1963 Timesharing: A Solution to Computer Bottlenecks
1963 Timesharing: A Solution to Computer Bottlenecks
[Recorded: May 9, 1963]
This vintage film features MIT Science Reporter John Fitch at the MIT Computation Center in an extended interview with MIT professor of computer science Fernando J. Corbato. The film was co-produced by WGBH (Boston) and MIT.
The prime focus of the film is timesharing, one of the most important developments in computing, and one which has come in and out of favor several times over the last several decades as the dichotomy between remote and centrally-managed computing resources played out; the latest incarnation for centrally-managed computing resources is known as cloud computing.
Timesharing as shown in this film, was a novel concept in the early 1960s. Driven by a desire to more efficiently use expensive computer resources while increasing the interactivity between user and computer (man and machine), timesharing was eventually taken up by industry in the form of special timesharing hardware for mainframe and minicomputer computer systems as well as in sophisticated operating systems to manage multiple users and resources.
Corbato describes how after the mid-1950s, when computers began to become reliable, the next big challenge to improve productivity and efficiency was the development of computer languages, FORTRAN being an example. One of the next bottlenecks in computing, according to Corabto, was the traditional batch processing method of combining many peoples computer jobs into one large single job for the computer to process at one time. He compares batch processing to a group of people catching a bus, all being moved at once.
Timesharing, on the other hand, involves attaching a large number of consoles to the central computer, each of which is given a time-slice of the computers time. While the computer is rapidly switching among user applications and problems, it appears to the user that s/he has complete access to the central computer.
Corbato then describes in technical detail a complex description of timesharing before showing some examples of timesharing from a terminal using a simple program to calculate a simple geometric problem (Pythagorean theorem).
In the long run, Corbato says, timesharing will help address the increasing need for computer time and ease-of-use.
OMG the Twilight Zoney music at the end is creepy as hell.
Its when a "MAN" Types in a command!!
Are the only one so fsr
5:40 See the pee-wee human penguin-suit interviewee gettin’ all giddy about the *UPGRADE* when trying to explain why they need a better computer like a grade 7 trying to convince his parents why the current machine can’t quite play fortnite/doom (whatever of the era) as good as s/he would likek it to hence requiring an *UPGRADE. ;]*
This should be re-enacted and then while he’s describing how it works, the other guy gets a ring and pulls out an iPhone from his pocket and says, "Excuse for a sec…."
So nice to see someone writing in cursive.
Attaching a bunch of consoles to a computer? Is that like attaching a bunch of chromebooks to a cloud?
Great interaction between the reporter and the professor. Just a board, no fancy animations needed to explain it so well.
Ok
I remember playing the original text based Star Trek game on a paper based terminal at college in the mid 70’s. Miles of paper, but at least you could go back and look at the previous long and short range scans. How things have changed.
Please, is there anyone who know which OS they are using on these computers ? Should be CTSS ?
My first experience with timesharing was on the McGiill Rax system in the late 1960’s. At the time it was running on an IBM 360/50. Most access was via TTY33 and TTY35 dial up terminals. Those with more budget could use an IBM 2741 terminal which was built around a Selectric typewriter. It was about 50% faster.
my left ear liked this
And now my laptop that is incomprehensibly more powerful, is twiddling its thumbs while I scratch my balls.
Since digital computers have a limited future—they’re inefficient at the silicon atom scale—analog computers will need to be restarted.
Corbato is talking about MULTICS, known to every serious student of operating systems as the foundation of time-sharing.
Frankie
damn,why does this video have to have sound coming out on my bad speaker only? lol
The computer scientist being interviewed is Fernando Corbato, and he’s still alive! He’s 93 now and has gotten to see how far computers have come. crazy shit haha
How could anyone even begin to think that the hypotenuse of a triangle with sides of length 1 and 12 is 13?
Incredible historical video, thanks!
Apple
At the end the reporter says he is going to do a story on USS Thresher (it was lost one month earlier). Interesting to note that when the spearhead of computerscience was at this level , we (humanity) already had nuclear submarines !
Astonishing. The more things change, the more they remain the same. Travel well. Safe return. ❤🐯
So this is the Original SYSOP….. Im not so scared of them anymore.
RIP. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/12/science/fernando-corbato-dead.html
18 seconds to do two square roots and one hypotenuse. We have come a long way. I liked it when he said they are experimenting with visual output.
Excellent video, still fully relevant, very advanced for its time. Captures the nature of computing in those times. Little changed overall until the mid-70’s, when smaller multi-user systems with many CRT display terminals became widespread. I recall how in 1977, the campus IBM mainframe at Caltech was still a cards-over-the-counter, printout-in-mailboxes operation, the only two user CRT terminals being reserved for JPL Accounting, since the standard operating system software was so inefficient in handling terminals that the overall performance would suffer unacceptably. Fortunately, pretty soon the DEC VAX-11/780 came on the market and was eagerly purchased by departments and research groups. Despite being equivalent to a later Intel 80386/387 of less than 20 MHz clock speed, the VAX could handle a dozen users with a respectable 0.5 Megabyte memory and 70 Mbytes of disk space. Of course, all of this is far, far less than low-end cellphones of today. In physics and astronomy, the VAX reigned supreme until about 1985, when Sun (and more expensive manufacturers) brought out UNIX and microprocessor based workstations and servers, and then in the ’90’s, Linux and Mac became ubiquitous as PC’s became cheaper and more powerful.
The best central campus mainframe setup I encountered was at UBC in Vancouver, which used IBM or Amdahl hardware with the Michigan Terminal System. In the years 1971-1977, I found it very powerful, easy to use, with video and card terminals, and printers, in several locations on campus. I found it even more convenient than the later, excellent DEC VAX. Of course, UNIX surpassed them all, though it has a steeper learning curve.
The Intel i7-4790K on which I write this is less than 2cm x 1cm of silicon, yet has incomparably more power than the Cray supercomputer I used 30 years ago … I suspect even my cellphone is more powerful that Cray.
Now we use our computers to download pizza… 🍕
The IBM 7090 was one of the first solid-state computers of its time.
fascinating
Crysis at 400 FPS
Need to make the sound mono.
It’s currently stereo with the sound track assigned to the LH speaker
I believe timesharing and BASIC were developed at the same time. An easy to use language was needed for the masses now able to easily access computers.
21:00
http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~margo/cs261/papers/corbato62.pdf
It is the worst channel with biased documents from a stupid nasty museum.
Stupid old computer didn’t put an apostrophe in "TODAYS PROGRAM".
This Professor is the responsible and the creator of "Password"
Curious how 2010 technology couldn’t get the sound to show on both left AND right audio channels on this ? This isn’t rocket science !
1963 unbelievable long ago. If i think at now 2018 and i use my N4400 Intel Pentium 6WTPmax. and watch this Video in Youtube so i use maybe more Calcpower then this Computer from 1963 for the Video. This is WoW nobody can understand this technology step from this days till today it is unbelievable!
Not bad first => "start" "wait," /*but for what is the wait?*/
isn’t that Lewis Skolnick, from Adams College?
Corbato died on July 12, 2019, rest in piece. I’m glad he got to see computing evolve so much from the early 1960s and he played of course an essential part in it.
This video makes me to love computers
I like how Dr Corbato uses the word "we" and not I… thinking as a team not as a ‘founder’ – this film is gold.
Amazing what people did with 64k of WAM. We’ve definitely lost the need for a certain sort of cleverness now that memory is basically unlimited.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/201216258/fernando-corbato
I’m looking for the pigeon holes on my tablet.
Say it
So do you really think 6 years later we got to the moon people are so naive