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Comment Assembler (Score 1) 168

Started in mid sixties as hardware tech learning (company trained) on various hardware - mainframe and mini. Example was Collin's Radio C8401 mainframe. It was all transistor system - and it was a micro coded system. The micro code memory was called 'biax memory'. Biax was loaded (rarely needed - core memory kept contents) by a 9600 baud mylar tape reader, that emitted tape so fast it streamed about six feet before falling to ground. - Ahh the good old days! As an aside - biax memory unit was made by a division of Ford Motor Company. Also rumour had it that 'another' reason Collins' chose microcode was the ability to be able to emulate in microcode other mainframe vendors codeset. The C8401 was used as message switch for primarily Baudot networks (octal code) and as such had the ability to address a sixteen bit word in full - say Load #0addr - loaded sixteen bit fullword, Load #1addr, Load#2addr, Load#3addr to get five bits from first, second and third five bit 'chunks' from 'addr'. As more hardware was brought online - C8501. DEC and DGen minis, Philips mainframe, as a hardware techie I was trained to the gate level on all systems, all devices and basic assembler coding on all systems. Those days are long gone! I eventually went into programming - Mainly assembler, C, and smattering of other high level languages as needed.
Microsoft

Microsoft's Open-Source Graph Engine Takes On Neo4j (infoworld.com) 17

An anonymous reader quotes a report from InfoWorld: Sometimes the relationships between the data you've gathered are more important than the data itself. That's when a graph processing system comes in handy. It's an important but often poorly understood method for exploring how items in a data set are interrelated. Microsoft's been exploring this area since at least 2013, when it published a paper describing the Trinity project, a cloud-based, in-memory graph engine. The fruits of the effort, known as the Microsoft Graph Engine, are now available as an MIT-licensed open source project as an alternative to the likes of Neo4j or the Linux Foundation's recently announced JanusGraph. Microsoft calls Graph Engine (GE) as "both a RAM store and a computation engine." Data can be inserted into GE and retrieved at high speed since it's kept in-memory and only written back to disk as needed. It can work as a simple key-value store like Memcached, but Redis may be the better comparison, since GE stores data in strongly typed schemas (string, integer, and so on). How does all this shape up against the leading open source graph database, Neo4j? For one, Neo4j has been in the market longer and has an existing user base. It's also available in both an open source community edition and a commercial product, whereas GE is only an open source project right now.

Comment 128 bytes RAM (Score 1) 587

my first commercial pc was Netronics S100 Explorer with 128 bytes - yes bytes onboard RAM. It had 2K Rom boot and simple read/write/dump memory functions. It booted to a 35ASR Teletype w/paper tape punch and reader. It also had audio cassette interface for storage. I also used paper tape for storage. Wrote editor assembler for the onboard 8085 using op codes at first then assembler. Gradually added 2114 (1k by 4) sram chips - so 2 chips per k as needed for editor/assembler and work file. Ended up with 4k Ram on S100 Ram Board!! Completed school assignment on this system and was first to get prof to accept assignment written on home pc. Whoop-de-do!!

Comment 128 bytes (Score 1) 587

my first commercial computer (not my homebuilt wire wrapped 8080) was Netronics 8085 S100 Explorer ('79-'80??). It had 128 bytes - yep 128 bytes 'local' ram and 2k rom os. Booted up to a 35ASR Teletype. Storage was Cassette Tape although I could dump to paper tape on the Teletype (and read back - of course!!). Gradually added 2114 Static (whooo!!) Ram in 1k increments (1k by 4) - so 2 chips = 1k to S100 Sram board. till eventually got 4k ram. Wrote editor/assembler using op codes only at first. Was first student to get an assignment accepted by a prof at York University that was done on a home PC. Whoop-de-do.

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