[GreenKeys] [External] Re: ASR32 or ASR33 ?

Sun Oct 31 16:31:05 EDT 2021

After reading the discussions about TTY interfaces with vintage computers it brought back memories of my first job with RCA Astro Space, in Princeton,NJ. I was assigned to the group that built, tested, and launched the first Navy Navigation satellites designed by The Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory during the late 60”s and 70’s.  One of the projects was to upgrade the satellite checkout station for computer control using the then Xerox Sigma 3 computer (the far right rack in the picture below.)  The Sigma 3 system included 2 tape drives, line printer, and card reader with a Model ?? TTY (I’m not up on the various models beyond my Model 19 that I donated a few years ago).  The program that controlled the satellite utilized commands typed in on the TTY but were automated by typing punched cards and then recording them on a magnetic tape.  The main memory was 1 Mb on their RAD disc which was about 2 feet in diameter housed in a glass enclosure mounted in the cabinet. I believe it was a 16 bit machine.  Another project was designing a navigation receiver to simulate the 2 rack system used on the Navy ships and submarines.  The receiver was a table-top unit and was programmed by a PDP-8 using fan-fold paper tape and another M?? teletype (I don’t have any pictures of that).  The receiver was since commercialized to a small device used on commercial ships and later small fishing boats.  This was the prerequisite to the current GPS system.

Skip Osborn  K2RJF

> On Oct 31, 2021, at 12:00 AM, Mike Douglas via GreenKeys <greenkeys at mailman.qth.net> wrote:
> 
> Wow, this discussion does trigger memories. I spent four years programming on a Xerox Sigma 6 running under CP-V. Also did a couple years of COBOL and assembly programming on an IBM 370. I still have a tape reel from the Sigma with some of my work on it. Can’t read it, but I still have it :)
> 
> Mike
> 
>> On Oct 30, 2021, at 10:39 PM, Michael Katzmann <vk2bea at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Very interesting. The talk of EBCDIC brings me back to the IBM360/20 I programmed in the 70s (even then it was in a museum 8-).
>> I wonder if they have thought of making the system actually work. The Sigma 7 can be emulated with a Raspberry Pi and SIMH (https://github.com/simh/simh/tree/master/sigma <https://github.com/simh/simh/tree/master/sigma>). They would have to get the interface message processor fired up and find the Sigma 7 software!
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
>> On Sat, Oct 30, 2021 at 11:27 PM Jones, Douglas W <douglas-w-jones at uiowa.edu <mailto:douglas-w-jones at uiowa.edu>> wrote:
>> From:  Steve Garrison [steve.n4tty at gmail.com <mailto:steve.n4tty at gmail.com>] -- Friday, October 29, 2021 6:29 PM
>> > Looks like a 32 to me!  Probably the guy writing the story just found a picture of any old teletype.
>> 
>> > From:  Michael Katzmann --  Friday, October 29, 2021 7:11 PM
>> >>  ooops .. this article https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/internet-got-started-simple-hello <https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/internet-got-started-simple-hello>
>> 
>> The machine would have been a Model 33, not a Model 32.  I say this as someone who spent many hours programming an SDS Sigma 7 computer back in the day.  The Sigma 7 was a 32 bit machine, very much in the spirit of (but not compatible with) the IBM System 360 Model 67 -- it used EBCDIC as its internal code, but had excellent support for ASCII remote terminals and at Com Share Inc in Ann Arbor, we had a fleet of Teletype Model 33s, KSR and ASR, plus a small number of very new Tektronix graphics terminals (the kind with the storage scope).
>> 
>> A Sigma 7 in California was indeed the first ARPAnet host, and ARPAnet is where the Internet protocol suite origniated.
>> 
>> And, in response to the snide remark about Al Gore, he never said he invented the Internet, but he sure played an important role in the Senate making it possible for the Internet to come into being.  Government policies could well have prevented it, and Gore took a lead in the 1980s to make sure the Internet could happen.  I don't think anyone else in the Senate had a clue about the potential of networking back then.
>> 
>> As to who invented the Internet, many of us working on computers in the 1970s and 1980s knew that it was only a matter of time so long as government didn't stand in the way.  The form it would take was up in the air, but we knew from the little networks of the 1970s that it would happen in some form.  No one person can claim to have invented the Internet.  Similarly, many of us knew that something like the World Wide Web would happen.  I was using Gopher on the Internet before Tim Brenners Lee invented HTML.  Had he not invented HTML, Gopher (invented in Minnesota, not CERN) was poised to evolve into a hyperetext markup language.  Not the HTML we know, but it would have done the same things.  I strongly suspect there were other contenders in the wings.
>> 
>>            Doug Jones
>>            jones at cs.uioa.edu <mailto:jones at cs.uioa.edu>
>> 
>> 
>> 
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