7 Jul
2005
7 Jul
'05
2:49 p.m.
>>>> "Tony" == Tony Duell <ard
at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Size is probably a big issue, but DEC made some
big machines and
> IBM made some small ones, and the DEC boxes still seem to get more
> attention from collectors. I think that the relative availability
> of DEC hardware, software, and documentation simply makes
Tony> I suspect is is partly the doucmentation. DEC machines of this
Tony> period tended to come with schematics rather than board-swapper
Tony> guides (which is what the IBM service manuals I've seen
Tony> were). There are thus plenty of PDP8, PDP11, etc shematics
Tony> around.
Tony> And IBM used custom parts a lot earlier than DEC. I've not seen
Tony> a 370, but I'd be suprised if it was all off-the-shelf
Tony> components. Unibus PDP11s PDP8s, etc tended to be.
Judging by the mainframes section of the IBM history pages
(http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/index.html) custom components
arrived with the 360. That may also when schematics stopped
appearing, which makes sense. On the other hand, I know we had
schematics for our college 1620. Very hard to read schematics since
they were printed on a line printer (an early version of "ASCII
graphics"), but they were there nevertheless.
paul