What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

[dwight]

I don't have a Fortran compiler for it. I do have a BASIC that runs

on it. It has a number of useful operation like matrix operations.

The processor was intended to speed up Fourier transforms, using

a FFT. It even had a bit reversal operation for doing FFT addressing.

I also have a Diablo 80 drive, interface and a couple disks for it but have never

connected it up. When I first got it, I only had the single floppy drive.

I'd love to get more software for it. There is a lot of interesting items

in the user library.

Did you compile the Fortran on the 1080 or cross compile from some

other machine? By 1980 it was getting pretty long in the tooth.

The digitizer was most likely the reason it was still being used.

It is relatively easy to use.

Dwight


________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Douglas Taylor <dj.taylor4 at comcast.net>
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2017 8:24:43 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: What's the rarest or most unusual computer-related item do you own?

On 1/10/2017 5:29 PM, dwight wrote:
> I have  Nicolet 1080. It is a 20 bit computer and has
>
> 12Kx20 core memory.
>
> To my knowledge, there are only 5 of these remaining in existence.
>
> Only 375 were said to have been made.
>
> Mine is mostly working but the last time I ran it, it had disk problems.
>
> I need to debug it.
>
> Dwight
>
I used one of those in the early 1980's at the Naval Research Lab in
Wash DC.
A TI Silent 700 was the terminal and a Diablo removable disk held the OS.
The system was used with an equally rare Block Engineering 197RS Fourier
Transform Spectrometer to measure infrared spectra.
The signals from the spectrometer were collected on an HP instrumentation
tape recorder and digitized in the 1080 for processing.
I remember programming the damn thing in Fortran.  I had a lot of patience
in those days.

Doug