9 Mar
2023
9 Mar
'23
5:56 p.m.
On Mar 9, 2023, at 8:45 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 3/9/23 17:33, Jon Elson via cctalk 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.
paul
On 3/9/23 15:51, Steve Lewis via cctalk wrote:
Well, the IBM 709x was housed in 11 or more
cabinets that were larger
than the largest home refrigerator. These cabinets were interconnected
by cables containing 100 coax cables and had one-foot square connectors
with 200 pins. The 7094 had 55,000 transistors on 11,000 circuit
cards. This was a TRULY huge computer system. The 7030 STRETCH was
built with similar technology, but way more of those cabinets.
https://d3i71xaburhd42.cloudfront.net/d7fd7af8c26e659d712bf029d2287c919847e…
And that's not counting the stations or SBUs. 1970s.
--Chuck 