From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=LOTS_OF_MONEY, MAILING_LIST_MULTI autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 23492 invoked from network); 15 Jan 2023 19:19:34 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 15 Jan 2023 19:19:34 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A7F274238B; Mon, 16 Jan 2023 05:19:28 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mout.perfora.net (mout.perfora.net [74.208.4.196]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 35A4242389 for ; Mon, 16 Jan 2023 05:19:22 +1000 (AEST) Received: from makerlispvps ([74.208.29.250]) by mrelay.perfora.net (mreueus004 [74.208.5.2]) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 1MCrkq-1pPyDx1pM8-008okf for ; Sun, 15 Jan 2023 20:19:21 +0100 Received: from [192.168.234.128] (unknown [172.58.19.188]) by makerlispvps (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 04EAC8872C for ; Sun, 15 Jan 2023 19:19:20 +0000 (UTC) To: tuhs@tuhs.org References: From: Luther Johnson Message-ID: <8c1a6096-bb81-7bee-081b-e4e904202369@makerlisp.com> Date: Sun, 15 Jan 2023 12:19:19 -0700 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/45.8.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K1:1qdvzIdgnKhrG9ZfEjfZHnzx0kdb9EKebYnLDY2t+kZeqQpsY7E rbpWYUdi97yBeLEl7Xh4RrRqqroxZ+Hz6P+NPfkShXnkN5OT5p86Vc5aqxN+Vn/+vARdSYL 0DgDRCLqpqlDe2CCjZomHuciMB9aUfjXJOW3dmwXMYSDSKB3Ua5R3xb11jVMy7qjdNHK2m4 YiKZIYr6WSHvg5yywXkxw== UI-OutboundReport: notjunk:1;M01:P0:vEeVhcumZUQ=;Efcf/CE7BdwdAaxz3Z6N2Ix0qV3 pX7gzKlCdlbm1xy36TbbLuQXCFIMrJXTUnTnH+U0MOGrqgEhsUTqj6afcSoNtUbXhBb0zIecN GiZzSiOgx36Zt9V5wojJ8x/Z0k+/wkSOmWcDqqQzxxkrJFy6SrTmeV4b9XuhhRcJk7wybFXyn jgZovEY1Z6PnlsMmw8D6nVMN4KsdlKdH/Dr5eDYG3dkymrzJpTAQelCiFk5tf41GjxBTgKYFn jDwKiKbvTW00+PkpqOkV1G+RttHaJEU1+Xv9JUfARcjADyBPUaAWaJmkeenINOsvX3mzYwprx XVaLTm03iKsCDvRYZOxNHEQ/pNO5jwT9jjZqFyN+VDjrqfeTsvG5z0YfTpHjjAXxLDTPXmUM9 hEhVZFcgRAzOjCEfM5p5wczToy4HR/o4+mbVkqxIoPExBzSDW+Kam0+0LD+ps5K42D9NDBYgw s7dE7HhXxGisAYj8pnMydxJuGqAwmXZJoDLH9qZK5OLUTMXyHlRm2fZu+cavuNMX9guZZcUvj Dl/xiSZmP3q+kGZ8GJw9n0bKGvxTFELIYUprru5tJRpOW/XXjiy7ycPjrYOgzFKbv0upfu6Ts 9lK+BfZoRK/4JmB9J+w/BqVEqn2wB9lqOHn76+og2PMG+LLc8EqM7OmuVYTBZZG8fRWp7O1jc 7uo9XP5HlZa/bMBj4i8P5IZBHvdPbtjCyH9Nt+K+Lg== Message-ID-Hash: 5X426PT4GZUG5SOORJF2XHBLPLPHUFVJ X-Message-ID-Hash: 5X426PT4GZUG5SOORJF2XHBLPLPHUFVJ X-MailFrom: luther@makerlisp.com X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Burroughs funded $30,000 for a port to E-mode stack machine in 1983! List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Well, FPGAs use SRAM-based look-up tables to do their combinational logic functions - so not that crazy - if it works and gives good enough results for the task at hand, people will find ways of using the technique. But I imagine there were a host of other things that weren't done as well as possible that added up to 8 hours vs. 3 minutes. On 01/15/2023 12:09 PM, ron minnich wrote: > I just stumbled across an old letter, from a VP of Burroughs to me and > Steve Bartels, authorizing $30,000 for a port of Unix to the E-mode > stack machine. I had forgotten getting it. > > Burroughs was famed for its stack machines. E-mode was a kind of last > gasp attempt to save the stack architecture, which failed as far as I > know, see this table: > http://jack.hoa.org/hoajaa/Burr126b.html > > I worked as a hardware engineer on the A15. I also had been a Unix > user for 7 years at that point and kept pointing out how awful the > Burroughs CANDE time-sharing system was, and how much better Unix was. > At some point I guess they asked me to put up or shut up. I got that > money, and left Burroughs a week later for grad school. > > Funny note: A15 was Motorola ECL (MECL), and ran at 16 Mhz., > considered fast at that time. We used a technique called "stored > logic" which was, believe it or not, using MECL RAM to map logic > inputs to outputs, i.e. implement combinational logic with SRAM. Kind > of nuts, but it worked at the time. We also used a precursor of JTAG > to scan it in. Those of you who know JTAG have some idea of how fun > this had to be. > > One side effect of working with MECL is you realized just how well > designed the TI 7400 SSI/MSI parts were ... MECL always just felt like > an awkward family to design with. > > Another funny story, pointing to what was about to happen to > Burroughs. We had an app that ran for hours on the stack machine. We > quick ported it to a VAX, started it up, and headed out to lunch -- > "this will take a while, let's go eat." We got to the front door and: > "Oh, wait, let me hop back into the office,I forgot my jacket". And, > noticed, the program was done in ... about 3 minutes. Not 8 hours. > > That's when we knew it was game over for Burroughs. > > If a picture of this letter would be useful in some archive somewhere, > let me know, I can send it. > >