14 Mar
2017
14 Mar
'17
2:41 p.m.
From: Dwight Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it work, of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world?
Noel
PS: Sorry about the previous mostly-duplicate message; I hit the 'interrupt'
key and it did the wrong thing.
14 Mar
14 Mar
2:45 p.m.
It is not likely to be made to work, easily. From what I was
told, the mercury ones needed to be rebuilt after some time.
Most likely because the mercury dissolved one of the metals
used in side.
I can't imagine what that might be and why they continued
to have such a problem but that is what I hear someplace.
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Noel Chiappa via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2017 2:41:57 PM
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Cc: jnc at mercury.lcs.mit.edu
Subject: Re: Univac I memory tank
From: Dwight Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it work, of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world?
Noel
PS: Sorry about the previous mostly-duplicate message; I hit the 'interrupt'
key and it did the wrong thing.
2:59 p.m.
On Mar 14, 2017, at 5:45 PM, dwight via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
It is not likely to be made to work, easily. From what I was
told, the mercury ones needed to be rebuilt after some time.
Most likely because the mercury dissolved one of the metals
used in side.
I can't imagine what that might be and why they continued
to have such a problem but that is what I hear someplace.
Dwight
Possible, but it seems odd. Mercury dissolves lots of metals (iron is one exception),
forming alloys called amalgams. But that's well known, you would expect people making
mercury based devices to know it and avoid it.
paul
2:49 p.m.
On 2017-Mar-14, at 2:41 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
Depends on how particular you want to be about categorisation, there are some number of
60s calculators using magnetostrictive delay line memory still in existence and working
(I've got several).
From: Dwight
Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it work, of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world? 
3 p.m.
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 4:41 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided
they can make it work,
of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world?
If that's from a Univac I, I'd love to see it in a museum as well!
According to Wikipedia there were only 18 Univac I installations, so this
is a pretty rare piece.
--
Ben Sinclair
ben at bensinclair.com
9:17 p.m.
The mercury also gets dirty from its own oxidization
On Mar 14, 2017 5:00 PM, "Ben Sinclair via cctalk" <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 4:41 PM, Noel Chiappa via
cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I think it belongs in a museum, actually.
Provided they can make it work,
of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left
in
the world?
If that's from a Univac I, I'd love to see it in a museum as well!
According to Wikipedia there were only 18 Univac I installations, so this
is a pretty rare piece.
--
Ben Sinclair
ben at bensinclair.com
15 Mar
15 Mar
1:11 a.m.
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 05:41:57PM -0400, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
CHM has one: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X976.89
It used to be on display, perhaps it still is.
/P
From: Dwight
Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it work, of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world?
6:32 a.m.
I can't imagine why it needed to be reworked. That is only what I was told. I always
thought it was kind of funny.
The Olivetti used a piece of wire for the delay line. I forget what the Dielh Combitron
used but I know it used a two delay lines. One was for registers and the other was for
lookup tables that loaded at turn on time from a metal tape ( as I recall ).
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Pontus Pihlgren via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 1:11:10 AM
To: Noel Chiappa; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Univac I memory tank
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 05:41:57PM -0400, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
CHM has one: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X976.89
It used to be on display, perhaps it still is.
/P
From: Dwight
Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it work, of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world? 
7:45 a.m.
Adds a whole new dimension to the term "memory leak".
Marc
On Wed, Mar 15, 2017 at 6:32 AM, dwight via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
I can't imagine why it needed to be reworked. That
is only what I was
told. I always thought it was kind of funny.
The Olivetti used a piece of wire for the delay line. I forget what the
Dielh Combitron used but I know it used a two delay lines. One was for
registers and the other was for lookup tables that loaded at turn on time
from a metal tape ( as I recall ).
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Pontus Pihlgren
via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 15, 2017 1:11:10 AM
To: Noel Chiappa; General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Univac I memory tank
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 05:41:57PM -0400, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote:
work, of
From:
Dwight Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line
main memories are left
in
the world?
CHM has one: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X976.89
It used to be on display, perhaps it still is.
/P
16 Mar
16 Mar
2:22 a.m.
On Wed, 15 Mar 2017, dwight wrote:
The Olivetti used a piece of wire for the delay line.
I forget what the
Dielh Combitron used but I know it used a two delay lines. One was for
registers and the other was for lookup tables that loaded at turn on
time from a metal tape ( as I recall ).
