9 Mar
2023
9 Mar
'23
7:51 p.m.
On 3/9/23 17:56, Paul Koning wrote:
That picture serves to remind us of the packaging and
cooling genius that went into the CDC 6000 series machines, which could fairly be called
the first supercomputers. Logic like that and more, but in a much smaller package so it
can run faster. I suppose it didn't hurd that timing margins were shrunk down to
microscopic values (and, if you try to analyze the design, sometimes they become negative,
but somehow the machine worked anyway). They added a bunch of amazing magic to the core
memory as well.
The STAR was Jim Thornton's brainchild, so he was quite familiar with
the 6000 and 7000 series. I believe that the STAR used 7000 SCM core.
Most of the pipeline units were 128 bits wide; caore bus width was
512+SECDED. A fair amount of effort was put into finding something
that could feed the "STAR channel" at full bandwidth; hence, the 100K
RPM STAR drum and the SCROLL. Neither of which made it out of the lab.
It was a system of extremes. Apparently, in the beginning, Fairchild
had huge problems producing the chips for the register file (256x64 bits).
Neil Lincoln took over the project after Thornton got interested in
other things, after the departure of Seymour. I remember seeing an
excavator digging a trench around the employee parking lot at ARHOPS for
some high-speed network experiments of T's.
Not that Neil was a slouch in that department. Witness the liquid
nitrogen-cooled ETA-10 super. This when people were waxing lyrical
about Seymour's Fluorinert "Bubbles".
Heady days back then--you almost needed a program to keep track of the
various projects.
--Chuck