Still Active?

[GaryBrandt]

Just found this newsgroup. I am an old CDC hardware engineer from the
70's, involved first in 7600 support, tech support on the
7600/6600....then hardware design of the Cyber 175, assisting Canada in
getting their 170 program back on track, then in design of the Cyber
80.

I recently found out about the Cray-Cyber organization and it spawned
great nostolgia and an intense interest in preserving any 7600 or its
descendents (76, 175, 176) that may still exist. While this may be near
impossible, there is a hope that it may not be too late to save the
175s in Cobra Judy. If anyone can provide any updated clues, contacts,
thoughts....I would be so greatful.

I would also love to hear any thoughts about any other machines on my
list, information on any other newsgroups that might have more
visibilty....and I can provide machine hardware insight to the best of
my fading memory on any of the above machines.

PS...in my tech support days I was in the Eastern region and worked on
most all of the 7600/6600 machines in that area, a large number of
6400s, also support trips at other times to U of Montreal, LASL, LRL,
Berlin TU, U of Stuttgardt (and others that of course don't really
exist)...remember the days of the great EMI upgrades...was involved in
identifying the great module grounding/reliability issue on the 7600
while stationed in Huntsville

I have already contacted several of you that I found on this site, am
aware of the partial 7600 SN1 in California, 7600 S/N 3 in Chippewa....

[Douglas H. Quebbeman]

Post by GaryBrandt
I recently found out about the Cray-Cyber organization and it spawned
great nostolgia and an intense interest in preserving any 7600 or its
descendents (76, 175, 176) that may still exist. While this may be
near impossible, there is a hope that it may not be too late to save
the 175s in Cobra Judy. If anyone can provide any updated clues,
contacts, thoughts....I would be so greatful.

The Computer History Museum is attempting to acquire one or more 175s,
maybe the Cobra Judy units? I was hoping that the Pave Paws systems
could be secured...

Post by GaryBrandt
I would also love to hear any thoughts about any other machines on my
list, information on any other newsgroups that might have more
visibilty....and I can provide machine hardware insight to the best of
my fading memory on any of the above machines.

Not quite a newsgroup, but has anyone told you about Control Freaks, a
mailing list dedicated to the preservation & reimplementation of the Cyber
(nee 6000) architecture?

Our early membership each worked to implement a usable emulator, but
we ultimately shelved our individual projects and started using
DesktopCyber,
a derivative work by Tom Hunter. It works well enough to host PLATO...

If you reply to my posting address, be sure to include [PUNCHTHRU]
in the subject line to get past the filters. No need for that if you reply
to
the REPLY-TO address.

Regards,
-doug quebbeman

[Eugene Miya]

I was hoping that the Pave Paws systems could be secured...

I am working on that.

While I didn't go to the Beale Open House, I doubt that would have
helped its acquisition. It was more flight oriented.

--

[t***@yahoo.com.au]

Post by Douglas H. Quebbeman
Not quite a newsgroup, but has anyone told you about Control Freaks, a
mailing list dedicated to the preservation & reimplementation of the Cyber
(nee 6000) architecture?
Our early membership each worked to implement a usable emulator, but
we ultimately shelved our individual projects and started using
DesktopCyber,
a derivative work by Tom Hunter. It works well enough to host PLATO...

I am not quite sure what is meant by "derivative work" because I wrote
Desktop CYBER entirely from scratch. I have used CDC manuals describing
the various subsystems to understand how a real CDC CYBER (or 6x00)
behaved, but that doesn't make Desktop CYBER a "derivative work". Later
others contributed support for more accurate floating point and
additional peripherals namely 3152 and 3555 printer controller, 3447
punch controller, DDP and PLATO NIU support. I have released Desktop
CYBER 1.0 into the public domain on Dec 18, 2002.

Desktop CYBER runs any 60-bit OS including Chippewa OS, SCOPE, KRONOS,
NOS and NOS/BE. It does not support 180 mode which means NOS/VE doesn't
run.

Just recently I have developed an emulation of a NPU (CCP running on a
255x) which now provides full interactive access under NOS 2.
Previously only KRONOS and NOS 1 provided interactive access via
traditional terminal muxes.

Please note that later versions of Desktop CYBER (version numbers
greater 3.2) are no longer in the public domain, but may be licensed
under commercial terms.

Regards

Tom Hunter

[Bob Lidral]

Post by Douglas H. Quebbeman

Post by GaryBrandt
I recently found out about the Cray-Cyber organization and it spawned
great nostolgia and an intense interest in preserving any 7600 or its
descendents (76, 175, 176) that may still exist. While this may be
near impossible, there is a hope that it may not be too late to save
the 175s in Cobra Judy. If anyone can provide any updated clues,
contacts, thoughts....I would be so greatful.

