IBM Mainframe at home

Pete Zaitcev

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Feb 19, 2002, 2:28:49 PM2/19/02

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Hello:

I am curious if anyone knows of an information source on the Net
about running an IBM mainframe at a private residence.
I dimly remember either a FAQ or a list where someone described
how he got a written off DEC-10, which is a pretty big chunk
of metal. But for the life of me, I cannot google that FAQ again.
I am looking for information on how big bootable configs are
(e.g. if I can stuff it into an equivalent of PDP-11/70,
that would be about the largest possible size), which of them are
air cooled, availability of low-level documentation, and so on.

I understand that it may be advisable to think about P/370,
but is just not the same. If I only wanted to have a PS/2
to pretend that it is a mainframe, I would be better off
running Hercules on it.

-- Pete

Jay Maynard

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Feb 19, 2002, 3:25:36 PM2/19/02

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On 19 Feb 2002 19:28:49 GMT, Pete Zaitcev <zai...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Hello:
>I am curious if anyone knows of an information source on the Net
>about running an IBM mainframe at a private residence.
>I dimly remember either a FAQ or a list where someone described
>how he got a written off DEC-10, which is a pretty big chunk
>of metal. But for the life of me, I cannot google that FAQ again.
>I am looking for information on how big bootable configs are
>(e.g. if I can stuff it into an equivalent of PDP-11/70,
>that would be about the largest possible size), which of them are
>air cooled, availability of low-level documentation, and so on.

Erf. Even if you could get the CPU to fit in that much space, the
peripherals would fill your house to overflowing. One guy on the Hercules
list reported running a 4381 in his house (that's a machine the size of two
refrigerators side-by-side); the CPU and DASD were in the basement, and he
cut holes in the floor (!) to run the channel cables to the tape and
printer.

You might find a small 9221 or 9370 config that would be practical, but then
there's the little matter of software to run on it...

Tramm Hudson

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Feb 19, 2002, 3:28:18 PM2/19/02

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[ Posted and cc'd to cited author ]

Pete Zaitcev <zai...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I am curious if anyone knows of an information source on the Net
> about running an IBM mainframe at a private residence.
> I dimly remember either a FAQ or a list where someone described
> how he got a written off DEC-10, which is a pretty big chunk
> of metal. But for the life of me, I cannot google that FAQ again.

Google is a fickle mistress. Sometimes you have to know the
magic words:

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22old+iron+at+home%22

The first one is good:

http://packetstorm.widexs.nl/unix-humor/old.iron.at.home.stories.html

I used to run a smaller VAXen (11/730) in my dorm room when I didn't
have to pay for power. My "machine room" was the subject of an article
in the local paper and, for a brief while, the only remote access
terminals on the campus.

We had a $0.25/day budget for network access -- we dialed out with
an acoustic coupler modem through the pay-phone to the main machine
room. And placed a PostIt that read "Please do not hang up. Call in
progress" on the telephone, otherwise our budget would have to double.

Trammell
--
-----|----- hud...@swcp.com H 240-476-1373
*>=====[]L\ Trammel...@celera.com W 240-453-3317
' -'-`- http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/ KC5RNF

Bernie Dwyer

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Feb 19, 2002, 9:05:46 PM2/19/02

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Pete Zaitcev wrote:
>
> Hello:
>
> I am curious if anyone knows of an information source on the Net
> about running an IBM mainframe at a private residence.

<snip>
--
Dunno about a mainframe, but I recently acquired an operational but
surplus-to-requirements AS400 E35 for AUD$10. It's about 1600mm high x
1100mm deep x 480mm wide. It needs (theoretically) a 30amp single-phase
supply, but a standard household 10-amp seems to work (240VAC).

I'm not going to keep it running, because I didn't acquire the operating
system or utilities software licences (non-transferable in those days),
and I only wanted it for the cabinet - I'm going to strip out the
internals, line it with insulation, install a pre-fab compressor,
condenser and evaporator, and use it as a freezer.

"I'll just get that frozen roast outta the IBM" ;-)

Bernie Dwyer
Dump the z to reply to me
*****************************

Rupert Pigott

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Feb 20, 2002, 2:19:14 PM2/20/02

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lwin <lwi...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message news:a50lpt$k...@netaxs.com...
> x-no-archive: yes

>
> > I am curious if anyone knows of an information source on the Net
> > about running an IBM mainframe at a private residence.
>

> I don't know why anyone would want to run such a machine at home
> when dial up services are undoubtedly available.
>
> There are a number of problems involved with an older IBM mainframe:
>
> 1) Power. The older models required special power not normally
> available in a home.

Dairy Farms offer a solution here... They often have high
voltage/current supplies for the milking machinary... :P

Semi-serious... Installed the VAX-11/785 in a converted
pig-sty next to a milking parlour. :P

> 2) Air conditioning: The older models required considerable cooling.

Damn right, I was terrified of the air-conditioning
aspect... It turns out that the VAX-11/785 was a bit
of a lightweight as far as heat generation was
concerned. On the other hand the peripherals generated
quite a bit of heat. :)

> 3) Peripherals. A mainframe CPU by itself is of no value. You
> would need disk drives, printers, and tape/cart drives, all of
> which take up room.

There is where the problem lies. The peripherals seem
to be the most vulnerable part of the system. Disk-packs
in particular are dicey - the stories I hear of them
in production quality environments seems to rule them out
for hobby use (unless you have a bucket of spare heads,
packs and a clean room). :P

Cheers,
Rupert

Arargh!

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Feb 20, 2002, 6:53:28 PM2/20/02

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On Wed, 20 Feb 2002 19:19:14 +0000 (UTC), "Rupert Pigott"
<Dark...@btinternet.com> wrote:

<snip>

>There is where the problem lies. The peripherals seem
>to be the most vulnerable part of the system. Disk-packs
>in particular are dicey - the stories I hear of them
>in production quality environments seems to rule them out
>for hobby use (unless you have a bucket of spare heads,
>packs and a clean room). :P

You can get by with this. I have in the past. Proper care in
changing filters, some care in pack handling and storage, covers most
of it.

The drives that I have are CDC-80's which have very good filters, and
Diablo 44a's (old 5+5 drives) which required more work, such as
tearing them apart and cleaning every 6 months or so.

--
Arargh (at arargh dot com) http://www.arargh.com

Peter Flass

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Feb 20, 2002, 7:13:19 PM2/20/02

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9370 runs VM/370, no?

Jay Maynard

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Feb 21, 2002, 7:57:21 AM2/21/02

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(De-top-posted for your reading ease.)

On Thu, 21 Feb 2002 00:13:19 GMT, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Jay Maynard wrote:
>> You might find a small 9221 or 9370 config that would be practical, but then
>> there's the little matter of software to run on it...

>9370 runs VM/370, no?

Yes, it does (well, VM/SP; I don't know if the public domain VM/370 would
run on it)...but then, that may not be all the OP wanted. You might be able
to run MVS 3.8 on a large 9370 configuration, but I don't know.

The 9370 may well have implemented the 4K storage key feature, in which case
VM/370 and MVS 3.8 might not run unmodified. (The P/370 and P/390 had this
feature, and didn't implement the old storage key manipulation instructions
even when the control register bit that enabled them was set properly.) I
don't have access to a 9370 to check. The P/370 and P/390 will *not* run
unmodified versions of those OSes. I don't know what mods would be needed to
make it work; they would be easier to implement on VM/370, since that was
distributed with source, than MVS 3.8, which wasn't, at least not
completely.

Mike Ross

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Feb 21, 2002, 10:55:36 PM2/21/02

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It's do-able. P/390 microchannel cards are *relatively* cheap now -
around $1,000 if you can find one. Trouble is it doesn't *look* like a
mainframe... my suggestion would be to cast around for a cheap used
Integrated Server S/390 3006 (essentially a small mainframe built
around a P/390E card) - that's what I run, see:

http://www.corestore.org/is.htm

Doesn't even need special power but looks, sounds like, and has the
build quality of, a real (small) mainframe.

Beyond that you're talking heavy iron. Any idea what the big early
AS/400 boxes looked like, with a minimum of two racks for CPU, disk
and tape? A 9370 type mainframe is exactly like that - uses the same
chassis in fact.

Biggest machine I've ever had running in the house? An 11/45.
Everything bigger went straight to the workshop.

Mike
http://www.corestore.org
Rangers Catering Corps - 'we boil for the One, we fry for the One'

Bevis

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Feb 28, 2002, 3:57:48 PM2/28/02

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A good friend of mine [now deceased] used to have an IBM 360 in his garage
back in the 1980's. Seems Blue Cross wanted to sell it and IBM offered them
$500 for scrap. He learned of it and offered them $600 and bought it. The
biggest problem with it [as I remember] was that it used 440V 3phase power
and his local electric company charged him something like $10,000 to run
that to his house. :)

Don't really know what he did with it aside from play. He ended up giving it
to his old college and they gave him a $250,000 tax write off! :)

"Pete Zaitcev" <zai...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:slrna759rh....@devserv.devel.redhat.com...

Joe Morris

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Feb 28, 2002, 6:09:06 PM2/28/02

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"Bevis" <h...@grits.egg> writes:

>A good friend of mine [now deceased] used to have an IBM 360 in his garage
>back in the 1980's. Seems Blue Cross wanted to sell it and IBM offered them
>$500 for scrap. He learned of it and offered them $600 and bought it. The
>biggest problem with it [as I remember] was that it used 440V 3phase power
>and his local electric company charged him something like $10,000 to run
>that to his house. :)

A charge of $10,000 doesn't sound unreasonable. Normal service drops
are single-phase (in the US, 240 VAC center-tapped), and in many
residential areas only a single high-voltage phase is available on the
poles.

Feeding a residence with 120/208 VAC 3-phase (the standard IBM machine room
power requirement in the US; it might be different elsewhere) would
almost certainly require a dedicated 3-phase pole pig, with feeds running
back to wherever the nearest 3-phase distribution lines could be found,
plus the installation of service drops (including metering equipment)
at the house. Even if everything falls into place and there is a
3-phase distribution on the street in front of his house, installing
the rest of the dedicated equipment wouldn't be cheap.

Joe Morris

Jim Stewart

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Feb 28, 2002, 11:49:35 PM2/28/02

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He's lucky to get it at all. PG&E won't do it for any price, at least
in many neighborhoods. There are lively discussions on
rec.crafts.metalworking about building static and rotary phase
converters for running industrial strength lathes and mills in your
garage. Making 3-phase can be as simple as connecting 220 to 2 of the
legs of a 3-phase motor, starting it with a pull-cord and taking the
3-phase off of the 3 legs once it's up to speed.

Nick Spalding

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Mar 1, 2002, 7:41:56 AM3/1/02

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Joe Morris wrote, in <a5mdah$41g$1...@newslocal.mitre.org>:

> A charge of $10,000 doesn't sound unreasonable. Normal service drops
> are single-phase (in the US, 240 VAC center-tapped), and in many
> residential areas only a single high-voltage phase is available on the
> poles.
>
> Feeding a residence with 120/208 VAC 3-phase (the standard IBM machine room
> power requirement in the US; it might be different elsewhere) would
> almost certainly require a dedicated 3-phase pole pig, with feeds running
> back to wherever the nearest 3-phase distribution lines could be found,
> plus the installation of service drops (including metering equipment)
> at the house. Even if everything falls into place and there is a
> 3-phase distribution on the street in front of his house, installing
> the rest of the dedicated equipment wouldn't be cheap.

Here in Ireland in suburban areas the norm is a pole line with 3 phase
+ neutral. In my particular street a pair of houses on one side of
the street are fed off one phase + neutral, nominal 220v - a pair
comes to my chimney and from there a pair goes to my neighbour's. The
next pair of houses are fed from another phase and so on. Providing
three phase supply would simply mean running all three phases from the
nearest pole. In recent estates the cabling is underground; the phase
distribution is similar but there is no reason for the houses to be
paired.
--
Nick Spalding

Joe Morris

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Mar 1, 2002, 9:25:38 AM3/1/02

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Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> writes:
[3-phase power to a residence]

>He's lucky to get it at all. PG&E won't do it for any price, at least
>in many neighborhoods.

Probably because it would require replacing the utility poles (to
accommodate the additional phases and/or higher-voltage taps from the
main distribution), or serious excavation work in areas where the
utilities are buried.

And I doubt that there is a tariff for 3-phase power to a residence,
so you get the utility regulators to add to the equation. Yuck...

>rec.crafts.metalworking about building static and rotary phase
>converters for running industrial strength lathes and mills in your
>garage. Making 3-phase can be as simple as connecting 220 to 2 of the
>legs of a 3-phase motor, starting it with a pull-cord and taking the
>3-phase off of the 3 legs once it's up to speed.

Agreed; that (or a static rectifier/inverter; lots of old UPS
boxes are being replaced, although service for them could be
problematical) would provide the power required.

And note that even some of the smaller IBM boxes (the 370/148 for
example) used an MG set to provide 400 Hz power, so in addition
to everything else anyone using one will have to provide a power
supply capable of handling the startup inrush.

Oh well...we can dream, can't we, even when it's not practical? <g>

Joe Morris

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Mar 1, 2002, 9:32:25 AM3/1/02

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Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie> writes:

>Joe Morris wrote, in <a5mdah$41g$1...@newslocal.mitre.org>:

>> Even if everything falls into place and there is a

>> 3-phase distribution on the street in front of his house, installing
>> the rest of the dedicated equipment wouldn't be cheap.

>Here in Ireland in suburban areas the norm is a pole line with 3 phase
>+ neutral.

That's the case in the US for many locations where the customer is
in an urban environment, or on a suburban street that happens to
also be a main power distribution route. Often, however, adjacent
housing developments will be fed by a single phase from the distribution
lines, and for users near the end of a utility's service area or near
the boundary between two coverage areas of the same utility will
have only a single phase.

Joe Morris

Lawrence Statton N1GAK

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Mar 1, 2002, 6:24:28 PM3/1/02

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On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 23:09:06 +0000 (UTC), Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
>Feeding a residence with 120/208 VAC 3-phase (the standard IBM machine room
>power requirement in the US; it might be different elsewhere) would
>almost certainly require a dedicated 3-phase pole pig, with feeds running
>back to wherever the nearest 3-phase distribution lines could be found,
>plus the installation of service drops (including metering equipment)
>at the house. Even if everything falls into place and there is a
>3-phase distribution on the street in front of his house, installing
>the rest of the dedicated equipment wouldn't be cheap.

One of the great things about where I live (Guadalajara, Mexico) is:

Plentiful 120/208 ... in fact 240 is unheard of. Houses have either a
15 to 30A 120V feed ... or for something larger a 100A 120-208Y -- but
only two of the three phases.

My neighbor has FIVE amp 120V service, and this ancient square meter
that looks like it has been on his wall for 40 years.

Getting all three is trivially easy, the meter rent is the same,
install is virtually free. I did get some amazing looks when I
ordered "servicio trifasico" for my tiny apartment, but it was only a
week before I had three times the light :) Since the place I rent is
in a block of 8 flats, all three phases were already brought down to
the meter bank that services the building, it was just a matter of
setting a 3-ph meter base and service disconect, and running new
6-guage wire into my unit to the already-waiting panel. Bingo, I've
gone from 120V15A service to 120/208Y 50A.

You could REEEALLY go nuts and opt for HV service and pick up a 30kVA
33kV/whatever transformer pretty cheap at one of a few dozen electrical
jobbers all around downtown. Haven't gotten a quote on one, but I'll
ask next time I'm in buying a breaker. If I ever needed 480 3ph that
is probably what I'd do, because to get that you're going to pay an
install premium to get CFE to set a pole pig "just for you".

The big advantage of taking it at 33 kV is it gets insanely cheap.
Recently retail electricity subsidies were substantially curtailed, so
anyone consuming more than I think 249 kWh / 60-days is paying MXP
1.75 per kWh (About USD $0.20)

For delivery voltage >480 VAC it drops to about MXP 0.60 / kWh with a
demand charge that's pretty reasonable. A lot of larger apartment and
multitenant office buildings have their own substation and provide
2dary metering to the tenants who pay the CFE (Comision Federal de
Electricidad) on a pro-rata basis. That's the way it works in my
office building downtown where the rent includes light -- they have a
single HV feed on the roof, a couple of 175 kVA transformers, and
distribute the 120/208 to all of the tenants without even bothering to
meter it. There's a per-tenant disconnect down in the basement, and
meter bases, but they're all just jumpered over (with ugly little
stubs of 10-ga or 12-ga or zip-wire or whatever...This IS Mexico,
after all).

Mail -s "Evite SPAM" `echo 'lawre...@abaluon.abaom.mx' | sed s/aba/c/g `

--Lawrence

Mike Ross

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Mar 2, 2002, 12:17:59 AM3/2/02

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On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 20:57:48 GMT, "Bevis" <h...@grits.egg> wrote:

>A good friend of mine [now deceased] used to have an IBM 360 in his garage
>back in the 1980's. Seems Blue Cross wanted to sell it and IBM offered them
>$500 for scrap. He learned of it and offered them $600 and bought it. The
>biggest problem with it [as I remember] was that it used 440V 3phase power
>and his local electric company charged him something like $10,000 to run
>that to his house. :)
>
>Don't really know what he did with it aside from play. He ended up giving it
>to his old college and they gave him a $250,000 tax write off! :)

Oooooooooh. <ears prick up>

I'm always interested in chasing down leads on old IBM equipment...
been after a 360 or 370 or System/3 and never got lucky yet... dare I
ask you to divulge the name of the college, and any idea you might
have of the final fate of the machine?

Thanks

CBFalconer

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Mar 2, 2002, 5:30:53 AM3/2/02

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Mike Ross wrote:
>
> On Thu, 28 Feb 2002 20:57:48 GMT, "Bevis" <h...@grits.egg> wrote:
>
> >A good friend of mine [now deceased] used to have an IBM 360 in his garage
> >back in the 1980's. Seems Blue Cross wanted to sell it and IBM offered them
> >$500 for scrap. He learned of it and offered them $600 and bought it. The
> >biggest problem with it [as I remember] was that it used 440V 3phase power
> >and his local electric company charged him something like $10,000 to run
> >that to his house. :)
> >
> >Don't really know what he did with it aside from play. He ended up giving it
> >to his old college and they gave him a $250,000 tax write off! :)
>
> Oooooooooh. <ears prick up>
>
> I'm always interested in chasing down leads on old IBM equipment...
> been after a 360 or 370 or System/3 and never got lucky yet... dare I
> ask you to divulge the name of the college, and any idea you might
> have of the final fate of the machine?

