Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.14 $; site siemens.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!siemens!fwb From: fwb@siemens.UUCP Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: History of Computers Message-ID: <25000010@siemens.UUCP> Date: Fri, 7-Jun-85 13:38:00 EDT Article-I.D.: siemens.25000010 Posted: Fri Jun 7 13:38:00 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 8-Jun-85 03:36:47 EDT Lines: 34 Nf-ID: #N:siemens:25000010:000:986 Nf-From: siemens!fwb Jun 7 13:38:00 1985 [modern computer software does NOT have bugs] When I worked for General Electric in Maryland, one of my co-workers had once worked on a computer called the ADAX- where was some small integer. It was a 50K (not M) Hz computer with a 17 (yes, seventeen) bit word. This computer was used for the ground control of an early satellite (an Atmosphere Explorer I think). It had some nice features like a NOP which took 512 cycles to DECODE. Among the instructions in its general purpose set was "load buffer in command format". This computer was built for NASA by General Mills. It was the first serial computer. If you're a few bits short of a full word, the joke is: serial General Mills cereal GGGGGGGRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!! ------------------------------------------------------ Frederic W. Brehm princeton!siemens!fwb Siemens Research and Technology Laboratories ------------------------------------------------------