Funny Pictures

[Waffle Whiffer]

Which one will you vote for???

[ToxicMonkey^MZC]

Shit that one on the right looks a bit like Margaret Thatcher !

[ReCycled]

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[quadz]

[[BTF]MangyMutt]

...

What was the operating speed of the Univac? Like 2MHz?

[quadz]

What was the operating speed of the Univac? Like 2MHz?

Haha, no...

"The Univac was the first computer to store information on magnetic tape. Running a program was a hands-on operation, with a physicist or programmer toggling console switches to execute the problem. Although highly accurate, the Univac was cantankerous, breaking down two or three times a day."
( https://www.llnl.gov/str/March02/March50th.html )

Probably measured in Hz, not MHz...

[QwazyWabbit]

UNIVAC I was a decimal machine. It used a concept called "words" to store 12 characters of 63 possible values.

A good overview is in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I

"UNIVAC I used 5,200 vacuum tubes,[4] weighed 29,000 pounds (13 metric tons), consumed 125 kW, and could perform about 1,905 operations per second running on a 2.25 MHz clock. The Central Complex alone (i.e. the processor and memory unit) was 4.3 m by 2.4 m by 2.6 m high. The complete system occupied more than 35.5 m² of floor space."

Memory was 1000 words.

The tubes were binary, that is, they were either on or off, like our current computer technology but the data states were represented as pulse trains signifying the value of the word being represented. All the words were equal length so you could think of a word as being sent in an almost Morse code fashion. The basic pulse frequency of the word clock was 1MHz and it took 42 microseconds to transmit one word. One machine word was a 42 bit serial train of pulses clocked at 1MHz.

Storage was mercury delay lines. The computer could never pass today's environmental impact requirements.

The computer only had 8 instructions or an opcode of 3 bits and 2 bits of word and 2 bits of channel selectors for manipulating main memory or the operands of the instructions. Main "memory" was an acoustic delay line of 16 words. You might think of these 16 words as today's instruction/data pipeline.

Yes, you toggled it, but that was to load the program. Much like was done on the first microprocessor machines like the MITS Altair 8800, Imsai 8080 or Cromemco. Once the program was loaded, it would operate until it malfunctioned or hit the halt instruction. Often it was a race to see which would happen first.

All in all an amazing piece of engineering for its day.

[reaper]

we've come a long way

 

[quadz]

A good overview is in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I

"UNIVAC I used 5,200 vacuum tubes,[4] weighed 29,000 pounds (13 metric tons), consumed 125 kW, and could perform about 1,905 operations per second running on a 2.25 MHz clock."

Ah, thanks.  Damn it.  I completely failed at googling that... I read the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC (not UNIVAC_I) which didn't mention the clock speed.

Still, it's interesting to compare that 2.25 MHz, vs. instructions per second.

The Apple ][ CPU was clocked at 1 MHz, but executed roughly 250,000 instructions per second.

So if the UNIVAC I and the Apple ][ had run at exactly the same clock speed in MHz, the Apple ][ would still have been about 295 times faster than the UNIVAC I.... 


Regards,

[QwazyWabbit]

Yes, but when you put it in the context of (about) 2000 operations per second on 2 42-bit words it's bit-wise fairly comparable to those first microprocessors like the 4004, 8008. Being a hacker on a UNIVAC meant you could decode all 42 bits of a memory word in that oscilloscope in your head and spot the bad tube.

Just think.
From 1951 to 1961 we went from vacuum tubes and 29,000 pounds to SSI chips and computers that could be airborne.
From  1961 to 1971 we had computers in small boxes that could navigate to the moon on 100 watts of power.
From 1971 to 1981 we had microprocessors that could run space probes all the way to Mars and two probes (Voyager 1 and 2 using 2 RCA 1802's each at 100kHz) that are still running after 41 years in space.
From 1981 to 1998 we had huge advances in CPU speed and memory, going from 64kB memories to 640kB and more.
From 1998 to 2008 we went from 300 baud dialup and acoustic modems and ASCII art to 50Mbps fiberoptic cables and near terabyte disk drives and computers that can consume upwards of 500 watts of power just for cpu, memory and hard drives. Er, um... what was that about 100 watts?

We can now surf porn and video of some doofus cracking his nuts on a handrail with a skateboard on YouTube faster than any other culture on the planet.

Now THAT'S progress!

[[BTF]MangyMutt]

UNIVAC I was a decimal machine. It used a concept called "words" to store 12 characters of 63 possible values.

A good overview is in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I

"UNIVAC I used 5,200 vacuum tubes,[4] weighed 29,000 pounds (13 metric tons), consumed 125 kW, and could perform about 1,905 operations per second running on a 2.25 MHz clock. The Central Complex alone (i.e. the processor and memory unit) was 4.3 m by 2.4 m by 2.6 m high. The complete system occupied more than 35.5 m² of floor space."

Memory was 1000 words.

The tubes were binary, that is, they were either on or off, like our current computer technology but the data states were represented as pulse trains signifying the value of the word being represented. All the words were equal length so you could think of a word as being sent in an almost Morse code fashion. The basic pulse frequency of the word clock was 1MHz and it took 42 microseconds to transmit one word. One machine word was a 42 bit serial train of pulses clocked at 1MHz.

Storage was mercury delay lines. The computer could never pass today's environmental impact requirements.

The computer only had 8 instructions or an opcode of 3 bits and 2 bits of word and 2 bits of channel selectors for manipulating main memory or the operands of the instructions. Main "memory" was an acoustic delay line of 16 words. You might think of these 16 words as today's instruction/data pipeline.

Yes, you toggled it, but that was to load the program. Much like was done on the first microprocessor machines like the MITS Altair 8800, Imsai 8080 or Cromemco. Once the program was loaded, it would operate until it malfunctioned or hit the halt instruction. Often it was a race to see which would happen first.

All in all an amazing piece of engineering for its day.

HA! I WAS RIGHT!  ......well i was off by a 1/4 of a MHz..sue me

WOOF!

[Waffle Whiffer]

 

[ReCycled]

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[|iR|Focalor]

CHINA GOT PWNT BY FOCALOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!1!!!!!!

[jägermonsta]