 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Many hundred billion years ago, there existed a bizzare world that most
of us have only read about in books. Plastics did not yet exist, so
small children's toys were made of wood or metal, because there was
literally nothing cheaper. Wires were insulated with fabic. If you
wanted to make a telephone call, you did not *dial* the telephone
number; you told the human being at the other end of the line which
number you wanted to be connected to, and they would physically plug in
the right cable.
Somewhere in this primordial soup, the first computers somehow came into
being. According to the dusty history books, the very first computers
used technologies such as electro-mechanical relays, vacuum tubes, drum
memory, punch cards and so forth. And, in the beginning, all of the
components were wired together by hand. This resulted in huge pieces of
engineering which filled entire buildings, consumed insane quantities of
electricity, requires specialist cooling systems, and had _vastly_ less
computing power than the microcontroller in your washing machine.
Was anybody actually there? Did any of you guys see this happen? What
was it like? And did mainframes really come in bright orange cases with
inch-square glowy buttons on the front that randomly twinkle?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 5/17/2010 2:54 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>
> Was anybody actually there? Did any of you guys see this happen? What
> was it like? And did mainframes really come in bright orange cases with
> inch-square glowy buttons on the front that randomly twinkle?
>
;) I remember as a kid in the 80's walking into an office that had a
computer room. A real-life room-sized mainframe. One wall had a bank of
tape machines, the CPU was a box the size of a Smart car sort of in the
middle of the room, and there was a huge array of disks that took up the
rest of the room.
All controlled by a tiny terminal in the corner flanked by an 8" floppy
drive, and a few other binders and such.
It was quite neat to see!
--
~Mike
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] dev null> wrote:
> Many hundred billion years ago, there existed a bizzare world that most
> of us have only read about in books. Plastics did not yet exist, so
> small children's toys were made of wood or metal, because there was
> literally nothing cheaper. Wires were insulated with fabic. If you
> wanted to make a telephone call, you did not *dial* the telephone
> number; you told the human being at the other end of the line which
> number you wanted to be connected to, and they would physically plug in
> the right cable.
>
> Somewhere in this primordial soup, the first computers somehow came into
> being. According to the dusty history books, the very first computers
> used technologies such as electro-mechanical relays, vacuum tubes, drum
> memory, punch cards and so forth. And, in the beginning, all of the
> components were wired together by hand. This resulted in huge pieces of
> engineering which filled entire buildings, consumed insane quantities of
> electricity, requires specialist cooling systems, and had _vastly_ less
> computing power than the microcontroller in your washing machine.
>
> Was anybody actually there? Did any of you guys see this happen? What
> was it like? And did mainframes really come in bright orange cases with
> inch-square glowy buttons on the front that randomly twinkle?
>
> --
> http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
> http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
This is an image of the first mainframe I worked with in 1969.
http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/images/2423PH2050.jpg
It was an IBM 360 model 50. The tape drives in the background are IBM 2400
models. The machine was controlled from the IBM 1052 console, a modified IBM
typewriter. The IBM 2501 just in front and to the left of the operator could
read about 1000 cards per minute. The IBM 2311 disk drives in the foreground
had removable disk packs which held a little more than 7 MB IIRC. As you can see
there were quite a few flashing lights on the front panel. Besides showing the
status info, you could use them to read/alter the contents of memory.
Sometime I think they were a lot more fun then.
Isaac.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Clarence1898 wrote:
> This is an image of the first mainframe I worked with in 1969.
>
> http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/images/2423PH2050.jpg
Trippy! :-D
> It was an IBM 360 model 50. The tape drives in the background are IBM 2400
> models. The machine was controlled from the IBM 1052 console, a modified IBM
> typewriter. The IBM 2501 just in front and to the left of the operator could
> read about 1000 cards per minute. The IBM 2311 disk drives in the foreground
> had removable disk packs which held a little more than 7 MB IIRC.
Any idea how much all this gear cost?
> As you can see
> there were quite a few flashing lights on the front panel. Besides showing the
> status info, you could use them to read/alter the contents of memory.
