Seeking disruptive tech

[William Donzelli]

> My statement that you contradicted specifically said commercially
available.

Why did you add the whole "commercially available" pat, when I specifically
meant the modules that were in the early PDPs?

> Unless they were sold as a supported end-user product, no one in their
> right mind outside CDC would build anything other than maybe a one-off
with
> them, no matter how much better they were.

CDC had a pretty big chunk of the industrial controls automation market,
specifically chemical and oil transport. The often overlooked 1700
minicomputer coupled with the 1500 series real world I/O systems were the
keys, all glued together with 3000 series logic modules. Keep in mind that
these are not the cordwood nightmares that most people think of. 3000
series parts were of standard construction.

And with industrial automation, specifically in the chemical industry,
there is constant change. New gizmos and interfaces were being designed all
the time.

> There were proprietary digital ICs before the standard MECL, RTL, DTL, and
> TTL families, too, but they didn't see wide adoption for the same reason.

I might think that the combination of high cost and low reliability made
for the early IC families being nothing more than stepping stones.

--
Will