IBM 5080?
Kevin Bowling
the idea that it was a mainframe attached graphics system, but beyond
that there is almost nothing I can locate on the internet. There
isn't even a Wikipedia article which is strange since these kind of
setups seemed to be very important prior to the UNIX takeover of
technical computing.
Old timers, enlighten us!
Michael Kraemer
I can do little more than confirming what you already wrote.
There were quite a bunch of them in use in my organization,
mainly to run CATIA.
ISTR rather bulky devices, base unit plus monitor.
Everybody was happy when they were replaced by RS/6000s.
It's not much fun to run interactive graphics
on a machine crowded with numbercrunching jobs.
They were popular before the WWW,
so this might be the reason for the dearth of infos.
Requiring a mainframe behind it isn't helpful
for hobbyist usage either.
I may have one or two manuals on some dusty shelf,
but don't hold your breath.
Tim WBST Clarke
"Kevin Bowling" <kevin....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0cc56a3f-79f6-4a7b...@g26g2000yqe.googlegroups.com...
My vague memories seem to relate that there was a flavour of 3270 Emulation
called the 3270 PC Control Program (v3?) with Graphics eXtensions for the
PC3270/GX. I never played with that hardware & software combination myself,
merely was aware of it's existence. The later solutions tended to use the
All Points Addressable (APA) graphics capabilities of display/adapter
combinations, rather than specific hardware-related solutions like the 5080
subsystem.
Just my 10 cents-worth.
--
Regards,
Tim Clarke (a.k.a. WBST)
Guildford, U.K.
RickE
> Trying to learn a bit about what the IBM 5080 line was. I understand
> the idea that it was a mainframe attached graphics system, but beyond
> that there is almost nothing I can locate on the internet.
That's because most of the "young pups" who write Wikipedia articles
would have no need or interest in the 5080 subsystem. The 5080
subsystem had several parts, such as the 5081 display, the 5085 system
unit, the 5088 control unit that attached to the IBM mainframe, and
then you had optional components like the lighted PF key unit, the
graphics tablet, the mouse, the dials, the light pen, the screen
printer, and maybe a few others I'm forgetting. It was used first for
CADAM, then CATIA, though most CATIA shops moved to the 6090 subsystem
which was the 5080 follow-on.
Both the 5080 and 6090 were specialty hardware, not general purpose
processors, and were quite expensive. That's why the RS/6000 line
eventually took over the CATIA work, because your RS/6000 could do
CATIA and other things, too. In time, some of the x86 Intellistations
were also used for CATIA.
I never used a 5080 or 6090, but as the local "system" guy, I did hook
them up, configured the control unit, and help diagnose broken units
(they broke *a lot*).
Rick Ekblaw
Louis Ohland
the RS/6000 box via a 5080 adapter. The card was mostly useless without
the external box.
kevin....@kev009.com
Regards,
Kevin
Kevin Bowling
pointed out:
http://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/ibm/ibm6090gs.pdf
It's interesting, UNIX workstations (first SGI, then everyone else in
the '90s including RS/6000) had to be eating the lunch of using a
mainframe for this particular kind of work.
Regards,
Kevin