"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 11:18:42 -0500, Morris Dovey wrote:

You're right - I went digging and found that there had been a /Minnow/
R/O floppy drive with diminished capacity released in 1972. I'm guessing
it was an early /Igar/ prototype.

I'm beginning to wonder how many old computer jocks and card pushers
there are in this group :-). Is there some mystical connection between
computers and woodworking?

BTW, to see the 1st computer I programmed (and helped assemble) go to:

http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61.html#TOC

and click on Readix. I worked on one at Science Research Associates in
the late '50s.

Did some work with SRA in the early 80s ... Right after I spent an inspiring
year at CACI

"Bill" wrote in message
...
Bill wrote:

I'm the same person, but somehow I'm a more learned person--that's one of
great things about staying young is you get to keep on learning!

Bill


I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

During my own reflection I observed that the beauty of using tools
is in using them well. They sing their own song (but please don't
tell anyone I said that)!

I'll get roasted for this, but it seems to me Krenov made a career out of
one medicine cabinet. A very nice cabinet and one I wish I'd done, but the
same one over and over. Variations on a theme. Same as some authors, James
Patterson comes to mind, write the same book over and over.

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:07:05 -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:

Yuppers on the oddness - my impression was that the CDC management team
had never quite been able to decide what they wanted to do when they
grew up. At one point they were even in the windmill business.

And they built computers that couldn't add!

They faked addition by 'complement and subtract'. (true!!)


That said, they were some of my favorite hardware to work on.

The high-level architecture was positively elegant in it's simplicity
and regularity.

There was a saying back in those days that the perfect computer would
have CPU by CDC, peripherals by IBM, and software by GE.

GE? The Datanet 30?

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:29:27 -0700, LDosser wrote:

I'll put in a Univac and a Ramac :-).

I'll raise you punchboards ...

402,403,407,509,552,077?

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

407 - but only when forced to = tab shop manager out sick!

Another operator and I once wired a 407 plugboard to list missing checks
for payroll reconciliation. The checks were punched cards so we were
running them through and listing the ones that weren't there! IBM said
it couldn't be done. There were so many wires (including quite a few one
way wires) we had to pull some and put in the "permanent" wires so we
could get a cover on the board.

Used to Stand on the wires to flatten the mess out!! And, invariably, you'd
need one more wire and everything left was too short ...

It worked fine for several months and suddenly stopped working. We
accosted the IBM CE and he confessed he'd done a "tuneup" and found the
timing was a little off so he fixed it. We convinced him to put it back
the way it was. Thereafter, for at least as long as I worked there,
there was a sign on the 407 that threatened immediate beheading for
anyone who touched it!

The prototype RCA 501 would sometimes come up with a write memory error and
I complained to the tech. He wander back along the rows of cabinets with a
ball peen hammer banging on doors and yelling "That fix it?" Riffling boards
was another favorite for fixing glitches in those days.


BTW, the first payroll system written for the Univac took 8-9 days to
run. For a weekly payroll! Seems table lookups on mag tape were just a
mite too slow :-).

Our year end stuff used to Print for a week. Just Print. What a BORE.

On Apr 13, 1:33*am, Puckdropper puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:
" wrote :



That's not unusual at all. *Subtraction *is* adding the negative
(complement).

OTOH, the IBM 1620 was known as the CADET (Can't Add, Didn't Even
Try). *It had no ADD (or subtract) instruction at all, rather used an
index into a lookup table in memory to add. *Want a different
operator? *Overwrite the "ADD" lookup table, sometimes on purpose,
even.

In one of my CS classes, it was pointed out that ADD circuits are usually
smaller and easier than SUBtract circuits, so they're used more often. *
That's what was so weird about the subtractor being used to emulate
addition.

Not true. The (add and subtract) operations use the same logic. Now,
multiply and divide are a whole different kettle...

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:35:05 -0700, the infamous "LDosser"
scrawled the following:

"Bill" wrote in message
...
Bill wrote:

I'm the same person, but somehow I'm a more learned person--that's one of
great things about staying young is you get to keep on learning!

Bill


I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

During my own reflection I observed that the beauty of using tools
is in using them well. They sing their own song (but please don't
tell anyone I said that)!

I'll get roasted for this,

To be sure. Openly taunting the Gods of Woodworking like that can get
you into big trouble, too, Lob. RIP, my friend.


but it seems to me Krenov made a career out of
one medicine cabinet. A very nice cabinet and one I wish I'd done, but the
same one over and over. Variations on a theme.

