Of course I heard of Control data - I once took a class where the final exam
required being able to explain the purpose of every wire on a discrete
transistor CDC computer was for. The computer replaced by the VAX in my
previous post was a CDC Cyber 76.

However, the point is not that SOME computers had FPUs, it was that most
computers DID NOT have FPUs, or they were slow and/or expensive, and thus
software floating point and fixed point math had to be implemented by the
application programmers.

You can claim the DG machines were primarily used for "accounting," and it may
even be so, but I worked in Astronomy and Space Sciences at the Smithsonian
(located at Harvard) and at MIT; I can assure you that in the mid '70s the labs
were filled with DG machines, because they gave the most bang for the buck.
My first "home computer" (in 1980) was an old DG 1200, followed quickly by a DEC
11/23. I still have the faceplate from the Nova.


"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...
jeffies, data general machines were *accounting* machines, so therefore used
integer calc (it is faster).

Intel makes MICROprocessors.

Floating point machines date from the 1950's. Ever hear of Control Data?

[snip a bunch of trivia dating from 35 years later]

so, how come you didn't know that CDC made computers in the 1950's?

btw, you "home" computer was 11/23 in the early 80's?

sure, and you traveled to junior high school on a hydrazine rocket.

btw, how many wires on a "discrete" transitor used on a CDC machine? careful
how you speak, for my brother worked the technical end of CDC for over 30
years.

[snip the junk wherein jeffies tries to cover that even to this moment he
doesn't know even WHAT it means to calculate *algebraicly* the nth root of a
number, something every last person with degree in physics [which jeffies
claims to have] knew thoroughly before the graduated high school]

jeffies, you are hopeless. Even now you don't have a clew that you were set up
with bait a high school kid would have seen from a thousand yards.

"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...
so, how come you didn't know that CDC made computers in the 1950's?

You never asked. Your claim was that all computers had FPUs so it was
unnecessary to code floating point. The fact that some computers had it is
irrelevant. Most did not.

BTW, CDC was founded late in the 50s; I'm not sure they actually shipped a
machine with floating point until the mid '60s.


btw, you "home" computer was 11/23 in the early 80's?

Sure, why not? It only cost a few thousand dollars, used. Besides, my partner
and I had a small company -we didn't rent an office for 2 years. He worked on
the DG at his house, I had the DEC at mine. These were floppy based machines,
without a lot of memory and certainly no FPU. A small disk, like an RL02 (10
meg "top loader") went for around $25,000, much more than the computer. We got
our first in '82 from Apple computer, as payment for porting our software to the
not-yet-released "Lisa," which I guess was our third computer. A Compaq
"luggable" came in 1983, a microVax and a Sun soon followed.

Actually, around 1972 I had at home an IBM 2741 Selectric terminal with a 134.5
baud modem that I could dial into Multics developement system at MIT, but that's
another story.


sure, and you traveled to junior high school on a hydrazine rocket.

That's silly. I teleported.


btw, how many wires on a "discrete" transitor used on a CDC machine? careful
how you speak, for my brother worked the technical end of CDC for over 30
years.

I don't remember, it was about 35 years ago, although 3 wires would be a good
guess for a transistor. I dealt with it at the "gate" level, not the individual
transistors. I think it was a CDC 3000. IIRC, the logic was on small boards
that each had 2 flip-flops, which probably had 2 transistors each. The back of
it was a *lot* of wire wrap. I'd guess around 30,000 "gates" in the machine,
but I could be way off. The logic book was several inches thick, with timing
charts and logic diagrams. ("On the leading edge of this signal, the data from
register x would be latched into buffer y ...") So jaxie, send this off to your
brother and ask him if its a fair description, given that I spent a few weeks
with the machine 35 years ago.



[snip the junk wherein jeffies tries to cover that even to this moment he
doesn't know even WHAT it means to calculate *algebraicly* the nth root of a
number, something every last person with degree in physics [which jeffies
claims to have] knew thoroughly before the graduated high school]

jeffies, you are hopeless. Even now you don't have a clew that you were set
up
with bait a high school kid would have seen from a thousand yards.

comments interlaced

Your claim was that all computers had FPUs

nope. not what I said. you said none were available until the 1980's. I said
1950's

btw, large computers didn't -- and don't -- have Floating Point Units (see
jeffies? today you learned what FPU means). Floating point is designed in
from the start. Takes more time to calc than interger, but it is there from
the get go

BTW, CDC was founded late in the 50s; I'm not sure they actually shipped a
machine with floating point until the mid '60s.

you are wrong.

btw, you "home" computer was 11/23 in the early 80's?

