OT: Copy PATH from Windows Explorer ??

[Rich Grise]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:47:12 -0500, Chuck Harris wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:

-Chuck Harris (who programmed his first computer in 1970)


I Win! 1966!

;-)
Rich



What were you programming back then? I started on a PDP8
running TSS8.

Control Data nee Bendix G-15. The "language" they taught in class

was "Intercom 500" which was kind of like assembly language, but
interpreted. The machine language was much more interesting -
29-bit words, with a rotating drum memory.

This is about the best link I've found on short notice:
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/g-15.html

I was in 11th grade, and the high school had one. I was struck by the
irony that its terminal was an IBM electric typewriter. (not
SElectric, just an ordinary electric typewriter with solenoids & stuff).

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:57:03 +0000, Rich Grise wrote:

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 18:47:12 -0500, Chuck Harris wrote:

Rich Grise wrote:

-Chuck Harris (who programmed his first computer in 1970)


I Win! 1966!

;-)
Rich



What were you programming back then? I started on a PDP8
running TSS8.

Control Data nee Bendix G-15. The "language" they taught in class
was "Intercom 500" which was kind of like assembly language, but
interpreted. The machine language was much more interesting -
29-bit words, with a rotating drum memory.

This is about the best link I've found on short notice:
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/g-15.html

I was in 11th grade, and the high school had one. I was struck by the
irony that its terminal was an IBM electric typewriter. (not
SElectric, just an ordinary electric typewriter with solenoids & stuff).

Speaking of this, the first couple of paragraphs here might give a better
idea of why I'm so enamoured of the G-15:
http://acms.synonet.com/bendix/intro/bitsof.pdf

Page 3 is upside-down, but my PDF reader can turn it over OK.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 19:27:55 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On 27 Dec 2004 17:04:37 -0800, Winfield Hill
hill_a@t_rowland-dotties-harvard-dot.s-edu> wrote:

Rich Grise wrote...

Chuck Harris wrote:

-Chuck Harris (who programmed his first computer in 1970)

I Win! 1966!

IIRC, I programmed in machine code on IBM 1410 in 1961,
Fortran with Hollerith cards on IBM 7094 in 1963 to 1964,
and a cute little IBM 1605 (?) in 1966... And then came
my own Altair in 1974.

Summer of '60 or '61, at MIT, IBM 709??, used punched cards, learned
FAP and Fortran.

Well, OK, but you guys might as well be The Sphinx, compared to us
young pups. ;-)

And I withdraw my attempt to claim "Oldest Programmer". ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net>
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.28.09.15.25.792914@example.net&gt about 'OT: Copy
PATH from Windows Explorer ??', on Tue, 28 Dec 2004:

Well, OK, but you guys might as well be The Sphinx, compared to us young
pups. ;-)

And I withdraw my attempt to claim "Oldest Programmer". ;-)

Can't you get a message from Lady Ada Lovelace via your spiritual
contacts, to give this peeing contest a climactic finish? (;-)
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
The good news is that nothing is compulsory.
The bad news is that everything is prohibited.
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

 

[John Stewart]

John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.28.09.15.25.792914@example.net&gt about 'OT: Copy
PATH from Windows Explorer ??', on Tue, 28 Dec 2004:
Well, OK, but you guys might as well be The Sphinx, compared to us young
pups. ;-)

And I withdraw my attempt to claim "Oldest Programmer". ;-)

Can't you get a message from Lady Ada Lovelace via your spiritual
contacts, to give this peeing contest a climactic finish? (;-)

Well, I can't go back that far, but I did program an IBM604 around
1954. That's 1500 6J6's & you did it through a wire plug board.
The beast didn't do anything sophisticated but was pretty quick
on things like payroll & inventory (when compared to anything
else at the time). Logic was in BCD.

Cheers, John Stewart

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Rich Grise" <richgrise@example.net> wrote in message
newsan.2004.12.28.08.50.16.407080@example.net...