15 years or more ago Charlie Gingell had a retired 360 in a
storeroom at the Yale accellerator facility, and asked me if I
wanted it. He has died since, but he worked for the chairman of
the Physics Department - D.A. Bromley, who was ex-Chalk River AECL
in the 50s, and I believe he is still chairman. The thing might
still be there. Charlie and I had similar squirrelling instincts,
but I restricted myself to smaller things :-)

Finders fee on the tax rebate ? <g>

--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@XXXXworldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
(Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified)
mailto:u...@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest)

Neil Franklin

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Mar 2, 2002, 3:59:38 PM3/2/02

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Nick Spalding <spal...@iol.ie> writes:

> Joe Morris wrote, in <a5mdah$41g$1...@newslocal.mitre.org>:
>
> > A charge of $10,000 doesn't sound unreasonable. Normal service drops
> > are single-phase (in the US, 240 VAC center-tapped), and in many
> > residential areas only a single high-voltage phase is available on the
> > poles.
> >

> Here in Ireland in suburban areas the norm is a pole line with 3 phase
> + neutral. In my particular street a pair of houses on one side of
> the street are fed off one phase + neutral, nominal 220v - a pair

Looks like I am very well off here in Switzerland.

The 8-appartement block I am in has 230/400V (ex 220/380) 75A
underground cable into the basement. From there on each appartement
gets its own 3*25A fused cable. In the appartement there is then an
distribution box. Ours has 1 switch marked 15/380 (stove+oven) and 5
marked 10/380 (various rooms power and light).

Yes, 3-phase in my bedroom would be a case of pulling 10m of 3 wires.
Any normal electrician can do it.

That is considered standard wiring here. The house is from the 1960s.

--
Neil Franklin, ne...@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/
Hacker, Unix Guru, El Eng HTL/BSc, Sysadmin, Archer, Roleplayer
- Intellectual Property is Intellectual Robbery

Bevis

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Mar 3, 2002, 4:12:33 PM3/3/02

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"Mike Ross" <aba...@attglobal.net> wrote in message
news:4oo08u4ikvq47b86i...@4ax.com...

Since the incident I was talking about happened during the late 1970's, I
trust you will understand that I do not remember what college it went to. I
think it was in Alabama. UA? Auburn? I really can't remember. Nor do I have
any idea what the college did with the machine. I assume, they used it!

You must remember that back then [long ago and far, far away] IBM did not
sell these machines. You had to have the clout of the Federal Government or
a "really big" [as Ed Sullivan would have said] company to actually buy one.
Most had to settle for leasing them. It was my understanding back at the
time, that IBM made such a low ball offer for it was because they were upset
with Blue Cross because of all the arm twisting Blue Cross had done to buy
it. Of course, they also bought the 370 they replaced it with. :)

Somehow, I doubt that you could get a quarter-mil tax write-off today for
donating one of these beasties to a college. From looking at eBay, it would
have to be an Altair or Imsai! :)

Which brings up another question, WHY are the original Altairs going for so
much on Ebay? Don't people remember they were crap? There were many machines
that were MUCH better than the original Altairs back then. And Altair wasn't
even the first home computer, so don't give that as a reason. :)

Bevis

Pete Fenelon

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Mar 3, 2002, 4:55:35 PM3/3/02

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Bevis <h...@grits.egg> wrote:
>
> Which brings up another question, WHY are the original Altairs going for so
> much on Ebay? Don't people remember they were crap? There were many machines
> that were MUCH better than the original Altairs back then. And Altair wasn't
> even the first home computer, so don't give that as a reason. :)
>

Mythology and the Free Market. People who want to be a part of "the
good old days" - how many of those Altairs are ever *used*? (probably
almost none). I suspect they're some sort of retro-chic antique
status symbol, for the most part -- I'd guess that a "real" S100
enthusiast probably still has a couple of systems going from 20+
years ago :)

A few other machines attract ebay prices that bear no resemblance to
their utility or quality. Try buying an early PET and you'll see what I
mean, or look at what Multias went for when they went from being "old
junk" to collector's items. Or look at how a mono NeXT will sell for 2-3
times the price of a faster, more colourful SGI Indy :)

I ebay stuff from my collection when I'm no longer using it -- I've
occasionally been surprised at what I've sold things for - but I'm
powerless to stop people making silly bids :P

pete
--
pe...@fenelon.com "Irk the purists, irk the purists, it's a right good laugh."

Paul Repacholi

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Mar 3, 2002, 6:32:12 PM3/3/02

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Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> writes:

> Joe Morris wrote:

> > "Bevis" <h...@grits.egg> writes:

They should move to here then. 3ph to houses is pretty standard,
though we have just, in the last few years, move to 240VAC from 256!
WA was *the* place to test your gear ;) Phase Linear amps would last
about 3 weeks till they revamped them. I have a 3x100A feed to the
house. Just a matter of asking.

Also having a 11/70 and a KL-10E make good power a good idea.

--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.

Pete Zaitcev

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Mar 4, 2002, 1:40:09 AM3/4/02

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The thread unravels into the area of 360s, and has a good
chance to reach 1401 becofore it dies off. However, I really
cannot afford something "really real" even if I wanted one.
So, I am thinking about something smaller.

This is information which I found so far about "reasonable" boxes:

* 7437
The oldest small mainframe. Was undeservedly unsuccessful,
so there is no chance to find one. May have no internal disks,
so assumes block mux and an array.

* "Racetrack"
possibly an alias of 7437.

* Amdahl something
A precise ripoff of that was made by IZOT, Bulgaria, and I saw it.
It was a box of a size of an under desk filing cabinet.
But it used block-mux, which is a problem. Needs console diagnostic
CPU of the same size as the machine proper (with CPU, core and
channels all together), booting from 8" floppies (PITA to prevent
from bitrot). Probably impossible to find.

* P/370
Board for PS/2 Needs some binary software for OS/2 or AIX to run.
(rejected because Hercules does the same job better and uncool
in general).

* 9370
possibly an alias for P/370.

* P/390 & P/390E
Same as P/370, but faster and Linux capable. May make some sense
if a good deal is found.

* s390 Multiprise 3000 H50
Linux capable. Size seems ok. Uses IBM channel I/O, but perhaps
can be used with PCI. Unfortunately, it is not completely obsolete
yet, so it takes a LOT of money to get one.
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/s390/multiprise/

The last entry seems to fit the bill the best, if only I ignore
the price. So, perhaps I'll get one in 7 or 9 years when they
get a bit cheaper on the second hand market.

-- Pete

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 5:34:49 AM3/4/02

to

zai...@yahoo.com (Pete Zaitcev) writes:

7437 was (IBM Fellow) Beausoleil's A74 machine (separate box with
connection to PC).

P/370 & P/390 were/are microchannel cards ... effectively follow-on to
xt/at/370 ("washington") cards. There is image of p/390 card at:
http://pucc.princeton.edu/~melinda/

9370 was endicott low-end 370 (departmental) mainframe.

some a74 press

IBM's VM/SP Device Cuts Mainframe Load

InfoWorld, November 7, 1988

by Sharon Fisher and Alice LaPlante

IBM is now shipping, on a special-order basis, a PS/2-based device
that runs the VM/SP mainframe operting system.

The IBM 7437 VM/SP Technical Workstation device offloads technically
oriented, processor-intensive mainframe applications, such as computer-
aided design, engineering software development, and geophysical mapping,
IBM said. The separate processor reduces the load on the mainframe and
provides a more consistent response time.

The device consists of two parts: the 7437 processor itself, which
is a floor-standing unit, and a PS/2 Model 60, 70, or 80 that provides I/O
support to the 7437 processor. The 7437 uses IBM-proprietary 32-bit
technology, said Marty Ziskind, an advisory engineer in the IBM Fellow
department.

Users can run the 7437 as a stand-alone VM system, a host-attached
VM workstation, a host terminal attached to a VM or MVS host, or a PS/2
running DOS 3.3 or 4.0, Ziskind said. The system is "multiple-user,
single-seat," he said. "It's like a 9370 with one terminal." Users can
toggle between VM and DOS sessions. OS/2 and IBM's AIX implementation of
UNIX are not supported.

Software and the VM operating system can be downloaded from a 370
mainframe by emulating a 3270 terminal or through a Token Ring link.

Programs written for the 370 can run on the 7437, assuming they
aren't timing-dependent and don't require specific features of the
mainframe models of the 370, IBM said.

A 7437 VM/SP Technical Workstation Interface Adapter Card is
installed in the PS/2 used for I/O. The PS/2 is connected to the main
7437 unit via a special cable. The speed of the 7437 varies depending
on the speed of the PS/2 used for I/O.

Users who plan to use the 7437 as an engineering workstation may
want to use the IBM 5080 Graphics System, the company said. This includes
an MCA bus master adapter card for the PS/2 and a choice of several models
of the 5085 Graphic Processor Unit.

Required software includes DOS 3.3 plus one copy of VM/SP, Release 5
and the IBM 7437 VM/SP Technical Workstation Host Server for the IBM 370
host servicing the 7437s.

The IBM 7437 costs $18,100, with a 25-unit minimum. The 5080 Graphics
System Hardware costs an additional $1,300. <sic>

================================================================

PC WEEK, October 31, 1988

IBM'S SYSTEM/370 WORKSTATION (A74)

IBM WORKSTATION BRINGS POWER OF MAINFRAME TO MICRO CHANNEL
By J. Cortino

IBM is quietly offering a new System/370 workstation
that gives users the horsepower of a 9370 host system in a
much smaller unit and at a vastly lower cost.

IBM, which has not officially announced the workstation,
will show it to selected customers at the Autofact '88 trade
show in Chicago this week, according to Martin Ziskind,
IBM Fellow Department, an advisory engineer in Kingston, N.Y.

