9 Dec
2004
9 Dec
'04
11:04 p.m.
Today I started mothballing the VAX 6000 and noticed
that a large part
of its power supply is on 3.3 volts, now common, but probably not in 1988.
Seems like something was invented, probably in chip design that made
3.3 so useful. I wonder what that was, when that landmark was reached.
Not likely in the 6000, but large machines sometimes have a supply of
lesser voltage for use in the bus terminations (like the -2.0 volts found
in both 10K and 100K ECL machines).
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org