It was the first commercial time-sharing which allowed general-purpose user programming, including machine language.
Implementation started in 1964 with the arrival of the SDS 930 which was modified slightly, and an operating system was written from scratch.
The 940 was the first to allow for general-purpose programming, and sold about 60 units: not large by today's standards, but it was a significant part of SDS' revenues.
The QED text editor was first implemented by Butler Lampson and L. Peter Deutsch for the Berkeley Timesharing System in 1967.
[7] Another major customer was Tymshare, who used the system to become the USA's best known commercial timesharing service in the late 1960s.