Comments on Moserware: Computing History Matters

sunrise programmer: Nice summary! History is often...

2008-04-17T07:12:00.000-04:00

sunrise programmer: Nice summary! History is often written by the winners and in hindsight things seem too obvious. It's good to know that the past, just like the present, is often certain and full of rabbit trails. However, as you mentioned, people can be creative with anything.

And an even neater thing about core memory: it was...

2008-04-16T20:08:00.000-04:00

And an even neater thing about core memory: it was the hot new memory at the time. It was very cheap and very fast.

The alternatives? Well, low-end computers used their magnetic drum (like a disk, only with less data and a bit faster) as their main memory. Others used various types of delay lines (put a bit in, get it out a while later, and cycle it around). For a while people used what are essentially TV tubes: turn a dot on, and then you can measure if it's on or not.

All of those, in turn, were the hot new technology, totally beating the old technology: just use vacuum tubes at the cost of a couple of tubes per bit.

And along side of all of these: seemingly dozens of 'other' memory that people dreamed up. IBM even made the most gigantic dinosaur of a beast: writing involved pointing light at some undeveloped film. The machine would them automatically develop and store the film for later retrieval.

The moral of the story? When technology is new, people cast about for whatever they think they can make work. They often can make it work, and then it's just up to history to pick which ideas work cheaply and reliably (CMOS memory) and which don't.

Mike: Very cool things with lots of smart people -...

2008-03-23T20:07:00.000-04:00

Mike: Very cool things with lots of smart people -- most with PhD's. It's a project that could significantly change thinking about computing and what types of cool things get discovered and created. If you read this post, you can sort of think of it like finally going beyond the golden age of the 1960's I talk about here.

It'll definitely be topics of upcoming posts. It just takes time to get enough things in place and research to get to that point.

Sorry to pry but what was going on in SV?

2008-03-23T19:53:00.000-04:00

Sorry to pry but what was going on in SV?

ohxten,If you're using Linux, then I'm typing this...

2008-03-22T07:21:00.000-04:00

ohxten,

If you're using Linux, then I'm typing this message on a CPU.

One thing that I frequently marvel at is how memor...

2008-03-21T22:19:00.000-04:00

One thing that I frequently marvel at is how memory has come down in size.

My Mum started as a computer operator in a data centre in 1999. Occasionally I would get to see around the centre. They had huge, standalone disk drives. Each one took a stack of about half-a-dozen 14 or 18 inch disks on a common axis, that could be plugged in and out of the drives.

These drives were about the size of two dishwashers, back to back, or perhaps a small dining table. Their storage capacity was 100 MB.

These days I can easily get 4 GB on a pen drive that is so small I can forget where I put it down.

Simon

Anonymous: Great link! After looking at that link ...

2008-03-21T22:04:00.000-04:00

Anonymous: Great link! After looking at that link and doing some more researching, I've significantly revised the statement. Thanks for pointing me to the deeper look at the story behind the layout.

Nice article. Just to throw it out there though, t...

2008-03-21T21:18:00.000-04:00

Nice article. Just to throw it out there though, there's some disagreement on the QWERTY story.

http://home.earthlink.net/~dcrehr/myths.html

"qwerty myth" on google gives a few others.

I used an ASR-33 Teletype in high school also, usi...

2008-03-21T20:21:00.000-04:00

I used an ASR-33 Teletype in high school also, using Coursewriter BASIC on an IBM 370. We also used IBM 029 keypunch machines to submit batch FORTRAN IV and COBOL programs. Now there's some physical evidence of history - look at the hole patterns on punch cards, and compare to the EBCDIC character set used on IBM and Burroughs systems. That explains why there are "gaps" in the sequences.

The TTYs were connected through dial phones with built-in modems; you'd dial the phone, set down the receiver, and then pull up one of the receiver buttons after you heard it connect. After hours, they would put locks on the dials. More than once I was caught connected with the phone locked - the teachers didn't seem to realize that you could dial a pulse line by tapping the pulses using the receiver buttons. Then I sent a letter to Coursewriter and got a copy of the BASIC system manual. It included the default superuser ID and password, which the school district of course hadn't changed...

