Talk:Control Data Corporation

message: I would like to know if Control Data Corporation  is Alive today. Thanks. Jocax@usp.br
:Yes.  It is no longer called Control Data Corporation (August, 2003). Control Data Corporation changed its name twice in the 1990s. The first time, they changed to Control Data Systems. The second time, they changed to Syntegra, when Control Data Systems was bought out by British Telecommunications, PLC. Now, according to Charles Babbage Institute, Control Data is operating as Syntegra. Paul G.
::I disagree; the brief answer definitely should be "no". CDC sold off some business units in the early 1990s, and the remainder in 1992 split into 2 parts, neither named "Control Data"-anything today, and neither manufacturing computers--the basis of CDC's fame.  Although the reality is different from--and more complex than--the description above by "Paul G.", I've created a WikiWiki page at Control Data that should clear things up for readers arriving at this page with questions about the fate of CDC. --ClayPhipps 23:06, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: CDC alive still going strong?

message: Can IBM's non-existent Model 92 really be referred to as FUD, shorthand for "Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt"?  Isn't paper launch a more appropriate term?
--Drhex 07:59, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps, but considering CDC successfully sued IBM based on the argument that it was FUD (although as the article notes this term was not common), I think it's suitable to refer to it this way. According to what I have read of the case, IBM salesdrones were telling potential customers to ignore the CDC machines because the 92 was going to be out "Real Soon Now" and would outperform it. Neither of those claims turned out to be true, as history noted. Maury 15:32, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

text: It's still used today, often by IBM's competitor, Microsoft.  Try getting a corporate manager to replace their 500 copies of Microsoft Office with the open source product Open Office, and you'll hear the same FUD.  Or any big-name PC software product.  T bonham (talk) 02:55, 1 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: IBM Model 92 FUD or not?

message: I wrote articles on Computer Peripherals Inc and Centronics some time back that might deserve a mention here.  CDC is not my area of expertise, so if someone thinks it fits and can find a good way to fit it in, please do so.  --Gadget850 13:22, 20 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: CPI & Centronics

message: There should be some discussion of CDC's software and networking, which was excellent for its time.  Sometimes around 1976, CDC built the MERITSS time sharing system, which supported 2000 terminals located in the highschools of Minnesota.  In terms of operating systems, they has a batch system called SCOPE, and later KRONOS and NOS, which were time-sharing systems based in part on paradigms from the Dartmouth Timesharing system.  CDC was the king of timesharing.  Having use the hideous IBM and Univac TS systems, I can say CDC really did get it right. DonPMitchell 03:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Operating Systems and Networks 

message: I added Category:Control Data Corporation to Wikimedia Commons so that any images pertaining to Control Data could be found from there, because a cursory search for just 'CDC' yields results that mention Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in one way or another. — Which is why all CDC computer images are welcome to be categorized to the aforementioned category. I also added an external link to Commons. -Mardus 03:53, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikimedia Commons and other images 

message: CDC also made a model called the 3800.  It was a CDC3600 with the CDC6000 memory modules.  These modules took 5 cabinets for 4K of memory.  Each memory location was 52 bits long, i.e. 48 data bits with 4 parity bits and took a 1 ton refrigeration unit to keep the modules cool.  I went to school on them at the Los Angeles CDI school in 1967.  I was then transferred to another city in California where the military had 6 of them along with about 10 CDC 160A computers.  
I was in the last class CDI taught on this computer.  Even CDI in Minneapolis did not teach it any longer.  
The mainframe of this computer was made from "discrete" components, i.e., no integrated circuits as was the CDC 160A.  Since CDI no longer taught it and we needed people trained, I developed a component level course on this computer.  It was 6 weeks long, 8 hours per day and 5 days per week.
I knew of only one CDC3800 that was not owned by the military.  This one was owned by a company named "Interaccess".  I had to work on their system one time.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by BikerLen (talk • contribs) 23:19, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: One 3800 on display at the NASM Annex at Dulles outside Washington DC. 00:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  CDC 3800 

message: I worked with a Cyber 18 minicomputer in the 1979-1981 timeframe.  I do not know much of its characteristics other than it had a 16 bit processor and around 256kilobytes of RAM.  I worked with two installations, one at the University of Georgia that was used for FORTRAN programming classes and one for the UN World Meteorological Organization in Saudia Arabia where it was used as a message switch as part of the WMO weather data collection network.  The Cyber 18s I worked with came with assembler, FORTRAN and RPG II programming languages.  It had a multi-tasking/multi-user operating system and supported several simultaneous users with VT100 type terminals.
The one I used in the university had a small card reader, a tape drive, and two disk drives that were of the old stacked platters discs that were removable.  The actual drives looked a lot like small top loading washing machines and the platter stacks were stored in what looked like cake carriers when they were not in the drive itself.  http://www.eits.uga.edu/50years/
At the university some of the student employees were interested in C programming language and the UNIX operating system at the time and added the RATFOR preprocessor for FORTRAN to the Cyber 18 installation.
Several articles mentions the Cyber 18
* http://en.allexperts.com/e/c/cd/cdc_cyber.htm
* http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/CDC_Cyber#encyclopedia
* http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/CDC-Cyber
Here is something about the disk packs http://www.mfarris.com/pack/cdc_cyber.html
I kind of wonder if the Cyber 18 was basically CDC just redeploying one of the periperal processors used in the CDC mainframes in order to get into the minicomputer market as quickly as possible.  I don't very many were sold.
Richardelainechambers (talk) 17:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cyber 18 and minicomputers made by CDC 