I think the cabinet was his principle incarnate, and that's what made
him famous. People love it, and that's why his books became widely
read. Yes, lovely cabinet, and I,too, wish I'd created it, but it
wouldn't fit in my house style or lifestyle. David Marks puts out
such a wide variety of articles that I could definitely see some of
his stuff in my home...whenever I get off my arse and clean my shop. I
have copies of some of his plans from when he first released them. I
followed his TV program from start to finish. He's my hero. (You can
keep your flannel-shirted Norms and polying Dresdners, TYVM.)

Do you feel that Maloof was a one-rocker pony, too? nomex=ON


Same as some authors, James
Patterson comes to mind, write the same book over and over.

Never having read him, I Amazoned his work and see that he may be a
3-trick pony. Alex Cross, Woman's Murder Club, and Maximum Ride.
Or are they all riding the same pony?

--
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-- John Muir

On Apr 13, 4:35*am, "LDosser" wrote:
"Bill" wrote in message

...

Bill wrote:

I'm the same person, but somehow I'm a more learned person--that's one of
great things about staying young is you get to keep on learning!

Bill

I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". *He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! *: )

During my own reflection I observed that the beauty of using tools
is in using them well. *They sing their own song (but please don't
tell anyone I said that)!

I'll get roasted for this, but it seems to me Krenov made a career out of
one medicine cabinet. A very nice cabinet and one I wish I'd done, but the
same one over and over. Variations on a theme. Same as some authors, James
Patterson comes to mind, write the same book over and over.

Few creative artists stray from an established theme. It is the core
of their creativity and they will strive to 'better' that core, offer
variations, but mostly their art will have identity of some sort. A
Moore sculpture is relatively easy to identify. Many painters have a
'style' (some even call theirs 'De Stijl'.) Krenov had a style. Van
Gogh had a style and to have the nerve to say that he did the same
painting over and over will get you shot at dawn.

How many careers revolve around One Hit? (Now they call them a
'signature song'.)

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

FWIW, it was Krenov's book, "The Fine Art of Cabinet Making" that I was
referring too. I've got them both on my "current reading" shelf and
sometimes I alternate. In case anyone is would like to know, something
that makes these books special is the Reverence with which he wrote
about his craft. He also wrote with a sadness about the market for
truly finely made furniture. He was a very thoughtful worker of wood.

Bill

Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

Bill

Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

Economics suggests that as long as marginal gain exceeds marginal cost,
there will be production. That's as simple as it gets.

Bill

On Apr 13, 11:18*am, Bill wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

Economics suggests that as long as marginal gain exceeds marginal cost,
there will be production. *That's as simple as it gets.

....as long as there is nothing else with a higher profit.

wrote:
On Apr 13, 11:18 am, Bill wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?
Economics suggests that as long as marginal gain exceeds marginal cost,
there will be production. That's as simple as it gets.

....as long as there is nothing else with a higher profit.


I viewed "forsaken opportunities" as part of the marginal cost. Not
being a bonafide economist, I'm not sure whether this is allowed or not.
One probably shouldn't mix micro and macro economics, no?

Bill

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:48:57 -0400, the infamous Bill
scrawled the following:


I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

FWIW, it was Krenov's book, "The Fine Art of Cabinet Making" that I was
referring too. I've got them both on my "current reading" shelf and
sometimes I alternate. In case anyone is would like to know, something
that makes these books special is the Reverence with which he wrote
about his craft. He also wrote with a sadness about the market for
truly finely made furniture. He was a very thoughtful worker of wood.

You can buy a copy for only about a grand on Amazon right now. thud
http://fwd4.me/LRn -no- indication that they might be signed.
Don't you hate blatant opportunists? These same 3 guys probably sold
bottled water for $25 a pint after Katrina.

--
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-- John Muir

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:02:04 -0400, the infamous Bill
scrawled the following:

Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

A thorn, by any other name...? titter)

--
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-- John Muir

Larry Jaques writes:
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:48:57 -0400, the infamous Bill
scrawled the following:


I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

FWIW, it was Krenov's book, "The Fine Art of Cabinet Making" that I was
referring too. I've got them both on my "current reading" shelf and
sometimes I alternate. In case anyone is would like to know, something
that makes these books special is the Reverence with which he wrote
about his craft. He also wrote with a sadness about the market for
truly finely made furniture. He was a very thoughtful worker of wood.

You can buy a copy for only about a grand on Amazon right now. thud
http://fwd4.me/LRn -no- indication that they might be signed.
Don't you hate blatant opportunists? These same 3 guys probably sold
bottled water for $25 a pint after Katrina.

A fair deal is when both buyer and seller agree on a price. Amazon
only shows the seller's side. They won't get any bites at that
price.

