Keeping Old Computers Alive for …

[SlideRule]

An excerpt from Keeping Old Computers Alive for deeper understanding of computer architecture

Abstract—Computer architectures, as they are seen by students,
are getting more and more monolithic: few years ago a
student had access to x86 processor on his or her laptop, SPARC
server in the backyard, MIPS and PowerPC on large SMP system,
and Alpha on calculation server. Today, only architectures that
students experience writing program on are x86 64 and possibly
ARM. On one hand, this simplifies their learning, but on the
other hand, this makes it harder to discover options that are
available in designing an instruction set architecture.
In this paper, we introduce our undergraduate course that
teaches computer architecture design and evaluation that uses
historic computers to make more processor architectures accessible
to students. The collection of more than 270 old computers
that were marketed in 1979 to 2014 are used in the class. These
computers had to be repaired and restored to working condition
before using in exercise for the undergraduate students. By
experiencing different architectures from what is used everyday,
students learn the context of features that are standard today.
This paper also shows power consumption and benchmark
results obtained using old computers outside classroom.
These data are also used as the basis for learning about
concepts and issues of computer architecture.
…
                                      TABLE I
REPRESENTATIVE COMPUTER SYSTEMS IN OUR COLLECTION
Year     System name
1975 …
1983    HP-41CX
…
2009 …
…

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SlideRule

[vassilisprevelakis]

(04-26-2024 08:08 PM)SlideRule Wrote:  Computer architectures, as they are seen by students,
are getting more and more monolithic: few years ago a
student had access to x86 processor on his or her laptop, SPARC
server in the backyard, MIPS and PowerPC on large SMP system,
and Alpha on calculation server. Today, only architectures that
students experience writing program on are x86 64 and possibly
ARM.

Hi,

For the people in my age group :-) the saying "all the world is a VAX" sounds familiar.
But then the 32-microcomputer architectures took over and there was a lot of variety.

Now we have the Intel architecture, the ARM, and more recently the Risc-V.

Not to mention all these crazy GPU designs and other architectures targeted towards AI processing.

So don't worry, students have a lot of architectures to choose from.

What is worrying from my point of view is the networking monoculture.
Even with IPv6 providing some differentiation, networking has essentially standardized in IP.

So I find myself agreeing with the general idea of the abstract (I haven't had access to the paper), but in a different domain.

Vassilis
http://www.series80.org

[Didier Lachieze]

At school the first CPU I learned to use was the Z80, then for my first job I worked on custom CPU boards built with AMD 2900 4-bit slice chips. Later I moved to the 68000 family followed by my first RISC CPU, the AMD 29000. A few years after, as many people, I ended up working with x86 CPUs. And now with the DM calculators I’m learning ARM.

[Karl-Ludwig Butte]

(04-26-2024 08:08 PM)SlideRule Wrote:  An excerpt from Keeping Old Computers Alive for deeper understanding of computer architecture
...
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SlideRule

Hello Sliderule,

thanks a lot for sharing this excerpt. Is there any chance to download the complete paper?

Thanks a lot in advance.

Best regards
Karl

[SlideRule]

(05-05-2024 02:18 PM)Karl-Ludwig Butte Wrote:  … download the complete paper? Karl

  Keeping Old Computers Alive for deeper understanding of computer architecture.pdf (Size: 1.47 MB / Downloads: 60)

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SlideRule

[Karl-Ludwig Butte]

(05-05-2024 05:37 PM)SlideRule Wrote:  

(05-05-2024 02:18 PM)Karl-Ludwig Butte Wrote:  … download the complete paper? Karl

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SlideRule

Thank you ever so much.

Best regards
Karl

[Dave1947]

In college I did Fortran programming on an IBM-1620. Those were the days! Hours spent punching cards.