computer history exhibits signs and placards master copy on haring

Computer History ExhibitsSigns and Placardsmaster copy on Haring

A joint project of Stanford Faculty, Staff and The Computer Museum History Center

Questions to Gio@cs or 725-8363

First floor: Stanford CSD historyBasement: Technology timelinesFloor 2: Early computing

Floor 3: The sixtiesFloor 4: The seventiesFloor 5: Galaxy game

Computer History Exhibits

A joint project of .

Stanford Faculty, Staff, & The Computer Museum History Center

Questions to Gio@cs or look at http://www-cs.stanford.edu (museum)

Basement:Timelines

2nd: 50’s:Univac & Whirlwind3rd: 60’s: IBM 360 & DEC PDP-64th: 70’s: Aple II & Cray

First floor:Early Stanford CSD history

case

1

case2 case3

case5 case4

case

11

case f 2

case f 1

Fifth floor:Galaxy game

Computer History ExhibitsOpening Talks in room B1, Nov. 5th, 5:30 pm

Donald Knuth: George Forsythe and the Development of Computer Science

Gordon Bell: Values & Issues in Preserving Historical Computer Artifacts

First floor

Basement

B1

Entrance toBasementLecture Hall

Serra street

Exit tooutside

Campu

s Driv

e

Computer History ExhibitsInstallation in Progress

Watch this Spacedisplay case 1



Platter from General PrecisionLibrascope L 4800 head-per-track Disk Unit

Stanford AI Lab DEC PDP-6, November 1967Storage capacity per side ca. 1,120,665 words of 36 bitsCapacity per unit (10 inner sides of 6 platters) 11,206,650 words or ca. 48 M bytes.Total 5484 heads (and tracks). Total weight 5200 lbsRotational speed 900 rpm, Avg. access time 35 msec.Transfer rate 1.6 sec/word or 2.7 M byte/sec

Startup current 300 amps, Startup time 5 minutes, thermal stabilization 2 hoursCost $300,000 ($1,420,000 today)

The photograph shows the unit with the disks and the electronics bay (2000 lbs) removed. Courtesy of Martin Frost

Dark areas are due to a head crash in 1969.

Platter fromGeneral PrecisionLibrascope L 4800 head-per-trackDisk Unit

Stanford AI Lab DEC PDP-6November 1967

Courtesy of Martin Frost

Storage capacity per side ~1,120,665 words of 36 bitsCapacity per unit (10 inner sides of 6 platters) 11,206,650 words or ~48 M bytes.Total 5484 heads (and tracks)Rotational speed 900 rpmAvg. access time 35 msec.Transfer rate 1.6 sec/word or 2.7 M byte/secStartup current 300 ampsStartup time 5 minutes, thermal stabilization 2 hoursWeight 5200 lbsCost $300,000 ($1,420,000 today)

Total Tracks (and Write-Read heads): 5484 (includes 300 spares)Bits/Track: 80,256 Bits/Sector: 66Sectors/Rev: 1216based on CPI 1997 159.1 159.6 160.0 160.2 160.1 160.3 160.5 1967 32.9 32.9 33.0 33.1 33.2 33.3 33.4 33.5 33.6 33.7 33.8 33.9 33.4

Dark areas are due to a head crash in 1969.

Apple Macintosh Hard disk unit ca. 19895 platters, 10 sides one head per sideCapacity 20 Megabytes

Courtesy of SUMEX

SONY Corporation 3.5” Floppy disk drive ca. 1991High density, double sided one head per sideCapacity/floppy 1.4 Megabytes

With disk in protective, low friction carrier.

Courtesy of SUMEX

8” Floppy disk first use ca. 1965Single sided diskCapacity/floppy ca. 150 Kilobytes

Courtesy of Vaugn Pratt

Apple Macintosh Hard disk unit ca. 19895 platters, 10 sides one head per sideCapacity 20 Megabytes

Courtesy of SUMEX

SONY Corporation 3.5” Floppy disk drive ca. 1991High density, double sided one head per sideCapacity/floppy 1.4 Megabytes

With disk in protective, low friction carrier.

Courtesy of SUMEX5” Floppy disk drive Shugart Corporationfirst use ca. 1977Single sided diskCapacity/floppy 360 Kilobytes

Courtesy of Vaugn Pratt

8” Floppy disk first use ca. 1965Single sided diskCapacity/floppy ca. 150 Kilobytes

Courtesy of

Digital Equipment CorporationModel 846 single platter disk cartridge from SUMEX DEC PDP-11, ca. 1972.