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 16:15:32 -0800, Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the
Dark
Remover" wrote:


"Chuck Harris" <cf-NO-SPAM-harris@erols.com> wrote in message
news:1tmdnfyjedM2Bk3cRVn-sg@rcn.net...
Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover" wrote:

mainframe

computers more than 40 years ago. The windoze folks are just now

discovering them.

I'll agree to some extent with that. But I remember when
PC/MS-DOS
2.1
got directories, and our mainframe still didn't have a way for a
user to
do it in timeshare. Batch progs had it, tho - for obvious
reasons.

Directory tree structure is just a nice feature that came from
multics
and
unix. It has only a little to do with security. In unix, you can
do
a
"chroot" command, and make a user, or program, or the whole
operating
system
behave as if the directory tree was rooted at any branch in the
disk's
directory structure. This is done frequently when you have part of
your
filesystem that is publically accessable, FTP for example.

Permissions are a different thing entirely, and began with early
multitasking systems on mainframe computers. There were some
serious
kinks in the way things were done back in the '60s, but the
concepts
were
well inplace. The developers of unix came up with a particularily
nice way
of doing it, and received the very first US patent on a software
concept,
the suid bit.

-Chuck Harris

Honeywell (our mainframe and minis) owned Multics - they got it from
GE.
On our Level 6, I found out about this file that the users had
access
to, but didn't know what it did. I fiddled with it and managed to
get
the OS to let me do some things that the other users couldn't do,
heh-heh. Finally, the PCs took over and the old minis got shipped
out.
The writing was on the wall. But it still took years for the PCs to
get
the multitasking that the minis had had for years.

I've just had a vision of a Linux distro with "real" MS Win GUI stuff.

The only thing wrong with Linux is it's not ready for Aunt Tillie yet.
But the whole Windoze eye-candy GUI was _designed_ to be Aunt Tillie-
friendly - they've got a thousand programmers, why not just:
A ) Incorporate those secret drivers in an Xorg conf so they can get
those nice, crisp, clean graphics
B ) do all the other sweet Doze stuff at the level of the Desktop
Manager.
And of course, use the current Kernel, and all that.

So you'd have the bennies of Win eye candy/Aunt Tillie-friendliness on
a foundation of Linux.

There are no losers in that game - Bill can still sell it - that's in
the
GPL.

And all the spam would go away, when everybody started dropping it at
their iptables.

Cheers!
Rich

Here we go again - he's turning this NG into a linux NG. What little I
know about Linux tells me that the folks that use it are _not_ aunt
tillie. And if people want whatever, they can use Lindows or whatever
it's called. I really don't wantt to discuss this crap, because it's
not on topic. Take it to the proper NG.

 

[Winfield Hill]

Richard Crowley wrote...

Winfield Hill wrote:
IIRC, I programmed in machine code on IBM 1401 in 1962,
Fortran with Hollerith cards on IBM 7094 in 1963 to 1964,
and a cute little IBM 1605 (?) in 1965...

1620?
http://www.computerhistory.org/projects/ibm_1620/IBM1620/

I was surprised that "only 2000 were made" as I learned
programming on one at Orange Coast College, Costa Mesa,
CA and ended up maintaining one at Loma Linda Univerisity
for several years (including designing and building an
interface for a 3rd party lineprinter). At one point the IBM
field office inquired whether I would be interested in sub-
contracting to maintain another one in Palm Springs because
they had no field staff left that knew how to work on them.

Yep, it was the 1620, that was one sexy little beast! It had
BCD arithmetic made with thousand of logic cards based on 2n404
germanium transistors, IIRC, with negative logic voltages. The
1620 I explored (likely a model 2) was in the lobby of Harvard's
Mallinckrodt building (Chemistry dept). I think its clock rate
was about 200kHz. According to the computerhistory site it had
20us core memory. Do you remember its word size? With its BCD
lookup arithmetic, the 1620 was well-suited to Fortran programs.


--
Thanks,
- Win

 

[Chuck Harris]

Rich Grise wrote:

I've just had a vision of a Linux distro with "real" MS Win GUI stuff.

