28 Mar
2010
28 Mar
'10
1:27 p.m.
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
Thanks,
Michael Black
29 Mar
29 Mar
12:28 a.m.
Hi Michael,
I used to run a Boy Scout merit badge seminar, and we would have close to
500 scouts from all over Illinois and some from Indiana attend. We had
access to a school with about 20 classrooms, and had MTD buses to take
scouts to classes at the U of I and other places.
I took core stacks, paper tapes, disc platters, etc in for the the computer
merit badge, and from what I heard , the student got a lot out of the items.
Profs and grad student taught a lot of the courses, and the aviation class
even had a wind tunnel.
Paul
On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 3:27 PM, Michael Black <blackmd at gmail.com> wrote:
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
Thanks,
Michael Black
3:51 a.m.
Michael Black wrote:
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
You should contact Bill Degnan from vintagecomputer.net. He teaches a
class just like this at Univ.Delaware with hands-on instruction using
vintage computers.
=Dan
http://www.vintagecomputer.net/ragooman/
7:33 a.m.
I appreciate the idea.
Subject: Using vintage computers in the classroom
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
Thanks,
Michael Black
10:46 a.m.
Hi Michael,
I assume you have seen:
http://fs6.depauw.edu:50080/~dharms/pdp11/ and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV-7J5y1TQc
Great idea BTW!
Lee Courtney
________________________________
From: Michael Black <blackmd at gmail.com>
To: cctech at classiccmp.org
Sent: Sun, March 28, 2010 1:27:56 PM
Subject: Using vintage computers in the classroom
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
Thanks,
Michael Black
10:57 a.m.
students on field trips to computer museums. However,
I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
I am not a lecturer (or whatever you wish to call it), so I can't give
actual experience. But some years ago now I was present at a set of 8
talks given to a student computer society about the design and operation
of an 'real' processor board. Said processor consisted of about 260
chips, TTL, PALs, 2900 series, etc and was analused to gate level in most
cases. I think every last IC was mentioned somewhere.
I feel that many students could understand the design of a sime
minicomputer processor (top of my list, becauase it is simple and
well-docuemtned would be the PDP8/e) And IMHO there is no better way to
understand how a processor really owrks than to analyse a real processor,
and thus get to see all the detials (much as IMHO the best operating
systems cources examine the source code of an actual OS).
-tony
12:25 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Michael Black
Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2010 1:28 PM
To: cctech at classiccmp.org
Subject: Using vintage computers in the classroom
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
Thanks,
Michael Black
We've started giving lectures at the University of Washington in its Information
School (iSchool). We found that the match between what we're doing and the existing
academic program was better than that with computer science since, as Dijkstra once said,
"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about
telescopes." However, the iSchool folks are interested in the evolution of
information technology and how it has enabled progress in information and library science.
We're still in our first steps, and haven't made a lot of use of vintage systems
in the classroom (although I do like to bring along my PDP-8/f, just to demonstrate what a
desktop computer looked like in 1970). We are creating plans for homework that would have
the students working with our online PDP-10 and/or VAX-11 machines. I'd also like to
have projects requiring them to use a system with nothing but paper tape for mass storage.
But we do get the students 'in the room' with vintage machines, by providing tours
of the Living Computer Museum that build on the substance of the lectures. It really does
make an impact when they stand in front of a history-making machine like the PDP-7 or see
DECtape in action. We tie it into modern equivalents whenever possible - for instance, I
refer to DECtape as the 'USB stick of 1970'. Comments have been overwhelmingly
positive. -- Ian
12:52 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
We're still in our first steps, and haven't
made a lot of use of vintage systems in the classroom (although I do like to bring along
my PDP-8/f, just to demonstrate what a desktop computer looked like in 1970).
If you have a moving van, you could bring a DataSystem 310 (PDP-8/a
w/RX02) to show that in 1978, a desktop computer was so-called because
it came with its own desk. ;-)
The Straight-8, the -8/S, the -8/L and the -8/e all had "desktop"
configurations as well as rackable configurations (i.e. - factory-made
desktop covers (black metal except for the Straight-8, which was
smoked plexi), but I think the other models of PDP-8 only had rackable
packages (not that you couldn't leave a PDP-8 out on a desk, but in
terms of aesthetics, vents, mounting ears, etc., they weren't "desk
pretty").
