JOSS: 20,000 hours at a console: a statistical summary

JOSS is a special-purpose computing system designed to provide users with a substantial and highly interactive computational capability. The first JOSS system, developed for the JOHNNIAC computer machine by J. C. Shaw was operational in early 1963. Work on an expanded system utilizing a modern PDP-6 computer began in 1964, and the system became operational in February 1966. Although there are many systems today that provide time-shared access to a computer, little is known of precisely how such machines are used. This was especially apparent at the beginning of JOSS development. Substantial effort was therefore made to provide a measuring or instrumenting capability within the system not only to record use of the system as a whole but also to record characteristics of use for individual users of the system. This paper presents the first results of these metering efforts.