On 10/7/22 18:14, ben via cctalk wrote:
On 2022-10-07 1:09 p.m., paul.kimpel--- via cctalk wrote:
We'd all like to see the ALGO compiler, but be forewarned
-- it's something like 14 passes on paper tape, with
intermediate results punched on paper tape. I understand
it's a bit more convenient to use if you have magnetic
tape drives, but it's still going to be slow -- there's
only so much you can do with 2K words of memory.
Trying to hide the fact the drum makes it slow.
Did any one ever replace the drum with core memory, on the
early serial computers?
Ben.
Tghe G-15 was a serial computer with an 90 KHz bit clock.
The entire organization of teh computer revolved around the
drum (pun intended). There was an optimizer that organized
instructions around the drum so that the next instruction
came up on the read head just as the last instruction
finished. Without tearing the entire machine apart and
redesigning the logic, core would not make it faster.
The PDP-8S did have core memory, and for a bit serial
computer, it was fairly fast.
Jon
