From: Tim Bradshaw <tfb@tfeb.org>
To: Doug McIlroy <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu>
Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: Re: [TUHS] core
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2018 00:53:52 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <580E4D90-FB9F-4C7B-8904-7994C49806E7@tfeb.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <201806202011.w5KKBOT5040344@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU>
Making tube (valve) machines reliable was something originally sorted out by Tommy Flowers, who understood, and convinced people with some difficulty I think, that you could make a machine with one or two thousand valves (1,600 for Mk 1, 2,400 for Mk 2) reliable enough to use, and then produced ten or eleven Colossi from 1943 on which were used to great effect in. So by the time of Whirlwind it was presumably well-understood that this was possible.
(This is not meant to detract from what Whirlwind did in any way.)
> On 20 Jun 2018, at 21:11, Doug McIlroy <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu> wrote:
>
> If you extrapolate the rate of replacement of vacuum tubes in a 5-tube
> radio to a 5000-tube computer (say nothing of the 50,000-tube machines
> for which Whirlwind served as a prototype), computing looks like a
> crap shoot. In fact, thanks to the maintenance protocol, Whirlwind
> computed reliably--a sine qua non for the nascent industry.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2018-06-20 23:54 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 73+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2018-06-20 20:11 Doug McIlroy
2018-06-20 23:53 ` Tim Bradshaw [this message]
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2018-06-21 22:44 Nelson H. F. Beebe
2018-06-21 23:07 ` Grant Taylor via TUHS
2018-06-21 23:38 ` Toby Thain
2018-06-21 17:40 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-21 17:07 Nelson H. F. Beebe
2018-06-21 13:46 Doug McIlroy
2018-06-21 16:13 ` Tim Bradshaw
2018-06-19 12:23 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-19 12:58 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-19 13:53 ` John P. Linderman
2018-06-21 14:09 ` Paul Winalski
2018-06-19 11:50 Doug McIlroy
[not found] <20180618121738.98BD118C087@mercury.lcs.mit.edu>
2018-06-18 21:13 ` Johnny Billquist
2018-06-18 17:56 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-18 18:51 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-18 14:51 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-18 14:58 ` Warner Losh
[not found] <mailman.1.1529287201.13697.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2018-06-18 5:58 ` Johnny Billquist
2018-06-18 12:39 ` Ronald Natalie
2018-06-17 21:18 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-17 17:58 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-18 9:16 ` Tim Bradshaw
2018-06-18 15:33 ` Tim Bradshaw
2018-06-17 14:36 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-17 15:58 ` Derek Fawcus
2018-06-16 22:57 Noel Chiappa
[not found] <mailman.1.1529175600.3826.tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>
2018-06-16 22:14 ` Johnny Billquist
2018-06-16 22:38 ` Arthur Krewat
2018-06-17 0:15 ` Clem cole
2018-06-17 1:50 ` Johnny Billquist
2018-06-17 10:33 ` Ronald Natalie
2018-06-20 16:55 ` Paul Winalski
2018-06-20 21:35 ` Johnny Billquist
2018-06-20 22:24 ` Paul Winalski
2018-06-16 13:49 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-16 14:10 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-16 14:34 ` Lawrence Stewart
2018-06-16 15:28 ` Larry McVoy
2018-06-16 14:10 ` Steve Nickolas
2018-06-16 14:13 ` William Pechter
2018-06-16 13:37 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-16 18:59 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-17 12:15 ` Derek Fawcus
2018-06-17 17:33 ` Theodore Y. Ts'o
2018-06-17 19:50 ` Jon Forrest
2018-06-18 14:56 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-18 12:36 ` Tony Finch
2018-06-16 12:58 Doug McIlroy
2018-06-20 11:10 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-06-16 12:51 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-16 13:11 ` Clem cole
2018-06-15 15:25 Noel Chiappa
2018-06-15 23:05 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-06-15 23:22 ` Lyndon Nerenberg
2018-06-16 6:36 ` Dave Horsfall
2018-06-16 19:07 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-18 9:25 ` Tim Bradshaw
2018-06-19 20:45 ` Peter Jeremy
2018-06-19 22:55 ` David Arnold
2018-06-20 5:04 ` Peter Jeremy
2018-06-20 5:41 ` Warner Losh
2018-06-15 11:19 A. P. Garcia
2018-06-15 13:50 ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2018-06-15 14:21 ` Clem Cole
2018-06-15 15:11 ` John P. Linderman
2018-06-15 15:21 ` Larry McVoy
2018-06-16 1:08 ` Greg 'groggy' Lehey
2018-06-16 2:00 ` Nemo Nusquam
2018-06-16 2:17 ` John P. Linderman
2018-06-16 3:06 ` Clem cole
2018-06-20 10:06 ` Dave Horsfall
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