The only thing wrong with Linux is it's not ready for Aunt Tillie yet.
But the whole Windoze eye-candy GUI was _designed_ to be Aunt Tillie-
friendly - they've got a thousand programmers, why not just:
A ) Incorporate those secret drivers in an Xorg conf so they can get
those nice, crisp, clean graphics
B ) do all the other sweet Doze stuff at the level of the Desktop Manager.
And of course, use the current Kernel, and all that.

So you'd have the bennies of Win eye candy/Aunt Tillie-friendliness on
a foundation of Linux.

There are no losers in that game - Bill can still sell it - that's in the
GPL.

And all the spam would go away, when everybody started dropping it at
their iptables.

Cheers!
Rich

The biggest problem with linux relative to "Aunt Tillie" is that no machines
come preloaded and preconfigured with linux. Once linux is set up, and
configured with the proper desktop manager, it runs as smoothly, and "Aunt Tillie"
friendly as any computer ever could.

How many "Aunt Tillies" do you think could do a fresh load of any Windoze
product on a virgin PC? You can't know, because they never have to. They
go to K-Mart, and buy their XP machine off the shelf.

-Chuck Harris

 

[Chuck Harris]

Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover" wrote:

Here we go again - he's turning this NG into a linux NG. What little I
know about Linux tells me that the folks that use it are _not_ aunt
tillie. And if people want whatever, they can use Lindows or whatever
it's called. I really don't wantt to discuss this crap, because it's
not on topic. Take it to the proper NG.

So the only proper OT discussions are those about 'doze?

Speaking of Aunt Tillie, my mother works Open Office, and all the games
on a linux machine just fine. I get no more questions from her on linux
than I did on 'doze. Computer literate, she is not.

-Chuck

 

[Chuck Harris]

Rich Grise wrote:

Control Data nee Bendix G-15. The "language" they taught in class
was "Intercom 500" which was kind of like assembly language, but
interpreted. The machine language was much more interesting -
29-bit words, with a rotating drum memory.

This is about the best link I've found on short notice:
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/g-15.html

I was in 11th grade, and the high school had one. I was struck by the
irony that its terminal was an IBM electric typewriter. (not
SElectric, just an ordinary electric typewriter with solenoids & stuff).

Cheers!
Rich

I love those old advertising brocures. They made those machines sound
like they were capable of harnessing the raw power of the gods. You
should read the ad/manual that Interdata made for the 8/32 "Megamini",
or the ad/manuals Texas Instruments made for the 9900 computers. Reading
them was like an adventure. By the time you got to the end, you were
sold that this was the machine for you. The reality was somewhat
different...

-Chuck

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:41:08 -0600, hmurray@suespammers.org (Hal
Murray) wrote:

Summer of '60 or '61, at MIT, IBM 709??, used punched cards, learned
FAP and Fortran.

I think the 7090 turned into a 7094 sometime in the early 60s.
CTSS was running by 65 - on a heavily modified 7094 initially designed
for American Airlines Saber reservations system. Main feature
was 2 banks of memory and a few new instructions to switch
and relocate/bounds registers.

The 709 that was used before the 7090 was donated to the EE dept.
Tubes! IBM didn't want to maintain it but grad students don't
cost much. I never saw it, but heard credible rumors.

You jiggled my memory... it WAS the 7090 I used... wasn't it the FIRST
transistorized IBM machine?

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 07:01:38 GMT, "Locutus Borg" <9@111.111.111.111>
wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message > On Mon, 27 Dec
2004 21:42:17 GMT, Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net
wrote:
...
I still don't understand what Jim has against copy/pasting the path
from the address bar - no new software at all!

Where is this in Explorer?

In Win2K, Start/Programs/Accessories/Windows Explorer .

In WinXP, Start/All Programs/Accessories/Windows Explorer .

Win 98 might have these features as well, but I haven't ren 98 in some time.

