Reproducing old machines with newer technology (Re: PDP-12 at the RICM)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 07/15/2015 04:05 PM, Jay Jaeger wrote:

> Paul adapted PUFFT (Purdue University Fast FORTRAN Translator) to do
> RS-232 bit serial I/O through a sense switch, and I wrote a spooling
> program that ran on a Datacraft 6024 located in the same room to do the
> card reading and printing.  I suppose somewhere inside of it the DC 6024
> was humiliated - I expect that it was much faster than the 7094 II.  ;)

I remember PUFFT--that was Saul Rosen's baby, wasn't it?  A FORTRAN for 
undergrads--put in anything that *resembled* a FORTRAN statement and get 
some sort of result.  Missing parentheses?  Misspelling?  Outright 
syntax errors? No problem.  I think Purdue had two 709x systems for 
PUFFT  The CDC 6500 was reserved for Serious Work.

I understand that at the time, 7090/7094's were comparatively plentiful 
and (comparatively) inexpensive, hence their use.

> Liquid nitrogen would be the "or worse" part.  ;)

Neil had a lot of interesting stories about the ETA-10 (originally named 
the GF-10 for the target of 10 gigaflops).  It all seemed so fantastic 
back then.

Ah, it's all fun...

--Chuck