The System/370 Technical Workstation consists of an
IBM PS/2 Model 60 or 80 and a floor-standing machine about
the size of a PC AT that contains System/370 mainframe
circuitry, IBM officials confirmed last week.

The system allows users to locally process high-end
applications, such as computer-aided design and manufacturing
(CAD/CAM), without having to go up to the mainframe, they said.

"The appeal of the System/370 is that is lets end users
work with CAD/CAM software on a workstation," said Daniel
Caldwell, IBM's product marketing administrator for computer-
augmented design and manipulation (CADAM). "It takes the load
off the mainframe and gives users more autonomy at the same
time."

Another key to the system, observers said, is its use
of the PS/2 and its Micro Channel architecture. "The PS/2
is the disk drive, the memory and the keyboard for the
System/370," said Ziskind. "In order for this whole
arrangement to work, the System/370 must link to the PS/2
through the Micro Channel bus."

"One of the best things about this, is that it looks
like something is finally going to make use of the Micro
Channel," said Thomas Foth, senior developer at Relay
Communications Inc., a software developer in Danbury, Conn.

The System/370 Technical Workstation links to the PS/2
via a cable and an interface adapter card. The card is
connected to the Micro Channel bus in the PS/2.

The workstation can run Virtual Machine/System
Product (VM/SP) release 5 applications written for
System/370 mainframe environments, such as CADAM and
circuit-board design applications.

The System/370 workstation can be configured in
four ways as a stand-alone VM workstation running IBM
System/370 mainframe applications, as a host-attached
VM workstation sharing mainframe resources; as a host
terminal connected to a VM/SP or MVS host locally or
remotely, and as a PS/2 running DOS.

IBM is offering the system as a "special bid"
processor only to qualified customers, and has no plans
at this time to offer the system to its entire customer
base, according to Ziskind. "We want to sell it to
people who understand the VM environment," he said.

The System/370 workstation is priced at $18,100
and $19,400 depending upon configuration. A 9370 Model 20,
the low-end model of IBM's mainframe line, can cost from
$40,000 to $70,000.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PC WEEK, October 31, 1988

THE WEEK IN REVIEW

MICRO CHANNEL FINALLY FINDS A PURPOSE IN LIFE

At last, it appears that we have reached the point where rumored
benefits of IBM's Micro Channel architecture are beginning to emerge.
Our Page 1 story about the oh-so-quiet emergence of an MCA-based
System/370 workstation shows how the MCA is critical to allowing
PS/2 boxes take on many personalities.

With the Micro Channel, a PS/2 can provide local I/O services
to VM-oriented, mainframe circuits - just as it can for traditional
PC setups. The value of mainframe hybrids such as the 370
workstation can be seen in the expansion of software systems that
require deep integration between desktops and data centers, as is
noted in our Project Management Focus On, Page 78.

Perhaps that is why a passel of the heretofore timid MCA cloners
have finally gotten the courage to go live with their products.
Between Comdex/Fall and the end of the year, we can expect to see
a half-dozen or so PS/2-alikes.

Another reason the clones may be coming is that the PS/2
may find some hidden, but shockingly large, markets. On Page 5,
analyst Peter Coffee - who advises Aerospace Inc., the U.S.
Air Force's civilian think tank, about PC systems - points out
how neatly MCA fits into the biggest PC procurement order in
history.

That other alternative standard, Unix, gets a lot of ink
again, too. The operating system whose time may have come is
featured in a 30-page Special Section. It's also the subject
of our editorial on Page 72, where we note that so many people
seem to be trying to improve Unix, they may just kill it with
kindness. Paul Schindler argues in his Management by Objection
column that Unix euphoria may be dangerous to micro managers'
health.

Other points of note: In Software, Jim Forbes reports that
the dishy descriptor, 'groupware,' may already be passe. It's
teamwork that's critical today. There's a nifty combination
in Networking, Page 31: Fax and Tax, the integration of fax
systems and E-mail and networks designed with tax departments
in mind.

And for a colorful, high-res display of wide-ranging
responses to product possibilities and satisfaction, check
out this week's PC Week Poll of third-party EGA and VGA
boards.

================================================================

FROM MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS WEEK, 11/7/88:

IBM Quietly Sells a VM Workstation

Single-User System, by Matthew Cain

NEW YORK - For the past two months, International Business
Machines Corp. has been quietly selling a single-user 370
architecture workstation that runs applications based on
the VM operating system.

IBM classifies the machine as a "special product" which
is not available through normal marketing channels. A
customer has to contact an IBM salesperson and then requests
a price on the workstation. In standard IBMese, the computer
is an RPQ product, for Request for Price Quote.

"It's like a speakeasy," Gary Smith, IBM's manager of
market development for the workstation, "you have to knock
three times." He said IBM was not marketing the machine because
it was uncertain if demand would warrant a full-scale campaign.

The workstation, officially known as the IBM 7437 VM/SP
Technical Workstation, is actually a 370 architecture co-processor
connected by cable to a high-end PS/2 microcomputer. The cable
is hooked up to a card which is inserted into the microcomputer.
In this fashion, the PS/2 performs all I/O, provides all DASD
(direct-access storage device) and contains all disk drives,
Smith said.

The 370 co-processor, which is the same size and shape as
a floor-standing PS/2 model 70, is priced at $18,100, which
includes 16 Mbytes of memory and the right to copy the VM needed
for the operating system transfer are included. The price does
not include the microcomputer.

For an additional $1,300, a card is available that enables
the user to hook up IBM's 5080 graphics display system, which
is primarily used for computer-aided design and computer-aided
engineering (CAD/CAE applications.

Applications

Smith said the workstation would find applications
primarily in these fields because of the existence of
sophisticated software which was not yet available in
singer-user versions. For example, Smith said the popular
design engineering software made by Cadam, Inc., Burbank,
Calif., was not available in a single-user version, yet
demand existed for such a product.

In fact, at last week's Autofact in Chicago (see related
story, page 11) Cadam was showing the 7431 VM/SP workstation
in its booth. The machine was also seen in a booth sponsored
by Valisys Corp. Sunnyvale, Calif., as well as in IBM's booth.

In selling the workstation, IBM has to overcome customer
resistance caused by a similar offering the firm had previously
brought out. The AT/370 was an attempt also to download VM
to a single-user machine, in this case to the PC/AT. However,
the machine was not a success because of limited DASD and limited
processing power and because the machine ran only a subset of the
VM operating system.

Smith said that, when dealing with potential customers,
he sometimes has to answer questions about "the perceived
deficiencies with the AT/370." He said the 7431 VM/SP
"overcomes a lot of that" because it has six times the
processing power of the PC/AT, 10 times the DASD, and a
full-function VM operating system, VM/SP Version 5.

IBM has been using the machine internally for some
time, according to Dan Caldwell, IBM's product marketing
administrator for computer-augmented design and manipulation
(CADAM). "IBM's commitment is to use what we sell and sell
what we use," he said.

Competition with 9370

Thomas Foth, a developer at software house Relay
Communications Inc., Danbury, Conn., who is familiar with
the machine, said IBM was not aggressively marketing the
workstation because it might cannibalize IBM's primary VM
platform, the 9370 departmental mainframe. Because the price
of the workstation was about one-half the price of a low-end
9370, it might take business away from the larger system.

He said the attitude of the 9370 people was "don't
compete with my 9370; get off my turf."

However, IBM's Smith disagreed. He said the workstation
had the blessing of the 9370 developers and expanded the range
of the line. "The market is saying we need another entry point'
to the 9370 line, he said. He also noted that all other 9370
machines were multi-user systems.

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

Joe Morris

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 8:59:44 AM3/4/02

to

"Bevis" <h...@grits.egg> writes:

>You must remember that back then [long ago and far, far away] IBM did not
>sell these machines. You had to have the clout of the Federal Government or
>a "really big" [as Ed Sullivan would have said] company to actually buy one.
>Most had to settle for leasing them.

IBM did at one time have a "lease-only" policy, but that ended with the
original Consent Decree ('53?), long before the S/360 came was released
in 1964.

In the S/360 era, there was a reasonably consistent pricing structure
in which the purchase price of a box was about 40 times the monthly
lease rate. Not shown in this ratio was the bundling of maintenance
into the leasing figure; a purchase decision had to include that cost
into the equation.

Also not reflected in the 40:1 ratio was the restriction of 176 hours
per month usage limit for leased machines; for commercial customers
there were additional costs if that figure was exceeded. A 24x7 shop
would find this charge to bias the equation in favor of purchasing.

As a side note, by comparison to today's frantic pace of hardware designs
that make products introduced yesterday obsolete by no later than next
week, in the old mainframe world of the S/360 systems were long-term
investments.

Joe Morris

Luis Fernandes

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 9:55:49 AM3/4/02

to

This is going to sound like a silly question, but how did mainframes
fare when the power was cut in the middle of its operation? Did the
OS boot OK when the power came back on and did it just continue
running where it left off (it had core mem, right)?

Did mainframes ever need UPS'?

John A. Stovall

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 10:23:37 AM3/4/02

to

On 04 Mar 2002 09:55:49 -0500, Luis Fernandes <e...@ee.ryerson.ca>
wrote:

The early CDC Cyber were very sensitive to power lose and you could
end up having to reload all the files and users restarting jobs. Oh,
the joys of the Cyber 72 and 6600 at SMU in the '70's during
thunderstorm season. Conoco in Ponca City Oklahoma was even more fun
with the 885 disk drives in a shared file system configuration between
multiple mainframes (860's) which required the mainframes to be take
down in a specific sequences or you would have major file problems.