Cut open to show disk

Courtesy of Tom Rindfleisch, SUMEX

The 2 reading heads were mounted on slides in the drive and entered the unit through the small port in the rear.Larger units were composed of multiple, up to 11, platters

Storage capacity per side, using 200 formatted tracks, ca.1.1 Megabytes of 8 bits

Capacity per unit 2.2 Megabytes. Rotational speed 2400 rpm.

Average seek time for head movement 60 msec.

Rotational latency 12.5 msec. Transfer rate 0.312 Megabyte/sec.

Lightning Calculator, ca. 1930.

The Lightning Adding Machine Company, Los Angeles CA This calculator belonged to Prof. George Forsythe.

This American calculator copies the design of the Pascaline, first designed by Blaise Pascal in 1642.

The pen is used to add or subtract digits in any of 8 decimal conditions by rotating one of the disks. A lug on each wheel creates a carry when the 9 digit is passed. This improved version had a single lever to reset all digits to zero.

Courtesy of the Estate of George and Sandra Forsythe and The Computer Museum.

George Elmer Forsythe

Founding Chairman of the Stanford Computer Science Department 1965-1972

born 1917 in State College, PAgraduated from Swarthmore College 1937PhD in Mathematics from Brown University 1941at Stanford University 1941-1942, 1957-1972Air Force meteorologist 1942-1945at UCLA’s Institute for Numerical Analysis to 1957with John Herriot, formed the Division of Computer Science within the Mathematics department in 1961Director of the Computation Center 1961-1965died 1972 at Stanford, CA

George Forsythe supervised 17 PhD theses at Stanford.Many of his students became professors themselves and several became department chairs in turn.The complete tree of Forsythe’s academic descendants is available on the web pages describing these exhibits, at http://www-cs.stanford.edu, and then click on museum.

courtesy of Cleve Moler and Jim Varah

Polya: 13 Dec.1887- 7 Sep.1985 [Don Knuth]

Polya Hall Home of the Stanford Computer Science Department 1963- Oct.1979

Named for George Pólya (1887-1985) Prof. of Mathematics

IBM Card Programmed Calculator (CPC)A CPC was Stanford’s computer from 1953-1956.

The tall box is the arithmetic unit, which used 1500 vacuum tubes and had 8 registers of 4 digits and 1 register of 5 digits. Digits were represented by 4 bits each, requiring 2 vacuum tubes per bit.

The box on the right contained 4 mechanical accumulators of 12 digit words and 2 of of 16 digits, and 48 words of mechanical storage. Mechanical storage was implemented in the form of wheels, which were positioned by solenoids, and had contacts for readout.

Instructions were read from cards, placed into the center unit, at a rate of up to 150 per minute. Through wiring a plug board placed in the arithmetic unit certain cards could be skipped, giving some control over program flow.

The CPC was not yet a von Neuman machine architecture.

The central unit also had a printer, which could print 120 columns of numeric output at 150 lines per minute (lpm), but only 40 columns of letters at 100 lpm.

Results could also be punched on the rightmost unit, on up to 50 cards per minute. Another wiring board selected the card columns.

Wiring Plug Board, ca. 1960.IBM Corporation, NY.

On pre-Von Neumann computers programs were wired. Placing the wires into plug boards allowed fast changing of programs and off-line program preparation.

The wires routed the impulses obtained from cards to start and increment counter wheels, to transmit carry im-pulses to other wheels, and to set indicators for negative numbers or overflow. Printers had similar wheels, but embossed, which were rotated before striking the paper. This panel controlled a collator, a machine for merging two sets of sorted cards according to the contents of sequencing fields. The fields could be in different columns. Courtesy of The Computer Museum History Center

Data processing cards were invented by Hermann Hollerith of theU.S. Bureau of the Census. Commonly known as IBM cards theywere used for data and program storage from 1890 up to the 1980’s.

They had 80 columns, and up to 4 holes out of 12 positions could be punched out per column, allowing first 12, later 64, and eventually 256 distinct characters codes per column. More holes weakened them.

The size of the card was based on the dollar bill of that time, so that they might be carried in standard wallets. Dollar bills arenow smaller in size and in value.

