17 Jun
2020
17 Jun
'20
7:28 p.m.
And Lincoln had MN license plate ?ETAOIN? on his rusted out Ford van and one of the other
guys in our ?wiz kid? bunch had ?SHRDLU? on his plates.
We later learned that the Eta were some kind of Spanish terrorist group and so Neil liked
that story better? we were going to terrorize the supercomputer world with this ETA-10.
cje
--
Chris Elmquist
On Jun 17, 2020, at 3:28 PM, Chuck Guzis via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
?On 6/17/20 12:25 PM, Liam Proven via cctalk wrote:
https://archive.org/details/FarewellEtaoinShrdlu
28min documentary on the last ever edition of the NY Times to be
printed using hot metal -- before they switched to what are now a
quite choice assortment of late-'70s minicomputers. I think I spotted
a PDP, a Data General and some IBM device, but I am no expert in this
era.
When I was in college, I went on a weekend trip with a friend to see
where he worked during the summer. It was a print-shop, complete with
both letterpress and offset--and a Linotype ("pot" heated with natural
gas). The local advertising circular was still set with hot type and I
witnessed the operation of that contraption. Noisy and wonderful.
See the Twilight Zone episode "Printer's Devil" for another sample.
I was told that most newspaper pressmen were alcoholics, as it blunted
the effect of the then-toxic inks used in printing.
Anent ETAOIN: Early on in the formation of the CDC spinoff, ETA
Systems, I asked Neil Lincoln what "ETA" stood for. He related the
story of his son and ETAOIN SHRDLU. Back then, the name of the
supercomputer was referred to as the GF-10; later changed to the ETA-10.
(GF standing for GigaFLOP).
--Chuck