Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Xerox Sigma-7 vs. DEC PDP-10 Organization: Chez Inwap X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test76 (Apr 2, 2001) From: inwap@inwap.com (Joe Smith) Originator: inwap@inwap.com (Joe Smith) Lines: 22 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 23:43:23 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 130.94.177.175 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verio.net X-Trace: dfw-read.news.verio.net 1011483803 130.94.177.175 (Sat, 19 Jan 2002 23:43:23 GMT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 23:43:23 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!sjc-peer.news.verio.net!news.verio.net!dfw-read.news.verio.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.sys.pdp10:9588 In regards to an e-mail about possible myth of the PDP-10 clone at Xerox: That story is the topic of Chapter 7 "The Clone" in "Dealers of Lightning, XEROX PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael Hiltzik (ISBN 0-88730-891-0). "The talk," Kay said, "turned into how long it would take us to _build_ our own PDP-10." The answer was about one year and less than $1 million. The truth was that Xerox had only forbidden the lab to buy a PDP-10. Nobody had said anything about cloning one. It was called the MAXC (Multiple Access Xerox Computer) and had to be bug-for-bug compatible with the PDP-10's floating point instructions in order to run LISP. -Joe -- See http://www.inwap.com/ for PDP-10 and "ReBoot" pages. -- See http://www.inwap.com/ for PDP-10 and "ReBoot" pages. ###### From: aek@spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: Xerox Sigma-7 vs. DEC PDP-10 Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 15:58:48 -0800 Organization: Apple Computer, Inc. Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: il0502a-dhcp193.apple.com X-Trace: news.apple.com 1011484727 20782 17.205.24.193 (19 Jan 2002 23:58:47 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@news.apple.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 19 Jan 2002 23:58:47 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsxfer3.itd.umich.edu!forum.apple.com!news.apple.com!il0502a-dhcp193.apple.com!user Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.sys.pdp10:9587 In article , inwap@inwap.com (Joe Smith) wrote: > In regards to an e-mail about possible myth of the PDP-10 clone at Xerox: > > That story is the topic of Chapter 7 "The Clone" in "Dealers of Lightning, > XEROX PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age" by Michael Hiltzik > (ISBN 0-88730-891-0). > > "The talk," Kay said, "turned into how long it would take > us to _build_ our own PDP-10." The answer was about one year > and less than $1 million. The truth was that Xerox had only > forbidden the lab to buy a PDP-10. Nobody had said > anything about cloning one. > > It was called the MAXC (Multiple Access Xerox Computer) and had to be > bug-for-bug compatible with the PDP-10's floating point instructions > in order to run LISP. > -Joe > > -- > See http://www.inwap.com/ for PDP-10 and "ReBoot" pages. MAXC and MAXC II are pretty well documented. There was an article in IEEE computer about MAXC (May 1978 pp 57-67) and I have scans of some information on it at www.spies.com/aek/pdf/xerox Something I had wondered about was HOW they got it done so quickly. I suspect it had a lot to do with Thacker, et al 's experience at Berkeley Computer Corporation building the BCC-500. They knew how to build microcoded machines, having just built that one, and they also decided to use the then new semiconductor RAM devices rather than go through the pain they went through with the flakey core memory system they bought for the BCC. I'm less familiar with the BBN people who came over to PARC at the same time that worked on MAXC (Fiala in particular) but I'm sure they must have been as sharp as the folks who came over from BCC. ###### From: "David G. Conroy" Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: Xerox Sigma-7 vs. DEC PDP-10 References: Organization: Used only for posts to newsgroups X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express Macintosh Edition - 4.5 (0410) Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Lines: 8 Message-ID: <0RH28.33475$At1.1107421402@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 66.123.171.108 X-Complaints-To: abuse@prodigy.net X-Trace: newssvr21.news.prodigy.com 1011567036 ST000 66.123.171.108 (Sun, 20 Jan 2002 17:50:36 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 17:50:36 EST X-UserInfo1: [[PA@SVDLRUORWDYNCOF_W\@PJ_^PBQLGPQRZ_MHEQR@ETUCCNSKQFCY@TXDX_WHSVB]ZEJLSNY\^J[CUVSA_QLFC^RQHUPH[P[NRWCCMLSNPOD_ESALHUK@TDFUZHBLJ\XGKL^NXA\EVHSP[D_C^B_^JCX^W]CHBAX]POG@SSAZQ\LE[DCNMUPG_VSC@VJM Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 22:50:36 GMT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!193.190.198.17.MISMATCH!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.mathworks.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!newscon01.news.prodigy.com!newsmst01.news.prodigy.com!prodigy.com!postmaster.news.prodigy.com!newssvr21.news.prodigy.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch alt.sys.pdp10:9589 > I suspect it had a lot to do with Thacker, et al 's experience at > Berkeley Computer Corporation building the BCC-500. They knew how > to build microcoded machines, having just built that one, and they > also decided to use the then new semiconductor RAM devices rather > than go through the pain they went through with the flakey core > memory system they bought for the BCC. Yea, the decided to build it with the flakey 1103 dram instead.