Then I got a part-time job my senior year programming physics apps on an Apple ][ for the science department. More BASIC and some 6502 assembly.

Boy, it was a lot harder to play with computers back then!

All through school, I kept hearing about how I'd move on to "real" computers later. My first serious machine after that was a Univac 494 - core memory, drums, no disks, etc.

I'm forever grateful that I had the chance to work on such old systems, because it did give me a much richer understanding of why things are the way they are than I find in any of my coworkers nowadays.

mattl: You know what he meant. I think we're all t...

2008-03-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

mattl: You know what he meant. I think we're all tired of Linux fanboys making that point clear over, and over, and over... unless you're talking to Richard Stallman, nobody really cares.

Yes, I use Linux.

Nice post anyway, Jeff.

Anonymous #1: I'm currently reading "The Dream Mac...

2008-03-21T18:12:00.000-04:00

Anonymous #1: I'm currently reading "The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal" by M.Mitchell Waldrop. It's sort of what you're asking for.

Anonymous #2: Even still, it was several orders of magnitude off. I can feel Vint's dilemma as most of the address bits would be zero back in the days of even smaller pipes. It'd be nice if moving to IPv6 were easier now.

Des Courtney: I didn't know about folklore.org. Thanks for that and the other links.

Thomas Wahl: Thanks for the clarification. I'll update my post. I also liked the TTY in high school comment. What types of programs did you use on that machine? What were the quirks? What did you like about it?

Christopher Bennage: I appreciate the comment. I sometimes worry I hyperlink too much, but I like that style in other people's posts. It lets you dig deeper if you want to.

Fantastic post. I really appreciate all the effort...

2008-03-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

Fantastic post. I really appreciate all the effort (research and cross-linking) that you put into it. Thanks!

Just a nit, but...TTYs did not print on tape.They ...

2008-03-21T17:57:00.000-04:00

Just a nit, but...

TTYs did not print on tape.
They printed on rolled paper.
They punched paper tape which
corresponded to what was being printed, and the paper tape could
be read to replay the printout.

I used a TTY in high school for many hours, using a GE-235 timesharing sytem running Darmouth Basic
in 1967-1968.

T. Wahl

If you have a Mac-focused bent, there's an entire ...

2008-03-21T15:40:00.000-04:00

If you have a Mac-focused bent, there's an entire website dedicated to the creation process for that platform...

http://folklore.org/

I left a post on reddit that have more general links as well...

http://reddit.com/info/6cw57/comments/c03i73g

The US Defense Department dared to dream big in th...

2008-03-21T15:07:00.000-04:00

The US Defense Department dared to dream big in the way they snatched all those IP adresses

I'm currently studying os development, and I'm ver...

2008-03-21T13:56:00.000-04:00

I'm currently studying os development, and I'm very interest in the history of computer and os, do you guys know of any good books on the subject? Thanks! (wliao)

mattl: Good point. I didn't mean to imply that he ...

2008-03-21T09:20:00.000-04:00

mattl: Good point. I didn't mean to imply that he wrote the whole OS. You're right, he did the kernel where the rest was GNU as mentioned in the Usenet post I linked it.

john: interesting! Thanks for sharing.

At one time I worked at a company that used PDP-8e...

2008-03-21T09:00:00.000-04:00

At one time I worked at a company that used PDP-8e computers with core memory. It came in handy for those systems that wouldn't boot to tape. You would move the memory board to a working system then load the tape diags, from tape of course. After transferring the memory board to the other system you would just start up the diagnostic up from the front panel.

They would hold a program for weeks without power. Aside from their cost and size, Core memory worked quite nicely.

John

Linus did not write an OS. He wrote a kernel for o...

2008-03-21T08:52:00.000-04:00

Linus did not write an OS. He wrote a kernel for one, typically GNU.