Seymour Cray's Last Supercomputer

By the time Cray did a photo-op with what was to be the beleaguered, incomplete Cray 4, the company was in free-fall.  Cray Computer had burned through $300 million trying to make Gallium Arsenide modules work at 1GHz speed. Gone were the heady days of computers selling themselves.

The fluorinert waterfalls on four test computers were running dry as bankruptcy hit in March 1995.

Seymour Cray's first supercomputer, the Cray 1, was two thirds as fast as an Intel 386 CPU.   He had joined ERA after a stint as a radioman during WWII.  ERA was set up by the government to transfer wartime tech to the private sector and Cray was set to be one of its biggest beneficiaries.

As part of the bankruptcy, many Cray 4 artifacts landed in Dallas, Texas as part of a settlement with a creditor that made his trademark blue and white twisted pair.

Here is my collection including a single Cray 4 module, boxes of photo-masks, and documentation aplenty.

Included is an Apple Nubus card made for testing the C4 CPU on a Mac computer.  Jobs and Cray had formed a mutual admiration society with each using the others products in development work.  

IBM Model 370 Blinkenlights Torture Test

For nearly a year with few interruptions,  we have been running IBM Model 370 blinkenlights connected to a raspberry pi to randomize the pattern.   So far exactly zero lights have burned out with the panel and raspberry pi still going strong.    Very impressive longevity for the IBM panel lights!

The German term blinkenlights dates back to 1955 when IBM began to challenge UNIVAC for dominance in mainframe computers.  The UNIVAC computers where mostly white lights but when IBM started lighting up the panel the full color spectrum flashed in perfect cadence.

I believe our IBM 370 Panel will outlive several raspberry pi's.  Game on!

Intel Pentium III Prototype - Party Like It’s 1999

Intel's Pentium Processors once powered 80% of the world's Personal Computers. When a flaw was discovered in the flagship Pentium in 1994, CEO Andrew Grove challenged customers to prove they deserved a replacement.

That was the kind of power the company had in the marketplace even getting the attention of FTC lawyers objecting to a CPU monopoly. According to watchdogs, shade was being thrown because of embedded processor serial numbers that were hard to kill.  In fact this prototype was sent to developers like Rainbow Systems hard at work invading your privacy. 

This surviving Katmai prototype "White Box" contains one of the first Pentium III's - without a way to disable the embedded serial number in the BIOS.  According to its wiki, Rainbow Systems, CA used early PSN prototypes to develop software to tie computers with names for the NSA.

This Prototype uses an ES Pentium II Katmai 500 Mhz and 440 BX Chipset

The PowerPC Alliance and Advanced Micro Devices introduced new product to loosen Intel's grip on the CPU market.  Without a RISC processor of his own, Grove distributed a tweaked army of white box prototypes to developers. They were improved cache versions of Intel's Pentium II called Katmai running at 450 and 500 Mhz.

A surviving Katmai "White Box" contains one of the first Pentium III's - without a way to disable the PSN in the BIOS. The dates on this prototype suggest that the PII Katmai CPU was re-badged Pentium III as late as March 1999.  I may even speculate that Intel was considering slipping this into a PII update with little fanfare. 

PowerPC got stuck at 450 Mhz, failing to reach Apple's 500 Mhz speed claim. Despite calling G4 a "Supercomputer on a Chip" Jobs was playing a weak hand and knew it. AMD CEO Jerry Sanders failed to take his goal of 30% market share. AMD hit 26% at its high water mark in 2006.

Andy Grove remained chairman of Intel until Intel's Haifa operation started on PIII inspired Core Architecture. Moore’s Law is kept in full force today thanks to some incremental work creating the Pentium III.

IBM Interleaves Core Memory for 360-91.

Built to compete with Seymour Cray's CDC 6600 supercomputer, the IBM 360 Model 91 was the fastest computer available in 1968.  It uses 5 execution units with interleaved core memory like the module below.  The first one delivered to the Goddard Flight Center helped land men on the moon.

