4 Feb
2007
4 Feb
'07
2:22 p.m.
In my original post I did not mention that, but as I recall there was 9K of
volatile memory (tubes) and later we added 144 BYTES of core memory. To
begin with when we had no non-volitile memory the programs were typed on a
teletype tape and loaded when needed from a paper tape reader following a
boot tape. A boot progam was added when we got the 144 bytes of core. That
was the main use of the core to store a boot program. At one time they
tried a Drum "hard drive" but it was very unreliable. The whole process
was very slow sometimes taking a couple of hours to get it booted and
programs loaded due to the unreliability of the tape reader which was very
finicky about the tape speed and the speed was governed by how fast you
pulled the tape through! Yes, by hand, no motorized tape reader. Once
booted and a program loaded you could then store and retrieve data from the
Ampex drives but could not store programs or retrieve them from tape. I
don't know why because it would seem a natural way to do it...in hindsight.
Yes it was an IBM
On 2/4/07, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 4 Feb 2007 at 12:53, Brent Hilpert wrote:
--
Jim Isbell
"If you are not living on the edge, well then,
you are just taking up too much space."
Given Ampex tape drives, has the "7070"
number lead to the presumption
in the
discussion that it was an IBM processor?. Might
it be that it was made
by
another manufacturer, and a one-off/special
contract that wouldn't
typically
show up in popular lineages?
Maybe someone still has the original message that started this
thread, but I seem to remember that there was something in it that
at least confirmed the 7070 architecture. I think it was the mention
of 5K words of core being standard.
Cheers,
Chuck