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One last thing, I'm noticing. A Storage system can also be temporary storage | 167 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
My PTO (Post and Telegraphy Office) also had crossbar switches. ...nt
Authored by: Ian Al on Tuesday, April 09 2013 @ 01:42 AM EDT
.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

One last thing, I'm noticing. A Storage system can also be temporary storage
Authored by: bprice on Tuesday, April 09 2013 @ 04:21 AM EDT
Nothing in these patents implements anything that wasn't known already in the 1970s. Why even UNISYS and it's predecessor Burroughs implemented everything in these patents.
Gee. This morning, I was going to write up a description of the Burroughs B5500 ca 1965, with its four (count 'em, 4) switching fabrics in the path between core memory and the disk surface. I spent too much time in the local ER, though, while the medicos were deciding whether it was safe to send me to the cardiologist via home or via inpatient observation. (We were finally able to trigger the failure, in classic debugging fashion, so that they could see it as sinus tachycardia rather than a more messy tachycardia or other issue. That's why I'm home, now, pending cardiologist time. I see beta blockers in my future.)

Anyway, the B5500 had (1) a switching fabric between the disk read/write heads and the write-driver/sense-amp electronics: the disk was the head-per-track design, with lotsa stationary heads per surface. There was (2) another, called Disk-File Exchange, between the Disk-File Electronics Units and the Disk-File controllers. Then there was (3) the Peripheral Exchange, between the DFCUs and the I/O Channels: all the other peripherals connected through this fabric, also. Finally there was (4) the Memory Exchange, which connected the I/O Channels (and the processors) to the memory modules.

Fabric (1) was one-by, so it might not count as a full fabric. The DFX (2) was two-by-ten, with up to two simultaneous paths from 2 DFCUs to 10 DFEUs. The PX (3) was four-by-32, four independent paths, between 4 I/O channels and 32 peripheral units; the MX was six-by-eight, 6 requestors (I/Os and Processors) vs eight Memory modules.

Forty-odd years later, I remember the DFX well: my code was the first that was able to make full use of that particular switching fabric. I don't recall whether it was my first or second MCP (Operating-System) assignment.

---
--Bill. NAL: question the answers, especially mine.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Crossbar Switches
Authored by: lnuss on Tuesday, April 09 2013 @ 08:49 AM EDT
Crossbar switches go back at least into the 1950s (I'm not sure how much
earlier) and had been in use for years in the Bell System (and other companies)
when I hired on to AT&T in 1965. I even have some paper docs from that era
showing their use.

---
Larry N.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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