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Subject: Re: Hardware of the Past

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 08:45:08 05/16/01

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On May 16, 2001 at 09:10:42, Joshua Lee wrote:

>
>>>>Burroughs B5500
>>>
>>>very slow
>>
>>About 1 MIPS was claimed, not sure if it was true. Very weird machine with a 47
>>bit word, stack based. The instruction set was optimised for small code size
>>rather than speed. The operating systems were multi-user multi-tasking, but
>>there was no memory protection in the hardware. The compilers were supposed to
>>generate code that never mangled other programs memory, and you weren't supposed
>>to use assembler. I never got to use one (i'm not sure if any were even sold in
>>my country) so i can't vouch for how well it all worked.
>>
>>I didn't know anyone wrote a chess program for these.
>>
>
>All i could find about this one so far is that COKO III was written in FORTRAN
>IV and had been executed on IBM 7044, 360/50, 65, 91  PDP 10, UNIVAC 1108 and
>the B5500/6500. also The Marsland Chess Program. I am sure i will end up finding
>some other hardware to ask about so look out for my posts i will use the same
>name. Thankyou


Ed Kozdrowicki sent me a copy of the source code for Coko IV, about 80,000
lines of Fortran.  It was the second source program I saw (other than mine)
and played with.  It was lost 20+ years ago unfortunately.  I also had a
copy of the greenblatt program source (dec assembly language) but it was also
lost many years ago.



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