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My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?)

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  My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-11-06 18:37 -0800
    Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-07 00:51 -0500
      Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-11-07 06:20 -0800
        Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-07 07:38 -0700
        Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-11-08 02:47 +0000
      Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-07 07:31 -0700
        Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-11-07 06:52 -0800
          Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-07 20:09 -0500
            Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2026-11-08 08:08 +0000
              Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-08 21:24 -0500
                Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-11-08 18:34 -0800
                  Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-08 22:54 -0500
                    Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-11-09 04:39 +0000
                      Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-09 21:08 -0500
                        Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-11-10 02:25 +0000
                          Re: My Computer History Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-11-10 02:32 +0000
                            Re: My Computer History c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-09 23:07 -0500
                            Re: My Computer History Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-11-10 18:36 +0000
                          Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-09 22:49 -0500
                            Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> - 2026-11-10 06:03 -0800
                              Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2026-11-10 18:36 +0000
                            Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2026-11-10 15:08 +0000
                    Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-09 07:29 -0700
                      Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> - 2026-11-09 16:11 +0000
                      Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-09 21:19 -0500
                        Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Bob Eager <throwaway0008@eager.cx> - 2026-11-10 14:31 +0000
                  Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2026-11-09 07:48 -1000
                    Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-09 21:55 -0500
                      Re: My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> - 2026-11-09 21:35 -0700
                Re: spooling, My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2026-11-09 16:56 +0000
                  Re: spooling, My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?) c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2026-11-09 21:46 -0500

Page 2 of 2 — ← Prev page 1 [2]

#236731

On 2026-11-10, Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> wrote:

> On 11/9/2026 19:49, c186282 wrote:
>
>> On 11/9/26 21:25, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> And from there I went to my first job, programming a
>>> Univac 9300 with 16K of memory.  Discipline indeed!
>> 
>>    16K ... very tight for a mainframe !
>> 
>>    But, that's what there WAS back then.

I did some work on one that was stripped down to the
very minimum.  The Univac 9200 was a cost-reduced 9300
that ran at half speed.  On this one the printer was
only equipped with 96 print positions, and the multiply,
divide, and edit instructions (MP, DP, and ED) were
subroutines in a separate module you had to link to
your program.  And it had only 8K of memory.

Now _that_ was tight.

> The Univac 9300 was sort of a cheapo 360/30. Where I met it, in 1972, it 
> was acting as a mini, ronning online spooling/local RJE for our Univac 
> 1106, a role that other 1100-series installations had done with a 1004 
> "card processor".
>
> https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Remington_Rand/Univac.1004.1964.102646252.pdf
>
> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/404409241532785626/
>
> http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/univac/1100/datapro/70C-877-11_7009_UNIVAC_1106_1108.pdf

I think of the 9300 as Univac's answer to the 360/20
(although the CPU speed was more like a 360/30).
It made a lot of the same compromises as the 360/20:
16-bit registers, for instance.  In my neck of the
woods most of them were stand-alone machines.  The
one I worked on was in a service bureau; we ran
payrolls, receivables, etc. for small companies
all over town who couldn't afford their own computer.

The 1004 was the first piece of computer hardware that
I actually got my hands on.  When I was 15 I was visiting
an uncle who worked in a shop that had one.  I saw a big
binder marked UNIVAC on his bookshelf, so I took it down
and started reading all about the 1004.  (I still have that
binder.)  Some time later he took me into his office and
I got to wire up my own plugboard for it (the 1004 was
sort of like a hopped-up IBM 407).

This led to me making some contacts in the Univac world,
which is why I wound up working on their 360/370 workalikes
(9300, 9400, 90/30, System 80) through the '70s and '80s.

-- 
/~\  Charlie Gibbs                  |  In this world there are
\ /  <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>      |  two kinds of people:
 X   I'm really at ac.dekanfrus     |  1. Those who can extrapolate
/ \  if you read it the right way.  |  from incomplete data.

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#236725

c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> writes:

>
>   UniVac, Honeywell, DEC, Burroughs etc ... they
>   all died for various reasons. Only IBM survives.

I'm sure that Unisys (nee Burroughs) would dispute that assertion.

