🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <662aej$7...@tooting.netapp.com>,
g...@netapp.com (Guy Harris) wrote:

 > ...and a significantly different instruction set (e.g., I don't *think*
 > the 709x had as many addressing modes as the GE6xx).

NOBODY had as many addressing modes as the GE600 and follow-on machines. 
Not even the French postal service.  Nobody.

 > I vaguely remember somebody, perhaps here, saying why the GE6xx had an
 > instruction to convert Gray code to binary; anybody know why?

Because it was overengineered by engineers, for other engineers, is my
guess.  GE built it because they were one of IBM's major customers, and as
the 7094 aged they felt the need for a largely compatible (scratch the
System/360) machine for their own use, which costs they could defray by
selling them to other people as well.

I have heard that GTB was unused except for a quickie "encryption" scheme
that made us of it, but that story's a little too slick to be true.  Any
idea what Jack Whitney's or Charlie Fisher's e-mail address is, they'd
probably know.

Going through the plant that GE built in Phoenix, Arizona, to build
computers was a humbling experience.  (Tom knows this, of course, but for
the other readers...)  Every damn thing in the place had a GE label on it. 
And I don't mean a property identification label, I mean a manufacturer's
label.  From the water coolers to the ceiling girders to the electrical
panels to the computers (until Honeywell stepped in), that plant was
absolutely full of things manufactured by the General Electric Company.  It
was just amazing.

(The major exception that I recall was one area, and later a second one,
that was filled with Gardner-Denver wire-wrap robots -- the best
entertainment that side of the Mississippi.)