Forgot your password?
Cyhist Apr 4 1997 C
Document Actions
Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 07:04:58 -0800
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Gwen Bell <bell@TCM.ORG>
Subject: Re: IBM "Stretch" 7030 and Atlas
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
>Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Poster: bell@tcm.org (Gwen Bell)
>Subject: Re: IBM "Stretch" 7030 and Atlas
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>
>
John Ahlstrom wrote:
>Any one have any real performance comparisons between Atlas and Stretch?
The specs are there in Bell and Newell, Computer Structures, 1971; we also have manuals et. al. at The Computer Museum. I find this is the kind of question that wants to be answered with real research, not via community memory. And I am sure that everyone would appreciate it if some one dug this out and summarized it for us.
>
>Certainly the government orders for Stretch did not seem to make it a commercial success.
To me, this is more of a community memory question. From a bottom line standpoint, Stretch was not a success, but as an R&D project at IBM that lead to other machines (the 360/95 and 360/195 were 'successes'); standardizing on the idea of the 8-bit byte (from the Stretch), the idea of "look ahead", and the technology that it took to build the system ... all made doing the 360 system much easier. Erich Bloch went from working on the technology of the Stretch to the 360 (for which he recieved the National Medal of Technology). And, of course, the selectric typewriter was developed for the Stretch for rapid input. (It was the big secret .. when Stretch was shown off at IBM a paper box was put over the selectric so that no one could see it.)
>
>What about the Atlas successor--Titan?
>Performance? government orders? commercial success?
>
>John Ahlstrom
>jahlstrom@cisco.com
>
>Amateurs discuss instruction set architecture. Professionals discuss cooling.
>With apologies to Genl Omar N Bradley
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Gwen Bell <bell@TCM.ORG>
Subject: Re: IBM "Stretch" 7030 and Atlas
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
>Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Poster: bell@tcm.org (Gwen Bell)
>Subject: Re: IBM "Stretch" 7030 and Atlas
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
>
>
John Ahlstrom wrote:
>Any one have any real performance comparisons between Atlas and Stretch?
The specs are there in Bell and Newell, Computer Structures, 1971; we also have manuals et. al. at The Computer Museum. I find this is the kind of question that wants to be answered with real research, not via community memory. And I am sure that everyone would appreciate it if some one dug this out and summarized it for us.
>
>Certainly the government orders for Stretch did not seem to make it a commercial success.
To me, this is more of a community memory question. From a bottom line standpoint, Stretch was not a success, but as an R&D project at IBM that lead to other machines (the 360/95 and 360/195 were 'successes'); standardizing on the idea of the 8-bit byte (from the Stretch), the idea of "look ahead", and the technology that it took to build the system ... all made doing the 360 system much easier. Erich Bloch went from working on the technology of the Stretch to the 360 (for which he recieved the National Medal of Technology). And, of course, the selectric typewriter was developed for the Stretch for rapid input. (It was the big secret .. when Stretch was shown off at IBM a paper box was put over the selectric so that no one could see it.)
>
>What about the Atlas successor--Titan?
>Performance? government orders? commercial success?
>
>John Ahlstrom
>jahlstrom@cisco.com
>
>Amateurs discuss instruction set architecture. Professionals discuss cooling.
>With apologies to Genl Omar N Bradley
>
>______________________________________________________________________
>
