[inforoots] Re: inforoots Digest, Vol 25, Issue 2

[Stan Sieler]

Re:

> marvellous that one could just plug into a USB.  I did not have the heart 
> to tell him that this technology was used in the early 60's by Elliott Bros 
> of the UK.  The computer was the 920C which allowed several CPUs, blocks of 
> memory and controllers to be plugged in onto one common bus.  I believe it 
...

I'm not sure of when Burroughs developed it, but circa 1970 I witnessed
a demonstration of a Burroughs B7700 where a CPU and (IIRC) memory and a 
few other cards were being pulled out / replaced while the computer
was online, without the computer failing.  The demo was on the B7700
being used by the US Customs department, in San Diego, CA.
IIRC, the process running on the processor that was pulled might
have been aborted, but the computer remained up and running all other
processes.   This was pre-Tandem, and no extra coding/design was needed
on the part of the users.  (As I understand it, the Tandem non-stop
was achieved at a relaitvely high expense, requiring much coding
and design by the users.)   

So, perhaps that's a similar precursor to USB :)

Stan