Old CDCer

... then took a year
stint on a radar recon ship that had a Cyber system.

Umm, - they were looking for a guy like you with *exactly* that
experience about 2 yrs ago. The folks in Arden Hills had an email
going the rounds of "old contacts" looking for somebody with
Cyber maintenance skills who was willing to spend n months
per year on a tub floating somewhere in the far east...

Jitze

Richard Ragan

2003-11-28 23:53:33 UTC

For all I know, they may still be looking. Those were certainly old names and
locations I recall.

Rich

Post by Jitze Couperus

... then took a year
stint on a radar recon ship that had a Cyber system.

Alan Anderson

2003-11-29 08:37:03 UTC

How funny, I wonder if it is the Observation Island. I wondered
what became of the ship. It was a pretty incredible piece of
hardware. To have a radar be able to do what Cobra Judy did on a
rolling ship is something else.

I wouldn't want to do that work today as I have my own successful
business that would suffer grieviously if I were gone for a month
let alone months at a time.

Plus time on board a ship running in a slow figure 8 pattern day
after day is very boring. I should hope the people on board now
have access to the internet and email. Shipboard life is a place
for almost certifiable crazy people.

Post by Richard Ragan
For all I know, they may still be looking. Those were certainly old
names and locations I recall.

Post by Jitze Couperus

... then took a year stint on a radar recon ship that had a Cyber
system.

John A. Stovall

2003-12-02 16:57:26 UTC

Post by Jitze Couperus

... then took a year
stint on a radar recon ship that had a Cyber system.

Got filled by Willie Broussard formerly with ES in the Dallas Office.

*****************************************************

"Texas is a state of mind. Texas is an obsession.
Above all Texas is a nation in every sense of the
word."
"Travels with Charley"
John Steinbeck

Bob Lidral

2003-12-01 05:24:36 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
I just found this user group but when I joined it I only got 4
messages. Is this a little used group or what?

It doesn't get much traffic. Another place to look for CDC alums is
Classmates.com, though not many seem to have registered there, either.

Post by Alan Anderson
I worked for CDC for 25+ years, starting part time in '66 while

[...]
I worked for CDC from 1978 - 1985.

Post by Alan Anderson
I returned to Marysville and workd on Cyber 174 sytems at a Pave
Pwas phased array radar site for several years then took a year
stint on a radar recon ship that had a Cyber system.

[...]
After a year in pre-sales in Philadelphia, I moved to Massachusetts to
join a Government Systems group that developed the operating system
software for PAVE PAWS, COBRA JUDY, and BMEWS under contract to
Raytheon.

During that time, I spent the beginning of 1980 providing on-site
support to the PAVE PAWS installation at Otis AFB on Cape Cod, MA and
then spent 2 years providing on-site support to the site at Beale AFB in
Marysville, CA with occasional return visits to the Cape Cod site.

Then I spent 5 months during the fall and winter of 1982/1983 helping to
set up the COBRA JUDY support site at Patrick AFB in Cocoa Beach, FL.
My rented condo was close enough (7 miles) to Cape Canaveral that I was
able to watch (and feel) shuttle launches from my balcony or kitchen
window.

I finished my time with CDC back in Massachusetts working on two other
Raytheon contracts for the Air Force. These contracts were to apply the
technology developed for PAVE PAWS and COBRA JUDY to an upgrade for the
BMEWS system and for two additional PAVE PAWS sites.

Perhaps we both worked on the same PAVE PAWS or COBRA JUDY site at
the same time and I have a poor memory?

I fled in 1985 when it became apparent CDC had no concept of market
realities or hardware and software trends. Frankly, I was surprised the
company lasted as long as it eventually did.

Bob Lidral
l i d r a l at a l u m dot m i t dot e d u

Alan Anderson

2003-12-02 02:27:31 UTC

Post by Bob Lidral
I finished my time with CDC back in Massachusetts working on two other
Raytheon contracts for the Air Force. These contracts were to apply the
technology developed for PAVE PAWS and COBRA JUDY to an upgrade for the
BMEWS system and for two additional PAVE PAWS sites.
Perhaps we both worked on the same PAVE PAWS or COBRA JUDY site at
the same time and I have a poor memory?
I fled in 1985 when it became apparent CDC had no concept of market
realities or hardware and software trends. Frankly, I was surprised the
company lasted as long as it eventually did.

Over the years I marveled that CDC would come up with some great
ideas and then have no follow through or follow up and let them
die on the vine.
For instance, I hired on at the same time that CDC hired a bunch
of recently graduated EEs. The idea was to have them work for a
time as customer engineers and then use them in designing better
systems with service and repair in mind. A good idea but no
follow through. These guys had no path to follow, no one to help
them get to the design/engineering part of CDC. Within about 2
years all these guys had gone to work for other companies and CDC
had another expensive idea down the toilet.

Bob, your name sounds familiar. I was a CE that was at Pave Paws
Beale for it's early years during the waranty portion of the
Cybers. Then I worked for a while as a tech rep to the AF but
eventually transferred out of there because I lost all my
overtime and was not doing well financially. I worked closely
with some of the Ratheon guys at Pave Paws. I was a friend of
Mike Pacenza ('Mad Mike') and also worked with him on Cobra Judy.
I know you know him because anyone who worked around Mike
remebered him. He could be a lot of fun but god help anyone if he
was mad at them. Volatile is a word that comes to mind.

On the OI I was one of the 2 CEs that worked the test phase out
of Boston and then down to Cape Canaveral, through the Panama
Canal and then to Alameda, Hawaii, Kwajalein and then up to the
Bering Sea, Adak and back south to BOA and Hawaii.
It was an interesting adventure but one year of it was enough.

I enjoyed some of the Ratheon guys on board, Al Starcher, Loopie,
Mad Mike, and a few more I can't think of right at the moment. I
was friends with a gal (Kathy?) and we worked to set up the
paperback library on board.

