Surely you are joking! The DEC PDP-1 was a transistor machine. The IBM 7xx and 6xx series were vacuum tube machines (plus other oddities like drums). NCR and Burroughs and of course Univac also had vt machines in the 50's.
The 4xx series could be used as calculators. Richard Feynmann says in one of his biographies that there was a factory building in x (Louisville?) where there was a literal array of 4xx machines used for WWII bomb calculations. The algorithms were in patchboards. The calculation literally flowed from machine to machine. All the AEC national labs in the 50's made their own machines. Robert Rannie of Share boat paddle fame made his start as a programmer in Oak Ridge National Laboratory (X-10 site) on one of those machines. It was replaced at ORNL by a CDC 1604 which was a 709x like machine (36 bit octal) with enhanced floating point. That machine was "replaced" by a 360-75, the sister of the set of 75's that went to manned space craft center in Houston from which we got HASP later called JES2. IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU> wrote on 06/23/2006 04:15:21 AM: > To me unix looks and feels very much like DEC/VAX, and DEC surely > precedes IBM ! > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Hunkeler Peter (KIUB 34) > Sent: 23 June 2006 08:14 > To: IBM-MAIN@BAMA.UA.EDU > Subject: Re: Mainframe Limericks... > Depends on what "release" and corresponding name you talk about. > If you go the the roots, both OSs were born in the mid 60s: > OS/360 came out in 1964. > MULTICS came out around 1965, which then became UNICS, then UNIX. > Peter Hunkeler > CREDIT SUISSE ----------------------------------------- The information contained in this communication (including any attachments hereto) is confidential and is intended solely for the personal and confidential use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. The information may also constitute a legally privileged confidential communication. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient or an agent responsible for delivering it to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that you have received this communication in error and that any review, dissemination, copying, or unauthorized use of this information, or the taking of any action in reliance on the contents of this information is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail, and delete the original message. Thank you ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
