Talk:ETA10

Correct name: ETA10, ETA-10, ETA¹⁰, or something else?

I notice that user:Gunter changed the name of this line of supercomputer from ETA-10 to ETA10, which may well be correct; however, I think this should be looked into to provide a final determination, if possible. Until or unless shown otherwise, I will defer to Gunter's judgment that "ETA10" is correct (and thus the names of specific submodels would be, for example, "ETA10-P," etc.).

I notice, for example, that most of the documentation regarding the ETA line at Florida State University's website indeed refers to these computers as "ETA10"s. Also, for example, the photograph of the ETA10-G on their website shows a faceplate with "ETA10" in red lettering thereon. However, on the same FSU website, the line is also called "ETA¹⁰," (that is, spelled as a single word with the "10" in superscript) and in fact most pictures of "early" machines and almost all photographs of "piper" class machines also show faceplates with lettering which reads "ETA¹⁰."

On the other hand, the bulk of text available on the internet refers to this line as the ETA-10 (for example, this account by a purported former ETA manager recites "ETA-10"). As a further variant, this page at the Waalsdorp museum has a photograph of an ETA10 in black casing, with the name "ETA 10 P" stenciled thereon.

What I would like to see is an authoritative and definitive answer to the question of which variant is proper, such as a quotation stating as much in literature produced by ETA Systems. Or, it may well be possible that no such "final answer" exists, or that all or some of the above-mentioned variants were each validly used, for example. If anyone knows of how to find authoritative material, I would appreciate it.

--Ryanaxp 18:23, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

This lengthy article, supposedly by two individuals involved in the machine's development, consistently refers to it as the ETA-10. Even the Wikipedia article on ETA Systems consistently refers to it as the ETA-10. So I'm in favor of renaming the article to ETA-10. Riordanmr (talk) 01:01, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Fact Checking

I don't know whom has been adding lines, but I know 1) alot of it is wrong (I was offered the 8 trailer loads of the JvNC system, and CHM chose to keep about 1 trailer full of stuff [space limitations], and one cryostat is on display. The rest was recycled for scrap. 2) Many important technical details of the architecture could be added, but I don't have the time, so aren't being added and instead irrelevant and wrong info about CDC with nothing to do with ETA is being added. --enm 23:45, 15 Oct 2007 (GMT)

I just added the NASA AMES report on the two failed acceptance tests. I think all the detail you are looking for is there. Given all the hype, I have an old 486 pc that can outperform the ETA-10 on the same benchmarks.

It seems the biggest bottleneck was the fiber-optic interface to the cache memory, amongst other things. Read the report, pretty damning stuff. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.127.144.12 (talk) 05:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was merge into ETA10. -- Whiteguru (talk) 07:28, 16 December 2021 (UTC)

---

EOS (operating system) should be merged into ETA10. EOS was one of the two operating systems for the ETA10, and it has no relevance outside the context of the ETA10. The OS didn't support any other computers, and doesn't appear to be particularly notable in itself. HTW217 (talk) 14:05, 18 November 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

SuperQuest competition

The article claims when CDC closed ETA Systems, unsold ETA10s were given away to schools via the SuperQuest computer science competition. The Thomas Jefferson High School is claimed to have received an ETA10 in this manner. However, a Washington Post article contradicts this claim. The article states the Thomas Jefferson school won an ETA10 in August 1988. This is roughly eight months before the closure of ETA Systems. Additionally, the Past, Parallel, Present reference in this article claims that CDC only made the decision to close ETA Systems in March 1989. The statement that unsold ETA10s were given away is either completely false, or the the claim that the Thomas Jefferson school received one in this manner is being erroneously conflated with what CDC did with unsold stock. HTW217 (talk) 04:36, 19 November 2021 (UTC)