Talk:Honeywell 316

Kitchen Computer
Content of Kitchen Computer merged to here. See notes at Talk:Honeywell 316 (Kitchen Computer).--mikeu 19:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:Kitchen computer ad.jpg
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Sold or not sold?
On http://www.old-computers.com/museum/doc.asp?c=927&st=1 there is a quote:

"Unfortunitly we sold some so we had to build a small production run. "

This contradicts the current source that mentions that none was sold. Do I change it?

Diego bf109 (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That is a tough call. The Dr. Dobbs ref was written by Dag Spicer, curator of the Computer History Museum. The ref you found looks like it is from someone who worked at Honeywell, and I believe that he did. I wouldn't usually consider old-computers.com to be very reliable. I have found a number of errors there. The Spicer ref does say "As far as is known, no Kitchen Computers were ever sold" so maybe the museum just doesn't have records one way or the other. I would go with Don Kelemen quote about a "small production run." That covers anything from a handfull to just a few prototypes. The article should also have the mention of the cutting board changed. That may have actually been suggested by marketing, but it was clearly not designed that way by the engineers. --mikeu (talk) 23:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

British Nuclear Power
A Honeywell 316 was still being used at Bradwell Powerstation in Essex in 2000 as the primary reactor temperature monitoring computer, monitoring both reactors. The internal 160k disk failed that summer and it was retired, with a pair of PDP-11/70s being promoted from secondary to primary. 62.49.31.155 (talk) 19:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Needs expansion
It would be nice to have some actual information on the 316 apart from its role as a gag gift in the Neiman-Marcus catalog. The ever-unreliable misinfo box says such illuminating things as "binary" operating sytem (really?), 2.5 MHZ CPU speed (really?) and 4 k of core (not really!) On my list of things to research some quiet evening, if noone beats me to it. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:12, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course there's lots of things out there, including programmer's manuals on bitsavers. I wonder how they did a return from interrupt?  Or subroutines?  There's no stack pointer! --Wtshymanski (talk) 19:03, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think Valerie Aurora was being a little harsh on the Neiman-Marcus catalog. Imagine someone offering a "Personal steam locomotive" in 1869 - impossibly extravagant and impractical, clearly not suited to personal use. Criticizing the Kitchen Computer as hard to use is about as relevant as criticizing the Model T for not having satellite radio; maybe better, Cugnot's steam wagon. To paraphrase another '60s slogan "We've come a long way, baby!". --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:52, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Although it was probably a major error on NM's part not to include a Teletype with the system, which would have made it at least plausible as a home computer. No-one is going to read binary. Not that this would have improved sales much. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110316024026/http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/honeywell/series16/h316/70130072156_316_516_PgmrRef_Nov70.pdf to http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/honeywell/series16/h316/70130072156_316_516_PgmrRef_Nov70.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110309035816/http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/honeywell/series16/h316/ to http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/honeywell/series16/h316/

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Honeywell 516 and first packet switching network
Apparently, Donald Davies used a Honeywell 516 to implement the first ever packet switching network, before even the ARPANET.

Chris Fletcher (talk) 13:52, 11 March 2019 (UTC)


 * I would be very interested in learning more about this. Do you have a reliable source describing it? --mikeu talk 13:59, 11 March 2019 (UTC)