Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Camiel Vanderhoeven via cctalk]

On 10/6/17, 3:05 PM, "cctalk on behalf of William Donzelli via cctalk"
 wrote:


>Itel was basically a rebrander. AS/5 was a National Advance system
>under the covers, and AS/6 was a Hitachi HITAC M180.
>
>--
>Will
>
>On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 12:47 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 10/6/17 5:59 AM, Anthony Bennett via cctalk wrote:
>>> If this is the machine that I am thinking of, it was made by Intel and
>>>marketed by them as the AS/5.
>>
>> Itel
>>
>> 
>>https://books.google.com/books?id=ICoe1vr9x3kC=PA96=PA96=itel+a
>>s/5=bl=jsweeLSiOi=biw8zHV3wpRKxD3dDrK26NB99hk=en=X
>>ed=0ahUKEwjKyIemudzWAhUH04MKHd_4AAYQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage=itel%20as%2F5=
>>false
>>

And Itel did not manufacture the CDC Omega 480, that was IPL Systems:
http://www.silogic.com/NAS/1979%20IBM%20Verses%20the%20PCM%27s.pdf

Camiel

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Camiel Vanderhoeven via cctalk]

Itel (which my autocorrect also tries to change into Intel overtime I type
it :-) did the marketing, but it was actually built by National Semi.
Here¹s an article with some nice photos:
http://www.silogic.com/NAS/NAS.html


Camiel

On 10/6/17, 12:47 PM, "cctalk on behalf of Al Kossow via cctalk"
 wrote:

>
>
>On 10/6/17 5:59 AM, Anthony Bennett via cctalk wrote:
>> If this is the machine that I am thinking of, it was made by Intel and
>>marketed by them as the AS/5.
>
>Itel
>
>https://books.google.com/books?id=ICoe1vr9x3kC=PA96=PA96=itel+as
>/5=bl=jsweeLSiOi=biw8zHV3wpRKxD3dDrK26NB99hk=en=X
>=0ahUKEwjKyIemudzWAhUH04MKHd_4AAYQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage=itel%20as%2F5=fal
>se
>
>

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Jon Elson via cctalk]

On 10/06/2017 07:59 AM, Anthony Bennett via cctalk wrote:

Now here is the kicker. The 370 mainframes had swing gates with motherboards, 
and each motherboard had a couple of logic cards with components soldered on 
them.
In IBM terminology, those "motherboards" were called 
"boards" and what plugged into them were "cards".
The cards had MST modules which were 1/2" square ceramic 
substrates with the rough equivalent of one to two
MECL 10,000 chips.  The MST modules had 22 pins.  The boards 
had up to 60 cards in them, but the cards were
quite small, about 1.5 x 4" for a single-wide, and 3 x 4" 
for a double-wide.  These could hold about 8 MST modules on 
a single-wide, and about 16 on a double.  So, a typical 370 
had a fair number of these boards, and many hundreds of 
cards.  This was VERY small-scale integration.  The chips in 
the MST modules were just several gates or 2 FFs.


IBM had done their homework on interconnect reliability for 
the 360, and applied what they learned in the 370, and so 
they did not have big issues with that.  The boards had 
gold-plated pins, and the cards had selectively-plated gold 
contact fingers that made contact to the pins.  Interconnect 
between the boards was done with festoons of "tri-lead" 
which was
93-Ohm planar cable with a pair of ground wires flanking a 
signal wire.  These plugged in all around the edges of the 
boards.


I tried to help a friend get a 370/145 running in his 
house.  A total fool's errand due to the power consumption.


Jon

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[William Donzelli via cctalk]

Itel was basically a rebrander. AS/5 was a National Advance system
under the covers, and AS/6 was a Hitachi HITAC M180.

--
Will

On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 12:47 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk
 wrote:
>
>
> On 10/6/17 5:59 AM, Anthony Bennett via cctalk wrote:
>> If this is the machine that I am thinking of, it was made by Intel and 
>> marketed by them as the AS/5.
>
> Itel
>
> https://books.google.com/books?id=ICoe1vr9x3kC=PA96=PA96=itel+as/5=bl=jsweeLSiOi=biw8zHV3wpRKxD3dDrK26NB99hk=en=X=0ahUKEwjKyIemudzWAhUH04MKHd_4AAYQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage=itel%20as%2F5=false
>
>

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Al Kossow via cctalk]

On 10/6/17 5:59 AM, Anthony Bennett via cctalk wrote:
> If this is the machine that I am thinking of, it was made by Intel and 
> marketed by them as the AS/5.