Silver certificate dollar bill from 1920 courtesy of Voy and Gio Wiederhold

Early Computers at Stanford

Type arrived-retired Location speed(+/x) Memory Prim.language sec Words/bytes

IBM CPC Mar.1953-56 Elec.Lab. 760K/13M 48 wired board

IBM 650 Jan.1956-62? Elec.Lab. 2.2K/19K 2KW SOAP

Burroughs 220 Jun.1960 Encina 200/3300 10KW Balgol

shared with First National Bank of San Jose (overnight check processing) IBM 7090 Feb.1963?-67 Pine Hall 4.4/2532KW FORTRAN

Burroughs 5500 Mar?.1963-68 Pine Hall AlgolDEC PDP-1 1964 - Pine Hall ~5/18bits 64KW

DEC PDP-6 Aug.1965 AI lab ~4/36bits LISP IBM/360-50 Jun.1965 SLAC 4/16 256Kb

IBM/360-50 Dec.1965-7x Med.Sch. 4/16 1.128Kb PL/1 subset

IBM/360-67 May 1967- Pine Hall 1.5/6 500Kb Algol W,

installed as an IBM/360-65 because of an inadequate timesharing system FORTRAN

IBM/360-75 SLAC 0.75/3 1Mb FORTRAN

IBM/360-91 1968 SLAC 0.2/0.4 2Mb FORTRAN

DEC PDP-10 1969? -85? AI lab LISP, SAIL

DEC system 2040 1976-1977 LOTS 1.0 128KW

DEC system 2050 1977-19 LOTS 0.5 256KW

Early Faculty at Stanford1953 Jack Herriot, Alan Peterson, codirectors computation center

Remington-Rand Univac Flip-Flop Assembly Model 1818A, serial 001348. Manuf’d for the U.S. Navy, Oct.1960. Courtesy of David Hermreck, Potomac, MD.Two?-bit highly reliable plug-in electro-mechanical memory unit.It uses relays, composed to form flip-flop storage cells, similar to the exposed AEC unit shown. The access time was about 1/2 sec. To avoid corrosion, all joints were soldered to be airtight, andthen the unit was filled with nitrogen gas, through the valve on the side. All contacts are gold plated.

Similar flip-flop units, but not sealed, were used for the IBM CPC(Card-Programmed Calculator) shown above, used at Stanford from1953 to 1956. The CPC could hold 9 words of 4 4-bit digits in vacuum tube circuits, and 48 words of 10 digits in relay storage. The CPC was hence not a von-Neumann machine architecture; programs remained external. Computation was driven by sets of cards, fed through a card reader at up to 2.5 instructions/second.

Primary Programming Languages Taught at Stanford <Tentative Draft, tell us what you know>

Language years compiler machine

Board wiring 1953-56 none IBM CPC

Assembler 1956-60 SOAP II IBM 650

Algol 58 1960-65 Balgol Burroughs 220

FORTRAN 1963-67 FORTRAN II IBM 7090

Algol 60 1963-68 Algol Burroughs 5500

Algol W 1968-75 Wirth’s IBM/360

FORTRAN 1975 FORTRAN IV IBM/370

ALGOL 60 + 1976-77 SAIL DEC 10

PASCAL 1978-91 LOTS DEC-10

C 1991-today Apple Macintosh

Java? future?

Information courtesy of Claire Stager, Eric Roberts, ...

DEC-10 system Memory Controller Board, modified for LOTS, the StanfordLow-Overhead Time Sharing System, 1977By 1976 semi-conductor memory prices had dropped to the extent that large number of display terminals could each have their own buffer in a timeshared system. The buffersizes were adequate for 40 lines of 80 = 3200 characters each, requiring about 320, 000 bytes for 100 terminals. This was more than provided for in the original controller design, so that boards for LOTS were modified to allow high-order addressing.

On PCs and workstations today, the entire display image is buffered, omitting the need for a hardware charcter generator, but requiring up to a Megabyte per display.