Yes, Mainframes used UPS. This may be urban legend but I heard at
China Lake there was a UPS there which was the power unit out of an
old diesel electric Sub.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 12:04:11 PM3/4/02

to

Luis Fernandes <e...@ee.ryerson.ca> writes:
> This is going to sound like a silly question, but how did mainframes
> fare when the power was cut in the middle of its operation? Did the
> OS boot OK when the power came back on and did it just continue
> running where it left off (it had core mem, right)?

most did not, part of the issue wasn't so much the consistency of the
stuff in core/memory ... it was the consistency of all the possible
ancillary options that might have been "in-flight" when the failure
occured.

with respect to filesystem consistency, depends on the
"mainframe". There is discussion of multics ... with unix type file
system checking on power-up ... taking two hrs.

there is also discussion of 360/370 mainframe disk infrastructure that
if the power failure happened in the middle of a write operation,
there was enough power for the disk to complete the write, but there
was situtions where there was not enough power to maintain memory and
transfer the contents of memory to disk ... as a result the disk would
be getting all zeros for completeing the write. for that failure mode,
there was no indication that the write had failed to complete
correctly ... in fact there was no disk read error indication at all.

this particular failue mode was one of the reason for the CMS EDF
(enhanced disk file system) in the '70s. The CMS filesystem from the
mid-60s always did "shadow" writes involving any changed metadata
(master file directory information) records, but when it went to
commit the shadow writes, it would rewrite record 4 (that included
indication of the new version rather than the old). EDF used paired
record 4/5 and would ping-pong writing the record. On any
resume/reboot situation, EDF would read both records 4 and 5 and
determine which was to be used (i.e. simplest was having version
number at the end of the record). The majority of write failues would
be caught be disk hardware and there would be some error indication on
read (except for the power-failue, zero propogation problem).

The zero propogation problem wasn't intrinsictly a filesystem
inconsistency problem involving huge amounts of cached and possibly
altered filesystem metadata in memory that would possibly trickle back
to disk possibly resulting in inconsistent filesystem control
information. All of the metadata on disk was kept maintained
consistently across multiple records. There was, however, this
hardware issue.

A similar issue has been discussed regarding modern disks, many of
which will guarentee an atomic write of a single record, aka either it
is not written or it is written completely & correctly (faced with a
power failure in operation). Even with modern disks guarenteeing
atomic single record writes ... there are some number of situations
where the filesystem is using a logical record size that is a multiple
of a physical record ... potentially giving rise to a similar
filesystem issue with incomplete or incorrect filesystem single
"record" write in the face of a power failure ... where there is not a
corresponding read error indication (one resume/reboot).

Note that the hardware disk failure issue could also have some impact
on DBMS that maintain ACID properties (transaction either commits
complete and consistent or doesn't happen at all) if such an incorrect
writing of a DBMS log record resulted in improper handling on
resume/restart.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 12:09:27 PM3/4/02

to

John A. Stovall <sto...@our-town.com> writes:
> >Did mainframes ever need UPS'?
>
> The early CDC Cyber were very sensitive to power lose and you could
> end up having to reload all the files and users restarting jobs. Oh,
> the joys of the Cyber 72 and 6600 at SMU in the '70's during
> thunderstorm season. Conoco in Ponca City Oklahoma was even more fun
> with the 885 disk drives in a shared file system configuration between
> multiple mainframes (860's) which required the mainframes to be take
> down in a specific sequences or you would have major file problems.
>
> Yes, Mainframes used UPS. This may be urban legend but I heard at
> China Lake there was a UPS there which was the power unit out of an
> old diesel electric Sub.

there is the one about the 6600 at berekely and its shutdown from the
'60s ... not because of power ... but because of thermal. the story as
i remember was every tuesday morning about 10am the 6600 would
(thermal) shutdown.

they eventually traced it to a loss of water pressure; a combination
of the lawn being watered ... at the same time as a class break (and
resulting nearly simultaneous large number of flushes).

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 12:33:33 PM3/4/02

to

lwi...@bbs.cpcn.com (lwin) writes:
> The S/360 had a reasonably long lifespan before the S/370
> was announced to replace (I think 6-7 years betwen announcements).
> But once S/370 hit, the changes became fast and furious--the
> S/370-xx5 models soon became the S/370-xx8 (ie 135 -> 138)
> models, and then the 4300 and 30xx series came out. I'm not
> sure where S/370 stops and S/390 begins. (The machine we're
> using today is a 96xx which I forget what. In contrast to
> the old days, almost everyone doesn't even know what specific
> model it is nor cares.)

things started out with the "mid-life kickers" (incremental
modifications to existing machines) ... but effectively both the
automobile industry and the mainframe industry were on similar seven
year product design cycles.

The 303x were somewhere inbetween. The big thing in 303x was the
channel director. Basically a 155/158 had integrated channels (handled
six channels) ... effectively the processor engine was time-shared
between the integrated channel microcode function and the 370
instruction set execution microcode function. A 303x channel director
handled six channels (for >six channels, needed multiple directors)
and was basically a repackaged 158 engine w/o the 370 instruction
set microcode (aka dedicated to the channel function).

A 3031 was a 158 w/o the integrated channel microcode and reconfigured
to work with a channel director (sort of a asymmetric two processor
configuration). A 3032 was a 168 reconfigured to work with channel
director. A 3033 started out as 168 wiring diagram mapped to newer
chip technology that was about 20percent faster and had about ten
times the circuit density/chip. The first pass at 3033 would have been
about 1/5th faster than 168-3 but then there was some specific tuning
of the logic to take some advantage of more on-chip operations
... which eventually pushed the 3033 to about 50percent faster than
168-3 by the time of first customer ship.

After that, things still continued on the seven year cycle ... but
there were two teams, working in parallel producing products
offset. The 3081 was the "158" team ... the 3090 was the "168" team.

The post "xx8" modules had less of a well defined continuum. The 4341
and the 3031 significantly overlapped:

misc 4341 &/or 3031 refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#7 IBM S/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#36 why is there an "@" key?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#52 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#53 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#57 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#21 Disk caching and file systems. Disk history...people forget
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001.html#22 Disk caching and file systems. Disk history...people forget

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#69 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#63 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#65 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#67 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#12 Multics Nostalgia
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#15 departmental servers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#0 Microcode?

slightly related automobile seven year cycle:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#41 Reason Japanese cars are assembled in the US (was Re: American bigotry)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#43 Reason Japanese cars are assembled in the US (was Re: American bigotry)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#43 Economic Factors on Automation

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#69 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#39 195 was: Computer Typesetting Was: Movies with source code

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#58 Certificate Authentication Issues in IE and Verisign
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#79 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#11 The demise of compaq

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#36 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#48 Microcode?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#2 Microcode? (& index searching)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#3 Microcode? (& index searching)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#32 First DESKTOP Unix Box?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#40 using >=4GB of memory on a 32-bit processor

Pete Zaitcev

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 2:13:08 PM3/4/02

to

On 04 Mar 2002 09:55:49 -0500, Luis Fernandes <e...@ee.ryerson.ca> wrote:

I never operated an original IBM box. Soviet clones were notorious
for not working right after a power cycle because of thermal and
transient issues. For instance, ES-1045 (a 370/xxx - about 5 mips
or so) featured a prominent "emergency power off" handle on its
panel, which looked as a car engine valve sticking out from the top
right corner. Pulling it interrupted power to whole machine.
Restoring power usually took a week, because at first the box had
to be warmed up to the right temperature, then circuits that
failed during the shutdown had to be diagnosed and replaced.
The 1045 was TTL based and air cooled. Liquid cooled ECL models
fared not much better though.

Hungarians produced a decent clone of a French mini Thomson/Bull
Mitra-15, with 64KB core memory and 800KB fixed head disk
(255 magnetic heads). Pulling power on it worked fine, it would
restart right off. The OS had to have some support for it thouhgh.
Hardware saved all registers into the core on the power failure,
but the interrupt code stopped the CPU is a special I/O instruction,
to prevent it running amok when power deteriorated. On restart,
software received control in an interrupt and had to return from
it in a "normal" way.

The technical side of Mitra-15 had nothing with the mainframe topic
of this thread, but there was some mainframe content. Sneaky
Videoton people marketed it as a "member" of the "ES family"
under the "ES-1010" model number. Apparently, that allowed them
to get money from Soviets in some cunning way.

-- Pete

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 3:27:24 PM3/4/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> After that, things still continued on the seven year cycle ... but
> there were two teams, working in parallel producing products
> offset. The 3081 was the "158" team ... the 3090 was the "168" team.

above from "ibm mainframe at home" thread in a.f.c
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#7

with OT thread drift to "security proportional to risk" thread
(somewhat e-commerce):
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#61 Net banking, is it safe???

in the early 70s there was a trade-secret document theft case
regarding disk technology. The assertions was that the "disk clone"
business took 12 to 18 months to reverse engineer, duplicate and bring
product to market (after initial introduction of new product). The
assertion was that the document thefts would potentially allow a clone
manufactor to bring a product to market six months earlier
... representing possibly several tens of billions of dollars in
revenue.

somewhere along the way, the judge supposedly raised the "swimming
pool attractive hazard" issue (aka pool owner is responsible for bad
things that happen in their pool unless they can demonstrate fences
and other security measures proportional to determination of
trespassers that might find the pool attractive); aka for legal
remedy, have to demonstrate security measures proportional to the
value of the trade-secret.

