Noel Chiappa wrote: > I'm not sure CONS ever ran as a stand-alone system; I suspect (but > don't recall for sure; RG, TK or Moon or someone could confirm one way > or the other) that it ran as a loosely-coupled co-processor to MC, the > way the Chess Machine did.
I believe you are entirely correct, except it was AI rather than MC. As I'm sure you know, AI had the Rubin 10-11 interface with eight Unibuses for attaching processors through shared memory. MC had the DTE20 and DL10, but those were for PDP-11 front ends. The Chess Machine CHEOPS was used with MacHack VI running on MC, but communicating over Chaosnet. At least, that's how I interpret the code in MacHack. This doesn't make me less interested in emulating both CONS and CHEOPS. Time permitting - which it doesn't. I don't see any technical obstacles; we already have one of the 10-11 processors working. I have reviewed the amount of preserved software, and I think chances are good microcode and microassemblers for CONS and CHEOPS still exist. There is some debate over whether the CONS had a display of its own, and if so whether it could draw to a bitmap. Do you remember? As a mid-70s technology, it might be a contender for one of the early GUIs this thread is about. > The CONS and the Chess Machine were both in the same room; 906-907 or > so: [...] When the first CADR was built, its console was in the room > next door (in the higher-numbered room direction); I remember watching > over Moon's shouulder the night they first tried to boot it. I have talked to Lispm enthusiasts, and they have a hard time pinpointing a birthdate for the CADR. Do you have a recollection when, even what year, the first boot attempt was? My information says room 907 at various points in time housed CADR-1, "Chess, Lisp machines", Lisp Machine Consoles, GT40 (Lisp machine).