Courtesy of Ralph Gorin

ACME system status panel, 1966 Designed by Robert Flexer and Klaus Holtz

For the time-sharing and real-time data acquisition system in The Medical school, ACME, status indicators were provided on each of the 30 terminals, to reduce user frustration. The white ACME IS ON light was pulsed periodically, so that it would decay if the system went down. YOU ARE ON signaled each time slice allocated. The WAITING FOR YOU light indicated that input was expected from the terminal or a data-acquistion port, and the SPECIAL RUN ON light warned users that a high demand data acquisition task was in progress, reducing the performance for all others. Courtesy of Gio Wiederhold

SAIL User Manual

June 1973Editor: Kurt VanLehn

Stanford AI Laboratory

The SAIL language was,with LISP 1.5, theprimary programming language at the Stanford AILaboratory, and used, a.o., for its research in robotics.

The SAIL language was derived from Algol 60, expanded with • direct access to PDP-10

I/Ofacilities,• control over external

interrupts• macro-capabilities• sets and lists• data structures for

associative search•multi-processingThe last three augmenta-tions were derived from LEAP, developed in 1969 by Jerry Feldman and Paul Rovner on the Lincoln Labs TX-2.Courtesy of Gio Wiederhold

DataDisc Display System1971: The DataDisc (DD) used the disk you see here to storeand continuously generate 32 video channels that were usedas display screens on monitors around the Stanford AI Lab.

1972: The DD video channels were routed through a crossbarswitch to any combination of 56 DD display terminals in thebuilding. Users could view the same channel from multiplemonitors, or multiple channels on one monitor.

1982: More and more DD channels had become very streaky andannoying, so the DD disk was replaced with RAM memory usingthe big 64Kbit chips in the “newDD” system designed at SAIL.

Here you see the DD’s small read amplifier cards mountedaround a circle. On the other side, arranged in a spiral,are the disk heads, which you can see in the shiny mirror in the back, which is the DD disk itself! (Note the dark lines on theouter portion of the disk -- from head crashes which disabled only selected channels.) One new DD memory board, holding fourvideo channels, is to the right.

Monroe Decimal Calculator. ca. 1930Inventor: Frank Stephen Baldwin 1839-1925. This 10-key calculator provided accurate manual computation.

Its operator was called a computor.Each complete forward turn of the large crank on the right will add the value set into the 8 x 10 keys into the bottom register of the carriage. The top register counts the turns. Subtraction is achieved by turning the crank in reverse. To multiply the Repeat button is pressed and the crank turned as often as needed for the low-order digit. Then the carriage is moved to the right with the handle in front, so the next digit of the factor can be cranked in. The crank on the carriage is for resetting result and counter registers. Division is performed by subtracting the divisor left to right.

Courtesy of Gio Wiederhold


Monroe Decimal Calculator,ca.1930

Inventor: Frank Stephen Baldwin 1839-1925. This 10-key calculator provided accurate manual computation. Its operator was called a computor.

Each complete forward turn of the large crank on the right will add the value set into the 8 x 10 keys into the bottom register of the carriage. The top register counts the turns. Subtraction is achieved by turning the crank in reverse. To multiply the Repeat button is pressed and the crank turned as often as needed for the low-order digit. Then the carriage is moved to the right with the handle in front, so the next digit of the factor can be cranked in. The crank on the carriage is for resetting result and counter registers. Division is performed by subtracting the divisor left to right

Marchant Electric Calculator, ca. 1950.

Marchant Calculator Comp. , Oakland CA. This calculator was used by Prof. George Forsythe, founding chairman of the Stanford Computer Science department.This calculator replaced the human power required in earlier machines (see the Monroe calculator) with an electric motor, a single on/off relay and a number of mechanical clutches. The key on the side determines the number of turns for multiplication. Division was automated by entering the divisor in the keys and continuing subtraction until the the dividend was fully reduced. The carriage would then shift left and division continued. Courtesy of the Estate of George and Sandra Forsythe.

Calculators were used together with mathematical tables for scientific computation.

The proportional parts entries on the right-hand side of the base tables helped in interpolation to gain 6-digit accuracy in these computations.

This book was used at the NATO Air Defense Center in Holland by Gio Wiederhold in 1957 to predict short-range free-flight missile trajectories.

A group of 12 computors, working in pairs for cross-checking, took up to three weeks to obtain one result.


Mathematical Tables from theHandbook of Chemistry&Physic, 1949Chemical Rubber Publ. Company, Cleveland OH.

