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RFC 419 UNKNOWN META · OPERATIONS

To: Network liaisons and station agents

A maintenance notice from MIT's Project MAC

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PUBLISHED
December 1972
AUTHORS
A. Vezza
STREAM
Legacy
EXPECTED DOWNTIME START
December 26, 1972 or later
MINIMUM DOWNTIME
10 days
MAXIMUM ESTIMATED DOWNTIME
3 weeks
DOI
10.17487/RFC0419

RFC text

Original text · RFC Editor View on rfc-editor.org ↗ 
Network Working Group                                           A. Vezza
Request for Comments: 419                                        MIT-MAC
NIC: 12763                                              12 December 1972


                          MIT-DMS on Vacation

   TO: Network Liaisons and Station Agents

   The PDP-10 at Project MAC, affectionately known as the Dynamic
   Modeling System, will, during the holiday season, take a short
   vacation from all activities including networking.  The best estimate
   I have, at present, is that we expect that on or about December 26,
   1972, the system will cease operation for a period of at least 10
   days and possibly as long as three weeks.  During this period, we
   will be installing a paging system.  I wish to advise people of this
   hiatus in system operation and also to advise them that during the
   first few weeks the paging system is in operation, the Dynamic
   Modeling system may not be as available as it has been in the past.


          [This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry]
      [into the online RFC archives by Helene Morin, Via Genie 12/99]

AI ELI5

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PROBLEMMIT's Dynamic Modeling System at Project MAC needed maintenance during the holiday season.
MECHANISMThe system would shut down for at least 10 days around December 26, 1972, to install a new paging system.
MAINTENANCE NOTICENetwork liaisons and users were warned of the downtime and told the system might be less available for a few weeks after the upgrade.

§1Vacation Notice for MIT-DMS

This notice informs network liaisons and station agents that the PDP-10 computer at MIT's Project MAC, known as the Dynamic Modeling System, would take a maintenance break during the holiday season. The system was expected to cease operation on or about December 26, 1972, for at least ten days and possibly as long as three weeks.

A big computer at MIT is taking a holiday break starting around Christmas 1972.

§2Planned Maintenance Work

During the shutdown period, the Dynamic Modeling System would have a paging system installed. This was a major upgrade to the computer's memory management capabilities. Network administrators were warned that even after the system returned to operation, it might not be as available as it had been in the past during the initial weeks while the paging system was being tested and debugged.

Engineers will install a new system for managing memory while the computer is offline, and it might be slower at first when it comes back.

§3Impact on Network Users

Project MAC's Dynamic Modeling System was a resource available to the broader ARPANET community. The notice was directed at network liaisons and station agents so they could inform their users that the system would be unavailable and prepare for reduced service during the recovery period.

People who use the computer over the network need to know it will be gone and slower when it comes back.