All hail GPU computing!! The CPU cruncher is dead!

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Profile soft^spirit
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Message 1082448 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 20:30:32 UTC

The first computers I worked on were DEC 11/30's.
The first one I owned was a Tandy Color Computer II,
with an amazing 128K of RAM, and an add on floppy drive.

The first computer I built started as an XT,
but by the time I was finished it had evolved into a 286/12,
with an entire 1 meg of RAM, 30 Megabytes of hard disk, and both 3.5
and 5.25" floppy disks.


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Message 1082453 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 20:45:02 UTC - in response to Message 1082436.  
Last modified: 28 Feb 2011, 21:39:05 UTC

Mine was a 1 Mhz 6502 in an Apple II+ - even then we overclocked the CPU to 1.33Mhz with a new crystal for the clock generator. It had 48k of RAM at purchase and then I upgraded it with another 16k to 64K total. And let me tell you when I got my 1MB ram disk I thought I was pretty darn cool!

Todd

My first PC was a 486-66 with (I think) 8MB ram and a 340MB HD.

No, wait...the 340MB HD was in my next one, a Cyrix 686-166.


Well, crap, I didn't think to go that far back. Mine was an Apple //e with 64K, which I upgraded to an Enhanced //e with 128K and 80-column support. :) Got my first taste of assembly programming and sprite coding on that bugger.
EDIT: Oh, and I still have it in my closet.
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think."

"I never get into an argument that I cannot win."
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Message 1082463 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 21:34:48 UTC
Last modified: 28 Feb 2011, 21:36:03 UTC

Well my computer experience doesn't go back quite as far as some of you. My first taste of computers was in 1989 in 2nd grade. The school had bought 6 of the "new" Macintosh SE/30's. 16MHz of speed. I still remembering the school teaching us how to load programs from the 5-1/4's to play 'learning games'. Included games like SimCity and "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego". Those two games got me pretty invested in computing the rest of my life. Later in school age years they skipped computers for us until about 6th grade where we start learning about various things, then devious things started happening in 8th and 9th grade. ;) Especially when in 1992' I was introduced to Geo-Cities and the 'Modern' internet. It's been one heck of a trip and speeding up all the time!

The first pc I had at home was a Packard Bell 33Mhz Pentium with 500MB of hard disk and 4MB of ram. Awesome machine at the time, good enough to play the original Warcraft!
Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!
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Profile Todd Hebert
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Message 1082469 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 21:52:42 UTC - in response to Message 1082448.  

I only went as far back as one's that I owned - anyone remember Control Data? Yeah that was a long time ago! I forget the model number but it had punch cards for input and it took days to get the output because the programs were run in sequence they were submitted at the University data center. Only thing they supported was FORTRAN or COBOL and you needed to make a special request for FORTRAN.

Wow - that was a way long time ago - waxing nastalgic!
Todd
The first computers I worked on were DEC 11/30's.
The first one I owned was a Tandy Color Computer II,
with an amazing 128K of RAM, and an add on floppy drive.

The first computer I built started as an XT,
but by the time I was finished it had evolved into a 286/12,
with an entire 1 meg of RAM, 30 Megabytes of hard disk, and both 3.5
and 5.25" floppy disks.



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Message 1082471 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 21:56:01 UTC - in response to Message 1082380.  
Last modified: 28 Feb 2011, 21:57:19 UTC

I had myself an AMD 386DX40 based system, and later put in a Cyrix (FasMath) 387DX+.

The AMD was faster than i386DX33 due to a higher clockrate (and I believe a larger "cache"), and the Cyrix was about 50% faster than Intels 387DX, due to higher clockrate, and more efficient design.

I had a very fast computer at the time, with a 100Mb Seagate HDD and a staggering 8Mbytes of RAM in it :)

These were good times, the 386DX40 lasted for a couple of years, much longer than my current hardware normally does.
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Profile Todd Hebert
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Message 1082472 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 21:56:11 UTC - in response to Message 1082463.  

The Mac SE didn't have a 5 1/4" drive - they were 3.5" 400k drives.
Todd
I still remembering the school teaching us how to load programs from the 5-1/4's to play 'learning games'.


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Message 1082477 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 22:04:34 UTC

Todd,
ALGOL on a G-10. FORTRAN/COBOL on a G-20. I think that's what they were. I dropped too many stacks of punch cards to remember.

bob
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Message 1082484 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 22:36:36 UTC

I handled punch cards (from a nostalgic standpoint), but never actually used them for an actual business purpose. I did learn a lot of FORTRAN and Pascal in college, and one semester of COBOL. It was the COBOL for which I was hired out of college for my first job. :(
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think."

"I never get into an argument that I cannot win."
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Message 1082487 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 22:42:10 UTC - in response to Message 1082472.  

The Mac SE didn't have a 5 1/4" drive - they were 3.5" 400k drives.
Todd
I still remembering the school teaching us how to load programs from the 5-1/4's to play 'learning games'.



Couldn't remember exactly it was a long time ago ;) Bad thing is I've seen floppy come and go, tape is about gone, and CD/DVD isn't far behind it now.
Traveling through space at ~67,000mph!
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Message 1082488 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 22:42:34 UTC - in response to Message 1082484.  