Automatic Calculator, model SW

Friden, Inc, San Leandro CA. 1956

This machine further automated calculation by allowing a multiple digit factor to be entered in the small panel on the right. Multiplication continues right to left, while the carriage shifts left, until all digits have been consumed. The result is appears on top.

The Friden company also produced a calculator which could do square roots.

A side panel and top cover have been removed to provide an impression of the complexity of mechanical computation. This type of calculator represents the end-of-the-line for mechnical digital calculation.

Courtesy of Robert Floyd

Stanford CSD TrophiesACM Programming Contests

19xx, 19xxx, 19xx, 19xxdisplay case 7

Stanford CSD TrophiesACM Programming Contests

19xx, 19xxx, 19xxdisplay case 7

The Stanford ArmStanford Artificial Intelligence LaboratoryHand-Eye Project, 1969

The arm contains 6 joints, and was configured to approximate human reach, but with a different joint structure. A pair were mounted on a table and operated in concert with a camera, which scanned the table surface for objects, as blocks, which then could be stacked. Specified tasks were then accomplished without further camera feedback. The claw provided force feedback.





size (44, 43.5, 43.5, 45) x 42.5”

Electric Key Punch IBM Corporation, 1923.Input and output for data processing was mainly by cards that were punched with holes in any of 12 row (X,Y,0-9) positions in one of 80 columns.

Any column could contain one of the 10 digits or an X (above the 2- key) for minus. Letters are entered by typing a digit (1-9) and X, Y, or zero. The EBCDIC en-coding in IBM mainframes is still a derivative of this scheme; elsewhere it has been replaced by ASCII.

In this model, the addition of a solenoid to drive the punches which perforated the cards greatly reduced fatigue and increased the speed of data preparation. Courtesy of IBM Research, Yorktown NY

Console panel froman IBM/360-40 computer

Announced April 1964, first delivered 1965.

Courtesy of The Computer Museum

The table held the console printer of the ACME system, an IBM/360-50G with 1M. later 2Mb, auxiliary memory,performing timeshared real-time data acquisition and computation at the Stanford Medical School.

The IBM/360 architecture was to cover the spectrum from modest to large machines, and data-processing as well as scientific computation. The principal designers were

• Gene Amdahl,• Fred Brooks, and• Gerrit Blaauw.

The 8-bit byte, 32-bit word architecture is still used in today’s IBM mainframes.

It influenced greatly the later RCA Spectra, XDS , Ryad, and Univac 9000 computers, and to lesser extent the DEC VAX and Intel architectures.

CORE Memory planes from IBM/360 seriesIBM Corporation, ca. 1964Ferrite-core memories were first developed during the early 1950’s for use in the SAGE air-defense system. Each tiny doughnout-shaped core stored a single bit of information (1 or 0) by means of the clockwise or counterclockwise direction (around the hole) of the core’s internal magnetization. Tiny electric wires strung through the core holes were used to write and read information. Ferrite-cores soon replaced all other computer memory technologies because of their superior reliability and speed. The ferrite-core memory planes shown here were used in IBM System/360 computer beginning in 1964. A memory consisted of many core planes interconnected with electronic red-write circuitry. System/360 memories provided read-write cycles of 0.75 to 2.5 microseconds and capacities of thousand bytes to 1 million bytes. Manufacturing costs of ferrite cores were less than 0.1 cents each, but a fully wired core memory with all support circuitry cost 1 to 2 cents per bit. Semiconductor memories gradually replaced ferrite-core memories after the first all-semiconductor memory was introduced on the IBM System/370-145 in 1970.

Courtesy of IBM Yorktown Heights

CORE Memory planes from IBM/360 seriesIBM Corporation, ca. 1964Ferrite-core memories were first developed during the early 1950’s for use in the SAGE air-defense system. Each tiny doughnout-shaped core stored a single bit of information (1 or 0) by means of the clockwise or counterclockwise direction (around the hole) of the core’s internal magnetization. Tiny electric wires strung through the core holes were used to write and read information. Ferrite-cores soon replaced all other computer memory technologies because of their superior reliability and speed. The ferrite-core memory planes shown here were used in IBM System/360 computer beginning in 1964. A memory consisted of many core planes interconnected with electronic red-write circuitry. System/360 memories provided read-write cycles of 0.75 to 2.5 microseconds and capacities of 16 Kilobytes to 1 Megabyte. Manufacturing costs of ferrite cores were less than 0.1 cents each, but a fully wired core memory with all support circuitry cost 1 to 2 cents per bit. Semiconductor memories gradually replaced ferrite-core memories after the first all-semiconductor memory was introduced on the IBM System/370-145 in 1970.