Still - the -8/f is more portable than an -8/e and does make the point
that I imagine you are trying to make (though anything more than the
CPU enclosure and a TTY starts to stretch the definition of "desktop",
especially if you start stacking rackable boxes for external disk or
DECtape or papertape - those weren't in desktop enclosures in 1970
AFAIK).
-ethan
1:14 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 12:52 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Using vintage computers in the classroom
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
True, true.
We're still in our first steps, and
haven't made a lot of use of
vintage systems in the classroom (although I do
like to bring along my
PDP-8/f, just to demonstrate what a desktop computer looked like in
1970).
If you have a moving van, you could bring a DataSystem 310 (PDP-8/a
w/RX02) to show that in 1978, a desktop computer was so-called because
it came with its own desk. ;-)
The Straight-8, the -8/S, the -8/L and the -8/e all
had "desktop"
configurations as well as rackable configurations (i.e. - factory-made
desktop covers (black metal except for the Straight-8, which was
smoked plexi), but I think the other models of PDP-8 only had rackable
packages (not that you couldn't leave a PDP-8 out on a desk, but in
terms of aesthetics, vents, mounting ears, etc., they weren't "desk
pretty").
Still - the -8/f is more portable than an -8/e and does make the point
that I imagine you are trying to make (though anything more than the
CPU enclosure and a TTY starts to stretch the definition of "desktop",
especially if you start stacking rackable boxes for external disk or
DECtape or papertape - those weren't in desktop enclosures in 1970
AFAIK).
-ethan
You're right, and the point of using an 8/f is that I walk into the room with it on a
little luggage cart and lift it onto the desk, plug it in and fire it up. Of course,
without a terminal of some sort as well as mass storage (minimally a paper tape reader),
it's not much use. But all of that is a good starting point to talk about how
computers became more and more accessible to the individual across that era. There was
nothing like it ten years earlier. -- Ian
1:35 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:14 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Ian King <IanK
at vulcan.com> wrote:
> > We're still in our first steps, and haven't made a lot of use of
> vintage systems in the classroom (although I do like to bring along my
> PDP-8/f, just to demonstrate what a desktop computer looked like in
> 1970).
.
.
.
You're right, and the point of using an 8/f is
that I walk into the room with it
on a little luggage cart and lift it onto the desk, plug it in and fire it up.
Indeed. If you had one to haul around, an -8/L with a desktop lid
would be heavier and larger than an -8/f (similar to an 8/e), but be a
reflection of the same sort of thing in 1968... a desktop computer for
under $10,000! (as was once advertised, IIRC)
?Of course, without a terminal of some sort as well as
mass storage (minimally a paper tape reader), it's
not much use.
Sure - I can't imagine that there were many PDP-8s that didn't at
least have an ASR-33. If you have access to one that's in the
tabletop (not pedestal mount) configuration, it might not be too hard
to wheel that plus your -8/f (or an -8/L) on that luggage cart - as
long as you don't tip the ASR-33 too far off of vertical, naturally.
A 4K machine plus ASR-33 (w/PTR) is enough to at least demonstrate
FOCAL. If it has core (all -8/L models did, but I don't recall if the
-8/f has the right PSU for core), you can even just turn it on and
have it start chattering - instant resume from hibernate!
?But all of that is a good starting point to talk
about how computers became more and more accessible to the individual across that era.
?There was nothing like it ten years earlier. ?-- Ian
Sure, 10 years earlier, but there was something like that two years
earlier, and perhaps 5-6 years earlier (the PDP-8/S, though I'm not
sure what you could reasonable show off with a 4K tabletop unit since
the TTY interface is external).
Fiddly details aside, it's still cool to wheel in a "personal
computer" from the era and watch the audience gape - I've done that
with my -8/L.
-ethan
3:40 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Ethan Dicks
Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 1:35 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Using vintage computers in the classroom
Sure - I can't imagine that there were many PDP-8s that didn't at
least have an ASR-33. If you have access to one that's in the
tabletop (not pedestal mount) configuration, it might not be too hard
to wheel that plus your -8/f (or an -8/L) on that luggage cart - as
long as you don't tip the ASR-33 too far off of vertical, naturally.
