Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!eos!ames!mailrus!uwmcsd1!bbn!bbn.com!levin
From: levin@bbn.com (Joel B Levin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: MAC 88000 (historical notes)
Keywords: IBM 360 1401
Message-ID: <27209@bbn.COM>
Date: 20 Jul 88 11:21:30 GMT
References: <261@hodge.UUCP> <370STORKEL@RICE> <607@riddle.UUCP> <441@softway.oz> <17573@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: levin@BBN.COM (Joel B Levin)
Organization: BBN Communications Corporation
Lines: 28

In article <17573@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes:
(The IBM 1401 was a variable-number-length machine with decimal arithmetic.
(Each character of memory held 6 bits.

8, if you include the parity bit and (fanfare) the word mark.
   ...
([The 360] represented a clean break with IBM's two previous product lines; the
(business machines, with decimal arithmetic and memory, and the scientific
(machines, the 701-704-709-7040-7090-7094 line, with 36-bit words,
(binary arithmetic, and a 64K word address space.

Plus some other interesting machines like the 1620 (about which I know
little) and the 7070 with its 10,000 words of 10 decimal digits and 99
index registers.

The 1401 (actually 1440) was my very first machine.  Easy: read a card
by issuing a Move (MLC) instruction.  What a shock to go to a PDP-5
where each individual character had to be read by hand!

(     Sorry for the digression, but I wanted to set the record straight.
Ah, nostalgia ...

(					John Nagle

	/JBL

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