The main storage area of the ElectroData/Burroughs Datatron 205 was 20 tracks
of 200 words each for a total of 4000 words. The drum rotated at 3570 RPM, so
the average access time was about 8.4ms.
The four quick-access tracks (or "loops" as they were called) were 20 words
each and worked as a
The tape for the Burroughs 220 drives was not metallic. It was 3/4-inch wide,
and I think a Mylar sandwich. It could be spliced much the same way you would
have spliced quarter-inch reel-to-reel audio tape back in the day.
If the tape controller detected a parity error, it would backspace the
erik＠baigar.de wrote:
>
> > think the Bendix G-15 had cassettes for the 5-level
> > tape
> > they used.
> Aha, interesting! Did a short search, but have not been able to
> find a picture of a casette. Just a pile of paper tape instead ;-)
>
> https://images.app.goo.gl/HYqkpYHJUxZeGfiA8
The term "mainframe" comes from telephone switching technology -- the
electromechanical kind from before the time of electronic telephone switches.
Its association with computers is from the earliest days of the commercial
computer business and precedes the minicomputer era by quite a bit.
As
Yes, the G-15 was definitely a digital computer, but I'm not aware that it had
any "add-on analog element," at least not any that was a standard Bendix
product. There was a differential analyzer, the DA-1, that attached to the G-15
and used some of its drum memory lines for storage, but it was
Paul Berger wrote:
> On 2023-01-29 12:25 a.m., Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
> > On 1/28/23 20:20, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
> >
> > [snip]
> > believe it is the same
> > as the 029. The printer in the 1052 is a keyboardless Selectric with no
> > tab rack and they spaced via a cam on the
Paul Pierce in Portland, Oregon has a copy on paper tape, but the tapes have
been water-damaged and will require restoration. He told me that is on his list
of projects, but it will be a while until he can get to it. There may be other
copies, but I don't know of them at present.
We'd all like to see the ALGO compiler, but be forewarned -- it's something
like 14 passes on paper tape, with intermediate results punched on paper tape.
I understand it's a bit more convenient to use if you have magnetic tape
drives, but it's still going to be slow -- there's only so much you
I would also be interested in receiving a copy.
I recently completed an emulator for the G-15. It supports the basic machine
configuration -- just paper tape and typewriter I/O -- but I'm interested in
implementing other peripheral devices as software that uses them becomes
available. The emulator attempts to run at the speed of a real G-15,
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