Now that I think it over and compare your time frames with mine,
we may have not met. I may remember your name being mentioned by
Pacenza over the years.

I worked at Pave Paws - Beale 1978-81, Cobra Judy 81-82 then in
82 I went to Kwaj for 11 years.

Bob Lidral

2003-12-04 05:18:14 UTC

Post by Bob Lidral
Perhaps we both worked on the same PAVE PAWS or COBRA JUDY site at
the same time and I have a poor memory?
I fled in 1985 when it became apparent CDC had no concept of market
realities or hardware and software trends. Frankly, I was surprised the
company lasted as long as it eventually did.

Over the years I marveled that CDC would come up with some great
ideas and then have no follow through or follow up and let them
die on the vine.

My major complaint was their continuing willful ignorance of the
market combined with their almost religious belief that customers would
continue to purchase CDC products even if competitors had better
products. I first heard rumors of a planned CDC machine with 8-bit
characters (allowing both upper- and lower-case letters) and twos-
complement arithmetic (allowing simple comparisons of character strings
and removing the need to test for both plus and minus zero) in 1975 as
a customer. By the time I left in 1985, it appeared the Cyber 180
series might actually be able to work that way but, since they couldn't
seem to get the operating system to work and were still trying to milk
a few more dollars out of the 170 series/6600 architecture, the only
180s I ever saw ran in 170 compatibility mode.

It was horribly embarrassing to work for a company that claimed to have
the most powerful machines on the market at the same time our office
had to buy a little Wang in order to have a word processing machine
that could handle both upper- and lower-case letters (well, we could
have used the typewriters). Then in 1985, CDC released FSE (Full
Screen Editor), their first screen-oriented editor, and heralded it
with much hoopla and ceremony and even a fancy, for them, video. It
was almost as good as editors other vendors had had for more than 10
years and seriously deficient in comparison with then-current offerings.

Sort of reminded me of a cartoon I saw shortly after Microsoft released
Windows 95. It showed Bill Gates as a drum major leading a big parade
with dancing girls, elephants, a calliope, a marching band, etc.; there
were two girls, one on each side of Bill, holding large upright poles
between which stretched a banner reading "It's almost as good as a Mac!"

OTOH, with the promise of the 180 series (twos-complement and 8-bit
characters), the possibility they would join other manufacturers that
implemented virtual memory that could be _larger_ than physical memory,
and their migration away from proprietary extensions in FTN5, it looked
as if they were finally headed (or at least trying to head) in the right
direction. It was just that, by 1985, I thought it was probably too
late for them and I feared my skill set would become even more
hopelessly out of date if I continued working there.

Post by Alan Anderson
Bob, your name sounds familiar. I was a CE that was at Pave Paws
Beale for it's early years during the waranty portion of the
Cybers. Then I worked for a while as a tech rep to the AF but
eventually transferred out of there because I lost all my
overtime and was not doing well financially. I worked closely
with some of the Ratheon guys at Pave Paws. I was a friend of
Mike Pacenza ('Mad Mike') and also worked with him on Cobra Judy.
I know you know him because anyone who worked around Mike
remebered him. He could be a lot of fun but god help anyone if he
was mad at them. Volatile is a word that comes to mind.

The name Mike Pacenza doesn't ring a bell -- but my memory's a little
fuzzy about stuff from that long ago. Your name does sound familiar,
too. Our first software support person at Beale was Calla Flibotte
(now Calla Baxter -- and she's now working for Raytheon). I never got
to know very many of the Raytheon people but I did get to know the
IBM'ers. I started the summer of 1980 spending two weeks every month
at Beale and the other two in Massachusetts. At that time, the IBM'ers
were Louise Hollander (now Louise Jones), Donald MacLean, and Bob
<something or other -- how embarrassing, I should remember his name>,
their manager. At the end of the summer, Donald moved back to
Massachusetts and I sublet his apartment in Marysville (coincidentally,
he sublet mine in Massachusetts while he looked for a house to buy).

IIRC, while I was there the CDC CEs (tech reps by that point?) suffered
from terminal frustrating boredom because the AF wouldn't let them
actually touch anything. All maintenance had to be done by untrained
AF personnel while the CEs cringed while watching the AF people perform
irrelevant or unnecessary procedures until they finally stumbled across
something that worked.

Post by Alan Anderson
On the OI I was one of the 2 CEs that worked the test phase out
of Boston and then down to Cape Canaveral, through the Panama
Canal and then to Alameda, Hawaii, Kwajalein and then up to the
Bering Sea, Adak and back south to BOA and Hawaii.
It was an interesting adventure but one year of it was enough.

I got to see the OI once when it was docked in Alameda (I drove down
from Beale). At that time, the CDC software person on board was Alan
Isenberg. Alan eventually left the boat and took over my support slot
at Patrick AFB when I went back to Boston in 1983 to work on the
BMEWS & PAVE PAWS upgrade.

Post by Alan Anderson
I enjoyed some of the Ratheon guys on board, Al Starcher, Loopie,
Mad Mike, and a few more I can't think of right at the moment. I
was friends with a gal (Kathy?) and we worked to set up the
paperback library on board.
Now that I think it over and compare your time frames with mine,
we may have not met. I may remember your name being mentioned by
Pacenza over the years.
I worked at Pave Paws - Beale 1978-81, Cobra Judy 81-82 then in
82 I went to Kwaj for 11 years.

We would have overlapped at Beale for summer of 1980 through whenever
you left in 1981. My COBRA JUDY experience in 1982 was only at
Patrick AFB in Florida.

Bob Lidral
l i d r a l at a l u m dot m i t dot e d u

Douglas A. Gwyn

2003-12-04 10:20:08 UTC

... I first heard rumors of a planned CDC machine with 8-bit
characters (allowing both upper- and lower-case letters) and twos-
complement arithmetic (allowing simple comparisons of character strings
and removing the need to test for both plus and minus zero) in 1975 as
a customer.