message: I have some info for you on Magnetic Peripherals Inc. (aka: MPI) I thought perhaps you might want to add some of this info to create a page for MPI, linked to the CDC page. This should help with expanding the MPI info and the products they handled.
I used to work there in 1980 and 1981 in Oklahoma City. I still have my ID if I need to verify it to someone in charge.
I was a technician back then and troubleshot and repaired most of the peripherals we handled.
I worked on the 14 inch cartridge disk, break boards, controller cards, etc, which we  troubleshot using a very large diagnostic station called a "Genrad." I rewrote one of the diagnostic software programs to improve the Genrad diagnostics.  Genrad is a contraction for "General Radio", a Massachusetts electronics firm well-known for quality test equipment over several decades.
I also did troubleshooting and repair on the 8" Shugart floppy drives and control boards which were typically found in IBM systems such as the PDP series... if I remember correctly, a couple of those systems were the PDP 1128 and 1133... but I'm not positive on the numbers. but I worked on those systems which had the shugart drives for a prior employer.
I also worked on the Winchester drives and control boards and phoenix control boards.
I was there when the new Tandy 5 1/4 floppy drives were introduced and started coming into the repair dept. These were our first sandwiched drives with a double layer of circuit boards so the drive could be physically smaller. I believe these were the very first 5 1/4 floppy drives made in the industry at the time. No one had ever seen a drive that small before. 
We had quite a problem with CMOS chips .... especially on the Winchester drives until they learned about static damage. I had called the upper managers in 1983 after I moved and explained how the static was damaging the chips and sent them info and photos I had from JPL on this problem I had special training in after moving. MPI implemented a new program on preventing static damage.
I also remember the Teledyne test station... I knew the person handling those boards but did not use it myself. 
I also remember seeing the 10" stacked platter drives there but did not work on those.
I also have a very nice, large photo of the entire staff management and technical crew in the repair dept from that time... it it a high angle photo so it shows almost the entire repair dept and was signed by the crew when I moved. I would be willing to make the photo available for the page when I find it. I also had smaller photos of various members of the crew, etc.
Last I heard, their name was changed to Seagate.
I may have some other info squirreled away somewhere.
Let me know what you need. I will defer to someone else who wants to add this to the appropriate pages since I'm not familiar with the page publishing rules.
ExecPE (talk) 10:09, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:   info about Magnetic Peripherals Inc. 

message: As a technical person who was active in the business in the 60s, I'm struck by the naivety reflected in this treatise, and I doubt that some of the comparisons are accurate.  When talking about computer performance, we first have to answer the question, "Doing what kind of work?."  Real customers at the time (the 60s) were complaining about machines that were overly optimized for commercial work (character machines) or scientific work (floating point, or "word" machines.  The author makes the unsupported statement that the CDC 6600 (1964) was 10 times as fast as its competition.  Doing what kind of work?  Even limiting the comparison to Fortran-only workloads (i.e., predominately floating point) the 6600 made about 3 mflops (1 to 9 mflops, depending on which source you cite) and IBM's System 360/Model 91 (1966) at 5.5 mflops [ref: http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PP2091.html].
The fact that neither machine could really be considered a commercial success because of their high cost and limited sales volume is particularly telling.  It was for this reason that IBM had decided earlier on to shelve its high-performance program (ACS, or system 8000) in favor of System 360.  It became clear early on that designing a very fast machine could be accomplished if the design could be carefully tailored to the workload, and then, to what end?  In fact, CDC recognized this even during the 6600 era, opting, instead, to focus its sales activities on the much less costly 6400 which used far fewer specialized components.  For the System 360 program, IBM diverted more of less all of its development resources with the goal of a complete line of compatible machines, suitable for both commercial or scientific (engineering) work.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atraveler1 (talk • contribs) 20:53, 19 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Challenging Author's Performance Assertions 

message: I tried locating who are the current owners of the old OSes but it seems no one really knows.
Tried mailing to the maintainer of the "dtcyber" simulator site, but there is still no reply.
If someone knows whether it is BT or Ceridian or any other entity who owns the rights (and has) the binaries on tapes and/or the code, I think it would be of interest to add this as well.
:As far as I know BT was indeed the last owner of the old CDC OSes (that was circa 2004?). I think they even licensed the OSes for hobbyist use at the time.
:Maybe try the cctalk@classiccmp.org mailing list. Also the guys at cray-cyber.org have a couple of operational Cybers maybe they can help you as well.
:Bitsavers has some Cyber18 stuff  but nothing for CDC mainframes.
:--Jside (talk) 12:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Current owners of KRONOS/NOS and NOS/VE code 

message: have any history?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.174.119.216 (talk) 12:45, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system) doesn't suffice?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.252.11.61 (talk) 12:50, 30 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need Discussion of Plato and Norris's foray into Educational Computing -- Anyone 

message: Substituted at 12:14, 29 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Assessment comment

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Control Data Corporation. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051115050846/http://www.travel-tidbits.com/tidbits/003654.shtml to http://www.travel-tidbits.com/tidbits/003654.shtml
*Added archive https://archive.is/20120718125648/http://purl.umn.edu/107431 to http://purl.umn.edu/107431
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20061210135222/http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/GC-CDC3800.htm to http://www.nasm.si.edu/research/dsh/artifacts/GC-CDC3800.htm
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 17:12, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified