Large Scale Scientific Computing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

[Jitze Couperus]

There are some very interesting pictures and interview transcripts
at this web site
Stories of the Development of Large Scale Scientific Computing
at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
http://www.nersc.gov/~deboni/Computer.history/index.html
For example, the best collection of CDC 6600 photos I've seen are there at
http://www.nersc.gov/~deboni/Computer.history/cdc_6600.html

That second URL cited above actually raises a bit of a mystery about
the 6603 disc drive as apparently used at Lawrence Livermore.

If you look at the top two pictures on this page, you will see that
the image on the left appears to have eight physical platters
on the half-shaft, whereas the one on the right appears to have
thirteen per half-shaft...

The "standard" CDC 6603 disc drive had seven physical platters
as can be seen in the color picture of the unit at Florida State Univ.
on

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/couperusj/6603.html

and also as documented in the controller reference manual which
can be seen at

http://www.spies.com/~aek/pdf/cdc/60334000_6603DiskControl.pdf

So I wonder what disc drives these actually were at Lawrence. Were
they "specials" developed for certain customers and not available
to ordinary civilians? Or possibly these two pictures date from
the prototype era at Bryant Excello (where this disc drive originated)

Also note in the top right picture of the Lawrence machines, that
the read/write head-unit has been brought forward to where you
can see the individual heads, and there appear to be six per arm
i.e. there appear to be 6 "zones" per disc, whereas the "standard"
6603 had only 4 zones according to the officially published
controller manual I reference above.

Most curious...

Jitze

[Eugene Miya]

Post by Jitze Couperus

For example, the best collection of CDC 6600 photos I've seen are there at
http://www.nersc.gov/~deboni/Computer.history/cdc_6600.html

That second URL cited above actually raises a bit of a mystery about
the 6603 disc drive as apparently used at Lawrence Livermore.

What comes back from my ex-officemate on Tom's web site is:

It's neat; and in some ways goes beyond my personal knowledge of the
"nuts and bolts" factors about the 6600 and its disks. All I can say
is that our 6600 was serial 1 and may have differed in some ways from
the production units that CDC delivered to others. I will forward
this to my collaborators. Thanks.