Actually the CDC 1700 (16-bit 1MHz minicomputer) used
the ASCII character set, and it was introduced around
1966. (It used 6600-style cordwood modules but was
air-cooled.) It was ones-complement, but due to use
of a subtractive adder "negative zero" didn't arise
in the course of normal computations, and generally
could be ignored (or used to flag illegal values).

I'm not sure what led to CDC's demise (actually it
split its major assets among two companies), but
something similar happened to nearly all companies,
e.g. DEC.

Earl Truss

2003-12-04 13:03:37 UTC

Post by Bob Lidral
I got to see the OI once when it was docked in Alameda (I drove down
from Beale). At that time, the CDC software person on board was Alan
Isenberg. Alan eventually left the boat and took over my support slot
at Patrick AFB when I went back to Boston in 1983 to work on the
BMEWS & PAVE PAWS upgrade.

Thanks. With this discussion going on, I was trying to remember the name of
the guy I worked with from late 1988 to the early 1990s. I was at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station while Alan was working at Patrick. We didn't
actually do much work together since we worked on different systems but we
had the same manager for that time. When Control Data Systems split off,
Alan moved to Massachusetts and I stayed on at the Cape for a couple more
years before that contract ended and I got laid off.

Bob Lidral

2003-12-04 15:42:05 UTC

Post by Earl Truss
Thanks. With this discussion going on, I was trying to remember the name of
the guy I worked with from late 1988 to the early 1990s. I was at Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station while Alan was working at Patrick. We didn't
actually do much work together since we worked on different systems but we
had the same manager for that time. When Control Data Systems split off,
Alan moved to Massachusetts and I stayed on at the Cape for a couple more
years before that contract ended and I got laid off.

That was well after my time; who was your manager? Do you remember
Sam Major :-)? Whatever happened to him?

Bob Lidral
l i d r a l at a l u m dot m i t dot e d u

Earl Truss

2003-12-09 02:37:20 UTC

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Lidral" <***@yahoo.com>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cdc
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: Old CDCer

Post by Bob Lidral
That was well after my time; who was your manager? Do you remember
Sam Major :-)? Whatever happened to him?

Sorry, I can't recall her name. She was forced to lay off a bunch of people
and then they let her go. This was just before the split. After that, when
I was the only CDC programmer left, my manager was in Huntsville.

Anyone who worked there has known or known of Sam. He was quite a
character. I never worked with him much though. At one point, he was
banned from the Central Computer Complex where I worked at the Cape. I
worked with Richard Noyes most of the time. I think he was kind of an
understudy to Sam.

Kent Olsen

2003-12-09 21:44:12 UTC

Post by Earl Truss
----- Original Message -----
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cdc
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 9:42 AM
Subject: Re: Old CDCer

Post by Bob Lidral
That was well after my time; who was your manager? Do you remember
Sam Major :-)? Whatever happened to him?

Sorry, I can't recall her name. She was forced to lay off a bunch of people
and then they let her go. This was just before the split. After that, when
I was the only CDC programmer left, my manager was in Huntsville.
Anyone who worked there has known or known of Sam. He was quite a
character. I never worked with him much though. At one point, he was
banned from the Central Computer Complex where I worked at the Cape. I
worked with Richard Noyes most of the time. I think he was kind of an
understudy to Sam.

I, too, worked at the Cape and with Sam. (Calling him "quite a
character" is both accurate and polite.)

As last reported, Sam stayed with CDC until he got his 10 years in,
then took a job with RCA. Way back when, RCA was a subcontractor to
Pan Am and had the responsibility of most of the CCC. I don't know
what happened to those folks when Pan Am lost the contract, though I
do know that quite a few (perhaps most) were retained.

Just curious, but what got Sam banned from the CCC?

Kent Olsen

Alan Anderson

2003-12-13 03:44:28 UTC

The name Mike Pacenza doesn't ring a bell -- but my memory's a little

Well maybe you didn't know Mike because he really stood out. He
had a flamboyant personality and ran the computer room like it
was his personal domain.

Post by Bob Lidral
fuzzy about stuff from that long ago. Your name does sound familiar,
too. Our first software support person at Beale was Calla Flibotte
(now Calla Baxter -- and she's now working for Raytheon). I never got

I remember Calla well. In fact I had a crush on her but a crush
for a married guy is not a good idea. She was sweet and pretty
and interesting to talk to. I spent more than a few hours in her
office at Pave Paws.

Post by Bob Lidral
to know very many of the Raytheon people but I did get to know the
IBM'ers. I started the summer of 1980 spending two weeks every month
at Beale and the other two in Massachusetts. At that time, the IBM'ers
were Louise Hollander (now Louise Jones), Donald MacLean, and Bob
<something or other -- how embarrassing, I should remember his name>,

Was he a heavyset man? He may have been the guy I remember
getting so totally drunk at a BBQ/pool party at my house in
Marysville. He drunkenly dove to the bottom of the pool and
then.... just lay on the bottom! After a minute or so two of us
got concerned and dove down and fished him out. He said he was
just relaxing. He later passed out under the four-o-clocks at the
end of the pool and remained there all night.

Post by Bob Lidral
their manager. At the end of the summer, Donald moved back to
Massachusetts and I sublet his apartment in Marysville (coincidentally,
he sublet mine in Massachusetts while he looked for a house to buy).
IIRC, while I was there the CDC CEs (tech reps by that point?) suffered
from terminal frustrating boredom because the AF wouldn't let them
actually touch anything. All maintenance had to be done by untrained
AF personnel while the CEs cringed while watching the AF people perform
irrelevant or unnecessary procedures until they finally stumbled across
something that worked.

