[CM] music5

M. Edward (Ed) Borasky znmeb at cesmail.net
Sat May 3 16:47:39 PDT 2008


Bill Schottstaedt wrote:
> I got Max's book, and it answers my questions: there were no
> real differences between music 4 and 5 (the latter tried to avoid
> machine code, instruments and note lists could occur in the
> same file, and the input syntax was lightened up a bit).
> Also, Max himself did the 36-bit stuff -- that was not for
> the PDP-10, but for the GE645 -- I didn't even know General
> Electric made a computer.  And I now have copiously
> annotated input, so I have no excuse. 
> 
> 
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I was under the impression that Max himself did the 36-bit stuff because 
his original version was on the IBM 704, a 36-bit machine. I thought 
that his original version had been on the IBM 7090 until I did some 
Google searches the other day. The 7090 was upward compatible from the 
704, however.

Yes, General Electric, Philco, RCA, Bendix, Honeywell and Xerox all made 
computers at one time. Gradually they all got absorbed. I forget who 
bought RCA's computer division, but Honeywell ended up with both Xerox 
and General Electric in addition to their own. In fact, "Unix" was a 
play on the name "Multics", a GE/Honeywell operating system.



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