Michigan Terminal System: Time Line

1966

May 1966: IBM 360 Model 50, located at the North University Building (NUBS), used for early MTS development work.
1966: Merit Network founded.
1966: First Data Concentrator built (as part of the ConComp Project). For more than 10 years, these provided the bulk of the access to MTS for timesharing users.

1967-1968

January 1967: Computing Center obtains a new IBM 360 Model 67.
May 1967: MTS released to campus as operating system for IBM 360/67.
1967: Batch-mode access and billing for CPU time added to MTS.
February 1968: First remote graphics station connected to MTS.
August 1968: Computing Center obtains dual-processor 360/67.
November 1968: University of British Columbia runs MTS.

1969-1973

February 1969: University of Newcastle runs MTS.
October 1969: Construction commences on North Campus Computing Center Building.
September 1970: University of Alberta runs MTS.
January 1971: Wayne State University runs MTS.
April 1971: Computing Center moves to new building; NUBS remains as a remote batch station. MTS runs on an Amdahl 470V/6 computer (serial number 2).¹

1974-1980

May 1974: First MTS workshop held at University of British Columbia.
1975: Confer software provides conferencing and e-mail services via MTS.
1976: "Which Host?" network prompt first appears.
July 1976: Rensselaer Polytechnic University runs MTS.
October 1976: Confer and MTS used in support of a conference of the International Society for Technology Assessment.

1981-1984

1981: Microcomputer access to MTS provided.
July 1981: $MESSAGE e-mail available on MTS.
September 1982: MTS able to send and receive e-mail to and from remote, non-MTS systems.
1983: First Secondary Communications Processor (SCP) deployed.
1984: Information Technology Division formed by combining Computing Center, Office of Administrative Systems, and U-M Office of Telecommunications.

1985-1999

May 1985: UB system and request accounts available to the campus community.
January 1986: The first U-M computer conference organized by students (Meet:students) is opened to all students using Confer on MTS.
January 1992: UB system merged into UM system.
April 1996: More than 49 million messages sent since 1981 using e-mail on MTS.
June 1996: MTS retired at U-M. Still running at Wayne State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic University, and the University of British Columbia.
June 1999: MTS retired at RPI. Believed to be the last site to run MTS.

The bulk of this article originally appeared in the May 1996 Information Technology Digest, published by the University of Michigan Information Technology Division. It was written by Susan Topol, ITD Staff Writer, and is copyright © 1996 by the Regents of the University of Michigan. Revisions and additions from other universities in the MTS Consortium have been added.
¹ Other sources say the Amdahl showed up in 1974.
Last update Jan21/20 by Josh Simon (<jss@clock.org>).