On Tue, 9 May 2023 12:43:14 -0400
richardthiebaud <thiebauddick2@aol.com> wrote:

> On 5/9/23 12:17, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
> > On 2023-05-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> Then they decided that numbers were bad and produced the
> >> Pentium.
> >
> > Wasn't there some kerfuffle about "586" or the like already being
> > copyrighted by someone else?
> >
> > Niklas
> IIRC, there was a court ruling that you can't trademark a number.

Hmm that would have irritated Peugeot who reportedly trademarked all
three digit numbers with a 0 in the middle. IIRC it was more subtle than
that.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

On 2023-05-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

> On 9 May 2023 07:45:41 GMT
> Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> wrote:
>
>> No, the 80387. And not the early ones. The original 80386 (later named
>> the 80386DX) had full maths support built in.
>>
>> Then they did the 'economy' version, the 80386SX. Limited bus width, no
>> maths coprocessor. And that's where the 80387 came in.
>
> Er nope.
>
> 80386 - 32 bit no hardware maths support
> 80387 - Maths coprocessor for 80386
> 80386sx - 80386 with 16 bit external bus
> 80387sx - Maths coprocessor for 80386sx
> 80486dx - 32 bit with built in maths coprocessor - got up to 50MHz
> 80486sx - 32 bit without maths coprocessor
> 80486dx2 - 80486 with external bus running at half the internal clock speed
>
> Then they decided that numbers were bad and produced the Pentium.

8086 One little
80286 Two little
80386 Three little-endians
80387 Four little
80386sx Five little
80387sx Six little-endians
80486dx Seven little
80486sx Eight little
80486dx2 Nine little-endians
Pentium DIVIDE ERROR

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | You can't save the earth
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | unless you're willing to
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | make other people sacrifice.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Dogbert the green consultant

On 2023-05-07 03:01, Freddy1X wrote:
> Lew Pitcher wrote:
>
>> Long ago, I was told (or I read) about an early business computer
>> (I'm guessing circa 1960) that the manufacturer sold in two
>> different clock speeds. If you bought the "slower" system, you
>> could pay a licence fee and have a CSR come to /remove/ a component
>> that /limited/ the CPU speed.
>>
>> Does any one else know of the details of this? Was it a rumour,
>> or did it actually happen?
>>
>
> Back in the 'good old days' of PC clones, there was a switch on the front
> panel to select the faster or slower processor speed supposodly because some
> programs needed a certain speed for correct operation. These often came
> with a jumper settable front panel display to show the current clock speed.
> The ones I usually selected were 30 or 60 MHZ i think.

Oh, it was absolutely true. Some software did not run well in faster
computers.

One example was games, like "The ancient art of war" or "The Ancient Art
of War at Sea". On a fast computer it was unplayable.

In the mid 90's, I met data acquisition and analysis software that on a
faster computer it would run accquire too many samples per second
increasing the noise. It had to run a 10 samples per second.

The root cause in both is that they used the code speed as the basis for
the timer, instead of using an actual clock or interrupts.

>
> Now the cheapest speed 'upgrade' you could make was tho set the display
> jumpers to, oh, say 100 MHZ, then you could brag to your friends.

Yeah, I saw that. :-)

>
> Freddy,
> ...Nah! That would never happen!
>

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 2023-05-07 14:07, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On 7 May 2023 10:47:11 GMT
> Bob Eager <news0009@eager.cx> wrote:
>
>> I got a further speed-up by using an NEC V20 instead of the 8088. This
>> benchmarked very well, and it was faster, but the benchmark made it look
>> better than it was in everyday use. That was because one of the main
>> improvements was a barrel shifter, which speeded up multiplication etc.
>> but didn't help much with most work.
>
> Om of the most impressive clock hacks I recall was a rather
> ingenious one for the 80286. Starting with a 12MHz product overclocked to
> the usual 15Mhz they added a circuit that bumped the clock to 40MHz until
> there was a bus cycle and then dropped it to 15MHz to keep the bus happy.

:-o

>
> The resultant AT clones dramatically outperformed the 16MHz 80386
> machines that were hitting the market at the time.
>
> Also fun was Sinclair's clock stretch hackery to sync a Z80's
> irregular timing to a video clock. I never did find out who came up with
> that one.

The IBM PC clock was also related to the video timing, IIRC.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On Tue, 9 May 2023 22:15:43 +0200
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

> Oh, it was absolutely true. Some software did not run well in faster
> computers.

