> This is just a wild guess since I've never heard the term aphrodite
> related to Prime, but would it make sense for it to mean a 9950 since
> that was Prime's first ECL machine? Seems like that is where they would
> have run into problems since it was a new power technology for them.
Most of the code names were animals. There are a few other types: Thor
for the LHC, the chipmunks, and maybe the Garfield/i'toons names for the
never-shipped 55xx machines. So this one caught my eye.
The 9950 was a Fox or Camel (name changed during development), the 9955
a Wombat, the -II a Penguin. Since we know names for them, I think it
doesn't refer to them.
I think the 9950 would be about the time of the shift from the 1051
supplies to the 7778.
It might also make sense that the late machines where they jammed a
9955-II set into a small cabinet (4450, Pip, for example) needed a
different supply because of space and only having room for one.
> Before they could even install the 9950 we had to upgrade our building's
> electrical service to accommodate its 3-phase electrical demands, even
> though we already had rooftop AC to handle 2 floors, 2 computer room air
> handlers, 2 Primes, and an elevator that was installed when the building
> was remodeled around 5 years earlier to be a computer center.
A 9950 was 13,300 BTU/hr, and 5.3 kVA. ECL was _hot_.
> With the older systems, when you flipped the switch, everything came
> instantly to life: lights, blowers, etc. On the 9950, when you flipped
> the power switch, it was more like starting a chain reaction, where this
> little noise happened, then something else clicked, then a blower came
> on, then the 2nd cabinet came on, etc.
Yes, the PDUs in the 4-digit machines all had the capability to stage
power to the chain of cabinets. There was a little 2- or 3-conductor
cable with a little molex connector that connected the PDUs of all the
cabinets together. Of course if you had freestanding disk, you still
had to power that by hand.
De