-----Original Message----- From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Tony Aiuto Sent: Friday, October 14, 2016 7:29 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: Gould 32/77 (was: NWA auctions)
I used most of the SEL/Gould/Encore machines. The 32/77 was an original SEL design, from before Gould bought them. It ran MPX-32, their real-time OS. TTL based. The 32/87 was ECL, in a much bigger cabinet. They made slight hardware changes to the 32/77 and 32/75 and released them as the PowerNode PN7000 and PN5000, which ran UTX-32, their Unix port. IIRC, we took a few 77's and changed one board in the chassis to turn them into PowerNodes. The instruction set was more RISC-y than CISC-y. The floating point was base 16 exponent rather than base 2. Because of the way they did normalization, there were a lot of bit patterns which were impossible results. I made a lot of use of those to represent special values. I'm glad it was saved. Bob: I may have a lot of software for it, if I can find the tapes and they are still readable. I even got hold of their secret C compiler port. On Fri, Oct 14, 2016 at 8:43 AM, Al Kossow <a...@bitsavers.org> wrote: > I have been given an lot of SEL software and documentation, along with > a simulator Now, I need to get off my butt and put it all on line. > > Thank you for saving the system, Bob. > > On 10/13/16 8:34 PM, Bob Rosenbloom wrote: > > On 10/13/2016 9:01 AM, Rick Bensene wrote: > >>> I'm curious what the Systems 32/77 is.. > >>> Wasn't Gould SEL? maybe an SEL system? > >> > >> The 32/77-series was a 32-bit machine implemented in ECL, based on > >> earlier SEL designs, but is definitely Gould in design/manufacture. > >> > >> Some of the machines in the series had a very powerful (for the > >> time) floating point unit (known as the IPU) that operated in > >> tandem with the main CPU that vastly increased the number-crunching > >> power available > >> > >> The machines were mainly intended for real-time control > >> applications (as used in the flight sim applications in the > >> auction) > >> > >> The machine ran a real-time executive called MPX-32. > >> > >> More information: http://www.encore-support.com/htmls/32_77.htm > >> > >> Years ago, I had some experience with these machines. They were > >> quite powerful for their time, and were also workhorses that just ran and > >> ran. > >> Very robust design. > >> > >> These are neat machines, and I hope that they end up in the hands > >> of someone that can care for them rather than ending up scrap. > >> > >> -- > >> Rick Bensene > >> The Old Calculator Museum > >> http://oldcalculatormuseum.com > >> > > > > > > Well... with a momentary lapse of reason, I bought the Gould / SEL > system. It won't go to scrap. > > No idea how I'm going to get it, and what I'm going to do with it, > > but > after reading about it last night, > > I thought it might be fun to play with. We'll see... > > > > > > Bob > > > > > > > >