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http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf

DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with first
customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in October, 1965...

-- 
Rich Alderson					  ne...@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen

In article <mdda7qm...@panix5.panix.com>,
Rich Alderson  <ne...@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
>http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf
>
>DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with first
>customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in October, 1965...

Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 3:50:28 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:

> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.

But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!

John Savard

On 7/19/2018 11:51 PM, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 3:50:28 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:
> 
>> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.
> 
> But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!
> 

And the PDP-6 help beget the PP-10... a more widely shipped *large* 
capacity computer!!!  :-)


-- 
numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

Rich Alderson <ne...@alderson.users.panix.com> writes:
>http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf
>
>DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with first
>customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in October, 1965...

And the Burroughs B5500 first shipped in 1963.

On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 9:35:27 AM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Rich Alderson <ne...@alderson.users.panix.com> writes:
> >http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf
> >
> >DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with first
> >customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in October, 1965...
> 
> And the Burroughs B5500 first shipped in 1963.

Timesharing in 1969:
https://books.google.com/books?id=ekMxAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA19&dq=%22burroughs%20b5500%22&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q=%22burroughs%20b5500%22&f=false

On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 7:35:27 AM UTC-6, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> And the Burroughs B5500 first shipped in 1963.

Hey, the Datamatic 1000 first shipped in 1957. And it's actually relevant here... because this vacuum-tube computer, with a 48-bit word, did both binary and decimal arithmetic, as well as having floating-point arithmetic instructions.

Yes, a computer suitable for both business data processing and scientific computation. However, it didn't come in compatible versions in different sizes.

John Savard

On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 2:11:52 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 7:35:27 AM UTC-6, Scott Lurndal wrote:

> > And the Burroughs B5500 first shipped in 1963.

> Hey, the Datamatic 1000 first shipped in 1957.

The Honeywell 800 first shipped in 1960, and it did have optional hardware 
floating-point, but it's possible the Datamatic 1000 didn't have that.

John Savard

On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 4:11:52 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 7:35:27 AM UTC-6, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> 
> > And the Burroughs B5500 first shipped in 1963.
> 
> Hey, the Datamatic 1000 first shipped in 1957. And it's actually relevant here... because this vacuum-tube computer, with a 48-bit word, did both binary and decimal arithmetic, as well as having floating-point arithmetic instructions.
> 
> Yes, a computer suitable for both business data processing and scientific computation. However, it didn't come in compatible versions in different sizes.

Mention of it on right-side: 'brain corrects mistakes' 
https://books.google.com/books?id=PX9QAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA7&dq=datamatic%201000&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q=datamatic%201000&f=false

mention of it on right side "form firm to produce"
https://books.google.com/books?id=Gow_AAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA5&dq=datamatic%201000&pg=PA5#v=onepage&q&f=false

On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 4:17:13 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 2:11:52 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> > On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 7:35:27 AM UTC-6, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> 
> > > And the Burroughs B5500 first shipped in 1963.
> 
> > Hey, the Datamatic 1000 first shipped in 1957.
> 
> The Honeywell 800 first shipped in 1960, and it did have optional hardware 
> floating-point, but it's possible the Datamatic 1000 didn't have that.

Two-page full-page ad:  (photos and tech details)
https://books.google.com/books?id=XmU_AAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA11&dq=honeywell%20800&pg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false

another ad
https://books.google.com/books?id=cWY_AAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA20&dq=honeywell%20800&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q&f=false

Honeywell ads and article (Bendix G-20 on preceding page)
https://books.google.com/books?id=fWo_AAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA66&dq=honeywell%20800&pg=PA66#v=onepage&q&f=false

On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 5:20:31 PM UTC-4, Rich Alderson wrote:
> http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf
> 
> DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with first
> customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in October, 1965...

1967 Computerworld article on PDP 6
https://books.google.com/books?id=_qsnAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA2&dq=pdp%206&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> writes:

> On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 3:50:28 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:

>> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.

> But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!

> John Savard

PDP-8 systems, of any stripe, are irrelevant to a discussion of mainframes! :-)

-- 
Rich Alderson					  ne...@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen

John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> writes:

> In article <mdda7qm...@panix5.panix.com>,
> Rich Alderson  <ne...@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
>> http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf

>> DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with
>> first customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in
>> October, 1965...

> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold
> thousands of 360s.

You're right, it is.  They should have stuck with the original style
System Modules(TM) as in the earlier systems, or gone over to the
FlipChip(TM) form factor with the PDP-6 instead of the PDP-7.  The
PDP-6's oversized System Modules with soldered connectors on *TWO*
edges were terribly fragile and therefore terribly flaky. :-( :-( :-(

-- 
Rich Alderson					  ne...@alderson.users.panix.com
      Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
	  omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
									--Galen

On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 5:20:31 PM UTC-4, Rich Alderson wrote:
> http://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/digital/A_Computer_that_grows_BusWeek_640314.pdf
> 
> DEC's PDP-6 was announced 3 weeks before the IBM system/360, with first
> customer ship in June, 1964, as opposed to IBM's FCS in October, 1965...
> 

And the CDC 6600 was introduced Sept. 1964, and ran rings around anything else at the time (if you could keep it running, the OS was buggy as hell).