There's a considerable difference between a non-essential book
and the substance of life (h2o).

I'd take $900+ for my copy of 'The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking' if
anyone offers ...

scott

On Apr 13, 11:02*am, Bill wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. *You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

Bill


There are waaaay too many people who call themselves artists. They do
all the casting of the black shadows all by themselves.

Robatoy wrote:
On Apr 13, 11:02 am, Bill wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?
One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

Bill


There are waaaay too many people who call themselves artists. They do
all the casting of the black shadows all by themselves.


To which "waaay too many people" are you referring, and what black
shadows are they casting? Let's nail down who you're PO'ed about! : )

In article ,
Morris Dovey wrote:
On 4/12/2010 8:07 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
In ,
Morris wrote:

Yuppers on the oddness - my impression was that the CDC management team
had never quite been able to decide what they wanted to do when they
grew up. At one point they were even in the windmill business.

And they built computers that couldn't add!

They faked addition by 'complement and subtract'. (true!!)

That said, they were some of my favorite hardware to work on.

Was it the IBM-650 that was nicknamed the "CADET" for Can't Add, Doesn't
Even Try?

Yuppers. It simulated addition via table-look-up. I never programmed on
one of those.

The only CDC machine I ever used was the 6500 at Purdue and it seemed to
do crank right along fair reliably.

The 6000 series were nice machines, but they did have their quirks.

I, *unintentionally*, was responsible for one University machine crashing
nearly _two_dozen_ times in approximately a 1-week period. This accounted
for over 90% of all the crashes the machine experienced in two years.
WRY GRIN

It took a while to establish cause-and-effect, because *nobody* was willing
to believe that that 'innocent little job" -- nothing more than 4 standard
statements in the system control language -- could _possibly_ be the culprit.
Until they ran it as the _only_ job in the system, and watched the machine
crash.

The entire job consisted of:
1) request a tape mount
2) copy a file from disk to the tape
3) rewind the tape
4) copy from the tape back to a new file.

{_first_ time using a mag tape, and was checking my understanding of 'how
things worked.}

The job _never_ got to step #4

The log file showed a bunch of strange messages, that -nobody- (I took it
to the help desk, asking "what's thin mean?") understood. The help desk
would puzzle over the job output, look at the 4 punch-cards, look back
at the log, say "*OH*!! that was when the system crashed, why don't you
try running it again." so I did, when I next had a chance. *sigh*

Experimentation showed that it was the "rewind the tape" command, itself,
that was crashing the system.

The high-level architecture was positively elegant in it's simplicity and
regularity.

the closer to the hardware they got, the *stranger* things got.

Speaking of Burroughs... )

I think the 6600 had Burroughs beat -- it could *lie* to you in the core-
dump of a program that aborted due to a hardware exception (e.g. address
out-of-range, using an 'infinite' operand {result of 'n' divided by zero}
or using an 'indefinite' operand {result of dividing zero -by- zero}).

i.e., the program attempted to perform that illegal operation, generated
a hardware exception which triggered a core dump, and there was *NO*
evidence in _any_ register of the 'illegal' data that triggered the
exception.

The systems programmers, just for fun, handcrafted a small assembler-code
program that triggered _all_three_ of the possible exceptions, _and_
entirely covered it's tracks in the core-dump.

In article ,
zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:07:05 -0500, (Robert
Bonomi) wrote:

In article ,
Morris Dovey wrote:
On 4/12/2010 8:24 AM, wrote:

I'm not sure when they were introduced into the 370s, but yeah, they
were used for /158 microcode. I remember interviewing at CDC in early
'74. They had a /158 with its covers off, with a bunch of people
reverse-engineering the floppy drive. The /158 was their pride and
joy, which I thought odd. The whole place was "odd" and I told them
so before I left (didn't get an offer .

You're right - I went digging and found that there had been a /Minnow/
R/O floppy drive with diminished capacity released in 1972. I'm guessing
it was an early /Igar/ prototype.

Yuppers on the oddness - my impression was that the CDC management team
had never quite been able to decide what they wanted to do when they
grew up. At one point they were even in the windmill business.

And they built computers that couldn't add!

They faked addition by 'complement and subtract'. (true!!)

That's not unusual at all. Subtraction *is* adding the negative (complement).

I agree that subtraction, GENERALLY, "*is* adding the negative".

Now go back and read what _this_ machine actually did. grin

I repeat, this multi-million-dollar super-computer "couldn't ADD".

