[geeks] fwd: IBM supercomputer dual-boots Windows and Linux

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: "Jonathan C. Patschke" <jp at celestrion.net>
>Date: 2008/06/21 Sat PM 07:27:44 EDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] fwd: IBM supercomputer dual-boots Windows and Linux

<snip>

>Modern computers have attached processors.  Older computers also had
>attached processors.  Even the programmer's console on many PDPs had an
>i8008 to control it.  There even existed microcoded -terminals- as far
>back as 30 years ago.  Nearly any peripheral device has to have some sort
>of embedded control program to be useful.

The Hazeltine 1500 terminal had a Z80 CPU inside it, back when many people were still hooking up these terminals to CP/M machines with, you guessed it, Z80 CPUs...

My first printer, a Mannesman-Tally desktop printer (which I think I still have, square print heads[0] and all!) had a 68000 CPU inside it - which I quickly hooked up to my Dec Pro-350, and later my Mac Pro with a, you guessed it again(!), 68000-family CPU...

Lionel

[0] They used square print heads (pins) instead of round ones, becuse it made the output look so much better - for example a cpaital I had a straight line in the middle, not a stack of similar-sized circles, like a stretched-out snowman...