26 Nov
2018
26 Nov
'18
7:16 a.m.
I'm afraid I can't take that much credit for it; the system was in remarkably good
shape when I received it, and all I had to do was verify that the voltages put out by the
power supply were within tolerance and fire it up. The most work went into replacing the
rubber belts in the old QIC tape cartridges holding the software and backups. Having all
the documentation that spells out the magic incantations to boot the system helps too.
I still have one remaining issue, and that is that when I connect the system to my
network, it works (I can ping both ways), but the OS becomes unstable, and usually crashes
within a few minutes. Perhaps it has a problem with jumbo packets or something like that.
Camiel
?On 11/26/18, 10:20 AM, "Curious Marc" <curiousmarc3 at gmail.com> wrote:
Fantastic video and work! The immense boards and 3D molecular software are very
impressive!
Marc
On Nov 25, 2018, at 6:42 AM, Camiel Vanderhoeven via
cctech <cctech at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Now that my mousepad problem has been solved, and I have a fully working Ardent Titan
with some interesting software on it ? the bundled version of MATLAB, and BIOGRAF, a
molecular modeling application ? I decided to make a short video about this system in
which I show the hardware and demonstrate some of the software:
https://youtu.be/tMSnnt3iFz0
For those who haven?t heard of the system; the 1987 Ardent Titan (later renamed the
Stardent 1500) was the first system that combined vector processors (as in a Cray-like
architecture) and a graphics engine on the same backplane, and was the highest-performing
graphics supercomputer for a short while. In the end, however, a longer than planned time
to market and a forced merger with Stellar Computer caused the premature demise of the
company.
Cleve Moler, the inventor of MATLAB, worked at Ardent for three years, which is one of
the reasons the Titan was the only computer ever to come with MATLAB as part of its
bundled software. As I found out later ? after creating this video ? the version of MATLAB
on the Titan was unique, because it included a ?render? command, which would plot a 3D
surface using the Dor? graphics library. On other platforms, MATLAB could only render mesh
plots. It wasn?t until 1992 that the mainstream version of MATLAB gained 3D surface
rendering.
Cleve wrote a number of articles on his blog about the Titan, one of which
(https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2013/12/09/the-ardent-titan-part-2/) describes how the
Titan was used to create a video of a vibrating L-shaped membrane. With a little help from
Cleve, I?m trying to recreate this video. A first effort ? which isn?t quite right yet ?
can be seen here: https://youtu.be/-XeabDqRAG8
I hope some of you enjoy these!
Camiel