War Games --> Musings about computers we knew

[nbodley at speakeasy.net (Nicholas Bodley)]

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 08:37:24 -0500, Jack Coats <...> wrote:

> <old timer muzing -- warning>

<chat> {Please note msg. priority}

Delightful!

I remember Stephen Gray (?) and the Homebrew Computer Club.  Having been a  
computer tech./babysitter for the BMEWS DIP computer in Colo. Springs,  
1960--'62, I had a superb education in computer basics*, and had a real  
interest in building my own. I'll skip most details, but it was more  
important to me to make one that worked, rather than one that worked  
really fast, or even fast, at all. However, a lifelong "paralysis of will"  
set in, as usual, and I didn't end up doing more than a relay-logic design  
for an ALU bit slice. I did have a batch of IBM logic relays...

*and permission to teach myself more, after hours; had a console with a  
lighted pushbutton for almost every bit. Paradise! (Machine was ready to  
go, several weeks ahead of schedule, and the rest of BMEWS was not yet  
operational. Superb design, all-NAND, micro-ops. 19-bit word, probably the  
only such machine ever built, and base-32 paper tape code. 4K words of  
core, not enough in the long run, naturally.)

Four-Phase Systems, not Intel, was the first company to make a computer  
with an IC CPU; was a chip set. Credit to Lee Boysel, iirc, and design was  
put into teh public domain. (Open source!) I understand that that company  
did a few $billion in business. (I had no connection with them; only read  
about them.)

Later, I used CP/M on a Vector Graphic (neither particularly vector, nor  
graphic) with hard-sectored 5 1/4-in floppies that held 650 kB. Remember  
the PIP command?

Later, I was fortunate in being able to afford an Amiga 1000 system; still  
have it, docs, too. Hope it goes to a good home. Its native character set  
was Latin-1/ISO8859-1, and it was years before I understood how  
significant that was. Seikosha MP-1300AI printer had a selectable charset  
(and provision for user-defined fonts). The Sony KV-1311 monitor/TV/video  
hacker's delight (but, no true I and Q demod. :( ) is still alive and  
well. External floppy drive could be heard in the next room; its head  
stepper was amazingly loud.

HP Vectra 386/16N, pluggable mobo. Removing one screw lets you cam out the  
mobo with the big plastic handle, after removing the expansion cards. When  
the machine was new, 16 MB of RAM cost a tad over $5,000. Still have it.  
Solid as a rock. Has a rare codepage swap installed that includes  
ISO-8859-[n] for [n] = 1..10 or so, but only one [n] at a time.

Still using a "trailing edge" (if that) Compaq Deskpro 4000; machine's  
name is Desqpro, that last, the fulfilling of an ambition; if I ever owend  
a Deskpro, I would re-spell. Very solid, nice features for business apps.,  
and idiosyncratic. (Software-operated mag. latch cover lock, for one...)   
Most distros don't succeed in making it reboot; MS Win will make it  
reboot, assuming Win can shut down, first (It usually succeeds...).  
Expansion-card chassis is pluggable, but reinstalling it takes roughly  
60lb. force if not more, and a flat, stiff tabletop.

Have a TigerDirect Wintergreen Sempron, more up-to-date; Linspire. Will  
make it the primary machine RSN.

</kitty> linguistic pun

Best regards,


-- 
Nicholas Bodley /\ @ /\  Waltham, Mass.
"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the  
Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to  
uphold the Bible."
    -- Jamin Raskin