Chuck(G)
25k Member
No mention of Burroughs or any of the old supercomputers, (Convex, Evans&Sutherland,...). I mentioned Cray and CDC. Nobody wants an ILLIAC IV?
- VCF SoCal - February 17 - 18, Hotel Fera, Orange CA
- VCF East - April 12 - 14, Infoage Museum, Wall NJ
- VCF South West - June 14 - 16, Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas at Dallas
- VCF West - Aug 2 - 3, Computer History Museum, Mountain View, CA
- VCF Midwest - App. Sept 2024, Waterford Banquet, IL
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What Mainframe and why?
- Thread starter acorn_1401
- Start date
VERAULT
Veteran Member
I'd settle for a place I can visit and see one with associated information provided.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
The ground rules in #1 say that you don't bear the costs of powering, housing or maintenance. Seeing one in a museum isn't quite the same thing as using one.
VERAULT
Veteran Member
Agreed. But when they need X amount of Kv to run with no downtime, the prospect becomes absurd. So just seeing the hardware is better than never having seen it.
dfnr2
Experienced Member
Xerox Sigma 9 runing CP-V, with Fortran IV, BASIC, APL, Snobol, MetaSymbol, and of course Adventure (350 and 550 installed. OK, Cobol too. And Star Trek. Plus a Hazeltine 1500, a Hazeltine 2000, an ASR-33, and a DECwriter II (LA36), all connected with 300-baud modems (maybe one of the Hazeltines with a direct RS232 connection at 1200 baud).
What would I use if for? Playing Adventure on the Hazeltine terminals
The rest is just for demonstration.acorn_1401
Experienced Member
I really want an asr 33…. To do what… play the oregon trail on.What would I use if for? Playing Adventure on the Hazeltine terminals
rlerner
Member
You cray....
acorn_1401
Experienced Member
I would need a something big and powerful to make sure I get to Oregon ok. Cray 2 would be a good one something with a few valves that puts off a bit of heat for the winter nights.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
I recall that during the 70's OPEC oil embargo, my motel room (Arden Hills, MN) was too cold for me to get a good night's sleep. I grabbed a pillow and a book and settled down between the STAR SBU's at ADL. Nice and toasty--and nobody said a word.
I had a boss who worked on SAGE as an operator. He said that a scorned-by-management practice was to put your lunch in a cabinet with the electronics to keep it nice and warm. Troubleshooting started with looking at all of the tube heaters to see if any weren't glowing...
I had a boss who worked on SAGE as an operator. He said that a scorned-by-management practice was to put your lunch in a cabinet with the electronics to keep it nice and warm. Troubleshooting started with looking at all of the tube heaters to see if any weren't glowing...
m_thompson
Veteran Member
We were just talking about those machines yesterday.
acorn_1401
Experienced Member
I am not sure if it is allowed but if it is then another option would be to have the WOPR and play either tic-tac-toe or Global Thermonuclear War.
mloewen
Experienced Member
I never saw that, but I do recall guys who made a nest in the cable trays to grab catnaps.
How so? So far as I have seen it is stable and mature. Try it again. Since I have yet to do actual changes (coming), I suggest Kevin Jordan's NCC branch at git on which mine is based.
The full NOS 2.8.7 PSR 871 for the Cyber 170-865 is well done, includes a dream development system for the full install (RFL,100000B. Before playing with a68, assuming unlimited field length for the user), and a nice production minimal install. The only major issues I see are system debug is enabled, user extended memory disabled, and one of the PLATO packs is rather full, and as such requires a log message dismissal at the console...BFD...minor nitpicks, all curable at the console at boot, before startup is even finished...one of these days, I'll alter the decks.
DtCyber has improved over the years, and drastically since BT did the license for NOS, etc.
My major complaint is the missing and mismatched documentation, some of which is cataloged as being in boxes at computer museums, etc. A lot of it is out there scanned already, and more all the time though, but a full matching documentation set would be nice, as well as that for CDC supported devices that are yet to be implemented in DtCyber.
On the documentation plus side, there is enough to work with for most stuff, and my pdf bookmarks make the manuals actually usable. I'll upload changed pdfs when I am done. NOS 2 System Analyst manual is more fun than the radiotron designers handbook 4th ed, and longer...ugh...people better appreciate these bookmarks when I upload....
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I read about that recently. I figured either PMTC or Vandenberg would be the final running production Cyber. I worked at PMTC a few miles Southeast from Vandenberg (Pt. Mugu is literally around the corner from Malibu, the literal corner).
Cool that the non-migrated programs run under dtcyber.
The LA-120 used to rawk. Wouldn't mind finding one.Xerox Sigma 9 runing CP-V, with Fortran IV, BASIC, APL, Snobol, MetaSymbol, and of course Adventure (350 and 550 installed. OK, Cobol too. And Star Trek. Plus a Hazeltine 1500, a Hazeltine 2000, an ASR-33, and a DECwriter II (LA36), all connected with 300-baud modems (maybe one of the Hazeltines with a direct RS232 connection at 1200 baud).
What would I use if for? Playing Adventure on the Hazeltine terminals