YMF - 2196704 

16-way interleaved memory type from 360 Model 91

"The main memory is organized into 16 interleaved elements, so that the CPU may start a memory cycle with a different element every 60 nanoseconds instead of waiting the full 780 nanoseconds. This means that the CPU will rarely get a "busy signal" from the memory, and few machine cycles are wasted waiting for data." - IBM Archives. 

Bottom of the module is stackable

Another YMF - 2196704 8K Density board can be seen at the Computer History Museum in CA.

Red cores from another plane

It just missed fitting in a 9.7" iPad box!

Robomation Intelligence Computer or IRI P256

Move over Google Glass and Oculus Rift.  Robot vision has been around for a long time.
James Cameron’s final battle with the Terminator occurs in a fully Robotic factory with vintage Bots from the 1980’s.   Here are some early Robotic brains staring with the IRI 256.
This 1980’s Robot is based on the same brain as the original Mac but with a zero wait state 1 MIP MC68000 version of the chip.  It can actually visualize objects in low-res grayscale.    The company published some interesting rules of Robotics.   This microcomputer was Torso mounted using a 4G, UNIX-based API called Robotic Control Language.   There was also a safety protocol inhibiting the Robot’s behavior around its human handlers.
The company went broke right around the time they received a patent for Robot Vision so it was assigned to a stronger company.  Which brings us to our next item.  GE Fanuc

Former Zilog Engineer Talks Prototype Survivor

I recently had a chance to ask a former Zilog engineer a few questions about his remarkable single board prototype I had just acquired for the C.C. "permanent collection".  This single board computer provided a 16K reference design for 8-bit home computers and arcade games.

Zilog is one of the few platforms in the world where vintage collectors and active developers lust over the same toasted sand.  The QUIP packaged Zilog Z8-02 made in 1979 commands $500 because it is not only highly collectible but in short supply for a replacement part.

Super-optimized ZNEO covers much of the same territory Intel's 8086 did back when the Battle of the 80's was raging but outperforms modern RISC.  The company's current Icebox dev tools owe their existance to a prototype single board computer created in 1978 to test the 4MHz Z80A.

According to the retired engineer, "When CPU performance elevated from 2.5 MHz to 4 MHz, this hand-built wire-wrap prototype was built to verify the design improvements and validate the functionality under in-circuit emulation.

The emulator plugs into the CPU socket, providing the engineer a portal into the operation of the hardware and software.  A boot prom allowed serial port access with an improvised DC-DC converter modified to provide the bipolar RS-232 output voltages.  At the time, emulators were the best way to check out new hardware as they pioneered the debug tools now taken for granted.

Placed on the included display stand, this respectable and rare relic speaks to the heady days of the Microprocessor Revolution --  visible proof that the March of Progress found continuity through these kinds of steps -- prototype design and implementation for validation (prior to simulators).

History's critical path temporarily vectored right through this particular prototype board which spearheaded the drive for next-level performance in the competitive 8 bit CPU marketplace dominated by Intel and Zilog.  It proved the process improvements to NMOS IC fabrication with 4" wafers could reduce the manufacturing costs as well as increase the raw processing bandwidth.

Z80 Verification Prototype 

This board contains the very custom Zilog clock driver chip required to produce a clean 4 MHz square wave with sufficient amplitude.  Only produced for the 4 MHz Z80 CPU prototypes."

The engineer recounted the glory days of the 8-bit CPU wars. "It was a time of excitement and revolution!" "Sharing with the like minded makes it exciting!"

In a follow-up email the engineer who lives on a small island off Washington State wrote a heartfelt remeberance about his former colleage who built the board.

Thank you very much for the interest in the historical roots of the Zilog board. Your expertise in this area is most satisfying!

When Zilog introduced the 4 MHz Z80A, there were several issues that arose. The first problem was the clock input requirements. The solution was to build a little two transistor driver hybrid IC which is the little blue sip on the lower left.

The 16 MHz oscillator gets divided by four by a TTL device (the 9316) and then presented to the CPU via the clock driver. That proved very useful for reliability.

The cpu socket was used in conjunction with an in-circuit emulator for code development and the resulting code is buried in the the 2716 eprom.

The board was actually built by a colleague who worked on support hardware and software while at Zilog. He died a few years ago, so this was part of his work product that he passed along to me prior to his passing.

He was a dear friend and his work helped shape the future of microprocessor based systems.

First Network Switch : 1881 Paris Award Restored

Familiar to historically oriented science buffs is the 1879 patent issued for the first automatic telephone exchange to McTighe and Connelly Brothers.  Previously lost is one of the copper second place medals received by the group at the first electrical exposition in Paris. It has all three of the participant's names misspelled.   

Eight stations were set up to dial each other without intervention of a manual switchboard.  McTighe the inventor of the automatic switch was also a lawyer at the firm.  One hundred years later Onyx Systems (Same founder as Zilog) would make the first UNIX eight user microcomputer.

Most of the exhibits from that time are lost to history but as fate would have it the partners law firm was located near the Smithsonian.  The complete exhibit is preserved for future generations in the American History Museum although not currently on display. 

Large copper second place medal awarded in 1881. Restored medal has less patina.

Blinkenlights are everywhere as even the lighthouse has a red-white flasher.

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During the summer of 1881 the first science festival ever held for electrical devices was about to get underway in Paris. The setting was the Palace of Industry built by Emperor Napoleon III for the 1855 World’s Fair to rival the Crystal Palace in London.

American participants included a young Thomas Edison literally sweating problems with his long legged Mary Anne and Alexander Graham Bell phoning the opera two blocks away for a live telecast. The building was steamy hot under a roof of cast iron and plate glass. One half of the building was devoted exclusively to French electrical exhibits. A first ever congress of electrical engineers had gathered to sort out terms for Volt, Ohm and Amp while also testing light bulbs from Swan and Edison for the best efficiency.

Caelus Memories Rewind

Attack of the clones could describe Caelus Memories' plug compatible  drive  that was built with the encouragement of IBM by ex-RAMAC employees in San Jose.  The actuator bears a strong resemblance to the RAMAC 305 but with a fixed vertical movement.

A facility was purpose-built in 1967 a close distance from IBM's own San Jose plant.   While Caelus got required licensing, IBM was hit in 1970 by the defection of Gene Amdahl, a company fellow who built a 370 compatible mainframe.

Drive technology changed rapidly as by 1973 the company was competing with Winchester drives and the floppy disk.  Even the Greek god of invention was no match for obsolescence.  The site where the factory once stood is now a medical test lab.

UNIVAC Mirror Memory

Ten years after the invention of thin film memory in 1962, UNIVAC Federal Systems develops a non-volatile. ceramic substrate called Mirror Memory.

Rescued from the the gold scrap pile comes this amazing cache of Mirror Memory produced by bendix corporation for Sperry Univac.  No stranger to voluminous amounts of gold foil, Bendix was chosen by NASA to do the lunar experiments package for the Apollo program.

Stay tuned for the UNIVAC brochure about Mirror Memory in PDF form.  Plus lots more from MN, ERA Research estate.

The World's First App.

Unglamorous, the first desktop app was a product of two universal constants - people want to be paid and eat chicken.  Necessity is the mother hen of invention.

An anonymous technician on an El Dorado, Arkansas chicken farm sends a data cassette from a Datapoint 2200 to Pillsbury headquarters.  On it was not only payroll data but a full blown app written in machine code for the 1201 CPU later renamed 8008 by Intel Corp. 

The first commercial UNIVAC (Serial #8)  had also been used to print employee checks some twenty years earlier in the G.E., Louisville KY, Appliance Park.

The first 2200s were shipped in early 1971, and one of them went to a Pillsbury chicken-processing plant in El Dorado, Arkansas. Poor called a technician there to see how the machine was working out. Since normal telephone lines were not reliable enough for transmitting data, he asked what kind of connection the out-of-the-way plant was using to link its terminal to the mainframe, presumably at corporate headquarters in Minneapolis.

"None," replied the technician. He had read through the terminal's documentation and written a payroll program on the 2200 itself, using machine language. The only mainframe connection was the post office; data was periodically output onto cassettes and mailed to Minnesota. Other buyers were applying the Datapoint to accounting and process control; in fact, few of the machines were being used for the purpose they'd been designed for. Desktop computing had been born - brought into existence by resourceful users, not computer designers or marketers. *

A testament to the quality of early Datapoint documentation.  The company was rigorously documented every feature and flow chart. 

