. C or Java today). And this was in 1971, using a 300-baud terminal! ;-) In 1972, I worked on a project for Bechtel Corporation to build a document indexing system for their construction department. I still remember my first working Ramis file and query. Joanne helped me fix the one bug in my "schema" code (the INPUT statements that described the format of the file) and then my query "just ran". It was pretty cool. Joanne left the company shortly thereafter and I became the Los Angeles Ramis expert before leaving in 1974 to take a job with Gerry Cohen at Mathematica as the Western Regional manager for the Ramis Division. I was working for Mathematica when Gerry decided to resign from Mathematica and Dick Cobb took over. I was well aware of the project in NCSS which would ultimately become Nomad as I had been on the field team


that spent a week in Norwalk, Connecticut helping brainstorm what a "Ramis replacement" product would need to look like. The story about how Gerry left Mathematica and went to form IBI and how that almost didn't happen is a very interesting one. I am just not sure where to tell it (here in the NCSS or in some other place). Re: Use of Ramis Posted by: ARievman (IP Logged) Date: August 21, 2007 02:15PM I negotiated the Ramis use contract with Dick Cobb of Mathematica several times. I recall one meeting where we were negotiating license fees for the use of Ramis on an exclusive basis. Dick told me the supply/demand curve had shifted to the right. I said we would not pay his requested price increase and for that reason we negotiated a non exclusive license, which was our goal anyway, since NCSS had Nomad in final stages of development and we did not wish to get sued by Mathematica once we stopped promoting Ramis. Alan Rievman

Some Questions to generate discussions Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: February 1, 2006 09:39PM Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 7:43 am 1. Alan Rievman - Tell the story of how you first knew Bob Bernard (Robbo) and then disconnected and reconnected and describe your own background prior to joining CSS. Include a description of the accounting work that you were doing for CSS before you were an employee. 2. Alan Rievman - Tell about how you helped Bob and Ken Bridgewater and Dick Orenstein put together a Business Plan for Computer Software Systems to get funding from Clark, Dodge through the relationship with Bob O'Connor. 3. Describe the initial stock ownership and how it evolved over time. Describe the escrow arrangement 4. Describe the analysis that was done to determine the revenue potential based on 40 cents per second leading to $288 K per month assuming that every second was sellable during a 10 hour day. 5. Describe the cost structure including the rental of $50K per month to IBM plus the add on equipment that was needed and its cost. Describe the charging for Connect time and for Storage space and how they became significant revenue sources. 6. Describe how the billing amounts were determined including the program that Dick O. wrote in Fortran and the General Ledger program. Describe hiring a bookkeeper. 7. Describe the realization that all seconds weren't billable and the cost of the additional IBM equipment and what this did to the cost structure. 8. Describe the additional funds received from Clark Dodge and the money received from Dick Glazer which he borrowed from a Teamsters Local.


9. Describe the search for an investment banker and the selection process. 10. Identify when COBOL became operation on the 360/67 and what effect this had on marketing and revenues. 11. What was the process in the summer of 1969 for approving financial commitments on locations and personnel? 12. Describe the "due diligence" performed by Neuberger, Loeb for the IPO and the questions they asked about who runs the business of the business. 13. Talk about the IPO itself and the fortuitous timing. Does anyone have a month by month or quarter by quarter record of the stock prices for NCSS when it was public? Talk about your putting together the Prospectus with the attorney and the Investment Bank. 14. Describe how you were able to get a loan on receivables and then convert it into a loan on work performed even if not yet billed. 15. Discuss the "green shoe" option that the brokers had to get their fees. Describe how the timing of the IPO enabled management to "break the escrow." 16. Describe what happened the evening before the closing when one of the stock books couldn't be found and what happened the next morning. 17. Describe the financial performance quarter by quarter for 1970 and the reason for the heavy losses. 18. Alan Rievman - Describe your objections to the spending plan in the spring of 1970 and the concerns about the high (and increasing) AR and the capitalizing of software which made the cash flow much worse than the P&L. 19. Alan Rievman - Describe what you did on your trip to California in 7/70 when you ran the cash projections and what you then communicated to management (and how) in 8/70. Why was it difficult to get fresh cash? 20. Describe how the issues were faced and who was involved in deciding what people needed to be laid off. Describe what you were able to do to reduce the hardware costs working with Degan. Memorex disk drives and ITEL memory and the use of the 30 removal notices to IBM. Also what happened with the "lost" check to IBM. 21. Describe how you were able to borrow from Union Bank to meet payroll. 22. You said that there was a second round of layoffs. When did these occur and what triggered them? 23. Describe the various titles and assignment you had at CSS and NCSS over the years and who you reported to and who you had reporting to you. 24. Describe what happened at the end of 1974 when the stock had tanked and the growth rate had slackened. Can you describe the process by which Bob Weissman was selected to become the new president. 25. Describe Ken Bridgewater's role in the company and the fact that he ended up becoming the largest stockholder over time.


26. Describe some of the Board members and the roles that they played over time. 27. Describe the principal acquisitions, how they came about, who sponsored and negotiated them and how did the turn out. 28. Describe the potential merger of NCSS with Tymshare and how that was lost. 29. Describe the convertible debenture offering and what was its purpose. 30. Describe the NCSS 3200 and how that worked out. Describe the financing plan that you worked out to avoid taking a hit on the profits. 31. Describe the role that you played in the acquisition by D&B. Talk about the stock options, the recalculation and the final showdown on whether to allow D&B to adjust their offering price because of the additional number of shares. 32. What work did you do at D&B after the acquisition? 33. What happened to NCSS in D&B? Why? Was there a Professional Services operation to support Ramis? Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 24, 2006 02:35PM Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2005 2:42 pm Was there a substantial professional services operation in place in order to help customers write programs using Ramis? Who ran the professional services operation which developed applications using Ramis and later with Nomad? Was this operation larger and more significant after Nomad was released? Interactive COBOL offered Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 11:06PM Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:08 pm The breakthrough in thinking that gave us FDEBUG lead us to develop CDEBUG, as well as a full development envronment for the COBOL programmer. The complete package was very powerful and gave us a huge technical edge over our competition. I wrote most of the code for the Cobol Debugging suite, under the direction of Judd Boykin. CDEBUG needed a set of metadata on which to operate: a CLIST. A user would specify the CLIST option when he compiled his COBOL program. What we did was to turn on the Procedure Map and the Data Map options to the COBOL compiler and then inspect those LISTING elements to glean the necessary info (all data names and paragraph labels, together with how to get their locations, and all of the verbs, together with their location within the source as well as their memory locations,) writing it to a CLIST file, along side the TEXT file. One tricky part was to get the source line numbers accurately, given the use of COPY and INCLUDE directives. Imagine the user's pleasure when we could tell him that the data exception he'd just encountered was from the MOVE verb on line 372 of his program, after which we'd print it out MOVE TOTAl_ONE TO TOTAL_ZONK.


There was just no comparison to scanning core dumps, which was essentially the only then-current alternative. In addition to the ability to edit, compile, and then step through the execution of his COBOL programs, the user wanted an environment that included full file access-method support. Another competitive edge we got was by providing an emulation of ISAM, a key format for rapid access to data. Under the direction of Mike Bayuk, May Guimond Stinson wrote such an emulator. We had help from an outside firm in wrting the ISAM command, which created and reported statistics on ISAM files. More on that at another time.

Re: Interactive COBOL offered Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 11:07PM Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 7:51 pm The COBOL development environment needed ISAM support, so in 1970 we wrote it. Dick Orenstein had some friends from New York who needed work, so he asked us to farm out a piece to them: we knew them as Wang Associates. We chose for them to develop the ISAM Command. At the same time, we were developing the ISAM emulation and also CDEBUG - the interactive Cobol Debug facility. They had access to all of our code. CDEBUG was very popular and brought us some very loyal customers, including one who called me one day with some startling news. He'd been approached by Grumman Data Systems - a Long Island competitor running a version of CP/CMS. They told him that they had recently purchased CDEBUG from the same folks who had sold it to NCSS, and that he could now do his COBOL development and debugging at a much lower price than what he was paying to NCSS. That couldn't be, I told him, for I'd written the debugger - we'd not bought it from anyone. The folks who had sold CDEBUG to Grumman were Wang Associates, the very same ones who had worked with us six months before, and we protested. Lawyers and judges got involved, with one Wang brother acting as their attorney. We all had to be deposed during long sessions and our bills mounted. May Stinson became involved, for her ISAM had also been bought from Wang by Grumman. We had to account for every employee we had ever hired and for anyone who might have had access to the code. We had to explain the difference between source and object code - between a user's access to the running program and that program's source language. It went on and on. Grumman brought source code to one such session, complete with my initials and my children's names in the comment sections of the code. I recall the principal, Charles Wang, chuckling at my vain attempts to prove that the source code was mine. In the end, we ran out of money and all agreed to drop the whole matter. Wang Associates went out of business, but CDEBUG and ISAM were picked up from its ashes by its successor, which today is known as Computer Associates, still headed by Charles Wang, and they made quite a lot of money selling rights to it. Re: Interactive COBOL offered Posted by: RuthMorley (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 11:09PM Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 4:59 am When I joined CSS in January 1970 I knew absolutely nothing about timesharing and what I heard was mostly about GE. I joined just in time to attend a two week training session (the first I believe) run to educate the new tech reps. I floundered through


discussions about the operating system environment (complete Greed at the time) but suddenly I saw the potential. There was an online editor, a COBOL compiler and a way in which you could debug your programs. Cate Kalin taught us and her enthusiasm was infectious. I had previously been a programmer and knew the agonies of submitting forms, having them key-punched then submitting the deck each night for a batch run only to find that I had an error or two. Change those by ining up for the one available key-punch and resubmit for the next night. Of course by this time you had started work on the next job so were already beginning to forget the one you were trying to debug. Oh and of course when you submitted the job you had to create your JCL (Job Control Language) deck with lots of code highly prone to error (particularly as a lowly programmer - you wern't allowed to have a manual but rather lined up to talk to the systems programmers who were very intimidating. Suddenly I saw the EXEC language, the Editor, the debugger and I knew we had something that customers would like. In those days the large IBM installations were almost entirely batch oriented and programmers were low on the totem pole for access to the machine - after all they interrupted 'production'. From that day on most of my sales support calls for the next couple of years, involved COBOL. It was really easy - the programmers all were enthusiastic, operations (who owned the computers0 were only too happy to loose these nuisances to time-sharing. My early customers included Getty Oil, American Can, Hartford Insurance Group and I ran innumerable classes showing the magic of these tools. Cate Kalin remained the driver of this environment and I was interested to read Nick's earlier comments as I didn't even know who wrote the various tools. It is particularly intersting to realize that CSS grew in its early days largely on applications development. Obviously RAMIS and then NOMAD followed in these footsteps. I would find it interesting to discover whether in fact most of the early revenue did not centre on COBOL - I must believe it was sigificant and steady but in those days I was not wired into that part of the business. By the way, after departing from my technical roles temporarily (in a bid to convince Dave Fehr I was promotion material) I sold COBOL development to a swingers magazine (it was the second of my only two sales) and gained me significant notoriety.

Murder and Divestiture Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:56PM Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:37 am Weissman had some pretty weird ideas about companies to buyl. As I recall, before he became president, he bought a batch service operation called TBS/RTW run by a character called Dick Schliefstein. The moment I was given the job of doing corporate development, I was asked to sell the business and a meeting was arranged for the day after I arrived from the UK with a character called Joe Cortale who was somehow involved in a similar business whose name I don't recall. I had the meeting with him and two days later, there was a piece on TV about a mob hit in New York and the president of the company being shot in the head and the cops were looking for Cortale. The investigation carried on for a year, Cortale gave himself up but was released for lack of evidence. I was interviewed by the FBI and my calendar was scrutinized for what I was doing on the day of the hit, since I had been with Cortale. We never did sell the business. What a welcome back for me to American corporate life that was for me!


Re: Murder and Divestiture Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:57PM Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 1:17 pm Bob was hired (1973?) by Alan Reivman to do what Alan had not done - though he'd been asked to- for quite some time: make an acquisition. Bob was told he could spend $4M. He found a company he could buy for $4m, split between NYC and LA, called RTW. Sounded like TRW - a big deal - but it stood for Ready To Wear a very small deal - even low class by our standards. It was the DP and accounting arm for a couple dozen clothing manufacturers. The "rag business" was not at all something we knew, but what had appeal was their computer schedule. During the day, their computers sat idle. Late in the afternoon, their clients would arrive with data from that day's activity - manufacturing counts for each style, color, and size, together with all of the orders that had come in. From 6PM until 6AM, their computers were busy coming up with reports and invoices and cutting orders. Meanwhile, our business was a daytime one. We did offer nighttime rate reductions and a deferred batch capability, but our computers were essentially max'd out during the day and idle at night. A marriage made in heaven! The reason that this didn't, in the end, make much sense was that their margins were tiny and our mix only made it worse. The chief programmer for them, Dick Floeting, had squeezed every ounce out of their computers, which meant his programs couldn't run under our VP/CSS. Folks tried for four years to make it run, but never could. It only ran under an old version of DOS. Though our computers at night were running at 10% capacity, we didn't have the option to stop to run the RTW code, for we'd be out of business. Finally, in 1978, we tried converting their apps to NOMAD (I worked on this attempt for a little over a year) but jobs that had taken 12 hours each night ended up taking 12 days, even on computers that were several times faster. Eventually, we let the LA group buy out what was left of their business for about $1M in 1980. Back to Bob W. At the time Bob joined CSS, I was the product manager for the programming languages product line. His acquisition budget was spent on RTW, so he had little else to concentrate on, so he turned to me. He worked with me on a contract with a vendor for a license to something we called MaxBasic - a compiled verion of Basic. It never amounted to much, but he worked on this for several weeks. Meanwhile, a fight had broken out over who was to run the company, for Orenstein had fallen out of favor. Bob Degan, Dave Fehr, Alan Reivman, and others were vying for the slot. Those guys decided to compromise on someone who was a rival to no one: Bob Weisman. So long as he promised not to fire anyone, he could have it. That's my recollection, though my viewing perch was not the best Re: Murder and Divestiture Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:59PM Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 3:21 pm That sounds about right. In fact, your memory is exquisitely accurate.


Our acquisitions strategy as a company was a joke. We lost $3M on TBS/RTW, Zytron was financially neutral but completely irrelevant strategically and the acquistion of TSI was a truly monumentyal waste of time and a huge payday for its principals. Although Zytron had no effect on our earnings, it probably helped to boost the crazy valuation that D&B put on the company when it was sold and perhaps Weissman can see that part of his legacy.

Acquisition of Zytron Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:52PM Posted: Fri Apr 22, 2005 11:15 am It's been 27 years since I led the charge - under Bob Weissman's direction, to acquire Dave Davison's Zytron Corp. They were a microfilm service company - national in scope. I didn't understand why we did it then and I still don't know why. But I still dream about it. Last night I dreamt that the company was still alive and that Dave Davison was still hassling me to figure out ways to integrate Zytron into NCSS. Whatever happened to the company? Did B&B divest them?

Re: Acquisition of Zytron Posted by: BWeissman (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:53PM Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 12:23 pm Alan, Be happy in knowing that D&B did divest them - for $95 million. Not a bad return, wouldn't you say? BobW

Bob Weissman's recollections about acquisitions Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:24PM Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:01 pm Bob--Please describe your joining NCSS in 6/73 and the initial responsibilities that you had for acquisitions. Did you have any staff? Were you given any guidelines about the kind of companies to acquire? Were you planning to use cash or stock in the acquisitions? Did you establish an acquisition policy or criteria? Were there any other roles that you had prior to becoming Controller?

Re: Bob Weissman's recollections about acquisitions Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:25PM Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2005 1:05 pm


Bob--Would you describe the first two acquisitions that you made: TBS and RTW. Where did the idea for these come from? Were the deals in process before you joined NCSS? What did each of them bring to the the company? Did you do the negotiating? What did NCSS pay for each of them? Did you keep the management? Did you make any changes in the business plans or processes? How did you fit them into the organization structure? How did these acquisitions turn out? Re: Bob Weissman's recollections about acquisitions Posted by: BWeissman (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:27PM Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:55 am When I joined NCSS, I was hired by Alan Rievman. I had no experience in any part of the computer business, but Alan was not concerned about that, saying that my experience in doing deals was what the Company needed. I had no staff, nor did I have a pipeline into the computer industry “deal flow”. The TBS and RTW deals were brought by a friend of Alan’s. I did the financial analysis and managed the deal process, but at the time I couldn’t judge the strategic value of either of these deals. I didn’t even know the right questions, let alone the right answers. Later, after I learned something about the industry and about these businesses, I had plenty of reason to regret both of these deals. When I became CEO, it was a matter of ‘Reap What Ye Sow’. Both of these companies turned out to be losers, but for amusement (frustration) value the clear winner was RTW. RTW served the clothing industry’s “ready-to-wear” market, a business driven by fashion cycles and by a five-times-a-year sell/buy cycle. This cycle requires manufacturers to produce the entire seasonal goods inventory before ever getting their first order for the same goods. The need of the industry for better forecasting, inventory management and production control seemed obvious, but the difficulty of marketing to “the Seventh Avenue rag trade” only became apparent through a painful series of failures. RTW was run by a rag trade archetype named Jack Rothschild, a man immediately and aptly labeled by John Pryor as “Jake the Fake’. Re: Bob Weissman's recollections about acquisitions Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:28PM Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:13 pm Bob--Can you describe what TBS did and why it was not a good acquisition for NCSS? Any other details that you can provide (or remember) about the TBS and RTW transactions would be useful such as what was paid for the acquisitions, how were they finally disposed of and any organizational impacts that they had. Re: Bob Weissman's recollections about acquisitions Posted by: BWeissman (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:30PM Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:12 pm Neither TBS or RTW were good acquisitions - either financially or strategically. TBS was a tired old batch service bureau with only one keystone account, the United Jewish


Appeal of New York. Unfortunately, shortly after acquisition by NCSS, TBS lost the UJA to (surprise!) ADP, whose Chairman was Frank Lautenberg. Purely by coincidence, Frank was at that time Chairman of the national United Jewish Appeal. I don't remember the financial detail of either deal.

James Martin's Book, w/ 4GL NOMAD - 1982 Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:20PM Posted: Sat Jun 04, 2005 9:41 am In 1981, James Martin was writing a book for Prentice Hall, entitled Application Development Without Programmers. I had a chance to proof the NOMAD material and I tackled with glee one section that he scrapped after the NOMAAD entry was made. He called it his "engineer's problem." The idea he had was that he'd show solutions in various programming languages to the problem, "give 6% raises to engineers whose job ratings had an average of 7 or better." His model was a two level hierarchy with Eno, Empname, Position, Salary as the top, and Tasknumber, Rating as a child. He had written the dozen pages of COBOL, and then just a page or two of Mark IV, from Informatics. He asked for NOMAD's solution and I wrote CHANGE ALL SALARY=SALARY*1.06 WHERE POSIITION='ENG' AND AVG(INSTANCE(RATING)) GE 7; He decided to drop the idea. It was too unbelievable for him. He published his book in 1982, with many fine examples of NOMAD, most of which look silly today, for they don't reflect what NOMAD was really used for in the years since: serious, misssion critical applications. I used Martin's Engineer's Problem in hundreds of NOMAD classes, as I forced people to think in terms of sets of data, instead of record-at-a-time, which is how they'd been taught. Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT - 1967 Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:09PM Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2005 8:39 pm From Timeline: Dick Orenstein developed a text editor for Perkins Elmer which he and Bob Bernard attempted to sell to ITT for their time-sharing system. The sale to ITT wasn't successful but seeing how cumbersome the ITT software was convinced Dick and Bob that they could be more successful than ITT in providing time-sharing services. What was the nature of this proposal? Was Perkin-Elmer trying to sell their Editor to NCSS? What happened to the proposal?

Re: Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT - 1967 Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:10PM


Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 1:38 pm An important part of the Perkin-Elmer Time-Sharing System was an editor that was developed for PE by Steve Carr, a guy from Utah. The intended users were in a number of categories, but most were engineers who wrote their own little programs in SDS Fortran and ran them either in batch or directly from their teletypes in their offices. In addition to editing their programs, users edited data and an occasional piece of mail. We, at PE, didn't have an exclusive on this editor and Bob and Dick did try to see if someone else would be interested in it. Bob and Dick were working on separate elements of the PETS, under contract to me at the time. The PETS was very successful. By late 1967, we had three full systems running, each with a capacity of 16 simulatneous users plus a batch stream. Perkin-ELmer was very pleased, but not interested in our suggestions to pour new funds into a CP/CMS replacement. We had to do that as a separate company. Re: Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT - 1967 Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:11PM Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 5:15 pm In developing the time-sharing capability at PE, were you aware of the work that was being done by Tymshare and Comshare (Rick Crandall) in developing a time-sharing system to run on the SDS 9300 (later the SDS 9400)? Re: Perkin Elmer Editor Proposal to ITT - 1967 Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:13PM Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 7:21 pm While we at Perkin-Elmer were working with an SDS9300 coupled to an SDS930, modelled after the Dartmouth TS, there were folks looking at an alternate model. They were from UC Berkeley and had designed a modification to the 930 (yes - not the 9300) such that it could switch between two memory banks. The 930 and 9300 had limitations of 24 bits in the address field. By allowing a memory switch, the memory of a 930 was almost doubled, which meant that more users could be run than with the smaller size. They called that modified 930 a 940. It was never a 9400. We knew of this work, as well as with the full-duplex and echo-plex support they provided - and TTY's were it, so far as terminals - and we were not impressed. The 9300 was several times faster than the 930/940 for scientific work - it supported floating point in hardware, while the 930/940 did floating point in software - at about a two-hundred-to-one loss. For our audience, the 9300 was a necessary component. We did like their editor, but it was not one we wanted to copy - especially as we wanted to support 1050's and, later, 2741's, in addition to teletypes.

First Foray into Europe Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:54PM Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 8:14 am Feb. 1970: 1st contingent of people led by Peter Jones, Bob Gilkes and Jean Louis Bouchard and me descends on Stamford for training. Along with us were John Ward, Bill Ladd, Dr. Herb


Spencer, Chris Rees Noel Atkins and Elena (his girlfriend), Peter Yates, and several others. After a few weeks, I seem to recall that Bob Bernard called us in and said that the company had changed its mind about going into England and France in the short term and wanted us to go to Toronto and Montreal to take over a franchise that had been granted to the Greyhound Corporation and that was not working out. Most of the European group people declined and returned to England with 3 months severance pay. I was put in charge of the effort and with a personal check for $500 in my pocket (for food and lodging for our group), we headed for England to pick up our families and left for Canada. Yates, Atkins, Elena and I headed for Toronto, Ward and Ladd went to Montreal. For 5 months I commuted weekly between Toronto, Montréal and Stamford. Yates and Ward did the selling. The others were tech reps.The wives set up homes in Etobicoke. Then one Sunday evening late RHO called me and told me to get my ass into his office by 9AM the next morning. I said it was impossible but RHO was insistent. I caught the first flight out to La Guardia, rented a car and drove to Stamford. when I walked into RHO's office he said. "You're late, you're fired, now you can sit down". Then he told me that NCSS was closing down Canada and that I was being offered the job of Stamford Branch Manager and that all of the others would be given jobs in the USA. Within the space of 60 seconds I went from total shock, disbelief and despair to elation beyond words. I had fulfilled my lifelong dream of making it to America.

Re: First Foray into Europe Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:56PM Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:30 pm to: Alan Brigish-- Can you tell us more about the Canadian operations? Who were the customers? What kind or services? Were you using the Stamford time-sharing facilities or were there other facilities in Canada? If you were connecting to Stamford, were there any unusual local or international telephone line problems? Where did the original Greylound connection come from? Was NCSS getting any revenue from this Canadian operation? Why did Dick Orenstein say that he Canadian operation was shutting down? Re: First Foray into Europe Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:57PM Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:34 pm To: Alan Brigish Since this foray into Europe died aborning, when was the next time that NCSS tried to enter the European market? Do you know why the decision was made to postpone a European entry? Re: First Foray into Europe Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:59PM Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:14 pm burtgrad wrote: To: Alan Brigish


Since this foray into Europe died aborning, when was the next time that NCSS tried to enter the European market? Do you know why the decision was made to postpone a European entry? Ah that was 1972, 2 years later. Along with the Texas gunslinger, Gary (YeeHaw ) Holland, we built a spreadsheet that haunts me to this day. (I'll wait for Dave Fehr to put his 2 cents in on that). Hey there Holland. Tell us more about what happened. Re: First Foray into Europe Posted by: ABrigish (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 10:00PM Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 2:17 pm burtgrad wrote: to: Alan Brigish-- Can you tell us more about the Canadian operations? Who were the customers? What kind or services? Were you using the Stamford time-sharing facilities or were there other facilities in Canada? If you were connecting to Stamford, were there any unusual local or international telephone line problems? Where did the original Greylound connection come from? Was NCSS getting any revenue from this Canadian operation? Why did Dick Orenstein say that he Canadian operation was shutting down? I'll answer that shortly. Meanwhile, Hey Orenstein -- what the heck was Greyhound doing in there??!!

1971 Product Marketing is formed Posted by: NRawlings (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:38PM Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2005 7:16 am In our early days, we had sales folks selling, programmers programming, and tech reps (technical representatives) working in sales teams to keep the customers happy. We also had an admin/finance group. We had very little in the way of marketing, other than that initial advertisement that brought us a bunch of customers. Around early 1971, we hired a fellow by the name of Sam Hasty and put under him a group of programmers to form a Product Marketing group. Mostly, these were about half of the systems programers who had worked on VP or CSS or the Fortran and Cobol development environments. Among the initial members were Judd Boykin, Hal Feinleib, Mike Bayuk, Mike Field, Nick Pisarro, and me. Each of us was given a "product line" to develop and to sell to our sales force. Hal had a line of financial products (FININF, for one), Judd had his chunk, Mike Field's "line" was VP/CSS itself, and I had the "programming languages" line-up, with Nick P. helping me. There was another guy, Reggie Barrow, who had a set of scientific products, including the lens design products and some circuit analysis products. Mike Bayuk was given documentation and education responsibility for all products. I recall that Trace Tinsman had the responsibility for the product line that included Ramis, but that Russ Gloerson was in that team as well. In addition to Nick Pisarro, my team included for Cobol, Kate Kalin (who, sadly, died just this last winter), for Fortran, Ron Sones, and for PL/I and Assembler, Nick P (later Maria Wigglesworth Hemmings took PL/I). We added Basic and had Nancy Zorbe take care of that.


To track just what revenue we were getting from each product and product line, as well as to enable us to surcharge different products at their appropriate rates, we put into both VP and CSS a tracking mechanism. The first method was for VP to notice whenever a user "attached" a proprietary disk, for that attachment meant he was going to run a package of some form. VP would look in a table it had of names and product factors. If, say, the attached disk was Ramis, VP might find a table entry for RAMIS and a factor of 125 for CPU. That 125 meant that the user's CPU consumption would be multiplied by 1.25 before coming up with the number of "application resource units" or ARU's to charge him. There might be factors for disk or printer I/O, as well. VP would produce an accounting record at the start and end of this attachment, and we charged accordingly. We also allowed products to call CSS (who would, in turn, pass the information to VP and thence to our accounting records,) to say "charge this user 27 units". The units might be the number of cells in a spreadsheet or the number of manholes in a sewer network. In that surcharge table was a rate for each product's units, something I dubbed a GRONK. That's what a dinosaur from the BC comic strip always said, but I used the word as a way of naming the generic unit. We called the table the GRONK TABLE. For a year or so, we only measured the products for which there was a surcharge, calling all the rest OTHER. That OTHER, though, represented about 85 to 90% of our revenue, so we wanted to know more. We changed CSS to tell VP the name of each MODULE (e.g. a compiler or some other command) a user was running, and, in the case of his running the EDIT module, we'd have CSS tell VP the filetype (e.g. FORTRAN or COBOL or DATA or RAMIS) of the file being editted. If he was running his own program, we'd have CSS tell VP the name of its first CSECT, which would allow us to distinguish between a FORTRAN and a PL/I or COBOL run. With these mechanisms in place, we could identify about 75% what it was that users were spending their money on. We then reasoned that if we knew what 75% of one guy's usage was for, and that 30% of that 75% was FORTRAN and 70% was RAMIS, we could allocate the unattributed 25% by the same 30/70 ratio between Fortran and Ramis. We could attribute not only his online charges, but also his disk storage charges, as well. Using this attriubution method, we could get a reasonably good picture, for the first time, really, of just where our revenue was coming from. Not surprising to me (for I was the Other Product Manager,) the vast majority of our revenue came from people writing, debugging, and then running their own programs, mostly Fortran. At Ramis's height (around 1975,) it accounted for at most 10% of our revenue. Even NOMAD had a tough time hitting 25%. Sam Hasty left around the end of 1972, replaced by Bill Huther, who, among other things, decided that most of our product lines were going nowhere and that Hal, Judd, and Mike Bayuk had better find something better to do if they were to stay working for CSS. NOMAD was one of the outcomes Dick Glazer Recollections Posted by: BGrad (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:17PM Posted: Fri May 06, 2005 9:17 am Question 1: What were your experiences with CSS prior to your joining the company in March 1969? Question 2: How were you able to get Bob Bernard and the others to see what the Cambridge Scientific Center had done in developing CP/40 and CP/67? did Bob have direct contact with the designers of those programs at that time?


Question 3: You mentioned that you had helped CSS determine the pricing algorithm for their offering while you were still at IBM. Can you tell us about that? Question 4: What was the background of the development of CP/40 and CP/67? How did you know about that? Question 5: What was the source of the CMS function of VM/CMS? You indicated that it came from MIT's Project MAC; do you now who brought it over to IBM? Question 6: What made you willing to go to bat for CSS when they wanted to license a System 360/65? Weren't you concerned that this was a figment of their imagination and that they could never come up with the money? Question 7: What made you decide to join CSS? How were you offered the job? What was your initial assignment? Question 8: Did you work with Ken Bridgewater? What was his role in the company when you joined? How did it change? Was he a member of the Board of Directors or just a stockholder? Question 9: What is your recollection of the level of revenues which were achieved prior to the improvements that Feinleib and Pisarro (and others?) made to the scheduling model in VM/CMS? What were they afterward? Question 10: You said that you used OR techniques to examine the operations information on the system performance. Can you give any examples of what you found and what changes were made as a result of your analyses?

Re: Dick Glazer Recollections Posted by: rjglazer (IP Logged) Date: January 23, 2006 09:20PM Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:45 am Replies to questions: 1. Just prior to my joining CSS (in March 1969), I was a regional scientific representative at IBM's Eastern Regional Office in NYC. My responsibilities included spreading the word about CP/CMS. Prior to that I was a marketing rep. for IBM in the Bridgeport, CT branch office. While there I was directly involved in the placement of the IBM 360/67 with CSS. 2. Getting access to the Cambridge Scientific Center (where CP67/CMS originated) was a major chore. It involved special requests through the Regional VP level and many months of memos and correspondence from the Bridgeport Branch office on up to finally see the work at IBM CSC and MIT Lincoln Labs which had helped implement CP/CMS on their model 67. Bob Bernard had no direct contact with the CSC. Rather, Dick Orenstein knew Dick Bayles and referred me to an internal IBM paper which talked about Bayles', Bob Creasy and Les Comeau's work in retrofitting the 360/40 at CSC with a dynamic address translate box. The internal work of trying to gain access to the CSC began as a result. 3. At a meeting of the early employees of CSS at Bob's home in the late fall of 1968 a discussion ensued about pricing. There was already a competitor offering a CP/CMS service - an offshoot of the group from Lincoln Labs which had been financed by White-Weld and Co. Their algorithm priced the service so as to include all system overhead; the busier the system load became, the worse the performance in terms of executable CPU


seconds delivered - in some cases only about 15% of CPU seconds spent were actually delivered to the customer vs 85% in system overhead. It was firmly held by those present at the meeting that CSS would charge only for delivered CPU seconds and that it was incumbent on the systems development folks to improve the performance of the operating system so as to minimize overhead. Bob's original take on the subject was to charge $0.20 per second (I believe this is what the White-Weld firm was charging for their fully loaded (including overhead) second. Multiplying the number of seconds available led me to the conclusion that we could never deliver enough at that rate to break even much less make a profit and so we doubled it to $0.40 per CPU second. Even this proposition was to prove dubious until the massive system performance improvement sparked by the work of Bayles, Feinleib, Pissaro and Rawlings in 1969. 4. See Q2 answer above.


Ross Systems

Company Details

Contributors

Contributor Karol A. Hines


During my 15 years at Ross Systems, held the following positions: Director of Technical Operations VP, Palo Alto Branch Executive Vice President, Software Products Group Sr. Vice President, Software Research and Development Sr. Vice President, Client Services Sr. Vice President, Business Development

Accomplishments The first software products were developed under my direction while the company continued to generate revenue through consulting and timesharing business.

Date Left November 1988 Statistics

Stories (1) Date Entered September 7, 2005

Contributor Kenneth Ross

Name: Ross Systems Sector: Time-Sharing Description

Ross Systems was founded by Ken Ross in 1972 as a contract programming and systems analysis firm. Within a few years, Ross began selling time-sharing services, primarily with software running financial applications, on a DEC mini-computer. Ross Systems later became a major vendor of application software that ran on the DEC platform. The company was sold to a group of investors in 1988.

Facilitators


Entered By: Luanne Johnson November 30, 2004



Founder and CEO Accomplishments

Built company from scratch and transitioned from consulting to timesharing to enterprise software sales. I sold my share to a management buyout group and left in 11-1988. The company continued under new management


Stories (1) , Documents (11)

Timeline

1972

Milestones

Ross Systems Founded (August 1972) Ross Systems was founded by Ken Ross in August of 1972 as a consulting company to design and build custom computer systems in the San Francisco Bay Area. Related Stories Ross Systems - The Early Years Early customers Related Documents Ken Ross Oral History, February 1997 Ken Ross Oral History Interview Transcript, 2004

1975

Milestones

Timesharing services started (1975) Ross Systems begins offering timesharing services on DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) PDP-11/70 computers on the RSTS/E operating system. Related Stories Ross Systems - The Early Years



MAPS software offering (1975) MAPS was a planning and reporting system developed to be used as a tool to supplement Ross Systems' management consulting services. It was initially offered only through the Ross Timesharing service. Related Stories What does MAPS stand for Related Documents MAPS: Management Aid for Planning Strategies

1976

Milestones

First Software package sale - 1976 (1976) Ross Systems sells its first copy of its software package, MAPS (Management Aid for Planning Strategies) to Crown Zellerbach. Related Stories Ross Systems - The Early Years

Financial Data

Financial Results for FY 1976 (June 30, 1976) Ross Systems FY 1976 Revenue $ 323,000, Net Profit $ 26,000. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981


Ross offers Consulting and Timesharing Services (1976) In 1976, Ross was offering Management Consulting Services and Timesharing Services. MAPS was offered as a "capability" on the timesharing service. Related Documents Controls for Management


Early Timesharing customers, some large organizations (1976 ca.) Some of Ross Systems early timesharing and consulting customers were large San Francisco Bay Area companies. Thes included Crocker Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, Itel, Intel, National Semiconductor and ROLM. Related Documents Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983] Ken Ross Oral History, February 1997


1977

Financial Data

Financial Results for FY 1977 (June 30, 1977) Ross Systems FY 1977 Revenue $ 509,000; Net Profit $ 52,000 Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981

1978

Financial Data

Financial Results for FY 1978 (June 30, 1978) Ross Systems FY 1978 Revenue $ 943,000; Net Profit $ 137,000 Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981

1979

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1979 (June 30, 1979) Ross Systems FY 1979 Revenue $ 1,688,000; Net Profit $ 285,000. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981

1980

Milestones

Dallas branch office opened (October 1980) Fourth Branch office opened in Dallas. Ross also had offices in Palo Alto, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981 Software Development Group established (1980) Software Development and Support Group established to carry out Ross' ambitious plans for the MAPS line of proprietary software packages. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981 Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983]

Financial Data


Financial Results FY1980 (June 30, 1980) Ross Systems Revenue for FY 1980 $ 2,391,000; net income $ 260,000. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981

Human Resources

Ross grows to 50 employees (December 1980) By December of 1980, Ross Systems had a staff of 50 employees in 4 locations. Palo Alto (Headquarters and Branch office), Los Angeles, Dallas and San Francisco. Related Documents Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983]


Ross positions itself in the marketplace (November 1980) With two seperate business areas, Timesharing/Consulting and Software/Hardware, and a competitive market environment, Ross determined that its positioning in the Market should be as "..experts in financial modeling and reporting systems". Related Documents Ross Systems Corporate Positioning


Timesharing offered on Dec VAX (1980) Two VAX 11/780's running the VMS operating system added to the Ross Timesharing network. Consultants were urged to convert client systems from the PDP's to the VAX for better performance. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981 Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983] Data base management software introduced (1980) Ross introduces its database management software, INTAC (for INterACtive). INTAC is used to develop solutions for Ross timesharing clients. Related Documents Computerized Financial Planning and Control Systems for Business Management Access to Ross Timesharing service expanded (September 1980) As Ross expanded Timesharing services, network access was expanded from a few direct dial lines to high speed lines from Tymnet.


Related Documents Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983] First sale of INTAC to non-MAPS customer (September 1980) MAPS and INTAC were developed as tools for building custom solutions forcustomers to run on Ross' Timesharing system. However, they began to be sold to customers who desired to run their systems in house. Normally they were both sold together, since most custom systems included both tools. In the fall of 1980, INTAC was sold for the first time to a customer who did not have application that used MAPS. Related Documents Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983]

1981

Milestones

Ross receives $ 1 million in venture financing (November 2, 1981) Ross Systems received it's first round of venture financing in November of 1981 from the New York firm of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. Bruce Anderson joined the Ross Board of Directors as part of the financing. Related Documents Memo from Ken about obtaining Financing

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1981 (June 30, 1981) Revenue for FY 1981, ending June 30, 1981, $ 4,235,826. 77% increase over 1980. Net income $ 464,563. 79% increase over 1980. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1981

1982

Company Culture

Friday afternoon beer parties (June 1982) Ross Systems decides to become a part of the Silicon Valley culture by having Friday afternoon "Beer" parties to bring the various hard working groups in the company together for some social interaction. Related Documents [Memos and Organizational Charts, 1981-1982] Prizes given to employees (October 1982) By the end of the 3rd Quarter, Ross was back on track financially. As a reward for this improved performance, prize drawings were held for all


employees. Related Documents [Memos and Organizational Charts, 1981-1982]

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1982 (June 30, 1982) Ross Systems revenue for FY 1982 $ 5.917 million; net loss <$ 5,550>. Major expenditures resulted from opening of an office in New York City and building a new computer center in California. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1982


First reduction in staff (April 2, 1982) In April of 1982, Ross Systems reduced its staff by 7 employees to make up for a revenue shortfall. Related Documents [Memos and Organizational Charts, 1981-1982]


Ross announces MAPS/PRO (May 1982) In May of 1982, Ross Systems announced MAPs/PRo, a variant of the MAPS/MODEL financial modeling and reporting language, for DEC's (Digital Equipment Corporation) Professional 350 microcomputer. Related Documents Ross Systems MAPS/PRO [promotional video] Ross Systems Corporate Positioning Software pricing complexities (October 1982) By late 1982, software product sales of MAPS/Host and INTAC awere picking up and customers wanted to run these on more then one computer at their site. Tiered pricing was developed to accommodate customers running several copies of the software on multiple models of DEC computers.

