The Case For Biquinary
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From: jsavard on 1 Apr 2005 12:24 Keith R. Williams wrote: > The 650-4 was announced in 1959, according to the IBM archives. Well, it may be that the 650-4 did use transistors. But if so, it doesn't seem to be noted anywhere. The 7070 is the first transistorized follow-up to the 650 that I have ever heard of. The 650-4 may have been simply a modification of an existing product, not a "new" product. The IBM 650 RAMAC was an old product - the IBM 650 - hooked up to a new product - the RAMAC disk storage unit, and the RAMAC portion was transistorized. If IBM did make a transistor 650, I would have expected it to be fairly prominently mentioned in histories of computing. It is true there _were_ transistor-based computers that used recirculating memory; the Packard-Bell 350 is an example. Thus, although drum memory is much slower than core memory, and the architectural changes of the 7070 were required when the shift to core memory was made, there is no _a priori_ reason that IBM couldn't have converted the 650 to transistors, just as it did the 709, creating the 7090. And we even have a precedent in their card equipment line to indicate that a transistorized 650 wouldn't have been called a 6500. John Savard
From: Tom Van Vleck on 1 Apr 2005 12:58 jsavard(a)ecn.ab.ca wrote: > Keith R. Williams wrote: > > The 650-4 was announced in 1959, according to the IBM archives. > > Well, it may be that the 650-4 did use transistors. But if so, it > doesn't seem to be noted anywhere. The 7070 is the first transistorized > follow-up to the 650 that I have ever heard of. Bob Bemer's story of the genesis of the 7070 doesn't shed any light on this question but mentions biquinary: http://www.bobbemer.com/BIRTH.HTM > And we even have a precedent in their card equipment line to indicate > that a transistorized 650 wouldn't have been called a 6500. Bemer's story says that the working name for the 650 follow-on was the 660. (I was not a 650 user, but I did program and operate the 7070 in 1962 and 1963. It was my impression that the 650 was not transistorized and did not have core, two advantages claimed for our machine, along with magnetic tape which Bemer says was the business requirement.)
From: Eric C. Fromm on 1 Apr 2005 16:33 FWIW: Seymour Cray developed the first *fully* transistorized computer while at CDC. The 1604 was (I'm pretty sure) an integrated desk/cabinet introduced in 1958. >What about the official pronouncement in 1957 that no more products >announced after that date would use ("primarily") tubes? > >Snipped from my earlier article: > > "It shall be the policy of IBM to use solid-state circuitry in > all machine developments. Furthermore, no new commercial machines > or devices shall be announced which make primary use of tube > circuitry." > >The 650-4 was announced in 1959, according to the IBM archives. > > >I dunno, though. I was in second grade. ;-) > -eric -- Eric C. Fromm efromm(a)sgi.com Principal Engineer Scalable Systems Division SGI - Silicon Graphics, Inc. Chippewa Falls, Wi.
From: Delbert Cecchi on 1 Apr 2005 21:26 "Eric C. Fromm" <efromm(a)sgi.com> wrote in message news:d2kenn$3fcrsi$1(a)fido.engr.sgi.com... > FWIW: Seymour Cray developed the first *fully* transistorized computer > while at CDC. The 1604 was (I'm pretty sure) an integrated desk/cabinet > introduced in 1958. > Apparently the desk and cabinet weighed several thousand pounds and was introduced in 1960. del
From: jsavard on 2 Apr 2005 02:07
Eric C. Fromm wrote: > FWIW: Seymour Cray developed the first *fully* transistorized computer > while at CDC. The 1604 was (I'm pretty sure) an integrated desk/cabinet > introduced in 1958. The CDC 160 was an integrated desk/cabinet, and was developed from the peripheral processors for the CDC 6600 series. The 1604 was a large mainframe with a 48-bit word. John Savard |