Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #161981

Re: Which Books Can You Recommend For Learning Computer Programming?

From	jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com>
Newsgroups	alt.folklore.computers
Subject	Re: Which Books Can You Recommend For Learning Computer Programming?
Date	2016-04-04 12:58 +0000
Organization	"Have EDDT, will travel"
Message-ID	<PM00052FA7EB8E08E6@aca40be9.ipt.aol.com> (permalink)
References	(8 earlier) <28e136de-6c61-4ba9-ba8f-e7c2b0bceff6@googlegroups.com> <87k2kji3d8.fsf@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere> <ndjt7v$u16$1@pechter.eternal-september.org> <87a8la2u6i.fsf@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere> <atn8tc-ij3.ln1@sambook.reistad.name>

Show all headers | View raw

Morten Reistad wrote:
> In article <87a8la2u6i.fsf@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere>,
> Mike Spencer  <mspencer@tallships.ca> wrote:
>>
>>pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) writes:
>>
>>> In article <87k2kji3d8.fsf@roadgrime.nodomain.nowhere>,
>>> Mike Spencer  <mspencer@tallships.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Twenty-five years ago, when I had occasion to work next to an
>>>> about-graduate comp sci major at a university biz school, I was
>>>> appalled to learn that he thought that if Unix ran multiple
>>>> programs "simultaneously" that they were really executing their op
>>>> codes at the same time.  This was long before multi-CPU or
>>>> multi-core machines were an article of commerce.  I thought he was
>>>> supposed to have spent the preceding 4 years getting "a grounding
>>>> in basic computer science."
>>>
>>> Pyramid Technology had their SMP Unix boxes available in the mid
>>> 80's.  Their 9845 was a four cpu RISC Unix box available by 1987.
>>> So 1987...  So it was possible these things were available to him at
>>> that time.  I know we had SMP Unix boxes in the area here by the
>>> late 1980s and by the early 1990's they were very common in
>>> colleges.
>>>
>>> SMP Vaxes were announced in the 1986 timeframe (according to
>>> Wikipedia) and so they had to be available in the 1988
>>> timeframe... so by 25 years ago these things were easily available
>>> to businesses.
>>
>>I didn't know that.  The student on whom I remarked had had at least
>>a couple of Vaxen available along with numerous Intel micros and
>>(presumably) other machines I  didn't know about.  Perhaps our
>>conversation related to his first exposure to a DEC Ultrix
>>workstation.
>
> Also, altos and ncr had multiprocessor 80386 systems, the ncr
> ones went to 16 processors; which was quite a stretch at that
> time. ISTR it was a 4 by 4 NUMA with some bus interconnect, and
> 4 80386'es with some FPGA to negotiate the memory buses.
>
> NCR had a very brief life as a computer vendor in that round.
>
> ISTR the Altos one was a simple 2processor one, but I may be
> mistaken.
>
>>> (worked for both DEC and Pyramid back in the day...and played sysadmin
>>> on the Pyramid SMP boxes and just missed the DEC ones by moving off Vaxes
>>> by the early 1990s)

DEC's KA multiprocesser system was the 1055.
The KI multiprocessor system was the 1077.
The KL multiprocessor system was the 1088.
the 1055 was, IIRC, 1972.

/BAH

Thread

csiph-web