out-of-mainstream minis

[Paul Anderson]

Anyone ever heard of the IS1000? I can't remember if it was made by GE or
GTE.

On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:39 PM, Mike Ross <tmfdmike at gmail.com> wrote:

> There are interesting and obscure machines from the most mainstream
> manufacturers.
>
> Take the IBM System/7. Successor to the 1800, succeeded by the
> Series/1. They were *ubiquitous* - one in every telephone exchange in
> the USA, I've heard. They even made a special ruggedised version for
> shipboard use. Yet they're functionally *extinct*. Henk Stegeman in
> the Netherlands has most of one, but is missing a crucial board (ALU
> IIRC). I had a front panel, which I donated to Henk, and an OS disk. I
> retain one of the special IBM-branded ASR33 Teletypes that were
> sometimes used with them, plus a couple of manuals and sales
> brochures, And that's *it*. Unless anyone knows different, no complete
> systems exist.  They're extinct, and that's a scandal and a shame.
>
> Mike
>
> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 5:56 PM, Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca> wrote:
> > On 2015-Jul-01, at 2:26 PM, Matt Patoray wrote:
> >> On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 5:21 PM, Mark Linimon <linimon at lonesome.com>
> wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Jun 30, 2015 at 06:54:51PM -0700, Brent Hilpert wrote:
> >>>> Something I could wish to find/stumble-across would be one of the
> >>>> out-of-the-mainstream minis from the 60s/70s - something not DEC,
> >>>> not HP, not IBM, not DG (although a little Nova would be nice).
> >>>
> >>> I had to suffer through building something on a Computer Automation
> >>> mini back in the, well, never you mind when it was.  (The misery was
> >>> not the mini's fault).  So I would take one of those if it came
> >>> available.
> >>>
> >>> Still hoping for an 11/20, of course.
> >
> >> Varian made interesting mini computers with a very cool front panel.
> >>
> >> I think RCA at one time also made smaller computers along with the
> >> Spectra/70 mainframe series.
> >
> > It's always surprising how much variety there was in the mini market of
> that era.
> > Even when you take out what might be called the 2nd tier of
> manufacturers such as Microdata, Prime and so on, there was still a
> plethora of also-rans.
> >
> > I find it an interesting era: once ICs were readily available and easy
> to design with (mainly TTL), everyone and their dog decided they would take
> a stab at building and marketing a CPU. I was a kid in that era so wasn't
> on the inside, but my offhand interpretation is that while some of them may
> have been successful in niche areas such as instrumentation, in the main
> they got shook out when the reality of maintaining, marketing and evolving
> a system architecture hit. But, that's an historical progression common to
> many/most new technologies -
> > same thing happened in the microprocessor market a few years a later.
> >
> > A Varian has been sitting on ebay for sometime now .. sitting, because
> the price is silly:
> >
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-VARIAN-DATA-MACHINES-620-L-100-COMPUTER-/220737926675?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3365017613
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> http://www.corestore.org
> 'No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother.
> Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame.
> For one person, in the dark, where no one will ever know or see.'
>