> Sometime I think they were a lot more fun then.
Presumably not at the times when you wanted to get some actual *work*
done? ;-)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Mike Raiford wrote:
> ;) I remember as a kid in the 80's walking into an office that had a
> computer room. A real-life room-sized mainframe. One wall had a bank of
> tape machines, the CPU was a box the size of a Smart car sort of in the
> middle of the room, and there was a huge array of disks that took up the
> rest of the room.
>
> All controlled by a tiny terminal in the corner flanked by an 8" floppy
> drive, and a few other binders and such.
>
> It was quite neat to see!
I guess it's like the steam engines of old; today we have much more
powerful machines that take up a fraction of the power and space. But
still, few things are more impressive than watching a 50T steam engine
in motion...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
I had always assumed that the first computers were like current
computers, just using relays or whatever instead of transisters, and
with vastly inferior specifications.
However, it appears that this isn't the case.
For example, I thought they all used latch circuits for memory, but
apparently not. There were things like core memory, which I'd never
heard of. Presumably it's faster and cheaper to make core memory as
opposed to wiring up thousands of latch circuits?
Another example. According to legend, there was a time when if you
wanted to run a program, you used a machine not unlike a typewriter to
punch holes into a card. You "type in" the program onto punch cards like
this, and only once the entire program and all its data has been punched
do you even go near the actual *computer*. You feed the cards into a
reader. It reads them all, and then spends the next six months running
the program. Finally, you get a stack of new punched cards representing
the results.
Does anybody know approximately when this time was?
For that matter, does anybody have a broad timeline of when various
technologies were in use? What are the dates for things like core
memory, drum memory, punch cards, magnetic tape, relays, vacuum tubes,
transistors, ICs, etc?
Was there ever a time when programs were entered into memory via
switches rather than some other medium?
Was there ever a "punched tape" medium similar to punch cards?
Similarly, you hear people talk about the VAX, the PDP, the varouis IBM
mainframes and Cray supercomputers. Does anybody know the timeline for
these, the technologies used and the basic design and performance details?
(Sure, you can look up individual questions on Wikipedia, but the
articles tend to contain huge amounts of minute detail about specific
things. I'm trying to get a general overview of an entire era.)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> Was there ever a time when programs were entered into memory via
> switches rather than some other medium?
I do that all the time :-)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 18/05/2010 11:56 AM, Invisible wrote:
> Was there ever a time when programs were entered into memory via
> switches rather than some other medium?
>
> Was there ever a "punched tape" medium similar to punch cards?
When I started working in computing in 1969, the Honeywell H416 then
later H316 was booted by entering about a dozen binary codes into the
switch register. This told the CPU which peripheral to read and where in
memory to but the loader program, which was read using a paper tape
reader. After the loader tape was read you then read the program using
the paper tape reader. Only then could you enter any data. In 1976
Burroughs Machines were manufacturing 96 column card readers.
The first computer I ever saw was in 1997 at Glasgow University. It was
an analogue machine that used valves.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Was there ever a time when programs were entered into memory via
>> switches rather than some other medium?
>
> I do that all the time :-)
*sigh*
I ment where you have a bank of switches to select a memory address, and
a second bank of switches to select what datum to write there.
(Or even just a row of switches for every memory register - but I doubt
anybody ever did _that_...)
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Stephen wrote:
> When I started working in computing in 1969, the Honeywell H416 then
> later H316
Oh yes - apparently Honeywell used to make computers...
> was booted by entering about a dozen binary codes into the
> switch register. This told the CPU which peripheral to read and where in
> memory to but the loader program, which was read using a paper tape
> reader.
Does the tape have a single row of holes? Or does it have multiple
parallel rows? How easy is it to tear the stuff?
> After the loader tape was read you then read the program using
> the paper tape reader. Only then could you enter any data.
From tape or card, presumably?
> In 1976 Burroughs Machines were manufacturing 96 column card readers.
I gather Burroughs got bought to form Unisys?
> The first computer I ever saw was in 1997 at Glasgow University. It was
> an analogue machine that used valves.
1997? o_O
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
