14 Oct
2015
14 Oct
'15
8:15 a.m.
From: Liam Proven
I don't know if this memoir is well-known or not,
but I thought it
might interest.
...
http://jack.hoa.org/hoajaa/BurrMain.html
Wow! What a fabulous story/writeup! Highly recommend to everyone.
Noel
15 Oct
15 Oct
4:57 a.m.
On 14 October 2015 at 17:15, Noel Chiappa <jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
Wow! What a fabulous story/writeup! Highly recommend
to everyone.
Oh good -- glad someone else enjoyed it. :-)
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ? GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven
MSN: lproven at hotmail.com ? Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven
Cell/Mobiles: +44 7939-087884 (UK) ? +420 702 829 053 (?R)
7:07 a.m.
Yes execellent.
Wire wrapped motherboard and only one in existance ! Sheesh what a risk.
An order for 30 systems from Midland Bank for an unbuilt untested computer?
Rod Smallwood
I have seen reference to the mainframe market actually growing again.
Is who is left in te game apart from IBM?
On 15/10/2015 12:57, Liam Proven wrote:
On 14 October 2015 at 17:15, Noel Chiappa <jnc at
mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote:
--
Wanted : KDJ11-E M8981 KK8-E M8300 KK8-E M8310 KK8-E M8320 KK8-E M8330
Wow! What a fabulous story/writeup! Highly
recommend to everyone.
Oh good -- glad someone else enjoyed it. :-)
10:18 a.m.
New subject: Motherboard (Was: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
> Wire wrapped motherboard and only one in existance
! Sheesh what a risk.
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015, Mark Linimon wrote:
minor quibble: I doubt they called it a
"motherboard" in that time frame.
More likely "backplane".
Wasn't the B5900 from 1980?
"Motherboard" was around then, although Burroughs might not have used it.
Burroughs might very well have been more inclined to call it "backplane".
"The earliest known reference to motherboard, the main circuit board of a
personal computer, comes from a 1971 article in the British journal
Electrical and Electronics Abstracts, according to the Oxford English
Dictionary. The article refers to one daughterboard mounted vertically on
a computer size motherboard."
from:
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/01/the-mother-of-all-boards.html
Google is not my friend today. I'm encountering multiple variants of "in
the 1980s and 1990s, it became popular to put peripheral controllers on
the board", red and blue text overlayed on a full color picture, "IBM PC
was the first motherboard" (especially amusing since it was similar form
factor and basic layout as Apple][)
S100 backplane was often called a "motherboard".
By 1978, the Apple ][ main board was called a "motherboard" in the
industry, although IIRC, Apple preferred to call it a "logic board".
IBM explicitly refused to call it a "motherboard" on the 5150. According
to an unreliable source (my late uncle working there at the time), that
was due to horrified shock at TV coverage of Black Panther speeches at
Merritt College in Oakland in the late 1960s (when I had attended) and
on, that had very extensive use of the word "MOTHERFUCKER", shortened to
"MOTHER__" on TV. "UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHER__!" To avoid
association,
IBM refused to call it a "motherboard".
In the late 1960s, Merritt College had a 1401 and a 1620.
Some say that Peralta Community College District's decision to move
Merritt College up into the suburban hills in 1972? was in order to pull
the campus out from under the Panthers. In early 1980s, Merritt College
had a DEC with a rarely working third party drive, and then switched to
5150s in 1983. I taught up on the hill for 20 years, starting in 1983
(total of more than 30 years teaching in the PCCD system)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
10:36 a.m.
New subject: Motherboard (Was: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
I re-read the artical and backplane is what he called it. At least he
called the wirewrap version that.
I went back to my engineer days and tried to think what I would have
called it.
Bus board or main interconnect is all I can think of.
Rod
On 15/10/2015 18:18, Fred Cisin wrote:
--
Wanted : KDJ11-E M8981 KK8-E M8300 KK8-E M8310 KK8-E M8320 KK8-E M8330
> Wire
wrapped motherboard and only one in existance ! Sheesh what a
> risk.
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015, Mark Linimon wrote:
minor quibble: I doubt they called it a
"motherboard" in that time
frame.
More likely "backplane".
Wasn't the B5900 from 1980?
"Motherboard" was around then, although Burroughs might not have used it.
Burroughs might very well have been more inclined to call it "backplane".
"The earliest known reference to motherboard, the main circuit board
of a personal computer, comes from a 1971 article in the British
journal Electrical and Electronics Abstracts, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary. The article refers to one daughterboard mounted
vertically on a computer size motherboard."
from:
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/01/the-mother-of-all-boards.html
Google is not my friend today. I'm encountering multiple variants of
"in the 1980s and 1990s, it became popular to put peripheral
controllers on the board", red and blue text overlayed on a full color
picture, "IBM PC was the first motherboard" (especially amusing since
it was similar form factor and basic layout as Apple][)
S100 backplane was often called a "motherboard".
