General Information

Serial #

4308

Part Number

1

Total Parts

12

AKA

N/A

Patents

N/A

General Description

metal casing and working parts/ synthetic controls and working parts

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

79.0 cm

Width

44.5 cm

Height

N/A

Thickness

77.0 cm

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Computing Technology

Category

Digital computing devices

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

Symbolics

Country

United States of America

State/Province

Unknown

City

Unknown

Context

Country

Canada

State/Province

Ontario

Period

circa 1986 +

Canada

An American made computer of the mid 1980's used in Canada, presumably by the donor ORA Canada, information system consultants.

Function

A programmable machine that accepts and processes data. This type of single user computer was designed to be used with the symbolic programming language LISP, used for AI research, software development, computer-aided design and other functions for which the use of symbolic processing is advantageous.

Technical

An example of a Lisp machine, a symbol processing computer designed to run the symbolic programming language Lisp as its main software language (the name Lisp derives from List Processing Language). Symbol (or symbolic) processing includes computation with symbols, relationships and graphical objects as well as numbers, characters and bits. Symbolic representations can more closely model a given problem as it exists in the real world. List processing represents ideas as lists of words and other symbols. In the Lisp language, data, programs and the language itself are all lists of symbols within parentheses. Each section of the program contains many pairs of list defining parentheses and parentheses can rest within parentheses, defining lists within lists. This structure makes it possible to write programs that can write or modify other programs in turn and also to write programs or subroutines that can refer to themselves by recursion. Many now commonplace technologies, such as effective garbage control, laser printing, windowing systems, computer mice, high-resolution bit-mapped graphics, computer graphic rendering, networking innovations and protocols such as CHAOSnet were commercially pioneered on Lisp machines (Refs.2, 3, 5). Symbolics Inc. was formed in 1980 to develop a line of symbol processing computer systems and related processes. In 1983 it introduced its second generation of computers, the 3600 series, a line of 36-bit single-user computers designed for high-productivity software development and for the execution of large symbolic programs. Features of the 3600 included tagged architecture, multiple caches, hardware stack management, pipelined instruction cycles, parallel processing, hardware assisted garbage collection, and fully error correction coded system memory. The 3640 was introduced in 1984 and was a compact, high performance version of the 3600 architecture with a 5 ¼ inch disk drive. The operating system included a number of advanced dialects of Lisp and by 1984 was named Genera; this was the operating system used on the 3640 (Ref. 1, 2, 3). The 3600 computers were popular for AI research and commercial applications throughout the 1980's. In the late 1980's, Symbolic's Ivory family superseded the 3600 series. But AI research and development waned in the late 1980's and early 1990's, reducing sales. That fact as well as management problems, the rise of the personal computer and other technological changes drove the company into bankruptcy (Ref. 3).

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

black lettering on front reads 'synbolics 3640'/ labels on back reads 'symbolics inc./ MODEL 3640 SN 43087/ PN 365000 REV/ VOLTS 117 AMPS 20 Hz 60/ MADE IN U.S.A.' and 'symbolics inc./ PATENT PENDING'/ label applied on front reads 'BOOBER'

Missing

unknown

Finish

textured buff painted casing/ black synthetic front control panel and tape slot, with red and green buttons/ plated and gold coloured metal parts

Decoration

N/A