Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!uw-beaver!milton!blake!Tomobiki-Cho!mrc From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Y VAX? [was : TECO on a DEC-System 10] Message-ID: <5390@blake.acs.washington.edu> Date: 20 Jan 90 01:59:52 GMT References: <153.UUL1.3#5131@mvac23.UUCP> <457@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> <6551@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Sender: news@blake.acs.washington.edu Organization: Mendou Zaibatsu, Tomobiki-Cho, Butsumetsu-Shi Lines: 69 In article <6551@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> gis@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Brian L. Stuart) writes: >1964 PDP-6 >1967 KA10 >1972 KI10 >1975 KL10 >1976 KL20 There was no such thing as the KL20, see below. Also: 1978 KS10, a small machine of approximately KA10 performance. DEC built four other 36-bit processors, but none ever saw customer ship. These were a machine I believe was called Unicorn (I know nothing about it other than the name), the Dolphin (a high end machine killed due to "VAX jealousy"), the KO10/Minnow (a desktop machine killed due to "VAX jealousy"), and the KC10/Jupiter (killed due to engineering incompetance which took the entire product line down with it). Xerox built at least two machines, called Maxc, for internal use. These were similar to a KA10 with a BBN pager. Foonly built a series of processors of approximately KS10 performance, with the exception of the F-1 which was reportedly the fastest machine of this architecture ever built. Systems Concepts built a series of processors of approximately 3 times KL10 performance. Besides their speed, they also consumed less power (about 750 watts) than any other machine of this architecture. >5) The K?10 and KL20 processors were used in the DECSystem10 and DECSystem20 > models and were sometimes referred to as the PDP-10. This is one > area of DEC lore that I'm not real clear on. Could someone help > add the details here? There was never such a thing as a KL20. The machines often mistakenly referred to (perhaps even in Gordon Bell's book) as KL20's were really KL10's with different exterior packaging. There were several models of KL10's. From the programmer's point of view, they all could be grouped together into two pseudo-models. "Model A" did not have extended addressing (30 bit address space of which 23 bits were implemented) while "Model B" did. Only "Model B" could run versions of TOPS-20 after 5.1, although DEC stopped supporting TOPS-20 for "Model A" after 4.1. From the user programmer's point of view, the KS10 was identical to a "Model A" KL10. The name PDP-10 refers to any CPU of the KA10/KI10/KL10/KS10 family; it is sometimes also used to refer to the machines of other manufacturers. The name "DECsystem-10" refers to a system composed of a PDP-10 CPU, a set of peripherals, and the TOPS-10 operating system. The name "DECSYSTEM-20" refers to a system composed of a KL10 or KS10 model PDP-10 CPU, a set of peripherals, and the TOPS-20 operating system. The reason for the difference in case is that DEC was sued by Singer, which at that time made a thing called a "system-10", for trademark violation. The settlement involved DEC promising not to use lower case "system" any more. _____ ____ ---+--- /-\ Mark Crispin Atheist & Proud _|_|_ _|_ || ___|__ / / 6158 Lariat Loop NE R90/6 pilot |_|_|_| /|\-++- |=====| / / Bainbridge Island, WA "Gaijin! Gaijin!" --|-- | |||| |_____| / \ USA 98110-2098 "Gaijin ha doko ka?" /|\ | |/\| _______ / \ +1 (206) 842-2385 "Niichan ha gaijin." / | \ | |__| / \ / \ mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU "Chigau. Gaijin ja nai. kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita Omae ha gaijin darou." sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru "Iie, boku ha nihonjin." uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru "Souka. Yappari gaijin!"