1983

Milestones

Completion of MAPS/GL (1983) Ross Systems completes development of its General Ledger Software package, MAPS/GL. MAPS/GL runs on the DEC VAX running the VMS operating system.


Related Stories The beginnings of MAPS/GL MAPS/ software introduced (1983) Along with MAPS/GL, Ross Systems introduces the MAPS (Management, Accounting and Planning Software) series of decision support and accounting software for the VAX. Related Stories What does MAPS stand for Related Documents Financial Software Solutions

Acquisition and Partnerships

Joint marketing agreement with B of A (1983) Ross signs a joint marketing agreement with the Corporate Agency department of the Bank of America to jointly market MAPS/ISO in conjunction with the bank's stock transfer system. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1983

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1983 (June 30, 1983) Ross Systems revenue for FY 1983 $ 8.565 million; net income $ 319,000. Revenue increased 45% over 1982. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1983

1984

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1984 (June 30, 1984) Ross Systems revenue for FY 1984 $ 8.274 million; net loss <$ 77,000>. The loss of a major timesharing client, Cambridge Plan, contributed to the loss and reduction in revenue over 1983. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1984


Ross has 6 district offices (November 1984) By 1984, Ross Systems had grown to 100 employees with headquarters still in Palo Alto and distict offices in Palo Alto, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas and Boston. Related Documents


Ross Systems Corporate Backgrounder

1985

Milestones

MAPS/GL /AP/AR/FA on the VAX (1985) In 1985, Ross was marketing 8 products on the DEC VAX, including the four accounting software packages, MAPS/GL (General Ledger, MAPS/AP (Accounts Payable), MAPS/AR (Accounts Receivable)and MAPS/FA (Fixed Assets). Related Documents VAX Mainframe Class Financial Software

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1985 (June 30, 1985) Ross Systems Revenue for FY 1985 $ 8.219 million; net income $ 287,000. As the transition to a software product company continued, overall revenues were down. However, profits continue to improve as software sales were up 136% over 1984. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1985


Software R & D gets organized (August 1985) By mid 1985, Ross had developed and was distributing 10 software products. The R&D organization now included a Publications group, a QA group and a Release management function. A Product Marketing group had also been established. Related Documents Software R & D Organization and Procedures memos


Charges for Timesharing services complex (1985) Customers were charged for a wide array of timesharing services including connect time, CPU cycles, disk storage (per 512 character block), magnetic tape data transfer and tape storage. Related Documents Agreement for Timesharing [form]

1986

Acquisition and Partnerships RossData formed when Virtual Microsystems is acquired (1986)


RossData was formed in 1986 from the merger of Ross Systems and Virtual Microsystems, the leading supplier of desktop to VAX connectivity solutions for network based computing applications. Related Documents RossData Annual Report 1987

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1986 (June 30, 1986) RossData combined revenue for FY 1986 $ 13.7 million; net income $ 1.73 million. Related Documents Ross Systems Annual Report 1986

1987

Financial Data

Financial Results FY 1987 (June 30, 1987) RossData combined revenue for FY 1987 $ 16.1 million; net income $ 810,000. Merger costs are reflected in the lowered income. Related Documents RossData Annual Report 1987 Ross raises $ 4 million in venture capital (March 1987) In conjunction with the merger with Virtual Microsystems, Ross Systems raised $ 4 million in venture capital to provide resources to continue developing superior software products. This was one of the largest venture financing of a VAX based company. Related Documents RossData Annual Report 1987

1988


Ross Systems Buyout (1988) A management group headed by Dennis Vohs from MSA buys out Ross Systems. Related Documents Ken Ross Oral History Interview Transcript, 2004

1991

Milestones


Ross Systems IPO (1991) Ross Systems becomes a public company via an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 1991. Related Documents Ken Ross Oral History Interview Transcript, 2004

1995

Human Resources

Ross Systems employees reunion (1995) In 1995 former, and some current, Ross Systems employees got together for a reunion. Related Documents [Photographs from Ross Systems' reunion with comments]

2004


Ross Systems acquired by ChinaDotCom (2004) ChinaDotCom acquires Ross Systems. Related Documents Ken Ross Oral History Interview Transcript, 2004

Stories

Title: What does MAPS stand for Author: Karol Hines Created: July 1, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: MAPS was the first software product that Ross Systems produced. We did financial planning and analysis projects for a lot of our timesharing and consulting companies and used software tools from other vendors. There was a lull in the business, so Ken designed and wrote this series of programs to manipulate data in a matrix. The code name for the project was Sunshine, so all of the program modules began with SUN (SUN01, SUN02, etc.). The acronym, MAPS, stood for Management Aid for Planning Strategies. In 1982 Ross began delivering a suite of accounting and decision support software and changed the acronym to Management, Accounting and Planning Software. The original product was renamed to MAPS/Model. The other products were MAPS/GL (General Ledger), MAPS/AP (Accounts Payable), MAPS/ISO (Employee Stock Option Tracking), MAPS/DB (Data Base Management - formerly INTAC), MAPS/Graph (Business graphics), and MAPS/Pro (MAPS/Model for the DEC Pro 350 microcomputer). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol A. Hines


July 1, 2005 Related Documents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Software Solutions [promotional video] Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAPS software offering MAPS/ software introduced Title: INTAC - original name was ORBIT Author: Karol Hines Created: May 5, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: When we decided to build a database product (late 1970's), we came up with the name ORBIT (Organized Reporting of Business Information Today). We released the product and I don't recall if we did a search, or if the company that was offering a chewing gum with the name "Orbit" contacted us. We honestly did not think they would consider this a conflict. However, they told us that under no circumstances were we to use the name for our product - no matter what it was. So, ORBIT became INTAC (INTerACtive Business Reporting). I don't know if Orbit gum has been continuously marketed, but recently there have been ads on TV for Orbit chewing gum. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: The beginnings of MAPS/GL Author: Karol Hines Created: May 5, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The first financial application we built was MAPS/GL. We began with the general ledger product(FM80) that Price Waterhouse had developed, in COBOL, to run on an HP system. Ken made a deal with them to license FM80 and convert it to run on the DEC VAX and market it along with MAPS/MODEL and MAPS/DB as the beginning of our suite of Financial Software Solution products. The conversion and development of MAPS/GL was done in record time and it was released sometime in 1983. We had made the decision to build software products before Ken made the deal with Price Waterhouse. At that time we were still designing and building custom applications for many clients. We had already created several general ledger and accounts payable systems. Our original thought was to work a deal with a current client who wanted a general ledger where they would essentially fund the development, at a reduced cost, of our GL product. The company/project that was chosen was Cetus, one of the original Bio-tech companies in the SF Bay Area. However, as we got into the project, it became very clear that what the features and functionals that Cetus wanted in their system were not what was needed to serve a larger audience of primarily manufacturing and distribution customers that would be our target market. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines


May 5, 2006 Related References -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAPS/GL Users Guide Related Documents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Ross Oral History, February 1997 Ken Ross Oral History Interview Transcript, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Completion of MAPS/GL Title: Early customers Author: Karol Hines Created: May 5, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I joined Ross Systems in 1973 as employee number 2 - Ken was employee number 1. I had been working at Arcata Communications as one of 3 employees in the Data Processing Department. I was building the Payroll/HR system. My boss was building the AP system and Ken, as a consultant, was building the GL system. In the early days of Ross Systems, our projects were all consulting projects with customers in the SF Bay Area. One of the first projects that I recall was with GTE Lenkurt in Redwood City. The Finance department was getting a pile of reports each month from their mainframe accounting system and they had no idea what the logic was behind the numbers. I spent months going through all of the COBOL programs and essentially reverse engineering the reports so that they could understand where the numbers were coming from. During the next few years, before MAPS was developed and we started a timesharing service on PDP 11's, we had consulting contracts with many of the companies that were the early Silicon Valley pioneers - Intel, AMD, Avantek, Rolm, and others. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross Systems Founded Title: Ross Systems - The Early Years Author: Ken Ross Created: December 6, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Ross Systems was founded in August, 1972 early on in the market for software. Up until then most software was custom-developed for each company, and that was Ross' beginning -- to be a programming and consulting company. However, in early 1974, we were hired by a large financial services company (Itel) to develop an on-line budget consolidation system using General Electric timesharing. During that engagement, I decided that we could build a similar system, using the then available "off the shelf" minicomputer timesharing systems, and compete with the the commercial


timesharing services. We would have two competitive advantages. First, since we were using off the shelf hardware and operating systems, we would be able to devote 100% of our resources towards building our applications (i.e. financial modeling and data base) so we would be focused on customer results, not operating system technology. Second, our customers would have the option to acquire their own mini-computer and license our software and bring their timesharing "in house". We chose the DEC PDP-11/70 RSTS/E operating system and we were in business by the summer of 1975. Our first package sale was to Crown Zellerbach in 1976. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross December 6, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First Software package sale - 1976 Ross Systems Founded Timesharing services started

Documents

Title: Planning and Budgeting Author: Created: 1974 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Ed Harley Filename: doc-4484d037df91d.pdf (Size: 1.73 MB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Ross Systems; "Planning and Budgeting" - Consulting Services Marketing Brochure; circa 1974. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102658910 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102658910.planning_and_budgeting.1974 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines June 5, 2006 Title: MAPS: Management Aid for Planning Strategies Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-41cb4e501a51b.pdf (Size: 4.79 MB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing brochure, "MAPS: Management Aid for Planning Strategies" 1975 circa. Lot number:X3608.2006


Accession: 102665720 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 23, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAPS software offering Title: [Ross Systems, Inc. brochure] Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-43288fce4451b.pdf (Size: 833 KB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: 2005-09-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Color brochure, Ross Systems company profile. Not dated; approximately 1975. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102640332 Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2005-08-30 Sarah Wilson Device: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 8250 Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102640332.brochure.1975-1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 14, 2005 Title: Controls for Management Author: Created: 1976 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-431f7d5955681.pdf (Size: 1.79 MB) Pages: 11 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing Brochure, "Controls for Management," 1976. Includes pictures of Ken Ross, Mike Novak, Ed Harley, Karol Hines, John Benedict, Jan Burch and Amy Davidson. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665721 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 7, 2005


Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross offers Consulting and Timesharing Services Title: MAPS Computerized Planning and Reporting For Financial Management Author: Created: 1976 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Ed Harley Filename: doc-44874290beb17.pdf (Size: 4.62 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing Brochure for MAPS (Management Aid for Planning Strategies) Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102659020 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines June 7, 2006 Title: MAPS User Guide Author: Created: September 30, 1977 Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Ed Harley Filename: doc-44b7fbb05ba36.pdf (Size: 2.57 MB) Pages: 101 Cataloguer: 2006-07-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: User guide for MAPS (Management Aid for Planning Strategies) Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665748 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-07-03 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102665748.maps_user_guide.1977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson July 14, 2006 Title: Consulting and Computer Services for Business Management Author: Created: 1978 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines


Filename: doc-42d5790f1d415.pdf (Size: 6.24 MB) Pages: 15 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing brochure, "Consulting and Computer Services for Business Management," 1978. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665722 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Organizational Charts, 1979-1984] Author: Created: 1979-1984 Publisher: Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-42d5840be7e41.pdf (Size: 166 KB) Pages: 11 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Miscellaneous organization charts from 1979 to 1984. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665723 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: Intercom [newsletter - six issues, 1980-1983] Author: Created: 1980-1983 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-42d580c0bbf48.pdf (Size: 1.26 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Six issues of Ross Systems' internal newsletter "Intercom," 1980-1983. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665724 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Access to Ross Timesharing service expanded


Early Timesharing customers, some large organizations First sale of INTAC to non-MAPS customer Ross grows to 50 employees Software Development Group established Timesharing offered on Dec VAX Title: Financial Decision Support Canned for Easy Use! Author: Created: 1980 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-42d5834bbe633.pdf (Size: 358 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Photocopy of Ross Systems ad prepared by an agency and run in Fortune magazine. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665725 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: MAPS Computerized Planning and Reporting for Financial Management Author: Created: 1980 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Ed Harley Filename: doc-44b7faaa6c5e0.pdf (Size: 1.94 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: 2006-07-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: Promotional material for MAPS (Management Aid for Planning Strategies) Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665747 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-07-03 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102665747.maps_computerized_planning_reporting.1980 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson July 14, 2006


Title: [Photograph of Shelley Swackhammer-Rhodes-Perry] Author: Created: 1980-1985 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58994b49f0.jpg (Size: 433 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Photograph of Shelley Swackhammer-Rhodes-Perry. 1980 circa. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665732 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Ross Systems song] Author: Created: 1980-1985 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-42d587a7f1a85.pdf (Size: 26 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Photocopy of lyrics of "Twelve days at Ross Systems" song, sung to "Twelve days of Christmas" melody. Author and date unknown. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665726 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: System Users Guide Author: Created: February 1, 1980 Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Ed Harley Filename: doc-44b7fe31e34b8.pdf (Size: 855 KB) Pages: 28 Cataloguer: 2006-07-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: This manual was developed as a supplement to the manuals governing the operation of the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11/70 timesharing computer.


Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665749 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-07-03 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102665749.systems_users_guide.1980 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson July 14, 2006 Title: VAX Conversion Study Author: Pete Fast Created: February 8, 1980 Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-44b7dc01d42f7.pdf (Size: 145 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2006-07-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: Memo about a VAX conversion study. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665763 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 8 grayscale Digitized: 2006-07-03 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102665763.vax_conversion_memo.1980 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson July 14, 2006 Title: Ross Systems Corporate Positioning Author: Ken Ross Created: November 10, 1980 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-44c193579c8dc.pdf (Size: 90 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Notes from Ken on how Ross Systems would be positioning itself in the market. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 21, 2006 Related Events


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross announces MAPS/PRO Ross positions itself in the marketplace Title: Computerized Financial Planning and Control Systems for Business Management Author: Created: 1981 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-431f7e27d6cd2.pdf (Size: 2.13 MB) Pages: 15 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing brochure, "Computerized Financial Planning and Control Systems for Business Management," 1981. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665727 Dimensions: 9 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 7, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Related Events Data base management software introduced Title: [Memos and Organizational Charts, 1981-1982] Author: Created: 1981-1982 Publisher: Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-42d586af49331.pdf (Size: 226 KB) Pages: 13 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Internal memos about organization changes, beer parties, financing, layoffs and quarterly prizes. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665723 Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: Ross Systems Annual Report 1981 Author: Created: 1981 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-41ca6c61e767c.pdf (Size: 386 KB) Pages: 19 Cataloguer: Copyright:


Description: Ross Systems Annual Report 1981. Statement of operating and financial results. Accession: Not accessioned Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 22, 2004 Title: Memo from Ken about obtaining Financing Author: Ken Ross Created: November 5, 1981 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-44c192e59fde4.pdf (Size: 23 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Ken Ross published a memo to all employees explaining that Ross Systmes had obtained $ 1,000,000 in venture financing from the New York firm of Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 21, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross receives $ 1 million in venture financing Title: Intac User Manual chapter 1 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-4507098875657.pdf (Size: 1.30 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Intac User manual chapter 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 10 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070b718b43b.pdf (Size: 2.02 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 10 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 11 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070ba976799.pdf (Size: 3.61 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 11 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 2 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-450709b968b92.pdf (Size: 695 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual Chapter 3 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070a1d93623.pdf (Size: 918 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Chapter 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 4 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070a5397db5.pdf (Size: 184 KB) Pages:


Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Chapter 4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 5 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070a76f3cbe.pdf (Size: 700 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Chapter 5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 6 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-45070aebaf539.pdf (Size: 554 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 7 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070b0d6e44c.pdf (Size: 986 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 7 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 8 Author:


Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070b274caaf.pdf (Size: 278 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 8 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Intac User Manual chapter 9 Author: Created: 1982 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-45070b4bba066.pdf (Size: 1.24 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: chapter 9 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Kenneth Ross September 12, 2006 Title: Ross Systems Annual Report 1982 Author: Created: June 30, 1982 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-432896b783cb6.pdf (Size: 2.24 MB) Pages: 21 Cataloguer: 2005-09-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Ross Systems Annual Report 1982. Statement of operating and financial results. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102640331 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 8 grayscale Digitized: 2005-08-30 Sarah Wilson Device: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 8250 Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102640331.annual_report.1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 14, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Results FY 1982


Title: Software Sales Multiple CPU Pricing Policy Author: Karol Hines Created: October 11, 1982 Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Hines, Karol Filename: doc-4574583114c65.pdf (Size: 1.61 MB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: 2006-12-04 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: Memo to sales staff about how to price software for customers who have multiple computers. Accession: 1012659053 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-11-30 Karol Hines Device: Brother MFC 210 C Format: tiff/text Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\Ross.Multiple_CPU_Pricing_memo.1982.1012659053 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 4, 2006 Title: Client-Tell Author: Created: December 1982 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-4328940ea387f.pdf (Size: 185 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2005-09-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Ross Systems' newsletter; Vol. 1, No. 1, December 1982. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102640333 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 8 grayscale Digitized: 2005-08-30 Sarah Wilson Device: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 8250 Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102640333.newsletter.1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 14, 2005 Title: Financial Software Solutions Author: Created: 1983


Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-41cb649317e08.pdf (Size: 946 KB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing brochure, "Financial Software Solutions," 1983. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665728 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 23, 2004 Title: Ross Systems Annual Report 1983 Author: Created: 1983 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-44a18a0ee2bbc.pdf (Size: 906 KB) Pages: 27 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Ross Systems Annual Report 1983. Statement of operating and financial results. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665729 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-06-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102665729.annual_report.1983 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson June 27, 2006 Title: Ross Systems MAPS/PRO [promotional video] Author: Created: 1983 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d5903e99c43.wmv (Size: 19.64 MB) Pages: n/a Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Windows Media file: Ross Systems promotional video, "MAPS/PRO." 7 minutes, 25 seconds. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005


Title: Ross Systems Annual Report 1984 Author: Created: 1984 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-4328973c7a06f.pdf (Size: 3.37 MB) Pages: 27 Cataloguer: 2005-09-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Ross Systems Annual Report 1984. Statement of operating and financial results. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102640330 Dimensions:11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 8 grayscale Digitized: 2005-08-30 Sarah Wilson Device: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 8250 Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102640330.annual_report.1984 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 14, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Results FY 1984 Title: Ross Systems Corporate Backgrounder Author: Created: February 17, 1984 Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-44c18f0547854.pdf (Size: 861 KB) Pages: 15 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Corporate Background statement prepared by Ross Systems Public Relations agency. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 21, 2006 Title: Agreement for Timesharing [form] Author: Created: 1985 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d581af2495b.pdf (Size: 140 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright:


Description: Ross Systems customer agreement for timesharing services form, 1985. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665730 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: Research & Development Organization and Procedures memos Author: Karol Hines Created: 1985 Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Hines, Karol Filename: doc-457459e652092.pdf (Size: 1.63 MB) Pages: 13 Cataloguer: 2006-12-04 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: Memos to employees and staff describing the software R&D organization and procedures. Accession: 1012659054 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-11-30 Karol Hines Device: Brother MFC 210 C Format: tiff/text Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\Ross.R_and_D_Procedures_memo.1985.1012659054 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 4, 2006 Title: Ross Systems Annual Report 1985 Author: Created: 1985 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-4328917b27050.pdf (Size: 2.59 MB) Pages: 22 Cataloguer: 2005-09-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Ross Systems Annual Report 1985. Statement of operating and financial results. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102640329 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 8 grayscale Digitized: 2005-08-30 Sarah Wilson Device: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 8250 Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location:


\\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102640329.annual_report.1985 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 14, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Results FY 1985 Title: Software R & D Organization and Procedures memos Author: Karol Hines Created: 1985 Publisher: Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-456cacae9b090.pdf (Size: 1017 KB) Pages: 13 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Four memos written between January and August. Two are to all Ross employees, one to R&D Staff and one to Marketing, R&D and Support Staff. They describe how Software R&D is organized and describe some of the operating procedures, workflow and assignments. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines November 28, 2006 Title: VAX Mainframe Class Financial Software Author: Created: 1985 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-431f7ed7667f7.pdf (Size: 532 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Marketing brochure, "VAX Mainframe Class Financial Software," 1985. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665731 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 7, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAPS/GL /AP/AR/FA on the VAX Title: Financial Software Solutions [promotional video] Author: Created: 1985 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58f5c29761.wmv (Size: 17.44 MB)


Pages: n/a Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Windows Media file: Ross Systems promotional video, "Financial Software Solutions." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Related Stories -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What does MAPS stand for Title: [Photograph of Leslie Dennis] Author: Created: 1985 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58d3aca982.jpg (Size: 299 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Photograph of Leslie Dennis at the Ross Systems office in Palo Alto. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665733 Dimensions: Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [various marketing materials - newsletters, articles, etc.] Author: Created: 1985 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-44b7ffe9919ec.pdf (Size: 1.84 MB) Pages: 21 Cataloguer: 2006-07-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems Description: Various marketing materials - newsletters, articles, etc. Circa 1985. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665750 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 8 grayscale, 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-07-03 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi


Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102665750.tiger_newsletter_articles.1985 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson July 14, 2006 Title: Ross Systems Annual Report 1986 Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-42d57f263a8d8.pdf (Size: 987 KB) Pages: 22 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: Ross Systems Annual Report 1986. Statement of operating and financial results. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665734 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: RossData Annual Report 1987 Author: Created: 1987 Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Donated By: Karol Hines Filename: doc-432890d2185f1.pdf (Size: 3.29 MB) Pages: 23 Cataloguer: 2005-09-14 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Ross Systems, Inc. Description: RossData Annual Report 1987. Statement of operating and financial results. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102640328 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth:24 RGB, 8 grayscale Digitized: 2005-08-30 Sarah Wilson Device: Hewlett Packard Scanjet 8250 Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src\102640328.annual_report.1987 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 14, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financial Results FY 1987 Ross raises $ 4 million in venture capital RossData formed when Virtual Microsystems is acquired


Title: [Photograph of female Ross Systems employees] Author: Created: 1988 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d5894775253.JPG (Size: 3.29 MB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Photograph of some of the ladies of Ross Systems taken at the Embarcadero Road office in Palo Alto, 1988. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665736 Dimensions: Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Photograph of Rick Smith, VP of Finance] Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d589bc5085f.jpg (Size: 968 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Photograph from a Ross Systems gathering. Pictured is Rick Smith, VP of Finance. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665737 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Two photographs; Dick Giordanella, Leslie Dennis and others] Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58c263a8d2.jpg (Size: 1009 KB)


Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Two photographs from a Ross Systems gathering. Pictured are Dick Giordanella, Leslie Dennis and others (Leilani Holzerlandt, Jennifer Roman, Joel Farr, Lauri Klatt). Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665738 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Two photographs; John Benedict and Roger Perry] Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58df750861.jpg (Size: 1.03 MB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Two photographs from a Ross Systems gathering. Pictured are John Benedict and Roger Perry. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665739 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Two photographs; John Wehrheim, Onagh Ash and others] Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58e6352f71.jpg (Size: 1011 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Two photographs from a Ross Systems gathering. Pictured are John Wehrheim, Roger Perry, Onagh Ash, Peter Sobiloff and others. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665740 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project.


Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Two photographs; Ken Ross, Jennifer Roman and others] Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58d9f5f2c1.JPG (Size: 1.93 MB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Two photographs from a Ross Systems gathering. Pictured are Ken Ross, Jennifer Roman, Leslie Dennis and Dick Giordanella. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665741 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Two photographs; Leslie Dennis and Peter Sobiloff] Author: Created: 1989 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d58d0b92712.jpg (Size: 1.66 MB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Two photographs from a Ross Systems gathering. Pictured are Leslie Dennis and Peter Sobiloff. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665742 Notes: Scanned by someone other than Sarah Wilson. Physical photograph not part of Computer History Museum collections; it was scanned then returned to person who lent it for use in this project. Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Ross_Systems\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Employee Phone List, 1990] Author: Created: 1990


Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-42d5823192716.pdf (Size: 174 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Ross Systems employee phone list for all locations, 1990. Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665743 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 13, 2005 Title: [Photographs from Ross Systems' reunion with comments] Author: Created: 1995 Publisher: Donated By: Ken Ross Filename: doc-44c1a6c67a2d2.pdf (Size: 2.51 MB) Pages: 58 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Color snapshot photographs from Ross reunion in 1995 with comment added to identify people in the photos. Comments have been added by Karol Hines to identify some of the people in the photographs. Karol is a contributor to Ross Systems on this web site. Her bio is at: (http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=bio&uid=119&cid=3) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 21, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ross Systems employees reunion Title: Ken Ross Oral History, February 1997 Author: Created: February 6, 1997 Publisher: Donated By: Luanne Johnson Filename: doc-43e166007c5b0.pdf (Size: 107 KB) Pages: 13 Cataloguer: 2006-06-26 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Transcribed interview with Ken Ross conducted by Luanne Johnson on February 6, 1997 Lot number: X3608.2006 Accession: 102665744 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Notes: Scanned, PDF created by someone other than Sarah Wilson. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines February 1, 2006


Related Stories -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The beginnings of MAPS/GL Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Early Timesharing customers, some large organizations Ross Systems Founded Title: Ken Ross Oral History Interview Transcript, 2004 Author: Created: November 19, 2004 Publisher: Software History Center Donated By: Filename: doc-44a1bab558d85.pdf (Size: 125 KB) Pages: 38 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description:Transcription of Interview with Ken Ross conducted by Paul Cerruzi at the Software History Center Historians meeting held at the Computer History Museum, November 18-19, 2004. Location: Box number: Lot number: Accession: Dimensions: Notes: Color depth: Digitized: Device: Format: Resolution: Scan location: Web access large: Web access small: Entered By: Karol Hines June 27, 2006

References

Title: MAPS/GL Users Guide Author: Created: 1983 ca. Publisher: Ross Systems, Inc. Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: MAPS/GL, Getting Started Using MAPS/GL Ledger Processing and Budget Entry, Ross Systems, Inc., 1983 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Related Stories -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The beginnings of MAPS/GL


Discussions



Tymnet – Post-Tymshare

Company Details

Name: Tymnet - post Tymshare Sector: Time-Sharing Description

The Tymnet network was created by Tymshare and was first "booted up" in 1971. In 1976, Tymnet, Inc. was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tymshare. In 1984, McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare. The network continued as MD Network Systems and Tymshare ceased to exist. Tymnet had several different owners after that until it was finally shut down in 2004.

Facilitators


Entered By: Luanne Johnson December 20, 2006

Contributors


Date Joined December 20, 2006 Job Description

Facilitator for Tymshare and Tymnet. Statistics

Documents (8) , References (3) Date Entered December 20, 2006

Contributor Project Manager


Luanne Johnson is the project manager for the IT Corporate Histories Collection. Date Entered February 19, 2010


Timeline

1984

Milestones

McDonnell Douglas Acquires Tymshare (May 1984) McDonnell Douglas acquired Tymshare for $ .25 per share. Related Documents McDonnell Douglas Changes Its Aim with Tymshare

1987

Technology

MD Network Systems announces the Tymnet Turbo Engine (October 20, 1987) McDonnell Douglas Network Systems announces the Tymnet Turbo Engine, a new generation of packet switches to satisfy customer demands for higher bandwidth and new communications services. Related Documents Networking Today


Veterans Administration is largest Private Network Customer (January 1987 ca.) In 1987, Tymnet (MD Network Systems) was managing private networks for more than 20 large organizations. The Veterans Administration and Immigration and Naturalization Services were ranked 1 & 2 by revenue generated. Related Documents Private Network Customers Apollo Airline Reservation system profiled in Networking Today (October 1987) Access to United Airlines "Apollo" reservation system, first available in 1977, expanded via Tymnet network. Related Documents Networking Today

External Factors

FCC proposes increased fees for enhanced services (October 1987)


Warren Prince, President of McDonnell Douglas Network Systems, appeals to Tymnet customers to respond to the FCC's NPRM to add access charges of over $ 4.00 per hour for enhanced service providers Related Documents Networking Today

1988


OnTyme used to communicate with Olympic Athletes (1988) OnTyme terminals were set up in the Olympic Village in Seoul and in nine shopping malls in the US. People sent over 8000 messages of encouragement to the US Athletes during the games. Related References OnTyme and 1988 Olympics

1989

Milestones

British Telecommunications acquires MD Network Systems (Tymnet) (November 17, 1989) The acquisition of Tymnet (McDonald Douglas Network Systems Compay) by British Telecom was finalized on November 17, 1989. BT renamed it to BT Tymnet. Related Stories Tymnet Technology Ownership

1992


Tymnet part of British Telecommmunications global Network (1992 ca.) Tymnet Global Network (TGN) is part of British Telecommmunications Global Network Services Matrix offering network access in more than 100 countries world wide. Related Documents Global Network Services Matrix TYMNET Global Network Services Letter from Warren Prince

2003

Milestones


Tymnet network shut down (March 24, 2003) After McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare, and then sold it to EDS, Tymnet was sold to MCI/British Telecom. Tymnet was shut down for all but one customer on March 24, 2003 at 11:48 AM PST having operated continuously since it was booted in November, 1971. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet LaRoy Tymes recollection of Tymnet Related Stories Tymnet Technology Ownership Related Documents Letter from Warren Prince Tymnet public network shutdown

Stories

Title: Tymnet Technology Ownership Author: Carl Baltrunas Created: August 4, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The Tymnet network technology was designed and developed by Tymshare, but it went through many owners during its existence. Carl Baltrunas chronicles the ownership in a story he wrote in the Tymshare collection on this site: http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=stories&id=297. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 25, 2007 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- British Telecommunications acquires MD Network Systems (Tymnet) Tymnet network shut down

Documents

Title: McDonnell Douglas Changes Its Aim with Tymshare Author: Mary Fallon Created: November 5, 1984 Publisher: San Jose Mercury News Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4589c1405ff5b.pdf (Size: 338 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Article, dated November 5, 1984 and titled, "McDonnell Douglas changes its aim with Tymshare" in the Electronics section of the San Jose Mercury News.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006 Title: Private Network Customers Author: Created: 1987 Publisher: McDonnell Douglas Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4589b12a27e15.pdf (Size: 56 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Slip of paper listing customers ranked by 1987 revenue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Veterans Administration is largest Private Network Customer Title: Networking Today Author: Created: October 1987 Publisher: McDonnell Douglas Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4589b00ede0f0.pdf (Size: 4.26 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Volume 1, Issue 2 of Networking Today -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006 Title: The Network Tymes Author: Created: 1988 Publisher: McDonnell Douglas Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4589b3154b87f.pdf (Size: 3.28 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter published for employees of McDonnell Douglas Network Systems Company, first quarter 1988 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006


Title: Global Network Services Matrix Author: Created: 1992 Publisher: British Telecommunications Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4589ad4b8c6d6.pdf (Size: 893 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Brochure showing the specifications of network services offered in various countries. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006 Title: TYMNET Global Network Services Author: Created: April 1992 ca. Publisher: British Telecommunications Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4589b4675f49c.pdf (Size: 701 KB) Pages: 21 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: TYMNET Global Network Services - Interim rate summary, April 1992 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymnet part of British Telecommmunications global Network Title: Tymnet public network shutdown Author: Carl Baltrunas Created: March 14, 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-45956d521a26a.pdf (Size: 459 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Email from Carl Baltrunas about the TYMNET shutdown and TYMNET legacy. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 29, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymnet network shut down Title: Letter from Warren Prince


Author: Warren Prince Created: October 5, 2005 Publisher: Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-45956192129d4.pdf (Size: 47 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Letter from Warren Prince describing the materials he has contributed to the Computer History Museum for the Corporate Histories Project including some customer names. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 29, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymnet network shut down Tymnet part of British Telecommmunications global Network

References

Title: Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Author: Norm Hardy Created: 2003 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Norm Hardy's website on the history of Tymnet: http://cap-lore.com/Tymnet/ETH.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 20, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymnet network shut down Title: LaRoy Tymes recollection of Tymnet Author: LaRoy Tymes Created: August 26, 2004 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: LaRoy Tymes was the original designer and developer of Tymnet. He explains some of Tymnet's technical history in this story he wrote for the Tymshare collection on this site: http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=stories&id=1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines February 22, 2007 Related Events --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Tymnet network shut down Title: OnTyme and 1988 Olympics Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: March 18, 2005 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Clint DeGabrielle tells about using OnTyme for encouraging US Olympic Athletes at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Korea in this story he posted to the Tymshare collection on this site: http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=stories&id=69 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines February 22, 2007 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- OnTyme used to communicate with Olympic Athletes

Discussions



Tymshare

Company Details

Contributors

Contributor Carl Baltrunas


Operating Systems Programmer in Systems Technology Division Responsible for development and support of Tymshare's custom PDP-10 operating system called TYMCOM-X and user utility programs. This system ran on the DEC KI, KL, and KS processors, and the Foonly F3 while I was there.

Accomplishments Brought display editing, via a clone of EMACS, rewritten for TYMCOM-X as VUE, to public use within Tymshare and Tymnet. Under McDonnell Douglas my group provided support for the PDP-10s and UNIX on Sun Microsystems servers. Led the implementation team that was responsible for the network source code migration of Tymnet off the PDP-10s and onto the UNIX platform. Responsible for the migration of the last Tymnet application, TICKET, off the DEC equipment onto a PDP-10 clone, the TOAD-1 from XKL Corporation. Worked on the network Split project to divide Tymnet assets between British Telecom and Worldcom, initially for Worldcom and later for BT. My last two projects included rewriting the Tymnet accounting collection service to run on Solaris, and to monitor and manage the network as it was dismantled site by site. Tymnet was finally turned off in February

Name: Tymshare Sector: Time-Sharing Description

Tymshare was founded by Tom O'Rourke and Dave Schmidt in 1964 to sell time-sharing services. By the early 1970s, Tymshare had developed a number of specialized applications which were run by its customers on a remote basis. The company created its own very successful proprietary network, TYMNET, which was spun off into a subsidiary company. Tymshare was sold to McDonnell Douglas Corporation in 1984.

Facilitators




2004. Date Left January 31, 2004 Statistics

Stories (2) Date Entered August 1, 2006

Contributor Bob Barbour


Computer Operator (940's, PDP10's, IBM370-158) Mgr, Resource Allocation (Network expansion - Dennis Loudon's Group) Customer Services Rep (Sal Spinales Group) International Support Director, Technical Training & Documentation

Date Left March 1992 Date Entered June 30, 2005 Contributor Ron Braniff


joined as salesman,then sales mgr,then division mgr,then vp marketing and sales,then group vp.

Date Left February 1983 Date Entered May 27, 2005

Contributor Joseph Cardosi


Salesrep-Chicago Branch Manager- Detroit Mideast Area Manager- Detroit,Cleveland Pittsburgh,Atlanta,Miami

Accomplishments Top rookie salesrep- Eastern Region Sales School President's Club-Salesrep(1976) President's Club- Branch Manager(1979)

Date Left April 1982


Statistics

Stories (1) Date Entered August 2, 2006

Contributor Kenneth Churilla


Manager of Investment Industry and Database Product Marketing Headquarters in Cupertino, CA. (4/77 - 3/80) Manager of Financial Markets and Products Marketing Eastern Region in New York City (10/74 - 4/77)

Accomplishments Over the last five years of quota responsibility, increased revenues at an average annual compound growth rate of 45%. Achieved President's Club four times. Responsibilities included short and long term market and product plans, pricing policy, acquisition and development of new products, software product license negotiations, internal sales and technical training sales seminars, promotional material and advertising, industry trade shows, competitive analysis, new product specifications. Supervised application development and product enhancements. Responsible for all of company's data base products. Managed sales and technical personnel.

Date Left March 1980 Date Entered November 21, 2006

Contributor Michael Cohn

Date Joined July 1968 Job Description

Joined as an Applications Consultant in the Englewood Cliffs office of Tymshare working for Bob Schwartz, the Branch Tech Support Manager at the time. Promoted in 6 months to Branch Tech Support Manager in Washington, DC working with GG Myers to open the DC branch. Then became the Easter Regional Tech Support Manager and finally in 1971 moved to Cupertino to Tymshare headquarters to be the National Tech Support Manager. Assumed numerous roles in the ensuing 8 years prior to leaving in 1978.

Accomplishments Grew GPI (General Precision Instruments) from zero to 10K/month in 3 months. Worked on numerous applications using SBasic and SFortran to help generate clock-time. i.e. REVENUE!.


Sold 500 acoustic couplers to Leasco. Helped initaiate the NBS/NLM/Tymcom-3 project which was the genisis of what became Tymnet, a forerunner of the Internet.

Date Left December 1978 Statistics


Contributor Clint De Gabrielle


Manager Special System Sales VP Marketing Tymnet VP Marketing & Sales Tymnet

Accomplishments The Tymnet Network business and the Private Netwok business were grown significantly

Date Left July 1988 Statistics


Contributor David A. Gardner


Operating System Software Engineer Accomplishments

Inspired others to do good work and have fun. Date Left May 1980 Date Entered April 16, 2005

Contributor Gary Gere

Date Joined August 11, 1969 Job Description

I was responsible for all manner of software, including development tools, compilers, communications protocols and associated software, system monitoring software, etc. on a variety of hardware, including Tymshare's SDS 940, DEC


PDP-10, XDS Sigma-7, IBM 360, Varian 620, and Interdata systems. Accomplishments

I was a personal friend of Tom O'Rourke's son Kevin. One day Kevin let me usehis father's Model 33 KSR Teletype that used an acoustical telephone coupler modem for data communications. I became hooked that day and started down the long road of software engineering, which I still enjoy to this day. At the tender age of 13, I started working as a consultant to the marketing division of Tymshare on Distel Drive in Mountain View for $1.85 per hour. Eventually I moved to the technical division on East Meadow Drive in PaloAlto, then to Bubb Road in Cupertino, and finally to Valley Green Drive in Cupertino. I was referred to as "the high school student" even after I graduated and was hired full time at the princely sum of $3.25 per hour. Those were the days when computer engineering was a real science - the line printer paper was heavy, the computer systems were large and impressive with blinking lights that hypnotized, and you could keep your beer cool under the raised computer room floors. It was an honor and a privilege to work the many fine people that worked at Tymshare during those years. They had the patience to put up with a wild yet innocent youngster. It was a crazy ride, and I am forever grateful for their support. I worked on many varied projects, including: - Developed mainframe front end and minicomputer communications software that interfaced the mainframe with remote Bisync workstations. - Developed mainframe database and created common language that interfaced with different types of airline reservations systems. - Part of the team that developed Tymshare's advanced Basic compiler (see company details, people, pictures of tymshare staff, staff picture 1). - Developed various operating system real time reporting utilities. - Responsible for major extensions and company wide support of in-house systems programming language. - Authored operating system and support software reference documents.

Date Left February 24, 1978 Date Entered June 15, 2006

Contributor Steve Gimnicher

Date Joined June 1976


Job Description I began as a programmer working on the Western Twenty-Nine system, primarily programming in PL/I under VM on an IBM S/370, using Focus as the underlying database system. Later became part of the first group outside of Tymnet to develop communications applications that ran within Tymnet's Engines under ISIS. This family of applications were called MAGs, for Multi-Airline Gateways.

Accomplishments I advanced into first line, and later, second line management. I left Tymshare together with other Tymshare colleagues as a spin-out, becoming one of the Key Logic founders.

Date Left April 1985 Date Entered April 16, 2005

Contributor Alan Goldstein


I started as an application consultant in the NY office at 90 Park Avenue, and then split off to form the fledgling Manhattan Financial Branch. I spent a year in Cupertino as product manager for financial software products, then returned to NY, where I spent two years in sales.

Accomplishments I had just received an MBA in Finance from NYU, and I had an interest in financial applications. I became involved in a number of specialized areas such as equipment and real estate finance, and I and the sales rep with whom I was working broke off to form the Manhattan Financial Branch (we weren't quite large enough to rate 'district'). We were quite successful, and our little branch grew to where we were almost on par with the district we had spun off from. Some of our applications started to be adopted by other districts, and suddenly I found myself in a corporate marketing role in Cupertino supporting them. It started to occur to me that sales was the engine that drove business, and I wanted to try it. I returned to NY (where 105 of the Fortune 500 happened to then be headquartered) to sell, first in the commercial district, and later, in banking. I was part of a two person banking team. At the time, 7 of the 10 largest banks in the country were headquartered in Manhattan. I think we were doing business with 5 of them. We were heavy users of the TASC group, building decision support systems using data spun off from transactional systems into products such as Focus and Express.

Date Left December 1, 1976

Contributor Dick Greene

Date Joined August 10, 1967


Job Description Sales, sales manager, regional manager, Division Manager and VP.

Accomplishments to be added later

Statistics Stories (1)

Date Entered October 11, 2006

Contributor Ann Hardy


I held several different positions at Tymshare. All required developing technologies for entirely new markets.

Accomplishments I wrote the SDS 940 timesharing operating system, known then as the monitor, including the adaptation to Tymnet. Security was a particular challenge since many of our customers wrote applications in assembler, not a higher level language like today's Java which makes it much more difficult to attack a system. It was the company's most profitable product for many years. I was VP of the Integrated Systems Division which pioneered applications requiring the integration of the network and the servers such as on-line travel reservations and on-line banking.

Date Left April 1985 Statistics


Contributor Norman Hardy


I ran the group that did the operating systems for the several time sharing systems that Tymshare provided. I also ran the very small group that did the early Tymnet development. Subsequently I contributed to the development of a new capability operating system for Tymshare.

Accomplishments With Howard Steadman's help I helped Tymshare move in some novel hardware directions in order to better suport our timesharing and network worlds.

Date Left April 12, 1985 Statistics

Stories (1) Date Entered May 5, 2006




IT Corporate Histories Project Sector Facilitator. Statistics

Stories (1) , Documents (53) , References (1) Date Entered September 21, 2005

Contributor Mike Humphries


During my six years at Tymshare I had three different positions within the company. In January of 1972 I started as an Application Consultant in the Palo Alto Branch, then was promoted to Sales in the same office, then finally I became the Branch Manager of the Los Angeles Office. While in sales in the Palo Alto office my territory included Stanford Research Park and most of the territory between San Antonio Road and hiway 92. It covered a lot of the early Silicon Valley companies such as Varian, Watkins Johnson, Xerox PARC, Diablo Systems, Stanford Research Institute, Syntex, Alza and others. I first encountered Tymshare as a customer-I was working on a market share reporting system in the Market Research and Planning Group at my first job out of college-Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View, CA, another Silicon Valley pioneer company. I liked the Tymshare services and people so much I asked them how I could join them. And I did.

Accomplishments As a salesperson, most of my time was spent making sales happen. In my case, new accounts were my main focus, and I was able to win a number of awards for most new account business within the western US, and even the US a couple of times. It turns out that it would have been very useful if I had also spent more time on growing existing account business, but the 'glamor' of new accounts eclipsed existing business! I originated the very first Tymshare sales presentation specifically for sales to use when talking to prospects and customers, using homemade 35mm slides since at the time there was no PowerPoint (and no PCs!) While an AC I wrote a pseudo-operating system shell that mimiced Tymshare's Exec, but returned very different responses. I had given a copy to Clayton Joyce (another AC)who installed it as a prank on one of the Lockheed systems. The Lockheed account manager panicked instead of seeing it for a joke, and the ensuing support calls to our corporate support (Sal Spinelli) started a haf day of pure havoc! One of my stories covers this episode.


Also as far as I know I originated outsourced system design and programming to moonlighting programmers to make a sale to the USPS, since we had no such ability in-house at the time, and the only alternative had been to coerce Application Consultants to do the work in between other assignments. It was the first time I had seen it done, but it was effective. This seemed terribly innovative at the time-now of course half of the Silicon Valley programing population is employed this way. My Los Angeles office won the 'new business' award for being tops two years in arow in new account business volume, a component of our overall sales success that was in addition to growing existing account business. Being a former customer of Tymshare made it easy to be an enthusiastic salesman! I wish that every job I have had since could have been after such a happy 'try and buy' experience!


Stories (9) , Documents (1) , Discussion Posts (1) Date Entered April 16, 2005

Contributor Don Johnson


Sr. Mgr. International Tech Support (3rd/4th level)

Accomplishments Additional support of numerous other MCI/Worldcom networks.

Date Left January 2004 Statistics


Contributor Carl Jones


I worked for Ann Hardy for 10 years in the Integrated Systems Division (under Laszlo Rakoczi). I held a number of positions, from programmer through Director, Systems Development.

Accomplishments Key projects included: 1. Western29 (travel agency automation) which evolved into Tymshare's Travel Systems Division. Other components included the MATS (multi-airline travel


system) gateway to 12 airline reservation systems, and FIRST (Fully Integrated Reservation System for Travel). 2. Tymshare's initial entry into the home and personal services marketplace, with a Home Banking pilot. 3. Efforts to take GNOSIS (Great New Operating System In the Sky) from a research project into a useable product.


Date Entered April 16, 2005 Contributor Mark Kahrs

Date Joined 1967 Job Description

Systems programmer and documentation writer for system call manual. Accomplishments

Found bugs, wrote utilities, had fun, learned a lot. Date Left August 1973 Statistics

Documents (1) Date Entered March 18, 2009

Contributor Rich Lynn


Technology Services & Data Communications Support Manager 1/82-12/83 Accomplishments

Sales Rep 3/79-12/82 Software Support Manager 10/77-2/79 Senior Applications Consultant 3/73-9/77

Date Left December 1983 Date Entered April 16, 2005

Contributor Gary Myers


Salesman, Sales manager, District Manager, Mgr. Marketing Staff, Director S/370 Marketing, VP Sales-Western Region Mgr., VP and GM-Industry Services Div.




Contributor Paul Olson

Date Joined October 15, 1979 Job Description

During my tenure at Tymshare from 1979 to 1983 and at McDonnell Douglas Electronic Data Interchange Systems Company from 1985 to 1987, I held positions as application consultant, sales rep, branch unit manager (Minneapolis), and strategic marketing manager.

Accomplishments In 1981, EDI*Net was conceived, created and launched by pulling together a number of people and resources across Tymshare and Tymnet.

Date Left October 1, 1987 Statistics


Contributor David Redick

Date Joined April 22, 1970 Job Description

Sales in Distel office, run by John Gerakian. Promoted to Equipment Marketing Mgr, Data Terminals, at PA hdqrts and worked for Braniff.

Accomplishments It should be noted that Tymshare was an early (if unwitting then) creator of the Internet. We connected Universities to ARPAnet via Tymnet! Gore is a fake, Tom and the Tym gang really did some of it!! oddly, my neighbor in Portola Valley worked for Stanford Research Inst on the ARPAnet project !!

Date Left October 4, 1974 Date Entered November 9, 2007

Contributor Syd Reid


Operator, Programmer Accomplishments

Help keep machines running Date Left November 1976 Statistics

Documents (8)


Date Entered November 13, 2006 Contributor Lynn Sanden

Date Joined February 1969 Job Description Accomplishments

Manager of Personnel and Records Date Left August 1986 Date Entered April 16, 2005

Contributor Stan Scardino


1974-76 - I joined as a Marketing Representative ('70's euphamism for SALES) in the Silicon Valley District, reporting to Dick Heermance. Late 1976 - I was recruited to join a new application product initiative in Manufacturing for Shop Floor Control, as Manager, Manufacturing Systems reporting to Bill Mulert. 1978-80 - Manager Accounting Profession Marketing, reporting to Otis Brinkley. Accounting products were primarily the Fastax/Dynatax tax preperation services, but also hosted the AICPA Library. 1981-82 - Manager, Premier Product Marketing reporting to Terry Russey. "Premier Products" were the "bread & butter" products: IBI's Focus; MDS Express & MAGNUM, Tymshare's relational data base product that resided on the Digital Equipment PDP 10's.



Contributor George Snively

Date Joined July 1965 Job Description

I served as a consultant to Tom O'Rourke to help him prepare financial projections for Tymshare and introduced him to bankers who could help him arrange financing to buy equipment to get the company started.

Date Left August 1965



Date Entered July 29, 2006 Contributor Jim Stein


Senior Tech Support Engineer. Responsible for testing new hardware & software. Participated in Engineering team during development, testing, and launch of new products. Responsible for providing support to the field techs and customer service reps in solving customer problems and infrastructure problems. Responsible for quality monitoring of dial-up access modem banks (async & sync). Providing technical documentation to the field techs and customer service reps. Travel to various sites to install new equipment (domestic & international). Liaison to manufacturing on field quality problems.

Accomplishments Travelled to install the first Tymnet node in the Philipines (1978). Installed the first node pair in Taipei, Taiwan (1980). Member of the Varian V77 launch team. Member of CXL development/launch team. Participated in the introduction of the Tymnet Engine to field use. Particpated in the testing and launch of Voice Response equipment to the field. Member of sparc supervisor development/launch team. Manager of the tech support group hardware section for 3 years.



Contributor Edward Syrett


I was recruited by Carl Jones as a guinea pig for the then-secret GNOSIS project. Along with a few other experienced application developers, I was put thru a brief (I think it was 3 weeks) training course and then given some small projects to do in PL/I under GNOSIS. The aim was to test whether GNOSIS was too far-out to be put to practical use by experienced programmers with no prior exposure to object-oriented concepts.

Accomplishments I was so blown away by the fundamental simplicity and radical insights of GNOSIS that I became something of an evangelist for it, but as I'd just taken a financial bath on my own IBM-PC software application release, I was in no position to join the Key Logic spin-off, so wound up working in Fremont from 1985 thru 1987 in that part of McDonnell Douglas Payment Systems Company which had originated as WSBA (Western States Bankcard Association) and been acquired by Tymshare. There, I worked on the IBM


mainframe monitor ("Converse") which nowadays would be termed the server for PSC's electronic draft capture system; this was basically a Tymnet application.

Date Left March 31, 1985 Statistics

Stories (2) Date Entered November 20, 2006

Contributor LaRoy Tymes


Created Tymnet, wrote all software for first network, managed group to extend network.

Accomplishments Designed and microcoded Tymnet Engine, wrote many papers, designed interfaces to many host computers.

Date Left February 1981 Statistics


Contributor Ronald Vivier


Technical Support Specialist Accomplishments

Technical support, security, network management, network operations. Date Left February 2004 Date Entered April 16, 2005

Timeline

1964

Milestones

Tymshare founded in 1964 (1964) Dave Schmidt and Tom O'Rourke decided to leave GE to start a company that offered time-sharing services. Related References


Tom O'Rourke Oral History Dave Schmidt Oral History Related Stories A Little History from Clint D. Good Loan Isn't It!! Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970


Demo of time-sharing at the Cow Palace (October 1964 ca.) The time-sharing service was demo'ed at an engineering convention at the Cow Palace in the fall of 1964 using a teletype connected via a phone line to the time-sharing system running on a GE computer at Dartmouth. Vern Van Vlear, a GE field engineer who became the first Tymshare employee, worked with Dave and Tom on the demo. Related References Dave Schmidt Oral History

1965

Milestones

GE backed out (October 1965 ca.) GE backed out of their agreement to lease a computer to Tymshare because they would be competing with GE in the time-sharing business. Related References Tom O'Rourke Oral History Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 SDS selected as an alternative to GE (1965) The SDS940 from Scientific Data Systems was selected as an alternative to the GE computer. The Electrical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley was modifying the SDS940 operating system to make it into a time-sharing system. Related References Tom O'Rourke Oral History Dave Schmidt Oral History Related Stories Notes from Norm Hardy's website Joint project to develop the operating system (1965) Tymshare, Comshare, Scientific Data Systems and UC Berkeley entered into a joint project to produce a commercially-viable, disk-based version of the operating system being developed at UCB. Related References Recollections of the beginning of the time-sharing industry


Tom O'Rourke Oral History Dave Schmidt Oral History

Financial Data

Financing obtained from B of A (1965) Financing was obtained from Bank of America through George Quist who later became a founder of Hambrecht and Quist. B of A got 50% ownership in the company. Related References Tom O'Rourke Oral History

Technology

940 used tape for swapping device (1965) The SDS940 at U.C. Berkeley was used for development and testing. IT used magnetic tape as a swapping device and supported just one user. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy Development of acoustic coupler (1965) The first commercial acoustic coupler was designed by Anderson/Jacobson for Tymshare. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy

1966

Milestones

Tymshare was incorporated (1966) Tymshare was incorporated. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy By-laws of Tymshare, Inc. A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Opened data center (1966) Data center opened on East Meadow Drive with the first SDS940 when the first disk arrived. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Tymshare's first office on Distel Drive (1966) The offices first occupied by Tymshare on Distel Drive in Los Altos served in many capacities before Tymshare moved on.


Related Stories Offices Distel Drive-Suitable for the Tymshare Mission Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970


First customers came online (1966) The first customers came online in October 1966. Access to the machine was direct dial. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970

People

Ann Hardy joined Tymshare (1966) Ann Hardy joined Tymshare in February to develop the "monitor" while Verne Van Vlear worked on the "Exec". In today's language, the Monitor is the kernel (manages the hardware) and the Exec is the shell. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy

Technology

Vermont drum arrived (1966) September: A Vermont drum arrived for the swapping device. The initial design required a complete revolution between writing of every page. Related Stories Vermont drums Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy Connecting via phone lines (1966) It was a long distance, analog call for many customers, which was very noisy. Customers had a choice of data sets or acoustic couplers at their end. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet


First disk held 16 MB (1966) The first disk, from Data Products, held 16 MB. There were 8 platters, each several feet in diameter. This was upgraded to 64 MB before the first customers came on line. Related References Hardy, Norm - Website on the History of Tymshare Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970

1967

Milestones

Gross revenue topped $ 1 million (December 31, 1967) Gross revenue for 1967 topped one million dollars, up from one hundred thousand for 1966. This is possibly 3 times that of the nearest timesharing competitor. Related Documents What's New at Tymshare? January 1968 A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Expansion to the East Coast with opening of NJ office (1967) The Eastern Division of Tymshare was established with the opening of an office in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey and hiring of experienced marketing and technical services personnel from Western Union. Related Documents What's New at Tymshare? November 1967 What's New at Tymshare? December 1967 A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970


Tymshare selected by Harvard (1967) June: The Tymshare operating system was selected by Harvard University as the only OS for the 940 that could pass their acceptance tests. They had spent more than 5 months working with other vendors without success. Tymshare's system passed in 2 days. The SDS salesman was ecstatic. He was afraid he'd never make the sale. Related Stories OS sale to Harvard Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy [Memo from Dave Schmidt recognizing the 940 Programming Staff, 1967]

People

Early in 1967 there were 37 employees (February 1967) Everyone in the company (37 employees) was listed on an early


organization chart, including consultants. Related Documents Corporate Organization [charts] 1967 A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Norm Hardy joined the company (1967) Norm Hardy was an early employee of Tymshare. Norm and LaRoy Tymes were the architects of TYMNET. Related Documents Tymes of Tymshare Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy Tymshare attracts sales employees from IBM (1967) Several sales employees joined Tymshare from IBM including Ron Braniff from the San Jose office and Dick Greene and Gary Myers from IBM's Finance and Insurance office in San Francisco Related Stories From Batman and Robin through the early years

Technology

FDMX mini-nodes (1967) Tried frequency division multiples (FDMX) mini-nodes from the phone company. They were very noisy and did not work. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy

1968

Milestones

Tymshare services expanded (1968) Tymshare expanded services nationally with General Foods - Maxwell House becoming the first customer on the East Coast. Related Stories Go East Young Man Related Documents What's New at Tymshare? January 1968 Corporate Organization [charts] 1968 [Draft of information given to new hires]

Financial Data

Tymshare revenues - 1968 (1968) In 1968, gross revenues for Tymshare reached $ 2.5 million.


Related Documents [Draft of information given to new hires] A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970


Tymshare had 5% of Market (1968) According to a 02/17/1969 New York Times article, in 1968 Tymshare had 5% of the time-sharing market, which had a total value of $ 70 million. Related Documents Computer Time Sharing Grows Up Tymshare sales reps carry first portable terminals (1968 ca.) Early prospects were "blown away" when the Tymshare sales reps showed up with their suitcases containing a KSR model teletype and a crude accoustic coupler that they would hook up to the SDS 940's back at the Tymshare office. Related Stories From Batman and Robin through the early years Tymshare gains a presence in Washington, DC market (1968 ca.) Tymshare entered the market in Washington, DC as the 33rd "service bureau" serving the National Institutes of Health (NIH). By 1971 they were the 3rd largest vendor of timesharing services in DC. Related Stories Go East Young Man

People

LaRoy Tymes joined Tymshare (March 1968) LaRoy Tymes joined Tymshare and with Norm Hardy began the development of Tymnet. Related Documents Tymes of Tymshare Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Rapid Expansion leads to reorganization (November 1968) Dramatic growth in both revenue and People during 1968 leads to reorganization, particularly in the Corporate and Technical Divisions. Related Documents [Memo from Dave Schmidt about reorganization, 1968]

Technology


SPC-12 code written by LaRoy Tymes (1968) All the code in the first deployed SPC-12 was written by LaRoy Tymes. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Related Stories LaRoy Tymes' recollection of Tymnet Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy First Tymnet node (1968) The first Tymnet node machine was the SPC-12. Later Tymnet went to Varian, then Interdata, then the Tymnet Engine. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 First Tymnet nodes - TDMX (1968) The first Tymnet nodes used time division multiplex (TDMX). Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet SPC-12 company president (1968) Larry Goshorn was president of the company that made the SCP-12. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy

1969

Company Culture

Tymshare Culture was important to success (1969) Tymshare's culture of family and innovation, along with Tom O'Rourke's charisma and charm were key to Tymshare's early success in attracting highly skilled and motivated employees. Related Stories Why Tymshare was a Success! From Batman and Robin through the early years

Financial Data

1969 Revenues (1969) Revenues: $ 6,371,895; Net Income <$ 640,022 > Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Related Documents


A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970


Application Packages (1969) Tymshare began developing application packages to expand services to business, commercial and financial customers. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970

People

Dave Schmidt left Tymshare (1969) Dave Schmidt left Tymshare to form MASCOR. Related References Dave Schmidt Oral History Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970

Technology

Dropped DTE on the 940 (1969) Dropped the DTE on the 940, but next release still had fixed circuits. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy Tymnet upgraded to Varian machines (1969) Upgraded Tymnet I to Varian machines. Used fixed circuits (assembled in) and DTE system. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Remote echoing added for teletype (1969) Remote echoing was added after the software statistical multiplexing was deployed because the variable echo delays resulted in operator entry errors. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet LaRoy Tymes Oral History

1970

Milestones

Tymshare achieves profitability (1970) Tymshare achieves profitability in 1970.


Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Tymshare IPO, 1970 (September 1970) Tymshare's Initial Public Offering (IPO) was September 25, 1970: 600,000 shares at $ 6.00 per share. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970


Acquired Dial Data. (1970) The acquisition of Dial Data, a Boston timesharing company, expand the number of XDS940's by 5 and brought some additional staff to the research and development area. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Related Stories Go East Young Man Related Documents [Draft of information given to new hires] Joint venture in France (1970) Joint venture with Cegos-Informatique & Credit Lyonnaise. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 40% interest in Tymshare Canada (1970) 40% interest in Tymshare Canada. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Acquired CCC, Seattle (1970) Acquired CCC, Seattle, with Bill Weiher. They used PDP-10's. Richard P. Gruen also came from CCC to Tymshare at that time. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970

Financial Data

1970 Revenues (1970) Revenues: $ 10,233,133; Net Income: $ 98,709. Related References


Tymshare Annual Report 1970

Human Resources

Stock option plan for employees (1970) Stock option plan for employees introduced. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970


Pursuit of commercial customers (1970) The engineering and scientific sectors of the economy -- Tymshare's primary customer base -- declined. Tymshare began pursuing commercial customers with new applications. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970

People

Sassenfeld came. (1970 ca.) Sassenfeld came. Lasted only about six months. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy Ray Wakeman took over Tech Division (1970) Ray Wakeman took over management of Tech Division. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy More Growth and change (October 1970) As Tymshare continues to grow, more high level People are hired. Reorganization is done to manage the growth and to align corporate structure with corporate objectives. Related Documents [Memo from T.J. O'Rourke about reorganization, 1970]

Technology

Custom terminals developed (1970) Custom terminals developed for specialized uses and applications along with complementary development of specialized software brought Tymshare out of the narrow scientific and engineering user base and into the mainstream of business and commerce. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970


Software available to customers (1970) Software available to customers included: RETRIEVE database management and report production language; EASYPLOT software to produce graphs and charts on standard digital plotters; SUPER BASIC; SUPER FORTRAN; EDITOR; general business management software (BALSHEET, CASHFLOW, COSTSAVE, DEPREC). Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Hardware capabilities (1970) Hardware capabilities: Direct access memory units each with the capacity for 200 million characters at the Tymshare National Computer Center in Cupertino; TYMSAT; MARK V acoustic coupler. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1970

1971

Milestones

Tymnet booted in its complete form (November 1971) LaRoy Tymes booted the Tymnet network in its complete form in November of 1971. It ran without a single system crash or reboot until March of 2003, when it was shut down. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Related Stories LaRoy Tymes' recollection of Tymnet


Acquired Division of Graphic Control Corp. (May 1971) May 1971: Acquired the Computer Systems Division of Graphic Control Corporation Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971 Related Stories Recollections - Tymshare acquires CSD Related Documents [Draft of information given to new hires]

Company Culture

First Managers Offsite (1971) Held first Corporate Off-site Managers Meeting. Related References


Tymshare Annual Report 1971

Financial Data

1971 Revenues (1971) Tymshare revenue in 1971: $ 12,519,859; Net Income: $ 365,275 Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971 Increase in Bank line of credit (1971) In December of 1971, the bank line of credit for short-term borrowing was increased from $ 1,000,000 to $ 1,500,000 through December 31, 1972 at 1.5% above the bank's prime interest rate. Accounts receivable and inventory were pledged as security under the loan agreement. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971


Expansion into commercial marketplace (1971) Despite a flat economy, Tymshare achieved profits and higher revenues over the previous year due to strong expansion into the commercial applications marketplace. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971 Uses of Tymshare by its customers (1971) Tymshare customers used the services for many business purposes including: * Marketing: pricing analysis, revenue forecasting, sales analysis, sales order entry; * Advanced Technology : profit and loss management of projects, cost estimating, budget forecasting, modeling and simulation, design analysis, data reduction and plotting; * Accounting: accounts receivable analysis, merger and acquisition analysis, budget forecasting, cash flow analysis and control, profit and loss analysis, cost analysis * Manufacturing: cost analysis and control, production scheduling, parts control and ordering, price estimating, numerical control for machine tools * Distribution: inventory analysis and control, product reordering control, cost and price analysis, delivery scheduling * Financial: protfolio analysis, cash flow analysis and control, return on invetsment analysis, revenue forecasting, profit and loss analysis, comparison of actual-to-budgeted performance. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971


Tymnet name proposed by Virgil Swearingen (1971) Virgil Swearingen proposed the name "Tymnet" for the network in a marketing meeting. It was not well liked but was the best suggestion received. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet


Tymshare Services used at Fairchild (1971) Mike Humphries used Tymshare's service to create Monthly Market Share reports at Fairchild Semiconductor. When the IT folks came to him to take over the creation of the reports, Mike left and joined Tymshare. Related Stories Why did anyone use timeshared computers?

Technology

22 computers, 1500 customers (1971) 22 computer systems, interconnected by 67 communication processors with more than 40K miles of dedicated communications line to 52 major metropolitan areas across the US serving 1500 customer organizations in December 1971 (up from 750 in December 1970). Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971 Related Documents [Draft of information given to new hires] TYMNET completed (November 1971) November 1971: finished linking data communication network and three computer centers into a fully-integrated system, TYMNET. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971 Research and Development Highlights (1971) Research and Development Highlights for 1971: - Completion of TYMNET digital data transmission network; - Development of interface equipment and software, permitting computer systems provided by several different manufacturers to be connected to TYMNET; - Design and development of integrated circuit MOS computer memories; - Development of the Mark XV dataset as an economical replacement for the standard Bell 103 datasets which the company used in large quantities;-Completion of the selector channel using integrated circuit Technology which allows large disk storage drive to be attached to the company's present computers; - Development of a family of powerful business application languages, including IML (Information Management Library) for sophisticated file


maintenance and report generation, TYMTAB for financial modeling, RETRIEVE for data management and STATPAK for statistical analysis of data; - Development of a pseudo-machine language based on the architecture of computers enabling programs written in this language to be easily converted for use on computer systems having similar architecture but made by different manufacturers. Related References Tymshare Annual Report 1971

1972


Acquired Computer Complex TS ops (1972) Acquired Computer Complex, Inc. time-sharing operations. Dan Flippo came to Tymshare through this acquisition. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972

Financial Data

1972 Revenues (1972) 1972 Revenues: $ 15,774,526; Net Income $ 936,414. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Increase in line of credit (1972) In December, 1972, increased bank line of credit for short-term borrowings from $ 1,500,000 to $ 2,000,000 through March 31, 1974 at 1% above bank prime interest rate. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972

Human Resources

Affirmative action programs initiated (1972) Tymshare began to implement affirmative action hiring programs under the direction of Lynn Sanden. Related References Lynn Sanden Oral History


First customer to use network (1972) National Library of Medicine became the first customer to use the network -


- to provide access to their poison antidote database -- with their own software and hardware. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet LaRoy Tymes Oral History Related Documents [Draft of information given to new hires] A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Extension of TYMNET to Europe (1972) TYMNET was extended to Europe in 1972. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Contract programmers assist users (1972) Contract programming teams assist users in developing software to handle specific application problems. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Business Applications offered (1972) Business service applications offered in interactive, remote batch or remote job entry modes. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Carrying Teletypes to Customer Offices (March 1972) The terminal device used by most Tymshare customers was a teletype. Salesmen had to carry these very heavy devices into customers' office for demonstrations until lighter devices came along. Related Stories Not exactly portable-Teletypes From Batman and Robin through the early years

People

1972 Officers (1972) Officers of the Company in 1972: Ronald W. Braniff, VP, GM, Marketing Division; Edward J. Field, VP, Finance; Alden R. Heintz, VP, Corporate Development; Warren F. Prince, VP, GM, Data Services Division; Raymond E. Wakeman, VP, GM, Technical Research & Development Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Six new offices open around the country (1972 ca.)


As growth continues, new branch offices are opened in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Manhattan, Colton (CA) and a District office is opened in New York City specifically to market to the Bell Telephone industry. Related Documents What's News? October 1972

Technology

Purchased XDS 940 computers from Xerox (1972) December 1972: Purchased 23 XDS 940 computers from Xerox Data Systems and returned all Sigma 7 computer systems for a total consideration of $ 5,979,300 including sales tax, to significantly reduce computer costs. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 PDP-10 computers added (1972) PDP-10 computers from Digital Equipment Corporation added to TYMNET. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Computers from 6 manufacturers linked (1972) Twelve different models of machines made by six different manufacturers (Xerox, Varian Data Machines, DEC, IBM, Control Data and Burroughs)were linked to the Tymshare network. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Release of Tymnet II (1972) Release of Tymnet II with a supervisor on Varian hardware. Later switched to Interdata machines for more power and flexibility from the company. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy Nasty bug in the New Orleans node (1972) A particularly nasty bug struck the New Orleans node. Tech staff in Cupertino mailed a replacement core bank to New Orleans in a shoe box which fixed the problem. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Toilet paper solves pesky garbled data problem (1972) Customers using GTE phone service complained of garbled data at 10, 15 and 30 CPS (characters per second). Stuffing toilet paper into the handsets in the acoustic couplers to isolate the transmit and receive data solved the


problem. Related Stories Tymshare Remote Data Access

1973

Milestones

Tom O'Rourke - ADAPSO president (1973) Tom O'Rourke elected President of Association of Data Processing Organizations, ADAPSO. Related Documents 25 Years, ADAPSO Newsletter pg3


Acquired Valley Computer (1973) Acquired Valley Computer to provide parts for maintenance operations and also for its growing business in computer peripheral refurbishments. Operated as the Valcomp Division of Tymshare. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973

Company Culture

Marketing Reps Decide to be Called Sales Reps (April 1973) Tymshare originally used the term "Marketing Representives" based on the practice established by IBM. When business cards were reprinted due to an office move, Branch Manager Phil Chin, proud of being a salesman, decided to change the title to "Sales Representative". Related Stories Marketing Representative or Salesman? First meeting of Old Tymers' Club (1973) December 1973: Tom O'Rourke organized a celebratory lunch for everyone who had been with the company for five or more years. This evolved into the Old Tymers' Club which met annually for many years and became a very large event which included "significant others". Related Stories The OldTymer's Club

Financial Data

1973 Revenues (1973) Revenues for 1973: $ 24,017,356; Net Income: $ 1,951,774.


Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Debt reduction (1973) Debt reduction of $ 1.3 million with growing cash reserves. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973

Human Resources

Personnel increased 40% (1973) Personnel increased 40% from 379 in 1972 to 530 in 1973. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Related Documents Corporate Organization [charts] 1973


Five Metropolitan areas added (1973) Five Metropolitan areas, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Phoenix, Oklahoma City and St. Petersburg, added to the 69 cities previously served. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 TYMNET in Brussels and Paris (1973) TYMNET reached the Brussels market as well as Paris through the CEGOS-Tymshare affiliate. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Office Expansion (1973) Expanded the network of national marketing offices. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973


Computers inspire innovation (1973) Fascination with computers and a desire to understand how they work to solve customers problems lead to inventive ways to trick the computer. Related Stories Early pranks on the computer


Tymshare receives zero defects award from Lockheed (February 1973) As a result of going 28 months without an equipment failure, Lockheed presents Tymshare with its prestigious "Zero Defects" award. This marked the first time a computer services supplier had been so honored by Lockheed. Related Documents What's News? May 1973

Technology

Installed IBM 370/158 (1973) Installed and began offering services on IBM 370/158. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Added 5 additional computers (1973) Five additional computer systems, including the IBM 370/158, put into revenue-producing operation. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Software Development - 1973 (1973) Software Development during 1973: - Expanded and supplemented the TS Business Information and Decision Systems (BIDS)package. - Developed specialized portfolio management packages and survey analysis programs to new information and tools for commercial and industrial site selection, real estate investment analysis and microwave design. - Libraries of compatible programs for corporate and institutional finance management and control made available. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 IML and DB Management development (1973) Focus of technical development on building the Information Management Library (IML), total database management capability and readying new database systems for introduction in 1974. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Tymshare first to perform node code loads via the network. (1973 ca.) In the early 1970's, updating of the code at remote network nodes was done via paper tape (mailed to the site). Bill Scheible and Dan Lasater


developed a process to load the code to the node via the network. This was an industry first! Related Stories Tymshare Remote Data Access

1974

Milestones

Expansion in 1974 (1974) Over 1050 full-time employees; computing facilities in 19 locations in the US in addition to overseas operations; over 4000 customer organizations. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974


Merger with UDC (1974) Merged with UDC (United Data Centers), which had 15 commercial data centers, primarily in the eastern US and in Montreal, Canada. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Bernard Goldstein Oral History Related Stories Culture Shock That pesky PC forces a change in strategy Herding cats and back to the future Joint venture with Unilever, Ltd. (1974) Joint venture with Unilever, Ltd., to provide Tymshare services in the UK and Republic of Ireland. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Merger with Tronics, Inc. (1974) Merged with Tronics, Inc., Canada Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974

Financial Data

1974 Revenues (1974) 1974 Revenues: $ 46.5 million; Net Income $ 3.3 million. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974



New Market for Valcomp (1974) Valcomp moved into a new market segment - the refurbishment of equipment used in flight simulators for airline pilot training. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Service to Switzerland (1974) In late 1974, service was extended to Switzerland. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974

People

Addition of three VP's (1974) Addition of three vice presidents: Bernard Goldstein and Al Eisenstat from UDC and Laszlo Rakoczi as General Manager of the Technical Division. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974

Technology

TYMCOM 370 - first full year (1974) First full year of TYMCOM 370 service with increasing inroads into the IBM compatible marketplace. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Valley Forge computer center (1974) New computer center opened in Valley Forge, PA. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 New DB Mgmt and IA systems (1974) New database management and information analysis systems introduced to enable managers to create, maintain, and interact online with a computerized central file containing business data from headquarters offices, sales outlets and distribution facilities. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 New software offerings - 1974 (1974) New software product offerings for manufacturing management - remote access control of inventories, automatic bill of materials preparation (BOM) and material requirements planning (MRP).


Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Expanded line of data terminals (1974) Tymshare line of data terminals expanded during the year to include a new portable, general purpose terminal and a terminal with dual cassette tape capability. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Increased computer capacity - 1974 (1974) Online computer systems increased from 31 to 37 with the installation of two additional SDS940 computers and four PDP-10 computers. Capacity of already installed systems increased by the addition of larger computer memories and upgrading of disk and magnetic tape storage sub-systems. Related References Tymshare Annual Report, 1974

1975

Milestones

Telenet files complaint with FCC (1975) Telenet brought a complaint against Tymshare with the FCC requesting regulation of TYMNET. Tymshare files a response to FCC on why TYMNET should not be regulated. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975


Acquired Quelex Data Systems (1975) Acquired Quelex Data Systems - combined with Valcomp Division to create the major independent organization providing depot-level support services for computer and other digital equipment installations. Related References Tymshare 1975 SEC form 10K Leasco Response, Inc. acquisition (1975) Acquired US time-sharing operations of Leasco Response, Inc. Related References Tymshare 1975 SEC form 10K Acquired Allen Babcock (1975) Acquired Allen Babcock for the IBM System 360 customer base. Their machines had 3MB of non-IBM core for memory.


Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy Tymshare acquires Quelex (December 24, 1975) Tymshare acquires Quelex Data Systems, Inc., and combines it with the Valcomp Division to create the major independent operation devoted to refurbishment and parts supply for electronic data processing equipment. Related Documents It's About Tym - February 1976

Company Culture

Offsite Sales Meeting Goes Wild West (May 1975) At an offsite sales meeting in Boulder Creek, CA, a Tymshare salesman resolved a potential dispute with a group of locals in a bar by pulling out a pistol and shooting it into the ground. Related Stories Tymshare Suits meet Santa Cruz Mountain Lumberjacks

Financial Data

1975 Revenues (1975) 1975 Revenues: $ 56,422,669; Net Income: $ 4,597,258. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975

Human Resources

1975 Employees - 1250 (1975) Total employees, 1250; 350 Sales and Customer Support personnel in 60 sales offices; 100 software system design engineers, systems analysts and engineers. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975


CEGOS-Tymshare in Europe (1975) CEGOS-Tymshare has operations in Paris, Brussels and Lausanne with communications facilities in The Hague; also licensed by Tymshare to market in Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975 Began pursuing computer maint. business (1975) Began pursuing additional business opportunities in the provision of


computer maintenance services for outside organizations utilizing third-party maintenance contracts. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975 TASC operations expanded (1975) Tymshare Applications and Systems Consultants (TASC) operation expanded. TASC personnel develop Specialized applications software under contract for TS customers for implementation of TS computing and network systems Related References Tymshare 1975 SEC form 10K

People

Pictures of Tymshare staff (1975) Pictures of various Tymshare staff were taken for brochures and annual reports. Can you identify any of these faces? Please add a comment to any of the pictures if you can!! Related Documents Staff Picture 1 of 11 [Tymshare employees on the Western29 project] - photo Staff Picture 3 of 11 Staff Picture 4 of 11 [Bob Wallace, Ken BeDell, Sal Spinale and others] - photo Staff Picture 6 of 11 [Bob Wallace, Mike Thoma and Mike Clair] - photo [Mike Thoma, Steve Smith and others] - photo [Lynn Sanden and Al Eisenstat] - photo Staff Picture 10 of 11 Staff Picture 11 of 11

Technology

Major TYMNET enhancement (1975) Major two-year enhancement of TYMNET completed; local call connections in 102 cities and approximately 60K miles of leased private telephone lines; extended to Europe through the use of two transatlantic cables connected to the French PTT Telephone Utilities Network and the UK GPO. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975 New Computers - 1975 (1975) Addition of new IBM 370/158 and DEC PDP-10 systems brought total number of systems online in major US remote-access centers to 39. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975


UPS installations in CA and PA (1975) Installation of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems, which assured smooth power supplies to computers despite fluctuations in the public power supply, was completed at both major online computer centers in Cupertino, CA and Valley Forge, PA. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975 New software offerings, 1975 (1975) New products offered via TYMNET: MAGNUM, first commercially available relational data base management system; SURVEY, online market research service; TYMQUOTE, time-sharing data base containing historical and current data on more than 23,000 securities. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975 New portable cassette unit (1975) Introduced new portable stand-alone cassette unit that was compatible with currently-installed user terminals. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975

1976

Milestones

Tymnet, Inc. formed and gets FCC approval (1976) December 12, 1976: Newly-formed wholly-owned subsidiary Tymnet, Inc. was granted approval from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to operate a "value-added" communications network as an interstate common carrier. Tymnet, Inc. will operate as a seperate subsidiary company with its own management, operations and technical personnel, separate marketing force and independent business records in accord with FCC regulations. Related Stories More About Tymshare Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976


Acquired Medical Data Systems, Inc. (February 1976) February 1975: Acquired Medical Data Systems, Inc. (financial and administrative data processing services to the health care industry). Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976


Acquired Western Twenty Nine, Inc. (June 1976) June 29, 1976: Acquired Western Twenty Nine, Inc. (remote computer services for the travel industry). Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 Acquired Unitax, Inc. (September 1976) September 1975: Acquired Unitax, Inc. (computerized tax processing services complementary to Tymshare Dynatax product). Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 Merged with Simplified Data Processing (October 1976) October 7, 1976: Merged with Simplified Data Processing, Inc. (online Telefuel service for fuel oil distributors, compatible extension of Tymshare's Computafuel batch data processing service). Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 Foreign expansion (1976) Foreign Interests: -- Increased equity ownership in CEGOS-Tymshare from 20% to 45% -- Formed a jointly-owned corporation (Taylorix-Tymshare GmgH) with Taylorix, a West German data processing company, to provide computer services in West Germany and West Berlin. -- Formed a jointly-owned corporation with Marubeni Corporation, Japan's third largest general trading company, to provide computer services in Japan. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 MICROTYM purchased by Zytron (February 1976 ca.) The business and products associated with Tymshare's MICROTYM systems, designed for storage and retrieval of information contained in microfilm files, are sold to Zytron Data Systems of Menlo Park, CA. Related Documents It's About Tym - February 1976

Company Culture

Paris office objected to US control of the network (1976) The Paris office objected to the idea that the European network would be managed from the states. The problem was resolved by rewriting manuals to describe the operation differently. Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet


LaRoy Tymes Oral History BPS key to organizational development (1976) Tymshare Basic Product School set the tone for most Peoples experience at Tymshare in the field organizations. It also promoted the development of ties between the field and corporate. Related Stories Basic Product School People are the hard part of integrating acquisitions (1976) Cultural differences between UDC and Tymshare prove to be the biggest challenge in integrating the independent data centers of UDC into Tymshare's newly formed Industry Services Division. Related Stories Herding cats and back to the future Tymshare celebrates its 10th Anniversary (January 1976) Tymshare celebrates its 10th Anniversary with four parties being held for employees and guests in W. Springfield, Mass.; Denver, Colo.; Madison, Wisc.; and Palo Alto, Calif. in mid-January. Related Documents It's About Tym - February 1976

Financial Data

1976 Revenues (1976) Revenues for 1976: $ 81.8 million; Net Income: $ 6.7 million. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976

Human Resources

1500 employees (1976) 1976 - 1500 Tymshare employees Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976


JPL contract for TCM service (1976) Awarded contract by Jet Propulsion Laboratories (JPL) for TS Computer Maintenance (TCM) service support for six computer systems used by the NASA Deep Space network. TCM support now rendered for nearly 70 computers for 20 organizations. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976


Valcomp Div. agreement with Ampex (1976) Valcomp Division signed an agreement with Ampex giving Valcomp rights to manufacture and sell spare parts for several Ampex digital tape drives. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 Three marketing subdivisions created (1976) Three marketing subdivisions created under Ron Braniff, Tymshare Marketing VP: -- Information Services Unit - provided remote computer services to thousands of customers through some 50 sales offices coast-to-coast. -- Industry Service Division - served the requirements of selected specialized industries and business sectors. -- Marketing Services - headquarters organization responsible for product planning, marketing and support, training, marketing documentation, terminal equipment marketing and personnel development. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976

People

Carl Jones joined Tymshare (1976) Carl Jones joined Tymshare and began working on BUPERS (Navy Bureau of Personnel) project. Related Stories BUPERS Western 29


Evaluation of Compulade (March 1976) Carl Jones, Dick Westgaard and Karen Sauln were tasked with evaluating Compulade, a trucking freight rate calculation system. They recommended that Tymshare cancel the project. Related Stories Compulade

Technology

East and West Coast connected (1976) East and West Coast remote access computer centers connected via the domestic satellite WESTAR. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 FOCUS released (September 1976)


September 9, 1976: FOCUS, proprietary new database management system developed by Information Builders, Inc. released for Tymshare's IBM 370-based remote computer services product line. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 MAGNUM OPUS software release (1976) MAGNUM OPUS software designed to improve the flow of information in manufacturing firms was released and installed in several companies. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 PERS software release (1976) PERS, Personnel Evaluation and Reporting System, released. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 Four terminals introduced (1976) Four new terminals introduced: Model 325, Model 225, Model 315, Model 125. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976

1977


Acquired Western States Bankcard Assoc. (October 1977) October 1977: Through wholly-owned subsidiary Tymshare Transaction Services, Inc., acquired Western States Bankcard Association, a credit card processing business engaged in processing credit card (principally Master Card and VISA) transactions for approximately 270 banks in seven western states. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977

External Factors

Timesharing begins facing its first challenge (1977) Companies under budget pressures began to examine the cost tradeoff between what they were paying for Tymshare's services and what they believed it would cost them to purchase computers and run their applications in house. Related Stories Coming to the end of the era-timesharing mainframes transitioning to minicomputers


That pesky PC forces a change in strategy Related Documents A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970

Financial Data

1977 Revenues (1977) 1977 Revenues: $ 101.2 million; Net Income: $ 8.0 million Related References Tymshare 1977 SEC form 10K

Management

Organized into 3 operating groups (1977) Organized into three operating groups: --- Financial and Network Systems, headed by Warren Prince included Tymshare Transaction Services, Tymnet, Inc., and a new network development Division. --- Tymshare Computer Services, headed by Ronald Braniff comprised industry/product marketing and computer operations. --- Technical Services, headed by Laszlo Rakoczi included field engineering, hardware, software and technical development, hardware manufacturing, and computer maintenance and refurbishment. Related References Drexel Burnham Lambert report


Expansion to Canada (February 1977) February 1977: Interactive services offered in Canada, primarily in Toronto and its surrounding area, through wholly-owned subsidiary Tymshare Canada. Related References Tymshare 1977 SEC form 10K Tymnet - common carrier status (April 1977) April 1977: Tymnet began offering value-added packet communications services as a common carrier. Related References Tymshare 1977 SEC form 10K Agreement with Western Electric (1977) Two-year agreement with Western Electric for provision of a wide range of general timeshareing specialized application services to the Bell System. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977


Service begins to federal agencies (1977) Commencement of service to federal agencies under the General Services Administration Teleprocessing Services (TSP) program. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Lockheed becomes Tymshare's first facilities management customer (1977 ca.) Lockheed (LMSC) was one of Tymshare's largest clients. In an effort to help them reduce monthly timesharing fees without reducing service, Tymshare developed their first facilities management contract. Related Stories That pesky PC forces a change in strategy


Growth of Tymshare Medical Systems doubles (1977) 1977 Revenues of Tymshare Medical Systems grew by 24% nearly doubling the 1976 growth. Related Documents It's About Tym - February 1978 It's About Tym - February 1978

Technology

New version of FRS released (1977) New version of Financial Reporting System (FRS) released. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Development of DANA software (1977) Development of Dynamic Applications Network Architecture (DANA): flexible system environment provided balance between centralized and distributed processing power. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Applications software developments (1977) Applications software development: specialized computer language developed for use in travel industry pilot program, further refinement in tax and manufacturing products. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Tymnet Engine implemented (1977) Prototypes for the new integrated hardware-software device dubbed the


TYMNET Engine to interface Tymshare and customer computing and terminal equipment to the network were completed and operating by the end of the year. Related References LaRoy Tymes Oral History Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 ISIS developed (1977) ISIS, Inter-Systems Interconnection Switch, developed for use in interconnecting independent international networks to TYMNET. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 TYMCOM-III developed (1977) TYMCOM-III device developed: synchronous transmission, bisynchronous mode and remote transmission unit. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 New systems for large volume printout (1977) Advanced system to handle specialized large-volume computer printout requirements developed and installed for internal use. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Concurrent file update capability added (1977) Concurrent file update capability added for proprietary MAGNUM relational database management system. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Tymnet Network Expansion (January 7, 1977) Tymnet network node maps demonstrate the magnitude of growth in the network between 1972 and 1977. Related Documents [Tymnet schematics, 1972-1977]

1978


Acquired Autotax (1978) Acquired Autotax, a major national tax processing service similar to the company's Dynatax service, from Research Institute of America.


Related References Drexel Burnham Lambert report Acquired Medical Information, Inc. (1978) Acquired Medical Information, Inc. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978

Financial Data

1978 Revenues (1978) 1978 Revenues: $ 148.6 million; Net Income $ 10.6 million Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Tymshare reports record revenues for 1978

Human Resources

3000 Employees (1978) Number of Tymshare employees grows to nearly 3,000. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978

Management

Bernie Goldstein heads up Strategic Planning (1978) Bernie Goldstein, VP of Corporate Development, assumes expanded role in planning the long-range future of the company. The group is called Strategic Planning. Related Documents It's About Tym - January 1978 It's About Tym - January 1978


Big Companies are core of Business (1978) Big Companies across 40 sectors represented the core of Tymshare's business. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Expansion of consulting services (1978) Expanded and upgraded Consulting and Professional Services (CAPS) organization which performed systems design and development on a contract basis for very complex applications. Related Documents


Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Communications services market addressed (1978) Communications services market addressed through TYMNET, common carrier subsidiary, and by selling complete intracompany networks to large organizations. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 TYMNET worldwide service (1978) TYMNET served more than 150 metropolitan areas in the US through nearly 375 network nodes. Additional access available from 22 overseas locations through agreements with US international record carriers and foreign communications administrations which have installed TYMNET equipment. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 First private network (1978) TYMNET announced its first major private network sale: a twenty-node network for TRW, Inc. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 More than 1.1 million tax returns processed (1978) More than 1.1 million tax returns processed by Dynatax or Unitax. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 AICPA program library made available (1978) Tymshare/AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) Program Library, a collections of software programs commonly used by the accounting profession, was made available. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Services to approximately 1000 banks (1978) Some form of products or services rendered to approximately 1,000 financial institutions including banks, savings & loans, credit unions, and investment firms. Services include interactive time-sharing and remote computing systems, credit card transaction processing, comprehensive software products for smaller banks with in-house computers, and services keyed to the needs of investment firms and corporate executives. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Services to over 120 hospitals (1978)


Services, including financial systems, provided to more thatn 120 hospitals in more than 20 states. TYMCARE provided patient charge collection and interdepartmental communications among hospital departments. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Government clients use TYMCOM-370 (1978) Government clients were heavy users of TYMCOM-370 services. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 IMIS designed (1978) Worked closely with one of the largest Bell companies to design and implement the first stages of an Integrated Marketing Information System (IMIS) capable of collecting, evaluating, and reporting on all key functions relating to telephone company marketing and sales programs. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Service in Japan (1978) Began service in Japan through Kokusai Tymshare. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978


Tymshare processes millionth tax return (April 1978) On April 12, 1978, Tymshare passed the milestone of processing over one million tax returns in a single tax season. Related Documents Its About Tym - May/June 1978 It's About Tym - May/June 1978 Timesharing services offered in Japan (April 1978) Tymshare's Japanese subsidiary, Kokusai Tymshare, Ltd., received approval from the Japanese government to offer timesharing services in Tokyo. Related Documents It's About Tym - April 1978 It's About Tym - April 1978

Technology

RAILTRACK development (1978) RAILTRACK developed in MAGNUM to track and report on rolling stock usage in large firms.


Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 First IBM 3032 on-line (1978) Computer Services Group installed and placed on stream the first IBM 3032 system. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 ACT introduced (1978) Advanced Communications Technology (ACT) introduced signaling a new generation of network communications features and flexibility. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 ADT terminal tested (1978) Development of automatic authorization digital telephone terminal tested in 1978 for pursuing opportunities related to automatic teller machine networks and electronic funds transfer systems. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 PERVAL released (1978) PERVAL, a time-sharing service which aided in the measurement and evaluation of fund management performance, released. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 MANUFACTS successor of MAGNUM OPUS (1978) MANUFACTS system designed with the MAGNUM database management language and is the successor to MAGNUM OPUS for the manufacturing market. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978

1979

Milestones

Tymshare attracts suitors (1979) Tymshares' 30% compounded annual growth rate for five years running makes it an attractive target for acquisition. Related Documents Tymshare bides its time as suitors make pitches



Acquired Valdata Division of TRW (1979) Acquired Valdata Division of TRW to accelerate automated credit authorization program. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979

Financial Data

1979 Revenues (1979) 1979 Revenues: $ 193.1 million; Net Income: $ 14.64 million. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 Stock split and equity offerings (1979) Two significant financial events: two-for=one stock split and two equity offerings through which approximately $ 46 million was raised. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980


Began Visa & Mastercard processing for Crocker Bank (1979) Under a long-term contract with Crocker National Bank, began processing both the bank's Visa and master Card transactions. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 New European Consulting Subsidiary (1979) Created a new, wholly-owned subsidiary, Tymshare Network Systems Consulting, S.A., based in Paris, to add to TYmshare's Eruopean presence. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 US TYMNET linked to 27 countries (1979) Eight new overseas countries were given access to the US TYMNET network. By year-end 27 overseas nations were using Tymshare to access US computer and data bases. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 IBIS installation begins (1979) Began installing a new, minicomputer-based international banking information system (IBIS) for large financial institutions.


Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979

Technology

TYMNET grew to 500 network nodes (1979) TYMNET grew in size to 500 network nodes. New features were announced that can accommodate the large base of installed IBM 3270 cathode ray tubes (CRT) display terminals, and similar equipment made by others. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 Initial deliveries of intelligent terminals (1979) Started deliveries of Model 1110 series intelligent terminal equipment products, designed for distributed data processing applications. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 Computer center opened in Dallas (September 1979) September 1979: Opened a major new computer center in Dallas which will be the company's largest processing facility with a new IBM 3033 system. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970

1980


Acquired Medistat (1980) Acquired Medistat which had an established product line and customer base in the upper Midwest under its former owner, Wisconsin Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980 Acquired Bancard of Rhode Island (BARI) (1980) Acquired Bancard of Rhode Island (BARI) as the basis for new financial transaction service operations in the East. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980 Acquired TeleCheck (1980) Acquired TeleCheck, a leading national check guarntee service firm with its own and franchised outlets in more than 30 cities, adding an important


merchant point-of-sale service. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980 Tymshare's strategy pays off (July 1980) In an interview with a reporter from the San Jose Mercury, Tom O'Rourke explains how Tymshare's capital and software expansion strategy has paid off. Related Documents Tymshare Gamble Pays Big Dividends

Financial Data

1980 Revenues (1980) 1980 Revenues: $ 235.8 million; Net Income: $ 18.7 million. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980 Bankcard operations moved to Fremont (1980) Reduced operational costs by relocating bankcard operations from San Francisco to Fremont, CA, and consolidating all credit authorization functions in Southern California. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980


Tymshare Transaction Services launches ATS (1980) Tymshare Transaction Services (TTS) launched its new service, Account Transfer System (ATS) and 25 customers subscribed to the service on the first day. Related Documents It's About Tym - January 1980 It's About Tym - January 1980

Technology

Phase I of ATM network in S. CA (1980) First phase of Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) network became operational in Southern California with 11 ATM installations in the San Fernando Valley. Related Documents Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980 Tymshare tests wireless communications (1980) Tymshare partners with Satellite Business Systems to test the use of radio


waves in communicating with computers. Related Documents Tymshare will test computer-radio link

1981

Milestones

Downturn in Earnings (1981) After eleven straight years of profitability, increasing fixed costs, sudden and substantial hikes in telephone service rates and lower than anticipated revenues produced a downturn in earnings. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1981


Acquired Microband Corp of America (1981) Acquired Microband Corporation of America: distributed pay-TV programming to local markets and was a leader in specialized microwave Technology Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1981 . Acquired Payment and Transfer Services (1981) Acquired Payment and Transfer Services providing automated bill payment. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1981 Acquired assets of ITT Electronic Travel Services (September 1981) September 1981: Acquired operating assets of ITT Electronic Travel Services, Inc. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1981

Financial Data

1981 Revenues (1981) 1981 Revenues: $ 289.6 million; Net Income: $ 15.6 million. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1981 Re-examination of programs for max return (1981) All programs re-examined for continuing investments - those not promising near-term return were stretched out or terminated, including the automatic


teller machine pilot network program in Southern California. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1981


Spreadsheets on Personal Computers cut into the market (1981) By late 1980, timesharing revenues were in a decline. The Premier Products (Focus, Express & Magnum) were losing revenue ground faster than the sales force could add new accounts. A survey revealed that 90% of the Focus and Express customers were using the products for row/column manipulations that spreadsheets on PC's could do much cheaper. Related Stories Spreadsheet/Personal Computing Kills off Timesharing

People

LaRoy Tymes leaves (1981) LaRoy Tymes left Tymshare. Related References LaRoy Tymes Oral History

1982

Milestones

Economic recession impacts business (1982) Business suffered from the prolonged economic recession and widespread lack of confidence among management clients in large companies about near-term economic recovery. Related Documents Company Report Tymshare Annual Report, 1982


Acquired FTC Communications (1982) Acquired an international record carrier: FTC Communications, Inc. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1982 Sold two ongoing businesses (April 1982) Sold two ongoing business operations: the medical services business in April and the bank card processing business in September.


Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1982

Financial Data

1982 Revenues (1982) 1982 Revenues: $ 297 million; $ 8.8 million. Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1982 Tymshare stock purchase recomendation (March 17, 1982) Bateman, Eichler, Hill Richards issues a report recommending purchase of Tymshare stock citing the recession; unusually large telephone rate increases; and slower than anticipated growth in the remote computer processing business as the cause of the margin difficulties. Related Documents Company Report

Human Resources

Reduced employees (1982) Reduced employment by about 500 - 600 People Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1982 .


50% growth in Communication services revenue (1982) Communications services revenues, with TYMNET being the major contributor, grew 50%. Related Stories More Tymshare Related Documents Tymshare Annual Report, 1982


Customer list includes many financial institutions (November 1982) The impressive list of customers invoiced in November of 1982 includes many large financial institutions (Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Morgan Guarantee Trust) as well as other Fortune 100 companies. Related Documents Invoice Summary Report for November 1982 Letter from Warren Prince


Technology

Ed Mooring develops dial tester for modem banks (1982) In response to continual problems with line quality coming into the modem banks in San Francisco, Ed Mooring developed a rotary dial tester. Related Stories Dialup Modem Problems

1983


McDonnell Douglas acquisition talks begin and become stalled. (1983) McDonnell Douglas begins negotiations to acquire Tymshare. Negotiations are (temporarily) called off in December of 1983. Related Documents [Memo from T.J. O'Rourke about a proposed merger with McDonnell Douglas, 1983] $ 378 million Tymshare sale falls through Tymshare Terminates Talks, 1983

Technology

Outstanding diagnostic tools (June 1983) The Tymshare/Tymnet Network Technical Development Team created a suite of diagnostic tools that made the job of trouble-shooting much easier. These tools were: XRAY, PROBE, and DDT (Dynamic Debugging Tool). Related Stories Outstanding Built-in Network Diagnostics

1984

Milestones

Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas (1984) Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas Corporation for $ 25 per share. Related References Offer to purchase outstanding stock, 1984 Related Stories Culture Shock More Tymshare-84 OnTyme and 1988 Olympics Beyond Tymshare - MDC, BT, MCI, Concert, Worldcom Related Documents McDonnell Douglas Changes Its Aim with Tymshare



Leverage expands financial services market. (1984) Many service offerings were the first in the field and others combined facilities to make the resulting product more attractive. Expansion of the offerings to the banking industry was a prime example of using this leverage. Related Stories More Tymshare-84

People

Ann Hardy only woman VP (1984) Ann Hardy was the only woman VP in the entire company at the time of the sale to McDonnell Douglas. Related Documents Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy Ron Braniff resigns (February 1984 ca.) Ron Braniff, VP of the Computer Services Group, resigns to become the President of ASK Computer, Inc., a Palo Alto company that develops software to support manufacturing operations. Related Documents It's About Tym - February/March 1984 It's About Tym - February/March 1984


HP signs up for EDI services (February 1984) Hewlett Packard signs an agreement to use EDI-Net, Tymshare's EDI network service, to connect 11,000 of its suppliers to their Corporate Materials Group. Related Documents It's About Tym - February/March 1984 It's About Tym - February/March 1984 Tymnet builds network for Alaska (February 1984) Tymnet builds Alaska's first Public Packet Data Communications Network called AlaskaNet. Related Documents It's About Tym - February/March 1984 It's About Tym - February/March 1984 Tymnet volume grows to 10 million sessions per month (1984) From 1962 to 1984, Tymnet volume increased nearly 400% to 10 million sessions a month with local access in 72 countries around the world.


Related Documents How to Use Tymnet Passport to Information, 1982 Passport to Information, 1984 [Letter from Clint De Gabrielle]

1985

Milestones

Final issue of Tymshare Today (1985) The final issue of the Tymshare corporate newsletter is published with stories about new offerings and the transition to McDonnell Douglas Information Systems Group. Related Documents [Memo regarding final issue of Tymshare Today]

2003

Milestones

Tymnet network shut down (March 24, 2003) After McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare, Tymnet continued to function in many forms. First it was sold to EDS, then to MCI/British Telecom. Tymnet was shut down for all but one customer on March 24, 2003 at 11:48 AM PST having operated continuously since it was booted in November, 1971. Some history details of Tymnet after Tymshare can be found on this site under "Tymnet - post Tymshare" (http://www.computerhistory.org/corphist/view.php?s=tl). Related References Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Related Stories LaRoy Tymes' recollection of Tymnet

Stories

Title: Beyond Tymshare - MDC, BT, MCI, Concert, Worldcom Author: Carl Baltrunas Created: August 4, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: A brief timeline of the companies that controlled the Tymshare legacy. Tymshare was acquired by McDonnell Douglas sometime around April 1984. MDC renamed the company McDonnell Douglas Tymshare. Under MDC's stewardship, parts of the company were integrated, parts were dismantled and other parts were held as assets later sold for a profit. They created MDC-ISG to sell and market their computing and networking products.


As peace was breaking out all over the world in the late 1980s, McDonnell Douglas needed cash. They spun off MDCFSCO (MDC Field Service Company) to a startup lead by Bert Novak named Novadyne. MDC sold MDCNSC (Network Systems Company) and part the Computer Operations in Fremont, Cupertino and Valley Forge to British Telecom. The sale was announced on July 31st, 1989 and all transfers into or out of MDCFSCO and MDCNSC were frozen. The sale was finalized on November 17th, 1989, and BT renamed MDNSC to BT Tymnet. A year or two later BT Tymnet was renamed BT North America, and yet again to BTNA. When BT purchased the Tymnet property, US telecommunications laws required BT to obtain restricted licenses to continue to run Tymnet. As the laws changed, BT wanted to expand, and obtain a footing in the USA. They looked to MCI, first to buy, but now allowed, and then to create an alliance. Called "The Deal of the Century", BT "sold" the US-based portion of the original BT Tymnet properties to MCI, kept the rest of Tymnet worldwide as part of BT, and formed a new company, to be named later, called NewCo, to handle all international traffic. NewCo was eventually named Concert which was a partnership that allowed US based MCI, and UK based BT to work together "in Concert". The deal was finalized, and MCI took over the US based properties on February 1st, 1994. MCI took awhile to integrate Tymnet into its fold. Although they knew how to run a long distance telephone carrier, and lease private telecommunications lines to companies, owning the assets to run and manage a complete end-to-end data network was a little different. Two things rang true the entire time that MCI was at the helm. Their motto seemed to be, "Ready, Fire, Aim", and every month there was a reorganizaion somewhere in MCI. We joked that there was a reorganization, it took two weeks to have personnel move into new quarters with the rest of their new groups, and two weeks later there was another reorganization. By 1997, telecommunication laws changed and BT was looking to actually purchase MCI. BT and MCI were the 4th and 6th largest telecom companies world-wide, and by merging they would become the 3rd largest immediately behind the German Bundespost and AT&T. The deal was set. Stockholders in both companies had approved the merger. BT higher-ups thought that if they could renegotiate a slightly lower price tag, they would be able to put that saved money into the dividends they paid out each year. That waver was seen by Worldcom as a hole in an otherwise iron-clad deal. BTs deal would cash-out any stock held in MCI. Worldcom offered a nearly identical deal, but with a stock-swap instead of a cash-out which meant no capital gains tax for many many people. MCI took the Worldcom deal, and the sale became final on September 15th 1998. Both MCI and worldcom had to divest certain product lines to insure they did not hold monopoly power over the internet infrastructure or ISP services. One month after the sale was final, BT and MCI dissolved their alliance and MCI withdrew their stake in Concert. BT retained intellectual property rights over the Tymnet technology, but Worldcom was given a right to use it. This initiated the project to plan and implement the separation of physical assets each party owned in Tymnet, and included each company taking their portion of clients with them. Worldcom split it's holdings into a few separate units, with Tymnet being part of MCI Worldcom. BT found another partner in Concert and went 50-50 with AT&T. Due to the rivalry between AT&T and MCI, MCI Worldcom management dragged it's feet and refused to co-operate with BT and Concert on many projects, including the network split. Due to this and other obstacles, the split project was put on hold several times and was finally abandoned when Worldcom shut down its portion of the network on April 1st, 2003. Much of the split had been completed by then. Concert, which took total control of BTs Tymnet assets in 1999 replicated all the components needed to run the supervisors, accounting collection, and all the administration and took over running the now un-split network on April 1st. On October 31st 2002, BT and AT&T broke their alliance in Concert. This gave AT&T all the far east and pacific holdings, many of which were originally part of Tymshare and Tymnet. A small west-coast portion (my group) and eastern USA and qurope were retained by BT. BT merged it's


Concert properties and BTNA into BT Americas. BT and BT Americas continued the second half of the split project which was to migrate their Tymnet clients to other IP and x.25 product lines. The last active Tymnet customer, the Germany-based Amadeus, a hotel and travel registration service, with clients that used Tymnet from Malasia, was finally migrated in February 2004. The remaining former Concert employees that supported and maintained Tymnet were let go at the end of January 2004. Tymnet was finally shut down in late February by disabling the links from the last 2 active supervisors to the network, thus making it impossible for any new circuits to be created. However, one small part of Tymnet still survives. The EDI group, once also called Payment Systems, were running Tandem computers with a non-standard x.25 configuration. Tymnet know how to communicate with the Tandem hosts, buts the Cisco and other off-the-shelf products did not. Ron Vivier and Jerry Lucas conceived and implemented the idea of having a stand-alone Tymnet node that could build internal circuits between slots on that node. Node code was modified to not require a supervisor connection, and to be able to build those internal slot to slot circuits based on host numbers in each slot. All nodes in this configuration were loaded via the TTY port on the node and their connections to Tymnet were severed. Tymnet technology lives on in one-node networks allowing the EDI product to continue, at least until those clients are moved to other services. As of this writing, I believe the EDI connections are still up. When I find out they are gone, I will update this entry with the relevent information. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Carl Baltrunas August 4, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas Title: Tymnet Technology Ownership Author: Carl Baltrunas Created: August 4, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I will make the assumption that the Tymnet technology was conceived and owned by Tymshare, Inc., without purchasing part or all of any other company to bring that technology into the world. When I joined Tymshare in 1980, Tymshare clearly owned the technology along with a wholly-owned subsidiary called Tymnet. Several private networks had purchased equipment from Tymnet, and the right to use the network software. The first was TRW. Their contract basically gave them access to everything, and ownership of their copy of the network. It effectively gave away the entire store. For additional private networks the contract became more restrictive. Southwestern Bell, Dupont and Bank of America were some of the others. Note: I'll add the others if I can get an accurate list. In 1984, McDonell Douglas Corporation owned the technology with the purchase of Tymshare and Tymnet. As far as I know, it was never integrated into any MDC products or services, although it was used from time to time by other parts of MDC. McDonnell Douglas Network Systems Company (MDNSC) owned and supported the technology. MDC has some grand designs and, as the result of one reorganization, MDNSC was part of McDonnell Douglas Information Services Group or MDC-ISG.


In 1989, British Telecom bought MDNSC, and the rights to Tymnet technology. As BT reorganized portions of the company, we saw BT Tymnet, BT North America, and BTNA as companies tasked with support. In 1994, BT shared the technology with MCI, but technically owned the intellectual property rights, even though the people who developed the technology now worked for MCI. BT and MCI launched Concert, which operated the international border nodes and received revenue for international traffic. MCI owned the US traffic, and BT or its subsidiaries in Europe owned the traffic in each country. Concert was called NewCo for 12-18 months before the name Concert was chosen. MCI developed supervisor code to run on SPARC processors, but the original algorithms were still property of BT. BT developed code to run on Telematics network hardware. The ownership/right-to-use arrangement was disputed at one or more times later on. In the 1990s, Southwestern Bell purchased Pacific Telesis (formed when Pacific Bell was merged with another of the baby bells) and became SBC. In the late 1990s Bank of America stopped using its Tymnet network. In 1998, Worldcom bought MCI and its rights to use the technology. In 1999, BT and Concert owned the technology, and Concert became responsible for world-wide operation of the technology, and co-operated with MCI Worldcom and Worldcom (after they dropped the MCI name) in the USA. In late 1999 or early 2000, Concert was reborn as a 50-50 partnership between BT and AT&T. Thus, AT&T now had a stake in the ownership or right to use the technology. In 2002, AT&T and BT dissolved Concert. AT&T took the west coast (minus San Jose), far east and pacific assets including Australia and New Zealand. A network control and monitoring group in Sydney managed Tymnet technology issues, under the stewardship of AT&T. In October 2002, the remaining North and South American assets were merged into BT North America and BT Americas, with the latter taking over operations and support of Tymnet for all of BT. On April 1st, 2003, Worldcom shut down its Tymnet administration facilities, but was still running a few stand-alone nodes running EDI products. BT Americas' supervisor and administration servers took over the remaining network nodes. In Feburary 2004, BT Americas pulled the plug on Tymnet. None of the support or development were involved, and other than an entry in a log or internal BT email, the date and time were not recorded. In 2003 an accounting scandal shook Worldcom forcing the resignation of their CEO and resulting in criminal charges against top company officials and Worldcom going into bankruptcy. Coming out of bankruptcy, Worldcom took the name of one of it's acquisitions, MCI. In 2005 and 2006, SBC purchased AT&T, and Verizon purchased MCI. Sometime in the early 2000s, a Tymnet Compact XL was seen for sale on eBay. Apparently no one bid on it, and the auction closed without a sale. In summary we have the following list of companies with ownership, or right to use Tymnet technology:


Tymshare Tymnet TRW Bank of America BofA Southwestern Bell McDonnell Douglas Tymshare McDonnell Douglas Network Systems Company McDonnell Douglas Field Service Company MDC - Data Centers McDonnell Douglas Information Services Group MDC ISG BT Tymnet BT North America BTNA NewCo Concert MCI MCI Worldcom AT&T Worldcom SBC Verizon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Carl Baltrunas August 4, 2006 Title: A glimpse of life in INSD: 1975-1982 Author: Joseph Cardosi Created: August 7, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I ,like many others on this computer industry historical website, was privileged to have been part of a rare phenomenon- the beginning, middle, and end of an industry. The industry was called “ Time-Sharing”. My background was on the in-house side of time-sharing with Ohio Bell Telephone(OBT). Like many other businesses of the day, the Information Technology Department(IT) could not keep up with their applications backlog and the users had to call upon outside resources to fill the gap. The time sharing vendors were often regarded as the “enemy” by IT since they “stole” applications away that might have been developed in-house and reduced the growing empire they were trying to build. They gave the end user access to a computer with languages in which they could write programs on their own or already built applications which they could use to solve a myriad of problems in “real-time”. While serving as the “time-sharing coordinator” for OBT, I was in charge of monitoring outside expenses by the various departments on a state-wide basis. In this capacity, I saw first hand the frustration of the end user in trying to get any application developed by IT. It was a classic problem. In order to do it right, IT had to spend so much time meeting internal standards, that by the time the application was delivered, it was obsolete. It was a “no-win” situation.


It was a “goldmine” for the time-sharing vendor. It didn’t take long for me to see that there was a great opportunity for someone with my background to jump to the vendor side and start doubling my income. Hello Vendor World! Bob Schwartz recruited me out of the Service Bureau Corporation where I had been “rookie salesrep of the year” in 1974. I was to move from Cleveland to Chicago to work in the INSD Central Region for Steve Smith and Ron Bernier. Tymshare was expanding from the two coasts and beginning its push to own the interior business centers like Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Detroit. It was an exciting time to be in a growing industry, working for an industry leader. INSD had begun to move from just selling “computer cycles” to people who could write BASIC and FORTRAN programs to selling applications we had written and the end user could plug their data into. At first it was primitive record-oriented database and spread-sheet applications(IML/BBL) and then we moved on to the greatest new database technology that nobody had heard of- “relational technology” with instances and tuples. Most of us read C.J. Date’s book on this new technology and read it again and again and again. Wow! It seemed to be very innovative but it would have been easier if he had just said the data is in tables with related keys. We had problems figuring MAGNUM out and so did the customer. INSD was clearly ahead of the market and had to teach the market what they needed to buy. Then came “Decision Support Systems (DSS)”. We had a system called “Express” that could display multiple data dimensions in a variety of formats so the users could store, calculate, and display their data. It was terrific for corporate planning to see historical trends, and to do future projections. Once again, INSD was ahead of the market and had to teach corporate America how to run their business. Next came the IBM-370 and a Database Management System (DBMS) called “FOCUS”. In my opinion, the biggest mistake the company made was not acquire Information Builders Inc. and to own FOCUS. Here was the perfect tool that bridged the gap between in-house IT and Tymshare for application development. I’ll return to this topic later. And so as the middle ‘70’s progressed, so did Tymshare and the company officers began to see the need for industry-specific applications as a way to secure stable revenues from firms who would use Tymshare as their supplier for Tax Processing and Transaction Processing Services. INSD needed to find a way to lock-in their users who tended to be month-to-month and could leave for a competitor without notice leaving a revenue gap that was hard to make up. I had been fortunate to have worked with some terrific support people which allowed me to sell some significant applications for the company and so I moved up the management chain going from Branch Manager to Regional Manager in the Detroit office. My challenge was to keep making the numbers and the target was always higher each successive year (sound familiar). In order to do that, we had to find a way to stop selling computer cycles to casual users and to find a way to become an indispensable business partner to our customers. Here’s what we did to make that happen. Each year we would sit down and try to map out a strategy for the upcoming year and we’d brainstorm it with the entire group. The best ideas come from the people who live in the trenches not the ones who are high-paid observers(me). So I listened to what they felt would give us the best way to keep and grow our business. Our two major resources were our people and products. We decided to zero-in on the products that would be the big sellers and trained our people accordingly. I wanted my region to have application experts so the customer would see the value-added we would bring to the table. It would be obvious that we were there to ensure their success. While we are on the subject of people let me digress just a bit on that topic as it relates to Tymshare and INSD specifically. One of the really special things about Tymshare was the incredible talent we were able to find and to keep. The organization was filled with highly


motivated and extremely competent people from top to bottom. INSD hired an outside consultant named Brad Smart to help us figure out how to find “winners” so we didn’t waste time and money on the “non-keepers”. He had us develop a personnel profile based on the most highly successful people in the company. We spent several long days in highly-charged discussions about who were the top people and what traits made them so successful. Then, Brad developed a “structured interview” that was designed to find the very best people available. Every hiring manager was trained and required to use this interview process which was extremely intense and detailed. After an interview, candidates would often comment that they learned more about themselves in that 2-hr process than they had up until that point. It almost took them back to the womb and asked what the birthing process was like. The results speak for themselves. Tymshare produced a cadre of sales and support people that have since become industry leaders. They are the who’s who of the computer software and services industry. Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and PeopleSoft are just a few of the companies that prospered from ex-Tymshare employees. Some even went on to become leading players in the venture capital business and have spawned many other high-tech firms in a variety of industries. Back to Detroit and the task of keeping the region viable in the late 70’s and early 80’s. What we did was to make a conscious decision to concentrate our efforts on DBMS and DSS. We became the top commercial office in the country by first training our support staff on Express and Focus. This included attending industry seminars where the product had an excellent chance of being used. An example was to join the local chapter of the Society of Corporate Planners and to learn what they did and needed so we could show them how Express could solve their problems. Ed Huddleston landed the Chrysler Motors planning group when Lee Ioccoca was taking them through Chapter 11 proceedings and we did all of the modeling for them before, during , and after. Vicky Zollweg supported their use of the application and her willingness to work night and weekends led to billings that we had never seen before from a single account. They even found an office for her at Chrysler. Vicky is still making a good living supporting the auto industry with modeling services provided by her own company. Next we looked to implement what I personally felt was the most innovative strategy that anyone had considered. We took the IT application backlog issue head-on. Ed Huddleston and I called on all of the IT executives that would let us in the door. Here’s what we told them. “You have a very long list of applications waiting to be developed. The users are unhappy about the time it takes to get them completed. The company is losing money in some cases waiting for them to be completed. Some of these applications involve networking between remote locations and you have no idea what the data volume might be. Let us build prototype applications for the end user on an IBM-370 like yours, using FOCUS which you can also lease/purchase from IBI, and when they are up and running (and the end user is thrilled with you for how fast it got done and the company is thrilled with you for all the money you’ve saved), we’ll turn over the FOCUS code to you (which is basically yours anyway) and when you are ready to build it in-house, you can do it in FOCUS using our prototype as a nucleus or just use the specs to build it in COBOL. It’s a win/win.” Mike Ward built a railcar tracking system using FOCUS and TYMNET for Detroit Edison and they never took it in-house. The reality was we took away the fear of losing control by IT, and became an in-house prototype service team for them. Everybody came out a winner, especially Tymshare. Did I mention Ed Huddleston was the #1 salesrep in the country in 1979? Mike Ward has his own company that does FOCUS applications for companies around the country. What about General Motors you ask? We got them on an extremely clever sales approach by Bruce Smith. We tried and tried to crack into their IT department but EDS was about to take them over and was keeping all vendors at bay. Our FOCUS approach never struck the right chord there because of NIH (not invented here). They had all the answers and we couldn’t possibly do it better. Bruce continued to probe for opportunities until one day he stumbled on a user who was


having difficulty getting a portable terminal to hook into the in-house system. “Can you help me? “ He led us through the GM approved vendor process and Tymshare became the sole-supplier of portable terminals world-wide. Did I mention Bruce Smith was on of the top salesreps in the country in 1979? So what happened in 1980 to 1982? Just as we thought we were on our way to financial independence, a little item called the Personal Computer came along. And as they say, the rest is history. When you could buy a machine that sat on your desk and would run all of your models, keep your database and generate all of your reports, why would you want to pay Tymshare’s monthly charges? It didn’t take the CFO very long to figure that one out. And so, the remote computer services industry as we knew it died a quick and painful death. I was there for the beginning, middle, and end. My beloved Tymshare was finally sold to McDonnell Douglas. What did I take away from all of this? If you step back and examine where Tymshare was in 1980 with its people, products and network, I still believe there was plenty of room in the market we tried to develop in Detroit for prototyping IT applications in FOCUS. If we had bought IBI in the early days and owned the product, then we would have both software sales revenues and application development revenues going forward. The need for network-based applications was huge and offered tremendous opportunity well into the future. But, in my opinion, we suffered from Marketing Myopia. We were still in the time-sharing business, selling cycles and couldn’t bring ourselves to truly think of being a computer software/services company. The railroads thought they were in the railroad business and not the transportation business and they too have not fared so well. The PC/Mainframe battle might have caused us some trouble but they are just hardware. As I always tried to teach my salesreps, we aren’t selling time-sharing, we’re selling solutions to people’s information processing problems. Whatever that might be- software, hardware or support. And finally, it still really galds me that CompuServe made it and we didn’t. Jeff Wilkens must have read the same Harvard Business Review article I did and made his mid-course correction in time. On the positive side, we all grew, learned and prospered from our days at Tymshare. I earned a comfortable living over the years using what I learned in those early years and am now happily retired and living in suburban Chicago. Everyone has had their own Tymshare experience, thanks for letting me share mine with you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Joseph Cardosi August 7, 2006 Title: Why Tymshare was a Success! Author: Michael Cohn Created: December 28, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Tymshare was a success for a multitude of factors, most notably its ability to attract some of the brightest, most creative and hard-working people willing to put in 60-70 hour weeks. The linchpin of this success was Tom O'Rourke who to most people had the most incredible charisma and charm. (And besides he could drink you under the table!)