(Robert Bonomi) writes:
In article ,
Morris Dovey wrote:
On 4/12/2010 8:07 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
In ,
Morris wrote:

Yuppers on the oddness - my impression was that the CDC management team
had never quite been able to decide what they wanted to do when they
grew up. At one point they were even in the windmill business.

And they built computers that couldn't add!

They faked addition by 'complement and subtract'. (true!!)

That said, they were some of my favorite hardware to work on.

Was it the IBM-650 that was nicknamed the "CADET" for Can't Add, Doesn't
Even Try?

Yuppers. It simulated addition via table-look-up. I never programmed on
one of those.

The only CDC machine I ever used was the 6500 at Purdue and it seemed to
do crank right along fair reliably.

The 6000 series were nice machines, but they did have their quirks.

I, *unintentionally*, was responsible for one University machine crashing
nearly _two_dozen_ times in approximately a 1-week period. This accounted
for over 90% of all the crashes the machine experienced in two years.
WRY GRIN

It took a while to establish cause-and-effect, because *nobody* was willing
to believe that that 'innocent little job" -- nothing more than 4 standard
statements in the system control language -- could _possibly_ be the culprit.
Until they ran it as the _only_ job in the system, and watched the machine
crash.

The entire job consisted of:
1) request a tape mount
2) copy a file from disk to the tape
3) rewind the tape
4) copy from the tape back to a new file.

{_first_ time using a mag tape, and was checking my understanding of 'how
things worked.}

The job _never_ got to step #4

The log file showed a bunch of strange messages, that -nobody- (I took it
to the help desk, asking "what's thin mean?") understood. The help desk
would puzzle over the job output, look at the 4 punch-cards, look back
at the log, say "*OH*!! that was when the system crashed, why don't you
try running it again." so I did, when I next had a chance. *sigh*

Experimentation showed that it was the "rewind the tape" command, itself,
that was crashing the system.

The high-level architecture was positively elegant in it's simplicity and
regularity.

the closer to the hardware they got, the *stranger* things got.

Speaking of Burroughs... )

I think the 6600 had Burroughs beat -- it could *lie* to you in the core-
dump of a program that aborted due to a hardware exception (e.g. address
out-of-range, using an 'infinite' operand {result of 'n' divided by zero}
or using an 'indefinite' operand {result of dividing zero -by- zero}).

The early BCD burroughs machines (medium systems) would do BCD math on
BCD fields that contained 'undigits' (i.e. 1010b - 1111b); needless
to say, the results were unusual. Later versions of the architecture
would 'catch a cow' (report Undigit Arithmetic Exception) if such a thing
was attempted.

scott

In article ,
wrote:
On Apr 13, 1:33*am, Puckdropper puckdropper(at)yahoo(dot)com wrote:
" wrote
:

That's not unusual at all. *Subtraction *is* adding the negative
(complement).

OTOH, the IBM 1620 was known as the CADET (Can't Add, Didn't Even
Try). *It had no ADD (or subtract) instruction at all, rather used an
index into a lookup table in memory to add. *Want a different
operator? *Overwrite the "ADD" lookup table, sometimes on purpose,
even.

In one of my CS classes, it was pointed out that ADD circuits are usually
smaller and easier than SUBtract circuits, so they're used more often. *
That's what was so weird about the subtractor being used to emulate
addition.

Not true. The (add and subtract) operations use the same logic.

Really? I've -never- seen an IC chip that did subtraction directly. 'Adder'
chips, however, are common as dirt.

You can -accomplish- subtraction using an 'adder' and a bunch of inverters
on the second input (and ignore the overflow).

True 'subtract' logic _is_ more complicated -- because the states in the
operation table do not collapse as well.
Addition: operand1 OR operand2 == 0 = zero result, zero carry
operand1 XOR operand2 == 1 = one result, zero carry
operand1 AND operand2 == 1 =? zero result, one carry

Subtraction: operand1 EQ operand2 = zero result, zero borrow
operand1 EQ 1 AND operand2 EQ 0 = one result, zero borrow
operand1 EQ 0 AND operand2 EQ 1 = one result, one borrow

To expound on the 'difference' between addition and subtraction, consider
hardware that uses "ONES COMPLEMENT" arithmetic. Where the 'negative' of
a number is represented by simply inverting all the bits of the positive
value. e.g. the negative of "00000010" is "11111101".

Note well that in _THIS_ number representation scheme there are *TWO* bit-
values that evaluate to -zero-. "0000000' is 'positive zero, and
'11111111' is 'negative zero'.

