19 Jun
2026
19 Jun
'26
6:54 a.m.
On Jun 18, 2026, at 11:33 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Thu, 2026-06-18 at 16:28 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
I just now had a conversation with Google (not Google Gemini, just the
search engine AI). I mentioned that I had written an IBM 1130 emulator
in Varian V-73 microcode. It said "You must be Paul Koning." Did you
wrote one too?
That's a new kind of hallucination!
Nope, I never wrote anything for any Varian machine. I did spend time in university
working on a PDP-11 that sat next to a Varian machine, a 16 bit machine with user
programmable microcode. Is that the V-73? I remember it had a flat console lights panel
-- the switches were membrane switches so the whole front was flat. I had a handbook for
that machine but lost it. But that's as close as I got. And besides, I never worked
with an 1130, though I did do some elementary stuff on a 1620.
paul