Courtesy of IBM Yorktown Heights

The IBM/360 implementations differed in the technologies employed: ~rel. micro-code cycle integer datapath planned maximum model perf. storage time add time width memory memory 360-20* .25 main memory 2sec 20sec? 1 byte 16K (D) 64K (F) 360-30 1 capacitor cards 0.75sec 12sec 1 byte 32K (E) 64K (F) 360-40 3 printed transformers 0.62sec 10sec? 2 bytes 64K (F) 128K (G) 360-50 10 balanced capacitor 0.5sec 4sec 4 bytes 128K (G) 256K (H)360-65 20 balanced capacitor 0.2sec 1.5sec 8 bytes 256K (H) 512K (I)360-75 50 hardwired, overlap 0.195sec .75sec 8 bytes 512K (I) 1Mbyte (J) *

360-91* 200 hardwired, pipelined 0.060sec .2sec 8 bytes 1Mbyte(J) 2Mbyte (K)* * subsequent to April 1964 announcement

A single operating system was planned as well. However, it became soon obvious that the smaller machines would drag down the larger ones, and 64K becamethe minimum size for IBM-OS, smaller machines used a system called DOS. Stanford developed new (ACME), or augmented IBM’s operating systems (Wylbur and Orvyl).

Notes from Pugh, Johnson, Palmer:pp 338: -92=15x -70p 640 total range 200:1CACM vol 221.1 1978

Apple Corporation

Apple I I +Designed originally 1977

Magnavox 12” b-w TV,used as computer display

The early Apple computers used TV setsto display about 20 linesof 40 characters each.

Computer courtesy of The Computer Museum,TV c.o. Voy & Gio Wiederhold

VisiCorp

User Guide for VisiCalc Electronic Worksheet program, 1981.

Inventor Bob Frankstonat Software Arts, Inc, 1979.

All commands were single letter codes, combined with arrow keys and functions.


Conventional programming, languages as BASIC and PASCAL were made available for the Apple, but had limited acceptance.

The innovative interactive VisiCalc spreadsheet program for the Apple II and, later, the IBM PC, transformed personal computers to useful business tools, and greatly broadened their market.

Visicalc was in turn replaced by Lotus, due its intuitive point-and-click interface.

UCSD

Apple PASCAL 1.1

Developer Kenneth Bowles 1979

Graphic extensions by Apple Corporation.

Manual by Arthur Luehmann and Herbert Peckham, McGraw-Hill 1981


Pascal was defined in 1972 by Prof. Niklaus Wirth and imple-mented in 1978 with Kathleen Jensen at the ETH in Zürich, Switzerland for the CDC 6000. The intent was to have a clearand effective language for teaching. Its simple typestructure was in part a reaction to the complexity introduced with Algol 68.Pascal became rapidly very popular and was also widely used in commercial practice.It was the language used forteaching at Stanford CSDfrom 1979 to 1991.

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H

owe

ver,

sin

ce t

ime

on t

he m

ainf

ram

e co

mpu

ters

req

uire

d t

o su

ppor

t S

pace

war

was

bill

ed t

o u

sers

at

rate

s of

se

vera

l hun

dred

dol

lars

per

hou

r,

Spa

cew

ar w

as u

sua

lly p

laye

d o

nly

by s

yste

m p

rogr

amm

ers

whe

n th

e m

ainf

ram

e w

as id

le;

times

like

2am

!

In la

te 1

970,

Dig

ital E

quip

me

nt C

orpo

ratio

n in

tro

duce

d th

e P

DP

-11

min

icom

pute

r.

Fin

ally

, th

ere

was

an

aff

orda

ble

com

pute

r w

ith t

he p

ow

er t

o ru

n S

pace

war

!.

So

, B

ill P

itts

(a r

ecen

t S

tanf

ord

grad

an

d A

I al

umni

) an

d h

is h

igh

sc

hool

bud

dy H

ugh

Tuc

k fo

rmed

Com

pute

r R

ecr

eat

ions

, In

c. in

Jun

e of

197

1 to

bui

ld c

oin

oper

ate

d S

pac

ewa

r m

achi

nes.

