24 Jan
2020
24 Jan
'20
7:59 a.m.
There is more in that issue of BSTJ, and indeed it seems this was a precursor.
https://ia801905.us.archive.org/25/items/bstj51-6-1147/bstj51-6-1147_text.p…
https://ia801603.us.archive.org/0/items/bstj51-6-1167/bstj51-6-1167_text.pdf
The first paper makes mention of repeaters starting to self oscillate, and a redesign
being underway.
There is a possibility that a Unix PDP11 was connected to this earlier network prior to
Spider existing, in which case the accepted quiz answer would be wrong.
Ugh. Memory
lane has a lot of potholes. This was a really long time ago.
Many thanks for that post - really interesting!
I had to look up "Pierce Network", and found it described in the Bell Journal:
https://ia801903.us.archive.org/31/items/bstj51-6-1133/bstj51-6-1133_text.p…
In my reading the Spider network is a type of Pierce network.
However, the network that you remember is indeed most likely different from Spider:
- it was coax based, whereas the Spider line was a twisted pair
- there was more than one, whereas Spider only ever had one (operational) loop
Condon and Weller are acknowledged in the report about Spider as having done many of its
hardware details. The report discusses learnings from the project and having to tune
repeaters is not among them (but another operational issue with its 'line access
modules’ is discussed).
All in all, maybe these coax loops were pre-cursors to the Spider network, without a
switch on the loop (“C” nodes in the Pierce paper). It makes sense to first try out the
electrical and line data protocol before starting work on higher level functions.
I have no idea what a GLANCE G is...