Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!usc!samsung!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ENIAC Query
Message-ID: <1615@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 14 Nov 89 21:16:40 GMT
References: <38193@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <405@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Distribution: usa
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 28

In article <405@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM>, kleonard@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM (Ken Leonard) writes:
|  I dimly recall ham transmitters that used a couple of these
|  as final amplifier--at a plate power level of a couple hundred watts.

  The part about transmitters sounds right, that number rings a bell.

|  Do I remember correctly, or do I have an advanced case of cranial decrepitude?

  Are these mutually exclusive? My kids say I remember correctly, but
the wrong things.

|  What was ENIAC doing to need _that_much_ power in one stage of logic?

  How about driving busses with VERY high fanouts?

|  Or did the builders include these just so they would have a place to fry
|  their eggs in the morning?

  Assuming that I'm right about the fanout... based on nothing but an
assumption that the builders DID have a reason, with the failure rates
they were getting, would one tube driving 1024 other circuits make more
sense than having more tubes and less fanout? They surely weren't trying
to avoid a gate delay at the speeds they ran.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon