artm@phred.UUCP (Curmudgeon) (08/05/89)
While all this stuff is being bandied about regarding the -6, -10
and -20, I'm wondering if anybody knows anything about the fate of
Foonly, Inc. (I hope that's the right spelling.)
This was an organization that was supposed to have been started around
1980 by some Stanford AI folks, to build a souped-up successor to
the DECsystem-20 when it Digital wouldn't do it for them.
.........................................................................
My employers and associates only take responsibility for those opinions
for which they pay me. None such are contained herein.
Art Marriott
...pilchuck!seahcx!phred!artm
..........................................................................wilkes@mips.COM (John Wilkes) (08/08/89)
In article <2679@phred.UUCP> artm@phred.UUCP (Curmudgeon) writes: >While all this stuff is being bandied about regarding the -6, -10 >and -20, I'm wondering if anybody knows anything about the fate of >Foonly, Inc. (I hope that's the right spelling.) Yes, that is the correct spelling. I believe that Foonly is no longer in business, except perhaps for maintenance of one or two machines. I think the world's fastest PDP-10, the Foonly F-1, is still in service somewhere in southern California. Supposedly, it was being used to do animation and graphics. (Remember the TRON instruction? Remember the movie? Perhaps apocryphal, but the story is that the F-1 was used to make the movie.) Tymshare, Inc., had a relationship with Foonly to make and market the "26KL" system, a Foonly F-4 that ran Tops-20. The Foonly F-4 was based on 2901 bit-slice processors, and it had a really cool console computer (based on a 6502, I think) that was capable of single-stepping the microcode. Why, you could even patch the microcode on the fly! Then McDonnell Douglas bought Tymshare, and the 26KL project was canned. And with it, my hopes for the future of Tops-20. Until very recently, Dave Poole (President and CEO of Foonly, Inc.) was working at Elxsi (for the past two years.) Dunno where he will land next. Far as I know, he and his bird still live on his sailboat in the Berkeley Marina. -- -wilkes wilkes@mips.com -OR- {ames, decwrl, pyramid}!mips!wilkes
mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (08/09/89)
In article <24933@tau.mips.COM> wilkes@mips.COM (John Wilkes) writes: >I think >the world's fastest PDP-10, the Foonly F-1, is still in service somewhere >in southern California. Supposedly, it was being used to do animation and >graphics. (Remember the TRON instruction? Remember the movie? Perhaps >apocryphal, but the story is that the F-1 was used to make the movie.) As I remember, the F-1 (only one of which was ever built) was at III (is this right?) and was used to calculate the vector graphics used in TRON. On a PDP-10, TRON (Test Right half of register with immediate, set masked bits to Ones, and skip if any masked bits were Non-zero) is opcode 666! >Tymshare, Inc., had a relationship with Foonly to make and market the >"26KL" system, a Foonly F-4 that ran Tops-20. The Foonly F-4 was based on >2901 bit-slice processors, and it had a really cool console computer (based >on a 6502, I think) that was capable of single-stepping the microcode. The second fastest PDP-10, the Systems Concepts SC-30M, uses a 68K as its console computer. You could do all sorts of stuff from the 68K as well, but it's been 5 years since I worked there and I forget the details. I did the first port of TOPS-20 to the SC-30M including writing the FA10 (IBM disk channel/controller) driver and converting the USC SA10 driver to use the IU10-based SA10. The original SA10 (SC's disk and tape channel) had its own IOT interface but on the SC-30M the SA went through the IU10 (which was originally an IOT interface for the FA). After all that, SC's customers told SC that they wanted to use their DEC Massbus discs and SC ended up building a Massbus interface. They also abandoned their design for an Ethernet interface in favor of one that looked like a DEC one. This gave the advantage that unmodified DEC TOPS-20 kernel binaries would run on the SC-30M. SC designed an SC-40M on paper that (I think) would have been faster than an SC-30M. I don't think they ever built one. Mark Crispin / 6158 Lariat Loop NE / Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-2020 mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU / MRC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil / (206) 842-2385 Atheist & Proud / 450cc Rebel pilot -- a step up from 250cc's!!! tabesaserarenakerebanaranakattarashii...kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru
kchen@Apple.COM (Kok Chen) (08/09/89)
mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes: >As I remember, the F-1 (only one of which was ever built) was at III (is >this right?) and was used to calculate the vector graphics used in TRON. >On a PDP-10, TRON (Test Right half of register with immediate, set masked >bits to Ones, and skip if any masked bits were Non-zero) is opcode 666! ^^^^^^^^^^ But, Mark, thats in OCTAL!!! :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) Seriously, <MRC>'s mentioning all those PDP-10 instructions reminds me why I hated writing a compiler for that machine! There WAS one feature of the '10 that I loved though, and that is the ADJBP instruction that allows byte pointers of any size (from 1 bit to 36 bits) to be manipulated. (char *)a - (char *)b was a true pain, though :-) --- Kok Chen {decwrl,sun}!apple!kchen Apple Computer, Inc.
mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) (08/09/89)
In article <33837@apple.Apple.COM> kchen@Apple.COM (Kok Chen) writes: >Seriously, <MRC>'s mentioning all those PDP-10 instructions reminds me >why I hated writing a compiler for that machine! Another reason why people hated writing compilers for the PDP-10 was that they knew that all the good programmers would always program in assembly language; and, if forced to write a program in a high-level language, would continually bitch & moan to the compiler writer about how poor the generated code was compared to what they could hand-code. :-) :-) :-) It should be noted that Kok Chen was the original author of the good PDP-10 C compiler. Mark Crispin / 6158 Lariat Loop NE / Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-2020 mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU / MRC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil / (206) 842-2385 Atheist & Proud / 450cc Rebel pilot -- a step up from 250cc's!!! tabesaserarenakerebanaranakattarashii...kisha no kisha ga kisha de kisha-shita sumomo mo momo, momo mo momo, momo ni mo iroiro aru uraniwa ni wa niwa, niwa ni wa niwa niwatori ga iru
news@ism780c.isc.com (News system) (08/10/89)
In article <3151@blake.acs.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes: >As I remember, the F-1 (only one of which was ever built) was at III (is >this right?) and was used to calculate the vector graphics used in TRON. >On a PDP-10, TRON (Test Right half of register with immediate, set masked >bits to Ones, and skip if any masked bits were Non-zero) is opcode 666! Sounds like an IBM 709 clone. The corresponding 709 operation, RNT (Right half indicators on test) was opcode 0056 (octal). LNT was 4056, RFT (Right half indicators off test) was 0054 and LFT was 4054. Marv Rubinstein
lindsay@MATHOM.GANDALF.CS.CMU.EDU (Donald Lindsay) (08/11/89)
In article <3151@blake.acs.washington.edu> mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin) writes: >>(Remember the TRON instruction? Remember the movie? >On a PDP-10, TRON (Test Right half of register with immediate, set masked >bits to Ones, and skip if any masked bits were Non-zero) is opcode 666! I always assumed that the movie was named from the command menu of Microsoft Basic, which was available then. TRON stood for trace-on, which fits with the plot. (The TRON program was intended to clean up the system.) While we're on the subject of instructions ... my all time favorite was on the CDC Star-100. It was a truism of the day that one-pass compilers spent more time in "get next lex character" than in any other place. The Star project was operated in a "ask and you will receive" mode. Well, the Star had memory mapped files .. and a microcoded character pipe .. so, someone asked ... Yup. An instruction which took a character vector of Fortran source, and returned a vector with comments removed, unquoted blanks removed, and continuation lines concatenated. -- Don D.C.Lindsay Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science
leech@Apple.COM (Jonathan Patrick Leech) (08/12/89)
In article <24933@tau.mips.COM> wilkes@mips.COM (John Wilkes) writes: >Yes, that is the correct spelling. I believe that Foonly is no longer in >business, except perhaps for maintenance of one or two machines. I think >the world's fastest PDP-10, the Foonly F-1, is still in service somewhere >in southern California. Supposedly, it was being used to do animation and >graphics. (Remember the TRON instruction? Remember the movie? Perhaps >apocryphal, but the story is that the F-1 was used to make the movie.) Correct. III had it in their Culver City site for many years and used it to generate (part of) TRON. In 1984, Omnibus bought the Foonly and the rest of III's graphics operation. After several frustrating months, it was installed in the former Glen Glenn sound studios at Paramount, where Omnibus located their LA office. I don't know what became of the Foonly when the Omnibus empire collapsed, as I was no longer working for them at that point. -- Jon Leech (leech@apple.com) Apple Integrated Systems __@/
leech@Apple.COM (Jonathan Patrick Leech) (08/12/89)
In article <33943@apple.Apple.COM> I wrote: >used it to generate (part of) TRON. In 1984, Omnibus bought the >Foonly and the rest of III's graphics operation. After several >frustrating months, it was installed in the former Glen Glenn sound >studios at Paramount, where Omnibus located their LA office. I should clarify that: it was frustrating because the machine was delicate and required lots of care to move and get back up and running. I never saw so much wirewrap before (or since). I was grateful to be a mere spectator to the move. -- Jon Leech (leech@apple.com) Apple Integrated Systems __@/
jms@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Joe Smith) (08/13/89)
In article <2679@phred.UUCP> artm@phred.UUCP (Curmudgeon) writes: >While all this stuff is being bandied about regarding the -6, -10 >and -20, I'm wondering if anybody knows anything about the fate of >Foonly, Inc. (I hope that's the right spelling.) We have 2 Foonly F3 systems. They have a front panel with switches and lights (sort of like a KI) and load their microcode from tape. Tymshare had some F3's running Tenex (with microcode that acted like a KA with a BB&N pager) and some F3's running TYMCOM-X (with microcode that acted like a single-section KL). The Augment group had some F4 systems they later upgraded to F4X (aka Tymshare-26KL) which ran TOPS-20, complete with extended addressing. The 2 F3's were running before McDonnel Douglas moved us from Fremont to San Jose. (The heads on the disks weren't locked down, but the CPU's are fine.) They're just sitting there in the back room - we don't know what to do with them. -- Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: JMS@F74.TYMNET.COM or jms@tymix.tymnet.com McDonnell Douglas FSCO | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms PO Box 49019, MS-D21 | PDP-10 support: My car's license plate is "POPJ P," San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | narrator.device: "I didn't say that, my Amiga did!"