For actual disk hardware this was a secure compound with perimeter
fence and guards at the gates, patrols inside the compound, secure
building with door badge readers, enforced & audited policies about
tail-gating, 2nd floor (above ground) machine room with even more
restricted badge reader acces. Within the machine room, devices were
housed in a "test cell" ... basically a small heavy steel wire mesh
cage (maybe 5x5x7, reinforce steel floor, heavy steel wire mesh sides
& top). Door to cage had combination lock and each cage had unique
combination. Lots of audit procedures and patrols to assure that
security was being followed. This is somewhat analogous to safe
deposit boxes but with more layers of security and constant auditing
procedures.

Documents were "candy-stripe" covers with registered confidential
classification. Each copy of a document was numbered. Each page of a
candy-stripe document had the document copy number embossed in large
print on every page (basically faint background but the number was
large print essentially filling the whole page) with legend
"registered confidential, do not copy/reproduce" on every page (either
3800 background flash or special paper from secure printer).

Each copy was signed out to specific person and that person had to
follow a lot of processes protecting the document which were also
audited on regular basis. A person having registered confidential
documents also had special secure file cabinat for storing the
documents, their offices had sporadic audits after hours and there
were periodic audits to verify that the person still had possesion of
the document. Registered confidential document copies tended to number
in the tens or at most few hundres.

For the 3081 there were a whole file drawer of "811" documents (from
the date nov. 1978) that were registered confidential and had to
demonstrate that every copy of every 811 document was managed with the
highest/appropriate security processes. Even at that, there was some
leakage and a fairly well publiciszed industrial espionage case
related to 811 documents.

bringing back to merchant e-commerce sites thread ... would an
attractive hazard be a defense with regard to hacking e-commerce
servers that had insufficient security?

random registered confidential refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001i.html#30 IBM OS Timeline?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#79 a.f.c history checkup... (was What specifications will the standard year 2001 PC have?)

random attractive hazard refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsmore.htm#2527a RFC 2527 Physical Security Controls Question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#42 IBM was/is: Imitation...

random disk test cell ref:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#15 cp disk story

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#3 What is an IBM 137/148 ???

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/96.html#18 IBM 4381 (finger-check)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#15 OSes commerical, history
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#31 Old Computers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#54 Fault Tolerance
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#9 Computer of the century

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#69 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#72 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001h.html#19 checking some myths.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#13 mainframe question
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001l.html#32 mainframe question

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#39 195 was: Computer Typesetting Was: Movies with source code

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002.html#10 index searching

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#2 Microcode? (& index searching)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#0 VAX, M68K complex instructions (was Re: Did Intel Bite Off MoreThan It Can Chew?)

random 811/3081 references:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#31 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#00 Big I/O or Kicking the Mainframe out the Door
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#43 Bloat, elegance, simplicity and other irrelevant concepts
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#55 How Do the Old Mainframes Compare to Today's Micros?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#3 What is an IBM 137/148 ???

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#10 Virtual Memory (A return to the past?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#46 The god old days(???)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#4 IBM S/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#102 IBM 9020 computers used by FAA (was Re: EPO stories (was: HELP IT'S HOT!!!!!))

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#103 IBM 9020 computers used by FAA (was Re: EPO stories (was: HELP IT'S HOT!!!!!))

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#112 OS/360 names and error codes (was: Humorous and/or Interesting Opcodes)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#190 Merced Processor Support at it again
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#78 Mainframe operating systems

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#38 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#65 oddly portable machines

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#55 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#57 Why not an IBM zSeries workstation?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#35 John Mashey's greatest hits

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#37 John Mashey's greatest hits

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#38 Why SMP at all anymore?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#62 z/Architecture I-cache

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#69 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001b.html#83 Z/90, S/390, 370/ESA (slightly off topic)

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001c.html#53 Varian (was Re: UNIVAC - Help ??)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#66 Pentium 4 Prefetch engine?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#62 any 70's era supercomputers that ran as slow as today's supercomputers?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001f.html#68 Q: Merced a flop or not?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#13 Parity - why even or odd (was Re: Load Locked (was: IA64 running out of steam))

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#17 I hate Compaq
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001j.html#18 I hate Compaq

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#7 hot chips and nuclear reactors

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#32 First DESKTOP Unix Box?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#9 IBM Doesn't Make Small MP's Anymore

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#40 using >=4GB of memory on a 32-bit processor

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002c.html#42 Beginning of the end for SNA?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002d.html#7 IBM Mainframe at home

Julian Thomas

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 3:36:06 PM3/4/02

to

In <u664cn...@earthlink.net>, on 03/04/02

at 05:33 PM, Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> said:

>After that, things still continued on the seven year cycle ... but there
>were two teams, working in parallel producing products offset. The 3081
>was the "158" team ... the 3090 was the "168" team.

Lynn, I think you have that backwards, to the extent that there were still
158 and 168 teams in that timeframe. Remember that FS and the 303x caused
a great deal of team realignment. The project mgr for the 158 ended up on
3090 and ISTR that the 3081 had a lot of 168/3033 folks.

--
Julian Thomas: jt . jt-mj @ net http://jt-mj.net
remove letter a for email (or switch . and @)
In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!
Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc
http://www.possi.org
-- --
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 4, 2002, 3:41:12 PM3/4/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> For the 3081 there were a whole file drawer of "811" documents (from
> the date nov. 1978) that were registered confidential and had to
> demonstrate that every copy of every 811 document was managed with the
> highest/appropriate security processes. Even at that, there was some
> leakage and a fairly well publiciszed industrial espionage case
> related to 811 documents.

another aspect was network & evesdroping security. While the internal
network was larger than the arpanet/internet until sometime in the
mid-80s, corporate guidelines required that all links that left
physical site had to have link encryptors. At one time I heard somebody
claim that the internal network had over half the link encryptors in
existance in the world.

random internal network refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/94.html#31 High Speed Data Transport (HSDT)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/95.html#7 Who built the Internet? (was: Linux/AXP.. Reliable?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#2 IBM 1130 (was Re: IBM 7090--used for business or science?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/97.html#26 IA64 Self Virtualizable?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#16 S/360 operating systems geneaology
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#56 Earliest memories of "Adventure" & "Trek"
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#7 IBM S/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#33 why is there an "@" key?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#38c Internet and/or ARPANET?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#52 Enter fonts (was Re: Unix case-sensitivity: how did it originate?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#83 "Adventure" (early '80s) who wrote it?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#109 OS/360 names and error codes (was: Humorous and/or Interesting Opcodes)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#110 OS/360 names and error codes (was: Humorous and/or Interesting Opcodes)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#113 OS/360 names and error codes (was: Humorous and/or Interesting Opcodes)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#126 Dispute about Internet's origins
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/aadsm6.htm#terror6 [FYI] Did Encryption Empower These Terrorists?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#3 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#67 oddly portable machines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#72 Microsoft boss warns breakup could worsen virus problem
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#30 internal corporate network, misc.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#46 Does the word "mainframe" still have a meaning?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000c.html#60 Disincentives for MVS & future of MVS systems programmers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#13 internet preceeds Gore in office.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#14 internet preceeds Gore in office.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#15 internet preceeds Gore in office.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000e.html#30 Is Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the web?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#14 IBM's mess (was: Re: What the hell is an MSX?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#17 IBM's mess (was: Re: What the hell is an MSX?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#24 A question for you old guys -- IBM 1130 information
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#39 Could CDR-coding be on the way back?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#50 Egghead cracked, MS IIS again

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 12:26:22 AM3/5/02

to

Others have answered about logical consistency and restarting.
There are other issues. One story before even my time that
the big vacuum-tube machines like the IBM 704 and 709 tended
to break badly if the cooling system failed at the same time
as the logic power failed--they needed at least a few minutes
to do the power cycle.

There is another story, heard from a Cray employee and a bit
closer to contemporary, about a Cray 1 whose Freon cooling system
failed and the temperature sensor wasn't working. Reportedly
quite a few chips unsoldered themselves from their boards; the
machine melted.

Dennis

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 1:20:42 AM3/5/02

to

Dennis Ritchie <d...@bell-labs.com> writes:
> There is another story, heard from a Cray employee and a bit
> closer to contemporary, about a Cray 1 whose Freon cooling system
> failed and the temperature sensor wasn't working. Reportedly
> quite a few chips unsoldered themselves from their boards; the
> machine melted.

there was mainframe TCM machine that had internal coolant, heat
exchange and external fluid coolent ... with a thermal sensor. There
was interruption in the external fluid flow ... which started
temperature rise and tripped the thermal ... but there wasn't enuf
mass in the internal coolant to contain the heat before TCMs fried (and
had to be replaced).

after that, flow sensors were installed on the external cooling
system.

random tcm refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#36 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000b.html#38 How to learn assembler language for OS/390 ?

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#4 hot chips and nuclear reactors

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001k.html#7 hot chips and nuclear reactors

http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002b.html#3 Microcode? (& index searching)

--

Jim Stewart

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 1:30:18 AM3/5/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:

> security). After that it was decreed that all modems manufactored by
> the company (whether for internal use or external sales) had to have
> the rj receptical recessed far enuf so that a corporate executive
> tongue was unable to touch the contacts.

And did they have a calibrated test tongue to use in the certification
lab?

