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Amazingly, the B5000 was ahead of its time in so many regards that you can't expect someone surveying it a mere two decades later to fully understand its scope.

Amazingly, the B5000 was ahead of its time in so many regards that you can't expect someone surveying it a mere two decades later to fully understand its scope. In particular, I don't think that the linked article does nearly enough justice to the B5000's pioneering use of multiple CPUs -- in part because symmetric multiprocessing was still very much in utero in 1982. When I wrote an article on concurrency for ACM Queue another twenty-six years later[1], the degree to which the B5000 had been ahead of its time with respect to multiprocessing was much clearer -- and I felt duty-bound to give the B5000 its propers. [1] http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1454462 http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=1454462

joshu 14y ago
I didn't think this was a great article. Just a sortof grabbag list of features. Some of which feel quite retrograde, like stack-based architecture etc. (Hi Bryan!)
- bcantrill 14y ago
  (Hey Joshua!) Assuming that you're referring to the linked article and not to mine, I emphatically agree. ;)
  - joshu 14y ago
    Yes, I meant the linked article.
cbsmith 14y ago
Interesting... A lot of the "ahead of its time" features were those that have only made sense as various other factors in computing have matured... including multiprocessing. Is it possible that these features that were essentially not a good idea for a lot of the intervening time period?
- jleader 14y ago
  The common wisdom at Burroughs when I worked there in the 80s was that back in the 60s and 70s, Burroughs often invented something, then 5 years later IBM would "invent" it, and then the industry press would start talking about what a good idea it was. I still have next to my desk a small sign I salvaged from the computer room in the Burroughs Pasadena Development Center when it was being shut down, which reads "Each person having access to this room is cautioned not to discuss the machines or work done here with unauthorized employees or persons outside the company. Premature disclosure of new inventions might void our patent rights here or throughout the world." (signed by the then-president of Burroughs, R. W. Macdonald) I saved it because the irony amused me at the time.

joshu 14y ago

I didn't think this was a great article. Just a sortof grabbag list of features. Some of which feel quite retrograde, like stack-based architecture etc. (Hi Bryan!)

bcantrill 14y ago
(Hey Joshua!) Assuming that you're referring to the linked article and not to mine, I emphatically agree. ;)
- joshu 14y ago
  Yes, I meant the linked article.

cbsmith 14y ago

Interesting... A lot of the "ahead of its time" features were those that have only made sense as various other factors in computing have matured... including multiprocessing. Is it possible that these features that were essentially not a good idea for a lot of the intervening time period?

jleader 14y ago
The common wisdom at Burroughs when I worked there in the 80s was that back in the 60s and 70s, Burroughs often invented something, then 5 years later IBM would "invent" it, and then the industry press would start talking about what a good idea it was. I still have next to my desk a small sign I salvaged from the computer room in the Burroughs Pasadena Development Center when it was being shut down, which reads "Each person having access to this room is cautioned not to discuss the machines or work done here with unauthorized employees or persons outside the company. Premature disclosure of new inventions might void our patent rights here or throughout the world." (signed by the then-president of Burroughs, R. W. Macdonald) I saved it because the irony amused me at the time.