MUSIC/SP

MUSIC/SP (Multi-User System for Interactive Computing/System Product; originally McGill University System for Interactive Computing) was developed at McGill University in the 1970s from an early IBM time-sharing system called RAX (Remote Access Computing System).

The system ran on IBM S/360, S/370, and 4300-series mainframe hardware, and offered then-novel features such as file access control and data compression. It was designed to allow academics and students to create and run their programs interactively on terminals, in an era when most mainframe computing was still being done from punched cards. Over the years, development continued and the system evolved to embrace email, the Internet and eventually the World Wide Web. At its peak in the late 1980s, there were over 200 universities, colleges and high school districts that used the system in North and South America, Europe and Asia.