I recall a British Telecomm safety standard that required you to probe
enclosure openings with a defined "test finger"

Michael J. Albanese

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 7:59:28 AM3/5/02

to

> Which brings up another question, WHY are the original Altairs going for so
> much on Ebay? Don't people remember they were crap? There were many machines
> that were MUCH better than the original Altairs back then. And Altair wasn't
> even the first home computer, so don't give that as a reason. :)

Perhaps due to its coverage in Popular Electronics. Altair wasn't first
or the best, but I think it was the first to get big coverage in a
mainstream magazine readily available at news stands. That, along with
the attractive, modern case design (with blinkenlights!), caught the
public's eye. The Altair achieved a kind of pop icon status.

I can still remember looking at the instruction set and thinking, "this
thing has segments, like using base registers on an IBM 370!" It seemed
like a real computer -- not a toy or a mess of boards and wires strung
together. The MITS name had some allure, too -- any company called
Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems surely must know what they're
doing. Heck, they're probably selling these to the space program!

And so I sent my hard-earned money off to Ed, only later to discover
just how lousy I was at soldering and making all those connectors fit.
But it certainly fired up the imagination, at least until that "other"
computer came along. The TRS-80 :-)

I do wish I had saved that Altair front panel, at least. It would have
made a nice conversation piece hanging on the wall somewhere. Should
have kept the TRS-80, too -- with that plastic case, it was great for
jamming the neighbor's TV after they let their dog bark outside all
evening.

Mike

--
(remove 'revoke-my-' from address for email)

Arthur T. Murray

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 9:07:56 AM3/5/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote on Tue, 05 Mar 2002:

>Dennis Ritchie <d...@bell-labs.com> writes:
>> There is another story, heard from a Cray employee and a bit
>> closer to contemporary, about a Cray 1 whose Freon cooling system
>> failed and the temperature sensor wasn't working. Reportedly
>> quite a few chips unsoldered themselves from their boards; the
>> machine melted.

Absolutely unacceptable! Supercomputers don't come cheap,
and the reliability had better be there in time for the
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html
Technological Singularity, when we will mass-migrate the
http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/mind4th.html Robot AI Mind
to fault-tolerant, built-to-last supercomputers.

>
> there was mainframe TCM machine that had internal coolant,
> heat exchange and external fluid coolent ... with a thermal
> sensor. There was interruption in the external fluid flow ...
> which started temperature rise and tripped the thermal ...
> but there wasn't enuf mass in the internal coolant to contain
> the heat before TCMs fried (and had to be replaced).
>
> after that, flow sensors were installed on the external

> cooling system. [...]
>

Joe Morris

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 9:25:33 AM3/5/02

to

Dennis Ritchie <d...@bell-labs.com> writes:

>There is another story, heard from a Cray employee and a bit
>closer to contemporary, about a Cray 1 whose Freon cooling system
>failed and the temperature sensor wasn't working. Reportedly
>quite a few chips unsoldered themselves from their boards; the
>machine melted.

There's a similar story that I've never confirmed (Lynn?) that during
factory testing of a BOM for a 360/91 (aka "IBM's Solid State Sprinkler
System") two different teams were working on the module. One of them
was (repairing?) the overtemperature sensors; the other team, unaware
of the inoperative sensors, decided to test them by turning off the
coolant. The obvious failure mode occured.

As usual, I can't confirm that this is anything more than an UL, but
it's certainly not impossible (and makes a good story in any case).

Joe Morris

CBFalconer

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 9:51:52 AM3/5/02

to

"Michael J. Albanese" wrote:
>
... snip ...

>
> public's eye. The Altair achieved a kind of pop icon status.
>
> I can still remember looking at the instruction set and thinking, "this
> thing has segments, like using base registers on an IBM 370!" It seemed
> like a real computer -- not a toy or a mess of boards and wires strung

The Altair, faults and all, was based on the 8080, which was a
very modern system in that it is totally unsegmented. One nice
flat expansive address space. Filling it with real live memory
was almost unthinkable. About $5 to $20 for a 1K x 1 2102 !! (you
didn't really want to mess with dynamic memory - notoriously
unreliable, and all those complications from refresh circuitry).
So a full memory would cost you about $12,000.

--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@XXXXworldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
(Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified)
mailto:u...@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest)

Joe Morris

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 10:00:59 AM3/5/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:

>Each copy was signed out to specific person and that person had to
>follow a lot of processes protecting the document which were also
>audited on regular basis. A person having registered confidential
>documents also had special secure file cabinat for storing the
>documents, their offices had sporadic audits after hours and there
>were periodic audits to verify that the person still had possesion of
>the document. Registered confidential document copies tended to number
>in the tens or at most few hundres.

[other paragraphs on this subject snipped]

What you've described is typical handling for classified material or
for equivalent sensitive material in the commercial world, including
the page-by-page accountability.

>bringing back to merchant e-commerce sites thread ... would an
>attractive hazard be a defense with regard to hacking e-commerce
>servers that had insufficient security?

I don't know if there is any case law on that point, but it's certainly
been the subject of discussion. What I've seen in the press, however,
hasn't been particularly helpful to defendants charged with electronic
trespass.

Joe Morris

Steve O'Hara-Smith

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 2:17:16 AM3/5/02

to

On Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:30:18 -0800
Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> wrote:

JS> And did they have a calibrated test tongue to use in the certification
JS> lab?

That would be an ISO standard worth reading :)

JS> I recall a British Telecomm safety standard that required you to probe
JS> enclosure openings with a defined "test finger"

I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies tongue not an executive).

--
C:>WIN | Directable Mirrors
The computer obeys and wins. |A Better Way To Focus The Sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licenses available - see:
| http://www.sohara.org/

jmfb...@aol.com

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 9:45:31 AM3/5/02

to

[snip strange newsgroups]

In article <20020305081716....@eircom.net>,

Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:30:18 -0800
>Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> wrote:
>
>JS> And did they have a calibrated test tongue to use in the certification
>JS> lab?
>
> That would be an ISO standard worth reading :)
>
>JS> I recall a British Telecomm safety standard that required you to probe
>JS> enclosure openings with a defined "test finger"
>
> I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
>that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies
>tongue not an executive).
>

When I was little, I was taught not to use my tongue nor a wet
finger to determine if the fence was hot. Instead I was told
to pick a blade of a maximum length of certain kind of grass.

/BAH

Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.

Sam Seiber

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 12:56:28 PM3/5/02

to

CBFalconer wrote:
> The Altair, faults and all, was based on the 8080, which was a
> very modern system in that it is totally unsegmented. One nice
> flat expansive address space. Filling it with real live memory
> was almost unthinkable. About $5 to $20 for a 1K x 1 2102 !! (you
> didn't really want to mess with dynamic memory - notoriously
> unreliable, and all those complications from refresh circuitry).
> So a full memory would cost you about $12,000.

IIRC, you are not going to get 64k of 2102's to fit in one box.
Also, you are going to have to beef up the power supply to power
all of those chips. Ahh, the good old days, when 8k was a lot!

Sam

Kent Olsen

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 1:42:54 PM3/5/02

to

uj...@victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray) wrote in message news:<3c84...@news.victoria.tc.ca>...

> Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote on Tue, 05 Mar 2002:
>
> >Dennis Ritchie <d...@bell-labs.com> writes:
> >> There is another story, heard from a Cray employee and a bit
> >> closer to contemporary, about a Cray 1 whose Freon cooling system
> >> failed and the temperature sensor wasn't working. Reportedly
> >> quite a few chips unsoldered themselves from their boards; the
> >> machine melted.
>

Years ago, Ken Dammert, Brad Hull, and I were in Arden Hills working
on the 205 that was destined for Florida State University. We went
into the shop one Sunday morning hoping to get some work done, but the
205 wasn't cooperating. Strange and varied results would occur when
we'd try to deadstart.

So we tracked down a CE and asked him to check the system. After
trying the obligatory deadstart and muttering something about
"something's wrong" he proceeded to the mainframe. Opening the
service panel to the system memory revealed that the master cicuit
breaker was tripped. As the CE reset the breaker it was immediately
yanked from his hand as it tripped again. Since this stung a bit it
irritated the CE -- so using the toe of his boot he reset the breaker
and wedged his foot so that the breaker couldn't pop.

Almost immediately there is a thick black smoke bellowing from the top
of the memory cabinet. (It looked like a train in and old western.)

One of the boards in the memory cabinet had a dead-short, which had
caused the breaker to pop in the first place. Holding the breaker
closed allowed the full 200 amp service to turn the board into burned
toast.

A sight I'll never forget!!!!

Kent

Heinz W. Wiggeshoff

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 2:02:38 PM3/5/02

to

Kent Olsen (ke...@nettally.com) writes:
>
> One of the boards in the memory cabinet had a dead-short, which had
> caused the breaker to pop in the first place. Holding the breaker
> closed allowed the full 200 amp service to turn the board into burned
> toast.

Two questions: how much (in ThemDays dollars) was the damage?
And to the nearest 15 minutes, how long was the CE's career after
he Let The Smoke Out ?

Bevis

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 2:15:32 PM3/5/02

to

I just checked Byte Magazine Vol. 1 Issue 1 and the MITS ad had 1024 byte
memory boards listed for $139 and 4096 byte boards for $339. Except, of
course, the ad called them 1024 WORD and 4096 WORD memory boards. :)

"CBFalconer" <cbfal...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3C84DB9B...@yahoo.com...

George R. Gonzalez

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 2:21:07 PM3/5/02

to

"Bevis" <h...@grits.egg> wrote in message
news:oP8h8.333699$eS3.25...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com...