A 4K machine plus ASR-33 (w/PTR) is enough to at least demonstrate
FOCAL. If it has core (all -8/L models did, but I don't recall if the
-8/f has the right PSU for core), you can even just turn it on and
have it start chattering - instant resume from hibernate!
I'm running core in my 8/f. And you've given me an interesting idea: we don't
have a tabletop ASR33, but we do have a KSR, and if FOCAL was already loaded.... Thanks!
-- Ian
3:51 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:40 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
I'm running core in my 8/f. ?And you've given
me an interesting idea: we don't have a tabletop ASR33, but we do have a KSR, and if
FOCAL was already loaded.... ?Thanks! ?-- Ian
Excellent! That will certainly do something captivating.
Hammurabi/Sumer might be a little long to type in live, but it
shouldn't be hard to start with the right section of the Programming
Handbook and bang out a 1-4-line FOCAL program to demonstrate how
"fast" the machine is (Sieve of Eratosthenes anyone?)
If you have the opportunity to video that rig running through its
paces, I think it would be fun to see. You could upload it to YouTube
as "Portable Computer from 1970". ;-)
-ethan
30 Mar
30 Mar
12:23 p.m.
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
Hmmm. I would argue the HP Model 30 Calculator (aka HP9830) from 1973 is
a desktop computer. Or at least I'd love to see a sensible definition of
'desktop computer' that excludes it.
That machine is portable in the sense 1 person can easily carry it (HP
even sold an optional carrying handle..). I've carreid mine into
buildings to give talks/demonstrations of it.
We're still in our first steps, and
haven't made a lot of use of vintage systems in the classroom (although I do like to
bring along my PDP-8/f, just to demonstrate what a desktop computer looked like in 1970).
If you have a moving van, you could bring a DataSystem 310 (PDP-8/a
w/RX02) to show that in 1978, a desktop computer was so-called because
it came with its own desk. ;-)
The Straight-8, the -8/S, the -8/L and the -8/e all had "desktop"
configurations as well as rackable configurations (i.e. - factory-made
desktop covers (black metal except for the Straight-8, which was
smoked plexi), but I think the other models of PDP-8 only had rackable
packages (not that you couldn't leave a PDP-8 out on a desk, but in
I have. On the deks alongside me is a PDP8/e, a TU56 and sittiog on top
of the TU56 is a PC04.
terms of aesthetics, vents, mounting ears, etc., they
weren't "desk
pretty").
Indeed.
Philips mdea portable version of the P850 minicomputer. It was a standard
P850 chassis in a plastic casing.I suspect it took 2 people to move it
sensibly. I have never seen it, only pictures.
-tony
29 Mar
29 Mar
4:46 p.m.
On 3/28/10 3:27 PM, Michael Black wrote:
Hello cctech community,
I am a computer science professor and an avid collector and restorer
of old computers, which I routinely use in my classes. (I am also a
long-time lurker on cctech, but haven't posted much yet, I'm afraid.)
I am interested in chatting with other professors and teachers who use
working demonstrations of vintage technology in their classes. I am
aware of many cases where professors have taught courses on computer
history, used pictures and simulations of vintage computers, or took
students on field trips to computer museums. However, I am
particularly interested in examples where professors bring actual
working vintage equipment into the classroom (like a pdp-11 or a
teletype machine) and tried to teach their students to operate it.
Has anybody on this list tried it or know of people who do it?
I taught UNIX/Linux basic security classes for IBM and RedHat for
quite a few years. I often started the one-week session holding up a 3"
x 4" piece of plexiglas with Velcro strips down the long sides, with a
photo on the projector screen of my MicroPDP-11/53 with the
corresponding Velcro down each side of the switch panel.
"This is a security device. It's called a 'Molly guard'" and
I'd
explain the name (which made its function obvious).
My real point was that "security", in its most basic sense, involves
simply ensuring that data and function available to the user. It was a
very good way to clear any cloak & dagger preconceptions and get
students thinking about the most ubiquitous security issue - human error.
Somehow that Molly guard, illustrating that security was a concern
before some of my students existed, made my point very well.
Doc
5382
days inactive
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13 comments
9 participants
participants (9)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
blackmd＠gmail.com -
charlesleecourtney＠yahoo.com -
doc＠vaxen.net -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
IanK＠vulcan.com -
ICS65＠sbcglobal.net -
ragooman＠comcast.net -
useddec＠gmail.com