[vcf-midatlantic] Sperry Univac Core - Moving off topic... perhaps the last word on this.

[Bob Flanders]

Hi Doug,

I saw "AN/UYK-20". In the early '70s, I was a night-shift operator for an
AN/UYK-7. I also did some system testing on the thing.

Very cool and hard to come by information. This is similar to the console
for the Mk 81 torp FCS.

[image: image.png]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 4:54 PM Douglas Crawford via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 7/12/2021 12:22 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> >> Douglas Crawford Sat Jul 10 02:49:34 UTC 2021
> >> So, right. Here's the whole post mortem on this.
> >
> >> That's a recap of the entire successful conversation.
> >> Links to the board pics, and the UNIVAC manuals
> >> and such are in the conversation.
> >> Hence, "I'm good".
> >>
> >> Thanks!
> >
> > It seems polite to respond to your detailed response to my "where's the
> > core" message.
> >
> > Your responses were informative, thank you. As you responded, your Web
> > pages on WordPress are for other purposes than for showing items for
> > further discussion or to solicit inquiries. Your response explains
> > itself and needs no elaborations on my part.
> >
> Thanks Herb.  I feel I said one thing in haste and in retrospect I think
> it comes across badly- that the AN-UYK-20 is not interest.
> Not my complete thought. I was thinking not interesting enough -to me-.
> Most (if not all) vintage computers are interesting to someone and
> have aspects, which brought to light, probably would enlighten interest in
> many.  Like many in the hobby I got spread way to thin for the amount of
> time I could put into the many great pieces I acquired in the last 10 years
> so I made a call to not go deep into the AN-UYK_20 lineage of military
> computers.
> I would love to know more about our own Univac in the museum and can't even
> do that.  I hope that my plans with the core board doesn't disappoint to
> many
> too much.  I recently, as posted on here, got a few pieces of a MODCOMP
> Classic, and since that is a real oddity from my point of view, I might
> find
> time to go into emulation with the fine example of the front panel I now
> have.
>
> > Otherwise: you posted in this list to get some info: you got some info
> > and assistance: job done. But at some point you literally posted "Any
> > recommendations on where else to look?" and that is what I responded to.
> > If I posted after your request was satisfied, that was simply a
> > circumstance. My post also explained itself and needs no elaboration.
> >
> Thank you it was a reasonable suggestion, of course! You expanded on my
> request "where to look" with "what else I can do to get answers".
> No problem.  Duane's response remained on the "where to look" aspect which
> when, for instance, he showed me the availability of the parts on a
> military
> web site, I learned - DUH!- look for military computer parts at the
> military
> suppliers!  They just don't come up on web searches so I didn't find them.
>
> > You and I, simply put content on the Web in different ways for different
> > purposes.  I'll be thoughtful about your use, you suggested you'll be
> > thoughtful about my suggested use. Those are considerations outside the
> > immediate topic which you have already concluded.
> >
> > Doug, you asked me if I liked your site, if I would read a few of your
> > pages on WordPress. Well, I did. They are good presentations about how
> > you've designed various microprocessor-based projects, small and large.
> > There's a general display of your vintage collection. These are all
> > well-crafted pages with visual and textual content. WordPress sites have
> > a commonality to them that makes them hard for me to compare to other
> > Web sites.
> >
> > The "adventures in ROV" page, is a pretty detailed presentation of the
> > methodology of students and mentors to create a toy-class small ROV from
> > Arduino technology and various toy-class parts. I only say "toy" because
> > you've also done commercial class development work. As an engineer
> > myself, I'm informed by your presentations of design process.
> >
> > Doug, you are welcome to wander around my Web domain
> > retrotechnology.com, for any information and considerations of use or
> > result you can glean from them.
> >
> Oh so coy, Herb!  :-) Your site is world class and I have been there for
> many of the subjects you concentrate on, and when you concentrate, you
> research to the nth degree and that's why it serves as the reference for
> many
> for CP/M, S-100, 1802, to name a few.
>
> I think your site and Bill Deg get the kind of responses because the tone
> of the sites are research and documentation of artifacts in a way that
> draws
> out responses that contribute along those lines.  Which is great.
>
> I put some of these pages up when I was job hunting and trying to show a
> certain
> high level of "functioning".  It didn't really help that job effort, but
> I'm glad I put them up just the same, because its easy to forget a lot
> of the
> juicy details of what you had to overcome along the way.
> It all adds up when you lay them out end to end that's cool to look back
> on.
>
> You are correct the ROV was toy class.  At the end of the project, I
> applied
> for an opening at hired at VideoRAY, a ROV company right in my own town,
> but nope. No deal.
> The HR person hinted they could not afford me, and alas, no offer was
> given.
> That was the last place I applied, and probably the last I will attempt.
>
> Thanks for looking the pages over & the kind words.
>
> > There's an open question from Doug, about whether Web search "finds" the
> > discussions here in this email list. I don't know, I search a lot and
> > don't recall "finds" from this list. But technical content in this
> > somewhat-private email list is limited. So I speculate there aren't
> > often enough keyboards to trigger a high-value "search hit". It's also
> > possible, that the hosting site "tells" search engines not to search the
> > email archives. Those are administrative matters I have no knowledge
> > about. But as Doug suggests: the email list is for specific purposes, if
> > it doesn't do other things there are other venues which do.
> >
> Right. I suspect this mailman system doesn't get cataloged but I have
> not tried to prove that.
> I've not seen web searches refer to these emails. But I have seen hits
> from the VCF Forum.
> So its probably wisest to post questions there instead and leave this
> site more to the machinations of the VCF club.
> Agree?
>
> > Thanks and regards,
> > Herb Johnson
> >
>