Tom Knight wrote:
> Several people have asked about the naughty bits of the original MIT
> lisp machine architecture. I've put my master's thesis (1979) on line
> for those of you with a generous non-critical spirit to take a look
> at. I will duck all arrows, but praise will be gratefully received.
Thanks, Tom!
In article <············@ccs.neu.edu>, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> Tom Knight wrote:
> > Several people have asked about the naughty bits of the original MIT
> > lisp machine architecture. I've put my master's thesis (1979) on line
> > for those of you with a generous non-critical spirit to take a look
> > at. I will duck all arrows, but praise will be gratefully received.
>
> Thanks, Tom!
Yes, indeed! This is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into history.
Some of the more interesting passages so far:
"Main memory size in a typical ... configuration will be about 128k
[32-bit] words, an amount we believe will properly balance the computing
power and swapping capabilities of the system."
"The swapping device used in our ... system was an 80 megabyte ... disk
drive with an average access time of 30 ms. ... these drives feature
fast head motion and small average rotational latency (3600 rpm)."
And this was less than 25 years ago.
E.
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: TK's Master's Thesis
Date:
Message-ID: <uhe8wn40e.fsf@dtpq.com>
>>>>> On Thu, 17 Apr 2003 12:56:45 -0700, Erann Gat ("Erann") writes:
Erann> In article <············@ccs.neu.edu>, Joe Marshall <···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
>> Tom Knight wrote:
>> > Several people have asked about the naughty bits of the original MIT
>> > lisp machine architecture. I've put my master's thesis (1979) on line
>> > for those of you with a generous non-critical spirit to take a look
>> > at. I will duck all arrows, but praise will be gratefully received.
>>
>> Thanks, Tom!
Erann> Yes, indeed! This is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into history.
Erann> Some of the more interesting passages so far:
Erann> "Main memory size in a typical ... configuration will be about 128k
Erann> [32-bit] words, an amount we believe will properly balance the computing
Erann> power and swapping capabilities of the system."
Erann> "The swapping device used in our ... system was an 80 megabyte ... disk
Erann> drive with an average access time of 30 ms. ... these drives feature
Erann> fast head motion and small average rotational latency (3600 rpm)."
For any newbies reading: these 80 MB disk drives were the size of a dishwasher.
The CADR machine itself is in a seperate unit, constructed in a 6x2x4 rack
(of which the bottom 2/3 inside is empty air, except for the power supplies
on the very bottom); the CPU main board is a wire wrapped panel which covers
the entire front of the rack. All this hardware lives in the machine room,
with a set of cables down the hallway out to the console in your office.
In article <·············@dtpq.com>, ······@dtpq.com (Christopher C.
Stacy) wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, 17 Apr 2003 12:56:45 -0700, Erann Gat ("Erann") writes:
>
> Erann> In article <············@ccs.neu.edu>, Joe Marshall
<···@ccs.neu.edu> wrote:
> >> Tom Knight wrote:
> >> > Several people have asked about the naughty bits of the original MIT
> >> > lisp machine architecture. I've put my master's thesis (1979) on line
> >> > for those of you with a generous non-critical spirit to take a look
> >> > at. I will duck all arrows, but praise will be gratefully received.
> >>
> >> Thanks, Tom!
>
> Erann> Yes, indeed! This is an absolutely fascinating glimpse into history.
> Erann> Some of the more interesting passages so far:
>
> Erann> "Main memory size in a typical ... configuration will be about 128k
> Erann> [32-bit] words, an amount we believe will properly balance the
computing
> Erann> power and swapping capabilities of the system."
>
> Erann> "The swapping device used in our ... system was an 80 megabyte
... disk
> Erann> drive with an average access time of 30 ms. ... these drives feature
> Erann> fast head motion and small average rotational latency (3600 rpm)."
>
> For any newbies reading: these 80 MB disk drives were the size of a
dishwasher.
> The CADR machine itself is in a seperate unit, constructed in a 6x2x4 rack
> (of which the bottom 2/3 inside is empty air, except for the power supplies
> on the very bottom); the CPU main board is a wire wrapped panel which covers
> the entire front of the rack. All this hardware lives in the machine room,
> with a set of cables down the hallway out to the console in your office.
And IIRC (I was pretty far out of the loop, being in junior high school at
the time) the whole thing was viewed with a certain amount of skepticism
because of the enormous resource requirements. Some things never change.
I overheard one engineer in the hallway the other day say to another:
"It's only got 128 meg of RAM. You can't do *anything* with just 128 meg
of RAM!"
E.
"Erann Gat" <···@jpl.nasa.gov> wrote in message
·························@k-137-79-50-101.jpl.nasa.gov...
> In article <·············@dtpq.com>, ······@dtpq.com (Christopher C.
> Stacy) wrote:
>
> And IIRC (I was pretty far out of the loop, being in junior high school at
> the time) the whole thing was viewed with a certain amount of skepticism
> because of the enormous resource requirements. Some things never change.
>
> I overheard one engineer in the hallway the other day say to another:
> "It's only got 128 meg of RAM. You can't do *anything* with just 128 meg
> of RAM!"
>
One of the things we killed ourselves on in the Lisp Machine OS
was getting trap-handling fast and making the paging system work
well. I can't get any of my "modern" computers to work well if
there is more than about twice as much virtual memory as there
is physical memory. On 3600s and Ivories, there would typically
be around 2 to 4 megawords (10 to 20 megabytes), but the paging
area would be 80 to 100 megabytes; this configuration performed
quite well indeed, even in the presence of garbage collection on
that virtual address space.
I fear all this knowledge has been lost to the world.
···@jpl.nasa.gov (Erann Gat) writes:
> I overheard one engineer in the hallway the other day say to
> another: "It's only got 128 meg of RAM. You can't do *anything*
> with just 128 meg of RAM!"
The tills in my local supermarket are 800MHz Celerons with 128 megs of
RAM running Win2K (I saw one booting).
Wibble.
Cheers,
M.
--
Ignoring the rules in the FAQ: 1" slice in spleen and prevention
of immediate medical care.
-- Mark C. Langston, asr
······@dtpq.com (Christopher C. Stacy) writes:
> For any newbies reading: these 80 MB disk drives were the size of a dishwasher.
> The CADR machine itself is in a seperate unit, constructed in a 6x2x4 rack
> (of which the bottom 2/3 inside is empty air, except for the power supplies
> on the very bottom); the CPU main board is a wire wrapped panel which covers
> the entire front of the rack. All this hardware lives in the machine room,
> with a set of cables down the hallway out to the console in your office.
The MIT Museum (265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge) has a CADR on
display. It is sitting a few feet away from part of the Whirlwind and
a collection of slide rules.