Stephen Hawking letter to Clive Sinclair

[Sparrowhawk]

Not sure if this is already known. It was new to me so thought I’d share.

https://mastodon.social/@Dtl/112485776797931733

[bwinkel67]

I used one of the Charles River Data Systems 68K computers at my first job in 1990. It used 8" floppies as well as tape drives that I used to install UNIX on for my company (I started as a sys admin). Pretty cool system though I don't remember much about it other than it was about the size of a 2 drawer file cabinet but on its side.

[ones' complement]

Don't recall seeing link to this: Interesting perspective from engineer who worked at Sinclair (web archive appears to have retained more of the images).

[Sparrowhawk]

@bwinkle67 I'd never heard of that system or indeed the company until the post on Mastodon. Interesting history.

I found this pdf which may bring back some fond memories for you - if it's the right system? http://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/charles/Ch ... iverse.pdf

@onescomplement: thanks for those links. Another fascinating glimpse into the world of Sinclair.

[bwinkel67]

@bwinkle67 I'd never heard of that system or indeed the company until the post on Mastodon. Interesting history.

I found this pdf which may bring back some fond memories for you - if it's the right system? http://www.1000bit.it/ad/bro/charles/Ch ... iverse.pdf

Yup, that was the form factor. I seem to recall it being a darker color, like brown or black, but it's been a lobg time. It did have that huge floppy in the front but we also had a big tape drive to load UNIX with. UNIX back then took a weekend to install :-/

[qbits]

Hi,

Interesting read, running a campus broadband network we had an engineering suite of UNIX machines.
I guess that where I got introduced to the 68000 processors just before buying my first QL.

QBITS

[xelalex]

So did the Relativity Group actually get the machines they asked for as a donation from Sinclair? If so, is anything known about how they were used?