By 1978, the Apple ][ main board was called a "motherboard" in the
industry, although IIRC, Apple preferred to call it a "logic board".
IBM explicitly refused to call it a "motherboard" on the 5150.
According to an unreliable source (my late uncle working there at the
time), that was due to horrified shock at TV coverage of Black Panther
speeches at Merritt College in Oakland in the late 1960s (when I had
attended) and on, that had very extensive use of the word
"MOTHERFUCKER", shortened to "MOTHER__" on TV. "UP AGAINST THE
WALL
MOTHER__!" To avoid association,
IBM refused to call it a "motherboard".
In the late 1960s, Merritt College had a 1401 and a 1620.
Some say that Peralta Community College District's decision to move
Merritt College up into the suburban hills in 1972? was in order to
pull the campus out from under the Panthers. In early 1980s, Merritt
College had a DEC with a rarely working third party drive, and then
switched to 5150s in 1983. I taught up on the hill for 20 years,
starting in 1983 (total of more than 30 years teaching in the PCCD
system)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com 
10:38 a.m.
New subject: Motherboard (Was: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
"Motherboard" was around then, although
Burroughs might not have used it.
Burroughs might very well have been more inclined to call it "backplane".
I generally use the term 'motherboard' for the sort of thing you find in an
IBM5150 or Apple ][ -- that is a board with a lot of electronics on it and the
edge connectors for daughterboards (I/O cards, etc) whereas I use the term
'backplane' for what I have in a PDP11 or PERQ, etc, just connectors wired
together
(maybe with some simple logic) and almost everything on plug-in boards.
Incidentally, the HP150 has the procrssor and video boards, along with 2 optional
I/O boards going in from the rear of the case and plugging into a PCB of connectors
(and IIRC a simple printer interface). Due to its position HP call it the
'frontplane'. I have
never seen that term used anywhere else (I assume it's also applicable to the HP120
but I have never seen any technical info for that machine).
-tony
10:57 a.m.
New subject: Motherboard (Was: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 10:38 AM, tony duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
wrote:
The documentation for the AMT DAP 600 I have refers to a "midplane," so
named because it's in the center of the machine, with boards plugged into
both sides...
- Josh
"Motherboard" was around then, although Burroughs might not have used it.
Burroughs might very well have been more inclined to call it "backplane".
I generally use the term 'motherboard' for the sort of thing you find in an
IBM5150 or Apple ][ -- that is a board with a lot of electronics on it and
the
edge connectors for daughterboards (I/O cards, etc) whereas I use the term
'backplane' for what I have in a PDP11 or PERQ, etc, just connectors wired
together
(maybe with some simple logic) and almost everything on plug-in boards.
Incidentally, the HP150 has the procrssor and video boards, along with 2
optional
I/O boards going in from the rear of the case and plugging into a PCB of
connectors
(and IIRC a simple printer interface). Due to its position HP call it the
'frontplane'. I have
never seen that term used anywhere else (I assume it's also applicable to
the HP120
but I have never seen any technical info for that machine).
-tony
1:04 p.m.
New subject: Motherboard (Was: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
> Wasn't the B5900 from 1980?
On Thu, 15
Oct 2015, Mark Linimon wrote:
Hmm. I guess my mind put "B5500" for
"B5900".
Yeah, that would make a difference.
Wikipedia (not necessarily reliable) lists the B5500 at 1964,
and the B5900 in 1980.
OED researchers found published use of "motherboard" in 1971, but no idea
how long it had been used as a term before that written reference. So,
B5500 could be before "motherboard" was a term. Although, I remember a
mention of it in conversation in 1967.
Much like the common usage of "bug" LONG before Grace Hopper used the
common term in a log, "inventing the term".
OTOH, renaming "Altair Bus" to "S100" happened over a few months.
Some used "motherboard" to refer to a simple set of multiple connectors,
such as S100,
whereas some will only use it if it has significant circuitry on it,
not just termination.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
1:06 p.m.
New subject: Motherboard (Was: The Burroughs B5900 and E-Mode
IIRC, IBM liked to refer to them as planar boards...
On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 2:34 PM, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com> wrote:
On Thu, Oct 15, 2015 at 10:18:46AM -0700, Fred Cisin
wrote:
Wasn't the B5900 from 1980?
Hmm. I guess my mind put "B5500" for "B5900".
mcl
3308
days inactive
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11 comments
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ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
derschjo＠gmail.com -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
linimon＠lonesome.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
oltmansg＠gmail.com -
rodsmallwood52＠btinternet.com