Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!yale-com!leichter From: leichter@yale-com.UUCP Newsgroups: net.misc Subject: Re: Touch-Tone Pads (with "sidebar" about the Code-A-Phone 700) Message-ID: <1695@yale-com.UUCP> Date: Thu, 30-Jun-83 13:47:16 EDT Article-I.D.: yale-com.1695 Posted: Thu Jun 30 13:47:16 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 30-Jun-83 23:37:38 EDT Lines: 28 At least there really WAS a difference between the "minimum" and "maximum" Code-A-Fones - even if it was artificially produced! There is an interesting story told about the CDC 6600 that used to be at NYU (I think it was retired about a year ago.) I am told this story is true, but perhaps not; maybe someone at NYU will know and send corrections/details. Anyway...NYU got a very early 6600 - serial number 3 or thereabouts. Now, there were two available memory options at the time: The full 262K (60-bit words0; or \\\\\words); or the "half-size" 131K. NYU decided that 131K would be fine, thank you. CDC kept trying to convince them that they really should get the full memory; the extra cost wasn't that great, etc., etc.; but NYU was firm, and the machine eventually arrived with 131K. Sure enough, some hackers decided to see - probably after some program did it by accident - what happened if you addressed the non-existent memory. Oddly enough, writing to it caused no errors; reading back from it caused no errors, and in fact gave you what you had written there; and writing to the non-memory didn't seem to clobber any "real" memory locations either... Apparently, CDC had never gotten around to trying to build a machine with only 131K. When they tried it, it didn't work. So, since they had to get NYU's machine out the door, they "removed" 131K in the documentation only! -- Jerry decvax!yale-comix!leichter leichter@yale [If it's not true, it ought to be...]