[Beowulf] A press release

[Robert G. Brown]

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008, Lyle Bickley wrote:

> On Thursday 10 July 2008, Robert G. Brown wrote:
> --snip--
>> Aye, laddy, 'twas a PDP 1 with sense switches on the front that one did
>> indeed toggle in the paper tape boot program (to get it to where it
>> could read from other media), a green oscilloscope-style CRT for a
>> monitor (complete with crosshatches IIRC), a real teletype console, and
>> the ability to run simple fortran programs that did beam optic
>> computations and displayed a simple visualization of same.  The PDP
>> itself was quite large, and I was told that it "had a few bad bits..."
>> but that they usually didn't affect the outcome of a computation.
>
> I'm on the PDP-1 and IBM 1620 Restoration Teams at the Computer History Museum
> (see: http://www.computerhistory.org/pdp-1/). So if the PDP-1 was your first
> computer (and one NEVER forgets their first computer) you can see it in
> action (running Spacewar!, Minskytron, Music, etc.) at the CHM!
>
> In fact, if your visiting Silicon Valley, I'll give you a private tour!

Cool!  I think TUNL finally got rid of theirs -- always a shame,
somehow, when a magnificent thing like that dies.

> Funny combination - setting up Beowulf clusters and restoring vintage
> computers. There must be a lesson here :-)

Vintage clusters?

;-)

    rgb

>
> Cheers,
> Lyle
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>     rgb
>
>
>
>

-- 
Robert G. Brown                            Phone(cell): 1-919-280-8443
Duke University Physics Dept, Box 90305
Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
Web: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb
Book of Lilith Website: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/Lilith/Lilith.php
Lulu Bookstore: http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=877977