OK, you've got WE open:

Tools/Folder Options

Then click the "View" tab, then look down the list of view options
until you see one named, "Display full path in the title bar".

Check it.

Now, this will only be the directory path - it doesn't include the file
name, but you can

a) paste the path, and type the filename part by hand, or
B) Switch back to WE task, _single-click_ the filename to highlight it,
right-click, select "Rename" from the popup context menu, and then DON'T
TYPE ANYTHING - your filename will be highlighted, and in this mode, any
typing replaces the whole name with blank - ONLY press Control-C. (arrow
keys will unhilite it, but you're still in edit mode, but you don't want to
do this.) This copies the file name to the clipboard. Press ESC. This gets
you out of "Rename" mode. Switch over to the task that you've just pasted
the path into, and you can paste the filename you've just copied.

Which OS are you actually running?

If it's 2K, you can drag the WE icon from the 3-deep menu right to your
taskbar. Being an old "I wanna see what's on my computer" type, that's one
of the first things I do when I reinstall.

Have Fun!
Rich

Thanks! I found it. I had it pushed all the way to the right and
couldn't see anything happening when I selected view it or not.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Charles W. Johson Jr.]

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message
news:fug1t0pr7e8loml0o2n56o2r25opsbnno6@4ax.com...

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:42:17 GMT, Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:23:08 +0000, Robert wrote:

(2) Any cute way, or utility I can buy, so that a right click on a
file name in Explorer will give a *complete* path that I can
copy/paste into a text file?

Thanks!

...Jim Thompson

I settled on ClipPath...

http://www.download.com/ClipPath/3000-2094_4-10050927.html?tag=free

I also tried CopyThisPath, but found conflicts with other programs I
use...

http://www.freetrialsoft.com/CopyThisPath-download-12971.html

...Jim Thompson

You're braver than I am (or less paranoid). I worry about what might be
in
programs downloaded from the Internet. Or the conflicts they might cause
with the rest of what runs on the PC.


I still don't understand what Jim has against copy/pasting the path
from the address bar - no new software at all!

Where is this in Explorer?


Although, he might have me shitlisted, in which case let him eat cake.
;-)

Cheers!
Rich

Naaaah! Only your psych-egos ;-) Although "eat cake" smacks of
French, and you know what that will get you ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Goto: Tools/folder options/View/ find the radio button for display full path
in adress bar make sure it's selected.

Goto: View/toolbars/ make sure Adress bar is checked

You can now find a file in afolder and select it's full path from the adress
bar

Not perfect for files but a path this will work for, if you need the file
name also this won't show it.

Charles

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:58:38 GMT, "Charles W. Johson Jr."
<qrus19@mindsprUng.com past to present> wrote:

"Jim Thompson" <thegreatone@example.com> wrote in message
news:fug1t0pr7e8loml0o2n56o2r25opsbnno6@4ax.com...
On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 21:42:17 GMT, Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net
wrote:

On Sun, 26 Dec 2004 21:23:08 +0000, Robert wrote:

(2) Any cute way, or utility I can buy, so that a right click on a
file name in Explorer will give a *complete* path that I can
copy/paste into a text file?

Thanks!

...Jim Thompson

I settled on ClipPath...

http://www.download.com/ClipPath/3000-2094_4-10050927.html?tag=free

I also tried CopyThisPath, but found conflicts with other programs I
use...

http://www.freetrialsoft.com/CopyThisPath-download-12971.html

...Jim Thompson

You're braver than I am (or less paranoid). I worry about what might be
in
programs downloaded from the Internet. Or the conflicts they might cause
with the rest of what runs on the PC.


I still don't understand what Jim has against copy/pasting the path
from the address bar - no new software at all!

Where is this in Explorer?


Although, he might have me shitlisted, in which case let him eat cake.
;-)

Cheers!
Rich

Naaaah! Only your psych-egos ;-) Although "eat cake" smacks of
French, and you know what that will get you ;-)

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

Goto: Tools/folder options/View/ find the radio button for display full path
in adress bar make sure it's selected.

Goto: View/toolbars/ make sure Adress bar is checked

You can now find a file in afolder and select it's full path from the adress
bar

Not perfect for files but a path this will work for, if you need the file
name also this won't show it.

Charles

The "ClipPath" utility works perfectly and doesn't seem to conflict
with other programs... puts whole path AND filename onto clipboard.

...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.

 

[Rich Grise]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:02:04 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:41:08 -0600, hmurray@suespammers.org (Hal
Murray) wrote:

Summer of '60 or '61, at MIT, IBM 709??, used punched cards, learned
FAP and Fortran.

I think the 7090 turned into a 7094 sometime in the early 60s.
CTSS was running by 65 - on a heavily modified 7094 initially designed
for American Airlines Saber reservations system. Main feature
was 2 banks of memory and a few new instructions to switch
and relocate/bounds registers.

The 709 that was used before the 7090 was donated to the EE dept.
Tubes! IBM didn't want to maintain it but grad students don't
cost much. I never saw it, but heard credible rumors.

You jiggled my memory... it WAS the 7090 I used... wasn't it the FIRST
transistorized IBM machine?

I once heard a UL that at one of those warehouse-sized tube-type
computers, they had three fulltime kids on roller skates, whose only job
was to replace burned-out tubes.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich The Philosophizer]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 10:14:33 +0000, John Woodgate wrote:

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <richgrise@example.net
wrote (in <pan.2004.12.28.09.15.25.792914@example.net&gt about 'OT: Copy
PATH from Windows Explorer ??', on Tue, 28 Dec 2004:
Well, OK, but you guys might as well be The Sphinx, compared to us young
pups. ;-)

And I withdraw my attempt to claim "Oldest Programmer". ;-)

Can't you get a message from Lady Ada Lovelace via your spiritual
contacts, to give this peeing contest a climactic finish? (;-)

Nah - I'm weird that way - my channeling only works downward, to the
physical/will half of the Universe. ;^j I get most of my messages from
the Fire Sea.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Rich Grise" <richgrise@example.net> wrote in message
newsan.2004.12.28.23.35.57.788378@example.net...

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:02:04 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:41:08 -0600, hmurray@suespammers.org (Hal
Murray) wrote:

Summer of '60 or '61, at MIT, IBM 709??, used punched cards,
learned
FAP and Fortran.

I think the 7090 turned into a 7094 sometime in the early 60s.
CTSS was running by 65 - on a heavily modified 7094 initially
designed
for American Airlines Saber reservations system. Main feature
was 2 banks of memory and a few new instructions to switch
and relocate/bounds registers.

The 709 that was used before the 7090 was donated to the EE dept.
Tubes! IBM didn't want to maintain it but grad students don't
cost much. I never saw it, but heard credible rumors.

You jiggled my memory... it WAS the 7090 I used... wasn't it the
FIRST
transistorized IBM machine?

I once heard a UL that at one of those warehouse-sized tube-type
computers, they had three fulltime kids on roller skates, whose only
job
was to replace burned-out tubes.

Yeah, I think that was a Urban Legend. The original tube modules that
were designed by Eckert and Mauchly had less than optimum MTBFs, and
they calculated that if they built the computer using these, they would
have more down time for tube replacement than they would have uptime.
So they redesigned the modules to run more conservatively and got the
reliability up to the point where the usual was to run the computer
during the daytime and do diagnostics and maintenance on it at night.
And it wasn't all that bad, the tubes didn't need replacing very often.

Much of this info I got from Stan Auqarten's excellent "Bit By Bit" book
on the history of computers.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Watson A.Name - \"Watt Su]

"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com>
wrote in message news:10t3vc32aafof30@corp.supernews.com...

"Rich Grise" <richgrise@example.net> wrote in message
newsan.2004.12.28.23.35.57.788378@example.net...
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:02:04 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:41:08 -0600, hmurray@suespammers.org (Hal
Murray) wrote:

Summer of '60 or '61, at MIT, IBM 709??, used punched cards,
learned
FAP and Fortran.