Sure, why not? It only cost a few thousand dollars, used.

bull. a PDP-6, maybe, but not even a PDP-11. check your numbers dude. 11/23
was state of the art at that time. I sold interger machines at the time rather
than scientific machines. I DO know that "home computers" (i.e. 8086 based)
would go for upwards of six grand and those things didn't hardly compete with
an 11/23.

try again.

I had the DEC at mine.

no you didn't

These were floppy based
machines

no they weren't. In 1972 Shugart still worked for IBM and the floppy was still
IBM technology and was used to boot a System 32.

our first in '82 from Apple computer,

which was 68000 based, recently updated from a 6800 (btw yo-yo, Motorola called
the microprocessor chip a "68000" because supposedly it had 68,000 transistors,
which it didn't)

Actually, around 1972 I had at home an IBM 2741 Selectric terminal

a 2741 was part of an RJE station (which used punch cards) and was about the
size of two chest-style home freezers.

with a
134.5
baud modem that I could dial into Multics developement system at MIT, but
that's
another story.

another bogus story.

sure, and you traveled to junior high school on a hydrazine rocket.

That's silly. I teleported.

while you read "Amazing Stories"

btw, how many wires on a "discrete" transitor used on a CDC machine?
careful
how you speak, for my brother worked the technical end of CDC for over 30
years.

I don't remember ... would be a good
guess for a transistor. I dealt with it at the "gate" level,

"gate" level, eh?

not the
individual
transistors.

that is what a "gate" is, yo-yo, in this context

IIRC, the logic was on small boards

you are talking about TTL logic, dude. which is a whole different story than
the one you are telling

that each had 2 flip-flops, which probably had 2 transistors each.

no it didn't

The back
of
it was a *lot* of wire wrap.

yo-yo, you were looking at the semi-conductor replacements for core memory of
older, already installed machines. the "lot of wire" was there to slow the
semiconductor memory response speed down to core memory speed so the machine
didn't get ahead of itself. you know, don't you, that electricity travels one
foot per nano-second?

I'd guess around 30,000 "gates" in the machine,
but I could be way off.

not even frickin close.

The logic book was several inches thick, with timing
charts and logic diagrams. ("On the leading edge of this signal, the data
from
register x would be latched into buffer y ...")

dude, you were looking at a repair manual.

So jaxie, send this off to
your
brother and ask him if its a fair description, given that I spent a few weeks
with the machine 35 years ago.

If I sent it too him without telling him the source he would say, "Some
Internet yo-yo, I see"

"JAXAshby" wrote in message
...
comments interlaced

Your claim was that all computers had FPUs

nope. not what I said. you said none were available until the 1980's. I said
1950's

btw, large computers didn't -- and don't -- have Floating Point Units (see
jeffies? today you learned what FPU means). Floating point is designed in
from the start. Takes more time to calc than interger, but it is there from
the get go

So? That wasn't the case with small machines.



BTW, CDC was founded late in the 50s; I'm not sure they actually shipped a
machine with floating point until the mid '60s.

you are wrong.

Not according to this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation

It says the first machine was delivered in 1960. (I think it was shown in 1959)



btw, you "home" computer was 11/23 in the early 80's?

Sure, why not? It only cost a few thousand dollars, used.

bull. a PDP-6, maybe, but not even a PDP-11. check your numbers dude. 11/23
was state of the art at that time. I sold interger machines at the time
rather
than scientific machines. I DO know that "home computers" (i.e. 8086 based)
would go for upwards of six grand and those things didn't hardly compete with
an 11/23.

You know not of what you say. The smallest version of the 11/23 was 3 or 4
boards," one with the CPU, one with memory, another had 4 serial lines and a
Floppy controller (I think this was 3rd party).
http://hampage.hu/pdp-11/1123.html

This pic shows our box, though we used a cheap VT52 when we first got it.
http://hampage.hu/pdp-11/kepek/pdp-1123.jpg

This came out in 1979, so by 1981 it was not "state of the art" and we were able
to get a very minimal used system for maybe $3000. We would "code for parts" so
would could build it up very cheaply.

The DEC is long gone, but I still have the front panel from the DG, and my
partner has the core memory board.


try again.