The vast majority of employees truly felt that Tom cared for each and every employee beyond the normal employee/company relationship and he instilled a sense of pride and loyalty creating a desire to succeed. Most people consider Tymshare the place where they got the most experience and sense of family irrespective of what accomplishments they may have gone on to achieve after Tymshare. For me, it was the best place I have ever worked even though its compensation practices were lackluster. Tymshare may not have been the most lucrative place to work BUT when presented the arguement "would you be willing to work at a place that you really, really liked that nurtured your work ethic and gave you the rope to work on leading-edge projects and activities and all you had to do was contribute 10% of your compensation?" the answer for most was "okay for now!" Well that only worked for several years and when compensation made an uptick in the late seventies a number of people left, including me. (although, a contributing factor was getting remarried and moving to do something that Tymshare would not let me do.) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Michael Cohn December 28, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare Culture was important to success Title: The OldTymer's Club Author: Michael Cohn Created: December 28, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The OldTymer's Club started out as a Tom O'Rourke idea to celebrate with a number of the initial employees the verge of success that Tymshare was having in getting the tymsharing concept become adopted. (Looking back, one can easily see that tymsharing was the precursor to the PC Revolution that we all participate in today with out blinking an eye!) So, one Friday in December in 1973 Mr. O'Rourke and about 8-10 others such as Guy Blood, Ann Hardy, LaRoy Tymes and just about everyone that had been with the company 5 years went out for a celebratory lunch. They left around 11:15 and essentially never came back that day. Of course, the next year there was pressure to do it again and rather than just have the next batch of people that had made 5 years, Tom insisted on including everyone 5 years or more. This became quite a large group rather quickly (remember that most people revered working for the company) and several years later the OldTymer's Club became so big that it had to be held in a banquet room of a hotel on a Saturday night. There were too many people that were in a senior role and the company would cease to function if they were all away during a work day. Then, if it was being held on a Saturday, it made perfect sense to Mr. O'Rourke to let these employees invite their significant "other!" In the meantime, the Company was becoming more successful and finally profitable and Tom decided it would be more enjoyable to have the (what now was an annual celebration/party) at a more interesting venue.


Some venues were Pajaro Dunes (in Monterrey County), and Lake Tahoe and then when the economy became difficult Lou's Village. At the worst of the economic downturn we went to having AMEX Dinner Certificates. At some point I was elected President of the OldTymer's Club, a position I relinquished when I left in December 1978. Funny, we never had another election. P.S. When there was a group of ten year veterans of Tymshare, Tom asked me to set-up an event to recognize that achievement. I did it with the help (and idea) of the woman I ultimately married and we had a San Francisco Bay Cruise on the biggest Hornblower Yacht. Tom insisted on the best and we had a gourmet party. To show what a party animal and lover of good times Tom was, I vividly remember his extending the cruise another hour when he learned we were heading back to the dock! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Michael Cohn December 28, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First meeting of Old Tymers' Club Title: A Little History from Clint D. Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: January 30, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I believe that the start of Tymshare is a great example of the whole Tymshare history. It epitomizes the innovation, the forward thinking, the business acumen and the entrepreneurship that was a hallmark of Tymshare. In 1964 Vern Cooper replaced Tom O'Rourke, as Western Regional Manager of the General Electric Computer Department, in spite of the fact that Tom and his Region had consistantly exceeded orders received and revenue goals for the Region. Vern's excuse was that he felt he needed a Regional Manager with more experience with large computer system sales and support. Tom had been on a task force that studied the Dartmouth College Time Sharing System to see if it had any commercial potential. Tom became enthralled with what he saw as a great business opportunity for the General Electric Company, but in spite of his group's recomendation to get in the business, the Company decided it was not a large enough market to be worth their while. Tom resigned from the Computer Department in October of 1965, withdrew all the money he had in the G E Pension plan and developed a five year plan for his new time sharing company. He obtained a $250,000.00 small business loan from the Bank of America and placed an order with the Computer Department to lease a 235 Computer and a Datanet-30. At the time Harrison Van Aken was the General Manager of the Computer Department. Since Tom was a new customer and a former employee, the order was passed to Van Aken for his approval. He felt that the 235 and Datanet-30 were obsolete and ruled that they could only be sold outright and not leased. So Tom reapplied for the system, this time as a sale. Van Aken asked George Snively if Tom had the cash to purchase the system, George answered "No but he has a line of credit with the Bank of America" To which Van Aken replied "that's not good enough" and he turned down the order. If Tom had received the GE system much of what happened at Tymshare probably would not have occurred. Tom went to to Arnold Spielberg, who was Vice President of Engineering for SDS,


with his plan for a time sharing business. Together they worked out the specifications for a time sharing system and SDS leased Tom the system. If Tom had ended up with the GE system the Tymnet Engine would not have been developed and the Tymnet Network would not have become the first and largest worldwide data network and LaRoy Tymes would not have written the amazing code he did. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Clint De Gabrielle January 30, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare founded in 1964 Title: More About Tymshare Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: January 30, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Tom O'Rourke built a small conglomerate and opportunistically melded into his Company more than twenty other entities. In most cases these acquisitions fed existing or expanded existing businesses. The Tymnet Network is an excellent example of building a significent business out of a framework that existed. Tymshare needed a network to support its time sharing business, so Tymshare developed hardware and software and the network was deployed to serve the time sharing customers. As the network grew to meet customer needs, it became apparent that a significant area of geography was being served by a data network that had capacity over what was required by the time sharing customers, so terminal and main frame interfaces to the network were installed for almost every terminal device and computer in use. These capabilities and capacity were then sold to customers that had need to collect data,to communicate with far flung users and to sell an on line service. The network began to serve a myriad of uses and users over and above the Tymshare time sharing customers. The network served;Master Card & Visa with credit card terminals, the PARS airline reservations system for five Airlines, the US Immigration & Customs Service with data collection and on line interrogation systems,banks with data collection and inquiry service, manufacturing companies with inventory control over widely dispersed locations and on line order entry systems and state and local government agencies with a wide variety of data uses. This use of the Netwok drove development of the Tymnet Engine, a Tymshare developed and manufactured minicomputer. Tymshare built a manufacturing plant where Tymnet Engines were built. Tymshare developed software was loaded into the engines to provide any function the network had to deliver. The Engines converted terminal input to network transport code, routed network traffic, converted network transport code to output device data or to computer interface code. Error detection and error correction were provided by the engine software and new requirements were downloaded from the Network Control Center in San Jose. The Tymnet Network expanded over the years until it was deployed Worldwide. Tymnet became the first network to interface Japanese character terminals, it was the first data network certified by the German Bundespost for service in Germany and it was the first data service deployed in Australia. The Tymnet Network hardware & software were in a class by themselves and this gave birth to a whole new business; Private Networks. We sold nearly a hundred networks to customers all over the World; banks,government agencies,manufacturing firms, educational


institutions, airlines,credit card companies, stock brokers and retail stores were among the customers. They bought Networks, network control services and maintenance services. It became one of the most profitable parts of Tymshare. Many of the functional capabilities that we take for granted in today's Internet service were developed at Tymnet. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Clint De Gabrielle January 30, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymnet, Inc. formed and gets FCC approval Title: More Tymshare-84 Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: March 17, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: If you look at all the things that Tymshare was actively involved with and look at how one fed off of the other you begin to develop a picture of the foresight that Tom O'Rourke and his people had. Many of the offerings were the first in the field and others combined facilities to make the resulting product more attractive. The credit card business was grown by adding Western States Bankcard and Bancard of Rhode Island to the Transaction Services Operation, which served both Master Card and Visa for over a hundred banks and more than a thousand merchants. Telecheck helped many of the same merchants to verify checks. The ATM network for Southern California banks was one of the first applications of network technology to this bank service. Automatic bill paying was facilitated by the acquisition of Payment and Transfer Services, which benefitted from Tymshare's presence with banks and merchants. The Valdata acquisition added another on line credit authorization service which again served banks and merchants. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Clint De Gabrielle March 17, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leverage expands financial services market. Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas Title: More Tymshare Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: March 17, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: A good look at Tymshare and its growth both by internal means and by mergers and acquisitions gives the viewer a better understanding of the foresight of Tom O'Rourke and his people. They took what they had and added to it in ways that let it feed on its physical presence and its facilities to serve multiple needs of existing customers while making additional use of existing resources. The financial transaction market is a prime example of the manner in which they grew the business. With an established credit verification operation in place serving Master Card & Visa along with over a hundred banks and about four hundred merchants, they added Western States


Bankcard and Rhode Island Bancard, giving them another eighty banks and two hundred merchants. To this was added Telecheck, a check verification service and Payment and Transfer Services which provided automated bill paying, another two hundred merchants and fifty banks were added to the network. One of the first ATM networks was put in place when Tymshare started operating the Southern California Banks ATM network. Again banks and merchants were involved as some of the ATM's were in merchants. Another example is the travel industry; the PARS network was built to serve five Airlines, with terminals in travel agency offices, corporate offices and Airline locations. Then the ITT Electronic Travel Services was acquired, which placed Tymshare in another three hundred travel agencies, four rental car agencies, five major hotel chains and three regional airlines. To each of these locations was added the credit card facilities and the check verification service and the previous transaction services customers now had access to all these travel services. To support these markets and the customers they represented Tymshare developed a lot of tools we take for granted today. E-Mail is used daily by a large proportion of people. Tymshare instituted ON Tyme electronic messaging in the late 1970's as an internal messaging facility. This spread to some of its private network customers and then to some of the public netwok customers. Tymshare developed, manufactured and delivered to customers the "Scanset" personal network terminal. It was a compact light weight device that encompassed a number of easy to use terminal capabilities: one touch dialing, one key logon, programable keys for often used computer and network commands, supplementary graphics character sets, plug in connection to most popular printers, key board control of screen brightness and plug in speaker volume control and a light touch keyboard. The terminal sold for $649.00 for a network terminal and $495.00 for a direct connection to a computer. More than a hundred computer service companies offered their services on Tymnet and over four hundred data bases were available on line. Once a customer was connected to Tymshare, the sales people would introduce them to a capability a month, to entice them to make additional use of the system. Tymnet had a worldwide presence, so customers could communicate with worldwide locations, both their own and customers and suppliers. Something that is unheard of is the performance that was achieved by Tymnet. From the day it was turned on until it ceased operation it never had a system crash. Tymshare built one of the first acoustic couplers that allowed a terminal to communicate with the network over a dial-up connection. Tymshare modified a microcomputer to operate as a multiplexer, enabling up to 20 terminals to communicate over a single leased line. Tymshare instituted one of the first on line service directories. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Clint De Gabrielle March 17, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 50% growth in Communication services revenue Title: Culture Shock Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: March 17, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story:


Mc Donnell-Douglas purchased Tymshare and then went about integrating the various elements of Tymshare into McDonnell-Douglas. It became a culture shock for both Companies. Tymshare had always been a very dynamic Company that built itself by aggressive actions, whether in acquisitions, sales activities or in internal development. McDonnell-Douglas had a culture that required constant review of operations and strict rules on change. In the early days after the acquisition, Mc Donnell Douglas was surprised by the amount of freedom that Tymshare managers and employees had to make decisions and to take action. They found that their rules were not always followed and that actions were taken that they considered risky. When more of these actions turned out successful than not, they were even more surprised since their culture believed that any decision needed at least two levels of approval before it was implemented. Much of the busines and technology of Tymshare was strange to McDonnell-Douglas and its people. As a result the discomfort caused by the Tymshare methods of operation led to some questionable decisions on the part of McDonnell-Douglas. One of these was to move the manufacture of the Tymnet Engine to a McDonnell-Douglas minicomputer manufacturing facility in Irvine California. Where once the manufacturing was done down the road by Tymshare people it was now done miles away by an organization that had a set of rules that didn't fit well with the dynamic growth of Tymnet and it's Private Network business. Now Tymnet was required to provide a six month forecast of needs by specific configurations and the products were transferred to us by a cost developed by the Irvine facility. The Tymnet cost for Tymnet Engines rose by 15%-20% and delivery turn around that had been thirty days became six months. Where before when we had a special requirement for delivery or configuration, we could go down the road and sit down with the Manufacturing Manager and work out the problem, we now went through a set change order procedure that required two levels of approval on the Tymnet end and an additional two levels of approval at the Irvine facility. Where once we were able to turn around in about thirty days we now found ourselves needing four to six months to effect change. The financial area of the business was also put under McDonnell-Douglas systems. A McDonnell-Douglas employee became the resident Manager of Finance in San Jose and the budgeting, cost reporting and disbursement processess were conducted in conformance with the McDonnell-Douglas systems. The incentive compensation system for Sales Represenatives came in for close scrutiny, when it was discovered that several Sales Reps. were making six figure incomes, so when a new year's sales plan was set up, the Finace Department became involved in setting quotas and attempted to establish limit on earnings. The limit was given up but quotas were established based on the previous years performance, with no regard for one of a kind happenings. This caused a number of problems that resulted in quota setting being returned to Tymnet the next year. I don't think that the acquisition was ever comfortable for McDonnell-Douglas, even though Tymshare performance beat expectations year after year. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Clint De Gabrielle March 17, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Merger with UDC Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas Title: OnTyme and 1988 Olympics Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: March 18, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story:


After the acquisition of Tymshare by McDonnell-Douglas in 1984, the various units of Tymshare were spread about the McDonnell-Douglas Organization and became a part of their operatons. A yearly event for McDonnell-Douglas was their Sales Meeting of all Sales organizations, to recognize and reward outstanding sales results. These meetings were held in places like Jamaica,Mexico and Hawaii. At each meeting the various sales organizations competed against each other in events such as: Three Legged Race, Swimming,Donkey Race and Volleyball. At this sales meeting in 1987 the Men's Olympic Volleyball Coach, Marv Dunphy, was brought to Hawaii to refree the Volleyball and the Tymnet team won three matches to gain the Championship. Several of our Sales people that were on the Volleyball team struck up a friendship with Marv and after the Sales Meeting continued to correspond with him. To aid our correspondence we set him up with an OnTyme account and terminal. We also developed a computer program to help him analyze the teams and players they would meet. We communicated with Marv and the players on his team throughout 1987 and into 1988 as they prepared to go to Seoul, South Korea for the 1988 Olympics. Sometime in early 1988 someone from the US Olympic Committee saw the ON Tyme terminal and became intrigued with the idea of using On Tyme to encourage Olympic atheletes while they were in Seoul. We set up terminals in the Olympic Village in Seoul and then set up terminals in nine shopping malls in the USA. People could come to a terminal and send a message to a specific Olympic Athelete, to a team, to coaches or to the entire US Olympic Team. We also provide our On Tyme users with the address. The program was a huge success with over eight thousand messages being sent and we received thank you notes and calls for months after the Olympics. Incidentally the Men's Volleyball team won the Gold Medal in Seoul. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Clint De Gabrielle March 18, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas Title: My introduction to Tymshare in 1967 Author: Dick Greene Created: October 11, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: In August or September 1967 IBM gave me the assignment of training one of the new sales trainees in the branch. I guess that I still had some halo effect left over from 1966 because in 1967 I certainly was not making a lot of sales; in fact I was having a difficult time finding prospects. My sales trainee and I were returning from San Jose one day at about 5 pm in his sports car. It was a nice summer afternoon and we had the top down. The traffic was stop and go and Ron Braniff pulled up along side of us and asked me how it was going. My reply was, and this is a direct quote, "Shitty". Ron considered this as good news for him and told me that he wanted to get together that evening and talk about Tymshare. We met at a bar on Union Street called "The Cooperage". Ron had a teletype terminal in a suitcase with him and set it up at the bar. The bartender handed him a telephone and he phoned a computer in Palo Alto and was soon "on line". He gave me a demonstration of the Tymshare system and when he was finished he told me that if a prospect wanted to become a customer that he could get a terminal to them the next day and have them up and running at that time. I was 90% sold at this time. To help push me over the 100% sold mark he invited me to come down to his office in Los Altos and meet his boss and some of the other people there. I agreed to do this.


Ron's office was a one story building on a small street called Distel Drive in Los Altos just off of El Camino Real. I met Ron's boss John Jerrechian and was very impressed by him. Ron gave me a more in depth presentation of Tymshare and timesharing. Timesharing computers allowed up to about 30 users to be on line to the same computer at the same time. The central processing unit (CPU) of the computer gave each user a fraction of a second "time slice" of the computer's CPU and this CPU was so powerful and so fast that all of the users had the perception that they were the only one on line. In 1967 this was really "state of the art" stuff! After my meeting with John Jerrechian and my presentation by Ron, Ron and I went to lunch at a place just around the corner on El Camino called "The Copper Penny". We had several drinks at lunch and then Ron asked me if I wanted to go on a call with him and I said "sure". The call was on a prospective customer. Ron went through his presentation of the Tymshare system and then through a demonstration of this system using a portable teletype terminal in a suitcase that he had brought with him. I was watching all of this in amazement because I knew how much Ron had had to drink! When he was through with his demo he offered the prospective customer a service agreement and a lease agreement for a teletype terminal. The prospect signed them both and became a customer. Ron agreed to deliver the terminal the next day and he set up training by one of our application consultants for the following week. Wow!! Here was a service that could be sold while the salesman was a little drunk and the customer could get started the next day! I was now about 180% sold on Tymshare and I agreed to leave IBM and to come to work there as a salesman. The next day I walked into my sales manager's office at IBM and gave two week's notice. He gave me all of the reasons that I should stay with mighty IBM and not go to work for a very small company that might not be around a few months from now. I told him that my mind was made up and he took me in to see the branch manager Bob Wellbeloved. We went through all of the same things again and, when we were finished, I told them both that my mind was still made up to leave IBM and go to work for Tymshare. They both wished me well and told me that I was free to go the next day. I started work at Tymshare on October 6, 1967. Shortly after I arrived I learned that Ron had been pushing John to become a sales manager and John had told him that he would make him a sales manager if he hired two good salesmen. A week before I was hired Ron hired another salesman, but he was taking two weeks off before starting and would start a week after I did. The plan was for me to get Ron's old territory except for Lockheed, which Ron would keep, and for the other new salesman to get the territory of a salesman who had just been fired. My new territory consisted of several accounts that Ron had signed on as customers including Stanford Research Institute (SRI), Ames Research (NASA Ames), Varian Associates, Computer Associates, and a number of smaller companies, almost all of them high tech. My prospecting territory consisted of the counties of Santa Clara, San Mateo, San Francisco, and Marin. Now this was a territory!! My initial training at Tymshare would take about a week but Ron wanted to wait until the other new salesman got on board so that he could train the two of us together. So much of my first week was spent in reviewing the key people at my new accounts and making a few turnover calls. When we drove up to the front of SRI my first thought was "now this in an account!" The other new salesman arrived the following Monday and, lo and behold, it was my old friend from IBM, Gary Myers, yes that Gary Myers, the one of "Batman" fame! Ron had developed an excellent presentation and demonstration of the Tymshare system and our training consisted mainly of learning that presentation and demonstration and doing it over and over again. When a "canned" presentation is done two or three times it sounds and looks like a "canned" presentation. When it is done dozens of times... hundreds of times... it does not sound "canned" at all. In fact, the person giving the presentation is thinking more about the reaction of his audience to what he is saying than he is to what he is saying. The target audience for our product in 1967 was very bright, technical professionals. Our product and Ron's presentation and demonstration were perfect for selling to this audience!


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Dick Greene October 11, 2006 Title: Notes from Norm Hardy's website Author: Norman Hardy Created: January 1, 1966 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The Origins of Tymnet Here is a rather detailed description of Tymnet. Tymshare began operations in 1966 providing timesharing service on the SDS 940. The machine came from Scientific Data Systems with “CTE equipment” that attached about 16 terminals or modems, each with an RS232 voltage mode plug. Until recently modems had the same shape plug. The only practical terminal then was the model 33 Teletype from Teletype corporation, a subsidiary of AT&T. It ran at 110 baud yielding 10 characters per second. It was upper case only, heavy and noisy. It was also cheap and reliable. During the first year or so customers dealt with the phone company to reach our computer center in Palo Alto, California. Most were in toll free calling radius. We soon established another computer center near Los Angeles and developed a largely disjoint set of customers there. We planned further expansion. There were frequency division multiplexers on the market that would handle about 16 Teletype circuits over one voice grade line. Each user was assigned a frequency and full duplex leased voice lines would connect the multiplexers. We tried these but they were expensive and error prone. Mini computers, costing several thousand dollars, were then becoming available and it seemed clear that they could do a variety of communication tricks which would soon pay their way in saving communications costs. Laroy Tymes joined Tymshare in 1968 from Lawrence Livermore labs to help us in this adventure. Howard Steadman, already at Tymshare, dealt in hardware and encouraged us to suggest innovative solutions to interfacing with modems. Dave Schmidt was vice president of Tymshare and understood the technical and economic advantages to Tymshare of these schemes. Laroy wrote almost all of the early Tymnet code. He and I did the design. At that time the phone company (AT&T) was considered a natural monopoly. They held that modems were the sole province of the telco. Tymshare had already produced acoustic couplers that competed with the telco's 103A data sets (data set = modem), but AT&T's lawyers were busy fighting what they considered to be more serious encroachments on their turf. Initially we found a strange little computer called the SPC12. It had 4K of 12 bit words. Most significantly it had parallel input and output, 12 bits wide, that could be interfaced with modems with simple voltage converters. The software would prepare and time the signals and there was no hardware devoted to timing the bits for each communications line. Precursors to this plan had been done at Livermore and in military applications before that. The first deployment used the SPC12 as a fixed time division multiplexor, providing full duplex service for 29 terminals, each running at 110 baud. Pairs of such multiplexers were connected with a leased line and two AT&T 201 data sets at 2400 bits/sec. There was no error control. These were deployed for a short while. We found the SCP12 too small and had located another machine, a Varian Data Machines model that used 16 bit words, and could be expanded beyond 4K words. This machine, and its direct descendants, served as the Tymnet workhorse for the next several years. Howard Steadman equipped the machine with parallel I/O like the SPC12. We


programmed this machine to do statistical multiplexing which took advantage of the fact that not all lines ran continuously. This allowed more users per leased line. We added backward error control on the multiplexed lines. Remote Echoing This software statistical multiplexing was deployed from Palo Alto to Los Angeles. Very quickly it became apparent that the variable echo delays were very disturbing since the sound of the Teletype's printer was the visceral signal that one had indeed pressed a key. While people were delighted that the errors had been eliminated, they found it difficult to type accurately. We had anticipated that this might be a problem and already had a plan. The plan was difficult enough that we had not coded it before first deployment. We went all-out to code remote echoing. The plan was to usually echo characters at the node (multiplexor) nearest the Teletype. The 940 system was prone to situations where the echoed character came from the application program and not the operating system—the application could request that characters not be echoed. The logical way of handling all of this is for the operating system to cease echoing characters until the application has had a chance to say “don't echo” in response to the characters that have arrived but it has not had a chance to interpret. With this plan, however, people found it disconcerting that echoes would cease after each line when they already knew that more input would be read by the application. In these common situations the user would already type the next input, and want it to be immediately echoed. If one wanted echoing to be properly inhibited, he would have to wait until the application had reached the point of canceling OS generated echoes. The additional latency exacerbated this problem! [This stuff should go elsewhere.] With this phase of Tymnet (not yet so named, however) pairs of nodes would be connected by a leased line. One node, the base, would sit next to the host computer, connected thereto by many cables. This still required the CTE equipment. The other node would typically sit in some Tymshare sales office. That office could access only that one computer. Several developments then began. We began to modify the 940 operating system to supplant most of the function of the local node, thus avoiding work both in the host and in the node. With this change the CTE equipment was retired and one cable connected the host to the base. We also began to introduce forwarding logic in the nodes so that traffic could travel thru several nodes, each hop via another leased line. This required routing which was provided by static routing tables. A dial-up access port would reach the same host but at least we had much greater flexibility in allocating ports to hosts. Sales spent many painful meetings devoted to this allocation. We had been thinking about dynamic routing tables to be built as new users logged in. We had no computer with enough power to do this in a brute force way. We could have put it on a Varian machine but that lacked sufficient core. We chose to program it for the 940 with a slightly modified version of the operating system. Laroy wrote that program using algorithms to dynamically sense the network topology. That first “Supervisor” knew several versions of the node software and the sizes and absolute addresses of routing tables in each of those versions. The supervisor would send out “data-grams” to cause the distributed nodes to change their routing tables. Several 940s (at least two) would simultaneously host supervisors who would politely agree among themselves which was to supervise the network. If such a supervisor or its host crashed, another supervisor would notice, discover the current net topology and assert control. This might take a few minutes, during which current sessions were unaffected but new users could not log in. Most days went by without such disturbances. One day in a marketing meeting, Virgil Swearingen suggested the name “Tymnet.” Few liked the name but it was clear that it was the best that had yet been suggested. It improved with time. That was Tymnet I. It is described here <http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/foldoc.cgi?query=TYMNET> too fairly well.


Tymnet II The PDP-10 was arriving and it too was adapted by Bill Weiher to Tymnet so as to avoid the expensive “per-user” communications equipment from DEC. Any programmer will tell you that one program knowing addresses in another is a very bad idea. It worked pretty well but did limit architectural progress. Laroy broached the idea that the supervisor would merely construct a needle which would pass thru the net guiding the creation of a new circuit. The needle would carry a 4 bit nibble, for each node, to steer the needle as it passed that node during the circuit construction. The supervisor would still need to know the network topology and how each node numbered each link. It would also know the node and link loads. It would no longer need to model the routing tables in each node. Routing table entries would be allocated locally. The cost of core memory for nodes had come down and the new node code was larger but more modular and efficient. At this time nodes typically had 8K or 12K of 16 bit words. A few had 16K. One particularly nasty bug would strike the New Orleans node. Usually node bugs would have the civility to strike first, or eventually, near Cupertino. We loaded an extra core bank with the code for New Orleans and mailed it there in a shoe box. Upon the next crash they swapped core and mailed the core module with the crash state back to Cupertino. We found the bug. When we opened the Paris office there was consternation over the idea that the European network would be managed from the states. This consternation was largely overcome by rewriting a few manuals to describe the operation differently. The Paris 940 ran a supervisor so that when the trans-Atlantic link was out they would still be in service. Once when all of the American supervisors had gone down, (a very rare occurrence) the Paris node tried to take over the American network via a 2400 baud link. It failed for by that time 2400 baud did not suffice to control even a night load in the states. Tymnet Service Our timesharing computers attracted business now by those who found it convenient that their program and its data were accessible at a large number of geographical sites. Some customers, however, found our timesharing computers inadequate to their tasks, even with special pricing. There was increasing call, inside Tymshare and out, to make Tymnet serve hosts other than our own. We gradually did this. This required a considerable programming staff to work with owners of diverse hosts to connect those hosts to Tymnet. Many techniques were used. This new business was easy to start because the simplest host interface mechanism was the early cable per connection configuration that required no changes to the host; just power, floor space and termination of a leased line to our site. The prospective customer had very little up-front cost to impede him. After the first day his computer would be accessible by a variety of terminal types from a variety of US cities and even several foreign countries. Here <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/history/sld014.htm> is a memento from the NLM. Tymnet served NIH until 1996. All through this development new varieties of terminals were coming to market. They came with higher baud rates and peculiar timing requirements. We would teach Tymnet about these new terminals and the node near the terminal would take care of the peculiarities. Other users of these terminals would have to adapt their host software to accommodate these strange timing requirements. It gradually dawned on us that the adaptation of various hosts to various terminals was a strategic marketing advantage. With the advent of Tymnet service the division began to become a company in its own right. After McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare, and then sold it to EDS, Tymnet was sold to MCI or British Telecom who were busy merging. It is still running today.


P.S. Don Johnson has been connected with Tymnet for many years. On Monday, March 24, 2003 he said: We shut down Tymnet this morning at 11:48 AM PST this morning. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Norman Hardy October 29, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SDS selected as an alternative to GE Title: OS sale to Harvard Author: Ann Hardy Created: February 2, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Ann Hardy and Dave Gardner went back to Harvard. When the system actually passed the acceptance test, the SDS salesman acted as if we had produced a miracle and treated us to all the food and drink we could manage in Boston. Was a great few days. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Ann Hardy February 2, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare selected by Harvard Title: Offices Author: Ann Hardy Created: February 2, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Tymshare's first offices were on Distel Drive in Los Altos, just half a block from Jean's Steak House where many critical decisions were made on Friday afternooons. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Ann Hardy February 2, 2005 Related Stories -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Distel Drive-Suitable for the Tymshare Mission Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare's first office on Distel Drive Title: Vermont drums Author: Ann Hardy Created: February 2, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright:


Story: Vermont had really missed the point of a swapping drum by requiring a complete revolution between writing of every page. When the problem was made clear, they sent out their chief engineer. He and Ann Hardy spent about a week testing various re-designs before we came up with something that supported continuous writing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Ann Hardy February 2, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vermont drum arrived Title: Tymshare Suits meet Santa Cruz Mountain Lumberjacks Author: Mike Humphries Created: December 7, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: At least twice a year the regions held sales meetings to go over new and existing product capabilities and benefits, as well as to learn and practice selling techniques. The meetings were almost always offsite in California locations such as Palm Springs, Cota De Coza or a similar away spot. They were usually three or four day events, very intense and long days, and very competitive with awards given at the end. There was no such thing as business casual for us-we wore suits for the duration of the meeting day. At night everyone was up for enjoying what little free time that was available. At one meeting the location was the Boulder Creek Country Club, in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Silicon Valley. At night, the only choice for getting away and for drinks was a few miles away in Boulder Creek itself, a little wild west town at the time about half hippies and half lumberjack/Hells Angels types. There were about 15 of us in our suits at a suitably rustic local bar having drinks. One of our guys was talking to a local girl he had met at the bar, when a local lumberjack took exception and tried to start a fight. Reluctantly everyone stepped outside, and it looked like a very tough local guy was about to mop up the street with our three piece suit clad collegue. Then, to all of our surprise, one of our guys stepped up, told the local guy to get going, and from his suit jacket inside pocket, pulled out a small pistol, and fired a shot into the ground for emphasis. The gesture had the desired result, the local and his small gang left immediately. No doubt they had not only never seen so many guys in suits in their local pub, but had also suspected that maybe more of the strange guys in suits might have pistols hidden away. We were smart enough to leave immediately as well, and return to the country club. It turns out that unknown to most of us our salesman/shooter was supposed to be on medication for a bipolar condition, but did not take his medicine that day! Fortunately it did not seem to affect his abilities as a salesman, for he was a really good consistent performer, although everyone always looked at him a bit differently after that incident. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries December 7, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Offsite Sales Meeting Goes Wild West


Title: Marketing Representative or Salesman? Author: Mike Humphries Created: December 7, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: When I joined Tymshare in early 1972, the field culture had already been well established as emulating that of IBM. Part of that was the requirement that all of us in the field offices, in fact anyone who ever called on or met customers and prospects, wore suits and ties, and white shirts. Women wore the closest reasonable approximation, although this was before the strange 80's phenomenom of women wearing a black skirt and jacket, white blouse and a large scale bow tie. You will notice I have not used the term 'sales' in this so far. That is because IBM did not call its field reps 'salespeople', and so neither did we. We were called 'Marketing Representatives', and our business cards all said so.'Sales' was deemed to be a bit harsh and pedestrian. 'Marketing' sounded a lot cooler. When we moved our Palo Alto office from Distel Drive (the original Tymshare headquarters) to San Antonio Road in Palo Alto, it was necessary to print up new cards for everyone in the office. Phil Chin was the Branch Manager at the time. Phil was a really superb salesman, and proud of what he did for a living. At the same time a few of us were taking sales training on our own time from Dale Carnagie, where the idea of being a real professional as a salesperson was greatly reinforced. So Phil talked to several of us about what we thought we should be called, and ultimately made the decision to order the new cards for all Marketing Representatives with the title printed as 'Sales Representative'. We waited to see if there would be repercussions from Headquarters when they found out, but to my knowledge, there never was any. Some other branches on the west coast followed suit over time, but many of the other branches in the Midwest and east did not. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries December 7, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Marketing Reps Decide to be Called Sales Reps Title: Early pranks on the computer Author: Mike Humphries Created: December 7, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The operating system that users saw on the Tymshare 940s was called Exec. It was a command-driven system, that allowed you to do everything from view and maintain files and programs, initiate programs, play games (yes, there were computer games even then) and a number of other functions such as send and recieve mail message, check on other users online, etc. Even as salespeople, in that era we were all reasonably skilled at using the Tymshare system and products. As time went on and sales activities consumed more and more of our time, it became useful to create little projects for ourselves or as a favor to a customer, in order to keep a hand in the actual programming or application game.


Since I had also spent a little over a year as a customer at Fairchild before joining Tymshare, I had a certain ability to manipulate the system. I had been facinated by the Tymshare 'init' file capability, which allowed you to make a specified 'program start up automatically when you logged in. I combined this with a special program that I wrote which processed a menu of commands so that the people who worked for me at Fairchild could put data into the system I wrote, and get reports without having to know very much else about how the Tymshare system ran. Later when I was a Tymshare salesman and was looking for something to do to sharpen up my skills, I decided to create a version of Exec that would appear to take commands as the real Tymshare Exec did, but process them in a very different way. For instance, the command 'files' was supposed to bring up a directory listing for the account you were logged into. I made my special Exec print a list of files, and then immediately print out the message 'deleting all files, OK?' (which was what exec would do if you typed in 'del all') You were then supposed to type in y or n as a reply. On my exec, no matter what you answered, it then would respond, 'deleting all files'. When you then type 'dir' again, it would respond '0 files'. That is what I thought in those days was real wit. The rest of the fake exec was implemented with similar tricks. It made a great program to install in a fellow Tymshare employees account (we all left our accounts logged in on our desks, so it was easy), set the 'init' option, and then the next time they logged in they were in for a wild ride. One of my collegues was Clayton Joyce, a top notch SE (we called them application consultants). When he saw my invention, he was fascinated, and asked me for a copy. Clayton had the Lockheed account at the time. They had a couple of dedicated 940s for their Sunnyvale facility, and several hundred users. Clayton set up my program in a customer's account who he knew well as a joke. Clayton made several additions to my exec by adding things like a responding to the entry of the 'who' command with 'knows what evil lurks in the heart of man'. There were several other quite clever additions that he made to the exec. What Clayton did not count on was that the customer whose account he set it up in did not call Clayton to report the strange behavior as would have been expected, but instead called the account supervisor for Lockheed, who in turn called our computer center support group to report sabotage (hacker was not a term yet invented.) A firestorm of investigation was started, and eventually the support people located the init program, and realized it was a prank gone out of hand. Clayton confessed and was admonished, while I sweated it out to see if the investigation was going to go all the way down the trail to the person who wrote the program, me. Fortunately for me, Clayton, an ex-Marine, did not break under questioning, took the blame for writing it alone, and I was untouched. To this day, everytime there is an outbreak of a major virus, or a computer break-in, and the search for the guilty parties begins, a little shiver goes down my back as memories of the exec fiasco resurface! I'm pretty sure it does for Clayton, too. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries December 7, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Computers inspire innovation Title: Tymshare's interesting customers-Stanford Research Institute in the early 70s Author: Mike Humphries Created: December 7, 2004


Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: This is a placeholder for the complete story. I will write this when I find the time to do it completely. This will be a story about the huge variety of Tymshare users all under one roof at SRI in the 70s. Nuclear War simulation, forest growth studies, children's game prototypes and early Artificial Intelligence. Also a chance to summarize the breadth of application, languages and utilities that we offered as our product and services set at Tymshare. Exec, Super Basic, Super Fortran, Editor, Tymtab, IML, ECAP, plotting. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries December 7, 2004 Title: Coming to the end of the era-timesharing mainframes transitioning to minicomputers Author: Mike Humphries Created: December 7, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: My time in the computer services/timesharing industry spanned almost exactly six years, from January 1972 through December 1977. Even though the company was already six years old when I joined, it and the industry was in a very healthy growth mode at the time, and we were more or less on the leading edge of commercially available technology. We had the machines that Tymshare started on in 1966 when I began; XDS 940s. They were specialized mainframes capable of supporting the large numbers of interactive users that we required. As technology increased, even though we continued to buy up more and more of the 940s, other computers were advancing in speed and capacity. Tymshare added DEC System 10s to our centers, and a modified version of our operating system shell. And then about 1975 we added IBM 370s running VM/CMS. The operating system was much harder to hide and make friendly. These systems were there for compatibility with the many in-house IBM systems our customers usually had, but they did not supply the highly interactive and user friendly experience that the 940s did. Our network used early mini-computers from Varian. They were small, not very powerful for general computing, but did a great job as data switches and nodes in our network linking customers to computers (see LaRoy Tymes story on Tymnet.) As we moved into the second half of the 70s the minicomputer made great advances in power and speed, and even got a bit of software capability. The idea of a affordable departmental computer that looked mostly like a fixed cost started being compared to our services. Our services were billed basically on how much you used it, with charges for time on line (connect time), computer usage (CPUs-computer processing units) and disk storage (kilobytes.)Most of our other related services and support came with it at no extra charge. It was easy for a lot of companies under budget pressures to view the tradeoff without taking into account the much more sophisticated application software and programming languages that Tymshare offered, nor the very high quality support from our local application consultants and from our data center support personnel. So even years before the PC came out and changed the equation again, price/performance pressures pitted us against our users, their finance departments and their MIS groups.


