IBM built a major semiconductor fab up in Fishkill, NY. About two hours drive north of NYC. At one point (mid-1980s) it was the biggest fab in the world according to some metric. On Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 17:35 ron minnich wrote: > I was visiting Holmdel in 1981, and there was a tradeshow for the BellMAC > CPUs there, filling ground floor of the central atrium. There was some > swag, which I had for a few years, including refrigerator magnets. The one > I remember: > "Don't be alone, call MACphone!" > > I remember reading an article in the early 80s pointing out that, due to > the scale of the Bell System, the center of the universe of semiconductor > fabrication at that time was ... Allentown, PA. Western Electric had an ad, > along the lines of, "who will create the 256 Kb memory part? WE will" -- WE > as in Western Electric.Those parts would have been fabbed in Allentown > IIRC. > > It is a bit hard to recall, much less believe. but PA, land of dead still > mills, the Molly Maguires, and underground coal mine fires that will burn > for centuries, also had silicon. > > > > > On Mon, Nov 28, 2022 at 1:01 PM Kenneth Goodwin < > kennethgoodwin56@gmail.com> wrote: > >> That must be the 300 B superhive model CPU >> >> On Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 1:54 PM William Corcoran wrote: >> >>> I have a 3b2/300. Anytime you run a command that is compute bound, like >>> factoring a large prime number, the CPU buzzes! >>> >>> >>> >>> Bill Corcoran >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Nov 27, 2022, at 9:52 AM, John P. Linderman >>> wrote: >>> >>>  >>> >>> [EXTERNAL] >>> >>> >>> We were "gifted" a 3B2, as in "take this and use it!". I ran a "ps" >>> command in single user mode, and it took 20 seconds to run. >>> Our machine names were themed around bird names, so we christened the >>> 3B2 "junco". Our director said we had to get along, >>> so we renamed it "jay". But everyone knew what the J stood for. The 3B2 >>> served as a doorstop. >>> >>> On Sat, Nov 26, 2022 at 11:44 PM Phil Budne wrote: >>> >>>> Larry McVoy wrote: >>>> > I read the Wikipedia page on the 9000. It's sad that the 9000 >>>> > wasn't cancelled when they had better alternatives. >>>> >>>> In an oral history Bob Supnik described Ken Olsen couldn't get his >>>> head around the fact that the NVAX chip could equal the 9000: >>>> >>>> @2:59:45 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3tcCBHRIfU >>>> >>>> In part 2, Bob described how then DEC VP Gordon Bell having earlier >>>> predicted when the microprocessor performance curve would cross over >>>> minis and mainframes: >>>> >>>> @1:51:45 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3tcCBHRIfU >>>> >>>> He also talks about how the company couldn't command the bsame gross >>>> margins as it did in the VAX era. >>>> >>> >>> >>> THIS IS AN EXTERNAL EMAIL -- This email was sent from someone OUTSIDE of >>> the NSM Insurance Group email system. PLEASE USE CAUTION WHEN REVIEWING >>> THIS EMAIL. >>> >>>