On Tue, Aug 25, 2026, at 3:14 AM, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > On Mon, 2026-08-24 at 22:09 -0500, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote: >> Hmm, I hadn't ever heard of anything referred to as "Tymnet." The >> product I came across was (I believe) a follow on or derivative of >> BTS (SDS >> 940), starting c. 1967 Tymeshare (with a y). I had assumed it was >> US-based, but possibly am mistaken. > > I did a little bit of digging and found this: > > Tymshare was an independent computer time-sharing company founded in > 1964 by Tom O'Rourke and Dave Schmidt, former engineers from General > Electric. Tymnet was developed later as a proprietary packet-switched > data communications network built and operated by Tymshare itself. [1 > [1], 2 [2], 3 [3]] > > I had thought they were maybe CDC-based, but there were based on SDS > (formerly GE?) 940 and DEC PDP-10.
Norm Hardy has a number of pages on Tymshare and Tymnet from his time (ahem) there, this page is a decent single entry point to spider out from (see the second paragraph): http://www.cap-lore.com/Past.html >> On Mon, Aug 24, 2026 at 1:38 PM Ken Seefried <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> > On Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 4:47 AM Steve Lewis via cctalk < >> > [email protected]> wrote: >> > >> > > I never found too much info about "tymshare" (apparently a late >> > > 1960s kind >> > > of "corporate or business-to-business digital exchange" system, >> > > maybe for >> > > inventory or check-processing?). >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > Sorry, I should probably look through the preso before replying, >> > but are >> > you perhaps thinking of "Tymnet", a product of Tymeshare, Inc. >> > (with an >> > 'e')? >> > >> > KJ >> > > > > [1] 1 > https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/mainframe-computers/7/181 > [2] 2 https://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/t-z/tymshare-inc/ > [3] 3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymnet -- Daniel Moniz <[email protected]>