That may have been me mostly. After I left they filled in from
Sacramento and had no one permanently assigned to the site. I was
a tech rep for about 1.5 years and did not like it at all. I
would not get called in to help until the AF civilians and
blue-suiters had struggled for at least 4 hours. I would come in
and find them scoping the wrong chassis, running the wrong tests,
etc. I would get them set up with a failing loop, looking in the
right area and take a break to let 'them' find and fix it and
then return to see that they had dumped my program and were off
in left field again. ARGHHH!

It drove me nuts. Also I found the AF way of putting all the
spare logic boards in a triple-formed, inventory controlled caged
area one floor down was exasperatingly stupid. Plus I was tasked
to train these yayhoos on CDC equipment all the while they would
drop in and out of class for marching duties, dentist
appointments, safety briefings, shooting practice and god knows
what else.

I was there but not involved in a situation where the AF techs
managed to screw up and leave the outgoing modems to Cheyenne
Mountain active while running test attack scenarios, thus putting
the nation on alert, three times in two weeks! Of course no one
was at fault and they located a bad transistor that caused it all.

Ol' Izzy! He, Ron (the other CE) and I got on well after having
to set out our boundaries in the initial month or two. He was a
dedicated analyst, let me tell you. He would do all his work and
then go check with the IBM guys to see what he could do of their
work. For relaxation he would go to his room and program vectors
on his Apple PC.

The OI was a mountain top experience for me. I examined my life,
my views, beliefs and much more. The ship had a lot of talented
people on board and more than it's share of crazies. One year was
more than enough for me.

Earl Truss

2003-12-13 20:15:25 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
Ol' Izzy! He, Ron (the other CE) and I got on well after having
to set out our boundaries in the initial month or two. He was a
dedicated analyst, let me tell you. He would do all his work and
then go check with the IBM guys to see what he could do of their
work. For relaxation he would go to his room and program vectors
on his Apple PC.

Would that be Ron Eden? He and John Laporto (sp?) were the primary CEs at
the Cape when I worked there through the early to mid-90s. Whatever
happened to them when the Cybers went down?

Bob Lidral

2003-12-14 05:18:17 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
with some of the Ratheon guys at Pave Paws. I was a friend of
Mike Pacenza ('Mad Mike') and also worked with him on Cobra Judy.
I know you know him because anyone who worked around Mike
remebered him. He could be a lot of fun but god help anyone if he
was mad at them. Volatile is a word that comes to mind.

The name Mike Pacenza doesn't ring a bell -- but my memory's a little

Well maybe you didn't know Mike because he really stood out. He
had a flamboyant personality and ran the computer room like it
was his personal domain.

Sounds as if he'd be hard to miss. Maybe he left before I got there
or maybe my memory is fuzzier than I thought (too many trips to Napa
Valley :-)). I do remember a guy at Raytheon in Wayland who ran the
PAVE PAWS / COBRA JUDY / BMEWS computer room as if it were his own and
seemed to be trying to build his own little empire, but I'm pretty
sure he wasn't at Beale any of the time I was there and I think his
name was Joe Abramo. I seem to remember he liked cigars.

Just about everybody seemed to have a crush on her but she was
already living with her boyfriend, later husband, while at Beale.
She was also very good at dealing with people -- a rare talent for
a software engineer :-).

Post by Bob Lidral
at Beale and the other two in Massachusetts. At that time, the IBM'ers
were Louise Hollander (now Louise Jones), Donald MacLean, and Bob
<something or other -- how embarrassing, I should remember his name>,

Was he a heavyset man? He may have been the guy I remember
getting so totally drunk at a BBQ/pool party at my house in
Marysville.

That sounds familiar. He was their supervisor (apparently IBM
required an on-site supervisor anytime more than one of their people
was on-site). Since he had no other duties and Louise and Donald
were both pretty independent, I think he spent most of his day
reading the Wall Street Journal.

Post by Alan Anderson
He drunkenly dove to the bottom of the pool and
then.... just lay on the bottom! After a minute or so two of us
got concerned and dove down and fished him out. He said he was
just relaxing. He later passed out under the four-o-clocks at the
end of the pool and remained there all night.

I never got to know him that well, but I seem to remember he knew how
to party. I just stumbled across an old mailing list from something
else; I believe his name was Bob Hiller.

Post by Alan Anderson
It drove me nuts. Also I found the AF way of putting all the
spare logic boards in a triple-formed, inventory controlled caged
area one floor down was exasperatingly stupid.

Apparently, AF regs require that table tops be completely empty except
when someone is actually using them for something -- therefore they
can't be used for any kind of permanent storage. So they removed all
of the manuals from the table between the consoles and locked them up
in a cabinet in the room just outside the machine room. I guess for
some reason cabinets inside a secure facility with armed guards need
to be locked. The sergeant in charge of the operators had the only
key to the cabinet and he only worked first shift. Of course, the
first day they locked them up we needed them about 10 minutes after
he left for the day. (Actually, it has been so long since I worked
there, I can't remember whether that happened at Beale or Otis.) We
were never able to persuade them to put the manuals somewhere where
the operators could have access to them or to have the key accessible
to the operators.

He and I worked together on some of the COBRA JUDY software
development. I remember well his work ethic. Every time we took a
break or went to lunch, he'd want to discuss work; every Monday
morning he'd fill me in on all the work he'd done over the weekend.

I think I finally got him to relax during the few days we overlapped
at Patrick AFB. I took him to the Inner Room and the Dollhouse and
introduced him to Sam Major.

Post by Alan Anderson
The OI was a mountain top experience for me. I examined my life,
my views, beliefs and much more. The ship had a lot of talented
people on board and more than it's share of crazies. One year was
more than enough for me.

I heard there was a lot of attrition there. Rumors of at least one
person jumping ship at each U. S. port, including the ones in Alaska.
Alan Isenberg was ready to leave it several months before they found
a replacement for him.

They once asked me whether I'd like to work on the O.I. So I asked
a few questions:

Q: What would I be doing?
A: We can't tell you that; it's classified.

Q: How long does it usually stay at sea?
A: We can't tell you that; it's classified.

Q: When it's in port, where does it dock?
A: We can't tell you that; it's classified.

Q: any-other-question?
A: We can't tell you that; it's classified.

When I understood the mission better, I realized there was no way
to answer those questions in advance; they depended on external
events. But rather than admit to me they didn't know, management
decided to hide behind the "classified" mantra. After a few more
of these, they asked me again whether I'd like to work on it and I
replied "I can't tell you that; it's classified."

Bob Lidral
l i d r a l at a l u m dot m i t dot e d u

Alan Anderson

2003-12-15 03:16:26 UTC

Post by Bob Lidral
That sounds familiar. He was their supervisor (apparently IBM
required an on-site supervisor anytime more than one of their people
was on-site). Since he had no other duties and Louise and Donald
were both pretty independent, I think he spent most of his day
reading the Wall Street Journal.

Yeah, that sounds like him.

Post by Bob Lidral
I never got to know him that well, but I seem to remember he knew how
to party. I just stumbled across an old mailing list from something
else; I believe his name was Bob Hiller.

The name sounds familiar too.

Post by Bob Lidral
Apparently, AF regs require that table tops be completely empty except
when someone is actually using them for something -- therefore they
can't be used for any kind of permanent storage. So they removed all
of the manuals from the table between the consoles and locked them up
in a cabinet in the room just outside the machine room. I guess for
some reason cabinets inside a secure facility with armed guards need
to be locked. The sergeant in charge of the operators had the only
key to the cabinet and he only worked first shift. Of course, the
first day they locked them up we needed them about 10 minutes after
he left for the day. (Actually, it has been so long since I worked
there, I can't remember whether that happened at Beale or Otis.) We
were never able to persuade them to put the manuals somewhere where
the operators could have access to them or to have the key accessible
to the operators.

I kept my own set of manuals, to have access to them and for, to
me, a real good reason. I could wite in them. The AF wouldn't let
you write in a manual even if it was to make a correction. A
correction had to be typed up and added as an addended page.
I wrote corrections, page numbers to jump to, notes to my self etc.
It was like the AF would TRY to make life difficult for people. I
can understand the basic reasoning of why they didn't want
everyone scribbling in the manuals but they really did make life
more difficult. I hope in these days of Post-it notes they have
relaxed the rules.

One of the things I still laugh about today is that being the CDC
tech rep I had to file a monthly report on what I did. My reports
were always concise and to the point. One Leutenant told me my
reports were too short and I had to add more detail. I had at
hand a technical jargon buzz-phrase generator which I then used
to lard my next report with a bunch of gee-whiz technical
sounding phrases that meant absolutely nothing!!
He then complimented me on my report! It confirmed a lot of what
I had suspected goes on with military reports. :^)

He would do all his work and

Post by Alan Anderson
then go check with the IBM guys to see what he could do of their
work. For relaxation he would go to his room and program vectors
on his Apple PC.

He and I worked together on some of the COBRA JUDY software
development. I remember well his work ethic. Every time we took a
break or went to lunch, he'd want to discuss work; every Monday
morning he'd fill me in on all the work he'd done over the weekend.
I think I finally got him to relax during the few days we overlapped
at Patrick AFB. I took him to the Inner Room and the Dollhouse and
introduced him to Sam Major.

We wanted to help him get laid but he wasn't going to stand still
for that. A real nice guy but he then qualified as a die-hard
geek. Hope he's loosened up over the years.

Post by Bob Lidral
I heard there was a lot of attrition there. Rumors of at least one
person jumping ship at each U. S. port, including the ones in Alaska.
Alan Isenberg was ready to leave it several months before they found
a replacement for him.

The OI was often incredibly boring. I would sometimes wander the
decks hoping to find someone to talk to but people tended either
to keep locked up in their rooms or be crowded into the several
TV rooms watching taped movies that were played from the Raytheon
tech service room and over cables strung about the ship, all ad
hoc and not put in by the AF, Navy or anyone official.

I became a self-appointed recreation guy and ran the Wednesday
evening Bingo games, helped set up the on-board paperback
library, organized double elimination cribbage tournements,
helped organize a weekly TV schedule, took excess books to used
book stores and did trades. Even with all this and reading tons
of books, I was often bored and vowed that when my year was up, I
was off that ship and would not work on a ship again.

Fortunately my year on the OI was followed by 11 idealic years on
Kwajalein. And it was because of my year on the OI I got to go to
Kwaj so it was well worth it.

FrankCato

2008-08-28 13:01:09 UTC

Hi...
I`m looking to get in touch with Mike Pacenza... I have lost my emai
adress from when we worked together at Globus 2 in Norway. Do you have an
contact information?

Best regards Frank Laht

-
Message posted using http://www.talkaboutcomputing.com/group/comp.sys.cdc
More information at http://www.talkaboutcomputing.com/faq.htm

Eugene Miya

2004-01-14 05:25:34 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
Over the years I marveled that CDC would come up with some great
ideas and then have no follow through or follow up and let them
die on the vine.

Some of the ideas might have truly been good, but it depends how you
viewed the early company verus the goals of the later company.

Most of the early great ideas involved great fast hardware, but over time,
other market forces, the idea that CDC could compete with or against IBM,
didn't work out favorably: there were more than just fast CPUs.

Such is one problem attempting to follow an installed base.
CDC started with the guts to have CPU lines with incompatible machine
architectures (I only ever ran on a 6400, but I worked at firms lusting
after 7600 time for magnet simulations).

