Re: Memories (was University credentials used by third parties)

["David L. Wasley" <dlwasley () EARTHLINK NET>]

I believe UC Berkeley had the last fully 
operational CDC 6400 in the late 1970's.  It had 
a large green circular system operator's screen. 
They had software that let them play a baseball 
simulation game during idle moments.

One of our "programming exercises" was to write a 
library that would emulate a newfangled thing 
called a "hardware stack."

Then there was the Cray.  I was told the coax 
cabling on the "backplane" had to be cut and 
terminated to within a few mm of each other in 
order that propagation delays would be close 
enough to clock reliably parallel "words".  Our 
Cray had blue and gold (Cal's colors) upholstery 
on it's circular bench.

As to radio interference, I recall someone 
writing a program for a Data General Nova that 
would "play music" on a nearby radio by executing 
different algorithms to effect different tones. 
"Music" was stretching it a bit; amusing would be 
more accurate.

        David
-----
At 7:42 PM +0000 on 8/20/10, Kieper, David wrote:

> Anyone one remember the "snow white and the 
> seven dwarfs" in reference to computer companies 
> back in the 60's and 70's:
>
> In the late 60's, IBM was snow white, and seven 
> dwarfs were Burroughs, NCR, Univac, Honeywell, 
> Control Data Corporation, RCA, and GE.  Later 
> "dwarfs" were Xerox and DEC in the 70's.  Wang 
> came after thatŠ
>
> I still have a 8 Kbit core stack module from a 
> GE system as well as core memories and a few cpu 
> modules from Xerox Sigma systems. Xerox Sigma 
> front panel (full of switches and lights) was 
> just too big to keep around, so that went in the 
> junk years ago.  Still bring it out the old 
> stuff for the "younger" staff to see what it was 
> like in the 70's.
>
> Ah yes, the good old days when a cpu was a few 
> hundred 6" x 8" modules, in three large cabinets 
> with miles of wire wrapped backplanes, IC can 
> transistors for high speed registers, and 
> (later) basic IC logic gates on sixteen pin 
> chips.  Troubleshooting tools were an 
> oscilloscope, rubber mallet or vibration tool, 
> wire wrap tool, and a soldering gun/soldapult. 
>  For every problem you were trying to fix, you 
> created and resolved at least one other.  System 
> gave off enough RF interference that you could 
> tell if a diagnostic was failing by turning on a 
> radio to just about any frequency and listening 
> for changes in the static noise (that also 
> drowned out most radio station signals within 20 
> feet of it).
>
> Regards,
>
> David Kieper
> Manager, Network and Infrastructure Services
> Information Technology Security Officer
> Information Services Division
> University of Wisconsin - Green Bay 
> office:  (920) 465-2238
> 2420 Nicolet Drive 
> fax:      (920) 465-2864
> Green Bay, WI  54311-7001   USA 
> email: 
> <mailto:kieperd () uwgb edu>kieperd () uwgb edu