All Things Geek

[Coss]

I know, I know, I do it too, but I've done my best to get back on track in the threads.
If you find yourself following a computer related topic; please remember to move it, or start it here.

We do want to try to stay on track with the current things that are going on at EM.
I'm hoping leading by example helps, so I'll move my threads into this area too.

Thanks for your cooperation

Coss

 

[Coss]

<Moved here from the Elio Standard and Optional Parts>
Don't be too sure:
IBM360
Univac 1108 at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT)
Sperry Rand announced the UNIVAC 1108 in the summer of 1964 and delivered the first one in late 1965. Essentially it was an improved version of the 1107. Like the IBM 360, the UNIVAC 1108 used a combination of transistors and integrated circuits. Integrated circuits took the place of the thin film memory for the general register stack, giving an access time of 125 nanoseconds, as compared with 670 nanoseconds on the 1107. The 1108's main memory used smaller and faster cores, so that its cycle time (750 nanoseconds) was five times faster than the 1107. The original version of the 1108 had 65,536 words of memory organized in two banks. In addition to the faster components, the 1108 incorporated two major design improvements over the 1107: base registers and additional hardware instructions. The 1108 hardware had two base registers, so that all program addressing was done relative to the values in the base registers. This permitted dynamic relocation: over the duration of its execution, a program's instructions and its data could be positioned anywhere in memory each time it was loaded. Since the base registers were 18 bits, this allowed a maximum address space of 262,144 words. The additional hardware instructions included double-precision floating point arithmetic, double-precision fixed-point addition and subtraction, and various double-word load, store, and comparison instructions. The 1108 processor had up to 16 input/output channels to connect to peripherals. The programming of these channels was done with specific machine instructions, and there was no capability to build multiple-step channel programs.

 

[WilliamH]

As I see it, if you didn't own it and have it in your possession it doesn't really count.
One person has already tried the purist game...... "But it came with a monitor".
I think it's more about what you did with it.
For instance, my old "trash 80".
If you have ever designed a band pass filter you understand that designing it is the easy part.
Trying to find standard components that don't break the bank is where it gets tough.
Picking components so that you don't have to compromise performance too much to get a price point is the trick.
Incidentally, the band pass filters were used with direct boxes to pick up sound directly from Fender amplifiers for a band I worked with.
I think one of the most fun computers I had was a 3B2-300 running SVr3.2 with a AT&T 615MT monitor. (in 1988)
It was a challenge finding compatible modems and making cables to match AT&Ts proprietary cables.
I finally gave it away when I moved to Texas.

 

[Muzhik]

Alternative to the Skyzmatic system for those on a budget.

I'm assuming you've mounted the 40-character thermal printer close by so you can get a printout of your location?

 

[Coss]

I'm assuming you've mounted the 40-character thermal printer close by so you can get a printout of your location?

"It's for pre-ordering at Micky D's?"

 

[Muzhik]

"It's for pre-ordering at Micky D's?"

Think "Old-School Texting"

 

[Muzhik]

Just after this crash Westinghouse invented air brakes.

Ahhh. Air brakes. So you can stop in mid-air. How "Wile E. Coyote" of you.

 

[Muzhik]

For those of you born after God made the dinosaurs and CDs, God also made Google, so you can google, say, "IBM 360" and get both a Wikipedia article and photos of the behemoth.

FWIW, My IBM site had an annual "holiday party" with a gingerbread (or decorated) house contest. After seeing the previous years' entries, I had planned on making a "gingerbread" scale model of an IBM 360, complete with a card reader. I planned to make it out of graham crackers, both for cost and the ability to practice during the year. When I got RA'd, that kinda blew those plans out of the water, which was kinda good because I was having a hard time deciding what to use when making the disk packs. Oreo cookies?

 

[bowers baldwin]

Me at the Smithsonian.

 

[Coss]

For those of you born after God made the dinosaurs and CDs, God also made Google, so you can google, say, "IBM 360" and get both a Wikipedia article and photos of the behemoth.

FWIW, My IBM site had an annual "holiday party" with a gingerbread (or decorated) house contest. After seeing the previous years' entries, I had planned on making a "gingerbread" scale model of an IBM 360, complete with a card reader. I planned to make it out of graham crackers, both for cost and the ability to practice during the year. When I got RA'd, that kinda blew those plans out of the water, which was kinda good because I was having a hard time deciding what to use when making the disk packs. Oreo cookies?

Maybe just the thins, by scale they would be about the same size, but a little light weight wise (they were REALLY heavy)