Itel

https://books.google.com/books?id=ICoe1vr9x3kC=PA96=PA96=itel+as/5=bl=jsweeLSiOi=biw8zHV3wpRKxD3dDrK26NB99hk=en=X=0ahUKEwjKyIemudzWAhUH04MKHd_4AAYQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage=itel%20as%2F5=false

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Anthony Bennett via cctalk]

Chris,

If this is the machine that I am thinking of, it was made by 
Intel and marketed by them as the AS/5. Control Data sold it as the Omega 
system, but I am not clear on the "480" nomenclature. It was equivalent to the 
IBM 370/158, and not only was capable of running 370/158 operating code, but 
diagnostics as well. The 370/158 was only available in max 3mb memory, and 
Intel was marketing add-on memory, since the memory addressing bit was 
available up to 8mb. So one of the selling points of the Omega was that it came 
with 8mb of memory. One of the Omega frames was actually the same add-on memory 
frame that Intel sold to IBM customers.
Now here is the kicker. The 370 mainframes had swing gates with motherboards, 
and each motherboard had a couple of logic cards with components soldered on 
them. The Intel box had some 40 or so large boards, each with several hundred 
pluggable chips. In other words, they bypassed the logic card layer and went 
from board to chip. So once every six months or so, the mainframe had to be 
powered down, the boards had to be sprayed with a solvent, sit overnight, and 
the next morning sprayed down with an alcohol aerosol to disburse the solvent. 
This was required because the legs of the pluggable chips would begin to 
oxidize over time, causing loose connections and timing problems and logic 
failures.
The other kicker, is that you could run the 370/158 diagnostics, but the 
diagnostics would tell you what the failure was ... if it was a 370/158. There 
was no chart or graph that told you what card in the 370 corresponded exactly 
with what board in the Omega. For instance, on the FIPS channels, all the bus 
and tag drivers were on one board, and all the bus and tag receivers were on 
another board. In the 158 all the channel 2 logic was on one board, you could 
replace that one board and be done with it. The Omega was a bit different.
How to troubleshoot this beast, since you had to troubleshoot down to the chip 
? The only spare boards normally stocked were the floating point arithmetic 
boards, since there was no way to scope or test those. We took over maintenance 
of five of these machines at the Ministry of PTT in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 
1988. Our sheikh won the contract for maintaining the facility, and he had 
people who could handle the monitors and peripherals, but not the mainframes. 
So you could cycle the failing diagnostic microcode word and scope the signal 
down to the failing chip. Or you could use the second level flowcharts, narrow 
down the problem to a dozen or so chips, and then swap them to other parts of 
the machine to break the failure down to one chip. Of course, because of the 
design, you had issues with loose chips, loose legs, dirty legs, and even 
broken legs that would cause intermittent failures. Loads of fun !!
In the 70s the 370/158 was the workhorse of the industry, so it was fun to run 
into these old machines and work on them for a while. When you work on 
something like this, you really get to see into the depths of the mainframe and 
see exactly what it is doing.
Hope you have a great day !
Anthony B
IBM Bluemix

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Al Kossow]

On 9/6/15 7:54 PM, Mark Linimon wrote:

Does anyone have any idea if this was a real
product


there are a couple of manuals for it on bitsavers

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Chris Elmquist]

So, an IBM compatible machine, sold by CDC, with a DEC terminal for the 
console? Must have been the beginning of the end :-)

On September 6, 2015 11:36:05 PM CDT, Chuck Guzis  wrote:
>On 09/06/2015 07:54 PM, Mark Linimon wrote:
>>
>http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-197X-RARE-CONTROL-DATA-AD-OMEGA-480-370-COMPATIBLE-ALTERNATIVE-Q-/271967493965?hash=item3f52869f4d
>>
>>  Not that I'm going to bid on it, but ... I had never heard of this
>> CDC product before.  Does anyone have any idea if this was a real
>> product, or just a way to poke IBM in the eye, or what?
>
>It's not a CDC product--it was made by IPL Systems, Inc. and marketed
>by 
>CDC and supplied with CDC peripherals.  I don't know if the agreement 
>yielded much in sales; by 1981, IPL was selling to end users under its 
>own brand.
>
>Olivetti also sold IPL iron.
>
>Yet another of several IBM mainframe clone makers.
>
>--Chuck

-- 
Chris Elmquist

Re: Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Chuck Guzis]

On 09/06/2015 07:54 PM, Mark Linimon wrote:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-197X-RARE-CONTROL-DATA-AD-OMEGA-480-370-COMPATIBLE-ALTERNATIVE-Q-/271967493965?hash=item3f52869f4d

 Not that I'm going to bid on it, but ... I had never heard of this
CDC product before.  Does anyone have any idea if this was a real
product, or just a way to poke IBM in the eye, or what?


It's not a CDC product--it was made by IPL Systems, Inc. and marketed by 
CDC and supplied with CDC peripherals.  I don't know if the agreement 
yielded much in sales; by 1981, IPL was selling to end users under its 
own brand.


Olivetti also sold IPL iron.

Yet another of several IBM mainframe clone makers.

--Chuck

Control Data ad: Omega 480 "370 compatible alternative" on eBay

[Mark Linimon]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-197X-RARE-CONTROL-DATA-AD-OMEGA-480-370-COMPATIBLE-ALTERNATIVE-Q-/271967493965?hash=item3f52869f4d

Not that I'm going to bid on it, but ... I had never heard of this
CDC product before.  Does anyone have any idea if this was a real
product, or just a way to poke IBM in the eye, or what?

mcl