It is *HIGHLY*DESIRABLE* that numeric computations which give a "zero"
result, have the bit-pattern of 'positive zero'. If you 'subtract'
'00000011' from '00000011' by 'complement and add', you get
'00000011'
+'11111100'
===========
'11111111' which is 'negative zero'

if you do it by 'actual' subtraction
'00000011'
-'00000011'
===========
'00000000' which is 'positive zero', the desired result


To get the 'desired result' of 'positive zero', using _adder_ circuitry,
one has to have an additional stage that examines -every- result for the
'negative zero' bit-pattern, and inverts all the bits.


The 'does addition by complement and subtract' was *NOT* unique to the
CDC machines. *every* machine that used "1's complement" arithmetic
internally did things the same way.

There are advantages to "1's complement" over "2's complement", notably
_all_ numbers have a positive and negative representation. (In 2's
complement math, it is *NOT*POSSIBLE* to represent the complement of the
'largest possible negative negative number'. you _can_ have '-2**n' but
only '+((2**n)-1)'. The disadvantage is that there are -two- values for
'zero'. But that's just 'nothing'. grin

On the other side of the fence, there _are_ advantages to "2's complement",
notably that all numbers have a single _unique_ representation. The
disadvantages are that there =is= a negative value that you cannot
represent as a positive number. And 2's complement math _IS_ just a
little bit slower -- by one gate time -- than 1's complement. As
processor speeds became faster, that 'one gate time' difference became
less significant, and the world settled on _not_ dealing with "+/- zero".

In article ,
LDosser wrote:
"Larry Blanchard" wrote:

[[sneck]]

BTW, the first payroll system written for the Univac took 8-9 days to
run. For a weekly payroll! Seems table lookups on mag tape were just a
mite too slow :-).

Our year end stuff used to Print for a week. Just Print. What a BORE.


Consider yourself lucky. One brokerage I did work for, the *MONTH-END*
reporting took nearly a week to print -- when the printers weren't
'otherwise occupied' (e.g., overnite reporting, and various stuff that
was needed in 'near real time'), that is. Year-end was something like
6 weeks, and growing.

There was talk of adding additional printers, but _that_ required finding
the space to put them -- the existing computer room was full to the gills,
*and* the A/C was taxed to the limit.

In article ,
Scott Lurndal wrote:

The early BCD burroughs machines (medium systems) would do BCD math on
BCD fields that contained 'undigits' (i.e. 1010b - 1111b); needless
to say, the results were unusual.

I've known of a number of micro-processors whee the 'BCD' opcodes were
usable on any hex nybbles. Yeah, results were *NOT* "intuitively
obvious' when what you call 'undigits' were involved, but they -were-
consistent -- at least within the same processor model.

The CDC 6000 series didn't have BCD math hardware, but *somebody* had
worked out some magic incantations whereby you could do simple arithmetic
(addition/subtraction) on character strings of digits. i.e. take words with
the strings '0000012345' and '0000056789' in them, perform a binary addition
operation on them, followed by the 'magic incantation' instructions, and
end up with a word holding the string '0000069134'.

I also knew folks that had worked out some _very_ creative uses for the
'undigit' handling done by some specific microprocessor chips.

Later versions of the architecture
would 'catch a cow' (report Undigit Arithmetic Exception) if such a thing
was attempted.

sounds like a 'no bull' attempt to me.

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:54:58 -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:

It took a while to establish cause-and-effect, because *nobody* was
willing to believe that that 'innocent little job" -- nothing more than
4 standard statements in the system control language -- could _possibly_
be the culprit. Until they ran it as the _only_ job in the system, and
watched the machine crash.

The entire job consisted of:
1) request a tape mount
2) copy a file from disk to the tape
3) rewind the tape
4) copy from the tape back to a new file.

The original Univac I had tape drives that maintained tension with
springs and pulleys rather than vacuum columns. Those drives, as well as
the vacuum column model that replaced them on Univac II, could read both
forwards and backwards. There were 10 drives.

One of the programmers (no, not me) wrote a program that issued a write
command, followed by a read backwards, followed by a skip a block. That
sequence apparently exceeded the response of the strings and pulleys and
they wound up in a heap at the bottom of the drive.

The resident (yep, 24 hours a day) CEs wouldn't believe him when he
described the problem. So he wrote a little program to demonstrate the
problem, called in the CEs, and ran the program, dumping *all 10* tape
drives. He wasn't very popular with the CEs after that, but when he told
them he had a problem, they listened :-).

I sometimes think all us old computer nerds should start a website and
record all these stories before we all die and the stories are lost.

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:36:54 -0700, LDosser wrote:

There was a saying back in those days that the perfect computer would
have CPU by CDC, peripherals by IBM, and software by GE.

GE? The Datanet 30?