Bill

, a

com

pute

r ha

cker

, di

d th

e pr

ogra

mm

ing

and

elec

tric

al s

tuff

, an

d H

ugh

, a

mec

hani

cal e

ngin

eer,

des

igne

d th

e en

clos

ures

. A

fter

th

ree

and

a ha

lf m

onth

s of

labo

r, S

pace

war

was

abo

ut

to b

e de

liver

ed t

o th

e m

asse

s.

Ho

wev

er,

at t

his

time

(1

971)

, th

e c

once

pt o

f "w

ar"

was

a v

ery

ba

d th

ing

on

cam

pus.

A

stut

e m

arke

teer

s th

at t

hey

wer

e, B

ill a

nd H

ugh

deci

ded

to

chan

ge t

he n

ame

to

Gal

axy

Gam

e.

The

firs

t ve

rsio

n of

Ga

laxy

Gam

e, p

acka

ged

in a

wal

nut

ven

eere

d en

clos

ure,

in

corp

ora

ted

a P

DP

-11/

20 c

om

pute

r, a

sim

ple

poi

nt p

lott

ing

dis

pla

y in

terf

ace,

an

d a

Hew

lett

Pac

kard

130

0A E

lect

rost

atic

Dis

play

. T

he P

DP

-11/

20 (

with

8K

by

tes

of c

ore

me

mor

y an

d an

opt

ion

al h

ardw

are

mu

ltip

ly/d

ivid

e u

nit)

cos

t $1

4,0

00

and

the

dis

pla

y co

st $

3,0

00.

Coi

n ac

cept

ors

and

pa

ckag

ing

brou

ght

the

tota

l cos

t to

app

roxi

mat

ely

$20,

000.

Gal

axy

Gam

e w

as

pric

ed a

t 10

cen

ts p

er g

ame

or 2

5 ce

nts

for

3 ga

mes

. If

at

the

end

of t

he g

am

e yo

ur s

hip

still

sur

vive

d an

d ha

d s

ome

fuel

left

, yo

u g

ot a

fr

ee g

ame.

P

erha

ps B

ill a

nd H

ugh

wer

e n

ot t

he m

ost

ast

ute

of

busi

ness

me

n .

A s

econ

d ve

rsio

n of

Gal

axy

Ga

me,

with

a m

ore

pow

erfu

l dis

pla

y in

terf

ace

ena

blin

g th

e P

DP

-11

to d

rive

fou

r to

eig

ht c

ons

ole

s, w

as d

eve

lope

d to

am

ortiz

e th

e c

ost

of t

he c

om

pute

r ov

er s

ever

al c

onso

les.

T

his

vers

ion

was

in

stal

led

in t

he C

offe

e H

ouse

at

Tre

sidd

er U

nion

in J

une

1972

, w

her

e it

rem

aine

d in

op

erat

ion

until

Ma

y 19

79.

Thr

ough

out

its t

enur

e a

t T

ress

idde

r,

Gal

axy

Gam

e w

as

hea

vily

use

d. T

en t

o tw

enty

peo

ple

gath

ered

aro

und

the

m

achi

nes

mos

t F

rida

y an

d S

atu

rday

nig

hts

whe

n sc

hool

wa

s in

ses

sio

n.

Aft

er r

emo

vin

g G

alax

y G

ame

fro

m T

ress

idde

r (b

ecau

se t

he d

ispl

ay

proc

esso

r ha

d be

com

e ve

ry u

nrel

iabl

e)

the

mac

hine

was

dis

asse

mbl

ed.

The

co

mpu

ter

and

dis

pla

ys w

ere

stor

ed

in a

n o

ffic

e an

d th

e fib

ergl

ass

case

s w

ere

stor

ed

outd

oors

for

the

nex

t ei

ghte

en y

ears

. S

omet

ime

in A

pril

1997

, Le

s E

arne

st (

the

form

er D

irect

or o

f th

e S

tanf

ord

AI

Lab)

rec

eive

d a

phon

e

call

from

Bill

Pitt

s.

Bill

wa

s ab

out

to

thro

w a

way

som

e ol

d P

DP

-11

stuf

f, a

nd

he w

as w

onde

ring

if Le

s m

ight

kno

w o

f a

go

od h

ome

for

old

com

pute

rs.

Le

s m

ent

ione

d th

at t

he n

ew C

ompu

ter

His

tory

Exh

ibits

mig

ht

be in

tere

sted

.

So,

Bill

fire

d of

f a

coup

le o

f em

ails

in t

he d

irect

ion

of S

tanf

ord

and

the

n fin

ally

, a

re

ply!

Y

es,

the

Com

pute

r H

isto

ry E

xhib

its w

oul

d lik

e G

alax

y G

ame

as a

n op

erat

ing

exh

ibit.

To

get

Ga

laxy

Gam

e op

erat

ing

agai

n w

ould

be

no s

mal

l fea

t.

The

ca

ll fo

r he

lp w

ent

out.

T

he b

igge

st jo

b w

ould

be

to

build

a n

ew d

ispl

ay p

roce

sso

r us

ing

the

orig

inal

des

ign

sche

mat

ics.

T

ed P

anof

sky,

who

had

de

sig

ned

and

built

the

dis

play

pro

cess

or

way

bac

k w

hen,

so

on r

ecei

ved

a ca

ll fr

om B

ill.

C

ould

Te

d p

leas

e ta

ke c

ompl

ete

resp

onsi

bilit

y fo

r bu

ildin

g an

d d

eliv

erin

g a

fully

fun

ctio

nal d

ispl

ay p

roce

ssor

in e

igh

t w

eeks

?

For

fre

e,

of c

our

se.

Te

d sa

id h

e'd

be

en w

aitin

g 2

5 y

ears

for

just

suc

h an

opp

ortu

nity

! Y

es,

he w

ould

lo

ve t

o!

So,

with

Ted

's g

ener

ous

cont

ribut

ion

of t

ime,

ene

rgy,

and

sm

arts

, a

nd h

elp

from

Dou

g B

rent

linge

r, P

aul M

ancu

so,

and

Vic

tor

Sch

ein

man

, th

e G

alax

y G

ame

is b

ack.

B

y th

e w

ay,

th

e o

rigin

al d

ispl

ay

proc

esso

r's p

oor

relia

bilit

y re

sulte

d fr

om u

sing

ear

ly v

inta

ge T

exas

Ins

trum

ents

wire

wra

p IC

soc

kets

. T

ed w

as n

ot t

he o

ne

tha

t se

lect

ed t

hem

.

Bot

h ve

rsio

ns o

f G

ala

xy G

ame

wer

e ba

sed

on t

he t

he S

tan

ford

AI

Lab'

s P

DP

-10

vers

ion

of S

pace

war

. G

alax

y G

ame

is a

fai

thfu

l PD

P-1

1 re

-im

plem

enta

tion

of t

he A

I La

b's

PD

P-1

0 S

pace

war

. E

xcep

t, I

don

't se

em t

o re

call

any

coin

acc

ept

ors

on

the

PD

P-1

0

Bill

Pitt

s,

O

ctob

er 2

9,

1997

The

Com

pute

r H

isto

ry E

xhib

its t

hank

Bill

Pitt

s, T

ed P

anof

sky,

D

oug

Bre

ntlin

ger

, an

d P

aul M

anc

uso

for

the

ir ef

fort

in r

esta

rtin

g th

e G

alax

y an

dkee

pin

g it

goin

g.

Mon

ey s

pen

t in

pla

yin

g th

ie G

alax

y G

am

e w

ill o

nly

be

use

d fo

r th

e m

aint

enan

ce o

f t

he C

o,m

pute

r H

isto

ry E

xhib

its

Contributors

Hector Garcia-Molina, Mark Horowitz, Joe Oliger, Carlos Tomasi, Gio Wiederhold

We also acknowledge departmental support for installation infrastructure

Special Thanks To

Doug Brentlinger, Diane Forsythe, John

Goldschmidt, Ralph Gorin, Andrew Kacsmar, Oussama Khatib, Jill Knuth, Verena LaMar, Paul Mancuso, Robert

Miller, Zae Ozaki, Ted Panofsky, Bill Pitts, Victor Scheinman, Eileen Schwappach,

Marianne Siroker

Organizing Committee

Zoe Allison, Gwen Bell, Les Earnest, Martin Frost, Penny Nii, Bernard Peuto, Len Shustek, Gio and Voy Wiederhold

computer history exhibits signs and placards master copy on haring

Documents