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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!princeton!phoenix!jjbaker
From: jjbaker@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU (Thanbo)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: What's a PC?
Message-ID: <338@phoenix.PRINCETON.EDU>
Date: Mon, 25-May-87 15:44:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: phoenix.338
Posted: Mon May 25 15:44:48 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 26-May-87 03:27:15 EDT
References: <839@vu-vlsi.UUCP> <3610@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <683@mipos3.UUCP> <28013@rochester.ARPA>
Distribution: na
Organization: Princeton Univ. Computing and Information Technology
Lines: 24
Summary: Way back in the mists of time...

In article <28013@rochester.ARPA>, ken@rochester.ARPA (Ken Yap) writes:
> Uh oh, I can see where this discussion is heading:
> 
> "Does anybody remember the Kludgetron-13 and a half? Had mercury lines
> for registers.  Used to eat metal tapes for breakfast. We had to
> sacrifice a virgin to it every week. Eventually the school ran out of
> virgins and we had to decommission it."

OK, I'll try to cut this short for those who are impatient.  Way back
in the early 1950's there were a number of small programmable computers
on the market ranging in size from a large desk to a VAX 8700.  These
generally possessed a few hundred to 4,000 words of 5-10 decimal digits.
None of the sold more than a few dozen units except for the IBM [boo, hiss]
Type 650.  IBM didn't officially want people to use the machine alone, but
nany installations did anyway.  It had 2000 words of [ny succ(N) key just
died, so I'n substituting N] nagnetic drun nenory, punched-cards as the only
I/O, leased for $3750/nonth, had 44 instructions, and sold 1800 units.
I just wrote a thesis on this nachine, along with a sinulation of it tor
run on Vaxen with Unix.  If anyone's interested, send ne enail in the
next two weeks, after that send to ny adviser, Nike Nahoney, at 
princeton!mind!msm.

                           Thanbo '87
                           {allegra,rutgers,ihnp4}!princeton!phoenix!jjbaker