> On Jan 17, 2017, at 2:50 PM, geneb <ge...@deltasoft.com> wrote: > > On Tue, 17 Jan 2017, Jon Elson wrote: > >> On 01/17/2017 11:09 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: >>> I find it curious that what seems to be collected in the minicomputer >>> area seems to be gear of major brands. >>> Does anyone collect Varian minis? >> I had a Varian 620F a long time ago. It was a whole bunch of wire-wrap >> boards. It sort of tried to work, but was very flaky. I was able to store >> some words into the core memory, but it seemed like every couple minutes it >> would zero out a word or two (I guess it was failing to write back the >> contents after the destructive readout.) Without schematics, it was >> impossible to do much about it. > > I used to work on a 727 flight simulator that used a Varian 620 to generate > the visuals. The display was capable of addressing 1024 points of light and > that's how the runways and airport outline were drawn. Pretty neat stuff. > Here's some pics of the system that ran the sim: > http://flightweb.simpits.org/BehindTheScenes/727sim_page1.html
Nice. I saw (but never used) a Varian 16 bit mini in college. Forgot the model number; I used to have the handbook but it seems to have been lost. It was used because of its microprogramming capabilities. The control panel was unusual: lights and switches basically, but the switches were membrane push-buttons. So the entire front panel was a smooth surface. paul