20 Feb
2020
20 Feb
'20
7:31 p.m.
On Feb 20, 2020, at 3:54 AM, George Ross
<gdmr(a)inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
Core store, mutter, mutter.
We used to regularly restart machines which had been turned off for a
while, and they would happily pick up where they left off. One PDP-8 was
happy to resume after several years of idleness.
Sorry, had to send that, mutter…
So a story about core memory.
I was working with a group and had just finished bring up of a new system. It was running
the diagnostics when someone in shipping turned off the hardware. No disk so no risk of
breaking something like that (ah those were the days). Anyway they pack the machine and
deliver it to the customer (name lost to the mists of time) who gets it set up and then
powered on.
It resumes the diagnostic. The customer was amazed that the machine would perform a
diagnostic on power up. Though that was the most wonderful idea.
David