Path: shellx.best.com!news1.best.com!sgigate.sgi.com!enews.sgi.com!decwrl!cronkite.cisco.com!cronkite!billw From: billw@puli.cisco.com (William ) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers,alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: Compuserve and the DECsystem-10 Date: 26 Sep 1995 05:03:58 GMT Organization: cisco Systems, Inc. Lines: 41 Message-ID: References: <43v18a$a63@cliff.swec.com> <442j6n$gip@charm.magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> <44531a$5k1@dns.plano.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: puli.cisco.com In-reply-to: Charles Richmond's message of 25 Sep 1995 02:09:46 GMT Xref: shellx.best.com alt.folklore.computers:36328 alt.sys.pdp10:1153 Also, I heard that Compuserve used some DEC-10 clones, some made by a company in California called Foonly Computers. Anyone have any information on this? FOONLEY had a couple models of PDP-10 clones. I believe that they were generally KA or KI clones, sometimes with BBN pager clones. 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. The F2 was a small pdp-10 clone (one or two 19" racks.) I don't know if there was ever an F3. The F4 was a faster F2, with ethernet and stuff. I spent some time adding TCP to TENEX for use on F2s and F4s. The F5 was supposed to be a tiny version of the F4 (as in multiple F5s would fit in a 19" rack, or a single F5 would fit by your desk.) I don't think the F5 ever made it to production, but it was supposed to show up in the early to mid 1980s. Other PDP-10 clones include the Systems Concept SC30-M (and related?), a nice system that left a lot of spare room in a 22 inch rack. SC started out doing things like IBM Channel adaptors for dec equipment, and I think the SC30M could talk to IBM disks. Lots of people were interested in the SC30M, which was a little faster than a KL, but SC seemed to have trouble pricing and producing the machine in "production" quantities. Mid to late 1980s. And of course there is the new TOAD machine. In addition to having a wide variety of PDP-10 clones, Compuserve did some work to improve the cost-of-ownership of "real" dec-10 iron. For a modest fee (well, comparitively speaking), they'd come out and replace the old linear power supplies of your KL10 with modern switching power supplies, increasing power efficiency from about 30% to 80+%... BillW