Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
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Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
1–10 of 12 posts
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#2Some interesting stuff in here.
On page 4, a note from Raj Reddy about a tape drive not working correctly. Reddy was an assistant professor at Stanford at the time (1967). He went on to win the Turing Award in 1994 for his work in AI. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Reddy)
But apparently he had time to play computer games. On page 15: "SPACE WAR BUTTONS DO NOT WORK. - Pingle and Reddy".
On page 1: "TTY 3 threw its drive belt". Anyone else here remember the days when terminals had drive belts? (On page 6, some output from one of their printing terminals pasted in.)
On page 10: "MY HARDWARE WORKS!". Looks like they were building custom hardware and hooking it up to this machine.
Here's the Wikipedia page for the PDP-6, complete with a photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-6
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#3The amount of sarcasm in that log is both hilarious and validating (for my job today, of course).
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#4If this interests you then are two more scanned hardware logs at: https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ai/catalog/rn367gp7801 and https://exhibits.stanford.edu/ai/catalog/gq025tt6144
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#521 April: “There was a wiring hack in the disk kludge...”
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#6> BOTH Scopes Down
> Old scope loses focus, sync, mind in dramatic fashion
> New scope blows fuses instantly.
My housemates must think I've gone mad, giggling like this. Bless these engineers, this is a fun read. Thanks for sharing!
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#7I still keep a paper notebook in the server room. Why? Because the logbook needs to work when the servers don't!
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#8This reminds me of when I was working with a PDP-8 back in 1975. We had a hardware failure, I ran a diagnostic which confirmed the problem was in the hardware. I called DEC (we had a maintenance contract), and they sent out an engineer. He looked at the output of the diagnostic, then he pulled out a circuit board and he proceeded to unsolder a transister and solder in a new transister!
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#9I still keep a paper notebook in the server room. Why? Because the logbook needs to work when the servers don't!
My neckbeard and I tip our hats to you.
But dead serious...we had an outage recently where everyone knew the answers were in a Confluence site, which of course no one could get to. Cloud will be the death of us. :-)
Re: Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]
#10Some interesting stuff in here. On page 4, a note from Raj Reddy about a tape drive not working correctly. Reddy was an assistant professor at Stanford at the time (1967). He went on to win the Turing Award in 1994 for his work in AI. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Reddy ) But apparently he had time to play computer games. On page 15: "SPACE WAR BUTTONS DO NOT WORK. - Pingle and Reddy". On page 1: "TTY 3 threw i…
Anyone else here remember the days when terminals had drive belts?
Yeah...ASR-33s. But TTYs are just character devices and could be other things that had belts.