"A Walk Through 'Visible Storage'", section 4 of 6,
by LEN SHUSTEK
From "CORE 2.3", a publication of
The Computer History Museum.
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MINI COMPUTERS FOR THE MASSES
While Seymour Cray's companies were building
massive supercomputers, Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC) was a pioneer in "mini-
computers" for the masses. This
PDP-8
Photo by Jessica Huynh
from
1965 was a
huge success; for about $17,000 anyone
could own a serious professional computer.
You could even argue that it was the first
"personal" computer, if that means a
computer small enough for one (strong)
person to pick up and put in his car!
By that definition, DEC had started by making
decidedly non-personal computers like the
PDP-1
Photo by Jessica Huynh
(display and
monitor shown here), which had only 8K of
memory, weighed a ton, and fit in no one's
car. But DEC's machines were always
approachable and touchable, and this one
was the inspiration for one of the first
computer games, SpaceWar!, which simulated
dueling rockets ships on the circular display
tube.
DEC went on to make many other medium-
sized computers. One that set a standard was
the 1978 VAX, of which we have several in
the collection. For years rumors were floating
around that certain eastern European
countries had built clones of U.S. computers
because they could build the machine and
then steal the programs; software had as
much value as hardware. After the fall of the
Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union
we were able to get this
clone of a DEC VAX,
Photo by Jessica Huynh
made from
U.S. and British integrated circuits and
Eastern European circuit boards, all running
purloined DEC software.
The computer revolution has been a
worldwide activity, and our collection is
appropriately international in scope. This
Z-23
Photo by Jessica Huynh
medium-sized computer was
built by the German Zuse Computer Company
in the early 1960s. Its designer, Konrad Zuse,
a formerly under-recognized genius of
computer design, independently invented
many concepts before WWII that were
subsequently reinvented by others in
different countries. But he lost that
advantage to engineers from Great Britain
and the U.S. because of Germany's war
activities. His son, Horst Zuse, a computer
scientist himself, has worked to restore his
father's proper place in history and facilitated
the donation of this machine to us.
The end of the flashing lights
and whirring tape drives since
then has made computers more
efficient but much less
photogenic.
BUT DO THEY STILL WORK?
Many people touring the Visible Storage
Exhibit Area ask how many of our machines
still work. The answer, unfortunately, is "very
few." Even if we have complete hardware and
documentation and the necessary software, it
takes a huge effort to restore and keep the
older machines running. But it can be done,
and this
IBM 1620,
Photo by David Pace
designed in 1959, is an
example.
A dedicated team of Museum volunteers led
by the indefatigable Dave Babcock worked for
over a year to get this early transistorized
machine back in working condition. As part of
the project, they also created an exquisitely
detailed cycle-by-cycle simulator that runs on
the web. They collected a huge library of
1620 software of over 300,000 original
punched cards, which were converted to
modern storage and can now run on both the
real machine and on the simulator. In the long
term-think 100 or 500 years-the only
consistent way to keep these old machines
running and to preserve the accomplishments
they represent will be to do it in "virtual
space" through simulations.
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