Page:CTSS programmer's guide.djvu/21

 2) to create delayed graphical plots at the Center; 3) to allow foreground-initiated jobs to be run as background after a user leaves his console; 4) to assign by user request, for the duration of a console session, various input-output units, such as tape units, from the common central pool; 5) to allow inter-user console communication for activities such as management games; 6) to be more flexible and versatile in the allowable debugging techniques such as traces, interpreters, selective dumps, and so forth. Specifications for some of these features are described in later sections.

In addition to the obviously heavy programming development required for the above improvements, there are large operational questions which will need to be determined in the areas of reliability, error detection, programming system and hardware maintenance under conditions of near-continuous operation, automatic traffic and performance monitoring, and automatic accounting.

Finally, in the areas of hardware, there are evaluations to be made of the various consoles: the various model Teletypes, especially models 28 and 33, the Kleinschmidt 311 Teleprinter, the IBM 1050 Selectric typewriter, as well as possibly others. Vast questions lie in the area of self-maintaining display consoles, and finally questions of improved high-speed drums and future memory hierarchy schemes will need to be studied. 7