70's computers

Gordon Henderson gordon+cctalk at drogon.net
Wed Oct 24 03:54:31 CDT 2018


On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:

> On 10/23/2018 3:32 PM, Gordon Henderson via cctalk wrote:
>> On Tue, 23 Oct 2018, ben via cctalk wrote:
>> 
>>> The PDP 11 is nice machine, but I am looking  for simpler designs
>>> where 16K words is a valid memory size for a OS and small single user 
>>> software.
>> 
>> Try the Modular One with an OS written in BCPL.
>> 
>> https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/files/3230/PRG08.pdf
>> 
>> Although that paper suggest 32K of core.
>> 
> A quick search shows NO DOCUMENTS online. Another LOST sytem from the 
> 70's.Ben.

There's a few bits & piece online, maybe not in the "usual" places though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Technology_Limited

http://www.redhawksys.com/index_files/Page627.htm

Also worthwhile noting that Iann Baron 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iann_Barron ) went on to found inmos and 
create the transputer. I worked in Bristol for some time, starting with a 
company founded by some ex-inmos employees in the mid 80's building 
transputer base supercomputers - a CPU with a curious instruction set that 
(coincidentally?) might be a good fit for the BCPL CINTCODE system. I'm 
also sure that the transputer is very much influenced by the Modular One 
too.

BCPL continues on to this day, now a 32 or 64 bit language running on all 
mainstream OSs and processors.

-Gordon


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