CASINO - Revision history

Jnc: Add page numbers in 'From RAINBOW to GUSTO'

2025-01-14T13:18:43Z

Add page numbers in 'From RAINBOW to GUSTO'

Jnc: Update with additional info

2024-01-27T13:22:12Z

Update with additional info

Larsbrinkhoff: S

2024-01-26T06:44:22Z

Larsbrinkhoff: Computer Able to select INternal Orders. Cringe.

2024-01-26T06:05:20Z

Computer Able to select INternal Orders. Cringe.

Jnc: Almost certainly the 'PDP-3' that Bell referred to; used in RCS work

2024-01-10T13:09:45Z

Almost certainly the 'PDP-3' that Bell referred to; used in RCS work

Jnc: Add footnotes to the alt.sys.pdp10 post

2024-01-08T11:43:33Z

Add footnotes to the alt.sys.pdp10 post

Jnc: Add a header with a few dribs of info about it

2024-01-08T01:15:32Z

Add a header with a few dribs of info about it

Larsbrinkhoff: Stub.

2023-07-29T05:41:55Z

Stub.

New page

{{stub}}

From a [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/08/102740424-05-01-acc.pdf#page=5 September 21, 1972 letter from Edward B. Rawson]:
: "As you may have heard, we have been considering the question of what to do with our CASINO computer. The machine is nearing the end of its useful life. We have recently purchased a General Radio 1792 to supply the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO. I anticipate that within six to nine months we will have no further use for CASINO. [...]
: The machine contains primarily 1000, 4000 and 6000 series systems units. Many of the 6000 series units have been modified or had selected transistors placed in them. In general, the modifications are minor. The units are, of course, largely in working order although unused portions of the units may have failed during the life of the machine without our noticing the failures. Most of the equipment racks are of the taper pin variety. However, in addition, there are perhaps twenty racks of the banana plug type. The relay racks are not standard DEC hardware; they were purchased from EMCOR.
: In addition to the systems units and racks, the machine contains a couple of major components of DEC manufacture. One of these is a type 30 scope which may have been modified but probably not drastically. A second item is the basic 4K memory. This memory consists of two PDP-1 memories placed on top of one another to provide 38-bit words. The stacks and drivers could conceivably be quite useful to you. The entire stacked up memory array was manufactured by Digital Equipment in 1960. The bulk of the memory in the machine is a 16K Fabri-tek memory of 40-bit word length. I am presuming that this memory will be of no interest to DEC.
: In addition to these items, there are several other peripherals which may or may not be of interest. These include three Potter tape transports, one of which has Potter electronics. The other two of these units contain SMI constructed read and write electronics. We have a couple of used but still useful Friden Flexowriters, some paper tape equipment which I am sure is not of interest to DEC, and a Cal-Comp plotter."

From a February 3, 1997 alt.sys.pdp10 message from Max ben-Aaron:
: "In the late 60's & early 70's I worked for a company (Medidata, later Searle Medidata) which started life as a not-for-profit spin-off from Lincoln Lab. (as I have heard), called American Science Institute. The chief engineer, Ed Rawson was a friend of Dec's Olsen and he managed to get hold of the modules used for the prototype PDP-2 which never reached the market. ASI used them to build their own machine (designed, I believe, by Chuck Corderman) which they called "Casino" and was sometimes jocularly referred to as a PDP-2 1/2. Casino was noteworthy for having, very early in the game, graphics capabilities. It also had some special terminals which had labels that cannot be repeated on this (family) newsgroup."

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 : ''DEC also never built a PDP-3, although one was designed on paper as a 36-bit machine. [...] In 1960 a customer (Scientific Engineering Institute, Waltham, Massachusetts) built a PDP-3. It was later dismantled and given to M.I.T.: as of 1974, it was up and running in Oregon.''
-From [https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/from-rainbow-to-gusto-stealth-and-the-design-of-the-lockheed-blackbird-1nbsped-9781600867309-9781600867125.html ''From RAINBOW to GUSTO: Stealth and the Design of the Lockheed Blackbird'']:
+From [https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/from-rainbow-to-gusto-stealth-and-the-design-of-the-lockheed-blackbird-1nbsped-9781600867309-9781600867125.html ''From RAINBOW to GUSTO: Stealth and the Design of the Lockheed Blackbird''] (pp. 210-211):
 : ''As the amount of radar testing at the Ranch increased, the scientists at SEI decided that the data had become too much to process by hand. To speed things up, they decided that a computer would be needed. The difficulty was that no computer within their budget was available off the shelf. So they decided to build their own.''