          - Tim

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> Timesharing in 1969:
> https://books.google.com/books?id=ekMxAAAAIBAJ&lpg=PA19&dq=%22burroughs%20b5500%22&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q=%22burroughs%20b5500%22&f=false

CTSS online/interactive timesharing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatible_Time-Sharing_System

By July, 1961[5] a few time sharing commands had become operational on
the Computation Center's IBM 709, and in November 1961, Fernando
J. Corbató demonstrated at MIT what was called the "Experimental
Time-Sharing System". On May 3, 1962, F. J. Corbató, M. M. Daggett and
R. C. Daley published a paper about that system at the Spring Joint
Computer Conference.[6] Robert C. Daley, Peter R. Bos and at least 6
other programmers implemented the operating system, partly based on the
Fortran Monitor System. The system used an IBM 7090, modified by Herbert
M. Teager, with added 3 Flexowriters for user consoles, and maybe a
timer.

... snip ...

The IBM 7094 and CTSS
http://multicians.org/thvv/7094.html

then some of the CTSS people went to the 5th flr to do MULTICS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics

Initial planning and development for Multics started in 1964, in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Originally it was a cooperative project led by
MIT (Project MAC with Fernando Corbató) along with General Electric and
Bell Labs. It was developed on the first GE 645 computer delivered to
MIT in 1965.

Multics history
http://multicians.org/history.html

Multics/Unix related
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multics#Unix

Other CTSS people went to the science center on the 4th flr and did
cp40/cms (using modified 360/40 with hardware virtual memory support)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/cp40seas82.txt

which morphs into cp67/cms when standard 360/67 with virtual memory
becomes available 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS

above history somewhat garbled. There was CP67 "L" floor production
system at Cambridge (and I distributed/supported for othere internal
datacenters). There were the "H" updates to CP67 "L" ... which provided
optional 370 virtual machines (new instructions and slightly different
format for virtual memory tables). And there was the "I" udpates to CP67
"H", which was CP67 modified to run in a 370 machine instead of 360/67
machine. CP67I was regularly running production in CP67H virtual
machines a year before the first 370 engineering machine with virtual
memory support was available. CP67I with San Jose updates to support
3330 disks & 2305 fixed-head drum (CP67SJ) ran production on large
number of internal 370s ... well before VM370 was available.

more CP67 & science center history in Melinda Varian's paper
http://www.leeandmelindavarian.com/Melinda/25paper.pdf

in 1968, there were some science center people joined
NCSS to do CP67/CMS commercial online timesharing service bureau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_CSS

and some other science center people joined with some Lincoln Labs
people to form IDC CP67/CMS commerccial online timesharing service
bureau ... especially IDC quickly moved up the value stream specializing
in services for the financial industry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_Data_Corporation

trivia: one of the people from the 5th flr joined IDC (out in waltham)
... and then a decade later did spreadsheet:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VisiCalc

other 4th generation language trivia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAMIS_(software)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad_software
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOCUS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth-generation_programming_language

and vm370 commercial online service bureau
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tymshare
TYMSHARE started offering their CMS-based online computer conferencing
system "free" to (IBM user group) SHARE
https://www.share.org/
in AUG1976 as VMSHARE, archives here:
http://vm.marist.edu/~vmshare
TYMSHARE on bitsavers:
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/tymshare/

science center posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
commercial online/interactive timesharing posts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#timeshare

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 2:47:17 PM UTC-6, Rich Alderson wrote:
> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
> > On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 3:50:28 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:

> >> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.

> > But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!

> PDP-8 systems, of any stripe, are irrelevant to a discussion of mainframes! :-)

I wonder. I mean, a PDP-8/I, suitably configured, could support eight time-
sharing users, and you could add hardware floating-point to it.

And a System/360 Model 30 had an 8-bit ALU...

which would have given more performance?

John Savard

On 21/07/2018 07:14, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 2:47:17 PM UTC-6, Rich Alderson wrote:
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
>>> On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 3:50:28 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:
> 
>>>> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.
> 
>>> But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!
> 
>> PDP-8 systems, of any stripe, are irrelevant to a discussion of mainframes! :-)
> 
> I wonder. I mean, a PDP-8/I, suitably configured, could support eight time-
> sharing users, and you could add hardware floating-point to it.
> 
> And a System/360 Model 30 had an 8-bit ALU...
> 
> which would have given more performance?

Well thats the difference between the PDP-8 and the System/360. Yes DEC 
had PDP-8 and PDP-6 but incompatible software between the two. 
System/360 was upward compatible from the Model 30 through to the 195...

... as for more powerfull, the Model 30 was aimed at 1401 customers who 
largely ran batch. Thye key was the 400 cpm reader and 600 lpm punch. I 
don't think DEC offered such peripherals on the pdp-8, but there again 
IBM didn't offer terminals on the 360-30.

I believe that the model 30 sold in the thousands, a number which I find 
staggering.....

