25 Aug
2011
25 Aug
'11
11:31 p.m.
I know that Oregon State University received four (maybe six) Stretch
memory modules sometime in the 70s. I *think* they came from
Livermore. I was personally involved in a project to (successfully)
interface one of the beasts to our home-grown computer (Nebula)
replacing it's 4k words of glass-delay-line memory with 32K of core. If
I recall correctly, the stretch memory units were 16k X 72 bit data, of
which we used 34 bits (Nebula was 32 bit + two additional tag bits not
participating in arithmetic or logic operations.) We ran this unit for
a few years.
The units were originally acquired with the eye of adding them to our
CDC 3300 system (we had a pretty savvy team at the computer center
building all sorts of addons to our system) but the project was dropped
for some reason. In the shuffle, our Nebula team glommed onto one for
it's use and we build a really nice interface with multi-channel DMA
capability.
Unfortunately, the units were scrapped after I left school. We DID make
our changes without ANY mods to the stretch memory "just in case."
-Gary
On 08/25/2011 02:22 AM, Eric Smith wrote:
Brent Hilpert wrote:
In a similar vein, I don't suppose any of the
(few) 7030s (STRETCH)
have survived ..?
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "survived". Certainly there
are none that are operational, or even that could theoretically be
made operational without fabricating a lot of replacement equipment.
CHM has most of the Livermore machine, which unfortunately is missing
the core memory, disk, and the original console typewriter. When the
machine was auctioned, one person bid on it to try to preserve the
system, but others bid on the core memory and the console typewriter.
Apparently the person that bid on the typewriter really only wanted a
Selectric typewriter, and didn't need the special one used for the
7030. CHM is displaying the 7030 programmer's console with a normal
Selectric. (There were probably less than a dozen of the Selectric
model for the 7030 manufactured.)
<snip>
I have never been able to find any details of the ultimate disposition
of the other six 7030 systems.
Very little software for the 7030 still exists. The Computer History
Museum has printed listings of some software, and Al has scanned some
(or perhaps all) of it.