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#236692

On 11/8/26 20:54, c186282 wrote:
> On 11/8/26 21:34, Lars Poulsen wrote:
>> On 11/8/2026 18:24, c186282 wrote:
>>> On 11/8/26 03:08, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> schrieb:
>>>>
>>>>>     A lot of the old mini's - even mainframes - were
>>>>>     VERY SLOW by any modern standard. Slow enough to
>>>>>     be hilarious these days. CPU speed barely factored
>>>>>     in - the I/O speed with cards/tapes/etc used up
>>>>>     a huge amount of time.
>>>>
>>>> Hence spooling.
>>>
>>>    Spooling HELPS ... but, at some point, you've gotta
>>>    actually read/write to the shitty slow media. Also
>>>    spooling requires RAM ... which was in short supply
>>>    for a long time. I remember big cubes full of mag-core
>>>    memory ..... and it wasn't MUCH memory either.
>>
>> Back in my University Computer Center days, a few of us attended a 
>> class in London on debugging paradigms. On the first day, we 
>> introduced ourselves and described our workplace's significant 
>> computer systems. One of the attendeed was from IBM Grenoble, and as 
>> he described their main system with a whopping 16MB of main memory, we 
>> all oohed and aahed and wondered aloud how anyone could make 
>> productive use of that much memory. But he explained that they easily 
>> used it all up with their static analysis tools, their version control 
>> system, their auditing programs making sure the programs adhered to 
>> their programming standards etc. We all shook our heads at how IBM 
>> clearly had too much money on their hands if they could spend it on 
>> such frills!!
> 
>    16 MEGABYTES ??? Wow !!!  :-)
> 
>    The old mag-core memory units were MUCH smaller.
> 
>    Also EXPENSIVE as all hell ... hey, little ferrite
>    doughnuts hand-placed on wires .......
> 
>    The coolest was 'rope memory' ... the doughnuts
>    hand-placed on long strands of wires. the old
>    Lunar Excursion Module computer used it. NASA
>    basically contracted Good Knitter grannies ...

Wasn't the rope memory ROM for that thing?

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#236696

On 09/11/2026 14:29, Peter Flass wrote:
>> The coolest was 'rope memory' ... the doughnuts
>>    hand-placed on long strands of wires. the old
>>    Lunar Excursion Module computer used it. NASA
>>    basically contracted Good Knitter grannies ...
> 
> Wasn't the rope memory ROM for that thing?

  Yes. It was ROM. Every bit hand stitched.
RAM was called core memory

-- 
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to 
rule.
– H. L. Mencken, American journalist, 1880-1956

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#236705

On 11/9/26 09:29, Peter Flass wrote:
> On 11/8/26 20:54, c186282 wrote:
>> On 11/8/26 21:34, Lars Poulsen wrote:
>>> On 11/8/2026 18:24, c186282 wrote:
>>>> On 11/8/26 03:08, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> schrieb:
>>>>>
>>>>>>     A lot of the old mini's - even mainframes - were
>>>>>>     VERY SLOW by any modern standard. Slow enough to
>>>>>>     be hilarious these days. CPU speed barely factored
>>>>>>     in - the I/O speed with cards/tapes/etc used up
>>>>>>     a huge amount of time.
>>>>>
>>>>> Hence spooling.
>>>>
>>>>    Spooling HELPS ... but, at some point, you've gotta
>>>>    actually read/write to the shitty slow media. Also
>>>>    spooling requires RAM ... which was in short supply
>>>>    for a long time. I remember big cubes full of mag-core
>>>>    memory ..... and it wasn't MUCH memory either.
>>>
>>> Back in my University Computer Center days, a few of us attended a 
>>> class in London on debugging paradigms. On the first day, we 
>>> introduced ourselves and described our workplace's significant 
>>> computer systems. One of the attendeed was from IBM Grenoble, and as 
>>> he described their main system with a whopping 16MB of main memory, 
>>> we all oohed and aahed and wondered aloud how anyone could make 
>>> productive use of that much memory. But he explained that they easily 
>>> used it all up with their static analysis tools, their version 
>>> control system, their auditing programs making sure the programs 
>>> adhered to their programming standards etc. We all shook our heads at 
>>> how IBM clearly had too much money on their hands if they could spend 
>>> it on such frills!!
>>
>>    16 MEGABYTES ??? Wow !!!  :-)
>>
>>    The old mag-core memory units were MUCH smaller.
>>
>>    Also EXPENSIVE as all hell ... hey, little ferrite
>>    doughnuts hand-placed on wires .......
>>
>>    The coolest was 'rope memory' ... the doughnuts
>>    hand-placed on long strands of wires. the old
>>    Lunar Excursion Module computer used it. NASA
>>    basically contracted Good Knitter grannies ...
> 
> Wasn't the rope memory ROM for that thing?

   Yes, ROM, not RAM. Not sure WHAT the L.E.M. had
   for RAM. 2K maybe ? It's sure to be documented
   somewhere.