I think the 7090 turned into a 7094 sometime in the early 60s.
CTSS was running by 65 - on a heavily modified 7094 initially
designed
for American Airlines Saber reservations system. Main feature
was 2 banks of memory and a few new instructions to switch
and relocate/bounds registers.

The 709 that was used before the 7090 was donated to the EE dept.
Tubes! IBM didn't want to maintain it but grad students don't
cost much. I never saw it, but heard credible rumors.

You jiggled my memory... it WAS the 7090 I used... wasn't it the
FIRST
transistorized IBM machine?

I once heard a UL that at one of those warehouse-sized tube-type
computers, they had three fulltime kids on roller skates, whose only
job
was to replace burned-out tubes.

Yeah, I think that was a Urban Legend. The original tube modules that
were designed by Eckert and Mauchly had less than optimum MTBFs, and
they calculated that if they built the computer using these, they
would
have more down time for tube replacement than they would have uptime.
So they redesigned the modules to run more conservatively and got the
reliability up to the point where the usual was to run the computer
during the daytime and do diagnostics and maintenance on it at night.
And it wasn't all that bad, the tubes didn't need replacing very
often.

Much of this info I got from Stan Auqarten's excellent "Bit By Bit"
book
on the history of computers.

I checked Augarten's "Bit by Bit" and he says that for ENIAC, fifty
tubes failed in the first month, and fifteen failed in the fifth month.
For a machine with 17,468 tubes (and appx 70,000 resistors, 10,000
capacitors, 1,500 relays, and 6,000 manual switches), that wasn't bad at
all.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 17:22:42 -0800, Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover" wrote:

"Watson A.Name - "Watt Sun, the Dark Remover"" <NOSPAM@dslextreme.com
wrote in message news:10t3vc32aafof30@corp.supernews.com...

"Rich Grise" <richgrise@example.net> wrote in message
newsan.2004.12.28.23.35.57.788378@example.net...
On Tue, 28 Dec 2004 08:02:04 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote:

On Mon, 27 Dec 2004 20:41:08 -0600, hmurray@suespammers.org (Hal
Murray) wrote:

Summer of '60 or '61, at MIT, IBM 709??, used punched cards,
learned
FAP and Fortran.

I think the 7090 turned into a 7094 sometime in the early 60s.
CTSS was running by 65 - on a heavily modified 7094 initially
designed
for American Airlines Saber reservations system. Main feature
was 2 banks of memory and a few new instructions to switch
and relocate/bounds registers.

The 709 that was used before the 7090 was donated to the EE dept.
Tubes! IBM didn't want to maintain it but grad students don't
cost much. I never saw it, but heard credible rumors.

You jiggled my memory... it WAS the 7090 I used... wasn't it the
FIRST
transistorized IBM machine?

I once heard a UL that at one of those warehouse-sized tube-type
computers, they had three fulltime kids on roller skates, whose only
job
was to replace burned-out tubes.

Yeah, I think that was a Urban Legend. The original tube modules that
were designed by Eckert and Mauchly had less than optimum MTBFs, and
they calculated that if they built the computer using these, they
would
have more down time for tube replacement than they would have uptime.
So they redesigned the modules to run more conservatively and got the
reliability up to the point where the usual was to run the computer
during the daytime and do diagnostics and maintenance on it at night.
And it wasn't all that bad, the tubes didn't need replacing very
often.

Much of this info I got from Stan Auqarten's excellent "Bit By Bit"
book
on the history of computers.

I checked Augarten's "Bit by Bit" and he says that for ENIAC, fifty
tubes failed in the first month, and fifteen failed in the fifth month.
For a machine with 17,468 tubes (and appx 70,000 resistors, 10,000
capacitors, 1,500 relays, and 6,000 manual switches), that wasn't bad at
all.

Of course, everyone knows about the very first computer bug:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h96000/h96566kc.htm

Cheers!
Rich