My most vivid recollection of this paradigm change is from the days in Los Angeles where I was the Branch Manager. We had as a customer the radio/TV empire started and owned by cowboy singer/movie star Gene Autry (KTLA.) For their own internal use they had developed an application on our system that pulled in data from Arbitron, who in turn gathered market performance data for radio and TV nationwide. The KTLA application was called Market-Buy-Market, and produced custom reports for any recognized market in the US. It also showed the market share for a number of specified time slices and sub categories that helped support the price of their ad time, and thus helped the salespeople who sold the media. The application was very successful due to the will and determination of our customer at KTLA, Gil, an old, crusty chain-smoking inovator, with a lot of help from folks in my LA Tymshare office. It was so good he decided it could be sold as a service to other stations and conglomerates outside of his own. The business began to grow by leaps and bounds, and at the same time their usage of the system grew mightily as well. Pretty soon it was inevitable that a cost comparison between our Tymsharing service and the purchase/running of an in-house mini began. The Prime Computer (a leading mini maker at the time) salesman made a compelling cost case. I was able to negotiate a one year fixed fee deal with KTLA to head off a loss of the business, but at the end of the year the numbers were too compelling for them. They bought a Prime computer and set up business. In retrospect it would have been a compelling business model for us to continue to sell our services for the very difficult development and testing stages of applications like this, and then have them moved for production runs to a dedicated mini, perhaps tied into our own network Tymnet for connectivity. Eventually as software available on the minis got better even that model would not work well, but it would have bought a few years more time. In fact that is pretty much what the Tymnet division made a business of, suppling world-wide connectivity to dedicated computers owned by others. For me, KTLA was the writing on the wall. I made my exit for other pursuits at the end of 1977. Tymshare hung on for a few more years trying a variety of business models including adapting our very sophisticated software for minis intended to be sold as a bundle to customers, but it never was successful enough to make a difference. So the end of the business that Tymshare helped start in the 60s came to an end at the close of the 70s. The ride in between for me was a really fun, profitable and meaningful experience. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries December 7, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timesharing begins facing its first challenge Title: Not exactly portable-Teletypes Author: Mike Humphries Created: December 7, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Today we all take portable computers for granted-if ours weighs more than a few pounds we need a newer one. In the late 60s and early 70s things were really different in the computer world. It was not enough just to be technically astute on computers-you needed to be strong too! Then, the modem alone weighed more that today's portable PC.


As a customer before I joined Tymshare, the bulk of the work in my department was done on the teletype. That was the standard device for input, printing and producing backup in the form of paper tape. The Teletype optionally had a paper tape punch/reader on the side, and you could back up your programs or do data input offline on tape, and read in at a speedy 10 cps (characters per second) later online. Tapes were about an inch and a half wide, and were often many feet long, so there was an actual skill you learned to wind them into a figure eight shape that kept them kink free and yet easy to feed back into the teletype when needed. Since it was Fairchild where I worked, and we had plenty of money, I also bought my department one of the first thermal, portable terminals (it was a small, quiet, lightweight and EXPENSIVE private branded machine called a Tymshare 10/30), but the majority of all the other work was on the teletype. If you have not seen one, teletypes were large, bulky and heavy mechanical devices. They typed like a normal typewriter, with the keys causing a mechanical arm with the chosen character on the end to stike the ribbon, and thus print on the paper, which was on a roll that continuously fed the machine. The teletype had something kind of like power steering on a car, but the power in this case was supplied by an internal electric motor that ran whenever the machine was on. So when operating there was always a loud whirring noise, accompanied by the smell of hot oil, which was what lubricated the machine. When we went to a prospect or customer site for a demonstration and they had no terminal, for the first year I was there we would carry a teletype in the car trunk, and then into the customers office. There was actually a case for the device as well, which looked like a tuba case-black luggage material, a luggage handle, and big. Since all it really did was add more weight, we seldom used the case. When it came time to carry it in, we would gather our strength, lift the incredibly heavy teletype from the trunk and move as quickly as possible into the customer's office. I often saw stars when I first picked one up due to the strain. Sometimes we used two people to carry them around, but that was deemed unmanly. No one ever looked forward to carrying a teletype anywhere-those things could give you a hernia. Shortly after the period I describe, about 1973 as I recall, TI introduced the TI Silent 700, an electronic terminal with modem, that was really quiet due to the thermal printer. The price and reliability were pretty good; however it was still really heavy, but being shaped more like a suitcase than a tuba, it was not as awkward to carry. This might explain why previously there were very few women salespeople until that began to change just about this timeframe! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries December 7, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carrying Teletypes to Customer Offices Title: Why did anyone use timeshared computers? Author: Mike Humphries Created: January 16, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: This relates my own experience as a Tymshare customer in 1971, as a fresh out of college product marketing analyst at Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View California. It's the best and most realistic way I can think of to convey a real life example of why computer timesharing


services had real value for the people and businesses in the 1960's and 70s. And how computer timesharing from Tymshare accomplished in a few months what nobody from our MIS group could do in two years. This should help illustrate the real value in the era of timesharing. I was a product marketing manager for medium scale digital integrated circuits at Fairchild Semiconductor in Mountain View California. It was the sweet spot of Fairchild's digital IC business of the time. Fairchild was one of the darlings of the integrated circuit business, and spun out many people who began start-ups of their own, including Intel and AMD. Mike Markula (of later Apple Computer fame) was my boss, head of Product Marketing. Fairchild was big and rich enough to afford pretty much the state of the art mainframe computers in American business at the time. I was called in for a meeting one day by the vice president of Market Research and Planning. They had a problem and wanted to get someone involved who had both familiarity with the Fairchild product line, as well as computer programming. As an electrical engineering major (we had no computer science school then), I had had a bit of programming experience in school, and loved doing it, so I agreed to switch to the market research and planning group for about six months to get the project done. Here is the problem: Fairchild and practically every other semiconductor company belonged to an industry trade association (I forget the name at the time.) Part of the value was that every month each member company reported their sales by device type (there were hundreds), units and dollars, to the association. In confidence of course. Someone on the association staff consolidated the numbers into totals, reflecting the aggregate of all reports. Then they sent that report back to you. Since you of course knew what you had reported by device type, it was a fairly straight forward matter to do the arithmetic to get market share data by device, and well as by total volume and dollar sales. You could also calculate how far off the average price you were, and other interesting information. This report went to the executive management committee of Fairchild each month for determination of marketing, production, sales and pricing strategies. Trouble was, when the time was taken into account for preparing the report to send to the association and then deriving the other reports from the aggregate report that came back, the cycle time was almost 30 days. That meant Fairchild was basing decisions on old information, at least older than they wanted to use. And it was a very competitive industry. At this time in business history (early 1970s) the computer capabilities at almost every modern American company were dominated by the 'glass house', so called because the computer room was often a raised floor, glass wall enclosed space with highly restricted entry. More important, the high priests were the MIS (Management Information Services, what we then called IT) people. They controlled what programs got written and changed, and when and how often they ran. You were at their mercy. If you needed a new program to, for instance, produce a report, the waiting list could be many months. The same was often true for changes unless you could justify a priority, and then it was at least days or weeks. On top of all this, the MIS people would often add their interpretation of what they thought you really need. They were of course smarter than you. Market Research and Planning had decided that timesharing, and specifically Tymshare was the solution for their dilemma. Good decision. Unfortunately they had a layoff in the department and one of the people laid off was the guy who was in the midst of writing the system to do the market share reporting. Bad decision. I came in never having written in Basic before, but willing to give it a go. My school had taught us ALGOL, thought by many destined to become the dominant language. I got the now ousted (and disappeared) guy's 50% completed program, with no documentation, and had to figure out how


he was doing the logic flow methodology, as well as learning how Basic (in this case Tymshare's superior Super Basic) worked. Over a period of a couple of months it got done. There was a data input program that accepted both Fairchild monthly data and the association's aggregate data that came back to us and also a reporting and analysis program. Here is what we did with the programs: We would get the sales reports for the month from MIS in the form of paper reports-mounds of them. The clerical staff in MR&P would type in each Fairchild device number and the corresponding units and dollars sales from the report for every device Fairchild made, many hundreds of devices given package types, device families and other variations. My program would grind this input data down into standardized device classifications as defined by the association, and produce a report that was the format required by the association. And we would send it off to them. In about a week the consolidated industry report by standard device type would come back, and our clerical staff would input those numbers into my program. Then the program would do the calculations to produce the market share report in a number of formats for various people to look at. Doing it this way cut down the cycle time from 30 days to about half that - 3 days input, a week wait for the association and two days inputing that resulting report and producing our own. It was viewed as a miracle, and everyone was sooo happy! You will notice that we did not have the luxury of transferring data directly from the MIS report to my program/association report, or the association output report to my program. We could also have saved the association a lot of time and trouble by giving them a program that consolidated the many individual monthly reports they got from each member company. Those steps would have cut the cycle time down to a few days at worst. Also, every time we produced a monthly output market share report, someone in management or one of the divisions would want the data reported special ways, so we would create that. There were no reporting tools on Tymshare at the time, so it meant changing programs around. Here was an early opportunity to develop generalized report generators and data analysis tools, but we were still mired in the basics. Still, it was so very far ahead of what they had been doing. After getting the initial programs built, tested and operational, we made several other improvements that added to the efficiency. We leased the very first DataPoint CRT system that had a mag tape (cassette sized) unit for working on data and program edits off-line. Then we could put in data from the tape at a high speed later. We also got one of the first portable high speed terminals, with a thermal printer. This way we could move around easily to where reporting requests were needed, and as a bonus spared everybody from the incredible noise that the teletypes (see my other story) made. The portable terminal was leased from Tymshare, who themselves OEM'd it, and were almost first to market with this kind of device. So here is the summary of the benefits for using Timesharing and Tymshare: Much quicker time to get an application up and running. And like Burger King, it was your way, not how MIS wanted to do it. Much quicker means from months to years faster, depending on a number of variables including how many pounds of flesh MIS wanted to extract! Ability to do on-the-fly changes and additions. Really the early version of 'what-iffing' or decision support. Regarding MIS, reread the section above. Turn around for us was literally minutes. Easier to use systems, programming languages, appications and services and support. Tymshare people were there to advise, support and give hands on help to get you where you wanted to go.


After all, Tymshare really only made money when you were up and running regularly, month after month, so the value added services worked for all parties. Finally, the availability of applications and utilities that meant in many circumstances you did not have to rely solely on programming. During the time I wrote the example above, Tymshare came out with a sort utility, which meant I could dispose of my own inefficient sort program. And then they added merge and select capabilities, so pretty soon there were hugh amounts of code that could be avoided. For business applications, later Tymshare came out with a simple but useful report function. Later on they had the first version of a spreadsheet (Tymtab), years before VisiCalc. A couple of months after the system got operational on Tymshare with excellent reviews around Fairchild on its success, the MIS folks came around wanting to interview me so they could propose how they would rewrite the system and take it inhouse to the mainframe, and regain control. That is how MIS operated in those days. That was my cue to ask Tymshare about a job, and leave. And I did! By the way, it was well over a year before MIS got its version of the system operational. I was told it was inflexible, and cumbersome. Par for the course. That is why departmental mini computers and PCs would eventually be so successful. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries January 16, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare Services used at Fairchild Title: Distel Drive-Suitable for the Tymshare Mission Author: Mike Humphries Created: February 9, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Unlike what I have attempted with my other stories about the early 70s Tymshare experiences, this is more of a rememberance of my own early experience at Tymshare than it is a story of the era reprsentative of what was going on at the time. A mention by Ann Hardy of the early Distel Drive location spurred these memories, so I wrote them down. The office building on Distel Drive in Los Altos is still there, a wonder since it was a very modern design for its time and like Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, designed better than it was built. When I was a customer in 1970-71 the building had become a sales office, and where classes were given for customers. The building looked great, but had a number of annoying problems including a flat, leaky roof. Before we taught classes on several occasions we had to remove the paper cups we had previously placed all around the room to catch the water leaking through the roof. The building was all windows, which gave every room remarkable light and contributed to the cheerful high energy characteristics that seemed to be a hallmark of almost all Tymshare folks back then. For me at least, I think being in this very differently designed building that felt to me at the time that it represented the future helped even more to enforce the idea that the business we were engaged in was of the future and not the past.


Our phone system was the now classic Ericafone phones which you can see in many exhibits of 50's-60's design-I think the building owner was in love with them. When we moved out of the Distel Drive office for a new one on San Antonio Road, no one wanted the phones because they were so strange. So I took two, which I still have today, and are now classics. Here is a link to a picture http://www.ericofon.com/sale/ericofons/pics/nc_ivory.jpg One room contained a MUX (network multiplexer) which was a Varian mini. Varian, which is still a viable company today, used to make mini-computers in addition to its other microwave centric products. It was handy to have the MUX there because when they had problems (not often) it was our responsibility to bring them back up, which sometimes involved reading in the boot code from a paper tape. By the way, when I later managed the LA sales branch, we had a MUX housed in a closet room, because of space constraints. It had to be cooled with a water system. One evening the plumbing broke, and we flooded the tenant on the floor below us in the downtown LA high-rise. When I was a customer in 1970-71 the building was already a sales office from its original HQ status, and also where classes were given for customers. The building looked great, but had a number of annoying problems including a flat, leaky roof. Before we taught classes on several occasions we had to remove the paper cups we had previously placed all around the room to catch the water leaking through the roof. Just last week (02/03/05) I was passing by Distel Drive and thought that it had been a long time since I had seen the old building. Turned on Distel, drove by and there it was, still a very pleasing design. Who knows how long it can survive-I think it was owned by the architect who designed and built it and for a long time still had offices there. The jewelry store is still there that has been there since the 70s (a few years ago another Tymshare person was there for something else and they pulled out an old Tymshare sales trophy that was there for engraving and unclaimed, and gave it to him.) The bar/restaurant that Ann Hardy refers to is long gone. The bar of the restaurant was a very decorous place, where every once in a while we would convene for drinks after work. But the difference between a good place for Tom in his 40's to take his officers after work and a good place for those of us in our 20's at the time was too great, and we quickly found other (more seedy) places nearby for that after work round. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries February 9, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare's first office on Distel Drive Title: Documentation for Timesharing required a (mostly) different approach Author: Mike Humphries Created: February 10, 2009 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: This is a placeholder for a piece about the new type of documentation for using timesharing applications and services. Because now a good number of the users were just regular business people and engineers, not IT or MIS types. So a different approach was needed. The result at Tymshare was whole sets of graphically appealing and very readable materials for introductions/learning, reference materials and 'instant series' quick reference cards.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries February 10, 2009 Title: Tymshare Remote Data Access Author: Don Johnson Created: December 3, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: My favorite Tymshare histories were the times I went to the LA area due to many customer complaints regarding garbled data at 10, 15 and 30 CPS back in 1972. I was down there for many weeks resolving numerous acoustic coupler issues. At many sites I could not improve the service. They were mainly GTE phone customers (most complaints were from GTE areas). I thought about the possible echo effect between the transmission and receive data within the telephone handset. I removed the covers of both the plastic covers of the handset. It was hollow and would allow R/T data to influence each other. I went to the restroom and grabbed a bunch of toilet paper to stuff into the handset to isolate transmit data from receive. Problem resolved! We then generated a memo to all customers to install wads of cotton in the handset. My weekly trips to the LA area ended. This solved 98% of our complaints and all telco industries began the process to installing cotton in the phones. A new industry standard for "high speed" data transmission in the new data access industry. Trouble shooting data issues with Telco techs in those days was challenging. If they could hear you over the "noise", they said the line was good and there was no guarantee for this new data transmission feature. We were told we needed to pay for a data grade line with conditioning. The early days were very interesting and challenging. I recall the Director of Engineering back in the early 70's saying remote down loading of network node code was not possible to develop. We had Bill Scheible create the Node bootstrap and Dan Lasater do the PDP 10 source load via the network. We were the first Timesharing data network to perform node code loads via the network itself. Prior loads were accomplished with the mailing of paper tapes and later magnetic tapes until we could use our network. We also developed the ability to remotely download mirror images of failed code to analyze node failures to assist in root cause failure. Network nodes also had "speedometers" that automatically informed operations personnel of overload or degrading conditions. This was completely transparent to the customer due to the rerouting of new users to less congested data paths. The degraded paths could be shut until the remaining users completed their task/s and corrective action could be initiated. Network nodes were constantly performing self-diagnosis on themselves and the neighboring network Telco links. Again, any degradation in performance was reported to Operations and the condition isolated from further user traffic. Tymshare was ahead of its time back in the early days of its existence. Many of today's networks are still lacking these capabilities. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Don Johnson December 3, 2005 Related Events --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Toilet paper solves pesky garbled data problem Tymshare first to perform node code loads via the network. Title: BUPERS Author: Carl Jones Created: November 24, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I joined Tymshare on January 5th and began working on the BUPERS project on January 8th. BUPERS was the Navy Bureau of Personnel. The project was led by Clayton Joyce. The project "got in" under an existing NAVY contract in San Diego. The discussion about running TOTAL (a database manager) under IBM's VM/CMS began in early 1975. A first deliver to the Navy was made on July 3, 1975. I have additional information about the technology, the billings, architecture, etc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Carl Jones November 24, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carl Jones joined Tymshare Title: Compulade Author: Carl Jones Created: November 24, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Compulade was a system to provide trucking freight rate calculation system. An existing system, Computafuel, was already running on three different operating systems in three different cities. Dick Westgaard, Karen Sauln and I were tasked with an evalluation of the system and determination of how (or whether) to proceed. If my memory serves correctly, then we recommended that Tymshare cancel the project. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Carl Jones November 24, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evaluation of Compulade Title: Western 29 Author: Carl Jones Created: November 24, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: I began work on Western 29 in September, 1976. I worked on the project and its follow-on's for 4+ years and have much documentation. ON June 29, 1977, I won the Western 29 SuperBowl XXIX Most Valuable Player award - a gold football trophy which I still have (sentimental me).


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Carl Jones November 24, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carl Jones joined Tymshare Title: Herding cats and back to the future Author: Gary Myers Created: January 27, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Musings about my Tymshare experiences By Gary Myers Herding Cats and Back to the Future In 1976 Ron Braniff asked me to serve as VP and GM of the newly created Industry Services Division which consisted of the 16 data centers acquired when we bought United Data Centers. Bob Schwartz was to be the VP and GM of the original time sharing operation, Tymshare’s cash cow but PC-threatened business. I was to help Tymshare in its quest to diversify away from strictly interactive time sharing. This would prove to be the toughest job I ever had at Tymshare. Bernie Goldstein and Al Eisenstat, of United Data Centers, had put together a loose confederation of batch service bureaus located in secondary cities, mostly in the East and Midwest. In earlier years, Bernie served as executive secretary for ADAPSO, a data processing trade association. In this position he had developed relationships with the owners and founders of many small to medium sized service bureaus scattered across the country. He and Al thought they could “roll up” or financially consolidate these service bureaus, and then sell them to a national computer services firm that could tie them all together with a national network and a national sales force. Eureka--- is that Tymshare?? For our part, Tymshare was looking for entrenched applications in very specific industries that would not be displaced by the growing PC threat. UDC did have these applications in banking, medical billing, TV cable billing, and most importantly in tax preparation for accountants. But where Tymshare was centrally controlled and had a common culture, each of these independently founded and managed data centers shared no common bonds with the other UDC data centers, other than financial reporting. As one might guess, these independent service bureau founders/owners, now called data center managers after the Tymshare acquisition, were very independent. They chaffed under the typical Tymshare management constraints. To manage this disparate collection of formers owners was indeed like trying to herd cats. But the opportunity to work with Bernie and Al was a big professional growth opportunity for me. The three of us became a team to make additional acquisitions for Tymshare to flesh out its diversification objectives. As a team, we did more than a dozen additional acquisitions. Bernie was the deal-maker. He would find and qualify the potential targets. Al would do the due diligence and use his legal skills to prepare the contracts. My job was to integrate the new acquisitions into my division. I felt like the cook in the story of the cook at the hunting camp. The hunters while being chased by a bear into the campsite would yell to the cook, “OK, we’ve brought in our dinner; you skin him and cook him.” Integration of these acquisitions into Tymshare was more that just network connections and application compatibility, it was most importantly people integration and that was difficult because of the huge cultural gap between UDC and Tymshare.


One story may illustrate the difficulty of integrating these new acquisitions into Tymshare. Bernie and Al had acquired a data center in Birmingham, Alabama, shortly before they were acquired by Tymshare. Andy Rogers, the founder and President, of his operation in Birmingham was a man of pride and considerable ego, and he was recognized as a local business leader in his home town. But he had become disillusioned and he felt under appreciated by both UDC and then Tymshare management. He was no longer President, but just a data center manager. He had to get approval for new hires. He had tough and specific financial objectives to meet. The dream of the magical Tymnet network extending the reach of his local service bureau was not happening due to technical considerations. In short he was angry even though he had been paid handsomely by UDC and then in Tymshare stock and cash to buy his operation. One morning I received a call from a senior manager who worked at the data center in Birmingham. I had met him during one of my trips to the center and apparently won his confidence by being open in answering questions about the acquisition. In the phone call he asked if I knew that Andy had leased space across the street from the data center, and was recruiting employees and soliciting customers for “his new company”. This action was clearly in violation of Andy’s buy/sell agreement and his non-compete agreement. I spent the next several months in Birmingham, reselling customers, reassuring employees, and banning Andy from ever doing data center business in Birmingham. The good news was that the data center was saved for Tymshare, but the bad news was that episode really destroyed Andy. He had a stroke shortly after the encounter and died. I feel that our necessarily tough action may have contributed to Andy’s health issues. That experience took its toll on me too. I elected to leave Tymshare in late 1978, feeling that the firm had changed from the hi-growth, fun-loving firm that I remembered in the late ‘60s and early‘70s. Back to the Future As new web based firms spring up boasting new business models, I am amazed at the similarity to the old time sharing concepts. Internet based server businesses are like the old time sharing systems, with their attendant network access, security, storage and pricing issues. What goes around, comes around in spite of the incredible advances in computing hardware and software. The new internet kids could learn from those of us who have been through the computer services game before. Experience counts when combined with youthful exuberance, to build great companies. At Tymshare we built a great company that changed a computing paradigm and contributed to many people’s careers….and we had fun doing it. The twelve years I spent at Tymshare were the most memorable in my career. I experienced more professional growth, established more lasting friendships and accomplished more personal goals than in any other period in my business life. As I write these stories, the wonderful memories flood back. Thanks for providing a forum for all of us the relive our Tymshare memories. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Gary Myers January 27, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Merger with UDC People are the hard part of integrating acquisitions Title: From Batman and Robin through the early years Author: Gary Myers Created: January 27, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright:


Story: Musings about my Tymshare experiences By Gary Myers From Batman and Robin to the early days of Tymshare’s culture. Two salesmen from IBM’s Finance and Insurance office located in San Francisco were heavy into recruiting discussions with a funny little startup company down the Peninsula called Tymshare. Although these two were known as Batman and Robin to their fellow IBMers because of the roles they played in skits for the sales meetings, neither knew the other was interviewing with Tymshare—until they both showed up for work in October 1967. Dick Greene and Gary Myers both joined Tymshare the same week. Guess who was Batman and who was Robin? At that time, John Jerrichian was the VP and Northern California general manager along with Ray Wakeman in Southern California. Ron Braniff was the new sales manager working for Jerrichian, having just been hired a few months earlier from the IBM San Jose office. Ann and Norm Hardy were key technical people working for Dave Schmidt, cofounder with Tom O’Rourke. The Hardys were key technical people developing the new time-sharing operating system for the SDS 940. The company HQ was on Distel Drive in Los Altos where TJO, founder and President had his office, but everyone knew that Pat d’Agati, TJO’s admin, really ran the company! During those early years, company hiring was quite eclectic. I remember Virgil Swearingen coming onboard as the new Tech Support manager. Anyone who knew Virgil knew him as being a man of odd habits but good character. He hired a number of great people: Tom Manuel (a good technical addition), Otis Brinkley (a former TWA pilot who wanted to change careers but didn’t know how to spell computers), and Bob Wallace (a former computer operator who parked his MiniCooper under the Distel Dr. building and shook the building walls every time he started the car), and Jim Harrison (a great personality but had a forehead covered with hair). Many of those early hires were former Tymshare users, e.g. Mike Humphries, which was great from a tech training point of view, but very tough when negotiating the next contract with the customer firm they left to join Tymshare. There was a missionary zeal that pervaded the company then. We were on a revolutionary mission to change the way computing was done. Rather than carry punched card programs and magnetic tapes of data into the computer room to run one program at a time, Tymshare would now allow users to remotely access a large computer and run their programs through a phone line, simultaneously with several other users. It was truly revolutionary at that time! The company was very small then—less than a million dollars of sales and about a dozen people. There was an electric feeling of excitement which was a real credit to Jerrichian and Braniff, given the fact that our SDS 940 computers were down more time than they were up. Our job, as new salesmen, was to spread the word and sell the concept to many new customers. The way we would spread the word was to demo the system—when it was up. Braniff had us buy, with our own money, big suitcases at Sears into which we placed KSR model teletypes and a crude acoustical coupler. We then would make demo appointments at some of the large companies in the area—SRI, LMSC, Ames, FMC, Shell, BofA, Rad Lab. Potential new customers were just “blown away” by our suitcase portable KSRs being able to run their programs from their desks using their phones to communicate with the 940s on our site. But after the novelty of the demo wore off, we had the hard work of selling the contract with its unusual terms of CPU seconds, connect time, and storage units through the skeptical purchasing department. Those early years in Tymshare’s history were very important because we were developing the Tymshare “culture”. We did not realize then the words of Dave Schmidt would be so prophetic—we must develop the Tymshare culture of success so that when we no longer have the superior technical solution, the company will continue to succeed. As my Tymshare musings continue with stories from the past, it will be more obvious that Tymshare culture played an important role in the success of the company…and made it a wonderful place to work in those early years. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Gary Myers January 27, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Carrying Teletypes to Customer Offices Tymshare attracts sales employees from IBM Tymshare Culture was important to success Tymshare sales reps carry first portable terminals Title: Go East Young Man Author: Gary Myers Created: January 27, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Musings about my Tymshare Experiences By Gary Myers Go East Young Man! TJO wanted Tymshare to become a national company, and that meant expansion to the east coast from our California base. TJO hired a couple of “seasoned experts” to head up our first east coast office in New Jersey. This proved to be ineffective since these outsiders did not know our products and services. Even with training, they could not articulate the Tymshare benefits and limitations, but most of all; they did not know the people in California with whom they had to work to deliver the computer services the customers had contracted to buy. After a few months, TJO fired these “seasoned experts” and sent John Jerrichian, and later Ron Braniff, on temporary assignments to clean up the mess in New Jersey. John and Ron hired some great people, Bob Schwartz, Walt Essimann, Mike Cohn, and Tom Mangan, to name a few. But most importantly, John and Ron transferred the Tymshare culture to the East. They knew intimately how to sell and service the product, and how to get the cooperation of their fellow employees in California to deliver the often times less than reliable computer services over the fragile Tymshare network. They knew how to set the customer’s expectations properly. They knew how the billing system worked, and they knew how to train and support customers when using Tymshare’s languages—CAL, SuperBasic, and interpretive FORTRAN. In short they transferred the Tymshare culture to the east coast Along with the initial east coast expansion, Tymshare tapped Dick Greene to head up the first west coast expansion out of California. Dick was named Tymshare’s first District Manager, heading up our new Seattle office. Of course, he had great Tymshare experience in selling and supporting the Bay Area customers so his success in Seattle was expected. He established the record for the fastest revenue growth and fastest profitability of any remote Tymshare office at that time. About this same time frame in the 1968 year, Braniff felt a Washington D.C. office would be an appropriate expansion target. There were already 32 timesharing service bureaus serving the government with contracts already established with the National Institutes of Health. NIH was the bench mark client that most all government agencies used to test and evaluate time sharing services. Tymshare would become the 33rd vendor with a NIH contract, a daunting competitive challenge in that market. I accepted the challenge to move east and establish a District Office in Washington …but only if I could chose one individual to take back with me from Northern California, and one individual from the now established New Jersey office. I chose Otis Brinkley from the Los Altos office. Otis Brinkley was the unflappable, but technically inexperienced salesman who previously was a TWA pilot. But Otis was smart, and he had learned the product quickly. He was also was an extremely hard working person. Together we picked Mike Cohn from


New Jersey who was very bright and technically competent and knew the east coast reference accounts. What a team of three musketeers we were—a young IBM peddler, an airplane jockey and a techie from NJ! The key to our success in Washington D.C. was that we knew the corporate culture of Tymshare. About that time, TJO was negotiating with Lou Clapp, President of Dial Data in Boston to acquire DD. We felt that was a good acquisition because DD had a sizable presence in government business in Washington D.C. But the real gems from DD were not their customers, but the two key employees—John Garrison, the office manager, and Bill Peterman, senior salesman. I feel one of my biggest accomplishments in Washington was to sell John and Bill on staying with Tymshare after the acquisition. Even though we lost much of the DD business in the transition, keeping John and Bill and sharing the Tymshare culture with them paid big dividends. Personally it was important to keep them in Tymshare because John became my replacement and thus my ticket back to California. Within a year we were the 3rd largest vendor of time sharing services in D.C. and went on the reestablish records for revenue growth and profitability for the company, including selling Tymshare’s largest hardware order of modems. Mike Cohn sold those modems to Leasco. Additional we got to know the federal government culture. Our guide in this process was George Davis, who had been selling to the “gerbs”, as he called them, for many years. George went on to help Tymshare gain hi-level visibility within the government agencies that would not have been possible without his guidance. But we also had fun. Brinkley and I shared an apartment before our families moved out and we explored the “Capitol Hill parties” where the young, upwardly mobile, politically oriented groupies convened on Friday nights. Since I was from Wyoming and knew the Wyoming senator, we were included in the inner circle parties and even got to enjoy Navy Bean soup at the Senate Dining Room on several occasions. Those connections proved to be personally and professionally an exciting experience. Just after my family moved out to the area, I noticed a familiar face as our next door neighbor. One of my fraternity brothers from University of Wyoming was that neighbor. Within a couple of weeks we noticed another Wyoming license plate moving in two doors down. We introduced ourselves to that Wyoming couple, Dick and Lynn Cheney. Dick was working as chief of staff for Donald Rumsfelt at the time. I always felt it was very unusual to have three Wyoming couples living within four doors of one another in Falls Church, VA. Whenever Braniff would come into town for a meeting, it was time to celebrate our successes and blow off some steam. I’ll never forgot the evening Ron turned his rental car into an “off road vehicle” by climbing the steps of the Lincoln Monument. We could see the eyes of Abe looking down at us from his big marble chair as we bounced up the steps. We also could see the flashlights of the Capitol Park police as they came running up the steps after us “…but officer, we are tourists just wanting to get a better look at Abe”. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Gary Myers January 27, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acquired Dial Data. Tymshare gains a presence in Washington, DC market Tymshare services expanded Title: That pesky PC forces a change in strategy Author: Gary Myers Created: January 27, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story:


Musings about my Tymshare experiences By Gary Myers That pesky PC forces a change in strategy By the late ‘70s we were finding the mini computer competition a real threat. The DEC and Data General minis were proving their competitive advantage by winning bench mark tests, mostly in our scientific, compute bound customers. But our business applications customers were still thrilled with the ease-of-use and customer support benefits of using Tymshare. But shortly thereafter, that pesky PC was showing up as a competitor on our bread ‘n butter business analysis applications—spreadsheets, data base retrieval and reporting. The early PC could do for a one-time purchase price of about $5000 the same work that Tymshare would charge about $5000 per month to do. That order of magnitude cost differential caused customers to consider the PC even though they loved the legendary support by our Applications Consultants, easy to use applications software, good documentation, and pervasive Tymnet network. A change of strategy was needed. We must become more than just a computer time sharing company; we had to become a diversified computer services firm. One of our most loyal and largest customers helped us make that transition. Lockheed (LMSC) wanted to fix their large and growing monthly time sharing bill, but at the same time let their internal users continue to expand their use of the attractive Tymshare services, supported by Art Gaffin and Terry Dager, Tymshare employees who almost lived at LMSC. We were able to sell, internally to Tymshare management and to LMSC, a Tymshare first—a facilities management contract. This new contract would let LMSC have unlimited use of a dedicated 940 on our premises for a fixed monthly charge. This arrangement allowed for expansion to include additional users, and it gave their internal MIS department some control over the LMSC time sharing users and their budgets. It allowed Tymshare to gain a nice fixed price contract, close out the threat of in-house MIS competition, and lock in users who were threatening to go to minis or PCs. LMSC would later expand the number of computers they had under their Tymshare facilities management contract to include more 940s, DEC 10s and even an S/370. About 1978 TJO began exploring another option to change Tymshare from a time sharing firm to a diversified computer services company. He was in discussions with Bernie Goldstein and Al Eisenstat about acquiring their firm United Data Centers. UDC was a collection of mostly batch service bureaus, in 16 eastern and midwestern secondary cites. The attraction of UDC to Tymshare was their collections of industry specific applications in banking, medical, fuel oil distribution, cable TV billing and tax preparation. The plan was to get intimately involved in our customers’ operations by supplying their mission critical applications that would not easily be displaced. In combating the threats from the mini and PCs, Tymshare was trying to move away from the commodity based general time sharing computing services model. They were moving toward an industry and application specific diversified computing services business model. That strategy proved to be a difficult transition, as I discuss in my next story—herding cats. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Gary Myers January 27, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lockheed becomes Tymshare's first facilities management customer Merger with UDC Timesharing begins facing its first challenge Title: The Remnant of Tymshare/Tymnet: The EDI*Net Story Author: Paul Olson Created: January 20, 2007


Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The Remnant of Tymshare/Tymnet: The EDI*Net Story Tymshare encouraged an ‘intrepreneurial' spirit. In branch offices, we young, aspiring sales reps, application consultants, and managers constantly worked on prototypes for new, creative solutions to seemingly impossible customer challenges. This was never more evident than in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As the transformation of computing platforms accelerated from the mainframe to the PC, new decision support system tools (spreadsheet software) emerged to compete with our proprietary products (Express and Focus), and data networks evolved, we scrambled in the field to find new customers, new products, and new revenue. The creation of EDI*Net, now owned by nuBridges, Inc. in Atlanta is a worthy example of the Tymshare and Tymnet culture of innovation. I believe that EDI*Net is the last vestige of Tymshare and Tymnet. In the late '70s, the U.S. grocery industry commissioned the Arthur D. Little consultancy firm in Boston to devise a pilot for 13 companies (retailers, manufacturers, food brokers) called UCS (Uniform Communication Standard) to prove the feasibility and value of exchanging business documents from computer to computer. The pilot utilized existing electronic data interchange (EDI) standards for purchase orders, invoices, etc. as developed by the TDCC (Transportation Data Coordinating Committee), under the leadership of Ed Guilbert, headquartered in Washington D.C. These standards were the forerunner of ANSI X12 and EDIFACT standards. At the time, I was a branch unit manager for Tymshare in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I well remember the dozen or more interviews I went through with Bob Larson (Branch Manager) and his team to join Tymshare in 1979 as a young, Applications Consultant. Later on, when in management, I came to value our rigorous interview protocol and process (Brad Smart's technique) to help us find the best and brightest contributors. In the field, we understood and sold the competitive advantage formed by the combination of Tymshare's computer centers connected to our customers by our Tymnet network. However, Tymshare's business model that offered Decision Support Solutions (DSS) to functional business areas in major corporations using 4GL languages running on Tymshare IBM, DEC, and SDS 940 mainframes connecting through Tymnet was on the decline in the early 1980s. In the ‘breadbasket of the country,' the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, several of our DSS customers were in the grocery industry. One of those companies, General Mills, was one of our top customers. To sustain our DSS solution revenue and in the hopes of growing it at General Mills, in early 1981 I called on David Graves, a senior MIS executive at General Mills. To my disappointment, David could not identify any DSS problems facing their business units, but he told me about the grocery industry's UCS pilot. One triad among the 13 pilot companies, Super Valu, Dow Chemical, and Dow's food broker, Sales Force Company wanted to use a ‘third party' to move the EDI documents. After a number telephone calls (out of territory in Chicago and Indianapolis), I convinced the three pilot companies in September of 1981 to utilize us as a third party VAVAN (my view of a value-added message management system running on a Tymshare computer on top of our Tymnet VAN). With an unofficially recruited technical and data center team from Cupertino, Dallas, and New York, I orchestrated the creation of EDI*Net in the fall of 1981. We moved the first public EDI business (in this case TDCC standard) business document through direct connections and Tymnet (dial-up at unheard of speeds of 2400/4800 bps). EDI*Net heralded the dawning of the B2B E-commerce era. Creating the solution was not easy. My vision and conviction held we had all the tools and technology to fashion a solution for an EDI network system for multiple industries (EDI*Net serves


over a dozen distinct industries, today). My thinking went like this. Since Tymnet provided connections to 100's of corporate mainframe and minicomputers in over 300 cities in the U.S., we could use its nodes as switches to move business documents between computers. I knew that Tymnet's ISIS engines had ‘slots' for specialized applications, including our OnTyme email capability. We also had some experience in the Minneapolis branch with early stages of message exchange. Dan Petrosky developed RailTrack using the relational Magnum language and report generator. RailTrack ran on a PDP-10 with a daily TWX tape transmission from the Association of American Railroads. RailTrack provided major shippers (General Mills) the ability to track their rail car shipments with Car Location Messages (CLM). Dan, Doug Gillam (Applications Consultant), and Bob Larson put up with this novice consultant, sales rep, and unit branch manager. They deserve thanks for the mentoring and encouragement to create EDI*Net. What I sold to the grocery industry triad was an EDI message management system that used a network (Tymnet) and an "electronic mailbox" (OnTyme) to move business documents from a buyer and seller. However, during the three months from the contract signing with Sales Force Companies (food broker in Chicago), Dow Chemical (Saran Wrap division in Indianapolis), and Super Valu Stores (retail chain and wholesale grocery company in the Minneapolis), I discovered that computers tied to the Tymnet network could not dynamically "talk" to each other without a highly, secure login sequence. Moreover, the ISIS OnTyme slot email software could not handle the sophisticated, highly formatted EDI document with a header and trailer that identified sender and receiver. Frankly, I had no business selling the solution in the first place; Chicago and Indianapolis were out of territory. The technical resources that I needed in addition to Minneapolis local support were in Cupertino (network engineers and software consultants - Dick Westgaard and Robert Klute), Dallas (data center operations manager), and New York (applications consultants - Tony Tadross) and they reported through different channels. Asking forgiveness seemed prudent rather than asking for permission. For three months, from the signing of the three customers in September until December of 1981 the team worked to develop a primitive message management system using CMS Exec language on a Dallas data center IBM 370 reserved for our Tymshare tax business. I received tacit permission to use the machine until tax season began. I figured we would find a different solution by then, hopefully an application in an ISIS slot, but until then we needed a partitioned operating system. However, try as we did, the software took longer to create, a special leased line set-up to handle a ‘no login' 2400-baud connection would not function correctly, and I slowly discovered the challenges of transferring files between computer systems. Late in December of 1981, I received a call from Paul Lemme, President of Distribution Computing Systems, Inc. in Chicago. I listened as he scolded me for stringing him along on my promise to create an EDI network solution for the grocery industry. It was causing a credibility issue with his sole customer, Sales Force Companies, whose chairman, Marsh Blackburn, demanded proof of Tymshare's functional solution for the grocery industry's UCS pilot system by 4:30 PM, that day. That meant a successful electronic transfer of a business document, namely a purchase order, from any food manufacturer to Sales Force's DEC 20/20 computer through a Tymshare computer and its Tymnet network. Paul ended the conversation by saying, "If you cannot make this happen, I must call Marsh on his yacht off the coast of Florida and tell him I lied and then call George Klima, an executive at Super Valu Stores, and apologize for dragging him into our contractual agreement." Shortly after the call, our young high school intern walked in my office. His work ethic and clever genius - he built his own PET microcomputer and modified its operating system at the age of 16 - endeared him to our Minneapolis branch team. He was precocious, yet winsome and he asked if he could help. I doubted it. However, within 30 minutes, we hatched a crazy plan to meet Paul Lemme's deadline. What we could not accomplish in three months, we set out to solve in less than six hours.


