Computer structures

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1. Doctor-RMay 2024
   Some of his books are available in pdf on his website: https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/gbvita.htm

   I used Computer Structures:Readings and Examples in an architecture class, and High Tech Ventures in an entrepreneurial class at Stanford.

   I feel that Digital Equipment Corp entered a death spiral when he left.

   As a volunteer, I was fortunate that I was able to work with him on some projects at the Computer History Museum. I wish that I had taped him discussing many of the artifacts in the exhibit, especially machines he worked on.

   I created some training notebooks for CHM docents using chapters from Computer Structures, and the 1982 revised version.

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2. drpixieFeb 2023
   You’re correct in thinking that there is nothing magical about LSB or MSB. As long as everything agrees, we get the results we’re expecting. Though for serial communication, networking, and similar, don’t assume anything :)

   Historically, order is a little more interesting. Our earlier computers conveniently had instructions, registers, and memory all exactly the same width (perhaps 27, 36, or 60 bits). MSB/LSB was not a thing. But shortly after the “dawn of time” computers started to provide double- triple- and quad- data and instructions. Memory was expensive and if most data/instructions fitted into X bits (maybe 12, 32 or 36 bits) that’s what you used. But some data/instructions need more space, hence “double” floats, “long” ints, or complex instructions. Now designers (and programmers) needed to consider which part of the data/instruction is at which address, and order becomes a thing.

   Each designer found advantages to a specific order … they tended to be small advantages and depended on their previous design decisions. But the tech was being pushed to the limit, so small advantages counted. For example, if you store instructions with the opcode at the “start”, then decoding can happen while the normal increment-PC mechanism is used to fetch the rest of the instruction – saves having extra logic to calculate the address of the rest of the instruction – saves a few gates here and a register there.

   Computer history is marvellous – I’d recommend Tanenbaum’s “Structured Computer Organisation” and Siewiorek’s “Computer Structures”.

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3. jonjackyNov 2023
   A detailed description of the Programma 101 architecture and internals appears as Chapter 19 in the book Computer Structures: Readings & Examples edited by Gordon Bell and Alan Newell, 1971.

   Bell and Newell write, "The Programma 101 (Chap. 19) is at the limit of what we call a stored program computer. It has a sufficient instruction set to be classified as a computer, but the storage for temporary data, constants, and programs is limited. ..." (from the beginning of Section 4 in the book, linked at Bell's web site, URL below)

   Here is the HTML verson from Gordon Bell's website:

   https://gordonbell.azurewebsites.net/Computer_Structures__Re...

   Here are scans of the original book pages from a computer history site:

   https://tcm.computerhistory.org/ComputerTimeline/Chap19_oliv...

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4. masswerkJul 2019
   You are welcome! :-)

   Regarding the PDP-8, have a look into "Computer Engineering" by Gordon Bell, Craig Mudge and John McNamara; DEC, 1978. (Quite common to find at a reasonable price, there are even some PDFs circulating, which may be found by your search engine of choice.)

   Edit: Maybe also of interest, "Computer Structures: Reading and Examples" by Gordon Bell and Allen Newell (McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1971). For availability, see above.

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5. RNeffJul 2015
   Gordon Bell and Allen Newell edited wrote "Computer Structures: Readings and Examples" 1971, which is a collection of original technical papers and their commentary on significant computers. It is online at: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Computer...

   With Daniel P. Siewiorek, they revised the book in 1982 as "Computer Structures: Principles and Examples" with new material, it is online at: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Computer...

   There are lots of inexpensive copies of the books available at used book sites or Amazon. All of Gordon Bell's publications are at: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/Pubs.htm

   In 2011, Ron Mak taught a course at San Jose State University: CS 185C: The History of Computing. He invited a number of famous experts to speak to the class, including Bell, Knuth, Kay, Gosling, Feigenbaum, Alcorn, etc. (I am certainly not famous; I gave a lecture on the HP-35 and other early pocket calculators). http://www.cs.sjsu.edu/~mak/CS185C/

   There are a lot of links to papers and other videos. The textbook used in the class was "A History of Modern Computing, 2nd edition" by Paul E. Ceruzzi

   Visit the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, Paul Allen's Living Computer Museum in Seattle, WA (computers that still run), and London's Science Museum.

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6. kpsJun 2014
   According to Gordon Bell's Computer Structures: Reading and Examples, the best-case memory access time of the LGP-30 was 2.34 milliseconds†. Most instructions required two memory accesses (the instruction itself, and an operand), which gives you around 200 instructions per second.

   The machine had only two registers: the accumulator, and the program counter. The only place you could use a pointer was in the address field of an instruction. In order to increment a pointer, you would load an instruction into the accumulator, add to it, and store it back. Best case, you could increment 67 pointers per second. Worst case, nine.

   Mel's job, in this instance, was not to write beautiful maintainable code. It was to write a demo that would sell the machine to potential customers, rather than boring them to death.

   † http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/gbell/computer...

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