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''CASINO''' &mdash; Computer Able to Select INternal Orders &mdash; was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design.
+'''CASINO''' (an acronym for 'Computer Able to Select INternal Orders') was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata).
-There is one report that SEI initially used it "to process radar cross section data for the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in 1960", which seems to be accurate, but nothing else is known for certain. Whether it was used in the earlier reduced RCS work that SEI did for the U-2 in unknown. It is possible that it was also used for running theoretical models related to RCS work, but that is just a guess. The last use that CASINO was put to at SEI, before being retired ("the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO", below) was almost certainly a re-use of a machine they had laying around.
+It was based on the specification (which included an [[instruction set architecture|ISA]]) for the never-produced [[PDP-3]], but the design (performed at SEI, according to later memories) was modified in the course of bringing the machine up. It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It initially used a loop of [[magnetic tape]] for [[secondary storage]], but that was later replaced by a [[drum]].
 CASINO was also reported to have had [[graphics]] capabilities, at a time when that was very rare.
@@ Line 12: / Line 14: @@
 : ''DEC also never built a PDP-3, although one was designed on paper as a 36-bit machine. [...] In 1960 a customer (Scientific Engineering Institute, Waltham, Massachusetts) built a PDP-3. It was later dismantled and given to M.I.T.: as of 1974, it was up and running in Oregon.''
 From a [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/08/102740424-05-01-acc.pdf#page=5 September 21, 1972 letter from Edward B. Rawson]:

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:44, 26 January 2024
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	'''CASINO''' — Computer Able to ~~select~~ INternal Orders — was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation\|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design.	+	'''CASINO''' — Computer Able to Select INternal Orders — was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation\|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design.

	There is one report that SEI initially used it "to process radar cross section data for the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in 1960", which seems to be accurate, but nothing else is known for certain. Whether it was used in the earlier reduced RCS work that SEI did for the U-2 in unknown. It is possible that it was also used for running theoretical models related to RCS work, but that is just a guess. The last use that CASINO was put to at SEI, before being retired ("the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO", below) was almost certainly a re-use of a machine they had laying around.		There is one report that SEI initially used it "to process radar cross section data for the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in 1960", which seems to be accurate, but nothing else is known for certain. Whether it was used in the earlier reduced RCS work that SEI did for the U-2 in unknown. It is possible that it was also used for running theoretical models related to RCS work, but that is just a guess. The last use that CASINO was put to at SEI, before being retired ("the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO", below) was almost certainly a re-use of a machine they had laying around.

← Older revision		Revision as of 06:05, 26 January 2024
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	'''CASINO''' was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation\|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design.	+	'''CASINO''' — Computer Able to select INternal Orders — was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation\|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design.

