The CDC 1604 was funny. The OS tape had the OS and compilers on it. When you gen'ed a new OS, it wrote multiple copieis of the OS and compilers and libraries onto the same tape. If it needed a file, it would spin to locate the file in the shortest amount of time, front or backward.
Yea, with 32K (or was it 64K) of 48bit words (most instructions were half word), if you wern't a good programmer the thing could thrash. We also did overlays to help keep from having big programs take over all memory. Architected right it was quite efficient. But then again, these mainframes are dwarfed by the CPU power (not IO) in a Blackberry, iPhone, or any current laptop. The computer also had a speaker attached across the 'A register', kind of a crude Digital to Analog interface. The computer would play different notes/tunes if it was waiting on a tape mount, or a response on the IBM keyslinger typewriter it used as a console. ... The 'boot ROM' was really on a 64 step stepping relay (what a racket it made). And the console had a built in high-speed paper tape reader and punch. ... how technology has moved on. Jason Orendorff wrote: > On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 5:50 PM, Jack Coats <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> It paged off of tape. >> > > This is the funniest thing I've read all week. Talk about thrashing. > > Glad you enjoyed it. I wish I had films of it! Before I left college, the Navy (who gave them the computer, it was old then), gave them a disk drive. It was 6' high, and platters were 3' in diameter. There were two read/write arms, on different corners of the clear drive cabinet. The would come out, then move up or down to the right platter, then swing in to do the read/write. I saw it work but had moved on to do other stuff by then. Still, Rube Goldberg (check wikipadia if you don't know the reference) would be proud. >> You should have seen it run a big balanced sort using the >> tape rives! >> > > Those algorithms live on in Knuth. He claims they're still relevant, > something about memory access locality. I suspect that's pretty much > nonsense, but they're fun to think about. > Every once in a great while, the logic still come to bear. Doing topological sorts still has uses in determining what should come first if there are options in a directed tree. I have had to use it in some systems modeling applications. > I went to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA last month. > They have a room full of old machines, everything from a slice of the > ENIAC to a Speak & Spell. In between, nostalgia city. Also got to > see some insane old devices for primary storage (what we use RAM for > today). Like Williams tubes. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Williams_tube > The museum in Boston I went to (I assume it is still there), was great. It too had an ENIAC frame, and some of the old MIT Media Lab 'bots, I especially liked Shakey, and the 1 leg running robot that ran in a circle. > The best was a long tube full of mercury. Data was stored in the > tube, in the form of, wait for it... sound waves. You put your data > in this end, and some time later it'll come out the other end. If > you're not ready for it when it gets there, we'll just send it through > again. Utterly absurd. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory > > Burroughs had some funky metal 'wire' that would do that, without being a tube of mercury. It was the 'magneto constrictive delayed propagation memory' or some such milarky. Basically a magnetic pulse 'squeezed' on end of the 'wire' and the magnetic 'wave' propagated down this 'metal' until a coil on the other end 'read' the pulse. It was used as a 'long' shift register, where if the memory was to be retained, it had to be 'written' again into the 'wire'. This was before the days of 'cheap core memory', just trying another technology. High cost technology allows for some strange competing ideas. > But the coolest thing there, and the reason you should absolutely go > if you get the chance, was the Babbage Difference Engine. Built from > Charles Babbage's original plans with only trivial modifications, and > machined out of brass and soft steel to the tolerances achievable in > his day, it was the only thing there that actually ran. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difference_engine > http://www.computerhistory.org/babbage/ > > The engine belongs to a former Microsoft CTO and is only on display > until May 2009. > > -j I would love to see it, or even the plans! Thanks for letting me babble about computing history. As a science, electronic and mechanical computers are not that old. I would love to know what the next century will bring. Enjoy the history, we are all part of it. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
