4 ms·

Minivac 601

55 points by nanna 8y ago

Waterluvian 8y ago
There's something about physical interaction with these old computers that emulation just cannot satisfy. There's also something amazing about working on a very low powered system... There's so much of the universe of computing you don't have to worry about. To this extent one of my favourite projects was the build your own Apple I. And learning C on an original Raspberry Pi. I read often about this concern that we have offloaded so much responsibility to China that we are losing the fundamentals in the West. I wonder if this desire for nostalgia and simplicity will compel many of us to get in touch with our engineering roots.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Was watching someone getting a Altair to run basic via a teletype and a paper tape. The amount of bit flipping just to get the initial bootloader ready made me appreciate the work Woz and like did to make later systems boot straight to a prompt on a CRT. On a different note, those old systems had a RAM and CPU clock that was basically synced. Thus my understanding is that one could "cycle count" ones way to high performance code.
  - slededit 8y ago
    The CPU was faster than the memory by the mid to late 70s (though they did start roughly equal at the start of the decade). You would insert a number of "wait states" with an external counter to ensure your memories' timing was not violated. At that time RAM was asynchronous, you put an address in the A bus and by the specified delay time you would have your result on the output. Later on memories were pipelined and that is when they got their clock.
- Koshkin 8y ago
  > something about physical interaction I know! Not quite like driving a real car vs. playing a racing game, but still... > something amazing about working on a very low powered system The amazing thing is that they did not feel like low powered. Usability-wise, 1 million instructions per second was nothing to sneeze at, and nor was 1 megabyte of core memory.
gravypod 8y ago
Are there new versions of kits like these? I'd love to build up a machine that was PDP-8 or PDP-11 compatible out of modern digital circuits.
- jonjacky 8y ago
  http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8 http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8 http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11
- cptnapalm 8y ago
  Perhaps combine the PiDP-11 with this: http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/PDP11%20V2%20Board/PDP11%20Board%20V2.htm http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/PDP11%20V2%20Bo...
jloughry 8y ago
From chaper 3 of Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company by Lodish et al. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007) Many colleges and some upper socioeconomic high schools also bought the MINIVAC as an educational aid. However, no one in the third segment, the corporate sector, bought the product. The entrepreneur interviewed some target customers to try to find the problem. He found out very quickly. The typical description of the MINIVAC by the corporate types was: "Oh, that—it's just a toy!" The entrepreneur was creative and he listened carefully. He also understood marketing. His next product was the same basic kit—with the switches upgraded to higher tolerances and the machine color changed from blue and red to gunmetal gray. The name was changed to the MINIVAC 6010 and he increased the price from $79.95 to $479. The MINIVAC 6010 sold very well to the corporate segment at $479.
- perl4ever 8y ago
  Well, that may be jumping to conclusions. Maybe the corporate types weren't reacting to the change in color at all. Maybe they were doing a rational cost benefit analysis - 6010 is 10 times better than 601, and 479 is only 6 times the price. Clearly the value proposition has been noticeably improved!
tomcam 8y ago
Created by none other than Claude Shannon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon

55 points by nanna 8y ago

There's something about physical interaction with these old computers that emulation just cannot satisfy. There's also something amazing about working on a very low powered system... There's so much of the universe of computing you don't have to worry about. To this extent one of my favourite projects was the build your own Apple I. And learning C on an original Raspberry Pi. I read often about this concern that we have offloaded so much responsibility to China that we are losing the fundamentals in the West. I wonder if this desire for nostalgia and simplicity will compel many of us to get in touch with our engineering roots.

digi_owl 8y ago
Was watching someone getting a Altair to run basic via a teletype and a paper tape. The amount of bit flipping just to get the initial bootloader ready made me appreciate the work Woz and like did to make later systems boot straight to a prompt on a CRT. On a different note, those old systems had a RAM and CPU clock that was basically synced. Thus my understanding is that one could "cycle count" ones way to high performance code.
- slededit 8y ago
  The CPU was faster than the memory by the mid to late 70s (though they did start roughly equal at the start of the decade). You would insert a number of "wait states" with an external counter to ensure your memories' timing was not violated. At that time RAM was asynchronous, you put an address in the A bus and by the specified delay time you would have your result on the output. Later on memories were pipelined and that is when they got their clock.
Koshkin 8y ago
> something about physical interaction I know! Not quite like driving a real car vs. playing a racing game, but still... > something amazing about working on a very low powered system The amazing thing is that they did not feel like low powered. Usability-wise, 1 million instructions per second was nothing to sneeze at, and nor was 1 megabyte of core memory.

gravypod 8y ago

Are there new versions of kits like these? I'd love to build up a machine that was PDP-8 or PDP-11 compatible out of modern digital circuits.

jonjacky 8y ago
http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8 http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-8 http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 http://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11
cptnapalm 8y ago
Perhaps combine the PiDP-11 with this: http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/PDP11%20V2%20Board/PDP11%20Board%20V2.htm http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/PDP11%20V2%20Bo...

jloughry 8y ago

From chaper 3 of Marketing That Works: How Entrepreneurial Marketing Can Add Sustainable Value to Any Sized Company by Lodish et al. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, 2007) Many colleges and some upper socioeconomic high schools also bought the MINIVAC as an educational aid. However, no one in the third segment, the corporate sector, bought the product. The entrepreneur interviewed some target customers to try to find the problem. He found out very quickly. The typical description of the MINIVAC by the corporate types was: "Oh, that—it's just a toy!" The entrepreneur was creative and he listened carefully. He also understood marketing. His next product was the same basic kit—with the switches upgraded to higher tolerances and the machine color changed from blue and red to gunmetal gray. The name was changed to the MINIVAC 6010 and he increased the price from $79.95 to $479. The MINIVAC 6010 sold very well to the corporate segment at $479.

perl4ever 8y ago
Well, that may be jumping to conclusions. Maybe the corporate types weren't reacting to the change in color at all. Maybe they were doing a rational cost benefit analysis - 6010 is 10 times better than 601, and 479 is only 6 times the price. Clearly the value proposition has been noticeably improved!

tomcam 8y ago

Created by none other than Claude Shannon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon