Sujet : Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer
De : c186282 (at) *nospam* nnada.net (c186282)
Groupes : comp.os.linux.miscDate : 03. Jul 2025, 04:30:45
Autres entêtes
Message-ID : <KCCdnfVpqdbBZPj1nZ2dnZfqn_WdnZ2d@giganews.com>
User-Agent : Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/78.13.0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_650These were quite popular during the mid 50s up
until the early 60s. Compared to other brands
they were CHEAP - biz and schools could afford them.
First known install was for an insurance company.
In truth, check the instruction set, they were
closer to what we'd now call a 'programmable
calculator' rather than a general-purpose computer.
However, cleverly employed, they could still be
very useful.
Some of the instructions were very CISC ... like
'PCH' for writing to a punch card. Clearly there
was a lot of hidden code that one instruction
evoked.
Tubes/valves ... 125Khz, not Mhz or Ghz, clock
speed. Instruction speeds measured in milliseconds.
1000 to 4000 WORDS of disk memory. Maybe around
40 instructions per second ...
A variety of add-on units.
Odd base-10 decimal words. Program an emulator in
shitty Python on yer laptop and it'd be likely
thousands of times faster than the original unit :-)
Oh, typical setup, *6000* pounds of metal.