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(ET) Memory Lane
Guys,
Boy you're bringing back some real memories with paper tape and Fortran!
In the late 60's I worked on the some of the first Top Secret computer stuff
for the Navy. I can't tell you the brand or what it did but picture this; it
had neon lights for each digit of the main processor and you could literally
watch the instructions move through the CPU! What a kick! We thought we were
on top of the world and nothing would rival it! I was a 22 year old snot
nosed hot shot, did I have a lot to learn.... we all did but the Navy bowed
down to us like we were the Holy Grail.
I remember when I got my first HP RPN programmable calculator in the 80's, I
was so pulled into it that it was all I looked at for 6 months, I wrote a
program to figure mortgages and when I was in the bank it calculated the
monthly rate before the bank employee could do it. She said, "Hey, what is
that thing!" Geek hadn't been invented yet but were we ever geeks. I lent
the calculator to a guy at work (not an engineer) to do his mortgage because
he saw me staring into it all day. About two weeks later he threw it into my
lap because he couldn't get anything out of it and walked away in a huff
just shaking his head.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: elec-trak-request cosmos phy tufts edu
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 7:02 PM
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Elec-trak Digest, Vol 12, Issue 82
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Controllers (Charlie)
2. Controllers (Robert)
3. Controllers (Neil Dennis)
4. Re: Controllers (Max Hall)
5. Controllers (Neil Dennis)
6. Walking down memory lane on old stuff (CZ Unit)
7. Re: Walking down memory lane on old stuff (Steve Welch)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 12:53:17 -0400
From: Charlie <medievalist gmail com>
To: Elec-Trak <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: Re: (ET) Controllers
Message-ID:
<CAJb3uA7X8XySwM7s0K1HO8CC0dYQdoo5OAOs1PfR9_QSkPRS4A mail gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On Sat, 14 Jun 2014, CZ Unit <cz alembic crystel com> wrote:
It's hard to find a running 70's vintage computer, how many
computers from the 80's are around?
Probably a lot more than you suspect. I know of quite a few, both in
orbit and on the ground.
When the old hardware is embedded in a complex process or difficult
environment, it's too expensive to rip it out when it still works
fine. So, there are state-of-the-art flight simulators and medical
imaging systems that run on PDP-11 computers built in the 70s and 80s,
there are hundreds of satellite and spacecraft computers that were
designed before the 90s, there's at least one VAX in orbit (don't know
if it's running Ultrix or VMS) and one of the systems currently used
to test cutting-edge nuclear cruise missiles is based on a unibus
PDP11/34. Late 70s - early 80s tech is in lots of industrial
processes, too, although the companies that own them don't brag about
it.
--Charlie
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:52:42 -0400
From: "Robert" <euclid delhitel net>
To: <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: (ET) Controllers
Message-ID: <4B540C9A8DEF4686AEB4A3105F69AC72@RobaroniHP>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
Walt,
I did my first college physics course with a Pickett slide rule in the mid
60, when I went back to school later everything was programmable
calculators. I never did get rid of that slide rule! While I don't think
motor theory has changed much brushless DC is stealing the show now.
Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: elec-trak-request cosmos phy tufts edu
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2014 12:00 PM
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Elec-trak Digest, Vol 12, Issue 81
Send Elec-trak mailing list submissions to
elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Elec-trak digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Controllers (Konstanty, Walter (GE Energy Management))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:53:03 +0000
From: "Konstanty, Walter (GE Energy Management)"
<Walter Konstanty ge com>
To: Chad Bush <bushman165s aol com>, "elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu"
<elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: Re: (ET) Controllers
Message-ID:
<001DBB9ACA41D24DBF8D6AB7D09197DD229099D5 ALPURAPA06 e2k ad ge com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
This forum is great.... Old tales...... well, I started at GE designing DC
motors with a slide rule! The year - 1978. And, that was almost 10 years
after the Elec-Traks were designed.
How technology has improved. But motors still work the same.
...Walt
From: Chad Bush [mailto:bushman165s aol com]
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 12:40 AM
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: Re: (ET) Controllers
You guys and your hobbies. I was lucky enough as an engineering co-op to
work with a microVAX pdp11 running the VMS OS, networked with a microVAX
II
that ran our main data acquisition software, communicating over GPIB with
HP3852 A/D converters and PSI8400 devices. We upgraded to 1GB hard drives
in
2005! Original hard drives were 640MB and had to be locked down when we
transported the 4 that we owned into a single location for turn-in. We had
reel-to-reel backups and TD-50 cassettes as well. It was really fun to make
changes in software, (written in Fortran 77), and really see the
functionality go to work. I support wind tunnels in the research
environment
and I really miss the days of running tests on a mere few megabytes. Now I
can develop software that acquires data at 200kHz over 48 channels without
a
hiccup across a CAT6 network using NI hardware. I still own power supply
Heath kits and meters from the 1970s that I use for Elec-trak component
troubleshooting, along with
iPod and iPhone repair, lol.
Chad
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 15:13:15 -0400
From: Neil Dennis <wombatt gmail com>
To: elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu
Subject: (ET) Controllers
Message-ID: <539F41CB 6050405 gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Back in the'60's, my son convinced he could use a slipstick for math in
jr. high.
Now, I gave my daughter, she's a computer service mgr at UB, a 32 inch
with a case - mounted as a wall plaque - that she has hanging over her
disk.
As a "tease" I take a Pickett to the tech class i mentor to impress the
students !!!
wombat
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:44:15 -0400
From: Max Hall <mhall maxmatic com>
To: Neil Dennis <wombatt gmail com>
Cc: Elec-trak <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: Re: (ET) Controllers
Message-ID:
<CAGPQduHJwgMQ=YNtdogiAKo_A2NN5TfDF18RKSxUO09q8o6GsA mail gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
The ET demographic never fails to delight.
I have my oldest brother's slide rule from his middle-school years. By the
time I got to high school, TI had us all using calculators with those nice
red seven-seg displays.
Now I'm a high school science teacher, and I have a 48" demonstrator
sliderule, and an assortment of old student sliderules, and I always make a
little time to show kids the power of a little ingenuity and a couple of
sliding log scales. Every year there's a kid or two whose imagination gets
caught by the things, and I give them ones to keep.
Have you all seen the Pickett slide rule iPad app? What a riot! Talk about
an amalgam of digital and analog. There are at least three sliderule apps
that I know of.
And if you haven't got a sliderule, but have a computer, check this guy's
work:
http://www.antiquark.com/sliderule/sim/
And let's here it for the PDP-8/I... paper tape and a Teletype on the
school's 8 were my introduction to BASIC and the world of computing!
I wonder if GE knew that the ET would be the geek tractor of choice...
-Max
On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Neil Dennis <wombatt gmail com> wrote:
Back in the'60's, my son convinced he could use a slipstick for math in
jr. high.
Now, I gave my daughter, she's a computer service mgr at UB, a 32 inch
with a case - mounted as a wall plaque - that she has hanging over her
disk.
As a "tease" I take a Pickett to the tech class i mentor to impress the
students !!!
wombat
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Message: 5
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:31:22 -0400
From: Neil Dennis <wombatt gmail com>
To: Elec-trak <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: (ET) Controllers
Message-ID: <539F703A 4020609 gmail com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Ain't it fun reminiscing, Max ? PDP8's were the first computers we used
as work related controllers for testing ignition system stuff. I
scrounged up Fortran for programming, yup, paper tape and teletype to
input code - neat at that time. Remember the bit switch settings to
"boot" ??
wombat
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 18:43:16 -0400
From: CZ Unit <cz alembic crystel com>
To: "elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu" <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: (ET) Walking down memory lane on old stuff
Message-ID: <539F7304 2080404 alembic crystel com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
On 6/16/2014 6:31 PM, Neil Dennis wrote:
Ain't it fun reminiscing, Max ? PDP8's were the first computers we used
as work related controllers for testing ignition system stuff. I
scrounged up Fortran for programming, yup, paper tape and teletype to
input code - neat at that time. Remember the bit switch settings to
"boot" ??
That would be the RIM loader. Yep. You would use RIM to load the BIN
loader which could then load just about anything. I have to get this 8/E
running, so much simpler than an 8i it's amazing. I could probably key
it in from memory on a rocker switch set 6014, 6011, 5357, 6016...
The real fun system though was the KA10 series of mainframes. The first
18 words of memory were the register, and they could be addressed *as*
memory. Since they were bipolar flip flops, you would code your central
subroutine in <18 words (36 bit words) and run in the registers instead
of core. 10 times the speed :-)
C
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:02:20 -0400
From: Steve Welch <oneoldbird icloud com>
To: "elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu" <elec-trak cosmos phy tufts edu>
Subject: Re: (ET) Walking down memory lane on old stuff
Message-ID: <C49B23EE-DC0A-4ECA-9BA5-8659684CB058 icloud com>
Content-Type: text/plain; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Surely there's an app for that...?
:^)
On Jun 16, 2014, at 6:43 PM, CZ Unit <cz alembic crystel com> wrote:
On 6/16/2014 6:31 PM, Neil Dennis wrote:
Ain't it fun reminiscing, Max ? PDP8's were the first computers we used
as work related controllers for testing ignition system stuff. I
scrounged up Fortran for programming, yup, paper tape and teletype to
input code - neat at that time. Remember the bit switch settings to
"boot" ??
That would be the RIM loader. Yep. You would use RIM to load the BIN
loader which could then load just about anything. I have to get this 8/E
running, so much simpler than an 8i it's amazing. I could probably key it
in from memory on a rocker switch set 6014, 6011, 5357, 6016...
The real fun system though was the KA10 series of mainframes. The first 18
words of memory were the register, and they could be addressed *as*
memory. Since they were bipolar flip flops, you would code your central
subroutine in <18 words (36 bit words) and run in the registers instead of
core. 10 times the speed :-)
C
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