Does anyone know the system number for the KA10 at the University of Washington?

"m. thompson" <michael.99.thompson@gmail.com> writes:

> Does anyone know the system number for the KA10 at the University of Washington?

I'm unaware of a KA-10 at UW. What's your source?

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen

Rich Alderson wrote:
> m. thompson wrote:
>> Does anyone know the system number for the KA10 at the University of
>> Washington?
> I'm unaware of a KA-10 at UW. What's your source?

That would be me. I learned about this somewhat recent photo:
https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/pdp10/

It's currently in David Eppstein's office at UCI. I contacted him, and
he told me Richard Pattis brought it there. So I contacted Pattis who
told me he got it from UW in the 80s, where the machine was about to be
demolished. He thought it was from the "Physics building." So I
contacted Pat Tressel who told me she was a programmer on this machine,
and it was at the "Visual Techniques Lab", doing bubble chamber
analysis. A 2005 post of hers about this can be found in this very
Usenet group.

Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> writes:

> Rich Alderson wrote:

>> m. thompson wrote:

>>> Does anyone know the system number for the KA10 at the University of
>>> Washington?

>> I'm unaware of a KA-10 at UW. What's your source?

> That would be me. I learned about this somewhat recent photo:
> https://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/pix/pdp10/

> It's currently in David Eppstein's office at UCI. I contacted him, and
> he told me Richard Pattis brought it there. So I contacted Pattis who
> told me he got it from UW in the 80s, where the machine was about to be
> demolished. He thought it was from the "Physics building." So I
> contacted Pat Tressel who told me she was a programmer on this machine,
> and it was at the "Visual Techniques Lab", doing bubble chamber
> analysis. A 2005 post of hers about this can be found in this very
> Usenet group.

Interesting. PGA wasn't yet collecting old systems when this one was in the
wind, or he'd have snapped it up (especially with the UW connection!).

It clearly wasn't there when he was wandering the campus in the late 60s/early
70s, or it would have been mentioned in his autobiography.

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen

It seems the machine was mentioned in various Bill Gates interviews:

"There was a PDP-10 in the Physics Building which was by the fountain
– now that building is Mary Gates Hall. That PDP-10 was almost
entirely dedicated to scanning bubble chamber photos from particle
accelerators, including the one at Stanford. Paul found out that it
would complete its work after about 18 hours, so there were some free
hours early in the morning. A friend had a key to the Physics
Building so we went up there a lot of times."

https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Early-Days-as-a-Computer-Programmer

"I also found that the old Physics building at the UW had a PDP-10
computer that was busy about 20 hours a day analyzing photos of
particle interactions. I felt a duty to do something about those
remaining four hours. I learned that if I waited till my parents were
asleep, snuck out of the house in the middle of the night, and made it
to the Physics building by 3 a.m., a student would let me in, and I
could have a PDP-10 all to myself for a few hours."

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/speeches/2004/10/bill-gates-university-of-washington

"Now, our idea of playing with a computer was to sneak in at night,
like at the University of Washington, and get the thing at the
Department of Physics that nobody was using, and use it all night,
because they were big and expensive, that was our only way."

https://techland.time.com/2007/06/08/bill_gates_the_early_years_dam/

Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> writes:

> It seems the machine was mentioned in various Bill Gates interviews:

> "There was a PDP-10 in the Physics Building which was by the fountain

[ snip ]

Interesting. PGA mostly talked about the Burroughs 5500 (which was one of the
systems we never found for him); he didn't mention the Physics PDP-10.

(I was one of the readers for drafts of _Idea Man_, which went through four
revisions before going out to the publisher. If he'd mentioned that -10, I'd
have noticed.)

--
Rich Alderson news@alderson.users.panix.com
Audendum est, et veritas investiganda; quam etiamsi non assequamur,
omnino tamen proprius, quam nunc sumus, ad eam perveniemus.
--Galen

On Tuesday, September 6, 2022 at 1:03:26 PM UTC-7, Rich Alderson wrote:

(snip)

> Interesting. PGA mostly talked about the Burroughs 5500 (which was one of the
> systems we never found for him); he didn't mention the Physics PDP-10.

The B5500 was the computer that my actual first program was on, when I was
almost nine. Not so much later, it got sold.

My dad was supposed to teach a class on ALGOL programming,
and practiced on me.

I have heard a few times that there are no B5500 around anymore.

gah4 <gah4@u.washington.edu> writes:
>On Tuesday, September 6, 2022 at 1:03:26 PM UTC-7, Rich Alderson wrote:
>
>(snip)
>
>> Interesting. PGA mostly talked about the Burroughs 5500 (which was one of the
>> systems we never found for him); he didn't mention the Physics PDP-10.
>
>The B5500 was the computer that my actual first program was on, when I was
>almost nine. Not so much later, it got sold.

Same here, I was 12. The system was at UWEC. A decade later, I
was working for Burroughs.

>I have heard a few times that there are no B5500 around anymore.
>

Highly unlikely. The descendents of the follow-on B6700 are still
around, in emulated form. See Unisys Clearpath.