For Tam:
Some real, old technology.
The Friden Flexowriter.
From the early days on, if you wanted to get information into a computer, or an NC machining center or lathe, you used this.
They also had the ability to do personalized mailings, etc. There was a bare minimum of computational power in this bugger, and by the time this sucker rolled off the line, it had no less than a handful of actual solid state transistors in it, some of them actually used to make simple decisions.
Meeeemreeeeeez.
Yeah, it’s forlorn and dusty. I still use it sometimes to punch out a piece of cose to test soemthing.
With a punch tape reader, I hope?
Wow!
Reminds me of when I pick out a piece of obsidian in the backyard and do some knapping.
Actually, it more reminds me of when I worked security at 888 North Sepulveda in El Seguindo California back 1973-74. UCC, University Computing Company, had a big part of the building.
I still have some mylar punch tape I fished out of the trash while working there. Talk about paleolithic! Maybe even paleozoic.
Wow! It’s barely multicelled!
I started my career on an IBM 360, one generation after punch cards, thank goodness. The OS was CMS and our, what is now called mailbox, was called the reader. It was an electronic version of the punch card reader, IBM had to maintain it for compatibility. Jobs submitted to MVS went in/out through the reader.
Okay, okay, here’s another one: IBM had DASDs, about the size of two large freezers, stacked side by side. They were water cooled and state of the art for speed and capacity (Direct Access Storage Device). They held 612mb, woohoo!
Sorry for the long post, but you got me going. One day when touring the FAA Tech Center, I spotted an old 300 series in the back with all the blinking lights, just like you see in the old sci-fi movies. Ron, Ron, what the hell? Those are binary indicators, if the machine crashes, they represent, in binary, the contents of each of the 16 GPRs, general purpose registers. For debugging. See the button above each light? You ALWAYS press it to make sure that the bulb isn’t burned out. Good grief!
I used something similar on my first job in the early 80s. They had a DEC PDP-11. And there was a typewriter device at one end where you booted up the machine and logged on. I wish I could remember how much storage were on one of those huge disc platters.
Good memories indeed.
I cut my teeth on an IBM 1130 programming FORTRAN on punchcards…they had a few terminals at the time but the one week camp I was attending and the three week waiting list to use one were incompatible!
Your place is valueble for me.Thanks!?-