On Fri, 2026-06-19 at 09:54 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > > On Jun 18, 2026, at 11:33 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk > > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Thu, 2026-06-18 at 16:28 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote: > > > > I just now had a conversation with Google (not Google Gemini, just > > the > > search engine AI). I mentioned that I had written an IBM 1130 > > emulator > > in Varian V-73 microcode. It said "You must be Paul Koning." Did > > you > > wrote one too? > > That's a new kind of hallucination! > > Nope, I never wrote anything for any Varian machine. I did spend > time in university working on a PDP-11 that sat next to a Varian > machine, a 16 bit machine with user programmable microcode. Is that > the V-73? I remember it had a flat console lights panel -- the > switches were membrane switches so the whole front was flat.
V73 fit in a standard 19" rack, about six inches high. Flat panel. Not membrane switches, IIRC. Made by Varian Data Machines, not DEC. Varian sold the Data Machines division to Sperry Univac, who produced the V77 but couldn't actually run with it. Then they pounded Data Machines into the ground. > I had a handbook for that machine but lost it. But that's as close > as I got. And besides, I never worked with an 1130, though I did do > some elementary stuff on a 1620. In the late 1960s one of my colleagues needed to process some telemetry data. The client couldn't afford time on the IBM 7094 so he wrote the code for the 1620. To do octal arithmetic he changed the tables. He exploited the CADET — "Can't Add Doesn't Even Try" — nature of the 1620.