I can tell you exactly what the Diehl Combitron does; I have a running
bachelor thesis for a student who is developing an emulator and assembler
for that machine, and we have also disassembled (but not yet
understood) the firmware (contained on the metal tape) of the machine.
In fact, it uses two magnetostrictive delay lines, one is called the R
delay line containing 219 bits plus one external in a flip-flop. The other
is called the M delay line with a total of 10889+1 bits. The main clock of
the machine is 1 MHz thus a bit time (called P) is 1 ?s.
The R line holds four words ? 55 bits, one in the I phase P bits time, one
in the I phase /P bits time, one in the /I phase P bits time and one in
the /I phase /P bits time. The instructions are always fetched from the I
phase /P bits and executed in the /I phase.
The M line holds a total of 99 P words and 99 /P words. The phase between
P and /P changes every M cycle
During the loading phase (e.g. at power on or after a 'e1' order) the R
line is filled with the contents coming from tape and then executed.
Usually the code just transfers the other three words of the R line
somewhere into the M line and restarts the loading phase for the next
block. After loading the last block a fill instruction "jumps" to the
entry point of the firmware. The fill instruction transfers four words
from the M line to the R line.
Christian
4:30 p.m.
If anyone has a Diehl Combitron or one of the NCR versions. I'd love
to have one. I used one years ago while working for UofMiami.
I used it because it could be programmed and did square root.
I can't pay what one is worth but would still love to have one.
Dwight
________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Christian Corti via
cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2017 2:22:27 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Univac I memory tank
On Wed, 15 Mar 2017, dwight wrote:
The Olivetti used a piece of wire for the delay line.
I forget what the
Dielh Combitron used but I know it used a two delay lines. One was for
registers and the other was for lookup tables that loaded at turn on
time from a metal tape ( as I recall ).
I can tell you exactly what the Diehl Combitron does; I have a running
bachelor thesis for a student who is developing an emulator and assembler
for that machine, and we have also disassembled (but not yet
understood) the firmware (contained on the metal tape) of the machine.
In fact, it uses two magnetostrictive delay lines, one is called the R
delay line containing 219 bits plus one external in a flip-flop. The other
is called the M delay line with a total of 10889+1 bits. The main clock of
the machine is 1 MHz thus a bit time (called P) is 1 ?s.
The R line holds four words ? 55 bits, one in the I phase P bits time, one
in the I phase /P bits time, one in the /I phase P bits time and one in
the /I phase /P bits time. The instructions are always fetched from the I
phase /P bits and executed in the /I phase.
The M line holds a total of 99 P words and 99 /P words. The phase between
P and /P changes every M cycle
During the loading phase (e.g. at power on or after a 'e1' order) the R
line is filled with the contents coming from tape and then executed.
Usually the code just transfers the other three words of the R line
somewhere into the M line and restarts the loading phase for the next
block. After loading the last block a fill instruction "jumps" to the
entry point of the firmware. The fill instruction transfers four words
from the M line to the R line.
Christian
5 Apr
5 Apr
7:07 p.m.
On Mar 15, 2017, at 3:11 AM, Pontus Pihlgren via cctalk wrote:
On Tue, Mar 14, 2017 at 05:41:57PM -0400, Noel Chiappa
via cctalk wrote:
CHM has one: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X976.89
It used to be on display, perhaps it still is.
/P
It appears the external photos associated with the auction were pulled. Is the lucky
winner on this list? Given the location, I was curious if this came from UNIVAC #24 (the
last operating UNIVAC I). -C
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Univac-vintage-large-computer-Parts-only-AS-IS-/162…
From:
Dwight Kelvey
I need on of those.
I think it belongs in a museum, actually. Provided they can make it work, of
course! :-) I wonder how many working delay line main memories are left in
the world?
2588
days inactive
2611
days old
11 comments
10 participants
participants (10)
-
ben＠bensinclair.com -
bhilpert＠shaw.ca -
cc＠informatik.uni-stuttgart.de -
coryheisterkamp＠gmail.com -
cramcram＠gmail.com -
dkelvey＠hotmail.com -
jnc＠mercury.lcs.mit.edu -
paulkoning＠comcast.net -
pontus＠Update.UU.SE -
tdk.knight＠gmail.com