	There is one report that SEI initially used it "to process radar cross section data for the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in 1960", which seems to be accurate, but nothing else is known for certain. Whether it was used in the earlier reduced RCS work that SEI did for the U-2 in unknown. It is possible that it was also used for running theoretical models related to RCS work, but that is just a guess. The last use that CASINO was put to at SEI, before being retired ("the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO", below) was almost certainly a re-use of a machine they had laying around.		There is one report that SEI initially used it "to process radar cross section data for the Lockheed A-12 reconnaissance aircraft in 1960", which seems to be accurate, but nothing else is known for certain. Whether it was used in the earlier reduced RCS work that SEI did for the U-2 in unknown. It is possible that it was also used for running theoretical models related to RCS work, but that is just a guess. The last use that CASINO was put to at SEI, before being retired ("the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO", below) was almost certainly a re-use of a machine they had laying around.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''CASINO''' was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design. CASINO was also reported to have had [[graphics]] capabilities, at a time when that was very rare.
+'''CASINO''' was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s (from the width of the [[main memory]] known to have been used on it; below), but this is not certain. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design.
 From a [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/08/102740424-05-01-acc.pdf#page=5 September 21, 1972 letter from Edward B. Rawson]:
@@ Line 12: / Line 24: @@
 : ''In the late 60's & early 70's I worked for a company (Medidata, later Searle Medidata) which started life as a not-for-profit spin-off from Lincoln Lab. (as I have heard), called American Science Institute. The chief engineer, Ed Rawson was a friend of Dec's Olsen and he managed to get hold of the modules used for the prototype PDP-2 which never reached the market. ASI used them to build their own machine (designed, I believe, by Chuck Corderman) which they called "Casino" and was sometimes jocularly referred to as a PDP-2 1/2. Casino was noteworthy for having, very early in the game, graphics capabilities. It also had some special terminals which had labels that cannot be repeated on this (family) newsgroup.''
-(His memory seems to have dropped a bit; it was previously 'Scientific Engineering Institute', not 'American Science Institute'. Also, the modules he speaks of were almost certainly not PDP-2-specific modules, but just generic DEC System Modules (per the Rawson letter).)
+(His memory seems to have dropped a bit or two; Medidata was previously 'Scientific Engineering Institute', not "American Science Institute". Also, the modules he speaks of were almost certainly not PDP-2-specific modules, but just generic DEC System Modules (per the Rawson letter).)
 [[Category: Unique Computers]]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-'''CASINO''' was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Medidata (who were originally named Scientific Engineering Institute; later bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design. CASINO was also reported to have had [[graphics]] capabilities, at a time when that was very rare.
+'''CASINO''' was an early, one-of-a-kind computer built out of [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] [[System Module]]s by Scientific Engineering Institute (which later became Medidata; they were eventually bought by G.D. Searle & Co., and re-named Searle Medidata). It apparently used 36-bit [[word]]s. It seems to have been inspired by the never-produced [[PDP-3]] - if it was not in fact built from the PDP-3 design. CASINO was also reported to have had [[graphics]] capabilities, at a time when that was very rare.
 From a [http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2018/08/102740424-05-01-acc.pdf#page=5 September 21, 1972 letter from Edward B. Rawson]:
-: "As you may have heard, we have been considering the question of what to do with our CASINO computer.  The machine is nearing the end of its useful life.  We have recently purchased a General Radio 1792 to supply the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO.  I anticipate that within six to nine months we will have no further use for CASINO. [...]
-: The machine contains primarily 1000, 4000 and 6000 series systems units.  Many of the 6000 series units have been modified or had selected transistors placed in them.  In general, the modifications are minor.  The units are, of course, largely in working order although unused portions of the units may have failed during the life of the machine without our noticing the failures.  Most of the equipment racks are of the taper pin variety.  However, in addition, there are perhaps twenty racks of the banana plug type.  The relay racks are not standard DEC hardware; they were purchased from EMCOR.
+: ''As you may have heard, we have been considering the question of what to do with our CASINO computer.  The machine is nearing the end of its useful life.  We have recently purchased a General Radio 1792 to supply the board testing function now being carried out on CASINO.  I anticipate that within six to nine months we will have no further use for CASINO. [...]''
-: In addition to the systems units and racks, the machine contains a couple of major components of DEC manufacture. One of these is a type 30 scope which may have been modified but probably not drastically.  A second item is the basic 4K memory.  This memory consists of two PDP-1 memories placed on top of one another to provide 38-bit words.  The stacks and drivers could conceivably be quite useful to you.  The entire stacked up memory array was manufactured by Digital Equipment in 1960.  The bulk of the memory in the machine is a 16K Fabri-tek memory of 40-bit word length.  I am presuming that this memory will be of no interest to DEC.
+: ''The machine contains primarily 1000, 4000 and 6000 series systems units.  Many of the 6000 series units have been modified or had selected transistors placed in them.  In general, the modifications are minor.  The units are, of course, largely in working order although unused portions of the units may have failed during the life of the machine without our noticing the failures.  Most of the equipment racks are of the taper pin variety.  However, in addition, there are perhaps twenty racks of the banana plug type.  The relay racks are not standard DEC hardware; they were purchased from EMCOR.''
-: In addition to these items, there are several other peripherals which may or may not be of interest.  These include three Potter tape transports, one of which has Potter electronics.  The other two of these units contain SMI constructed read and write electronics.  We have a couple of used but still useful Friden Flexowriters, some paper tape equipment which I am sure is not of interest to DEC, and a Cal-Comp plotter."
+: ''In addition to the systems units and racks, the machine contains a couple of major components of DEC manufacture. One of these is a type 30 scope which may have been modified but probably not drastically.  A second item is the basic 4K memory.  This memory consists of two PDP-1 memories placed on top of one another to provide 38-bit words.  The stacks and drivers could conceivably be quite useful to you.  The entire stacked up memory array was manufactured by Digital Equipment in 1960.  The bulk of the memory in the machine is a 16K Fabri-tek memory of 40-bit word length.  I am presuming that this memory will be of no interest to DEC.''
 From a February 3, 1997 alt.sys.pdp10 message from Max ben-Aaron:
-{{stub}}
+: ''In the late 60's & early 70's I worked for a company (Medidata, later Searle Medidata) which started life as a not-for-profit spin-off from Lincoln Lab. (as I have heard), called American Science Institute. The chief engineer, Ed Rawson was a friend of Dec's Olsen and he managed to get hold of the modules used for the prototype PDP-2 which never reached the market. ASI used them to build their own machine (designed, I believe, by Chuck Corderman) which they called "Casino" and was sometimes jocularly referred to as a PDP-2 1/2. Casino was noteworthy for having, very early in the game, graphics capabilities. It also had some special terminals which had labels that cannot be repeated on this (family) newsgroup.''
 [[Category: Unique Computers]]