----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan Roganti" <ragooman at comcast.net>
To: <General at cnc.net>; "Discussion at cnc.net:On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts"
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 12, 2008 9:08 PM
Subject: Re: SEL advert (question)
Yes, the computer division was acquired several times actually. Initially
by Gould in '81, briefly by Nippon Mining Japan(blocked due to national
security conflicts with Defense contracts), then by Encore in '88, and
then the Storage Products unit by SUN (the Computer products unit went
bellyup as did the rest of Encore). It wasn't the same anymore with
Encore, although they won some big defense contracts, they were constantly
fighting against financial disaster.
I was employed there when Gould acquired us, that company is still around
but not into computers. It was kinda funny then, they're logo resembled
the Pacman character eating a power pellet--it was during that heyday in
arcades. So we made copies of the logo which included the eyes to match,
the power pellet was renamed SEL--albeit to symbolize our internment by
the new owners--and we put them on all the machines in the lab.
The Powernode line let SEL/Gould continue to provide machines which had
stronger benchmarks than DEC.
I have a brief history that I've been documenting online together with
some of the long time SEL engineers.
I'm currently revising my homepage, it's still a rough draft, but you can
see a lot there so far.
http://www2.applegate.org/~ragooman/computers_mini_sel.html
=Dan
Rick Bensene wrote:
> Just a question about SEL's history: Wasn't it bought out, or merged
> into Gould at some time?
> Anyone know when this happened? I recall for a time some computers
> being marketed as Gould/SEL.
>
> I think some of the SEL design ideas ended up in a wonderful machine
> that I once operated/administered running a Berkeley 4.3 variant of Unix
> called a Gould PowerNode 9080. This machine was built with ECL logic,
> and handily out-performed the VAXen of the period (late 1980's?) in a
> many user Unix environment.
> Al K. wrote:
>
>> We have quite a bit of SEL documentation in the Computer History
>>
> Museum archives.
>
>
>
>
>
We have complete SEL 810 with doc's, programs on paper tape, test
equipment,
spare parts and other items. It was turned off for the last time in July of
2006. We hope to set it all and have it running later this year. They had
another complete system but we had to pass on it.
John