Re: Microsoft's PDP-10s

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#625120

From: Mike Spencer
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2018 20:01

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David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> writes:

> On 30/07/2018 23:25, Quadibloc wrote:
>
>> I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.
>> - Attributed to Thomas J. Watson (Sr.), but likely spurious
> 
> That was supposed to be in 1943 when no one had built a computer that 
> stored its program in RAM.

I love the scene in Cryptonomicon, circa 1944, in which Lawrence
Waterhouse is contemplating the problem of "bury" & "disinter" while
playing the great organ in the Qwlgmian church, all stops out and the
air full of dust from decades-disused pipes, envisions mercury tube
[1] RAM [2] in much the same way as Tesla claimed to have imagined the
alternating current motor, tears out of the church barefoot in
mid-arpeggio, love and lust forgotten in his wild enthusiasm to build
it *now*.

Totally hilarious.  I can ony imagine that kind of brilliance and envy
it.

[1] Someone will surely correct my choice of technical terms. Y'all
    are career hackers; I'm just a blacksmith with pretentions to
    technology. 

[2] Or SAM.  See [1].

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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From: Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere>
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
Subject: Re: Microsoft's PDP-10s
Date: 03 Aug 2018 17:01:51 -0300
Organization: Bridgewater Institute for Advanced Study - Blacksmith Shop
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