Pilot ACE

[Robin Vowels]

Worth a look.

One picture shows a man seated at a lights, dials and switches conrol
console.

Alonside is a frame like an elongated A frame blackboard.
This contains the main elecronics.
Hence the term "mainframe", maybe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2013/apr/12/alan-turing-pilot...

Carl Goldsworthy
from alt.folklore.computers

[John W Kennedy]

Broken link.

But in my experience, "mainframe" originally meant the central
processor device, and then transferred to the whole of the sort of a
computer that had a central processor device.

--
John W Kennedy
"Information is light. Information, in itself, about anything, is light."
-- Tom Stoppard. "Night and Day"

[Robin Vowels]

On Apr 15, 10:31 am, Robin Vowels <robin.vow...@gmail.com> wrote:
Worth a look.

One picture shows a man seated at a lights, dials and switches conrol
console.

Alonside is a frame like an elongated A frame blackboard.
This contains the main elecronics.
Hence the term "mainframe", maybe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/video/2013/apr/12/alan-turing-pilot-ace-computer-video

[Robin Vowels]

On Apr 15, 12:18 pm, John W Kennedy <jwke...@attglobal.net> wrote:

> But in my experience, "mainframe" originally meant the central
> processor device, and then transferred to the whole of the sort of a
> computer that had a central processor device.

In the olden days, the entire machine was a single giant box
(except sometimes for the memory and peripherals).

[John W Kennedy]

On 2013-04-15 05:52:45 +0000, Robin Vowels said:

> On Apr 15, 12:18 pm, John W Kennedy <jwke...@attglobal.net> wrote:
>

>> But in my experience, "mainframe" originally meant the central
>> processor device, and then transferred to the whole of the sort of a
>> computer that had a central processor device.
>

> In the olden days, the entire machine was a single giant box

> (except sometimes for the peripherals).

If you mean something like the ASCC or the SSEC, yes, but both of them
were ancient history by the time "mainframe" appeared in reference to
computers. (It had existed with respect to mechanical engineering for
much longer.) In computers, it first alluded to the machine containing
the ALU and logic components; later, it was extended to assemblies
containing "mainframes" in the original sense, plus any memory,
console, and/or channel units bolted to them. (This was helped by the
fact that, on some smaller models, all four were in the same frame to
begin with.) Later, it came to mean the sort of traditional computer
that had a "mainframe" in either older sense, as opposed to a
"minicomputer".

Nowadays one often sees it used simply as a synonym for "IBM System z"
(sometimes also the IBM System i).

--
John W Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams. "Judgement at Chelmsford"