Not just DOS PCs - Xroach became impossibly fast a long time ago.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> writes:

> On Tue, 9 May 2023 22:15:43 +0200
> "Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>
>> Oh, it was absolutely true. Some software did not run well in faster
>> computers.
>
> Not just DOS PCs - Xroach became impossibly fast a long time ago.

xroach -speed 1 is still kinda amusing. xroach -speed 0 causes the
roaches to behavie idividually as if in the last stages of having been
sprayed with a fast-acting insecticide. Does make -squish easier to
use though. :-o

My little text editor that accepts text by displaying and punching
IBM cards works fine except that the falling chad falls too quickly to
be seen. I should fix that. RSN.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

On 2023-05-09, Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

> On 2023-05-07 14:07, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>
>> Also fun was Sinclair's clock stretch hackery to sync a Z80's
>> irregular timing to a video clock. I never did find out who came up with
>> that one.
>
> The IBM PC clock was also related to the video timing, IIRC.

The Amiga was designed with video in mind. Its main clock ran
at 7.16 MHz, exactly twice the 3.58-MHz colour burst frequency.
This made it easy to build video hardware (at least for NTSC systems -
I'm not sure whether Amigas in the UK ran at a frequency better
suited to PAL). Amigas were used in a number of cable TV stations
(ever seen a Guru Meditation on TV?), and Todd Rundgren used a bank
of ten A2000s to produce his video "Change Myself".

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | You can't save the earth
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | unless you're willing to
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | make other people sacrifice.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Dogbert the green consultant

Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com> writes:

> On 2023-05-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:

>> Then they decided that numbers were bad and produced the Pentium.

> Wasn't there some kerfuffle about "586" or the like already being
> copyrighted by someone else?

Actually, the digit string "586" was used by Intel to name their Ethernet
chips. No kerfuffle involved, just bad decisions earlier in their own history.

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen

Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> wrote:
> Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> On 2023-05-09, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>>> Then they decided that numbers were bad and produced the Pentium.
>
>> Wasn't there some kerfuffle about "586" or the like already being
>> copyrighted by someone else?
>
> Actually, the digit string "586" was used by Intel to name their Ethernet
> chips. No kerfuffle involved, just bad decisions earlier in their own history.
>

IBM now seems go be re-using machine numbers. I search for some old piece
of gear and get a lot of newer stuff I could care less about.

--
Pete

On 09/05/2023 18:21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> Hmm that would have irritated Peugeot who reportedly trademarked all
> three digit numbers with a 0 in the middle. IIRC it was more subtle than
> that.

And that would have irritated Boeing. Heck, I just booked a flight on a
787; that number derives from the 707 way back when.

Andy

On 06/05/2023 18:10, Lew Pitcher wrote:
> Does any one else know of the details of this? Was it a rumour,
> or did it actually happen?

I too have heard the rumour. The detail I heard was that a field
engineer would come out and spend a day (1) moving the jumper and (2)
testing it all to make sure it worked.

They always did work, but a day of an on site engineer looked better ;)

Andy

On Thu, 11 May 2023 17:46:24 +0100
Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> On 09/05/2023 18:21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> > Hmm that would have irritated Peugeot who reportedly
> > trademarked all three digit numbers with a 0 in the middle. IIRC it was
> > more subtle than that.
>
> And that would have irritated Boeing. Heck, I just booked a flight on a
> 787; that number derives from the 707 way back when.

I think Peugeot's trademark only applied to cars.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

On 2023-05-11 21:58, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2023 17:46:24 +0100
> Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 09/05/2023 18:21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>> Hmm that would have irritated Peugeot who reportedly
>>> trademarked all three digit numbers with a 0 in the middle. IIRC it was
>>> more subtle than that.
>>
>> And that would have irritated Boeing. Heck, I just booked a flight on a
>> 787; that number derives from the 707 way back when.
>
> I think Peugeot's trademark only applied to cars.

True. Which annoyed Porsche, who had to rename their Porsche 901 to
Porsche 911.

Johnny

On 2023-05-12, Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> wrote:
> On 2023-05-11 21:58, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>> On Thu, 11 May 2023 17:46:24 +0100
>> Vir Campestris <vir.campestris@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On 09/05/2023 18:21, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>>>> Hmm that would have irritated Peugeot who reportedly
>>>> trademarked all three digit numbers with a 0 in the middle. IIRC it was
>>>> more subtle than that.
>>>
>>> And that would have irritated Boeing. Heck, I just booked a flight on a
>>> 787; that number derives from the 707 way back when.
>>
>> I think Peugeot's trademark only applied to cars.
>
> True. Which annoyed Porsche, who had to rename their Porsche 901 to
> Porsche 911.
>
> Johnny
>

which might not have helped in the us market. What year was that?

--
greymausg@mail.com
Where is our money gone, dude?

On 12 May 2023 14:28:42 GMT
greymaus <maus@darkstar.org> wrote:

> which might not have helped in the us market. What year was that?

The Porche 911 has been around since the 1960s.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Odds and Ends at http://www.sohara.org/

To: richardthiebaud
-=> richardthiebaud wrote to alt.folklore.computers <=-

ri> IIRC, there was a court ruling that you can't trademark a number.

