[TUHS] Reaction to the 3B2 at Bell Labs

[Kenneth Goodwin]

That must be the 300 B superhive model CPU

On Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 1:54 PM William Corcoran <wlc at jctaylor.com> wrote:

> I have a 3b2/300.  Anytime you run a command that is compute bound, like
> factoring a large prime number, the CPU buzzes!
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> Bill Corcoran
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> On Nov 27, 2022, at 9:52 AM, John P. Linderman <jpl.jpl at gmail.com> wrote:
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> [EXTERNAL]
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> We were "gifted" a 3B2, as in "take this and use it!". I ran a "ps"
> command in single user mode, and it took 20 seconds to run.
> Our machine names were themed around bird names, so we christened the 3B2
> "junco". Our director said we had to get along,
> so we renamed it "jay". But everyone knew what the J stood for. The 3B2
> served as a doorstop.
>
> On Sat, Nov 26, 2022 at 11:44 PM Phil Budne <phil at ultimate.com> wrote:
>
>> Larry McVoy wrote:
>> > I read the Wikipedia page on the 9000.  It's sad that the 9000
>> > wasn't cancelled when they had better alternatives.
>>
>> In an oral history Bob Supnik described Ken Olsen couldn't get his
>> head around the fact that the NVAX chip could equal the 9000:
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>> @2:59:45 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3tcCBHRIfU
>>
>> In part 2, Bob described how then DEC VP Gordon Bell having earlier
>> predicted when the microprocessor performance curve would cross over
>> minis and mainframes:
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>> @1:51:45 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3tcCBHRIfU
>>
>> He also talks about how the company couldn't command the bsame gross
>> margins as it did in the VAX era.
>>
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