No, the 400 and 600 series - remember Multics? And the first Codasyl
DBMS?

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:30:38 -0700, LDosser wrote:

BTW, to see the 1st computer I programmed (and helped assemble) go to:

http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61.html#TOC

and click on Readix. I worked on one at Science Research Associates in
the late '50s.

Did some work with SRA in the early 80s ... Right after I spent an
inspiring year at CACI

I think IBM had bought them by then, hadn't they?

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

In article ,
Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:54:58 -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:

It took a while to establish cause-and-effect, because *nobody* was
willing to believe that that 'innocent little job" -- nothing more than
4 standard statements in the system control language -- could _possibly_
be the culprit. Until they ran it as the _only_ job in the system, and
watched the machine crash.

The entire job consisted of:
1) request a tape mount
2) copy a file from disk to the tape
3) rewind the tape
4) copy from the tape back to a new file.

The original Univac I had tape drives that maintained tension with
springs and pulleys rather than vacuum columns. Those drives, as well as
the vacuum column model that replaced them on Univac II, could read both
forwards and backwards. There were 10 drives.

One of the programmers (no, not me) wrote a program that issued a write
command, followed by a read backwards, followed by a skip a block. That
sequence apparently exceeded the response of the strings and pulleys and
they wound up in a heap at the bottom of the drive.

The resident (yep, 24 hours a day) CEs wouldn't believe him when he
described the problem. So he wrote a little program to demonstrate the
problem, called in the CEs, and ran the program, dumping *all 10* tape
drives. He wasn't very popular with the CEs after that, but when he told
them he had a problem, they listened :-).

I sometimes think all us old computer nerds should start a website and
record all these stories before we all die and the stories are lost.

There is also the story about a university student who got the engineering
plans for an IBM mainframe disk drive (one of the washing-machine-size units),
_carefully_ calculated the mass involved, and wrote a channel program that
consisted of 'seek to outermost track', pause, 'seek to innermost track',
pause, and "repeat indefinitely". The 'pause' times were carefully calculated
to the 'resonant frequency of the drive unit. Reportedly, the unit 'walked'
almost *THREE*FEET* across the floor, _towards_the_operator_, before they
managed to find and kill the offending task. I'm given to understand that
the operators were 'a bit nervous' for some days thereafter.

Robert Bonomi wrote:
In article ,
Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:54:58 -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:

It took a while to establish cause-and-effect, because *nobody* was
willing to believe that that 'innocent little job" -- nothing more than
4 standard statements in the system control language -- could _possibly_
be the culprit. Until they ran it as the _only_ job in the system, and
watched the machine crash.

The entire job consisted of:
1) request a tape mount
2) copy a file from disk to the tape
3) rewind the tape
4) copy from the tape back to a new file.
The original Univac I had tape drives that maintained tension with
springs and pulleys rather than vacuum columns. Those drives, as well as
the vacuum column model that replaced them on Univac II, could read both
forwards and backwards. There were 10 drives.

One of the programmers (no, not me) wrote a program that issued a write
command, followed by a read backwards, followed by a skip a block. That
sequence apparently exceeded the response of the strings and pulleys and
they wound up in a heap at the bottom of the drive.

The resident (yep, 24 hours a day) CEs wouldn't believe him when he
described the problem. So he wrote a little program to demonstrate the
problem, called in the CEs, and ran the program, dumping *all 10* tape
drives. He wasn't very popular with the CEs after that, but when he told
them he had a problem, they listened :-).

I sometimes think all us old computer nerds should start a website and
record all these stories before we all die and the stories are lost.

There is also the story about a university student who got the engineering
plans for an IBM mainframe disk drive (one of the washing-machine-size units),
_carefully_ calculated the mass involved, and wrote a channel program that
consisted of 'seek to outermost track', pause, 'seek to innermost track',
pause, and "repeat indefinitely". The 'pause' times were carefully calculated
to the 'resonant frequency of the drive unit. Reportedly, the unit 'walked'
almost *THREE*FEET* across the floor, _towards_the_operator_, before they
managed to find and kill the offending task. I'm given to understand that
the operators were 'a bit nervous' for some days thereafter.


I managed to knock a selectric style printer off its stand with a little
unfortunate development code.

On 4/13/2010 6:37 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:54:58 -0500, Robert Bonomi wrote:

It took a while to establish cause-and-effect, because *nobody* was
willing to believe that that 'innocent little job" -- nothing more than
4 standard statements in the system control language -- could _possibly_
be the culprit. Until they ran it as the _only_ job in the system, and
watched the machine crash.