Some believe that ideas are not the province of corporate industrial firms.
Ideals place exist in universities. That's a harse apparent paradox.
IBM, Xerox, and Bell sure learned it.

A few of the CDC managers actually have been willing to place their
technical and non-technical errors on paper.

Post by Alan Anderson
of recently graduated EEs. The idea was to have them work for a
time as customer engineers and then use them in designing better
systems with service and repair in mind.
no follow through.

This is more common that you may have thought: sink or swim.
Talent is a more scarce resource than most people realize.

Post by Alan Anderson
Pave Paws Beale

Yep, I have to collect it as a Museum piece when it gets replaced.

Post by Alan Anderson
Raytheon

That is another story.

Alan Anderson

2004-01-22 01:59:42 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
Over the years I marveled that CDC would come up with some great
ideas and then have no follow through or follow up and let them
die on the vine.

I saw other ideas that had great potential but were dropped,
flubbed or otherwise screwed up.

One I was impressed with in a couple of areas was Plato learning
system. I took several classes on Plato and found it to be the
best computer aided learning system I have ever taken. To be able
to take a pre-test and move forward if you passed it and do that
until you reached the area where you needed to learn the chapter
and then take the post-test to be able to move on. That was a
great system. I watched one of my children take Plato remedial
educational classes to help him catch up to his peers. He
progressed so quickly that in about five weeks he acomplished
about a year schooling.

Post by Eugene Miya
This is more common that you may have thought: sink or swim.
Talent is a more scarce resource than most people realize.

Tell me about it. I am now an employer myself and find it very
difficult to find anyone with troubleshooting ability AND wanting
to work for a living.

Post by Alan Anderson
Pave Paws Beale

Yep, I have to collect it as a Museum piece when it gets replaced.

What do you mean by this?
And why does it still exist today? I mean, how many submarine
launched ballistic missiles are we looking for these days?

Post by Alan Anderson
Raytheon

That is another story.

I've encountered Raytheon both at Beale and on Cobra Judy. Some
good people but the management could sure be a pain.

Bob Lidral

2004-01-22 04:17:22 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
Over the years I marveled that CDC would come up with some great
ideas and then have no follow through or follow up and let them
die on the vine.

I saw other ideas that had great potential but were dropped,
flubbed or otherwise screwed up.
One I was impressed with in a couple of areas was Plato learning
system. I took several classes on Plato and found it to be the
best computer aided learning system I have ever taken. To be able
to take a pre-test and move forward if you passed it and do that
until you reached the area where you needed to learn the chapter
and then take the post-test to be able to move on. That was a
great system. I watched one of my children take Plato remedial
educational classes to help him catch up to his peers. He
progressed so quickly that in about five weeks he acomplished
about a year schooling.

Plato had several problems. I did my graduate work at the University of
Illinois where it was developed. Although I never had much direct
contact with it, I had plenty of indirect contact with it. The quality
of the courseware was more dependent on the skill of the programmer who
wrote it and the educator, if any, who designed it rather than on any
inherent feature of Plato.

It was a very strange project about which there were many rumors (most
of which I will not repeat [even though I enjoy them :-)] since many
were passed along by those with axes to grind and I can't verify them).
It was started in the early '60s by an EE grad student with a vision and
not much initial support from either the Computer Science or Education
Departments (that changed later as they discovered they could pry large
grants out of NSF by mentioning Plato).

The project went through several incarnations. I believe the version
sold to CDC was Plato IV. The original early-'60s design was influenced
to a large extent by what was possible with the hardware and technology
available at that time. As science and engineering progressed over the
next two decades, the relative costs of various engineering trade-offs
changed. Some things initially impossible or prohibitively expensive
became affordable; some initial cost-saving tradeoffs became
cost-enhancing tradeoffs.

Anyhow, it always seemed to have a life of its own. It remained
separate from the Computer Science Department -- though a lot of their
professors made good livings from grants for projects using Plato :-).
I got the impression practicality was never much of a concern. It never
seemed to meet its announced performance objectives.

I got the impression Plato had a lot of unearned support. That is, the
NSF, some influential and powerful administrators at the University of
Illinois, and Bill Norris all seemed so much in love with the idea of
Plato that they were all willing (enthusiastic, actually) to throw as
much money and other resources as possible at it. After CDC bought
Plato from the U of I (and possibly before then when CDC was funding
part of the development), there were rumors CDC lumped the project in
with other projects or with a large, existing department so that it
would not be possible for stockholders to find out how much it was
costing the company. There was a general impression that Plato was a
huge unprofitable financial drain on the company that was only tolerated
because it was one of Bill Norris's pet projects.

Plato was expensive for customers, too. It only ran on 6000-, 170-, and
70-series CYBERs (though I've heard of efforts to implement it on less-
expensive systems in the late '80s) and the courseware was written in
TUTOR -- a language used for nothing else (I actually have a book on it
somewhere that I plan to read some day :-)). The fancier features of
Plato required very expensive terminals/monitors; I believe those
features were subsequently dropped. I suspect the Plato features that
proved cost-effective enough to survive could be implemented on most
modern PCs.

For more information on the history of Plato, see
http://www.lightner.net/lightner/manitowish/plato.html . It was written
by a former professor of mine who worked much more closely with Plato
and was much more favorably disposed towards it than I. See also:

http://www.plato.com/

http://www.platopeople.com/

http://www.hoovers.com/plato-learning/--ID__15761--/free-co-factsheet.xhtml

http://www.thinkofit.com/plato/dwplato.htm

http://www.pearsonedtech.com/novanet/

http://www.tencore.com/

Bob Lidral
l i d r a l at a l u m dot m i t dot e d u

Douglas A. Gwyn

2004-01-22 05:02:44 UTC

And why does it still exist today? I mean, how many submarine launched
ballistic missiles are we looking for these days?

You don't seriously think that nobody wants to attack the US,
do you?