   Try :
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer

   As said, there was already much better tech but
   the govt contracting process kinda had them locked
   in to 1962.

   Apparently they DID have grannies weaving the
   rope-ROM to spec.

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#236721

On Mon, 09 Nov 2026 21:19:59 -0500, c186282 wrote:

> On 11/9/26 09:29, Peter Flass wrote:
>> On 11/8/26 20:54, c186282 wrote:
>>> On 11/8/26 21:34, Lars Poulsen wrote:
>>>> On 11/8/2026 18:24, c186282 wrote:
>>>>> On 11/8/26 03:08, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>>>>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> schrieb:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>     A lot of the old mini's - even mainframes - were VERY SLOW
>>>>>>>     by any modern standard. Slow enough to be hilarious these
>>>>>>>     days. CPU speed barely factored in - the I/O speed with
>>>>>>>     cards/tapes/etc used up a huge amount of time.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hence spooling.
>>>>>
>>>>>    Spooling HELPS ... but, at some point, you've gotta actually
>>>>>    read/write to the shitty slow media. Also spooling requires RAM
>>>>>    ... which was in short supply for a long time. I remember big
>>>>>    cubes full of mag-core memory ..... and it wasn't MUCH memory
>>>>>    either.
>>>>
>>>> Back in my University Computer Center days, a few of us attended a
>>>> class in London on debugging paradigms. On the first day, we
>>>> introduced ourselves and described our workplace's significant
>>>> computer systems. One of the attendeed was from IBM Grenoble, and as
>>>> he described their main system with a whopping 16MB of main memory,
>>>> we all oohed and aahed and wondered aloud how anyone could make
>>>> productive use of that much memory. But he explained that they easily
>>>> used it all up with their static analysis tools, their version
>>>> control system, their auditing programs making sure the programs
>>>> adhered to their programming standards etc. We all shook our heads at
>>>> how IBM clearly had too much money on their hands if they could spend
>>>> it on such frills!!
>>>
>>>    16 MEGABYTES ??? Wow !!!  :-)
>>>
>>>    The old mag-core memory units were MUCH smaller.
>>>
>>>    Also EXPENSIVE as all hell ... hey, little ferrite doughnuts
>>>    hand-placed on wires .......
>>>
>>>    The coolest was 'rope memory' ... the doughnuts hand-placed on
>>>    long strands of wires. the old Lunar Excursion Module computer
>>>    used it. NASA basically contracted Good Knitter grannies ...
>> 
>> Wasn't the rope memory ROM for that thing?
> 
>    Yes, ROM, not RAM. Not sure WHAT the L.E.M. had for RAM. 2K maybe ?
>    It's sure to be documented somewhere.
> 
>    Try : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
> 
>    As said, there was already much better tech but the govt contracting
>    process kinda had them locked in to 1962.
> 
>    Apparently they DID have grannies weaving the rope-ROM to spec.

Excellent lecture here, that I attended last month:

 https://youtu.be/vVqGy5cd1Uw?si=LnqF80ExKKtiseAq

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#236699

Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> writes:
> Back in my University Computer Center days, a few of us attended a
> class in London on debugging paradigms. On the first day, we
> introduced ourselves and described our workplace's significant
> computer systems. One of the attendeed was from IBM Grenoble, and as
> he described their main system with a whopping 16MB of main memory, we
> all oohed and aahed and wondered aloud how anyone could make
> productive use of that much memory. But he explained that they easily
> used it all up with their static analysis tools, their version control
> system, their auditing programs making sure the programs adhered to
> their programming standards etc. We all shook our heads at how IBM
> clearly had too much money on their hands if they could spend it on
> such frills!!

I was undergraduate when 360/67 arrived and hired originally full-time
responsible for OS/360 (360/67, running as 360/65).

Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC
itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my
weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for
running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs
... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67
CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the
dispatcher/scheduler (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair
share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from
FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized
for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k
transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). I was invited to spring
SHARE meeting in Houston for "official" CP67/CMS announcement. Six
months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class
in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it
turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the
Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online
spin-offs.

Then before I graduate, I was hired into small group in Boeing CFO
office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services
(consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). When I
graduate I join the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center that had 768kbyte
360/67 (104 pageable 4k pages, and I upgrade the page replacement
algorithm with my global "LRU" algorithm).

Then Grenoble Science Center got a 1mbyte 360/67 (155 pageable 4k pages)
running CP67/CMS and modify page replacement to local "LRU" algorithm
from 60s academic literature. Both centers had similar CMS workload,
except I got 75-80 users with better response and throughput than
Grenoble running 35 users.