Different field, but the Porsche 911 was originally called the 901.
Peugot took them to court claiming they had some right to 3 digit car
names with a 0 in the middle digit, or something like that. Porsche
changed it to 911.

.... RAW DATA FOR RAW NERVES
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
--- Synchronet 3.20a-Win32 NewsLink 1.114
* realitycheckBBS - Aptos, CA - telnet://realitycheckbbs.org

On 2023-05-12 19:06, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On 12 May 2023 14:28:42 GMT
> greymaus <maus@darkstar.org> wrote:
>
>> which might not have helped in the us market. What year was that?
>
> The Porche 911 has been around since the 1960s.

Yup. And if you look at the spare parts catalogs for the old models,
you'll see a lot of part numbers starting with 901.xxx.xxx
So internally, the 901 number stuck, but externally, they had to rename it.

(The current 911 is actually 997 or something.)

Johnny

>> Long ago, I was told (or I read) about an early business computer
>> (I'm guessing circa 1960) that the manufacturer sold in two
>> different clock speeds.

There were intentionally slowed-down models of the IBM 1130
but there was one contradiction:
interrupt processing required full speed to meet the time requirement.
So a workaround was to simply leave a "hanging" unfulfilled interrupt.

>Back in the 'good old days' of PC clones, there was a switch on the front
>panel to select the faster or slower processor speed

The "turbo switch" went from the standard/slow speed
(required by some games for timing loops)
to the CPU's highest speed.
Early cases simply had an LED for turbo on/off.
Later cases had a 2 digit, then a 3 digit LED display
that was merely set by the switch.
Some thought it was a speedometer and felt obligated
to upgrade their case for the 3 digit display :-0
A simple workaround was to jumper the 2 digits for "LO" and "HI".

--

On Friday, June 9, 2023 at 3:42:34 PM UTC+7, Jeff Jonas wrote:
> >> Long ago, I was told (or I read) about an early business computer
> >> (I'm guessing circa 1960) that the manufacturer sold in two
> >> different clock speeds.

This was the case for NatSemi's lookalike version of the IBM 158, circa 1977.
originally designed by Exsysco. I don't remember the relevant model numbers.

Farfetched? I was told this by F.E.'s who claimed to have
moved the necessary wire. (Some may have been entrepreneurs
who moved the wire unbeknownst to NatSemi, pocketing
the wire's cost! :-)

Cheers,
James

On Fri, 09 Jun 2023 09:37:32 -0700, James Dow Allen wrote:

> On Friday, June 9, 2023 at 3:42:34 PM UTC+7, Jeff Jonas wrote:
>> >> Long ago, I was told (or I read) about an early business computer
>> >> (I'm guessing circa 1960) that the manufacturer sold in two
>> >> different clock speeds.
>
> This was the case for NatSemi's lookalike version of the IBM 158, circa
> 1977.
> originally designed by Exsysco. I don't remember the relevant model
> numbers.

I have just been researching the ICL 2900 mainframe (not that well known).

Many models were planned but never built, or cancelled. There was a model
called the P2L (marketed as the 2960), and I became curious as to what a
P2S was. It would have been marketed as a 2950 (L ane S meant Large and
Small).

I discovered that the two would have used the same microcode engine, and
probably the same memory and other hardware. It would have been slower,
probably by using a different microcode incorporating delays.

The P2S never happened; I suspect that the P2L was slow enough, as it
didn't sell that well. The P1 and P0 never happened either.

(for completeness, P3 and P4 were each radically different, and P5 never
happened)

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 2023-06-09, James Dow Allen <jdallen2000@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Friday, June 9, 2023 at 3:42:34 PM UTC+7, Jeff Jonas wrote:
>
>>>> Long ago, I was told (or I read) about an early business computer
>>>> (I'm guessing circa 1960) that the manufacturer sold in two
>>>> different clock speeds.
>
> This was the case for NatSemi's lookalike version of the IBM 158, circa 1977.
> originally designed by Exsysco. I don't remember the relevant model numbers.

The Univac 9200, a de-rated version of the 9300 (their answer
to the IBM 360/20), inserted a "rest cycle" between each real
memory cycle, increasing the memory's effective cycle time from
600 nanoseconds to 1200 ns. But that made it too slow to handle
those newfangled disk drives - so the selector channel would do
some magic to eliminate the rest cycles while it was active.
This meant that if your machine had marginal memory that couldn't
handle the 600-ns cycle time, you'd have to replace it as part of
adding disks to the system.

