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Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

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Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#21
post #2

Author here for your vacuum tube questions...

No vacuum tube questions.

Fantastic deep dive as always, thanks for doing such stellar work!

On that note, any chance we might get a teardown/history of Cray architectures in the future? Specifically the Cray-1 and 2?

To throw a more serious challenge your way: How about a write-up on the original Frank Rosenblatt Perceptron? I know finding an original Mark-1 part would be close to impossible but it blows my mind that they were successfully doing real-time visual classification in 1957 with an electro-mechanical machine (potentiometers and motors) using a 20x20 "video" feed with some learning algorithm that was not based on backprop.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#22
post #2

Author here for your vacuum tube questions...

Have you ever run into that method (discrete module+components) in non-IBM configurations? What abut non-computing configs? I've never seen it before.

Philbrick op amp K2-W was an analog circuit with two dual-triode tubes on top of circuitry, with an octal plug at the bottom. I have one with data sheet but have never fired it up.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#24
post #5

No questions, but I really enjoyed the article - thank you for sharing. It amazes me how few vacuum tubes these early computers use, compared to the billions and trillions of mosfet transistors used in modern devices.

One way they get away with using relatively few tubes is that most of the Boolean logic is done with semiconductor (germanium) diodes, using tubes to amplify the results.

Tubes can also just be very _clever_ in a way that transistors generally are not. For instance, counting tubes that would contain a decimal counter in a single glass bubble (that's quite a few transistors even in TTL, and about twice as many in CMOS). Multiple approaches to building such tubes existed. This is one:

https://lampes-et-tubes.info/cd/cd053.php?l=e

Or the complicated and impressive storage tubes, that would fit 16 kbits of RAM in a single CRT:

https://lampes-et-tubes.info/sc/sc022.php?l=e

By the way, this website is one of my favorite finds on the Internet and very long-running.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#25
I still have well over a dozen of those IBM modules together with their paperwork and circuit diagrams (somewhere in my miles of files).

They've been getting in the way and I've been meaning to chuck them away on many an occasion but something inside me has stopped me doing so because of their possible historical value.

Shirriff's blog has reinforced my thinking, they'll just have to clutter up my place for a little longer methinks.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#26

I still have well over a dozen of those IBM modules together with their paperwork and circuit diagrams (somewhere in my miles of files). They've been getting in the way and I've been meaning to chuck them away on many an occasion but something inside me has stopped me doing so because of their possible historical value. Shirriff's blog has reinforced my thinking, they'll just have to clutter up my place for a little…

I'd be interested in scanning the drawings if they aren't already scanned. If you want to get rid of the modules, I can set you up with a museum.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#27
post #2

Author here for your vacuum tube questions...

With regards to the more advanced tubes (tetrodes, pentodes, etc) Was there any experimentation with integrated circuits before transistors took over? Put 10 tubes in the same enclosure, 100.

I am imagining something like a vacuum florescent display but with logic instead of display elements.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#28
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way they get away with using relatively few tubes is that most of the Boolean logic is done with semiconductor (germanium) diodes, using tubes to amplify the results.

Tubes can also just be very _clever_ in a way that transistors generally are not. For instance, counting tubes that would contain a decimal counter in a single glass bubble (that's quite a few transistors even in TTL, and about twice as many in CMOS). Multiple approaches to building such tubes existed. This is one: https://lampes-et-tubes.info/cd/cd053.php?l=e Or the complicated and impressive storage tubes, that wou…

That RAM component is wild. Do you know if there are any equivalent analog RAM components today? By which I mean RAM elements that are similarly capable of storing an analog as opposed to a digital signal.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#29
post #26

I still have well over a dozen of those IBM modules together with their paperwork and circuit diagrams (somewhere in my miles of files). They've been getting in the way and I've been meaning to chuck them away on many an occasion but something inside me has stopped me doing so because of their possible historical value. Shirriff's blog has reinforced my thinking, they'll just have to clutter up my place for a little…

I'd be interested in scanning the drawings if they aren't already scanned. If you want to get rid of the modules, I can set you up with a museum.

I've not scanned them, I'd have to find them first and that's not easy at moment because they're among tens of thousands of docs that need sorting (I rarely chuck out docs like that).

How I came by them was by accident when I was helping a guy who was a worse (indiscriminate) hoarder than I am move his tooling and machining factory. He hoarded anything technical, especially electronics stuff.

He didn't know what the circuits were but I did. Despite having little interest in either the modules or circuits instinct made me rescue them (it's a fluke they weren't scrapped). Reason: I once recall hundreds of these modules flooding onto the auction market and no one wanting them except for the tubes so I assumed everyone who'd be interested was already in the know.

The circuits (if I recall correctly—the factory move was in 2012) were together in a big folder a bit too big to scan on a quarto/A4 scanner.

Incidentally, there were stacks of old IBM computer racks that IBM historical people had rescued earlier (presumably the modules were from the same computer) but the modules and circuits surfaced later and never ended up with the rest of the hardware.

I'd be very surprised if others don't possess copies of those folders of circuits (computer historical societies etc.) as at one time those modules were so ubiquitous.

Seeing there's interest I'll hone in on them as I sort through the files (I know roughly what room they're in). The moment I find them I'll put them on line.

In the meantime I'd urge you to seek out copies of those circuit folders. IBM documented everything so well, their manuals were masterpieces of documentation in their own right (unlike the terrible situation of today where tech info on products is as scarce as hen's teeth).

Re museum, I'm in Australia so I'll seek out the mob who took the racks and try to mate the modules with the rest of the H/W. Thanks for the offer.

Re: Powering up a module from the IBM 604: an electronic calculator from 1948

#30
post #27
post #2

Author here for your vacuum tube questions...

With regards to the more advanced tubes (tetrodes, pentodes, etc) Was there any experimentation with integrated circuits before transistors took over? Put 10 tubes in the same enclosure, 100. I am imagining something like a vacuum florescent display but with logic instead of display elements.

I think solid state technology came too soon for the miniaturization of vacuum tube technology to be fully explored. Ken mentions in one of his older posts that even in these old tube-based IBM computers a lot of digital logic was in fact already done with semiconductor diodes, not vacuum tubes. Optimizations like the nuvistors never took off because semiconductors were already more economic.

I guess you could do a whole circuit on photo-etched or stamped sheet metal inside a glass envelope in a similar process that VFDs, although I don't know how you would implement cathode heating. It would be an interesting exercise to think where that could lead you, but I think modern VFDs date much later, when semiconductors already wholly replaced tubes in digital logic.

What fails in a tube is usually the heater filament, which is a wear part with a limited life. Where some (very) expensive tubes did go is to have replaceable heaters - so not more but less integration.

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