Article 1491 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: shellx.best.com!news1.best.com!news.texas.net!imci2!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!news1.digital.com!decwrl!amd!netcomsv!uu4news.netcom.com!netcomsv!uu3news.netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!netnews From: jcgreen@ix.netcom.com(John C Green Jr ) Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Working for PDP-10 Engineering in '68 ... a personal account Date: 2 Jan 1996 20:45:29 GMT Organization: Netcom Lines: 53 Message-ID: <4cc5h9$btj@ixnews2.ix.netcom.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: ix-sj23-21.ix.netcom.com X-NETCOM-Date: Tue Jan 02 12:45:29 PM PST 1996 I graduated in JUN68 with BSEE and joined PDP-10 Engineering (rather than being one of 300 engineers designing the IBM System/360 Model 195 which was my only other computer offer). There were two major transitions going on then: * Digital was growing from small to large * The industry was going from discrete components to ICs I was the 11th engineer in PDP-10 Engineering--each was given lots of responsibility. My first assignment was as Project Engineer of the RP10--a PDP-10 disk controller for RP-02 (Digital's name for OEMed Memorex 660--IBM 2314 type) 25 MB disks. The RP10 listed for $29K, the RP-02 for $25K. They ended up selling 300 RP10s and 1500 RP-02s for a list of $8.7M of controllers + $37.5M of disks which I felt was quite a bit of responsibility when June grads were making $6,800 to $8,600 (actual numbers from my school's placement office for jobs accepted in JUN68). The next Spring I saw a job posting. The PDP-11 product line (no product had yet been announced) was looking for a JUN69 graduate to design a disk controller to the same RP-02. Only the candidate was to be a Junior Engineer understudying a Senior Engineer for his first project. Digital had made the transition from small to large. New hire June grads were in training for the first year. All my Senior labs were with ICs. When I started at Digital I asked for an approved parts list. My manager said, "We don't use ICs. The last time we evaluated them they didn't have enough noise rejection." (Of course not if you take every pin of every chip and bring it out to a Gardner-Denver wirewrap backplane 15.5 inches wide and 21.0 inches high or bigger!) As a result the RP-10 was 6' high, 19" wide, had 144 lights, and almost 500 discrete component circuit cards! Anyway I'm only 49yo, but I designed a major piece of digital logic for a major computer vendor with discrete components. Back in '69 when the RP10 and RP-02 first shipped the disk was $25K/25MB or $1000./MB. A recent Fry's ad in the San Jose Mercury offers a Conner IDE hard drive at $249./1.6GB or $0.156/MB (over 6400 times cheaper)--but that's another story. 36-bits or none at all! :-) - - - Internet Marketing and Business Development 21483 Old Mine Rd (408)353-1870 Los Gatos CA 95030 JohnCGreen@aol.com Article 1500 of alt.sys.pdp10: Path: shellx.best.com!news1.best.com!news.texas.net!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!swrinde!sgigate.sgi.com!genmagic!news.spies.com!goonsquad.spies.com!not-for-mail From: aek@goonsquad.spies.com (Al Kossow) Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10 Subject: Re: Working for PDP-10 Engineering in '68 ... a personal account Date: 4 Jan 1996 10:40:03 -0800 Organization: Internet Wiretap Lines: 14 Message-ID: <4ch6u3$agc@goonsquad.spies.com> References: <4cfi93$52o@ss2.digex.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: goonsquad.spies.com From article <4cfi93$52o@ss2.digex.net>, by doug@ss2.digex.net (Doug Humphrey): > As someone who had RP02's and an RP10 in his dining room for a > while, I would like to say thanks! Your work with Flip Chips is > appreciated. > In the late 70's my desk was about 10 feet from an RP02. If you recall, it had a mechanical cyl lock that would set when it was on cyl (tick). tick, tick tick, tickticktickticktickticktick arggggggggg! ..thing drove me nuts