I had the DEC at mine.

no you didn't

These were floppy based
machines

no they weren't. In 1972 Shugart still worked for IBM and the floppy was
still
IBM technology and was used to boot a System 32.

DEC had the RX01/RX02 in 1978, maybe earlier. 8 inch floppies I think ours was
a dual RX01.



our first in '82 from Apple computer,

which was 68000 based, recently updated from a 6800 (btw yo-yo, Motorola
called
the microprocessor chip a "68000" because supposedly it had 68,000
transistors,
which it didn't)

I'm quite familiar with the 68K; the job from Apple required porting about
15,000 lines of assembly code from DG and DEC to 68K. I did most of the porting
work, while my partner wrote the assembler. (Our product was a
compiler/assembler/development environment.) We didn't actually have a 68K, we
cross-compiled on the DG machine, transfered to the DEC, wrote a RX01 floppy
(which was a bit of a standard in those days), and drove across town to debug on
68K Unix box. Within 2 weeks of starting, my partner was flying to CA with the
11/23 stuffed in a suitcase. It took him several days to get it running on the
Lisa (whose O/S was much like the first Macs). Using our software, he then
solved the problem that had roadblocked the Lisa group - interference from the
floppy that jittered the screen.



Actually, around 1972 I had at home an IBM 2741 Selectric terminal

a 2741 was part of an RJE station (which used punch cards) and was about the
size of two chest-style home freezers.


Wrong again, jaxie.
http://www.multicians.org/terminals.html

"got my first home terminal in 1967, when I was working on Multics at Project
MAC. It was an IBM 2741, the standard machine for the programming staff. Like
the 1050, the 2741 had a Selectric mechanism built into a desk, but one smaller
than the 1050's, and with a slimmer electronics box and fewer switches."

Actually, I didn't work at Multics, my room mate did. But it was handy to have.

with a
134.5
baud modem that I could dial into Multics developement system at MIT, but
that's
another story.

another bogus story.

Aren't you tired of always being wrong?


btw, how many wires on a "discrete" transitor used on a CDC machine?
careful
how you speak, for my brother worked the technical end of CDC for over 30
years.

I don't remember ... would be a good
guess for a transistor. I dealt with it at the "gate" level,

"gate" level, eh?

not the
individual
transistors.

that is what a "gate" is, yo-yo, in this context

Wrong again. Gates are logical. They can be implemented with a transitor, plus
a few other things, but to a logic designer a gate and a transitor are two very
different things.



IIRC, the logic was on small boards

you are talking about TTL logic, dude. which is a whole different story than
the one you are telling

Wrong again. I said this was discrete, not integrated circuits. TTL was
certainly availible by the time I was playing with this, maybe 1970, but the CDC
3000 was built in the early '60s before ICs. Each little circuit board had
roughly what one IC chip had a few years later.



that each had 2 flip-flops, which probably had 2 transistors each.

no it didn't

Wrong yet again. A simple flip-flop is made with 2 gates, which as you said,
can be one transistor each.
http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/mas...eStageFlipFlop
Of course, I don't remember the exact nature of these boards, the EE side of it
didn't interest me much.


The back
of
it was a *lot* of wire wrap.

yo-yo, you were looking at the semi-conductor replacements for core memory of
older, already installed machines. the "lot of wire" was there to slow the
semiconductor memory response speed down to core memory speed so the machine
didn't get ahead of itself. you know, don't you, that electricity travels one
foot per nano-second?

Wrong one more time. Since each circuit board was the equivalent of one "chip,"
the backplane of the rack was the euivalent of the wiring embedded in today's
boards. There were thousands of these small boards, all connected through
wirewrap.



I'd guess around 30,000 "gates" in the machine,
but I could be way off.

not even frickin close.

OK, you tell me - how many gates were in the CDC 3000?



The logic book was several inches thick, with timing
charts and logic diagrams. ("On the leading edge of this signal, the data
from
register x would be latched into buffer y ...")

dude, you were looking at a repair manual.

I don't beleive there was a "repair manual" for the CPU, just the logic diagram.
But as I said, I was only around one for a few weeks.


So jaxie, send this off to
your
brother and ask him if its a fair description, given that I spent a few weeks
with the machine 35 years ago.

If I sent it too him without telling him the source he would say, "Some
Internet yo-yo, I see"

Your brother knows you well.