[Simh] Re: Old Cisco IOS and stuff

[Rich Alderson]

> Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2005 16:56:05 -0500
> From: William Pechter <pechter at ureach.com>

> I see to remember some lawsuit back after I left DEC between DEC and Cisco
> over code from TOPS10 or 20 being in the Cisco IOS stuff.  Something like
> they translated some stuff to 32bit 68k from Macro10 or Bliss and used it.

> Any other old timers remember that.  I was at Pyramid Technologies back then
> so it would be around the 92 timeframe.

Perhaps I shouldn't comment, but I don't remember anything of the sort.

The Cisco IOS grew out of code written at Stanford University by people very
familiar with Tops-20's COMND% JSYS:  Some of them were students whose first
major exposure to assembler language programming was on the LOTS DEC-20's,
taught by Ralph Gorin (author of the Digital Press book _Introduction to
DECSYSTEM-20 Assembly Language Programming_, and director of LOTS); others were
Tops-20 systems programmers with similar backgrounds.

By 1992 I was no longer working at Stanford, but consulting at Cisco on a
Tops-20 problem they were having; a number of friends (former students as well
as former colleagues) were working for Cisco as well.  Had such a suit been
brought, we'd all have heard about it.

And even if it had, Columbia University had already made a C implementation of
the COMND% JSYS available with their Unix implementation of MM (a superior
command-line mail program unequaled by its successors), so I doubt that any
court would have given such a suit a hearing following initial depositions (but
IANAL).

Disclaimers:  I have been friends with the founders of Cisco Systems, as well
as with Ralph Gorin, for more than 20 years, and worked for one or another of
them for more than 15.

Rich Alderson                   Last LOTS Tops-20 Systems Programmer, 1984-1991
                                Customer Service, XKL LLC, 1993-2003