Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Path: shellx.best.com!news1.best.com!sgigate.sgi.com!swrinde!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!ddyer From: ddyer@netcom.com (Dave Dyer) Subject: Re: Foonly F-1 Message-ID: Followup-To: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Reply-To: ddyer@netcom.com Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest) X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1] References: Date: Thu, 28 Sep 1995 19:05:32 GMT Lines: 36 Sender: ddyer@netcom6.netcom.com Xref: shellx.best.com alt.folklore.computers:36626 alt.sys.pdp10:1170 In article you wrote: : >>> "-" == William writes: : -> The Foonly F1 was faster than a KL by virtue of being hardwired : -> instead of microcoded, or so I heard. One got a lot of use in some : -> early hollywood computer graphics efforts. I don't think there : -> were very many. : That's an understatement. There was precisely one, wirewrapped : kludge, done with low impedance (68 ohm I think?) twisted pair. The : wire insulation was so thin, to get the low impedance, that the wire : cut through at the slightest provocation. I don't think the machine : was ever very robust, especially with cooldown-warmup cycles. But the : logic design was better than anything DEC put out. I think the : graphics in one of the early Disney efforts in the "I'm trapped in a : video game" genre (TRON?) was done on this machine, which was located : at Information International Inc. The F1 was microcoded, but the microcode was extremely "flat", 120 bits wide if I remember correctly. Most of the "everyday" instructions executed in one cycle (which was blazing fast at 100ns). Crucial parts, such as effective address calculation, were effectively hardwired, so the microcode just did a "hang until complete". There were a lot of twisted pair, and the logic pages were huge: four of them each about about .75m x 1.50m --- My home page: ftp://ftp.netcom.com/pub/dd/ddyer/home.html or try http://www.triple-i.com/~ddyer/home.html