Big Blue

1
Big Blue

• 70 market share from 1950s onward
• Any new entrant had to
• 1) compete with their hardware 2) compete
  with their software 3) find a niche IBM did
  not serve already

2

• Just after IBM introduced the vacuum-tube 709
  (1957)
• Philco tried to compete with its surface-barrier
  transistors
• IBM countered the next year with the 7090 and
  Philco failed by 1964

3
IBM 709 Data processing system

• Able to mete out technology at a pace that did
  not render installed machines obsolete too
  quickly
• Kept punch cards alive from the 1930s thought
  the 1960s and beyond
• Only company to make a profit making big machines
  in the 1950s

4
The Counterbalancing Influence of the American
Government

• Military support also important even as far back
  as ENIAC
• After Korean War large increases in spending
  for basic research
• Before - military decided what research they
  want
• After - researchers themselves decided

5
Dynamic Random Access Memory

• one-transistor memory cells
• store each single bit of information as an
  electrical charge in an electronic circuit
• major increases in memory density
• widely adopted throughout the industry
• in widespread use today

DRAM 1966
Robert H. Dennard
6
The Minicomputer

• Born - Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin
• Adolescent hobby electronics
• Fought in WWII in Europe and the Pacific
• Returned home to study electrical engineering and
  mathematics
• Started work for ERA and then UNIVAC

Seymour Cray 1925 - 1996
7
Crays early contribution the CDC 160

• Navy Tactical Data System (NTDS) one of the
  first transistorized machines
• 1960 - Designed the model 160 for CDC to handle
  input/output for their 1604
• It had 12 bit word length
• Able to access primary memory of 8000 words
• 6.4 micro-second clock cycle

8
What Cray had invented was, in fact, a
minicomputer.
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Minicomputer not a direct competitor to mainframes

• Mainframe
• Operated on 36 bits
• Other registers handled ?addressing? indexing?
  extra digits generated
• Too big and expensive to be used for one purpose
  only

• Minicomputer
• Operated on 12 bits
• Instruction codes more complex
• Small enough and cheap enough to be bought for
  one purpose

11
Equipment Corporation
Harlan Anderson
Kenneth Olsen
Old woolen mill in Maynard, Massachusetts
Innovative architectural featuresNot just
machines with transistors replacing tubes No
channels I/O proceeded directly to the core
memory itself
12
Corporate culture 180º opposites

• Only IBM had the right to modify their leased
  machines
• Digital sold and encouraged user modification
• As a result, the PDP series found a multitude of
  uses
• to control and monitor
• ?factories ?
  transportation systems ? nuclear
  power plants ? etc

PDP- 8 controlling potato picker
13
User Manuals
Flip Chip Module

• Printed manuals on inexpensive paper
• Gave away users manuals for free to anyone
• Published detailed specifications of their
  products

14
PDP- 8

• Conjuncture of performance, storage, packaging
  and price
• Word length 12 bits
• 6 kb expandable to 48 kb
• Used indirect addressing to increase functional
  word size
• 35,000 additions per second

15
PDP-8

• Logic modules mounted on two towers
• Discrete circuits not integrated
• 18,000
• Over 50,000 sold
• www.pdp8.net has a running PDP8 that anyone can
  control through a Java applet, plus a webcam to
  show the results

16
Teletype CorporationModel 33 ASR (automatic
send and receive)

• Input/output device for early mini-computers
• Functioned as a type-writer
• Printed onto a roll of continuous paper
• Sent a code indicating what key was pressed
  directly into the computer
• 6 to 10 characters/second
• ESC and CTRL keys

• Used ASCII-American Standard Code for Information
  Interchange

17
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves
Or The Bunch General Electric RCA
18
Time sharing and System/360

• Each user had the illusion that a complete
  machine and its software were at his or her
  disposal
• Happened in the milliseconds between the
  typists keystrokes and ability of the computer
  to fetch and execute simple instructions

19
OS/360

• Family of 3 control programs
• PCP (Primary Control Program) processed jobs
  sequentially
• MFT (Multiprogramming with a Fixed number of
  Tasks) multitasking, fixed number of concurrent
  tasks, each w/ a preset memory allocation
• MVT (Multiprogramming with a Variable number of
  Tasks) varying numbers of tasks, memory size
  could change dynamically
• JCL (Job Control Language) batch-scripting
  language

20
State of the art computer graphic rendering in
1964
21
Digital Mona Lisa

• H. Philip Peterson of Control Data Corporation
• CDC 3200 computer and a "flying-spot" scanner
• The production process - 14 hours to complete
• Contained 100,000 pixels plotted using numerals,
  sometimes overprinted for density.
• Printed on sepia tone paper w/ India ink.
• A first of its kind scanning process

22
1965 Fuzzy logic

• to process approximate data - such as about 100
  
• 1965 -fuzzy sets
• 1973 -analysis of complex systems and decision
  processes
• 1979 -possibility theory and soft data analysis.

Lofti Zadeh University of California, Berkeley
23
Soft Computing

• fuzzy logic
• neural network theory
• probabilistic reasoning ? belief networks ?
  evolutionary computing ?DNA computing ?
  chaos theory ? parts of learning theory

24
Achievements of BISCBerkeley Initiative Soft
Computing

• fuzzy reasoning (set and logic)
• new soft computing algorithms for intelligent,
  semi-unsupervised use of large quantities of
  complex data
• uncertainty analysis
• perception-based decision analysis and decision
  support systems for risk analysis and management
• computing with words
• computational theory of perception
• precisiated natural language 

25
???? USSR 1965

• BESM stands for "??????? ??????????-???????
  ??????"
• (Bolshaja Elektronno-Schetnaja Mashina) in
  Russian,
• "Large Electronic-Computing Machine" or simply
  "Large Computer".

26
1965

• BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction
  Code) programming language by Thomas Kurtz John
  Kemeny, Dartmouth College
• Packet switching, funded by ARPA was developed
• The first supercomputer, the Control Data CDC
  6600, was developed

27
The integrated circuit
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"The future of integrated electronics is the
future of electronics itself. The advantages of
integrationwill bring about a proliferation of
electronics, pushing thisscience into many new
areas.Integrated circuits will lead to such
wonders as home computers ..."
Gordon Moore 1965
Co-founded 1968
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Cray Supercomputers
Question What company makes the fastest
computer? Answer Wherever Seymour Cray is
working now.
Cray I 1976
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More supercomputers
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