tenex ready

[Stephen Jones]

[Michael Thompson]

Very cool! Going to get it running?

On Aug 8, 2025, at 5:41 PM, Stephen Jones <sdfp...@gmail.com> wrote:



<IMG_0362.jpeg>

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[Bradford Miller]

You’re making me think my PiDP is missing a lot of blinkinlights…. :-)

I’ve never seen the BBN pager before!

[Stephen Jones]

It is the plan for at least the CPU, but we're talking about emulating the memory (the ME10 is 16KW) and then lighting up the ME10s light panel.

Ideally a row of ME10s would be great, but we've only got 4 and they may be more trouble than it is worth.  Driving the lamp panels with emulated memory (and running the blowers) would accomplish the look and feel.

[Stephen Jones]

Indeed the PiDP-10 is very beautiful but there is so much more to see on a running 10.

Also, this may be an unpopular opinion, but .. real 10s are all black.  However, KI10 (decsystem10) should be blue!

[Lars Brinkhoff]

I'm trying to pull some strings inside BBN (aka Raytheon) to have TENEX open sourced.

[Ric Werme]

At CMU we had some problems with parity errors on an Ampex core memory (64 kW, IIRC).  It couldn't be reproduced with DEC diagnostics, and I was asked to write something that put a heavier load on memory than the CPU could muster.  I wound up with something that started transfers from a disk drive that worked through various patterns. It ran at interrupt level.  I created a second "process that ran at the higher interrupt level used by the swapping drum which was faster than the disk.  And then a variant that was essentially the idle job that was the CPU direct test.

When it was running, you could see the patterns stepping through on the data channels for drum and disk,  The memories (Ampex, maybe the RCA prototype, and maybe DEC memory) showed more complex patterns, and the poor CPU, including the CPU bay diagnostic panels, looked like it was sweating.  Of course, the effect was most effective when we shut off the ceiling lights.  I have never seen a computer look busier.

I don't think my diagnostic helped all that much, but ultimately things worsened to the point where we realized that turbulence from air blowing through the core stack eroded the insulation on the magnet wire and finally permanent short circuits made the problem clear.  So Ampex had to replace the core stacks.

[Andy]

hey where's this photo taken from?

[Ryan Petersen]

I'm a bit shocked to see only a paper tape punch/reader, and no dectape drives on this one. Where was this machine originally installed?

On Friday, August 8, 2025 at 2:41:29 PM UTC-7 sdfp...@gmail.com wrote:

[Steven A. Falco]

The little red Dymo label on the console seems to say: Le P.O.S. So perhaps a French Piece of Sh*t? LOL

Steve

On 8/19/25 11:21 AM, Ryan Petersen wrote:
> I'm a bit shocked to see only a paper tape punch/reader, and no dectape drives on this one. Where was this machine originally installed?
>
> On Friday, August 8, 2025 at 2:41:29 PM UTC-7 sdfp...@gmail.com wrote:
>

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[Stephen Jones]

This machine came from Systems Concepts and was used in the initial design of the SA10 and their MARS systems.

It is currently on public display at https://icm.museum

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