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

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#236709

On 11/9/26 12:48, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
> Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> writes:
>> Back in my University Computer Center days, a few of us attended a
>> class in London on debugging paradigms. On the first day, we
>> introduced ourselves and described our workplace's significant
>> computer systems. One of the attendeed was from IBM Grenoble, and as
>> he described their main system with a whopping 16MB of main memory, we
>> all oohed and aahed and wondered aloud how anyone could make
>> productive use of that much memory. But he explained that they easily
>> used it all up with their static analysis tools, their version control
>> system, their auditing programs making sure the programs adhered to
>> their programming standards etc. We all shook our heads at how IBM
>> clearly had too much money on their hands if they could spend it on
>> such frills!!
> 
> I was undergraduate when 360/67 arrived and hired originally full-time
> responsible for OS/360 (360/67, running as 360/65).
> 
> Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC
> itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my
> weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for
> running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs
> ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67
> CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the
> dispatcher/scheduler (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair
> share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from
> FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized
> for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k
> transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). I was invited to spring
> SHARE meeting in Houston for "official" CP67/CMS announcement. Six
> months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class
> in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it
> turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the
> Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online
> spin-offs.
> 
> Then before I graduate, I was hired into small group in Boeing CFO
> office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services
> (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). When I
> graduate I join the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center that had 768kbyte
> 360/67 (104 pageable 4k pages, and I upgrade the page replacement
> algorithm with my global "LRU" algorithm).
> 
> Then Grenoble Science Center got a 1mbyte 360/67 (155 pageable 4k pages)
> running CP67/CMS and modify page replacement to local "LRU" algorithm
> from 60s academic literature. Both centers had similar CMS workload,
> except I got 75-80 users with better response and throughput than
> Grenoble running 35 users.

   The newbies won't be much interested in any of
   this 'ancient shit' ... have NO clue as to where
   it all CAME from, and thus NO inspirations for
   the future. The AI will tell them what/how to
   think from now on, until it makes them obsolete.

   By reports, the AIs can already self-program/evolve.
   So far this is being prevented because it's SCARY.

   IS scary.

   They ain't US ... more like 'aliens'.

   I see the 'philosophers' are STILL trying
   to offer 'reasons' why they're not True
   Consciousness ........ wow ......

   Anthropic offered 100+ pages of info on why
   they ARE basically 'beings' in its IPO
   documents. Hope, and WARNINGS.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#236713

On 11/9/26 19:55, c186282 wrote:
> On 11/9/26 12:48, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>> Lars Poulsen <lars@beagle-ears.com> writes:
>>> Back in my University Computer Center days, a few of us attended a
>>> class in London on debugging paradigms. On the first day, we
>>> introduced ourselves and described our workplace's significant
>>> computer systems. One of the attendeed was from IBM Grenoble, and as
>>> he described their main system with a whopping 16MB of main memory, we
>>> all oohed and aahed and wondered aloud how anyone could make
>>> productive use of that much memory. But he explained that they easily
>>> used it all up with their static analysis tools, their version control
>>> system, their auditing programs making sure the programs adhered to
>>> their programming standards etc. We all shook our heads at how IBM
>>> clearly had too much money on their hands if they could spend it on
>>> such frills!!
>>
>> I was undergraduate when 360/67 arrived and hired originally full-time
>> responsible for OS/360 (360/67, running as 360/65).
>>
>> Then CSC came out to install (virtual machine) CP/67 (3rd after CSC
>> itself and MIT Lincoln Labs) and I mostly get to play with it during my
>> weekend 48hr window. I then spend a few months rewriting pathlengths for
>> running OS/360 in virtual machine. Bare machine test ran 322secs
>> ... initially 856secs (CP67 CPU 534secs). After a few months I had CP67
>> CPU down from 534secs to 113secs. I then start rewriting the
>> dispatcher/scheduler (dynamic adaptive resource manager/default fair
>> share scheduling policy), paging, adding ordered seek queuing (from
>> FIFO) and mutli-page transfer channel programs (from FIFO and optimized
>> for transfers/revolution, getting 2301 paging drum from 70-80 4k
>> transfers/sec to channel transfer peak of 270). I was invited to spring
>> SHARE meeting in Houston for "official" CP67/CMS announcement. Six
>> months after univ initial CP/67 install, CSC was giving one week class
>> in LA. I arrive on Sunday afternoon and asked to teach the class, it
>> turns out that the people that were going to teach it had resigned the
>> Friday before to join one of the 60s CSC CP67 commercial online
>> spin-offs.
>>
>> Then before I graduate, I was hired into small group in Boeing CFO
>> office to help with the formation of Boeing Computer Services
>> (consolidate all dataprocessing into independent business unit). When I
>> graduate I join the IBM Cambridge Scientific Center that had 768kbyte
>> 360/67 (104 pageable 4k pages, and I upgrade the page replacement
>> algorithm with my global "LRU" algorithm).
>>
>> Then Grenoble Science Center got a 1mbyte 360/67 (155 pageable 4k pages)
>> running CP67/CMS and modify page replacement to local "LRU" algorithm
>> from 60s academic literature. Both centers had similar CMS workload,
>> except I got 75-80 users with better response and throughput than
>> Grenoble running 35 users.
> 
>    The newbies won't be much interested in any of
>    this 'ancient shit' ... have NO clue as to where
>    it all CAME from, and thus NO inspirations for
>    the future. The AI will tell them what/how to
>    think from now on, until it makes them obsolete.
> 
>    By reports, the AIs can already self-program/evolve.
>    So far this is being prevented because it's SCARY.
> 
>    IS scary.
> 
>    They ain't US ... more like 'aliens'.
> 
>    I see the 'philosophers' are STILL trying
>    to offer 'reasons' why they're not True
>    Consciousness ........ wow ......
> 
>    Anthropic offered 100+ pages of info on why
>    they ARE basically 'beings' in its IPO
>    documents. Hope, and WARNINGS.

