Computer processors?

[TerryinMD]

Ack, a mere toy....

I'm talking Control Data 6400s, 6500s, 6600s, and 7600s. And all of the their derivitives. These were designed and conceived by none other than Seymour Cray, the father of supercomputing.

Fun stuff back then.

Terry

 

[MossRoad]

Like This?

<font color=green> MossRoad </font color=green>

 

[TerryinMD]

That is a Cray YMP. Your talking fuel dragster now!!!

Look at attachment for CDC 6600.

 

[TerryinMD]

Sorry for two posts. Can't edit the graphics here at work.

Picture of a CDC 7600. Both of these were basically the first supercomputers, circa 1962 and 1970 give or take a few years.

 

[Harv]

Dang! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

This is turning into a walk down memory lane. We used CDC computers when I was in college (late 60's). Anybody else here speak Compass?

<font color=blue>used 60 bit words and then switched over to 64 bit later on</font color=blue>

My first "real" computer experience was on an IBM 1401, using AutoCoder assembly language. That sucker had variable length words! /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif You set word marks wherever you wanted and then all the 'word' instructions acted on whatever length you specified. /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

For many years I had boxes of core memory and a bunch of those patch panels and patch cables laying around the house. I eventually threw them out 'cuz they were taking up too much space. I really regret that now. /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[TerryinMD]

Oh my, Harv.....

The first computer I worked on was a CDC 3400. Then a dual processor 3400 which I believe was called a 3450. It had 36bit words. 6 - 6 bit bytes to the word. One bank of 256K of memory was bigger than a refrigerator!! We had 11 platter disk drives with 40 mb of storage!!! Whoaaa... well doggies. Every line of code was key punched!! Making plots by telling the plotter pen every move... pick up the pen... drag 2 inches forward... my left eye is twitching....

One of the great things about that machine, operating system, and software was that you could use memory anyway you wished. The compilers did not enforce data types. So, you could intermix real, integer, and alphanumeric data any way you wished. That did pose some problems with programmers with selective memory. I worked as a programmer back then and we developed marketing reports. Sometimes we would end up with some spectacular numbers!! /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif/w3tcompact/icons/blush.gif/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif/w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Ahhhh, the good ol' days of computing. Programming til you dropped and then to the bar with the rest of the crazies to forget about programming. Still wonder how I survived.....

Terry

Just had to add, if you worked on the 6000 or 7000 series machines, you needed to know two assembly languages (Compass), PP (peripheral processor) and CP (Central Process) assembly.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by TerryinMD on 11/26/01 04:31 PM (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[paccorti]

Geez,

I guess I'm the young guy in the bunch. My first programming was in high school on TRS 80's using BASIC. I can just imagine future conversations with my son, "You kids have it easy, back in my time there was no automatic garbage collection we had to free our own stinkin memory or back then we had to set our own compiler switches."

So who here still programs and in what language?

Peter

 

[TerryinMD]

Occassionaly I have to add new features to our defect tracking software, requirements tracking software, or database stuff. 90% of the work is done with OOP (object oriented programming). Sometimes I have to write some Visual Basic Scripting (VBScripting).

I got out of programming because it was, frankly, getting boring. Code, code, code. Debug, debug, debug. Bad requirements, stupid management (still there, as always), unreasonable customers. Yuck!! Nevermore!!

Terry

 

[Jag]

Ok guys, back when I was in college 69-75, as near as I recall the university was running an IBM 360.... Is this correct.

Being an engineering student I had to key punch a mess of programs and I do mean mess... But the thing I remember most was my roommate and I had the same course on programing by the same professor. My class was at 7:30 and my roommate's was at 9:30. I would be up all night trying to get some stupid program to run. He would meet me coming out of the key punch room and put his job card on top of my stack and run it so he would have his print out for the 9:30 class. You know after all the years he is the only one from college that I still get together with....

 

[rf33]

paccorti - Im with you in the first experiences with the TRS80 and BASIC. Also had a Commodore 64. I still program, but now in C/C++. Mostly Windows development, but with an occasional UNIX app or two. Lots of client server stuff, mostly Winsock / Berkely sockets. Sorry guys, but never had the pleasure of working with punchcards or 256K memory modules the size of a refrigerator/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif.

rf33

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