Early microcomputers like the Datapoint 2200 helped Joe and Jane computer user achieve the seemingly impossible just 20 years earlier.  Empower ordinary users to solve difficult problems.


* 1994 Lamont Wood, The Man Who Invented the PC

First PC Video Standard

Microsoft in March, 1987 was very much a work in progress creating a multimedia strategy.   Bill Gates joined in a standing ovation for Art Kaiman and a team from RCA  as they demonstrated the first video standard for PC called Digital Video Interactive at a second annual CD-ROM conference.  The team's demo was on a "full height" CD-ROM, using a 6-MHz Intel 286, IBM AT running MS-DOS.

According to John Dvorak, Gates was annoyed by being frozen out of the release date of the first CDi products.  Kaiman told the press, rather diplomatically,  "I can't say this is a CDi killer."  Eventually, the product Intel called Actionmedia went on to win Best of Show at Comdex 1991 on both Windows and OS/2.

In the 1940's RCA introduced the famous RCA jack as a way of connecting a phonograph to their radios.  In 1942 RCA opened what was to become the RCA Sarnoff Labs named after company and NBC founder David Sarnoff - inventor of color TV, VCR and even the first CMOS CPU, COSMAC for the U.S. Space program.  Kaiman was Director of Digital Products for the lab.

 Kaiman (closest to bottom) before Intel bought DVI and moved the team to the new Princeton Operation.  

 Art Kaiman's contribution lives on in the MMX instruction sets on billions of IA-32 compatible CPU's unofficially named for MultiMedia eXtension, Multiple Math eXtension, or Matrix Math eXtension.

• Mr. Kaiman's diplomas: Rutgers - The State University Newark College of Arts & Sciences, BA, 1963 and Stevens Institute of Technology, Master of Sciences (Mathematics), 1966
• There are 10 artifacts in this collection:  All were acquired as a group from Kaiman's estate.
• • 1. RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Award, 1973, Arthur Kaiman, For contributions to a team effort in the design, development, and application of new commercial minicomputer software, signed Wm Webster, VP, RCA Laboratories.  Plate and RCA badge mounted in a mottled brass frame, 11-5/8" x 11-1/8", custom framed by A Gallery, Salt Lake City, Utah, good condition but the plate is slightly crooked
    2. RCA Laboratories Outstanding Achievement Award, 1974, Arthur Kaiman, For contributions to a team effort in the development of a multiprocessor software system for television broadcast automation, signed Wm Webster, VP, RCA Laboratories.  Plate and RCA badge mounted in a mottled brass frame, 11-5/8" x 11-1/8", custom framed by A Gallery, Salt Lake City, Utah, good condition
    3. RCA Technology Symposium, This certificate is awarded to Arthur Kaiman for planning, organizing and conducting the Computers in Mfg. Symposium.  Signed Wm. J. Underwood, Director, Engineering Professional Programs and H.K. Jenny, Manager, Engineering Information.  Acrylic plaque with black background, 6" x 4-1/2", good condition with light scratches.
    4. RCA Certificate of Appreciation, This certificate is awarded to Arthur Kaiman for the colloquium presentation Manufacturing and Productivity - Do It Right the First Time !!, May 11, 1982, Colloquium Committee, David Sarnoff Research Center.  Acrylic plaque with black background, 5-1/2" x 3-1/2", good condition with light scratches.
    5. Ceramic Coaster: Printed on front is a mock newspaper article with the headline: Intel Corp. Breaks Billion Dollar Barrier (this coaster is in the Computer History Museum - View).  Intel's revenue first passed $1 billion in 1983.  4-1/4" square with cork backing, good condition.
    6. RCA Certificate of Appreciation, This certificate is awarded to Arthur Kaiman for the colloquium presentation Digital Video Interactive Technology, March 31, 1987, Colloquium Committee, David Sarnoff Research Center.  Acrylic plaque with black background, 5-1/2" x 3-1/2", good condition with light scratches.
    7. Intel Corporation's 1989 Microsoft CD-ROM Conference Team Award presented to Art Kaiman.  Intel recognizes your outstanding contribution on the 1989 Microsoft Conference.  It was the most successful ever.  Signed Dave House, Bob Brannon, and Rick Stauffer.  Framed certificate, 11-5/8" x 9-1/8" overall, good condition.
    8. Intel Princeton Operation, Intel A82750PA and Intel A82750DA, PRO 750 ADP i750 F.C.S., July 21, 1989.  2 computer chips suspended in an acrylic block, 5" x 3-1/2" x 1-3/8", light scratches and the left chip is slightly crooked in the block.  This item is pictured in Manifest Technology's DVI Technology Products Intel PRO750 Product Family (1989) online page (view).  This item commemorates the first customer shipment of this product.
    9. Intel PRO DVI Technology, Happy Holidays, 1990.  Clear glass mug, etched, 5-3/4" high, good condition.
    10. Intel AVK, In recognition of your contribution to the development of AVK and the ActionMedia II Products, Art Kaiman.  Clock, black finished brass face with etched to brass numerals, logo, and pictorial representation of the product; separate black finished brass plaque with silver decoration, etched to brass; black felt background, deep brown wood frame, 12" x 18" x 2", missing the minute hand and cap, it also needs cleaning, good otherwise.  This clock commemorates the introduction of AVK and ActionMedia II as part of the DVI project between about 1990 and 1992.  CLICK HERE to see details.
  
  
• DVI team image from Manifest Technology.

 

In the same month as the DVI Demo for Gates, Kaiman gets an award for DVI merit.

 

Stamped signature of Dr. William Webster.  Webster joined RCA in 1946 after getting a degree from Union College, next door to the G.E. Homestead in Schenectady, N.Y.   He went on to be a thorn in his neighbor's side holding patents in television, vacuum tubes, gas tubes, circuitry, and semiconductor devices.

Personally Signed by Mr. "Intel Inside" Dave House.  Rick Stauffer, marketing manager at PRO, was loosing the standards battle to Quicktime and MPEG by 1992.

First i750 chip-sets "W #12".  These packages look empty but the MMX they inspired packs a lasting punch.

Time ticks down for Actionmedia II ostensibly because of high costs for both consuming and producing DVI video .

 

Intel SWAG!

In 1993 the Intel  Princeton Operation (PRO) was finally closed relocating some but ending the role of Art Kaiman .  Although DVI was ultimately not successful it paved the way for other formats like AVI that have made the PC a multimedia powerhouse.

Collector's Insight

IBM PS/2 Ultimedia Model 57 SLC and 77s are based on DVI technology.  These originally included the $2K Actionmedia II board. They can be identified by front audio jacks and an early PS/2 CD-ROM drive.  Also look for DVI and Ultimedia logos.

1-Bit Datapoint Logic Board Revealed

“Faced with the facts that the logic design of the 8008 was made by Datapoint and its initial chip implementation was covered by a Texas Instrument patent application, Intel conferred on 4004 the status of the first microprocessor.”  – Dan Alroy  chairman of the 1975 IEEE conference.


The very first x86, Intel compatible logic board used a Datapoint 1201 chipset not made by Intel.   This is the TTL implementation done for the world’s first microcomputer the Datapoint 2200. It has four early production Intel 3101 memory chips that provide an interconnect for simple shift register memory also supplied by Intel in large quantities.

Recently arrived in the lab is a Datapoint CPU board with 6947 date code on four blue memory slots each flanked by an Intel 3101 static memory chip – Intel’s first product from 1969.   Fleetwood Mac was just climbing the charts when these babies were made.

Datapoint 1-Bit, Intel Compatible, Rev A. Logic Board

In the first year of Intel’s operation memory chips were a priority over microprocessor design.   The 3101 you see in the picture is Intel’s very first product having gotten done eight months after the company’s founding.  Intel then contracted with Computer Terminal Corp. to design a microprocessor called the 1201.

Two ex-NASA engineers at Computer Terminal Corp were fresh off a success with their 3300 terminal and wanted something with an “improved control unit” according to their business plan.

Enter Intel and Texas Instruments pitted in a battle to develop the world’s first 8-bit microprocessor.   Both built the 1201 CPU for the Texans but in one of the biggest business blunders in history CTC did not secure the rights to the CPU for a mere fifty thousand dollars.  They could have easily owned Intel at that point.

Instead the company rushed out our board in the pictures using TTL (transistor to transistor logic).   It was actually quite fast.  But thanks to the design’s inability to access memory directly through the blue “69” slots we have this stunning  gold 3101 four-banger.   The first x86 compatible in history.

Intel sent its main salesperson out into the field in the summer of 1971.  He reported back that there was some tepid interest in the 1201 which Intel renamed 8008 to fit with the entirely incompatible 4004.

Datapoint technology evolved very quickly going through four major archetecture iterations between 1969 and 1974.   3300 base (3360), Datapoint 1 (1-bit Serial), Datapoint 2 (8-bit Parallel) and 5500 (16-bit).  With the exception of 3300, Intel stumbled through these same iterations after a delay in 1976 with i432 (8086 was an emergency replacement).

Intel's CPU voltages continued to be hamstrung by Datapoint's original 15V design creating a major opportunity for ex-Intel designer Faggin to create the Z80, a superior 8-bit design that required only 5V.  Zilog rocketed to the top of the 8-bit heap but was quickly at a dead end with the 16-bit Z8000 introduced in 1979. 

1973 Revisions, 2200 (H) and 5500 (Sample)

The 2200 and 5500 use the same form factor however  the 5500 uses a 16-bit architecture that is  incompatible with Intel 8088.

Victor Poor completed one of the key milestones in computer evolution over Thanksgiving weekend 1969 - 8008 logic on his living room floor!

Datapoint breadboard logic

The 15V leads and proprietary Datapoint connector (3300) tie it to Victor Poor's early R&D department.  The spelling of "Buss" is old school Navy electrical buss not the more modern spelling referring to a modern Data "Bus" although it is impossible to tell which engineer did this unless the handwriting is recognized.

'66 Death Star

During one of the most frigid moments of the Cold War, LBJ authorized a classified $1.5 billion, military orbiting laboratory called Project-MOL.  It could photograph ICBM sites in the Soviet Union at high resolution. Douglas spearheaded intercontinental warfare from space designing a station to conduct planetary warfare on a massive scale.

Previously, only three pieces  of the cancelled project have ever been discovered. The Gemini-B, a highly modified military mock-up using a previously flown capsule and two blue space-suits found in a locked museum room at Kennedy Space Center.

"NEA Reference" marked on back dated 12/66.

Add to the list a fourth, custom modified, ground computer unit used to issue the spacecraft digital commands!  I call it Astro-Ray #1, packed with 56 Astrodata computer boards, and weighing in at over 100 lbs.  It is Raytheon Serial #1. Astro-dated 6/66.

Only 20 years old when the MOL test flight released three satellites and successfully returned to earth,  a moon-sized planet killer called the Death Star was written into George Lucas' first draft of  "Adventures of Luke Starkiller - The Star Wars".  Fox legal had a provision in the contract that Lucas could not use "Luke Starkiller" in any of his own movies.

From Tucker Electronics, I have a seven part installation, operating and parts manual produced by Raytheon for this one-off military system.   It contains a fascinating look at confirmed Project-MOL hardware in practical use.

RAYTHEON Model 15379 Documentation

 NAVSHIPS 0967-277-1010

Transistorized space modem

Dual 10K transmitter version of modified Gemini remote #1 for MOL - added US-Band frequency and lots of redundancy.

Experimental unit combines Astrodata (NASA data acquisition) and Raytheon (Missile type board)

Paper trail for unit is classified in giant weapons contract called N600.  N600 has progress reports on thousands of different parts from Allied to Zinc metallurgy.

Navy radio expert told me just one 10KW transmitter weighed 3 tons.

Astrodata command module remote is modified for Project-MOL on 6/66.   Only white hulled ship in Navy, S.S. LaSalle is retrofitted for special mission in September 1966 in Norfolk. 

Petty Officer 3rd Class on La Salle to photograph mission  identified Astrodata cards and frequency counters as project MOL.  Companion Astrodata countdown box using nixie tubes was also present.

Stay tuned to this blog as I will update it as more information is uncovered.