They better watch out - the next thing they'll want to do is unionize, 
and go on strike.

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#236697 — Re: spooling, My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?)

According to c186282  <c186282@nnada.net>:
>On 11/8/26 03:08, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> schrieb:
>> 
>>>     A lot of the old mini's - even mainframes - were
>>>     VERY SLOW by any modern standard. Slow enough to
>>>     be hilarious these days. CPU speed barely factored
>>>     in - the I/O speed with cards/tapes/etc used up
>>>     a huge amount of time.
>> 
>> Hence spooling.
>
>   Spooling HELPS ... but, at some point, you've gotta
>   actually read/write to the shitty slow media. ...Also
>   spooling requires RAM ... 

Depends how you do it. IBM 70xx mainframes read and wrote everything to and from
tape. Then there was a cheaper 1401 with a tape drive, card reader/punch and
printer that did card->tape and tape->card and tape->print.

Later on a customer tied together a 7090 and a slower 7040 with a high-speed
interconnect so the 7040 did all the I/O and job management, spooling card and
print to disk, and the 7090 just ran the jobs.



-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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#236708 — Re: spooling, My Computer History (Re: Is This An Old Folks Home?)

On 11/9/26 11:56, John Levine wrote:
> According to c186282  <c186282@nnada.net>:
>> On 11/8/26 03:08, Thomas Koenig wrote:
>>> c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> schrieb:
>>>
>>>>      A lot of the old mini's - even mainframes - were
>>>>      VERY SLOW by any modern standard. Slow enough to
>>>>      be hilarious these days. CPU speed barely factored
>>>>      in - the I/O speed with cards/tapes/etc used up
>>>>      a huge amount of time.
>>>
>>> Hence spooling.
>>
>>    Spooling HELPS ... but, at some point, you've gotta
>>    actually read/write to the shitty slow media. ...Also
>>    spooling requires RAM ...
> 
> Depends how you do it. IBM 70xx mainframes read and wrote everything to and from
> tape. Then there was a cheaper 1401 with a tape drive, card reader/punch and
> printer that did card->tape and tape->card and tape->print.
> 
> Later on a customer tied together a 7090 and a slower 7040 with a high-speed
> interconnect so the 7040 did all the I/O and job management, spooling card and
> print to disk, and the 7090 just ran the jobs.

   I'll have to try and find the I/O speed specs
   for that setup.

   My guess is that it was just *awful* ...

   In theory drum memory COULD have been used
   for spooling - it was the fastest thing to
   be had with any capacity at the time.
   Electronic RAM was insanely expensive and
   small for a long time.

   Met a guy who worked with the guy who
   invented the more modern disk drive.
   Cobalt-plated disks initially. Only
   later moved to ferrite. Solid metal
   won't take densely-packed bits, too
   much 'bleed-over'.

   On the plus, cobalt is HARD ... could
   tolerate the occasional head crash.

   BUT, again, as slow as those old units were
   they were STILL vastly faster and more accurate
   than having humans do all the calculations.
   So relatively fast they got the rep as 'electronic
   brains' - spawned many a sci-fi movie !

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