After finding and quickly reading an old dusty manual on something called RSCS (Remote Spooling Console System) in our library, we determined we could build a circuit out to the end of a 2400-baud modem in the Dallas center. It took several calls to grocery industry, UCS pilot companies to request an EDI transfer of a purchase order via a no logon call to 2400-baud modem. Kraft, P&G, and Nabisco all said they planned to create a ‘translator' to create a UCS (TDCC standard) document, but had not finished the task. I called Paul Lemme to tell him that no on could move an EDI document. He told me to call Quaker in Chicago. To my chagrin, Quaker agreed to test a direct connect and EDI file transfer. Around noon, that day, I watched the TI portable terminal in my office come to life. The document started out perfectly - header, field delimiters, etc. Then the transmission spewed out random characters. When the MIS contact at Quaker called to confirm the transfer, I told him of the failure. Then he confessed that Quaker did not have a translator either. He simply typed the characters on the operator's console and quickly tired of typing them precisely as they appeared in the standard format. Now we had an EDI document in our Dallas IBM 370 (System 46, I believe). It seemed to me the difficult part was over. However, I quickly learned that transferring a file from a Tymshare host on Tymnet to DEC 20/20 foreign host (Lemme's business was a customer of Tymnet) was impossible. We improvised our plan by dialing up the Dallas Tymshare computer using a TI Intelligent Terminal (fore-runner to a PC) and downloading the file onto a floppy disk. Our high school intern then logged onto Lemme's DEC system through Tymnet and downloaded the file. At 4 PM on December 23, Lemme called me, confirmed the successful EDI transmission, and congratulated Tymshare on winning and keeping our business in the UCS pilot. On that day, December 23, 1981, EDI*Net was born although we did not dub it as such until later in 1982 with the tag line "EDI Will Change the Way You Do Business." Also, the ‘*' was in the EDI*Net logo as a representation of Tymnet. We were proud of the powerful use of Tymshare and Tymnet technologies in EDI*Net. When McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare/Tymnet in 1983, the business came under a young executive at MDC, David Lonsdale. I left Tymshare, not wishing to go to St. Louis and a year later David asked me to consider a return. After a visit to the Hazelwood headquarters and a commitment to invest in the new McDonnell Douglas Electronic Data Interchange Systems Company (EDI*Systems) from MDC executive, John Clancy, I returned to MDC/Tymshare. The commitment was short lived when the consolidation of McAuto, Micro Data, and Tymshare/Tymnet failed to produce the expected synergy, growth, and profits. That was too bad, because EDI*Net was then a leader in the EDI business. We had customers such as HP, 3M, AT&T, et. al. I left MDC in late 1987. Soon after, MDC sold the business to BT. In 1985, while at McDonnell Douglas, I was asked to graphically depict the technical evolution of EDI*Net. Because MDC decided to shut down several Tymshare IBM systems and because the original EDI*Net MHS was written in CMS Exec (we punched the EDI mail to the reader - a very unsafe technique if the IBM system shut-down) we commissioned Ken Gardner's development team in Cupertino to create the MHS system for a Tandem. Ken's group also worked on the EDI*Translator for an IBM PC, using an early 1982 prototype. As innovators, we saw the need to develop a PC solution for SME (small and medium enterprises). The graphics illustrate how EDI*Net looked from its founding on the Dallas host (when MDC owned Tymshare/Tymnet we migrated to a St. Louis host), the Tandem configuration, and finally my view of the future for Electronic Interchange (EI) which included super nodes imbedded in a ubiquitous, worldwide network using an X.400 MHS to move e-media between multi-systems and processes. Perhaps this is our e-commerce Internet world, today. Many people deserve recognition for EDI*Net's success, but if I begin naming them, I will miss some one.


A Legacy of EDI*Net: The Tilde Story Ever wonder why the tilde is so prominent as the new line (N/L) character in today's Internet world? Few people may appreciate a historical perspective on the evolution and usage of the tilde (~) as the new line (N/L) character; perhaps the following account interests the technically curious. The earliest EDI document standards (TDCC) made use of the EBCDIC set as there was no thought given to a desktop computer ever being used for such complex and integral operations in a company as processing purchase orders, invoices, remittance advices, etc. So, in the summer of 1982, I commissioned a development team in Cupertino headed by Dick Westgaard and project managed by Robert Klute to put together a prototype EDI translator software solution for a DEC Rainbow, an early desktop computer. One day, Robert Klute called me and explained in laymen's terms that we had a significant problem in developing a desktop solution since the standards were developed using the full EBCDIC set (256 characters) and the desktop environment utilized the ASCII set (128 characters), thus we had nulls between the two sets. The most significant null was for the new line (N/L) character (EBCDIC Hex 15) and as Robert explained, the 'enter' key ASCII value was not a candidate. We puzzled and pondered and finally I suggested a most unusual work around. Why not use the tilde(~)? My reasoning (purely non-technical) was that it would never show up in a data field (i.e.: product description). Robert protested and argued for a shut down of the project, but we were in a high profile situation with the grocery industry and I insisted the team proceed. The Westgaard/Gardner teams developed the software and shared this info in various standards meetings (TDCC and ANSI X12). Subsequently, because of EDI*Net's leadership in the EDI industry and our usage of the tilde for the N/L character, the ASCII tilde (~) became the default for the EBCDIC new line (N/L) character in the EDI desktop translation software that began to proliferate in the 80's and into the 90's. This pragmatic, persistent, and innovative approach to launching the earliest B2B E-Commerce business appears to have left its 'fingerprint' on the technical world today. The tilde (~) appears to be used to trigger a new line (N/L) and now poses other technical challenges by its use. Without the 'tilde twist', who knows how the E-commerce world may have developed. After launching EDI*Net, in 1980, it was my privilege to become a founder and executive officer of Sterling Commerce, Inc. in 1996. Sterling is one of the largest B2B E-Commerce software and services providers in the world with 45,000 customers. At one time Sterling's Ordernet division and EDI*Net were neck and neck competitors. In March 2000, SBC Communications, Inc., the new AT&T, bought Sterling Commerce. It is good to know that EDI*Net continues as the remnant of Tymshare/Tymnet. Last summer (2006), when I took a tour of the nuBridges data center, there sat the EDI*Net Tandem system with lights flickering. Paul L. H. Olson, Ed.D. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Paul Olson January 20, 2007 Title: Recollections - Tymshare acquires CSD Author: Keith Rohring


Created: March 27, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: From an email sent by Keith Rohring: Message for Luann Johnson regarding the history of Tymnet and Tymshare. While not the "early days" of Ann and Norm Hardy, they were my peers when I got to Tymshare. Vern Van Vlear, Guy Blood, Bert Novak, Tom O'Rourke, Ray Wakeman, Bob Schwarz, Ron Brannif, Warren Prince, and so on were the movers and shakers at that time. Tom O'Rourke - as president of Tymshare - tried to get the name of Bubb Road changed to Tymshare Park in about 1974. Someone higher up in the org chart should speak to that local council meeting and their response; for all to understand the Tymshare presence in Silicon Valley (before Silicon Valley existed). . . My name is Keith Rohring. I worked for a company (Computer Systems Division of Graphic Controls Corp in Buffalo NY) that got acquired in 1971 by Tymshare. EDS in the person of H. Ross Perot was bidding to acquire CSD of G.C. and Tymshare in the person of Tom O'Rourke outbid them. We ran two Dec PDP-10 computers - as well as a pair of GE @265's - one with the Dartmouth Operating System (Basic programming language) . I had CPU #'s 1 and 32 of these GE-265's in my computer room. The DEC PDP-10's were the immediate predecessors to the DECSystem 10's of a few years later vintage. Norm Scheuckler was President of CSD and he had written a personal check to Dartmouth College to acquire GE-265 serial#1 - and Graphic Controls Corp perfected that acquisition in 1967, to start CSD. It ran "The Dartmouth Time Sharing Operating System" - was Bill Gates alive in 1965, when the software and O/S were written at Dartmouth College ? I just pulled out a yellowed copy of a 1975 Tymnet network diagram - an item I was responsible for in my role as manager of Resource Planning and Allocation (RPA) from 1971 to 1975. RPA was an operational team that lived 18 months into the future (it took a while to get Telco services in those days) and "scheduled" massive network overhauls and reconfigurations, compounded one upon another, week after week after month after month. I am in touch with Art Caisse, whom has been in touch with Luann about that dastardly New York Times assassination story about Microsoft being "the first software company". . . How that could have EVER hit the NYT pages is beyond comprehension. Who could have POSSIBLY performed ANY RESEARCH to validate such a claim ? Of course there were FEW and far between computer curricula in mainstream colleges, so there were few computer professionals. However, I gained quite an extensive computer knowledge base in my role in the US Air Force from 1964 to 1968, and from a vo-tech school named Programming and Systems Institute, in Tonawanda NY - graduating with a "non degreed" certificate in programming and systems. I assisted a former Graphic Controls peer - Paul Reufli, PHD - in creating the computer learning program at Buffalo State College, now SUNYCollege at Buffalo. That was about 1976/77 - my memory fails me. Anyhow, I am CDP # 833843 - Issued May 7, 1983 by the ICCP (Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals). The CDP is a certification process rarely acknowledged by the new wave Gatesean PC and server mavens. It specialized in file processing (before databases) and network creation and control (before Novell was a twinkle in someone's eye), and procedural languages to accomplish work and keep information (using primarily Basic, Fortran, and Cobol) - and YES, I used GO TO's in all my work ! We used punchedcards and rudimentary terminals (such as teletype machines or the TI Silent 700 thermal paper machines) to communicate with out computers - and we did that well. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Entered By: Karol Hines April 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acquired Division of Graphic Control Corp.

Comments: From: Luanne Johnson Date: Jul 26, 2007 @ 01:35:09 PM Subject: The article on Microsoft as the first software company The article that Keith refers to in his story was not published by the New York Times, but by Fortune magazine. it was the November 22, 1999 issue which featured the top four businessmen of the 20th century: Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Tom Watson, Jr. and Alfred P. Sloan. In the description of Gates's achievements, the article said: "Before Gates and Allen started Microsoft, pure software companies didn't exist." Keith's remarks about the lack of research apply equally well to Fortune as to the New York Times. It was a remarkable error on their part.

Title: Spreadsheet/Personal Computing Kills off Timesharing Author: Stan Scardino Created: January 24, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: Timesharing offered companies a way to lease a piece of large, powerful mainframe computers that were generally only available to operating divisions of large corporations. Tymshare was particularly successful in attracting the marketing departments in the Consumer Packaged Goods, Insurance and Finance sectors. The key attraction was the licensing of IBI's Focus and MDS Express products for easy (we would call it an elegant User Interface today) utilization of powerful analytical tools. By late 1980, timesharing revenues were in a decline that showed the Premier Products (Focus, Express & Magnum) losing revenue ground faster than the sales force could add new accounts. My group of Product Managers was tasked with soliciting customer input as to why their usage was on a decline. These tools were primarily utilized to forecast trends and revenues. Though the advanced analytics were great features, the real utilization of these powerful tools was primarily for row and column modeling. The surveys showed that better than 90% of the users of Focus and Express were using them for row and column modeling! The rise of usable Personal Computers (primarily Apple and IBM) and Visicalc’s spreadsheet product was starting to eat into the timesharing revenue base. About the same time IBM was launching their Personal Computer, Tymshare’s Terminal Products Division was working with IBM’s Boca Raton PC Division crafting a Value Added Dealer (VAD) Agreement. It was thought that if the customer was going to be acquiring PC’s, Tymshare could supply their needs and maintain the ability to continue to sell value-added services. Prior to that time, most timesharing was accessed through “dumb” terminals, primarily keyboards with dialup access.


The VAD Agreement and a plan to sell Tymshare customers timesharing in conjunction with Personal Computers and resident tools was not approved until 2-3 years after the crisis had been identified. The company had decided to fight rather than adapt. By that time, the proliferation of personal computers had swept by the timesharing business and the profits enjoyed by the timesharing companies rapidly transitioned to PC software companies. Timesharing to PC’s. Mainframes to client server. Client server to open source initiatives. Technology companies face the reinvention of their technologies on a regular basis. It is still rare to see them adapt, rather than fight. In the end, most succumbed to being swept away by a tsunami of change that appeared first as a ripple: but they were unable to comprehend the magnitude of change under the surface that was about to hit them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Stan Scardino January 24, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Spreadsheets on Personal Computers cut into the market Title: Basic Product School Author: Stan Scardino Created: January 24, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: One of the many successful things about Tymshare that I look back upon wistfully is the Basic Product School. BPS set the tone for most peoples experience at Tymshare in the field organizations. It also allowed ties to develop between the field and corporate (development, administration and marketing). BPS gave new employees an introduction to their peers, the company, the products and a sense of pride in their choice of companies. The ties to peers gave people support and healthy competition. Their ability to navigate the various divisions within the company was hastened by being able to interact with people from those divisions. The camaraderie grew after hours. It is interesting how people can learn so much while killing so many brain cells! The pride was based on a combination of the people of Tymshare being the best in the business and customers that loved the company and its products. Every BPS had several customer stories to add luster to learning the product. During the past several years I have thought about BPS and the quality of people that we hired at Tymshare as I have been in the hiring process. We may have more advanced degrees to select from today, but a lot less real life training and experience. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Stan Scardino January 24, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BPS key to organizational development


Title: The Genesis of Tymshare Author: George Snively Created: July 29, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: O’Rourke, Thomas J. (1923 [1957 - 1965] 2002) Tymshare 1965 – 1984 GUR:(George Snively's unrepentant reminiscences) The genesis of Tymshare was the return of Lou Rader from Univac to General Electric. He brought Art Aschauer with him and who in turn brought in Ted Green and offered him his choice of marketing regions. Ted chose the Western Region where Tom O’Rourke was holding forth. Harrison Van Aken, who was the General Manager of the Computer Department at that time, was a 110% company man – the kind that would take full responsibility for his actions without any indication or implication that the action stemmed from higher authority. Van had kind of “adopted” two guys, Chuck Thompson and Tom O’Rourke, as the sons he wished he’d had. They played golf together, went on fishing trips together, etc. It is an understatement to say that it was extremely difficult for him to tell Tom that he was removing him from the Western Region, and taking personal responsibility for the action. Tom could not buy Van’s proposed alternate assignment as a promotion and did not take the action lightly. The two stopped speaking to each other. Tom had been aware of the success of the timesharing services offered by the Computer Department’s Information Processing Centers. With no center in, nor planned for, the Bay Area, he saw a very good opportunity in that hi-tech community and decided to leave GE and enter the business. Tom came to see me as I was serving as Financial Counselor to Helmet Sassenfeld’s IPC’s and had recently assisted all six of the centers in budgeting for their switch to timesharing and had the numbers. The financial projections for Tymshare were made on my living room floor in Carefree, Arizona. We projected the third year revenue at $1.5 million – and were concerned that people would think we “off our rockers”. That number was exceeded in the first few months of operation! I then introduced O’Rourke to Tom Clausen who managed the National Accounts for the Southern Region of the Bank of America. Clausen, who later rose to Chairman of the bank, had an SBIC under his control. This SBIC (which was managed by George Quist and later spun off as the nucleus of the investment-banking firm of Hambrecht & Quist) agreed to a $250,000 investment in Tymshare. Tom then negotiated an order to rent a GE235 timesharing system. Van was aware of these negotiations but wanted a clean break with Tom and did not want to deal with him as a customer. I was unaware of this posture and that he apparently had anticipated turning the order down for credit reasons. When that day came, Tom said "but Snively has already approved the credit"! Van has no master when it comes to "chewing" someone out and I got the full treatment when I was called to his office. I further compounded my error when, during one of his more histrionic moments, I said " You mean that the B of A is not a good credit?” This led to an unbelievable explosion in the midst of which he declared that it was a stupid business decision to rent GE235's so near the end of the product life cycle and that they were only to made available for cash sale. "Did Tom have enough money to buy one?" The answer was "no" and the meeting ended on that note. Meanwhile, Arnold Spielberg had gone to work as V.P.Engineering for Max Palevsky at SDS. Tom approached them to design a time sharing machine for him. They agreed to do it if Tom could find a customer for a second machine. Tom got Jim Pontius of Comdisco in Chicago to place an order with him and SDS proceeded to design a machine. TYMSHARE ultimately


purchased a large number of timesharing systems from SDS OTHERS NEED TO WRITE THE REST OF THE STORY. Nelson Winkless supplied the following reminiscence about the early days of TYMSHARE: In 1963-67, Communications Contact, Inc.(Winkless’s company –ed.), officed in a pleasant redwood and glass building at 745 Distel Drive in Los Altos, when Tom and Dave (Dave Schmidt –ed.) moved into the building as Tymshare Associates, and began borrowing screwdrivers from us at midnight and other odd times when entrepreneurs are hard at it. Over about three years, we did miscellaneous work for Tymshare and had a comfortable relationship until they moved on. (to 575 University Ave., Palo Alto –ed.) Clint DeGabrielle supplies the following: I don’t believe that a lot of people know what Tom built. He started Tymshare as a timesharing service and after a couple of lean years started growing, as a result of the ease of use of his system. By 1970 he had the first nationwide time sharing service with local service in over 300 cities in the U.S. and by 1973 he had the first worldwide service in over 40 countries. This worldwide network was built on a very unique piece of hardware, called the Tymnet Engine. This was a Tymshare designed and built mini-computer, it was built in his own manufacturing plant. It had capabilities that were state of the art in the mid-seventies. Today the device would be called a server; it came in a number of configurations; as a Nodal Processor – it managed traffic on the network, routing, sorting, combining and tagging and did error detection and correction; as a Terminal Interface it took input from a wide variety of terminals, converted their input to the network code and protocol and forwarded to a Nodal processor, on the other side it took network traffic and converted it to terminal code and format and stored the traffic until the speed of the terminal could accept the floe; as a Computer Interface it took the network traffic and converted it to the code and format that almost each individual computer could use as input. The ability to handle almost any data-generating device allowed even Japanese terminals with Japanese character keyboards to communicate with any other device on the network. As the ability of the Tymnet Engine grew Tom realized that there was another market for his network and so he stated offering data network services over his worldwide network, under the name Tymnet. (See Prince, Warren in Chapter Three, The Executives, for more on the Tymnet business. Ed.) This data service began in 1978 and rapidly grew until its revenue outgrew the timesharing revenue in 1982. As more and more customers used the data network another market developed that of the Private Data Network and a separate sales force sold nearly 200 private networks worldwide. The customers for private networks came from every area of business and government. Banks used their network to carry on-line transactions among their branches, their customers and other banks and clearing houses; the Immigration & Naturalization Department used their network to check passports and to communicate worldwide, using a connection to Tymnet to reach spots where they did not have a presence. Credit card companies used the network for credit verification, a group of airlines used the network to support a worldwide reservation system. This use of the data network also spawned several Tymshare wholly owned subsidiaries; PARS – a reservation system for Braniff, Northwest, TWA and Eastern Airlines; Telecheck – a check verification and authorization systems; Cars – a credit card authorization system; and Tymgram – an online messaging system (a forerunner if today’s E-Mail). The Tymnet Network was very much like today’s Internet. In 1986 McDonnell-Douglas bought Tymshare and all of it’s operations, for approximately $350 million, and made it a part of McAuto, its computer service operation. When hard times fell on the airlines, McDonnell sold Tymnet (the data network part of Tymshare) to MCI and it became MCI Data which provided backbone Internet service to customers and provided data communications to former Tymnet customers and to MCI customers. Tom and his people were ahead of the curve


all during their remarkable achievements. Some of their developments are still being used today in data networks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: George Snively July 29, 2006 Title: Good Loan Isn't It!! Author: George Snively Created: July 29, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: “Hold on a minute”, I said. “We’ll have to scratch the progress payment provision until we learn more about this ‘Data Products Corp.’” It was March 1962(?) and we had got to the last page in negotiating the contract when Frank Jutrras, CEO of Midwest Instruments/TELEX said, “There is a change on the signature line. We’re spinning this product off to a new company called Data Products and they will be signing the agreement.” I would not normally have been in a procurement meeting but the agreement called for GE to provide TELEX with $300,000 in progress payments and I had been assigned to write the contract provision and defend it in negotiations. The General Electric Computer Department had arranged with TELEX and Midwest Instruments for a “Juke-box type magnetic memory system for the NCR 304 computer system that GE was building for the National Cash Register Company to market. The meeting fell silent until Frank said, “I understand your concern but they need the progress payments, I’ll call Minneapolis right away and have them send you the Pro-forma financials.” When, several days later the financials arrived (this was before FAX machines, FEDEX or email), they showed a “start-up” company with no operating history and a NEGATIVE net worth of $250,000!! I called our buyer, Jim Barford and Bob Wooley, the engineering project manager, to tell them that there was no way we’d advance $300,000 to this new company. Wooley was very upset. “We need this equipment and there is no other place to get it.” I suggested that with $300,000 he could design it himself. He replied that we didn’t have the time to develop it ourselves and he had great faith in Irv Tomash – who was listed as President of Data Products. I responded that if they didn’t perform he would have lost not only the design funds but also even more time. At Wooley’s insistence, I went to Culver City, California to meet with Data Products. It was counterproductive. They were housed in a small, old warehouse where I saw few signs of the memory system we were to procure and Irv Tomash was much more interested in showing me the printer hammers he was developing. I held firm on my position about advancing funds to them. Wooley called me several days later to tell me that Data Products was getting a loan from the B of A. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” I responded. I suppressed a chuckle when, as I anticipated, Jim Barford also called me to tell me, “They say they have a $500,000 unsecured line of credit from the B of A.” Jim Barford called me again the following day to tell me that Data Products’ VP of Marketing, Russ DuBois, was in his office and wanted to come up and see me. “Send him up”, I said. DuBois reiterated that Data Products did indeed have a $500,000 unsecured line of credit from the B of A. I said, ”All right, Russ: I’ll check it out. If it’s so and without too many strings attached to it, we’ll reconsider.” I figured that if anybody at B of A knew anything about Data Products it would be Tom Clausen. Tom, who later rose to Chairman, was the Manager of National Accounts for the Southern Region with headquarters in Los Angeles. Tom had a small SBIC under his control and Tom would occasionally call me to check out a potential start-up, a number of whom forecast that


they were going to do lots of business with the GE Computer Department. (I later got Tom to finance Tom O’Rourke’s TYMSHARE. through the SBIC) I placed a call to Tom and asked, “Hey, Tom, have you heard of a small company called Data Products?” “GOOD LOAN ISN’T IT!” he replied. “You mean to tell me that you’re in their with a half million unsecured?” “We’ve banked Irv Tomash, Graham Tyson and Bill Mozena through two other ventures and they’ve always come through. Besides, you’re going to buy from them aren’t you?” I guess so, I replied. *** In view of the precarious financial position of Data Products, I rewrote the progress payments provision to provide GE with shop drawings, tooling, etc. and to grant us manufacturing rights if they failed to perform on time. They missed the schedule and we were forced to take over the manufacturing. However, we needed them as a backup source and for emergencies. I was assigned the responsibility of seeing that that we subcontracted enough to them to to keep them alive and I made monthly trips to Culver City to negotiate production schedules with them. I thought that I was quite generous with them, a view that Graham Tyson and Russ DuBois dispute to this day. B of A’s Huge Return From the Small Loan. Tom really did not put the bank at great risk with the loan as he controlled a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) (later managed by George Quist and spun off as the nucleus of the investment banking firm of Hambrecht & Quist) which could, and did, make an investment in Data Products to retire the bank’s loan. Data Products had a software networking operation headed by Dr. Walter Bauer called Informatics. After the SBIC made their investment, this operation was spun off into a separate company that went public. The B of A’s share of the $27,000,000 public offering was $8,000,000. Not a bad return on a $500,000 investment – and they still had their position in Data Products. I have no idea how much additional they realized when Data Products went public – but it had to be very substantial. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: George Snively July 29, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare founded in 1964 Title: You did it right Author: George Snively Created: July 29, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The Snively Financial Organization Incorporated 1969-1974 The Company was organized to provide “third party” rental programs to manufac-turers of computer peripheral devices. The directors were Don Oglesby, Tom O’Rourke, Mitchell Marcus, Steve Meadow and myself. “You did it right.” “No you did.” Tom O’Rourke and Mitchell Marcus, each of whom had developed very success-ful information services companies, were as different as day and night. Tom, who lived in Palo Alto, was as Irish Catholic as they come with eight kids. Mitch, on the other hand, was a pillar of the Boston Jewish community. Tom had founded a company called TYMSHARE. Mitch and his two brothers (all MIT gradu-ates) had founded a batch-processing computer service. Tom wouldn’t touch batch-processing with a ten foot pole and Mitch thought that time-sharing was tomfoolery (no pun intended.)


Mitch’s dad had told him to never take on outside partners. He and his brothers owned the company. Tom’s TYMSHARE had gone public and Tom had a goodly number of “partners”. Tom’s personal holdings in TYMSHARE were worth approximately $11 million at this time. However, it was non-liquid and Tom (who had three or four kids in college concurrently over a number of years) was finding it difficult to make ends meet. If Mitch’s company, Production Systems, Inc., showed any net worth it was because he and his brothers had miscalculated how much they could pull out for insurance, cars, vacations, etc. However, the management of the Bank of Boston, which wished to acquire the company, couldn’t justify to their board the $6 million price that they were willing to pay for the company when the board saw the financials, which showed no net worth! I would have to schedule a board meeting for either Monday morning or Friday afternoon to catch Tom going or coming from tightly scheduled trips. Mitch, on the other hand, as he was coming all the way to Carefree, would bring his wife, Marge, for a week’s stay at the Carefree Inn. Since Mitch and Marge were coming, the other two brothers and their wives would also come for the week. Six of them would stay for a week at the Carefree Inn for Mitch to come for my half-day board meeting! Tom and Mitch would sit across from each other at the board meeting and say: “You did it right.” “No you did.” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: George Snively July 29, 2006 Title: Outstanding Built-in Network Diagnostics Author: Jim Stein Created: January 5, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: The Tymshare/Tymnet Network Technical Development Team created a suite of diagnostic tools that made the job of troubleshooting much easier. These tools were: XRAY, PROBE, and DDT (Dynamic Debugging Tool). XRAY was a program that ran in the node code that allowed a troubleshooter to examine a whole host of parameters in realtime. For example you could check any network link on the node for link errors, current throughput, historical high-water marks, actual packet content, error logs, cpu usage percentage, and much more. There were so many commands in XRAY that you could literally just sit down and read through the instruction manual and develop a large repertoire of techniques. It even allowed you to change neighbor numbers on the fly. PROBE was a program that ran realtime in the network supervisor (the unit that performed all the circuit routing for the entire network). With PROBE you could analyze the operation of the Supervisor as it operated the network. Again there was a huge inventory of helpful commands that allowed you to analyze, in depth, the total operation of the network. It kept track of the status of every node in the network, the status of each internodal link, billing information, command tree structure, and much more. It had a set of privileged commands that allowed tech support and developers to analyze even further the inner workings of the supervisor. The concept of a single supervisor controlling all the circuit building/teardown actions using a command tree structure was brilliant and innovative. The supervisor had to keep control of all the nodes in the network which totalled 5700 at the peak of the network buildout. DDT (Dynamic Debugging Tool) was a program that ran as part of the ISIS code within every ISIS node. This tool allowed a troubleshooter with enough license to trace a users input and output buffers realtime to debug problems whether those problems were ours or the users. DDT allowed you to trace at various points in the node as far as input or output were concerned and this was critical in troubleshooting. This was especially useful in debugging X.25 problems and SDLC problems. Sometimes very subtle config problems, X.25 code bugs, or just plain line errors


were solved with the use of DDT. It was necessary to have the proper license to use the more advanced features. DDT also allowed a troubleshooter or developer to patch code cells on the fly but you had to be very careful with this. In summary, the code developers went out of their way to give us fantastic troubleshooting tools that were so useful in performing our jobs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Jim Stein January 5, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Outstanding diagnostic tools Title: Dialup Modem Problems Author: Jim Stein Created: February 10, 2005 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: In the early 80's we had a large number of modem banks installed all over the country for customers to access Tymnet via asynchronous modems. Maintaining the quality of the dialup was always a challenge because of varying qualities of the dialup lines from the local telcos, modem compatibility problems, and the effort it took to locate and fix a bad modem or phone line in the middle of a rotary dial group. One of our biggest customers was AOL. Our San Francisco dialup group was quite large (about 100 modems as I remember) and we were having continual problems with the quality. Customers (particularly AOL) were complaining about the intermittent quality, drops, noise bursts, etc. We had tried to fix it but complaints were still coming in. Late one afternoon we received a complaint from AOL about the San Francisco dial rotary quality. My manager was getting desperate, and he asked me to drive up there that night and try to find the source of the problems. I drove up there and started dialing through the rotary to see which lines or modems were bad. I was getting intermittent results just as the customers had reported. After swapping modems at a number of positions I was still getting poor quality. I called PacBell and opened a ticket stating poor dial quality. They connected me with a technician and he ran through a series of tests and could not find anything wrong. We continued testing and finally he mentioned that the entire rotary group was set up as "ground-start". I had read through the specifications of the US Robotics modems that we used and they recommended using only "loop-start" lines. We requested the entire rotary be changed over to "loop-start". The dial quality improved and my manager was very happy. Over the years one of the members of our tech support group, Ed Mooring, developed a rotary dial tester that was connected to a Sun server at his desk. This tester continually dialed every rotary in the network and located bad modems and lines. It made our job a lot easier. All we had to do each morning was to check the printout of the tester to find the problem modems or lines. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Jim Stein February 10, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed Mooring develops dial tester for modem banks


Title: My GNOSIS epiphany, part 1 Author: Edward Syrett Created: November 20, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: First, the disclaimer: I played a very minor role in Tymshare's corporate history, having come on board after the process of acquisition by McDonnell Douglas was fairly far along. But the GNOSIS technology I encountered at Tymshare astounded me. It had been developed internally at Tymshare in the group managed by Ann Hardy and led technically by Norm Hardy, Bill Frantz, Charles Landau and Alan Bomberger. These people are better qualified than I to tell the stories of how and why GNOSIS came into being. The founders of Key Logic are best qualified to tell how and why GNOSIS never broke into the mainstream of computer technology. The topic of how much the industry has lost by ignoring the lessons of GNOSIS must be explored elsewhere. My story will tell how I "died and went to hacker heaven". Next, the background: I had started programming on the drum-memory, vacuum-tube-logic IBM 650 as an undergraduate in 1962. From 1967 to 1981 I programmed IBM 360/370 type mainframes, first at SLAC, then at a small commercial software house in San Francisco, and finally freelance. Around 1981 I'd started turning my little business in the direction of the emerging "microcomputers", and when the IBM PC was released I jumped into its software gold rush along with many other experienced mainframers. My stake panned out only well enough to fund my product thru release 1.2, so I was delighted when Carl Jones offered me a chance to reenter the world of steady paychecks. As a seasoned practitioner of both OS-level development and application programming, including transaction processing systems, I knew how difficult it was to build reliable software. I had often asked myself why this was so hard: how could smart people build such buggy systems? I knew, from reading trade papers and professional journals, that other practitioners and computer scientists were equally baffled. At Tymshare, I found myself being inundated with answers. Over the 20+ years since I left Tymshare, I have learned a few more, but never have I been given so many insights in such a short time as in my brief exposure to GNOSIS. In future contributions ("stories"), I plan to offer vignettes of how the GNOSIS epiphany blew away misconceptions which may seem quaint today, but which I know were shared by most of my colleagues in the software industry at the time. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Edward Syrett November 20, 2006 Title: My GNOSIS epiphany, part 2: about persistence Author: Edward Syrett Created: November 28, 2006 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story: So many architectural principles of GNOSIS were ahead of their time that it's hard to know where to begin, but let me start with the concept of persistence. At the time, it was routinely either taken for granted (in the mainframe world) or ignored (in the minicomputer world) by practitioners. One reason GNOSIS got it right was that its designers earned their spurs building Tymnet, and thus


understood the connection between persistence and transactionality which is fundamental to present-day web-based ecommerce. In the early 1980s, most business data was kept in "files", generally on magnetic disks (whether removable or fixed), and to the extent that database systems existed, they were in fact advanced file systems. Files were collections of records; records varied widely in formats, but it was typically assumed that all the records in a given file shared the same format, or were at least in one of a few predetermined formats, the specific one being identified by a short field ("header") early in the record. Data being worked on by a program was assumed to be transient until it was written to a file. In GNOSIS, all data was persistent by default. The only exception to this was that an unscheduled restart of the host computer could cause the state of a "process" (actually, a domain, but I'm using modern Unix/Windows terminology here) to revert to a point in time shortly before the restart. GNOSIS had no file system; it used all fixed disks as secondary memory, essentially paging store, except for a designated portion of it which was used to keep track of the state of the entire machine, including the ownership of page slots on disk. Thus, when the system restarted, it only had to refresh main memory from its fixed disks in order to continue from where it left off before it was so rudely interrupted. If a programmer felt, as I sometimes did, disoriented by the absence of "files", GNOSIS offered a facility called a "record collection", which amounted to an array of structures with methods for accessing and updating its contents. But my first reaction was amazement at the amount of programming busy work that just vanished along with the concept of "file". Relieved of the burden of coding his or her own persistence, the programmer could concentrate on the business requirements and algorithmic logic. The more one thinks about the GNOSIS approach to persistence, the more implications one sees. Consider energy efficiency, a topic much on people's minds these days. Over my career, I've been responsible for wasting megawatts of electric power, I'm sure, by trading them off for my precious time. How? By leaving my workstations on overnight and on weekends. Typically I would never power down any desktop system fancier than a glass teletype unless I was going away for at least a four-day weekend. That's because it would take me literally hours to reestablish all the context I would build up in various running processes amongst which I was time-slicing. Up until the very recent advent of the "hibernate" form of shutdown in Windows XP, I'm not aware of any other OS which, when it awoke, would remember everything the way GNOSIS did. I know I was far from the only offender in regard to leaving my desktop powered up 24 by 7. But neither I nor my co-workers at my various job sites should feel too guilty about this. The real culprit was the "persistence = files" mindset which allowed the OS to take no responsibility for preserving the state of the entire system across power outages. What a pity GNOSIS never caught on! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Edward Syrett November 28, 2006 Title: LaRoy Tymes' recollection of Tymnet Author: LaRoy Tymes Created: August 26, 2004 Cataloguer: Copyright: Story:


