ITS - Incompatible Timesharing System

ITS is a timesharing system created at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1967 for their PDP-6 computer. It was soon moved to the newer PDP-10; for most of its life ITS ran on four of those machines. ITS is known for it's lack of security (no passwords, no file permissions), using a debugger as the login shell, and pioneering many famous programs.

The SDF ITS is at https://hactrn.org/ and is running on a KA10 emulator with an attached PDP-11 for serving Knight TV raster graphics terminals.

Some basic tutorials:

• HACTRN survival guide
• Adding a new ITS user
• New ITS manual in the works

More information can be found by running INFO, and on GitHub.

Bootcamp ideas:

• Log in and create your own user directory. Hint: see “basic tutorials” above.
• Run :INFO INFO to learn how to read the system documentation. Read “INTRO” to learn some ITS basics. List all the files in the INFO directory.
• Create a file using EMACS. Hint1 :INFO EMACS. Hint2 :TEACHEMACS.
• Start several jobs in parallel and switch between them. Hint1: ^Z. Hint2: $J. Hint3: $P. Hint4: $$V.
• Write, compile, link, and run a small C program. Hint1: .INFO.; CC RECENT. Hint2: C; CDOC >
• Learn PDP-10 programming with :INFO PDP-10. Do one of the examples. Hint :INFO MIDAS
• Get 50 points in Zork. Hint1: ZORK^K. Hint2: score.
• Compute the derivative and integral of an expression in Macsyma. Hint1: :MACSYMA
• Write a function in Maclisp to print “hello world”. Hint1: LISP^K. Hint2: :INFO LISP.
• Learn about Lisp from the automated tutor: :teach;lisp.

Suggested topics to explore:

• Zork and Advent, classic text adventure games.
• Emacs, the first version.
• Maclisp and Scheme, major Lisp dialects.
• Macsyma, symbolic math.
• Logo, programming for kids.
• C, pre-K&R version.
• Muddle, the Dynamic Modeling programming language.
• Maze, the 3D first person shooter (needs an Imlac emulator).