The entire job consisted of:
1) request a tape mount
2) copy a file from disk to the tape
3) rewind the tape
4) copy from the tape back to a new file.

The original Univac I had tape drives that maintained tension with
springs and pulleys rather than vacuum columns. Those drives, as well as
the vacuum column model that replaced them on Univac II, could read both
forwards and backwards. There were 10 drives.

One of the programmers (no, not me) wrote a program that issued a write
command, followed by a read backwards, followed by a skip a block. That
sequence apparently exceeded the response of the strings and pulleys and
they wound up in a heap at the bottom of the drive.

The resident (yep, 24 hours a day) CEs wouldn't believe him when he
described the problem. So he wrote a little program to demonstrate the
problem, called in the CEs, and ran the program, dumping *all 10* tape
drives. He wasn't very popular with the CEs after that, but when he told
them he had a problem, they listened :-).

I sometimes think all us old computer nerds should start a website and
record all these stories before we all die and the stories are lost.

The IBM-1130 used a 1-card IPL program that was normally used to fetch a
resident supervisor image from disk, and I kept a stack of 'em on the
console for convenience...

I also made a hobby of writing 1-card boot programs to do things like
making a copy of the supervisor image in the last of three spare
cylinders on the disk, restoring from same, copying card decks,
gang-punching control cards... and a little program that would seek past
the innermost track to nudge a little rubber bumper against the drive
hub - repeatedly - to make a really nasty buzzing sound.

Not exactly sure how it happened to be on top of the stack of boot cards
when our friendly FE came in to do scheduled PM. He grabbed a
"joybuzzer" card to boot up the machine, and totally freaked out a
second time when told "It does that sometimes".

He did take it more in stride the time he booted up the machine and the
printer wasted a page to inform him that "Sometimes I feel like a
motherless child"...

He did not take it so well when someone (caugh) patched the resident
supervisor idle loop to do a WAIT when the machine was waiting for work
(could be anything from an empty card reader hopper to the interval
between card columns while actually reading a card). Seems like the
runtime meter (from which IBM billed the school) stopped when the CPU
was in a wait state. The school's billings had suddenly dropped
mysteriously by 90% and the branch office manager was (very) upset about
lost revenue. The FE really was friendly - he negotiated a "Wink, wink,
nod, nod, promise not to share this with other customers and you can
keep the 90% discount" agreement.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On 13 Apr 2010 20:38:49 GMT, the infamous (Scott
Lurndal) scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques writes:
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:48:57 -0400, the infamous Bill
scrawled the following:


I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook".
I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader
plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

FWIW, it was Krenov's book, "The Fine Art of Cabinet Making" that I was
referring too. I've got them both on my "current reading" shelf and
sometimes I alternate. In case anyone is would like to know, something
that makes these books special is the Reverence with which he wrote
about his craft. He also wrote with a sadness about the market for
truly finely made furniture. He was a very thoughtful worker of wood.

You can buy a copy for only about a grand on Amazon right now. thud
http://fwd4.me/LRn -no- indication that they might be signed.
Don't you hate blatant opportunists? These same 3 guys probably sold
bottled water for $25 a pint after Katrina.

A fair deal is when both buyer and seller agree on a price. Amazon
only shows the seller's side. They won't get any bites at that
price.

Especially when other copies are available from the same page for $17
and change. g


There's a considerable difference between a non-essential book
and the substance of life (h2o).

Are you saying that these three sellers are _not_ sleazes, trying to
take advantage of Krenov's recent passing?


I'd take $900+ for my copy of 'The Fine Art of Cabinetmaking' if
anyone offers ...

....

-
Press HERE to arm. (Release to detonate.)
-----------

On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:39:53 -0700 (PDT), the infamous Robatoy
scrawled the following:

On Apr 13, 11:02*am, Bill wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. *You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

There are waaaay too many people who call themselves artists. They do
all the casting of the black shadows all by themselves.

3 off the top:
What you don't like that Meg Belichick was paid $4k for her work
"mudflap", which consisted of used rectangular rubber sheets and some
bailing wire? You don't consider scat to be art? And handing out $5
bills to passersby isn't considered performance art? What's wrong
with you, Toy?

All I can say is
http://www.poopreport.com/BMnewswire/complex_****.html

--
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace
will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will
blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy,
while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
-- John Muir

"Bill" wrote in message
...
Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

Bill


Craftsmen. Not artists. An Artist will take risks.

"Bill" wrote in message
...
Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

Economics suggests that as long as marginal gain exceeds marginal cost,
there will be production. That's as simple as it gets.

Bill


Is art about production? FWIW, I don't believe Krenov ever claimed to be an
Artist.