Eugene Miya

2004-01-24 00:22:29 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
Over the years I marveled that CDC would come up with some great
ideas and then have no follow through or follow up and let them
die on the vine.

"Say more."

Post by Alan Anderson
One I was impressed with in a couple of areas was Plato

I have heard this.
Computer Assisted Education was popular in the 60s.

Post by Eugene Miya
This is more common that you may have thought: sink or swim.
Talent is a more scarce resource than most people realize.

Tell me about it. I am now an employer myself and find it very
difficult to find anyone with troubleshooting ability AND wanting
to work for a living.

I search for talent myself.

Now look into this red light as I administer the eye test.

Post by Alan Anderson
Pave Paws Beale

Yep, I have to collect it as a Museum piece when it gets replaced.

What do you mean by this?

I have been given the assignment by the computer Museum to attempt
to collect the 172 should it become available. I am taking action
to attempt to preserve it.

Post by Alan Anderson
And why does it still exist today?

It's the govt.
You know how we never let goes of things.

Post by Alan Anderson
I mean, how many submarine
launched ballistic missiles are we looking for these days?

I think that you will find they are being ever vigilant.

Post by Alan Anderson
Raytheon

That is another story.

I've encountered Raytheon both at Beale and on Cobra Judy. Some
good people but the management could sure be a pain.

Yes, that's because Raytheon now is such a conglomeration of other old
old defense contractors with vastly different management styles like
Hughes, E-systems, etc.

Bob Lidral

2003-12-01 05:25:58 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
I just found this user group but when I joined it I only got 4
messages. Is this a little used group or what?

It doesn't get much traffic. Another place to look for CDC alums is
Classmates.com, though not many seem to have registered there, either.

Post by Alan Anderson
I worked for CDC for 25+ years, starting part time in '66 while

[...]
I worked for CDC from 1978 - 1985.

Tom Hunter

2003-12-02 15:05:36 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
I just found this user group but when I joined it I only got 4
messages. Is this a little used group or what?

Unfortunately most people seem to have lost interest. I have released
my emulation of a CDC 6x00 or Cyber 7x/17x a few months ago. It runs
COS, SMM, KRONOS, SCOPE, NOS/BE, NOS 1 and NOS 2. At the time it
generated a lot of excitement.

If you like, you can download the C sources for the emulation,
instructions and a COS deadstart tape from my website at:

http://members.iinet.net.au/~tom-hunter/

The sources compile and run under Windows 9x/NT/XP, LINUX, FreeBSD,
NetBSD, SOLARIS and most other UNIX systems with X11. If you have
access to any old deadstart tapes, I have on my website C sources to
read tapes on a UNIX or VMS system and convert them into TAP files
which maintain the precise record structure of the original tape.

Also, a number of CDC manuals have been scanned by some dedicated
individuals and converted to PDF. Try Google to locate them.

If you have any CDC material worth preserving, please let us know.

Tom Hunter

Peter Lj

2003-12-03 11:47:04 UTC

Post by Alan Anderson
I just found this user group but when I joined it I only got 4
messages. Is this a little used group or what?

Unfortunately most people seem to have lost interest. I have released
my emulation of a CDC 6x00 or Cyber 7x/17x a few months ago. It runs
COS, SMM, KRONOS, SCOPE, NOS/BE, NOS 1 and NOS 2. At the time it
generated a lot of excitement.
If you like, you can download the C sources for the emulation,
http://members.iinet.net.au/~tom-hunter/
The sources compile and run under Windows 9x/NT/XP, LINUX, FreeBSD,
NetBSD, SOLARIS and most other UNIX systems with X11. If you have
access to any old deadstart tapes, I have on my website C sources to
read tapes on a UNIX or VMS system and convert them into TAP files
which maintain the precise record structure of the original tape.
Also, a number of CDC manuals have been scanned by some dedicated
individuals and converted to PDF. Try Google to locate them.
If you have any CDC material worth preserving, please let us know.
Tom Hunter

I tried porting it to VMS, it failed on X11-startup, I never solved that
problem.
I was curious about the vector implementation, the CDC x600 was vector
based machines ?

I'm trying to implement a vector-unit simulator, just interrested in
vector-processing.

/P.Lj

Richard Ragan

2003-12-03 22:14:31 UTC

No vectors in CDC 6x00, Cyber 7x/17x models. The STAR/ETA machines had vectors.

Rich

Post by Peter Lj

Post by Alan Anderson
I just found this user group but when I joined it I only got 4
messages. Is this a little used group or what?

Unfortunately most people seem to have lost interest. I have released
my emulation of a CDC 6x00 or Cyber 7x/17x a few months ago. It runs
COS, SMM, KRONOS, SCOPE, NOS/BE, NOS 1 and NOS 2. At the time it
generated a lot of excitement.
If you like, you can download the C sources for the emulation,
http://members.iinet.net.au/~tom-hunter/
The sources compile and run under Windows 9x/NT/XP, LINUX, FreeBSD,
NetBSD, SOLARIS and most other UNIX systems with X11. If you have
access to any old deadstart tapes, I have on my website C sources to
read tapes on a UNIX or VMS system and convert them into TAP files
which maintain the precise record structure of the original tape.
Also, a number of CDC manuals have been scanned by some dedicated
individuals and converted to PDF. Try Google to locate them.
If you have any CDC material worth preserving, please let us know.
Tom Hunter

I tried porting it to VMS, it failed on X11-startup, I never solved that
problem.
I was curious about the vector implementation, the CDC x600 was vector
based machines ?
I'm trying to implement a vector-unit simulator, just interrested in
vector-processing.
/P.Lj

John A. Stovall

2003-12-08 14:35:46 UTC

On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 22:14:31 GMT, Richard Ragan

Post by Richard Ragan
No vectors in CDC 6x00, Cyber 7x/17x models. The STAR/ETA machines had vectors.

