Talk:Power 6/32
Speed info
(The spammers constantly delete this page. I frankly cannot keep up.)
The Power 6/32 was the famous Tahoe machine of 4.3 BSD fame, made by Computer Consoles Inc
All that I can find out about them is this table from http://www.dunnington.u-net.com/public/dhrystone.c
*----------------DHRYSTONE VERSION 1.0 RESULTS BEGIN-------------------------- * * MACHINE MICROPROCESSOR OPERATING COMPILER DHRYSTONES/SEC. * TYPE SYSTEM NO REG REGS * -------------------------- ------------ ----------- --------------- * CCI POWER 6/32 COS(SV+4.2) cc 7500 7800 * CCI POWER 6/32 POWER 6 UNIX/V cc 8236 8498 * CCI POWER 6/32 4.2 Rel. 1.2b cc 8963 9544 * VAX 11/780 - UNIX 5.2 cc 1515 1562 * VAX 11/780 - UNIX 4.3bsd cc 1646 1662
Which may give some indication on the initial reasons why the Power 6/32 was chosen as the sucessor to the VAX by CSRG. Neozeed (talk) 17:01, 10 February 2009
More info coming
Working on obtaining some images and background information on Tahoe from one of the designers. Stay tuned. Retrev (talk) 18:02, 1 May 2018
- It would be interesting to hear what "Retrev" was able to find out. Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 09:09, 10 August 2023 (CEST)
- Well, that was the only thing they ever posted here. I'll send them email, using the send email link - assuming the email address they had back then still works. Jnc (talk) 00:46, 11 August 2023 (CEST)
- Our own User:Neozeed may already be on the case? (Read bottom comments.) Jnc (talk) 01:37, 11 August 2023 (CEST)
- Oh, good catch! Let's hope so, but also try the email to Retrev.
- Many tidbits in magazines can be found here: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22computer+consoles+inc%22+site:bitsavers.org (Not suggesting anyone should pick this up right away.)
- I emailed Ed Scott.
- Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 07:31, 11 August 2023 (CEST)
- I checked with neozeed, but he was sworn to secrecy regarding the info he received. Larsbrinkhoff (talk)
Pity. In this, I found little, but did find this:
- "I read some of their manuals. The instruction set of the cpu was tailored to running C programs. There was a *single* instruction that did what strlen() did... it took an address from a register and read down memory until it found a null byte. It returned the byte count of the string in another register."
about the HCX-5. Pity none of those manuals appears to be extant! Jnc (talk) 18:21, 22 December 2023 (CET)
- I surmise it would be possible to reverse engineer the instruction set and other hardware from BSD source code and compiler toolchain. I also found a copy of Harri's HCX Unix which might be helpful in such an endeavor. At the end of the day, it would just be another also-ran running another Unix port same as all others, so I don't see much point. Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 18:41, 22 December 2023 (CET)
Workstation?
Was it a workstation? Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 08:13, 22 December 2023 (CET)
- Ooh, good catch! Looking at the image of one in the Harris HCX-5 ad that neozeed found, it looked like one, but when I read the copy, probably not! "costs from $124,500", and, even more tellingly, "supports up to 128 users"! Definitely supports its classification as a 'super-mini'! I'll fix that, and upgrade he article a bit at the same time.
- I was just trying to empty all the random machines out of Category:Computers; I'll have to check and see if I made any other errors! :-) Jnc (talk) 13:25, 22 December 2023 (CET)
- I asked neozeed, and he replied "from what I know its def a super mini. the image looks like a full rack, and the stories I heard about their use is that they weren't exactly something you could take home in a car." Larsbrinkhoff (talk) 16:09, 22 December 2023 (CET)
About CCI
While looking for info on the Tahoe, I found out about an article ("CCI's Cunningham") on CCI in the Dec 8, 1986 issue of Computerworld; here. It starts on page 29 (at the bottom), and continues on page 33-34. It doesn't say much, though. Jnc (talk) 18:11, 22 December 2023 (CET)