I wrote all of the original code for TYMNET from 1968 through 1971 in assembly for the SPC-12 (which lasted for only a year or so), the SDS-940(which ran the network supervisor, access control, and accounting package), and the Varian 620-I (the network nodes). Norman Hardy contributed ideas, a few of which were taken from the Octopus network (1966-1968) at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory, Livermore, which networked the IBM 7030 Stretch, the CDC 6600, and some other machines and peripherals. Ann Hardy and David Gardner made helpful modifications to the SDS-940 operating system. After 1972 significant contributors to TYMNET included Joe Rinde (Supervisor on the TYMNET engine), Carl Holmberg (further development on Supervisor after Rinde), John Kopf (operating system for the TYMNET engine), Art Caisse (interfacing TYMNET to various mainframes), and June Nishimoto (PDP-10 base enhancements). Guy Blood and Verne Van Vlear did not work on the network itself, but took care of accounting and access control databases. On the hardware side, I designed and microcoded the CPU of the TYMNET engine. Other hardware engineers on the engine project were Barry Burnsides, Ron Graves, and Larry Pizzella. The last major contributors to the TYMNET technology made the conversion to SPARC workstations in 1996. They included Romulo Raffo, Bill Soley, and myself. Bill Combs was the first and major sales person for TYMNET. In a project of such a size, many other people were involved, but the above list is a fairly complete list of the major innovators and contributors. Incidentally, I booted the network in its complete form in November of 1971. It ran without a single system crash or reboot until March of 2003, when it was shut down. It survived many hardware and software upgrades during that time without a single system wide failure. Also, I wrote three versions of the routing function that determined the optimum path through the network, one in assembly for the SDS-940 in 1971, one in assembly and microcode for the TYMNET engine in 1974, and the last one in C for the SPARC in 1996. The one I wrote in 1974 ran 24/7 for 22 years without being touched or "maintained". I think that might be some sort of industry record for mission critical software. Sincerely, LaRoy Tymes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: LaRoy Tymes August 26, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPC-12 code written by LaRoy Tymes Tymnet booted in its complete form Tymnet network shut down

Documents

Title: By-laws of Tymshare, Inc. Author: Created: January 18, 1966 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795e25d3ddd.pdf (Size: 901 KB)


Pages: 22 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: By-laws (rules governing the internal affairs) of Tymshare, Inc., a California Corporation, stamped January 18, 1966. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare was incorporated Title: Corporate Organization [charts] 1967 Author: Created: February 1967 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795effcc8a8.pdf (Size: 79 KB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Corporate Organization charts, dated February 1967. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Early in 1967 there were 37 employees Title: [Memo from Dave Schmidt recognizing the 940 Programming Staff, 1967] Author: David L. Schmidt Created: June 26, 1967 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795cc701e79.pdf (Size: 74 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Memo from Dave Schmidt recognizing the 940 Programming Staff, dated June 26, 1967. Includes letter from Paul Van Alstyne at Scientific Data Systems. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare selected by Harvard Title: What's New at Tymshare? November 1967 Author: Created: November 1967


Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-427955c679887.pdf (Size: 162 KB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, November 1967 Vol. 1, No. 4. "For Tymshare Employees Only" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: What's New at Tymshare? December 1967 Author: Created: December 1967 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795654ca19b.pdf (Size: 243 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, December 1967 Vol. 1, No. 5. "For Tymshare Employees Only" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Expansion to the East Coast with opening of NJ office Title: Corporate Organization [charts] 1968 Author: Created: January 1968 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795f77e9d69.pdf (Size: 140 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Corporate Organization charts, dated January 1968. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare services expanded Title: What's New at Tymshare? January 1968 Author: Created: January 1968 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy


Filename: doc-427956d0e9d6a.pdf (Size: 240 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, January 1968 Vol. 2, No. 1. "For Tymshare Employees Only" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gross revenue topped $ 1 million Tymshare services expanded Title: [Memo from Dave Schmidt about reorganization, 1968] Author: David L. Schmidt Created: November 19, 1968 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795a7e3ef08.pdf (Size: 136 KB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Memo from Dave Schmidt about reorganization, dated November 19, 1968. Excerpt: "...certain alterations in the Corporate and Technical Division structures have taken place. Attached is a new organizational chart for the Technical Division." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rapid Expansion leads to reorganization Title: Computer Time Sharing Grows Up Author: William D. Smith Created: February 17, 1969 Publisher: New York Times Donated By: Richard L. Crandell Filename: doc-43de66c67ecc4.pdf (Size: 334 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Photocopy of an article from The New York Times, Feb. 17, 1969. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 30, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare had 5% of Market Title: Division Org Chart


Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Syd Reid Filename: doc-4558ace657457.JPG (Size: 379 KB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Northwestern Division -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg1 Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558ae54d74f5.JPG (Size: 586 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: page 1 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg2 Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558ae94463ea.JPG (Size: 523 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: page 2 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg3 Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558aed4ea376.JPG (Size: 618 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright:


Description: page 3 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg4 Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558af045613b.JPG (Size: 545 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: page 4 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg5 Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558af3986031.JPG (Size: 608 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: page 5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg6 Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558af651bcda.JPG (Size: 522 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: page 6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Newsletter pg7


Author: Created: March 1969 Publisher: Donated By: Filename: doc-4558afa3708f3.JPG (Size: 600 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: page 7 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Syd Reid November 13, 2006 Title: Consultant Agreement Forms Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Gary Morgenthaler Filename: doc-45899078d31b2.pdf (Size: 211 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: 2006-12-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Consultant agreement forms and confidentiality agreement Lot number: X3708.2007 Accession: 102655318 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-12-11 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102655318.agreements.1970 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 20, 2006 Title: A History of Tymshare Inc. 1967-1970 Author: Becky McNown Created: August 17, 1970 Publisher: McNown Donated By: Becky McNown Filename: doc-4ac112df10519.pdf (Size: 14.92 MB) Pages: 23 Cataloguer: Copyright: Becky McNown Description: This document is a pdf version of the original typed 1970 history of Tymshare Inc. The history is written by Becky McNown, an early and longtime Tymshare employee who had a number of responsibilities there both at headquarters and in the field from very early days to the late 70s when the company was large and had acquired a number of other companies.


Becky wrote this history in August of 1970, when the company was only five years old. She personally interviewed all of the key management people involved in the company to that point, including Tom O'Rourke and Dave Schmidt, the founders. Becky personally knew each of the people interviewed and so was able to get very candid and straightforward details about the first five years of Tymshare Inc. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mike Humphries September 28, 2009 Title: [Memo from T.J. O'Rourke about reorganization, 1970] Author: T.J. O'Rourke Created: October 6, 1970 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-427959b732bb8.pdf (Size: 87 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Memo from T.J. O'Rourke about reorganization, dated October 6, 1970. Includes an organization chart. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: Corporate Organization charts Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Gary Morgenthaler Filename: doc-45899821983b0.pdf (Size: 366 KB) Pages: 13 Cataloguer: 2006-12-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Charts showing the Corporate Organization Lot number: X3708.2007 Accession: 102655320 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-12-11 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102655320.organizational_charts.1971 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 20, 2006 Title: What's News? October 1972 Author: Created: October 1972


Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-4279579479886.pdf (Size: 290 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, October 1972. "Tymshare, Inc. Employees' Newsletter" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: What's News? May 1973 Author: Created: May 1973 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42795820e7658.pdf (Size: 321 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, May 1973. "Tymshare, Inc. Employees' Newsletter" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: Corporate Organization [charts] 1973 Author: Created: November 1, 1973 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-427960a85007b.pdf (Size: 484 KB) Pages: 15 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Corporate Organization charts, dated November 1, 1973. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personnel increased 40% Title: Employee Stock Purchase Plan Author: Created: June 14, 1974 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Gary Morgenthaler Filename: doc-45898edcb67d7.pdf (Size: 944 KB) Pages: 11 Cataloguer: 2006-12-19 Sarah Wilson


Copyright: Description: Prospectus for Tymshare Lot number: X3708.2007 Accession: 102655317 Dimensions: 9 x 8 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-12-11 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102655319.employee_stock_purchase_plan.1975 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 20, 2006 Title: Prospectus, Tymshare, Inc. Common Stock Author: Created: November 5, 1974 Publisher: Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-426969fb8d10d.pdf (Size: 6.10 MB) Pages: 108 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Prospectus, Tymshare, Inc. Common Stock. "This prospectus contains a proxy statement of United Data Centers, Inc." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005 Title: Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1975 Author: Created: 1975 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-419d16b24d967.pdf (Size: 8.37 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1975. Statement of operating and financial results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson November 18, 2004 Title: Staff Picture 1 of 11 Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden


Filename: doc-445bce79838da.JPG (Size: 83 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures.TymBasic Team-L to R Mike Geary, Rob Dearborn, Bev Pomeroy (seated),Samuel Feldman, Jim Houha, Polle Zellweger, Walt Main, John Stallings, Gary Gere, Marc Eigenholtz -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: Staff Picture 10 of 11 Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bd0f6d7e94.JPG (Size: 109 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures.left Homer Jamison -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: Staff Picture 11 of 11 Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bd11b1ec46.JPG (Size: 152 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: Staff Picture 3 of 11 Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bcee74746a.JPG (Size: 169 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: Staff Picture 4 of 11 Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bcf11aaaea.JPG (Size: 95 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: Staff Picture 6 of 11 Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bcf83358f3.JPG (Size: 91 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures.L to R: Ken Carta, ?, George Biedler (Peace!), Kathy Ferris, ?,? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of Tymshare staff Title: [Tymnet schematics, 1972-1977] Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537fd4a663f7.pdf (Size: 1.25 MB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Schematic drawings. Accession: 102661918 Dimensions: 17 x 11 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson


Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661918.schematics.1972-1977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymnet Network Expansion Title: [Bob Wallace, Ken BeDell, Sal Spinale and others] - photo Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bcf591f5b0.JPG (Size: 92 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures. Back Row - L to R: ?,Bob Hall,Bob Wallace, Ken BeDell, Roger L'Hommedui, Ken Carta. Front Row - L to R: Wayne Crabbs, Roy Roskilly, Sal Spinale, Don Johnson,Bob Barbour, Dennis Loudon. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of Tymshare staff Title: [Bob Wallace, Mike Thoma and Mike Clair] - photo Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bcfad8a7f2.JPG (Size: 70 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures. Left to right, Bob Wallace, Mike Thoma and Mike Clair. People in photo were identified by Mike Humphries during meeting at CHM on 7-20-06. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: [Lynn Sanden and Al Eisenstat] - photo Author: Created: 1975 ca.


Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bd0d3cea4b.JPG (Size: 71 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures. Al Eisenstat and Lynn Sanden per e-mail message from Warren Prince. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Title: [Mike Thoma, Steve Smith and others] - photo Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bd0b630053.JPG (Size: 84 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff taken for use in corporate/marketing brochures. Front Row - Peggy Modor (?) on left, Mike Thoma next to her and Steve Smith on the right (identified by Mike Humphries during meeting at CHM on 7-20-06). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of Tymshare staff Title: [Tymshare employees on the Western29 project] - photo Author: Created: 1975 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-445bcec1260cf.JPG (Size: 66 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Picture of Tymshare staff who were part of the Western29 project that did online airline reservations in the late 1970s. L to R: Ray Combs, Nick Taddeo, Alan Wilson,Carl Jones(standing),David Delroy, Jim Nappo. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 5, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pictures of Tymshare staff


Title: Employee Stock Purchase Plan correspondence Author: Created: May 27, 1975 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Gary Morgenthaler Filename: doc-458994916a627.pdf (Size: 199 KB) Pages: 5 Cataloguer: 2006-12-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Correspondence regarding the Employee Stock Purchase Plan Lot number: X3708.2007 Accession: 102655319 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-12-11 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102655319.employee_stock_purchase_plan.1975 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 20, 2006 Title: Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1976 Author: Created: 1976 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-426960296d538.pdf (Size: 7.94 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1976. Statement of operating and financial results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - February 1976 Author: Created: February 1976 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Caroline Rose Filename: doc-483337c1be956.pdf (Size: 6.74 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Tymshare Description: Newsletter, February 1976. "a newsletter for Tymshare employees." Accession: 102679076 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson


May 20, 2008 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MICROTYM purchased by Zytron Tymshare acquires Quelex Tymshare celebrates its 10th Anniversary Title: [Draft of information given to new hires] Author: Lucille Wallace Created: July 22, 1976 Publisher: Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-427963c0e283a.pdf (Size: 576 KB) Pages: 9 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Edited draft of information given to new Tymshare employees to familiarize them with "where we came from, what we do and how we do it" dated July 22, 1976. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 22 computers, 1500 customers Acquired Dial Data. Acquired Division of Graphic Control Corp. First customer to use network Tymshare revenues - 1968 Tymshare services expanded Title: Computation Book Author: Gary Morgenthaler Created: 1977 Publisher: Donated By: Gary Morgenthaler Filename: doc-446e05737fbc9.pdf (Size: 29.62 MB) Pages: 156 Cataloguer: 2006-05-18 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Notebook of Gary Morgenthaler, containing handwritten content starting in 1977. Accession: 062301037 Dimensions: 12 x 9.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-05-15 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\projects\ITCHP\Tymshare(GaryMorgenthaler)\src\062301037.morgenthaler_computation_book.1977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson


May 19, 2006 Title: Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1977 Author: Created: 1977 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-426964511cc28.pdf (Size: 6.52 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1977. Statement of operating and financial results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005 Title: Five Year Plan Summary Author: Created: August 1977 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Gary Morgenthaler Filename: doc-45899a45576d5.pdf (Size: 799 KB) Pages: 7 Cataloguer: 2006-12-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Document, "Five Year Plan Summary" Lot number: X3708.2007 Accession: 102655321 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-12-11 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102655321.five_year_plan.1977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 20, 2006 Title: International Value Added Networks Author: L. Tymes Created: November 1977 Publisher: Infotech International Limited Donated By: LaRoy Tymes Filename: doc-43a73b4da1171.pdf (Size: 676 KB) Pages: 14 Cataloguer: 2005-12-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Infotech International Limited Description:


A chapter by L. Tymes from the published conference proceedings of Future Networks--Infotech State of the Art Conference; Regent Centre Hotel, London, 14-16 November 1977. Accession: 102640323 Dimensions: 12 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 1 bitonal Digitized: 2005-12-14 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\source\102640323.future_networks.1977 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson December 19, 2005 Title: Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1978 Author: Created: 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4269654e91f2d.pdf (Size: 2.44 MB) Pages: 32 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1978. Statement of operating and financial results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - January 1978 Author: Created: January 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-43265fe13cfe1.pdf (Size: 4.22 MB) Pages: 27 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, January 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains individual articles from this issue of the newsletter. The other file with the same title is a copy of the same newsletter with full pages scanned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - January 1978 Author: Created: January 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden


Filename: doc-4a5e224711493.pdf (Size: 2.64 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, January 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains full pages of the newsletter. The other file with the same title contains individual articles from this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bernie Goldstein heads up Strategic Planning Title: It's About Tym - February 1978 Author: Created: February 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-432665a83cfe8.pdf (Size: 2.71 MB) Pages: 30 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, February 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees"There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains individual articles from this issue of the newsletter. The other file with the same title is a copy of the same newsletter with full pages scanned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Growth of Tymshare Medical Systems doubles Title: It's About Tym - February 1978 Author: Created: February 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4a5e23e6e5a79.pdf (Size: 2.80 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, February 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains full pages of the newsletter. The other file with the same title contains individual articles from this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009


Title: It's About Tym - April 1978 Author: Created: April 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4326735149332.pdf (Size: 3.77 MB) Pages: 36 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, April 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains individual articles from this issue of the newsletter. The other file with the same title is a copy of the same newsletter with full pages scanned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - April 1978 Author: Created: April 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4a5e2533363d2.pdf (Size: 2.00 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, April 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains full pages of the newsletter. The other file with the same title contains individual articles from this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timesharing services offered in Japan Title: It's About Tym - May/June 1978 Author: Created: May 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4a5e26252cd2a.pdf (Size: 1.98 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, May/June 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees"


There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains full pages of the newsletter. The other file with the same title contains individual articles from this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009 Title: Its About Tym - May/June 1978 Author: Created: May 1978 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-43266e79c827a.pdf (Size: 4.61 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, May/June 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees"There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains individual articles from this issue of the newsletter. The other file with the same title is a copy of the same newsletter with full pages scanned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare processes millionth tax return Title: It's About Tym - Special Edition Author: Created: May 1978 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4a5e2aa361f0f.pdf (Size: 3.35 MB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, Special Edition, around May 1978. "A newsletter for Tymshare employees" Special Edition focusing on President's Club activities for the sales force. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009 Title: Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1979 Author: Created: 1979 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-426965f2aa5c7.pdf (Size: 3.56 MB) Pages: 35 Cataloguer: Copyright:


Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1979. Statement of operating and financial results. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005 Title: Tymshare reports record revenues for 1978 Author: Lucille Wallace Created: February 22, 1979 Publisher: Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-432679830c2a0.pdf (Size: 62 KB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: News Release, "Tymshare reports record revenues for 1978; earnings climb to $2.32 per share" dated February 22, 1979. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 13, 2005 Title: Tymes of Tymshare Author: Created: July 1979 Publisher: Datamation Donated By: LaRoy Tymes Filename: doc-419e6971aa5c9.pdf (Size: 1.23 MB) Pages: 2 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Article, dated July 1979 and titled, "Tymes of Tymshare" in the People section of Datamation. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson November 19, 2004 Title: Tymshare bides its time as suitors make pitches Author: Evelyn Richards Created: November 12, 1979 Publisher: The Peninsula Times Tribune Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-426974be24158.pdf (Size: 357 KB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Article, dated November 12, 1979 and titled "Suitors Pursue Tymshare" in The Peninsula Times Tribune. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005


Title: Tymshare, Inc. Annual Report 1980 Author: Created: 1980 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-426966a82415b.pdf (Size: 3.53 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1980. Statement of operating and financial results. (Note: copy that was scanned was from Lynn Sanden. It was returned to her. Subsequently a copy was donated by Warren Prince and is in the museum's collection) Accession: 102682182 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines April 22, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - January 1980 Author: Created: January 1980 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-432675f17c781.pdf (Size: 3.47 MB) Pages: 27 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, January 1980. "A newspaper for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains individual articles from this issue of the newsletter. The other file with the same title is a copy of the same newsletter with full pages scanned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - January 1980 Author: Created: January 1980 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4a5e27969aad5.pdf (Size: 2.53 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, January 1980. "A newspaper for Tymshare employees" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains full pages of the newsletter. The other file with the same title contains individual articles from this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009


Title: Tymshare will test computer-radio link Author: Michael Malone Created: May 23, 1980 Publisher: San Jose Mercury News Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-427967c3379d8.pdf (Size: 109 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Article, dated May 23, 1980 and titled, "Tymshare will test computer-radio link" in the San Jose Mercury News. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: Tymshare Gamble Pays Big Dividends Author: Michael Malone Created: July 27, 1980 Publisher: San Jose Mercury News Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4279672f48b48.pdf (Size: 1.07 MB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Article, dated July 27, 1980 and titled "Tymshare Gamble Pays Big Dividends" in the San Jose Mercury News. Includes these two sub-headlines: "Strategy Change Boosts Profits" and "Tymshare Wins on a Longshot." Includes photograph of TJ O'Rourke. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: Corporate Organization charts Author: Created: 1981 ca. Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Rich Lynn Filename: doc-44c1988553a04.pdf (Size: 488 KB) Pages: 9 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Organization charts for the various divisions of Tymshare. Accession: 102659044 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines July 21, 2006 Title: Tymshare Annual Report, 1981 Author:


Created: 1981 ca. Publisher: Tymshare, Inc. Donated By: Rich Lynn Filename: doc-45acf6c128816.pdf (Size: 5.56 MB) Pages: 31 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report of financial and operational results. Accession: 102653353 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines January 16, 2007 Title: Passport to Information, 1982 Author: Created: 1982 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Clint De Gabrielle Filename: doc-43383a89b7101.pdf (Size: 5.85 MB) Pages: 58 Cataloguer: 09/26/2005 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Booklet, 1982; a directory of computer and data services available through Tymnet. Accession: 102638884 Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 8 grayscale Digitized: 09/21/2005 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src2638884_tymnet_passport.1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 26, 2005 Title: Tymshare Annual Report, 1982 Author: Created: 1982 Publisher: Tymshare, Inc. Donated By: Rich Lynn Filename: doc-45acf89286497.pdf (Size: 5.97 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Annual Report 1982. Statement of operating and financial results. Accession: 102653354 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines January 16, 2007


Title: Company Report Author: Created: March 17, 1982 Publisher: Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537f3247e36a.pdf (Size: 573 KB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Report about the financial standing of Tymshare, Inc. Accession: 102661912 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661912.company_report.1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Title: How to Use Tymnet Author: Created: July 1982 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Clint De Gabrielle Filename: doc-433831d7ecc60.pdf (Size: 760 KB) Pages: 12 Cataloguer: 09/26/2005 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Pamphlet, July 1982; a reference guide for Tymnet terminal users. Accession: 102638883 Dimensions: 3.75 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 09/21/2005 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src2638883_tymnet_pamphlet.1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 26, 2005 Title: Invoice Summary Report for November 1982 Author: Created: November 1982 Publisher: Donated By: Warren Prince


Filename: doc-4537f673c8512.pdf (Size: 2.13 MB) Pages: 10 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: List of customers, salespeople, invoice numbers for November 1982. Accession: 102661914 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661914.invoice_summary.1982 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Title: Tymshare on the Move - video Author: Created: 1983 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-44658dab0c8cf.wmv (Size: 21.24 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Video prepared for Tymshare employees - a message from Corporate Headquarters about the state of the Company. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 13, 2006 Title: Tymshare The TymFactor - video Author: Created: 1983 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4465927987d3a.wmv (Size: 52.05 MB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare promotional video -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 13, 2006 Title: Tymshare 1983 First Quarter Shareholders Report Author: Created: May 1983


Publisher: Tymshare, Inc. Donated By: Rich Lynn Filename: doc-45acfbcea3295.pdf (Size: 428 KB) Pages: 6 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Tymshare Quarter 1 report. Statement of operating and financial results. Accession: 102659047 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines January 16, 2007 Title: [Memo from T.J. O'Rourke about a proposed merger with McDonnell Douglas, 1983] Author: T.J. O'Rourke Created: December 1, 1983 Publisher: Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4279657e21a5f.pdf (Size: 32 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Memo from T.J. O'Rourke about a proposed merger with McDonnell Douglas, dated December 1, 1983. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: Tymshare Terminates Talks, 1983 Author: Bob Fermoyle Created: December 19, 1983 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-43267757aadb1.pdf (Size: 15 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: News Release, "Tymshare Terminates Talks" (with McDonnell Douglas Corporation) dated December 19, 1983. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Title: $ 378 million Tymshare sale falls through Author: Roger Rapoport Created: December 20, 1983 Publisher: San Jose Mercury News Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-427968a08a9f8.pdf (Size: 183 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer:


Copyright: Description: Article, dated December 20, 1983 and titled, " $ 378 million Tymshare sale falls through" in the Business section of the San Jose Mercury News. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: Passport to Information, 1984 Author: Created: 1984 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Clint De Gabrielle Filename: doc-43383e9f9270f.pdf (Size: 8.70 MB) Pages: 70 Cataloguer: 09/26/2005 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Tymshare Description: Booklet, 1984; a directory of computer and data services available through Tymnet. Accession: 102638885 Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB, 8 grayscale Digitized: 09/21/2005 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src2638885_tymnet_passport.1984 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson September 26, 2005 Title: [Memo regarding final issue of Tymshare Today] Author: Patricia Fowler Created: January 25, 1984 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-427964ccb4206.pdf (Size: 48 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Memo from Patricia Fowler, Managing Editor, to all Tymshare/Tymnet Managers about the final issue of Tymshare Today. This memo offers a summary of the articles contained in the final issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - February/March 1984 Author: Created: February 1984 Publisher: Tymshare


Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4326692a02661.pdf (Size: 4.31 MB) Pages: 35 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, February-March, 1984. "A newspaper for Tymshare employees & their families" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains individual articles from this issue of the newsletter. The other file with the same title is a copy of the same newsletter with full pages scanned. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines September 12, 2005 Title: It's About Tym - February/March 1984 Author: Created: February 1984 Publisher: Tymshare Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-4a5e28a81660b.pdf (Size: 2.89 MB) Pages: 8 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Newsletter, February-March 1984. "A newspaper for Tymshare employees & their families" There are two versions of this newsletter posted in the Tymshare Corporate History Collection. This file contains full pages of the newsletter. The other file with the same title contains individual articles from this issue. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson July 15, 2009 Title: Organization chart for Integrated Systems Division, 1984 Author: Created: September 1984 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-42796002a57a7.pdf (Size: 51 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Organization chart for Integrated Systems Division, dated September, 1984. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: McDonnell Douglas Changes Its Aim with Tymshare Author: Mary Fallon Created: November 5, 1984 Publisher: San Jose Mercury News Donated By: Lynn Sanden Filename: doc-42796956b1af9.pdf (Size: 338 KB)


Pages: 5 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Article, dated November 5, 1984 and titled, "McDonnell Douglas changes its aim with Tymshare" in the Electronics section of the San Jose Mercury News. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines May 4, 2005 Title: 25 Years, ADAPSO Author: Created: 1986 Publisher: Donated By: Luanne Johnson Filename: doc-434157ef70433.pdf (Size: 4.91 MB) Pages: 34 Cataloguer: 10/03/2005 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Information Technology Association of America Description: Hardback book, 1986. ADAPSO: the computer software and services industry association. The book provides a series of snapshots from ADAPSO's 25 year history in parallel with the first 30 years of the software and services industry. Accession: 062304004 Dimensions: 10.25 x 9 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 09/20/2005 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\projects\ITCHP\Tymshare(ADAPSO)\source2304004.adapso25years.1986 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 3, 2005 Title: Private Network Customers Author: Created: 1987 Publisher: Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537f491c6d54.pdf (Size: 56 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Slip of paper listing customers ranked by 1987 revenue. Accession: 102661913 Dimensions: 11 x 4.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi


Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Title: Networking Today Author: Created: October 1987 Publisher: McDonnell Douglas Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537f9ec4665c.pdf (Size: 4.26 MB) Pages: 24 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Volume 1, Issue 2 of Networking Today Accession: 102661916 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661916.networking_today.1987 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Title: The Network Tymes Author: Created: 1988 Publisher: McDonnell Douglas Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537fb1b2235a.pdf (Size: 3.28 MB) Pages: 20 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: Published for employees of Network Systems Company, first quarter 1988 Accession: 102661917 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 8 grayscale Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661917.network_tymes.1988 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006


Title: Global Network Services Matrix Author: Created: 1992 Publisher: British Telecommunications Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537e77147181.pdf (Size: 893 KB) Pages: 4 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: British Telecommunications Description: Brochure showing the specifications of network services offered in various countries. Accession: 102661910 Dimensions: 11 x 4.5 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661910.bt_global_network_matrix.1992 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Title: TYMNET Global Network Services Author: Created: April 1992 Publisher: British Telecommunications Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-4537f7e2c1f1b.pdf (Size: 701 KB) Pages: 21 Cataloguer: 2006-10-19 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Description: TYMNET Global Network Services - Interim rate summary, April 1992 Accession: 102661915 Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 in. Color depth: 1 bitonal Digitized: 2006-10-12 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\src\102661915.tymnet_global_network.1992 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 19, 2006 Title: Tymshare History - Notes from Norm Hardy Author: Norm Hardy Created: July 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Norm Hardy


Filename: doc-419e6fc2c2c69.pdf (Size: 69 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Norm Hardy's timeline of Tymshare history, dated July 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson November 19, 2004 Title: Tymshare History - Notes from Ann Hardy Author: Ann Hardy Created: November 17, 2004 Publisher: Donated By: Ann Hardy Filename: doc-419e6e33af3e7.pdf (Size: 86 KB) Pages: 3 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Ann Hardy's timeline of Tymshare history, dated November 17, 2004. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson November 19, 2004 Title: [Letter from Clint De Gabrielle] Author: Clint De Gabrielle Created: March 28, 2005 Publisher: Donated By: Clint De Gabrielle Filename: doc-434adb7970430.pdf (Size: 97 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: 10/10/2005 Sarah Wilson Copyright: Clint De Gabrielle Description: Letter dated 2005 from Clint De Gabrielle to Karol Hines describing select Tymshare items he contributed for this ITCHP Web site. Accession: 102638882 Dimensions: 9 x 6 in. Color depth: 24 RGB Digitized: 09/28/2005 Sarah Wilson Device: Epson Expression 10000 XL Format: text/tiff Resolution: 300 ppi Scan location: \\Archive\resources\text\Tymshare\source -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Sarah Wilson October 10, 2005 Title: Letter from Warren Prince Author: Warren Prince Created: October 5, 2005


Publisher: Donated By: Warren Prince Filename: doc-45956ecc14c83.pdf (Size: 47 KB) Pages: 1 Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: Letter from Warren Prince describing the materials he has contributed to the Computer History Museum for the Corporate Histories Project including some customer names. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines December 29, 2006 Title: Tymshare and me Author: Mark Kahrs Created: February 18, 2009 Publisher: Donated By: Mark Kahrs Filename: doc-49ca50f7cfdc0.pdf (Size: 46 KB) Pages: Cataloguer: Copyright: Description: A (very) personal history of my adventures at Tymshare during the early days. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Mark Kahrs March 25, 2009

References

Title: Tymshare Annual Report 1970 Author: Created: 1970 Publisher: Tymshare Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Tymshare Annual Report 1970 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 26, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1969 Revenues 1970 Revenues 40% interest in Tymshare Canada Acquired CCC, Seattle Acquired Dial Data. Application Packages Custom terminals developed Hardware capabilities Joint venture in France Pursuit of commercial customers Software available to customers


Stock option plan for employees Tymshare achieves profitability Tymshare IPO, 1970 Title: Tymshare Annual Report 1971 Author: Created: 1971 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Tymshare Annual Report 1971 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 26, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1971 Revenues 22 computers, 1500 customers Acquired Division of Graphic Control Corp. Expansion into commercial marketplace First Managers Offsite Increase in Bank line of credit Research and Development Highlights TYMNET completed Uses of Tymshare by its customers Title: Tymshare Annual Report, 1972 Author: Created: 1972 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Annual Report for Tymshare for 1972 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 28, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1972 Officers 1972 Revenues Acquired Computer Complex TS ops Business Applications offered Computers from 6 manufacturers linked Contract programmers assist users Extension of TYMNET to Europe Increase in line of credit PDP-10 computers added Purchased XDS 940 computers from Xerox Title: Tymshare Annual Report, 1973 Author:


Created: 1973 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Annual Report for Tymshare for 1973 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 28, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1973 Revenues Acquired Valley Computer Added 5 additional computers Debt reduction Five Metropolitan areas added IML and DB Management development Installed IBM 370/158 Office Expansion Personnel increased 40% Software Development - 1973 TYMNET in Brussels and Paris Title: Tymshare Annual Report, 1974 Author: Created: 1974 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Annual Report for Tymshare for 1974 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson August 28, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1974 Revenues Addition of three VP's Expanded line of data terminals Expansion in 1974 Increased computer capacity - 1974 Joint venture with Unilever, Ltd. Merger with Tronics, Inc. Merger with UDC New DB Mgmt and IA systems New Market for Valcomp New software offerings - 1974 Service to Switzerland TYMCOM 370 - first full year Valley Forge computer center Title: Tymshare 1975 SEC form 10K Author: Created: 1975


Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Tymshare 1975 SEC form 10K -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson September 14, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acquired Quelex Data Systems Leasco Response, Inc. acquisition TASC operations expanded Title: Tymshare 1977 SEC form 10K Author: Created: 1977 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Tymshare 1977 SEC form 10K -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson September 14, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1977 Revenues Expansion to Canada Tymnet - common carrier status Title: Drexel Burnham Lambert report Author: Created: 1978 ca. Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Drexel Burnham Lambert August 1978 report. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson September 14, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acquired Autotax Organized into 3 operating groups Title: Offer to purchase outstanding stock, 1984 Author: Created: March 2, 1984 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright:


Reference: Offer to Purchase for Cash All Outstanding Shares of Common Stock, 03/02/84. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson September 14, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tymshare sold to McDonnell Douglas Title: Tom O'Rourke Oral History Author: Luanne Johnson Created: March 13, 2002 Publisher: Software History Center Cataloguer: Copyright: Computer History Museum Reference: Oral history of Tom O'Rourke conducted by Luanne Johnson on March 13, 2002. Abstract: Thomas J. (Tom) O’Rourke reviews his personal life and his career at General Electric prior to starting Tymshare, one of the earliest time-sharing companies, in 1965. He covers the development of an operating system to support their time-sharing services, establishing an initial market with engineering firms, and shifting to the financial services market during the recession in the early 1970’s. He describes the growth of the proprietary network Tymnet as a significant business within Tymshare and the role of ADAPSO (Association of Data Processing Service Organizations) in providing time-sharing firms with a lobbying presence to resist government regulation. The interview concludes with the events leading up to the acquisition of Tymshare by McDonnell Douglas Automation in 1984. Click here to read the transcript. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson November 29, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Financing obtained from B of A GE backed out Joint project to develop the operating system SDS selected as an alternative to GE Tymshare founded in 1964 Title: Bernard Goldstein Oral History Author: David Allison Created: May 3, 2002 Publisher: Software History Center Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Citation: Bernard Goldstein, OH 336. Oral history interview by David Allison, 03 May 2002, Washington, D.C. Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. http://www.cbi.umn.edu/oh/display.phtml?id=325 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 30, 2006


Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Merger with UDC Title: Recollections of the beginning of the time-sharing industry Author: Richard L. Crandall Created: December 2002 Publisher: IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Cataloguer: Copyright: IEEE Annals of the History of Computing Reference: Crandall, Richard L. "Recollections of the beginning of the time-sharing industry." IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Oct-Dec 2002): 40-42. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson October 31, 2004 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Joint project to develop the operating system Title: Hardy, Norm - Website on the History of Tymshare Author: Norm Hardy Created: 2003 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Norm Hardy's web site on the history of Tymshare http://cap-lore.com/Tymshare/index.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Karol Hines March 29, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First disk held 16 MB Title: Hardy, Norm -- Website on the history of Tymnet Author: Norm Hardy Created: 2003 Publisher: Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Norm Hardy's website on the history of Tymnet: http://cap-lore.com/Tymnet/ETH.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson January 25, 2005 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Connecting via phone lines FDMX mini-nodes First customer to use network First customers came online


First Tymnet node First Tymnet nodes - TDMX Nasty bug in the New Orleans node Paris office objected to US control of the network PDP-10 computers added Remote echoing added for teletype SPC-12 code written by LaRoy Tymes Tymnet booted in its complete form Tymnet name proposed by Virgil Swearingen Tymnet network shut down Tymnet upgraded to Varian machines Title: Dave Schmidt Oral History Author: Luanne Johnson Created: June 11, 2004 Publisher: Computer History Museum Cataloguer: Copyright: Computer History Museum Reference: Transcribed interview with Dave Schmidt conducted by Ann Hardy and Luanne Johnson on June 22, 2004. The first page of text contains a 2002 photograph of Dave Schmidt. Abstract: Dave Schmidt describes his career with GE and the founding of Tymshare in partnership with Tom O’Rourke. He talks about developing the time-sharing operating system on the SDS computer at UC Berkeley and the acquisition of Dial Data, the first of Tymshare’s acquisition which established its growth by acquisition strategy. Click here to read the transcript. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson December 6, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dave Schmidt left Tymshare Demo of time-sharing at the Cow Palace Joint project to develop the operating system SDS selected as an alternative to GE Tymshare founded in 1964 Title: LaRoy Tymes Oral History Author: Luanne Johnson Created: June 11, 2004 Publisher: Computer History Museum Cataloguer: Copyright: Reference: Transcribed interview with LaRoy Tymes conducted by Ann Hardy and Luanne Johnson on June 11, 2004. The first page of text in this PDF file contains a 2004 photography of LaRoy Tymes. Abstract: LaRoy Tymes describes his career as a computer operator and programmer at Berkeley Lawrence Laboratory in Livermore and then at Tymshare. When he arrived at Tymshare, the company was running separate discrete data centers for their time-sharing customers and LaRoy designed and developed the supervisor for Tymnet, Tymshare’s proprietary network. He also


designed a specialized mini-computer, known as the Tymnet engine, to support the Tymnet supervisor. He talks briefly about his career after Tymshare and describes the parallel development of Tymnet and ARPANET. Click here to read the transcript. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson December 6, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- First customer to use network LaRoy Tymes leaves Paris office objected to US control of the network Remote echoing added for teletype Tymnet Engine implemented Title: Lynn Sanden Oral History Author: Luanne Johnson Created: June 11, 2004 Publisher: Computer History Museum Cataloguer: Copyright: Computer History Museum Reference: Transcribed interview with Lynn Sanden conducted by Ann Hardy and Luanne Johnson on June 11, 2004. The first page of text in this PDF file contains a 2004 photograph of Lynn Sanden. Abstract: Lynn Sanden discusses her career with Tymshare beginning as a secretary in the Engineering Department and gradually assuming more and more personnel-related responsibilities until she became Manager of Personnel. She discusses implementing affirmative action programs after the passage of the Civil Right Act in 1964 and her role in integrating new employees into Tymshare’s personnel systems following Tymshare’s numerous acquisitions. She covers how gender discrimination varied in different departments at Tymshare and touches briefly on her career after leaving the company. Click here to read the transcript. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entered By: Luanne Johnson December 6, 2006 Related Events -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Affirmative action programs initiated

Discussions

what made Tymshare a great place to work Posted by: MHumphries (IP Logged) Date: October 10, 2005 05:54PM Mike Cohn and a few others on this site have made reference to what they thought made Tymshare such a great place to work. I will put my opinion out-it was three factors:1)the everyday experience of working with other Tymshare folks who were smart, motivated and focused on customer solutions 2) being involved


in a leading edge technology at a time where very few new technologies directly touched everyday business and industry 3) having a wide variety of customer needs and solutions for them so that things did not often get routine or repetitive. What do each of you think it was?