Perforated paper tape data..
Wow.. it was all electro mechanical so I never even considered using it in discussion. Yes, actualy used, spliced, put stacks of paper in, take reels of perforated paper out..

State of the Ark equipment even at that time.
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Message 1082514 - Posted: 28 Feb 2011, 23:53:29 UTC

Oh dear. Used them all.

Paper tape? Make a copy, single step as you approach an error, wind the 'read' head past the bad bit, key the correction, run to end of tape (or the next error). That's how I word-processed my dissertation.

Punched cards? I was trained on the mechanical, 12-plunger, card punches. Numeric data is easy - one key. Use the middle finger, not the index finger, to press the plunger home - saves you from RSI. That's how I type to this day. Alpha needed two fingers at once, punctuation three fingers (of one hand, with force).

5¼" or 3½" disks? True story: new secretary starts work in small office. Obviously competent (passes typing test at interview). First day, she's told: what we do here is each store our own work on our own disk. There's a box in the cupboard, help yourself, format it, label it and store the letters you type on it. Is that OK? Yes she says. Goes to the cupboard looking for the 5¼" floppy disks she was trained on. Only finds 3½" disks. Locates computer manual, finds chapter about formatting these new-fangled hard disks. Succeeds.....
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Message 1082516 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 0:05:33 UTC - in response to Message 1082514.  
Last modified: 1 Mar 2011, 0:06:25 UTC

too funny..
My work for quite some time used..

Washtub Disk drives
20" Filestores(estimated at 6-8 megabytes
8" lark drives (20 megs fixed, 20 meg removable hard drive)
13" hard disks(still in use when I retired in 2009)
6250 BPI reel to reel tapes

The papertapes I worked on had perforators about the size of a Washing Machine,
the reels were near 30" diameter.. They were continuous so we had to periodically cut off the output and ship it to be read elsewhere. The incoming strips were folded but not perforated much like a 3-4" wide box of computer paper, and when one box got low needed to be spliced onto the next box...

I did manage to upgrade some TTY's while I was there (yes, actual teletypes)
from baud to 300 baud.. I got a lot of flack for "why? I can not type that fast anyway"

But downstairs had the dedicated 4 wire data circuits running the brand new Dataspeed 40's.
At an amazing 1200 "baud"
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Message 1082522 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 0:18:47 UTC

I too started on punched paper tape and a teletype, and learned Fortran on punched cards. Now my rig has 4 TB internal, and 5.5 TB external hard drives. I keep wondering where we will be in another 20 or 30 years! This is almost too fast to keep up with!

Steve
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Message 1082523 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 0:24:06 UTC

Here is a sneak peek at what should be just around the corner.

http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=151

Steve
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Message 1082524 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 0:25:57 UTC - in response to Message 1082516.  
Last modified: 1 Mar 2011, 0:30:53 UTC

6250 BPI reel to reel tapes

Ah, yes...and the cartridges too...



I still have a lot of the write-protect rings that my daughter used as toys when she was younger.
I and my co-workers used to hold them by the tab and bounce them on the floor over the cubicle walls...
"Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think."

"I never get into an argument that I cannot win."
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Message 1082531 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 0:47:41 UTC

I haven't owned a computer until recently, but the first computer I used was, of course, at school. A BBC Micro. Used for playing games mainly :)
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Message 1082534 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 0:55:17 UTC - in response to Message 1082523.  

Here is a sneak peek at what should be just around the corner.

http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=151

Steve


ahh yes.. And honestly 40-80 core CPU's could move them back into significance
for all out FFT number crunching.
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Message 1082541 - Posted: 1 Mar 2011, 1:11:36 UTC

The 1st computer I used was in high school. we programed a dragster with horsepower,wheel size,weight,etc and then saw how our car performed. we watched as the race progressed, printed on continous feed paper with a dot matrix. Later my brother had an apple IIc I believe, that I used and the 1st I bought for myself was a Mac SE. My brother bought one at the same time, he got the 20 mb hard drive and I got the dual floppy.( I got this one because I had no idea what a hard drive was or the function it performed haha)
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Message 1083523 - Posted: 4 Mar 2011, 14:52:01 UTC - in response to Message 1082541.  

I've also had 8086/8088 and before the PENTIUM, I used a 486DX4 100, 16MByte RAM
and a 160MByte HD, which also had VESA-Local Bus, for 'extended graphics' and
a SCSI card for the use of a few HDD's and CD-ROM's.
Quite some time ago..... :)




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Message 1083540 - Posted: 4 Mar 2011, 16:31:57 UTC - in response to Message 1082534.  

Here is a sneak peek at what should be just around the corner.

http://techresearch.intel.com/ProjectDetails.aspx?Id=151

Steve


ahh yes.. And honestly 40-80 core CPU's could move them back into significance
for all out FFT number crunching.



I wonder what kind of RAC that baby could do? I want one:)
[/quote]

Old James
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Message boards : Number crunching : All hail GPU computing!! The CPU cruncher is dead!


 
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