Alexander, Michael T.

Michael T. Alexander joined the University of Michigan's Computing Center in 1965 as a Research Assistant.

In the mid-1960s, the staff of the UM Computing Center relied on IBM 7090 hardware and an operating system, the UM Executive System (UMES), of their own design. The limited memory available to the IBM 7090 and the high cost of its operation demanded the use of "batch processing," in which programs were run immediately after one another with minimal human intervention. Batch processing ensured that the university's expensive computing resources were used cost-effectively, but did so at the price of requiring users to wait hours or days for project results. However, in 1966 new developments in virtual memory architecture inspired the staff of the Computing Center to draft a proposal for a terminal-oriented, timesharing operating system that would allow users to interact with their programs and receive immediate results.[1]

The Computing Center staff took their timesharing proposal to IBM which led, after a period of close collaboration, to the development of a one-of-a-kind IBM System 360/66M computer ('M' for 'Michigan'). When project delays prevented IBM from delivering software to support the new hardware's timesharing capability, Michael T. Alexander and Donald W. Boettner led the development of an in-house timesharing operating system, the Michigan Terminal System (MTS). The low level supervisor or kernel of the system was the UM Multiprogramming Supervisor (UMMPS) which controlled the execution of multiple instances of "job programs," one of which was MTS which made timesharing possible.[2]

MTS was released to the UM campus in May, 1967. By 1970 the system could support 58 simultaneous users on nearly 200 terminals providing access to MTS on the UM campus and from other universities. While MTS had little difficulty responding to requests for 100,000 jobs per month or more, such demands were growing beyond the capacity of the IBM 360/67 computers on which it ran. The University of British Columbia Computing Centre had adapted MTS to run on IBM 370 and Extended Architecture (XA) systems, but the UM Computing Center preferred the superior speed and reliability of the Amdahl 470V/6 computer. UM was the first university to use the Amdahl computer. While other universities soon migrated to Amdahl, the system would remain a part of the UM computing infrastructure through the mid-1980s.[3]

In addition to the University of Michigan and the University of British Columbia, there were five other member institutions of the MTS Consortium: the University of Alberta, Wayne State University, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Simon Fraser University, and NUMAC ("Northumbrian Universities Multiple Access Computer," a collaboration between the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, the Durham University, and Newcastle Polytechnic). Each of the member institutions played a significant part in the development of MTS, particularly in the design, implementation, and testing of features and services. Other notable users of MTS included Michigan State University, Hewlett-Packard, and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.[4]

In the early 1970s a parallel initiative, the Michigan Educational Research Information Triad (MERIT) linked the computer systems of the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Wayne State University. The MERIT network was independent of MTS, but in practice the two projects were closely associated, and the University of Michigan provided all hosting and staff support for the new network. By the late 1970s, Merit had begun to expand to other Michigan universities as part of its mission to provide advanced and expensive computer resources to smaller institutions that could not otherwise afford them. Services provided by the Merit network would include access to the Telnet network by 1976 as well as access to the Internet in 1985. Communication processing technology developed for Merit would lead to the creation of UMnet in 1983.[5]

MTS also provided innovative services. In 1975 graduate student Robert Parnes created CONFER, an early conferencing system for private electronic mail exchange, open or invitation-only group discussion on MTS and on other systems linked to MTS via the Merit network. Email service to remote users on other systems was added in September 1983 when MTS joined the MAILNET project, a joint effort by sixteen universities and EDUCOM (the precursor to EDUCAUSE). The increasing popularity of microcomputers in the early 1980s also led the Computing Center staff to develop programs, which would allow the use of Apple II and IBM PC computers as terminals on the MTS system.[6]

The development of popular features, such as remote access from other networks, added to the growing demand placed on MTS by students and faculty. In 1985, a second system was secured for the increased use. This second system was named "UB" or "U-Blue" to distinguish it from the first system, which was retroactively, designated "UM" or "U-Maize." A third MTS system was created for the UM Department of Human Genetics. [7]

In 1985 the Computing Center was merged into the Information Technology Division, a new unit intended to shift the university's computing resources away from centralized mainframes in favor of distributed networks and support for microcomputers, such as the Apple II. The increasing popularity of microcomputers coupled with other trends in computer technology during that time eventually led to the replacement of MTS largely by Unix-based networked servers with TCP/IP support for internet connectivity. End-user support for MTS ended on June 30, 1996, and the UM systems themselves were shut down on May 30, 1997.

The last member of the MTS Consortium to have an MTS system in operation was Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. That system was shut down in June 1999. However, MTS can still be run on IBM System 370 emulators. [8]

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From the guide to the Michael T. Alexander records, 1968-1994, 1982-1992, (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan)