17 Aug
2007
17 Aug
'07
12:47 p.m.
Seth Morabito wrote:
I can't think of Prime Computers without thinking of this ad, now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Zf8oKuPYo
Oh Dr. Who, why did you sell out? And for a Prime, no less! ;)
-Seth
--------------------
Beautiful! Thanks for posting that. It's a great juxtaposition.
Billy
17 Aug
17 Aug
1:11 p.m.
Seth Morabito wrote:
I can't think of Prime Computers without thinking of this ad, now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Zf8oKuPYo
Oh Dr. Who, why did you sell out? And for a Prime, no less! ;)
Does anyone know what the approximate date of this ad might be?
(Post 1977, certainly, since FORTRAN 77 is mentioned).
Cheers,
Chuck
4:13 p.m.
Does anyone know what the approximate date of this ad
might be?
(Post 1977, certainly, since FORTRAN 77 is mentioned).
I saw this previously, from a non-Youtube source. It was marked 1980.
And the piece is titled "Step into the 80's!". The color scheme
predates the model 2250 iirc, and that was a 1982 model.
I don't know when Prime quit shipping Terminets as consoles. The disk
drive looks like the 80 MB removable pack drive. I believe the 750 CPU
was a dual cabinet model, so this would be one of the smaller three
digit systems.
For whatever trust it has, the Wikipedia article also says it was 1980,
and that the actors are Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. It also includes a
link to another Prime advert on youtube.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Computer
De
4:50 p.m.
On 17 Aug 2007 at 16:13, Dennis Boone wrote:
For whatever trust it has, the Wikipedia article also
says it was 1980,
and that the actors are Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. It also includes a
link to another Prime advert on youtube.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_Computer
Ah, there's another Dr. Who Prime ad:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY6TdIMu5Qo&NR=1
Cheers,
Chuck
5:35 p.m.
On 8/17/07, Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu> wrote:
For whatever trust it has, the Wikipedia article also
says it was 1980,
and that the actors are Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. It also includes a
link to another Prime advert on youtube.
Being a long-time Doctor Who fan, I can confirm that the Wikipedia
article is correct as to the identity of the actors.
I don't know much about Prime machines (I'm much more of a DEC-head,
for those that don't know me), but the setup in the ad looked
interesting. I'd be curious to learn how that installation would
compare to early 1980s DEC kit, I'd guess either a VAX 11/750 or
11/780 in terms of power, but that's an uneducated guess.
Can someone who knows both brands make some sort of comparison?
-ethan
6:14 p.m.
I don't know much about Prime machines (I'm
much more of a DEC-head, for
those that don't know me), but the setup in the ad looked interesting.
I'd be curious to learn how that installation would compare to early
1980s DEC kit, I'd guess either a VAX 11/750 or 11/780 in terms of
power, but that's an uneducated guess.
Can someone who knows both brands make some sort of
comparison?
So the hardware shown is (a) a GE Terminet ksr, (b) 300 lpm chain
printer, (c) 800 bpi tape drive, (d) 50 series CPU of indeterminate
model, (e) CDC 9762 removable pack drive (80 MB).
The 750 CPU was a 1 MIPS engine, and would have had up to 8 MB of RAM.
The slower possibilites (250, 550, 550-II, 650) would range from .5 to
.7 MIPS. Prime 750s competed fairly well with 11/780s in the market.
Prime were fond of calling the 50 series 32 bit systems, but that's
stretching the truth a little. At their roots they were 16 bit systems
which had grown (many) extensions, but were not as thoroughly 32 bit as
the VAXen.
I once worked on an 11/780 with 60ish users at a time. Not fun. I
doubt most Prime 750s were abused quite that hard.
Note that the hardware shown is actually late 70s at best, but then I
guess that's true of any advert. In Prime's case, though, it may
actually be more pronounced, as they reused CPU boards in those three
digit models in a way that makes you wonder how much difference there
was. For more on this, see list of CPU board sets at:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.prime/browse_thread/thread/3ce01cff…
The comp.sys.prime faq shows the machine models in order of release.
De
7:21 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On 8/17/07, Dennis Boone <drb at msu.edu>
wrote:
Me too.
When I was a kid, I had such a *thing* for Lalla Ward.
Peace... Sridhar
For whatever trust it has, the Wikipedia article
also says it was 1980,
and that the actors are Tom Baker and Lalla Ward. It also includes a
link to another Prime advert on youtube.
Being a long-time Doctor Who fan, I can confirm that the Wikipedia
article is correct as to the identity of the actors. 
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Billy.Pettit＠wdc.com -
cclist＠sydex.com -
drb＠msu.edu -
ethan.dicks＠gmail.com -
jwest＠classiccmp.org -
ploopster＠gmail.com