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

[Douglas Crawford]

Well, so much for the last word, you guys had more good stuff, thanks!

On 7/12/2021 8:23 PM, David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> We had a UYK-20 at a previous job. Reasonable sized cube. Company made a board
> that could be used to remotely operate the front panel I think with a serial
> terminal.  Used the UYK-20 to run the test programs for the
> AN/UYQ-21 display console emulator we made and possibly the the AN/UYA-4
> emulator. Never had to poke at the guts so can't say if the core matched. It
> did have core so most of the time we didn't have to reload the program from
> tape. The UYQ-21 and and UYA-4 were water cooled vector display console. The
> generation of emulator I was involved in used raster display with software
> interpreting the vector display lists sent to the console. Fun was a lot of
> the host programs generated display lists that depended on quirks of how the
> original hardware executed the display lists and didn't really follow how the
> manual said they were supposed to be done. We had to find these and emulate
> them. Similar difficulty with current emulators trying to emulate old machines.
> Had a AN/UYK-43 later. Much bigger water cooled computer. All this a long
> time ago.
> 
> On Mon, Jul 12, 2021 at 05:54:14PM -0400, Bob Flanders via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>> 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
>>>>
>>>