Megalextoria
Retro computing and gaming, sci-fi books, tv and movies and other geeky stuff.

Home » Digital Archaeology » Computer Arcana » Computer Folklore » What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work?
Show: Today's Messages :: Show Polls :: Message Navigator
E-mail to friend 
Return to the default flat view Create a new topic Submit Reply
Re: What is the oldest computer that could be used today for real work? [message #410896 is a reply to message #410895] Fri, 10 September 2021 22:15 Go to previous messageGo to previous message
Dan Espen is currently offline  Dan Espen
Messages: 3867
Registered: January 2012
Karma:
Senior Member
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:

> Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> wrote:
>> scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) writes:
>>
>>> Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes:
>>>> Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>>>> > Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> writes:
>>>> >> John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org> writes:
>>>> >>
>>>> >>> On 2021-09-08, Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>> >>>> You can still run programs compiled on a 360 on the latest “z†box.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> I gotta say - that's darn impressive. I'm not aware of anything else that
>>>> >>> maintains compatibility that long; am I missing anything?
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Nope. S/360 in it's various flavors is the only survivor of that era.
>>>> >
>>>> > Actually, that's not precisely true. The Burroughs B5500 still lives on
>>>> > as the Unisys Clearpath systems, and still supports object files from
>>>> > the 1960s.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> ? I thought that the 5500’s successor systems weren’t object-compatible
>>>> with it. I don’t know about the degree of compatibility between the 6000s,
>>>> 7000s, and 8000s. Id be happy to be corrected.
>>>
>>> There was a step change between the B5500 and the B6500; after than they
>>> were binary compatible (e-mode in the early 1980s added support for larger
>>> memory, but still ran old codefiles).
>>
>> I see a date of 1969 for the B6500.
>> That gives the title back to S/360.
>>
>> I had to support a project moving Unisys code to z-Arch.
>> We had persistent performance issues, the mainframe just couldn't deal
>> with loading lots of small programs while the app was running.
>> I see Unisys is naturally reentrant. That probably had a lot to do with
>> the problems we were having.
>
> You could have reentrant programs on S/360, too, but they had to be coded
> as reentrant. I believe all HLLs would generate reentrant code, unless you
> deliberately wrote them to be otherwise. There were lots of tuning
> techniques you could use to optimize the “lots of small programs,” too, but
> they weren’t automatic. That is what CICS is really good at. I thought
> UNIVAC TIP would be a dog compared to CICS, because it did just run lots
> of small programs.

This was a C project and the Unisys code invoked lots of mains.
The IBM LE code to establish reentrancy (mainly building the WSA)
was a major player in the slowness. I'm guessing that Unisys
had more efficient ways of establishing reentrancy.

--
Dan Espen
[Message index]
 
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Previous Topic: Re: ISO CD image
Next Topic: book review: Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
Goto Forum:
  

-=] Back to Top [=-
[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Fri Apr 19 05:53:58 EDT 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.25208 seconds