Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ncar!husc6!bbn!tdonahue@bbn.com
From: tdonahue@bbn.com (Tim Donahue)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: History of personal computing
Message-ID: <28381@bbn.COM>
Date: 12 Aug 88 19:24:04 GMT
References: <5946@venera.isi.edu> <46500024@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <15355@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: tdonahue@bbn.com (Tim Donahue)
Organization: BBN Advanced Computers, Inc.
Lines: 36
In-reply-to: baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum)

In article <15355@apple.Apple.COM>, baum@Apple (Allen J. Baum) writes:
>[]
>>In article <46500024@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>>>In fact the DG Nova was a 16-bit version of a 12-bit machine (the PDP-8)
>>>and architecturally is atrocious compared to the PDP-11 at least in my
>>>opinion.
>
>I don't believe there is much resemblance between a PDP-8 and a Nova, even
>accounting for 16 vs. 12 bit words. The Nova was a Load/Store architecture,
>the first as far as I know. 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Naaah. Check out the 16 bit Control Data 1700/1704/1774/1714/1784.
Designed around 1964 (some say on the back of a napkin by this guy Cray),
it had two registers (A and Q), one of which was really used for
indexing.

The first 1700 (with core) had a 1.1us cycle time; most instructions
completed in one or two cycles.  The 1784, using ICs, could be had in a
600ns version; the processor speed was limited by memory cycle times.
These hardwired machines were designed for I/O intensive work, had
buffered and unbuffered paths out of memory, were often connected to 3
Mb head-per-track disks, and blew the doors off PDP-11s (well, maybe not
the mythical bipolar-memory 11/55).

They still move hydrocarbons around at Exxon Bayway and Exxon Baytown,
and jack the juice at REMVEC (RI, Eastern Mass, Vermont Energy Coop).
What goes around comes around....Seymour's still 20 years ahead of
everyone else.

Except the Butterfly, of course!

>{decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!apple!baum		(408)973-3385

Cheers,
Tim