Missing computer company's

[WinterDeere]

We found modern CPUs with multi-threading slowed down older programs as the first thread would wait for the other threads to finish.
We turned off multi-threading for older programs and they really flew.

My primary simulation software still had instructions to manually disable hyper threading in the BIOS, as late as 2022. Just in the last few years, it has started automatically handling hyper threading, toggling it in/off automatically, depending on problem type and size.

I think hyper threading helps a lot when there are many small problems to solve in parallel, but the overhead of splitting the problem into parallel threads and then solving them on the same physical core will actually slow you down if solving single very large problems. Always better with more physical cores.

 

[MossRoad]

I was raised on UNIX on DEC PDPs and VMS on VAXes. I much preferred UNIX.

DOS came along and we ran that as terminal emulators for DEC VT100s and VT220s. We had very little use for windows. We started running SUN equipment and DEC Alpha's, multitasking way before windows, 64 bit way before windows as well.

Corporate tried forcing windows NT servers on us... so we made them use them (we were or owner's landlord and IT support). That didn't last long.

One good thing I did with windows workstations was make them into robot boxes. I could run a keystroke capture program, then have someone do their job all day. Then we'd take the captured keystrokes from the operator, tweak them through windows visual basic, and soon be able to automate that job. Then we'd just have to allow for anomalies or odd circumstances. That came it real handy for someone that would have to run a certain task multiple times a day. They no longer had to do it. The windows workstation would just sit there on a shelf and do it as required with no intervention. If it failed or found an outlier circumstance, it would throw an error, we'd figure the error out, and reprogram to allow for that error.

I had at least 50 of those robot boxes sitting there running 24/7/365 doing menial tasks, freeing up people to do other things, and filling jobs that were lost to attrition.

Single task. Single box. That's all windows was good for in the beginning.

 

[garry1p]

Sometime around 1966 RCA designed and sold the Spectra 70 computer with a unique 1st of it's kind virtual memory. IBM had 99% of the main frame business with the IBM 360 and convinced just about everyone virtual memory would not work and killed the Spectra sales forcing RCA to cancelled production.

IBM comes out a few years later selling the IBM 370 with virtual memory and sells it as the future of computers.

I'm not sure about the exact dates, but IIRC in 1971 I was offered a job at Disney World where the entire park was controlled by RCA Spectra computers. At the time I was unable to relocate and turned the offer down however, a few of my friends accepted and moved to FL, we crossed paths several years later working for Telex.

 

[BravoXray]

If you like videos about restoring old computer systems to operating order, give Usagi Electric's YT channel. He recntly got a Bendix G15 vacuum tube computer from the 1950s up and executing code read from paper tape.
He even built a 1 bit vacuum tube computer that is mounted on his wall, that loads 5 bit code off a paper tape reader built from scratch.

Usagi Electric

 

[kenmbz]

One thing I liked about the Vax was shared memory, so multiple nodes on a cluster could share program data securely.
I even had Unix running on the Vax machines to talk to the Sun boxes.
When PCs came out, had to start from scratch on communications.

Only issue was Vax to IBM mainframe transfers ASCII to EBCDIC.
The IBM box was about 150K plus SW maintenance costs.
So I wrote a translator and moved tape reels between the systems to move the financial data (IBM) to cover the inventory data (Ingress on Vax).

 

[JasperFrank]

Windows NT was the first true multitasking Microsoft OS, released July 27, 1993. Windows 95 was released July 14, 1995. OS7 was released May 13, 1991.

Not true. DR DOS had multi tasking.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

Not true. DR DOS had multi tasking.

DR DOS wasn't Microsoft, it was Digital Research.

 

[stuckmotor]

Gateway, Compaq, Xerox.

I loved my Gateway.

 

[ning]

Altos

 

[hayden]

Here... geek out....

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That's awesome. For a few years in college I bought, fixed, and resold a whole bunch of DEC PDP 11 equipment. Whole racks of stuff. It was a lot of fun, and I made good money off it.