Documentation is archived here for historical purposes. It should be used purely for historical reference or amusement, and is in no way current. Most documents have copyright information in their footer; other documents are Copyright (c) Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Special thanks to longtime Project Athena staff member Bill Cattey for making the paper versions of these documents available.
E-mail addresses which end in @athena.mit.edu are no longer valid. In a few cases, the e-mail address may still be valid if you replace @athena.mit.edu with @mit.edu, but it's unlikely to work. However, if you have questions about this documentation, please contact the Athena Release Team at release-team@mit.edu
Historical Athena Release Notes
Athena 4.x - 6.x
- The New Athena System (September 7, 1987) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 4.0 (Test Release) (April 26, 1987) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 6.0B (June 1, 1988) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 6.1A (January 26, 1989) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 6.1R (March 6, 1989) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 6.3A (June 23, 1989) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 6.3B (August 24, 1989) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 6.4R (December 15, 1989) (pdf)
Athena 7.x
- Athena System Release 7.0 Questions (March 2, 1990) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 7.2 Release Notes (January 2, 1991) (pdf)
- Athena 7.2 Release: Changes that Affect General Users and Program Developers (January 25, 1991) (pdf)
- Contents of Athena Release 7.3 (June 10, 1991) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 7.3 (RS/6000 changes) (December 22, 1991) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 7.4 (June 4, 1992) (pdf)
- Athena 7.4 Release: Changes that Affect General Users and Program Developers (July 6, 1992) (pdf)
- Athena System Release 7.7 (August 9, 1994) (pdf)
- Athena 7.7 Release Notes (html)
- Athena 7.7 Patch Release (February 2, 1995) (html)
- Athena 7.7: Organizing Athena Development Lockers (January 10, 1995) (html)
- Athena 7.7 Patch Release (February 2, 1996) (html)
Athena 8.x
- Athena 8.0 Release Notes (August 1996) (html)
- Athena System Release 8.1 (February 4, 1997) (pdf)
- Athena 8.1 Release Notes (July 22, 1997) (html)
- Athena 8.2 Release Notes (July 29, 1998) (html)
- Athena 8.3 Release Notes (August 3, 1999) (html)
- Athena 8.4 Release Notes (July 27, 2000) (html)
Athena 9.x
- Athena 9.0 Release Notes (July 23, 2001) (html)
- Athena 9.1 Release Notes (August 19, 2002) (html)
- Athena 9.2 Release Notes (August 30, 2003) (html)
- Athena 9.3 Release Notes (July 2004) (html)
But wait, there's more! Visit http://debathena.mit.edu for information about Athena from 2009 through the present. As of 2012, documentation for current Athena releases is maintained in the MIT Knowledge Base.
Athena Technical Plan
(sections A-E coming soon)
- Bookshelf: A Network Online Reference Tool - Overview (pdf)
- Bookshelf: A Network Online Reference Tool - Indexing (pdf)
- Bookshelf: A Network Online Reference Tool - Bookshelf Proper (pdf)
- Hesiod Name Service: Application Programmer's Guide (pdf)
- X Jet Toolkit (libXj) (pdf)
- Toehold: A Workstation Login Facility (pdf)
- Xdm: The X Session Manager (pdf)
- Workstation Services and Kerberos Authentication (pdf)
- Network Services in the Athena Environment (pdf)
- The Athena Palladium Print System (pdf)