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Elxsi
Elxsi Corporation was a minicomputer manufacturing company established in the late 1970s in Silicon Valley, US, along with a host of competitors ( Trilogy Systems, Sequent, Convex Computer). The Elxsi processor was an Emitter Coupled Logic (ECL) design that featured a 50-nanosecond clock, a 25-nanosecond back panel bus, IEEE floating-point arithmetic and a 64-bit architecture. It allowed multiple processors to communicate over a common bus called the Gigabus, believed to be the first company to do so. The operating system was a message-based operating system called EMBOS. The Elxsi CPU was a microcoded design, allowing custom instructions to be coded into microcode. History Elxsi was founded in 1979 by Joe Rizzi (previously a manager at Intersil) and Thampy Thomas (who would go on to found NexGen Microsystems). It is believed that Elxsi was the first startup founded by an Indian in Silicon Valley. Much of the architecture of the Elxsi machine was designed by former Stanford U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thampy Thomas
A. Thampy Thomas (born ) is an electrical engineer who contributed to microprocessor pipeline architecture and founded semiconductor company NexGen microsystems. Elxsi In 1979, Thomas co-founded Elxsi, a semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. Thomas holds Ph.D. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University and B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. Thomas was the Senior Vice President of Engineering at Elxsi from 1979 to 1985. Elxsi was the first computer company to use more than one processor. Elxsi investors included the Tata Group and Arthur Rock. NexGen After Elxsi, Thomas founded NexGen Microsystems. Nexgen implemented the x86 architecture in its processors. Their processors translated code designed to run on the traditionally CISC-based x86 architecture to run on the chip's internal RISC architecture. After the announcement of a competitor to Intel's i386 line of CPUs, journalist John C. Dvorak descri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
64-bit
In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit central processing units (CPU) and arithmetic logic units (ALU) are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A computer that uses such a processor is a 64-bit computer. From the software perspective, 64-bit computing means the use of machine code with 64-bit virtual memory addresses. However, not all 64-bit instruction sets support full 64-bit virtual memory addresses; x86-64 and AArch64, for example, support only 48 bits of virtual address, with the remaining 16 bits of the virtual address required to be all zeros (000...) or all ones (111...), and several 64-bit instruction sets support fewer than 64 bits of physical memory address. The term ''64-bit'' also describes a generation of computers in which 64-bit processors are the norm. 64 bits is a word size that defines certain classes of computer archi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trilogy Systems
Trilogy Systems Corporation was a computer systems company started in 1980. Originally called ACSYS, the company was founded by Gene Amdahl, his son Carl Amdahl and Clifford Madden. Flush with the success of his previous company, Amdahl Corporation, Gene Amdahl was able to raise $230 million for his new venture. Trilogy was the most well-funded start-up company up till that point in Silicon Valley history. It had corporate support from Groupe Bull, Digital Equipment Corporation, Unisys, Sperry Rand and others. The plan was to use extremely advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques to build an IBM compatible mainframe computer that was both cheaper and more powerful than existing systems from IBM and Amdahl Corporation. Amdahl leaves Amdahl Large computers of the 1960s and 70s were physically constructed using small circuit boards populated with individual transistors or small scale integrated circuits. Using many separate boards allowed them to remove malfunctioning circuits ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Amdahl
Gene Myron Amdahl (November 16, 1922 – November 10, 2015) was an American computer architect and high-tech entrepreneur, chiefly known for his work on mainframe computers at IBM and later his own companies, especially Amdahl Corporation. He formulated Amdahl's law, which states a fundamental limitation of parallel computing. Childhood and education Amdahl was born to immigrant parents of Norwegian and Swedish descent in Flandreau, South Dakota. After serving in the Navy during World War II he completed a degree in engineering physics at South Dakota State University in 1948. He went on to study theoretical physics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison under Robert G. Sachs. However, in 1950, Amdahl and Charles H. "Charlie" Davidson, a fellow PhD student in the Department of Physics, approached Prof. Harold A. Peterson with the idea of a digital computer. Amdahl and Davidson gained the support of Peterson and fellow electrical engineering professor Vincent C. Rideo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minisupercomputer
Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of computers that emerged in the mid-1980s, characterized by the combination of vector processing and small-scale multiprocessing. As scientific computing using vector processors became more popular, the need for lower-cost systems that might be used at the departmental level instead of the corporate level created an opportunity for new computer vendors to enter the market. As a generalization, the price targets for these smaller computers were one-tenth of the larger supercomputers. Several notable technical, economic, and political attributes characterize minisupercomputers. First, they were architecturally more diverse than prior mainframes and minicomputers in hardware and less diverse in software. Second, advances in VLSI made them less expensive (mini-price). These machines were market targeted to be cost-effective and quickly manufactured. Third, it is notable who did not manufacture minisupercomputers: within the USA, IBM ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tata Group
