On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:34:51 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote:>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_until_2050/That would require training a second generation of MACRO-11 programmers. Not much assembly programming was than on PDP-11's in 1980's, so the youngest PDP-11 assembly programmers would have been about 20 years old in 1990. At 2050, they would be 80 years old and the older ones past 100 years old. There is quite slim chanches that any youngster of today would be so committed to be fluent in such assembly language. How many youngsters learn assembler for some modern architectures e.g. to optimize computer game graphics, not many. Originally nuclear power plants were designed for 30 years life time, but when it became clear that getting a license for a new station is almost impossible, extending the life time of current reactors to 50-60 years become quite appealing. In practice, this means that practically every component is replaced, at least once during that extended life time. This includes most of the tubes, turbines and generators (to increase power) and control systems are gradually updated. In a PWR, only the pressure vessel is not considered replaceable. I do not know, if there are other consideration with CANDU reactors (burning un-riched natural uranium), compared to ordinary light water PWRs and BWRs. In Finland, there are two Russian made VVER-440 reactors, originally equipped with Ferranti control system, which during the last decade has been gradually replaced by Siemens automation. I have been working with control systems for various industrial sectors for a long time and the usual contractual requirement is software and hardware support for at least 10 years. In many cases, our customers quite happily run 20-30 years old systems. However, a 60 year support period would mean that we now would have to support electronics from the early 1950's with firebotles (tubes). Thus, the most natural technological update is the mid-life update for a 50-60 year life cycle. This plea for help to year 2050 sounds more like that they have lost all requirement specifications, design documents and possibly assembly/high level language source code. So now they want someone to disassemble the binary code and document it :-). In that case, if they still have relocatable object records produced by MACRO-11 or Fortran IV Plus (i.e. input to TKB), I might even be able to help them, if only if I could find a paper tape reader for reading my object disassembler :-).
the PDP-11 lives!
Started by ●June 19, 2013
Reply by ●June 23, 20132013-06-23
Reply by ●June 23, 20132013-06-23
On Sun, 23 Jun 2013 15:20:19 +0300, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:>On Wed, 19 Jun 2013 14:34:51 -0700, John Larkin ><jlarkin@highlandtechnology.com> wrote: > >>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_until_2050/ > >That would require training a second generation of MACRO-11 >programmers. >It would be good for them. It's a beautiful instruction set.>Not much assembly programming was than on PDP-11's in 1980's, so the >youngest PDP-11 assembly programmers would have been about 20 years >old in 1990. At 2050, they would be 80 years old and the older ones >past 100 years old. > >There is quite slim chanches that any youngster of today would be so >committed to be fluent in such assembly language. How many youngsters >learn assembler for some modern architectures e.g. to optimize >computer game graphics, not many.PDP-11 and 68K assembly is easy to learn, if you can understand bits and addressing and logical operations and 2's comp math. *IF*. The 68K is also an elegant machine. RISC processors are less friendly; they were designed to make compiler happy, not to make people happy. x86 doesn't make anything happy. -- John Larkin Highland Technology Inc www.highlandtechnology.com jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom timing and laser controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME analog, thermocouple, LVDT, synchro, tachometer Multichannel arbitrary waveform generators
Reply by ●June 24, 20132013-06-24
John G schrieb:> All those big IBM mainframes of the 60s, 70s and 80s had a maze of > yellow wire wraps on the back panels and some other colours, blue mostley.Hello, not only IBM and not only mainframes. Wirewrapping was used for a lot of computers in that time. PCB backplanes were used for computers produced in very large numbers. Bye
Reply by ●June 24, 20132013-06-24
Uwe Hercksen <hercksen@mew.uni-erlangen.de> wrote:> John G schrieb: > >> All those big IBM mainframes of the 60s, 70s and 80s had a maze of > >> yellow wire wraps on the back panels and some other colours, blue mostley. > > Hello, > > not only IBM and not only mainframes. Wirewrapping was used for a lot of > computers in that time. PCB backplanes were used for computers produced > in very large numbers. > > ByeI worked with large Collins racks made for NASA. Maze of white Teflon wires. I'm not thinking they were wire wrap. I was pretty good at screwing up wirewrap wiring changes in equipment. Once tied 5 MHz to ground. Everywhere, 5 MHz. TTL. Greg
Reply by ●July 2, 20132013-07-02
On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 5:34:51 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_until_2050/Does it come with Spacewars?
Reply by ●July 2, 20132013-07-02
On Tue, 2 Jul 2013 10:59:31 -0700 (PDT), Frank <fatherhaskell@yahoo.com> wrote:>On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 5:34:51 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote: >> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_until_2050/ > >Does it come with Spacewars?http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/thefatherofcomputergraphics "The atmosphere of academic freedom at MIT allowed some nontraditional research to take place: Graduate students began playing Space War � the first computer game � on the giant TX-2 computer." I designed a color graphics system for the PDP-11, memory mapped with barbaric AMS 1K differential DRAMs. I wrote the first app for it in assembly, Conway's Game of Life. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life -- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc jlarkin at highlandtechnology dot com http://www.highlandtechnology.com Precision electronic instrumentation Picosecond-resolution Digital Delay and Pulse generators Custom laser drivers and controllers Photonics and fiberoptic TTL data links VME thermocouple, LVDT, synchro acquisition and simulation
Reply by ●July 2, 20132013-07-02
On Tuesday, July 2, 2013 3:19:54 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:> On Tue, 2 Jul 2013 10:59:31 -0700 (PDT), Frank >=20 > <fatherhaskell@yahoo.com> wrote: >=20 >=20 >=20 > >On Wednesday, June 19, 2013 5:34:51 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote: >=20 > >> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/19/nuke_plants_to_keep_pdp11_unti=l_2050/>=20 > > >=20 > >Does it come with Spacewars?=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > http://www.guidebookgallery.org/articles/thefatherofcomputergraphicsNo, kids, it wasn't John Walker.>=20 >=20 >=20 > "The atmosphere of academic freedom at MIT allowed some nontraditional >=20 > research to take place: Graduate students began playing Space War =96 >=20 > the first computer game =96 on the giant TX-2 computer." >=20 >=20 >=20 > I designed a color graphics system for the PDP-11, memory mapped with >=20 > barbaric AMS 1K differential DRAMs. I wrote the first app for it in >=20 > assembly, Conway's Game of Life. >=20 >=20 >=20 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_LifeThat's cred.