The Computer History Museum is attempting to acquire one or more 175s,
maybe the Cobra Judy units? I was hoping that the Pave Paws systems
could be secured...

One approach you might take to find a contact for the PAVE PAWS and
COBRA JUDY (and COBRA DANE?) machines might be to go through Raytheon; I
believe they have the contract(s) for the upgrades.

Bob Lidral
lidral at alum dot mit dot edu

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Post by Bob Lidral
One approach you might take to find a contact for the PAVE PAWS and
COBRA JUDY (and COBRA DANE?) machines might be to go through Raytheon; I
believe they have the contract(s) for the upgrades.

And if you happen to run across *any*thing for the CDC 1700,
please keep me in mind!

[Bob Lidral]

Post by Douglas A. Gwyn

Post by Bob Lidral
One approach you might take to find a contact for the PAVE PAWS and
COBRA JUDY (and COBRA DANE?) machines might be to go through Raytheon; I
believe they have the contract(s) for the upgrades.

And if you happen to run across *any*thing for the CDC 1700,
please keep me in mind!

I got in touch with some former colleagues at Raytheon. The best advice
they could give me was to get in touch with the Air Force. Presumably
after the government finishes upgrading COBRA DANE, PAVE PAWS, BMEWS,
and COBRA JUDY, they'll need to do something with the old hardware.

The CDC machines used on PAVE PAWS, BMEWS, and COBRA JUDY included 1700s
and 777s.

I have no idea what their default procedure might be for older,
obsoleted equipment, but preservation seems unlikely. It might help to
get a head start on making arrangements.


Bob Lidral
lidral at alum dot mit dot edu

[Douglas A. Gwyn]

Post by Bob Lidral
I got in touch with some former colleagues at Raytheon. The best advice
they could give me was to get in touch with the Air Force. Presumably
after the government finishes upgrading COBRA DANE, PAVE PAWS, BMEWS,
and COBRA JUDY, they'll need to do something with the old hardware.

Thanks; I'm much more concerned with preserving the system software
than with preserving the hardware, although that would be nice too.

Post by Bob Lidral
I have no idea what their default procedure might be for older,
obsoleted equipment, but preservation seems unlikely. ...

Usually, if it may contain classified information (e.g. on disks) it
is physically destroyed, otherwise auctioned off as part of a big lot,
often going to a junk dealer who sees value only in recycling for the
gold content. Although with the advent of eBay some of it gets saved
by a collector before that happens.

[Eugene Miya]

Post by Douglas A. Gwyn

Post by Bob Lidral
I have no idea what their default procedure might be for older,
obsoleted equipment, but preservation seems unlikely. ...

Usually, if it may contain classified information (e.g. on disks) it
is physically destroyed, otherwise auctioned off as part of a big lot,
often going to a junk dealer who sees value only in recycling for the
gold content. Although with the advent of eBay some of it gets saved
by a collector before that happens.

The procedure is that if it's under DOD control, it's supposed to go
to the DRMO for surplussing. There is a medium sized chain of typically
about 3-4 govt. agencies who get first dibs on anything. This is a joke
for Moores-law technology, but less a joke for traditional brick and
mortar surplus, so it has to be done. After 30 days, it gets sold for
scrap. The important thing is to work with local DRMO offices to try to
catch things. Paper helps. A little, for file. If you have the Smithsonian
or other institution behind you, a letterhead can help more. But it
largely relies on diligent eyes and ears.

As noted before I have a letter on file for the Cyber at Beale on the
Pave Paws with the PAO. Tha position will likely rotate several times
before it gets replaced. It's a Museum medium to low priority because
quite a number were made.

--

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by Douglas A. Gwyn

Post by Bob Lidral
I got in touch with some former colleagues at Raytheon. The best advice
they could give me was to get in touch with the Air Force. Presumably
after the government finishes upgrading COBRA DANE, PAVE PAWS, BMEWS,
and COBRA JUDY, they'll need to do something with the old hardware.

Thanks; I'm much more concerned with preserving the system software
than with preserving the hardware, although that would be nice too.

So, put a freedom of information act request in for the stuff immediately!

Post by Douglas A. Gwyn

Post by Bob Lidral
I have no idea what their default procedure might be for older,
obsoleted equipment, but preservation seems unlikely. ...

Usually, if it may contain classified information (e.g. on disks) it
is physically destroyed, otherwise auctioned off as part of a big lot,
often going to a junk dealer who sees value only in recycling for the
gold content. Although with the advent of eBay some of it gets saved
by a collector before that happens.

These days there are some tight regulations for wiping disks before
surplussing them, which seem to be pretty carefully followed. So if
the machines go through the standard surplus procedures you can expect
them to be wiped. Your job is to intercept systems before they are
surplussed and see if you can have them donated to a nonprofit, etc...
--scott