Duane Sand (duanebsand.delete@this.gmail.com) on July 26, 2022 3:19 pm wrote:
> Matt Sayler (sayler.delete@this.thewalrus.org) on July 26, 2022 11:57 am wrote:
> > Duane Sand (duanebsand.delete@this.gmail.com) on July 24, 2022 11:50 am wrote:
> > > What was this amazing thing? How was it so fast? How was it used? Did it need water cooling,
> > > also? What were the reasons to not use similar techniques for the mainframes themselves? Could
> > > a similar design be used in our latest cmos chips, with similarly fast single-thread results?
> >
> > It seems like an odd thing to build, absent some specific requirement. It's a hard to tell from the
> > little public docs what the console would do that would prompt someone to use this approach.
> >
> > Any details? I see the 3036 described as a dual display console with some diagnostic
> > and control apparatus. I assume that the two displays have their own logic to control
> > and generate the view…? What else would the "console" have done?
>
> Yes, an odd thing to build.

I wonder if IBM wanted to test out some techniques in a "real" chip but one that didn't need them (so that if they didn't work out it didn't matter). The 3090 used ECL (at least some models). Maybe the idea was to test out some circuit designs here where if they missed on frequency it didn't matter?

IBM did have previous experience with ECL, but maybe it wasn't current?