The 990 had vectors, as I well remember from a Mobil benchmark.

*****************************************************

"Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all."

Billy Bragg's "The Internationale"
from the album "The Internationale"

Richard Ragan

2003-12-14 01:17:06 UTC

True it did but that was the 180 architecture mode, not the 17x side of the
personality. Thanks for pointing it out.

Rich

Post by John A. Stovall
On Wed, 03 Dec 2003 22:14:31 GMT, Richard Ragan

Post by Richard Ragan
No vectors in CDC 6x00, Cyber 7x/17x models. The STAR/ETA machines had vectors.

The 990 had vectors, as I well remember from a Mobil benchmark.
*****************************************************
"Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all."
Billy Bragg's "The Internationale"
from the album "The Internationale"

Errol

2004-01-09 22:43:21 UTC

(Beg pardon for contributing so late, and maybe resurrecting
a dead thread, but I've just gotten interested...)

Post by Alan Anderson
I just found this user group but when I joined it I only got 4
messages. Is this a little used group or what?

Unfortunately most people seem to have lost interest. I have released
my emulation of a CDC 6x00 or Cyber 7x/17x a few months ago. It runs
COS, SMM, KRONOS, SCOPE, NOS/BE, NOS 1 and NOS 2. At the time it
generated a lot of excitement.
If you like, you can download the C sources for the emulation,
http://members.iinet.net.au/~tom-hunter/
The sources compile and run under Windows 9x/NT/XP, LINUX, FreeBSD,
NetBSD, SOLARIS and most other UNIX systems with X11. If you have
access to any old deadstart tapes, I have on my website C sources to
read tapes on a UNIX or VMS system and convert them into TAP files
which maintain the precise record structure of the original tape.
Also, a number of CDC manuals have been scanned by some dedicated
individuals and converted to PDF. Try Google to locate them.
If you have any CDC material worth preserving, please let us know.
Tom Hunter

I was a student at U.C Berkeley when they had a pair of
6400's as their mainframes. Hearing of your accomplishment,
I've downloaded it and it works fine, running COS.

But I was a SCOPE user in college, and not a very sophisticated
one at that (never saw an operator's console in use, so the
whole GUI was a revelation to me). This is a real trip down
memory lane for me, but I'm not comprehending a lot about the
inner workings of the OS, or even the job control language
much.

Anyway, HOW IN THE BLUE BLAZES do you enter and run a CP
program with COS? Of course you have no compiler or assembler,
but I have the documentation on binary card formats, and even
the old COMPASS manual on relocatable formats, as well as
an old pre-compiled deck as a reference. I'm modifying
the punch026 program to create binary cards as well as
Hollerith (I think), so if you tell me "binary", I think
I can do it, as long as I can tell what format to generate.

(I'm not likely to have access to anything besides COS.)

Thanks!

--
Errol [tinlc, Dept. 2342: Charcoal Manufacturing]
*** Newly moved to New York. Gooooooooooooo Spitzer! ***
I am not SPEWS. Geek Orthodox, Murphy Synod
Direct email replies work: don't alter the Subject line or the address.

Errol

2004-01-11 18:19:22 UTC

Following up to self. Sorry in advance if there's
any confusion in reading this.

Post by Errol
(Beg pardon for contributing so late, and maybe resurrecting
a dead thread, but I've just gotten interested...)

Post by Tom Hunter
Unfortunately most people seem to have lost interest. I have released
my emulation of a CDC 6x00 or Cyber 7x/17x a few months ago. It runs
COS, SMM, KRONOS, SCOPE, NOS/BE, NOS 1 and NOS 2. At the time it
generated a lot of excitement.
If you like, you can download the C sources for the emulation,
http://members.iinet.net.au/~tom-hunter/

I was a student at U.C Berkeley when they had a pair of
6400's as their mainframes. Hearing of your accomplishment,
I've downloaded it and it works fine, running COS.

This is on Red Hat Linux, BTW.

And I did modify the lp1612.c file so that it
does a "fflush" after each printer write. This
might be tweeked better for efficiency, but it
does mean that you can inspect the printer log
while the dtcyber emulator is still running.

Post by Errol
Anyway, HOW IN THE BLUE BLAZES do you enter and run a CP
program with COS? Of course you have no compiler or assembler,
but I have the documentation on binary card formats, and even
the old COMPASS manual on relocatable formats, as well as
an old pre-compiled deck as a reference. I'm modifying
the punch026 program to create binary cards as well as
Hollerith (I think), so if you tell me "binary", I think
I can do it, as long as I can tell what format to generate.

And here it turns out I've answered my own question.

Apparently when you provide a binary deck, you have to end it
with one completely blank card. I've now successfully done
a COPYSBF of a binary card to the printer, and I've also
successfully run a binary executable copy of COPYSBF from
the card reader by simply giving the command "INPUT." followed
by a 7-8-9 card, the binary program, a blank card, a 7-8-9
card, and finally the Hollerith card to copy to the printer
("HELLO WORLD."). Then comes the 6-7-8-9 card of course,
provided automatically by the punch026 tool.

This blank card requirement for a binary wasn't present in
SCOPE, according to the old deck I had, so it's a puzzlement
to me. But it looks like it's possible for me to enter and
run CP programs now, so I'm a plenty happy camper for the
time being.

I've created an enhanced version of "punch026" that allows me
to punch binary cards from octal, in line with the rest of
the job deck. I'm far from convinced that my input format
is ready for prime time, but it serves my purposes for the
moment.

Thanks again, Tom, for creating this marvelous plaything! B)

--
Errol
Direct email replies work: don't alter the Subject line or the address.

Steve Lidie

2004-01-12 13:12:01 UTC

Post by Errol
(Beg pardon for contributing so late, and maybe resurrecting
a dead thread, but I've just gotten interested...)