Phoenix (computer)
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Phoenix was the name of an IBM mainframe computer at Cambridge University's Computer Laboratory. "Phoenix/MVS" was also the name of the computer's operating system, written in-house by Computer Laboratory members. Its DNS hostname was phx.cam.ac.uk.
At the time of Phoenix's installation in 1971, it was an IBM 370/165 with one megabyte of RAM. By 1973 this was increased to two megabytes of RAM and a thousand megabytes of disk space. In 1982 it was upgraded to an IBM 3081D, and in 1989 to a 3084Q. It was finally decomissioned 24 years after its installation, on 30 September 1995.
Several large early British interactive fiction games, including Acheton, Sangraal, and Fyleet, were developed on Phoenix before being sold commercially for microcomputers by Acornsoft and, later, Topologika. This was comparable to Infocom's contemporaneous commercialisation of the MIT mainframe game Zork. Many of these games were subsequently translated by Graham Nelson to run on the Z-Machine.
Phoenix also hosted a lively bulletin board named GROGGS, which fostered the community spirit amongst the machine's users. After Phoenix was decommissioned, GROGGS migrated to the Internet, and survives to this day.
(To do: add more about the serious uses of Phoenix)
(To do: add the tale of Tim Roddis, the rabbit job and computerless computer science)
Phoenix inspired great affection in its users, to such an extent that a wake was held on 1st September 1995 to mourn its passing. A University newsgroup called "ucam.phx.nostalgia" was also created for reminiscences.
External links
- Phoenix's influence on interactive fiction (http://www.inform-fiction.org/zmachine/phoenix.html)
- A record of the last moments of Phoenix, and some modern derivatives of its software (http://www.rrw-net.co.uk/semiramis-org-uk/phoenix/)
- A history of the Computer Laboratory (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/UoCCL/misc/EDSAC99/history.html)
- An appreciation of Phoenix, by a user (http://website.lineone.net/~michael.s.grant/phx.html)
- Some of Phoenix's quirky help messages (http://www.mit.edu/afs/sipb/user/marthag/text/humor/news/help)