The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest business conglomerate, with products and services in over 160 countries, and operations in 100 countries. There are total 29 publicly listed Tata Group companies with a combined market capitalisation of ₹33.7 trillion (US$403 billion) as of 20 August 2024. History During the cotton boom in Bombay triggered by the American Civil War, Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata and his father became involved with the Asiatic Banking Corporation. However, when the market declined, the firm faced significant financial difficulties. In 1868, the family’s fortunes improved substantially after securing a share in a profitable contract to supply the commissariat for British expedition to Abyssinia, Napier's expedition to Abyssinia. Throughout his career, Tata remained focused on four major aspirations: establishing an iron ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tata Elxsi
The Tata Group () is an Indian multinational conglomerate group of companies headquartered in Mumbai. Established in 1868, it is India's largest business conglomerate, with products and services in over 160 countries, and operations in 100 countries. There are total 29 publicly listed Tata Group companies with a combined market capitalisation of ₹33.7 trillion (US$403 billion) as of 20 August 2024. History During the cotton boom in Bombay triggered by the American Civil War, Jamshedji Nusserwanji Tata and his father became involved with the Asiatic Banking Corporation. However, when the market declined, the firm faced significant financial difficulties. In 1868, the family’s fortunes improved substantially after securing a share in a profitable contract to supply the commissariat for Napier's expedition to Abyssinia. Throughout his career, Tata remained focused on four major aspirations: establishing an iron and steel company, building a landmark hotel, founding a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mainframe Computer
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing. A mainframe computer is large but not as large as a supercomputer and has more processing power than some other classes of computers, such as minicomputers, server (computing), servers, workstations, and personal computers. Most large-scale computer-system architectures were established in the 1960s, but they continue to evolve. Mainframe computers are often used as servers. The term ''mainframe'' was derived from the large cabinet, called a ''main frame'', that housed the central processing unit and main computer memory, memory of early computers. Later, the term ''mainframe'' was used to distinguish high-end commercial computers from less powerful machines. Design Modern mainfr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microprocessor
A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry required to perform the functions of a computer's central processing unit (CPU). The IC is capable of interpreting and executing program instructions and performing arithmetic operations. The microprocessor is a multipurpose, Clock signal, clock-driven, Processor register, register-based, digital integrated circuit that accepts binary code, binary data as input, processes it according to instruction (computing), instructions stored in its computer memory, memory, and provides results (also in binary form) as output. Microprocessors contain both combinational logic and sequential logic, sequential digital logic, and operate on numbers and symbols represented in the binary number system. The integration of a whole CPU on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Kahan
William "Velvel" Morton Kahan (born June 5, 1933) is a Canadian mathematician and computer scientist, who is a professor emeritus at University of California, Berkeley. He received the Turing Award in 1989 for "his fundamental contributions to numerical analysis." Biography Born to a Canadian Jewish family, he attended the University of Toronto, where he received his bachelor's degree in 1954, his master's degree in 1956, and his Ph.D. in 1958, all in the field of mathematics. Kahan is now emeritus professor of mathematics and of electrical engineering and computer sciences (EECS) at the University of California, Berkeley. Kahan was the primary architect behind the IEEE 754-1985 standard for floating-point computation (and its radix-independent follow-on, IEEE 854). He has been called "The Father of Floating Point", since he was instrumental in creating the original IEEE 754 specification. Kahan continued his contributions to the IEEE 754 revision that led to the current IEE ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
COBOL
COBOL (; an acronym for "common business-oriented language") is a compiled English-like computer programming language designed for business use. It is an imperative, procedural, and, since 2002, object-oriented language. COBOL is primarily used in business, finance, and administrative systems for companies and governments. COBOL is still widely used in applications deployed on mainframe computers, such as large-scale batch and transaction processing jobs. Many large financial institutions were developing new systems in the language as late as 2006, but most programming in COBOL today is purely to maintain existing applications. Programs are being moved to new platforms, rewritten in modern languages, or replaced with other software. COBOL was designed in 1959 by CODASYL and was partly based on the programming language FLOW-MATIC, designed by Grace Hopper. It was created as part of a U.S. Department of Defense effort to create a portable programming language for data pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pipeline Video Inspection
Pipeline video inspection is a form of telepresence used to visually inspect the interiors of Pipeline transport, pipelines, plumbing systems, and Storm drain, storm drains. A common application is for a plumber to determine the condition of small diameter sanitary sewer, sewer lines and household connection Drain (plumbing), drain pipes. Older sewer lines of small diameter, typically , are made by the union of a number of short sections. The pipe segments may be made of cast iron, with to sections, but are more often made of vitrified clay pipe (VCP), a ceramic material, in , & sections. Each iron or clay segment will have an enlargement (a "bell") on one end to receive the end of the adjacent segment. Roots from trees and vegetation may work into the joins between segments and can be forceful enough to break open a larger opening in terra cotta or corroded cast iron. Eventually a root ball will form that will impede the flow and this may cleaned out by a cutter mechanism or p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