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:30:38 -0700, LDosser wrote:

BTW, to see the 1st computer I programmed (and helped assemble) go to:

http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/BRL61.html#TOC

and click on Readix. I worked on one at Science Research Associates in
the late '50s.

Did some work with SRA in the early 80s ... Right after I spent an
inspiring year at CACI

I think IBM had bought them by then, hadn't they?

I don't think so. CACI was known as the Old Sailor's Home, there were so
many retired revolving door Navy officers there. They had a bunch of Iranian
Navy stuff squirreled away in Pennsylvania. This was during and right after
the Hostage Crisis.

"Robert Bonomi" wrote in message
ns...
In article ,
Morris Dovey wrote:
On 4/12/2010 8:07 PM, Robert Bonomi wrote:
In ,
Morris wrote:

Yuppers on the oddness - my impression was that the CDC management team
had never quite been able to decide what they wanted to do when they
grew up. At one point they were even in the windmill business.

And they built computers that couldn't add!

They faked addition by 'complement and subtract'. (true!!)

That said, they were some of my favorite hardware to work on.

Was it the IBM-650 that was nicknamed the "CADET" for Can't Add, Doesn't
Even Try?

Yuppers. It simulated addition via table-look-up. I never programmed on
one of those.

The only CDC machine I ever used was the 6500 at Purdue and it seemed to
do crank right along fair reliably.

The 6000 series were nice machines, but they did have their quirks.

I, *unintentionally*, was responsible for one University machine crashing
nearly _two_dozen_ times in approximately a 1-week period. This accounted
for over 90% of all the crashes the machine experienced in two years.
WRY GRIN

I once caused a 6500 to lock out every other job by 'printing' a dozen or so
boxes of blank paper.

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 01:36:54 -0700, LDosser wrote:

There was a saying back in those days that the perfect computer would
have CPU by CDC, peripherals by IBM, and software by GE.

GE? The Datanet 30?

No, the 400 and 600 series - remember Multics? And the first Codasyl
DBMS?

Maybe before my time.

"LDosser" wrote in message
...
"Bill" wrote in message
...
Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

Economics suggests that as long as marginal gain exceeds marginal cost,
there will be production. That's as simple as it gets.

Bill


Is art about production? FWIW, I don't believe Krenov ever claimed to be
an Artist.

I do not think he would say that he sold "furniture". He called himself a
"worker of wood", as
opposed to a "woodworker". Evidently, to him there was a distiction. He
was aware that
many of his customers were people who might frequent art galleries--people
who appreciated
something finer...

On Apr 13, 10:30*pm, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:39:53 -0700 (PDT), the infamous Robatoy
scrawled the following:

On Apr 13, 11:02*am, Bill wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is going
on. *You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

There are waaaay too many people who call themselves artists. They do
all the casting of the black shadows all by themselves.

3 off the top:
What you don't like that Meg Belichick was paid $4k for her work
"mudflap", which consisted of used rectangular rubber sheets and some
bailing wire? *

What colour was it? Makes a difference in price.

You don't consider scat to be art? *

Meh... you seen one pile of ****, you've seen them all.

And handing out $5
bills to passersby isn't considered performance art? *What's wrong
with you, Toy?

FIVE bucks only? What a cheap-ass.

All I can say ishttp://www.poopreport.com/BMnewswire/complex_****.html


I would like to know what compelled you enter ANY word in your search
engine that took you to that link?

On 4/13/2010 9:45 PM, LDosser wrote:
"Bill" wrote in message
...
Robatoy wrote:

They're milking it, folks! Wouldn't you?

One could probably find a more respectful way to describe what is
going on. You're basically casting a black shadow over All Artists...

Bill


Craftsmen. Not artists. An Artist will take risks.

Yeah, well I'm with Robatoy on this one. There are far too many
self-proclaimed "artists" out there whose idea of "taking risks" is seeing how
much of their no-talent crap we will swallow before we start questioning their
right to call it "art". For my part, if I don't see the artistic _talent_ it
took to create something, then I don't see any "art" at all.

--
See Nad. See Nad go. Go Nad!
To reply, eat the taco.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbqboyee/

Morris Dovey wrote in
:

*snip*

... and a little program that would seek
past the innermost track to nudge a little rubber bumper against the
drive hub - repeatedly - to make a really nasty buzzing sound.

*snip*

That's apparently how the Apple II drive worked. The stepper motor would
seek inwards 40 times, ensuring the head was at track 0. That way, the
drive didn't need any fancy track seeking electronics.

Puckdropper
--
Never teach your apprentice everything you know.