> Farfetched? I was told this by F.E.'s who claimed to have
> moved the necessary wire. (Some may have been entrepreneurs
> who moved the wire unbeknownst to NatSemi, pocketing
> the wire's cost! :-)

Inside the 9200 was a secret toggle switch labeled TEST MODE D.
(There were test mode A, B, and C switches on the front panel.)
If you threw this switch, memory would run at full speed.
However, parity checking was also disabled, so you used it
at your own risk. Normally, if a parity error occurred, the
processor would freeze and the PROC ABN (processor abnormal)
light would come on. One day we were running a large sort job
with test mode D set. A parity error occurred, and I was treated
to the sight of the machine furiously churning away with the
PROC ABN light on. Needless to say, we had to cancel the job
and re-run it.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | You can't save the earth
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | unless you're willing to
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | make other people sacrifice.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Dogbert the green consultant

On 09/06/2023 18:20, Bob Eager wrote:
> I have just been researching the ICL 2900 mainframe (not that well known).
>
> Many models were planned but never built, or cancelled. There was a model
> called the P2L (marketed as the 2960), and I became curious as to what a
> P2S was. It would have been marketed as a 2950 (L ane S meant Large and
> Small).
>
> I discovered that the two would have used the same microcode engine, and
> probably the same memory and other hardware. It would have been slower,
> probably by using a different microcode incorporating delays.
>
> The P2S never happened; I suspect that the P2L was slow enough, as it
> didn't sell that well. The P1 and P0 never happened either.
>
> (for completeness, P3 and P4 were each radically different, and P5 never
> happened)

All these years later I can't remember the internal names, but the 2950
was a real product. We had one. As we _were_ ICL that's not a complete
guide, but google says we weren't alone.

The Wikipedia article has P2S and S1 BOTH 2950!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_2900_Series

It also doesn't mention the 2982 (an uprated 2980). All these years
later I can't recall the models well enough to fix Wikipedia.

Andy

On Sat, 10 Jun 2023 15:43:19 +0100, Vir Campestris wrote:

> On 09/06/2023 18:20, Bob Eager wrote:
>> I have just been researching the ICL 2900 mainframe (not that well
>> known).
>>
>> Many models were planned but never built, or cancelled. There was a
>> model called the P2L (marketed as the 2960), and I became curious as to
>> what a P2S was. It would have been marketed as a 2950 (L ane S meant
>> Large and Small).
>>
>> I discovered that the two would have used the same microcode engine,
>> and probably the same memory and other hardware. It would have been
>> slower, probably by using a different microcode incorporating delays.
>>
>> The P2S never happened; I suspect that the P2L was slow enough, as it
>> didn't sell that well. The P1 and P0 never happened either.
>>
>> (for completeness, P3 and P4 were each radically different, and P5
>> never happened)
>
> All these years later I can't remember the internal names, but the 2950
> was a real product. We had one. As we _were_ ICL that's not a complete
> guide, but google says we weren't alone.
>
> The Wikipedia article has P2S and S1 BOTH 2950!
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICL_2900_Series
>
> It also doesn't mention the 2982 (an uprated 2980). All these years
> later I can't recall the models well enough to fix Wikipedia.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. The P2S was *going* to be the 2950.
However, as I said it didn't fit well in the range (and P series were
expensive).

They still had a 2950, but it wasn't a P2S. The name was attached to the
S1L, announced in November 1977. I think slightly more powerful, but
smaller and cheaper to produce.

That Wikipedia article is short, but the diagram for Modules aand
Interconnections is woefully wrong. I did do a correct one for a talk I
gave recently, but I can't deal with the hassle of getting Wikipedia
corrected.

(I managed a P2L (later, as a dual) for about 8 years)

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On Sat, 10 Jun 2023 15:43:19 +0100, Vir Campestris wrote:

> It also doesn't mention the 2982 (an uprated 2980). All these years
> later I can't recall the models well enough to fix Wikipedia.

I'm not convinced the 2982 (probably a P4L) was ever delivered, although
it's mentioned. I think the same thing happened as with the 2950, but they
gave it a different name. It would have been an S series machine, probably
an S3 variant (which is all ICL made in the end), and named the 2988
(which did exist).

--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

On 10/06/2023 17:32, Bob Eager wrote:
> On Sat, 10 Jun 2023 15:43:19 +0100, Vir Campestris wrote:
>
>> It also doesn't mention the 2982 (an uprated 2980). All these years
>> later I can't recall the models well enough to fix Wikipedia.
>
> I'm not convinced the 2982 (probably a P4L) was ever delivered, although
> it's mentioned. I think the same thing happened as with the 2950, but they
> gave it a different name. It would have been an S series machine, probably
> an S3 variant (which is all ICL made in the end), and named the 2988
> (which did exist).
>

Again, I was internal, so it's no guarantee of what customers saw - but
ICL Bracknell had a 2980 which was upgraded to a 2982. IIRC that was
basically the same machine, but clocked a bit faster. It was definitely
the same family.

Whether any were _sold_ is another matter.

Andy