As for which was the way forward, well obviously the PDP-8 but if that 
is truly true why is IBM Z, which will still run problem state 360/30 
programs, still sold, yet DEC and the PDP-8 are, whilst still "in use" 
in places, truely part of computing history, rather than computing present?



> 
> John Savard
> 

Dave

David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> writes:

> On 21/07/2018 07:14, Quadibloc wrote:
>> On Friday, July 20, 2018 at 2:47:17 PM UTC-6, Rich Alderson wrote:
>>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> writes:
>>>> On Thursday, July 19, 2018 at 3:50:28 PM UTC-6, John Levine wrote:
>>
>>>>> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.
>>
>>>> But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!
>>
>>> PDP-8 systems, of any stripe, are irrelevant to a discussion of mainframes! :-)
>>
>> I wonder. I mean, a PDP-8/I, suitably configured, could support eight time-
>> sharing users, and you could add hardware floating-point to it.
>>
>> And a System/360 Model 30 had an 8-bit ALU...
>>
>> which would have given more performance?
>
> Well thats the difference between the PDP-8 and the System/360. Yes
> DEC had PDP-8 and PDP-6 but incompatible software between the
> two. System/360 was upward compatible from the Model 30 through to the
> 195...
>
> ... as for more powerfull, the Model 30 was aimed at 1401 customers
> who largely ran batch. Thye key was the 400 cpm reader and 600 lpm
> punch. I don't think DEC offered such peripherals on the pdp-8, but
> there again IBM didn't offer terminals on the 360-30.

The IBM 2540 reader/punch read cards at 1000 CPM and punched at 300 CPM.

Not that much faster than the 1401s 1402 that read at 800 CPM, punched at 250 CPM.

I always considered punching cards to be a failure and resisted
suggestions to do so.

-- 
Dan Espen

David Wade <g4ugm@dave.invalid> writes:
> I believe that the model 30 sold in the thousands, a number which I
> find staggering.....

from
https://people.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/acs_end.html

As the quote above indicates, the ACS-1 design was very much an
out-of-the-ordinary design for IBM in the latter part of the 1960s. In
his book, Data Processing Technology and Economics, Montgomery Phister,
Jr., reports that as of 1968:

Of the 26,000 IBM computer systems in use, 16,000 were S/360 models
(that is, over 60%). [Fig. 1.311.2]

Of the general-purpose systems having the largest fraction of total
installed value, the IBM S/360 Model 30 was ranked first with 12%
(rising to 17% in 1969). The S/360 Model 40 was ranked second with 11%
(rising to almost 15% in 1970). [Figs. 2.10.4 and 2.10.5]

Of the number of operations per second in use, the IBM S/360 Model 65
ranked first with 23%. The Univac 1108 ranked second with slightly over
14%, and the CDC 6600 ranked third with 10%. [Figs. 2.10.6 and 2.10.7]

... snip ...


previous post in thread:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#45 DEC introduces PDP-6 [was Re: IBM introduces System/360]


-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

In article <mddwotp...@panix5.panix.com>,
Rich Alderson  <ne...@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
>>> Good point.  Too bad that DEC sold 20 PDP-6's while IBM sold thousands of 360s.
>
>> But look at all the PDP-8s that DEC shipped!

>PDP-8 systems, of any stripe, are irrelevant to a discussion of mainframes! :-)

Ahem.  The PDP-6 I used, at Applied Logic in Princeton NJ, had a 680
running out of part of the 6's core to run the terminal lines.

(For anyone not up on his DEC history, a 680 was a PDP-8 with a 681
terminal multiplexor which added both interface hardware and some new
instructions that scanned characters to and from the terminal lines
one bit at a time.  The most impressive application was TSS-8 which
did the terminal multiplexing and had enough time left over to run a
timesharing system.)

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, jo...@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> which morphs into cp67/cms when standard 360/67 with virtual memory
> becomes available 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP/CMS
>
> above history somewhat garbled. There was CP67 "L" floor production
> system at Cambridge (and I distributed/supported for othere internal
> datacenters). There were the "H" updates to CP67 "L" ... which provided
> optional 370 virtual machines (new instructions and slightly different
> format for virtual memory tables). And there was the "I" udpates to CP67
> "H", which was CP67 modified to run in a 370 machine instead of 360/67
> machine. CP67I was regularly running production in CP67H virtual
> machines a year before the first 370 engineering machine with virtual
> memory support was available. CP67I with San Jose updates to support
> 3330 disks & 2305 fixed-head drum (CP67SJ) ran production on large
> number of internal 370s ... well before VM370 was available.

re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2018e.html#45 DEC introduces PDP-6 [was Re: IBM introduces System/360]

I've heard it in the past as folklore ... but don't believe I've ever
met somebody that actually did such a thing. Standard procedure wouldn't
give regular users privileged permissions to production machine.  Even
developers wouldn't have their working user with privileged command
permissions to first level machine (it would be poor policy to have
regular user with permissions, sort of like giving every user root
permissions in unix).

Sysadmin sank IBM mainframe by going one VM too deep; Tried to blame it
on a bug, but logs don't lie
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/07/23/sysadmin_sank_ibm_mainframe_by_going_one_vm_too_deep/

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970