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Comment by wolfhumble | Hacker News Reader

From the Introduction in the tutorial: "What mother never told you about VM service":

"I will be using VM/SP Release 1 in my examples"

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_(operating_system):

"VM (often: VM/CMS) is a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules emulator for personal computers.

The first version, released in 1972, was VM/370, or officially Virtual Machine Facility/370. This was a System/370 reimplementation of earlier CP/CMS operating system. Milestone versions included VM/SP."

From the right side column in the Wikipedia article: "VM/SP (1980)"

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I also went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what "VM" was referring to. I really like Melinda Varian's paper "VM and the VM Community: Past, Present, and Future"[1]. The history of time sharing systems laid out there is really interesting.

From that paper:

Creasy and Comeau spent the last week of 1964 joyfully brainstorming the design of CP-40, a new kind of operating system, a system that would provide not only virtual memory, but also virtual machines. [Footnote 25]

[Footnote 25] - Creasy had decided to build CP-40 while riding on the MTA. "I launched the effort between Xmas 1964 and year’s end, after making the decision while on an MTA bus from Arlington to Cambridge. It was a Tuesday, I believe."

I love seeing an anecdote like that about such an influential technology!

[1] http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/25paper.pdf

"I launched the effort between Xmas 1964 and year’s end, after making the decision while on an MTA bus from Arlington to Cambridge."

Creasy couldn't have made the decision riding an MTA bus in December, 1964! The MTA had been succeeded by the MBTA in August, 1964. (Too pedantic?)

Aren't some NYC subway lines still referred to by the names of defunct companies?

Yes, and in Boston people often continue to use the old name of a renamed street, or since demolished landmark, for decades.

Still it was an amusing pedantic comment.

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