On 3/9/23 17:56, Paul Koning wrote: > That picture serves to remind us of the packaging and cooling genius that > went into the CDC 6000 series machines, which could fairly be called the > first supercomputers. Logic like that and more, but in a much smaller > package so it can run faster. I suppose it didn't hurd that timing margins > were shrunk down to microscopic values (and, if you try to analyze the > design, sometimes they become negative, but somehow the machine worked > anyway). They added a bunch of amazing magic to the core memory as well. > The STAR was Jim Thornton's brainchild, so he was quite familiar with the 6000 and 7000 series. I believe that the STAR used 7000 SCM core. Most of the pipeline units were 128 bits wide; caore bus width was 512+SECDED. A fair amount of effort was put into finding something that could feed the "STAR channel" at full bandwidth; hence, the 100K RPM STAR drum and the SCROLL. Neither of which made it out of the lab.
It was a system of extremes. Apparently, in the beginning, Fairchild had huge problems producing the chips for the register file (256x64 bits). Neil Lincoln took over the project after Thornton got interested in other things, after the departure of Seymour. I remember seeing an excavator digging a trench around the employee parking lot at ARHOPS for some high-speed network experiments of T's. Not that Neil was a slouch in that department. Witness the liquid nitrogen-cooled ETA-10 super. This when people were waxing lyrical about Seymour's Fluorinert "Bubbles". Heady days back then--you almost needed a program to keep track of the various projects. --Chuck