Fujitsu did not "buy" Amdahl machines, Fujitsu supplied Amdahl
with their machines with the MODs we (yeah, I worked for Amdahl
prior to 1990) asked for/needed, and then for instructions we
didn't have micro-store for, we used FAM (Fast Assist Mode) which
we then emulated instructions (part of MacroCode).
It was interesting, IBM had no idea that Amdahl had a new
processor and was caught flat footed when we announced the 5990
machines and breaking the 100 MIP barrier. So they added another
frame to the 3990s for 2 more processors to get over 100MIPS. And
then they announced ESA. Some of those who were allowed to have
the direct doc from IBM said they got the idea ESA really stood
for Eat dung Amdahl. Bob Rogers really had a laugh at that when I
told him about that discussion.
At any rate, we had enough micro store we could free up that the
5995A boxes could run ESA faster than the 3090 machines. And I
can't remember for sure, but I think the 5890s were able to run
at the same speed as the 3090s when doing ESA. The 5890s had to
emulate ESA instructions.
If Amdahl management had pushed forward into CMOS earlier and
stopped trying to dance with being a super UNIX system, or being
a software company, or a communications company, etc. and didn't
go through silly lay offs, things might have been very different
today. We knew that we were going to need more RAM so 31bit
wasn't going to work much longer if we wanted to run with more
than 4 Domains (LPARs in IBM speak) with each of them having 1GB
of RAM. To be honest I didn't see that at the time, but I came to
understand later the issues for varying RAM on and off for an
LPAR while working at ACS on WYLBUR.
And I still think my time at Amdahl was the best job and
education in machine hardware I could have ever had for the short
time I was there.
Steve Thompson
On 7/31/2023 2:33 PM, Phil Smith III wrote:
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl_Corporation#Fujitsu_GS21 - Fujitsu
machines are 31-bit, based on the technology they got when they bought Amdahl.
I also STR that Fujitsu builds some of IBM's stuff, which doesn't mean anything
much but is sorta interesting, maybe.
If you google "fujitsu osiv" you'll find a lot more than you likely want to
know.
ObAnecdote: back in the day (mid-80s) we had a plug-compatible mainframe, a
Formation 4000, on which we ran our small (~30-person) software company, VM
Systems Group, including sales support systems, development, and, well, just
about everything; I think when I started there was maybe one PC in the office.
Our Formation was the high-end, an (approximately) 0.25MIPS attached processor
machine with a whopping 4MB! It was.not fast. And had occasional fun problems,
like the time that a previously unnoticed poor solder on a board somehow
decided to matter after an IML (perhaps because the IML was most likely caused
after the room was shut down because the A/C failed and it had gotten very
hot-so maybe the solder joint flowed a bit?) and the 64K memory chips were
misdetected as 16K chips. The machine was kind of unhappy that it couldn't find
the other 3MB.
We replaced that box with one of the first 9370s, upgrading to 0.5MIPS (though
uniprocessor) and 16MB. Now that was livin' large!
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Regards,
Steve Thompson
VS Strategies LLC
Westfield IN
972-983-9430 cell
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