> I just checked Byte Magazine Vol. 1 Issue 1 and the MITS ad had 1024 byte
> memory boards listed for $139 and 4096 byte boards for $339. Except, of
> course, the ad called them 1024 WORD and 4096 WORD memory boards. :)

Ah, that's nothing. Around that same year our PDP-8 got a memory
upgrade at a huge discount from the OEM price: 8K of core from Plessey
for only $3000. That was 8192 x 12 bits. Really cheap for in dem days.

Mike Ross

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 2:41:52 PM3/5/02

to

Ouch. I'll bet that's something you only have to learn once!

Put me in mind of our former cat (RIP). She would in typical feline
fashion pounce on and attempt to kill anything long and thin and
wiggly... until the time she pounced on a modem PSU cable and tried to
kill the connector on the end by biting it... it was still plugged
into the wall and IIRC at something like 24V... result a plaintive
howl, a lightspeed dash upstairs and under the bed, and a good long
sulk. She hencforth confined her attentions to string and shoelaces...

Mike
http://www.corestore.org
Rangers Catering Corps - 'we boil for the One, we fry for the One'

Dave Daniels

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 3:14:47 PM3/5/02

to

In article <oP8h8.333699$eS3.25...@bin3.nnrp.aus1.giganews.com>,

Bevis <h...@grits.egg> wrote:
> I just checked Byte Magazine Vol. 1 Issue 1 and the MITS ad had 1024 byte
> memory boards listed for $139 and 4096 byte boards for $339. Except, of
> course, the ad called them 1024 WORD and 4096 WORD memory boards. :)

And I bet they just changed the '$' into a '£' for the UK prices.
This was at a time when 1 GBP = 2.4 USD.

Dave Daniels

Rupert Pigott

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 3:27:18 PM3/5/02

to

"Kent Olsen" <ke...@nettally.com> wrote in message
news:a46c04a2.02030...@posting.google.com...
[SNIP]

> One of the boards in the memory cabinet had a dead-short, which had
> caused the breaker to pop in the first place. Holding the breaker
> closed allowed the full 200 amp service to turn the board into burned
> toast.
>
> A sight I'll never forget!!!!

My personal favourite was a pair of RM05s that decided to
die together doing a jig around the machine room while
smoking merrily... The smell stayed in the room for *days*

The worst moment I ever had any direct involvement in was
my desktop rack of Transputer boards. I had a pair of B035s
which a "friend" of mine had been coveting. These boards
consisted of 35 T800-20 or 25s. I powered up ran my usual
eye-candy apps on em, and everything was fine for 15 mins
or so... Then they locked up... I opened up the rack in
front of my manager and one of the big-wigs at INMOS and
lo & behold that same "friend" had stuffed the rack full
of 100gsm copier paper... Mind you with T800s being built
like brick privies all I had to do was rip out the paper,
let em cool to the point where they didn't raise a blister
when I touched em and everything was hunky dorey again.

The embarrasment lived on for some time though. :(

Cheers,
Rupert

glen herrmannsfeldt

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 3:43:14 PM3/5/02

to

"Michael J. Albanese" <mjalb...@revoke-my-charter.net> writes:

>> Which brings up another question, WHY are the original Altairs going for so
>> much on Ebay? Don't people remember they were crap? There were many machines
>> that were MUCH better than the original Altairs back then. And Altair wasn't
>> even the first home computer, so don't give that as a reason. :)

>Perhaps due to its coverage in Popular Electronics. Altair wasn't first
>or the best, but I think it was the first to get big coverage in a
>mainstream magazine readily available at news stands. That, along with
>the attractive, modern case design (with blinkenlights!), caught the
>public's eye. The Altair achieved a kind of pop icon status.

As I remember it, the Altair came just after Radio-Electronic published
an 8008 based machine. The difference between the 8008 and 8080 was
just enough to make the difference between a controller and a real
computer. I sent for the PC board diagrams, but I couldn't afford more.

>I can still remember looking at the instruction set and thinking, "this
>thing has segments, like using base registers on an IBM 370!" It seemed
>like a real computer -- not a toy or a mess of boards and wires strung
>together. The MITS name had some allure, too -- any company called
>Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems surely must know what they're
>doing. Heck, they're probably selling these to the space program!

As I remember the story, a previous project was a radio
transmitter for Estes model rockets. I never bought one, but I
do remember it in the Estes catalog. That was the telemetry system.

Though not long before they had an electronic desk calculator kit.
Some companies wouldn't buy pocket calculators because they disappeared
too fast, but desk calculators were fine. I got to build the kit
for my father. A fair number of small IC's, and a few really big ones.

-- glen

Steve O'Hara-Smith

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Mar 5, 2002, 3:28:26 PM3/5/02

to

On Tue, 05 Mar 2002 10:56:28 -0700
Sam Seiber <tingr...@earthlink.com> wrote:

SS> CBFalconer wrote:
SS> > So a full memory would cost you about $12,000.
SS>
SS> IIRC, you are not going to get 64k of 2102's to fit in one box.

It's only 512 chips (plus address decoders, buffers and whatnot),
eight double eurocards (or S100 cards) should hold it, ten would do it
easily.

SS> Also, you are going to have to beef up the power supply to power
SS> all of those chips. Ahh, the good old days, when 8k was a lot!

Oh yes - you will want one of those fancy switch mode PSUs for
that.

Bevis

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Mar 5, 2002, 3:53:21 PM3/5/02

to

That does sound about right. I can remember thinking back then how badly you
were getting screwed costwise.

I was living in Peterborough when the GBP went from 2.8 to 2.4 USD, but
getting paid in USD. That was probably the best pay raise I ever got! :)

"Dave Daniels" <dave_d...@argonet.co.uk> wrote in message
news:4b129cbbdfd...@argonet.co.uk...

glen herrmannsfeldt

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Mar 5, 2002, 4:24:52 PM3/5/02

to

CBFalconer <cbfal...@yahoo.com> writes:
>"Michael J. Albanese" wrote:
>>
>... snip ...
>>
>> public's eye. The Altair achieved a kind of pop icon status.
>>
>> I can still remember looking at the instruction set and thinking, "this
>> thing has segments, like using base registers on an IBM 370!" It seemed
>> like a real computer -- not a toy or a mess of boards and wires strung

>The Altair, faults and all, was based on the 8080, which was a
>very modern system in that it is totally unsegmented. One nice
>flat expansive address space. Filling it with real live memory
>was almost unthinkable. About $5 to $20 for a 1K x 1 2102 !! (you
>didn't really want to mess with dynamic memory - notoriously
>unreliable, and all those complications from refresh circuitry).
>So a full memory would cost you about $12,000.

I had a summer job in 1977 working with an Altair with 64K of dynamic
RAM and running a multi-tasking OS. It had two keyboards and two
display screens, so it could be, and usually was, used as two
termanals for a mainframe system. It could also run BASIC at the
same time. The DRAM was on four boards connected through its
own bus to one S100 board, so only one slot was used for it.

I was working on this next to someone building a VGT, Video Graphics
Terminal, also 8080 based. In text mode, it had smooth scrolling
with a big aluminum wheel on the side. You could quickly scroll back
using that wheel. It also had a bit-map graphics mode. It might
have had 32K of DRAM, in unmarked DIP packages. In text mode it
could use either a ROM or RAM based character generator. A small
(one line of hex) 8080 program would load from ROM, and write into
RAM the bits left-right reversed, and then switch to the RAM
character generator. This could be done while someone was using it.

See: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/1000/slac-pub-1715.html

-- glen

Neil Barnes

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Mar 5, 2002, 5:34:44 PM3/5/02

to

Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> wrote in
<59A1A131721E8480.06D9BE89...@lp.airnews.net>:

I used to own an official test finger - it formed part of the BS electrical
safety tests. Rumour has it that BT changed the spec somewhere to allow
their UK-style phone connectors to pass.

--
I have a quantum car. Every time I look at the speedometer I get lost...
barnacle
http://www.nailed-barnacle.co.uk

Neil Barnes

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 5:36:09 PM3/5/02

to

jmfb...@aol.com wrote in <a62tn7$atl$7...@bob.news.rcn.net>:

Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that one
the hard way :(

Joe Pfeiffer

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 5:18:10 PM3/5/02

to

ab...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) writes:
>
> Two questions: how much (in ThemDays dollars) was the damage?
> And to the nearest 15 minutes, how long was the CE's career after
> he Let The Smoke Out ?

There was a DEC CE when I was in Seattle who was so bad one of the
sites on campus kept his work schedule posted, and if anything
happened on his shift they'd wait to call it in. This guy:

Forgot to pull the foot out on a VAX 11/730 before pulling all the
racks forward (it really did fall over on its face).

Replaced a dead power supply in a DEC-20 without checking the rest of
the system first, frying the only spare power supply on the West
Coast.

Demonstrated the self-parking heads on a disk drive by flipping the
circuit breaker (they didn't. A friend of mine who witnessed this one
swears a cloud of reddish dust came out the back of the drive.

So far as I know, he kept his job until retirement.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
Southwestern NM Regional Science and Engr Fair: http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair

John A. Stovall

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 5:48:20 PM3/5/02

to

On 5 Mar 2002 06:07:56 -0800, uj...@victoria.tc.ca (Arthur T. Murray)
wrote:

snipped

>
>Absolutely unacceptable! Supercomputers don't come cheap,
>and the reliability had better be there in time for the
>http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~phoenix/vinge/vinge-sing.html
>Technological Singularity, when we will mass-migrate the
>http://www.scn.org/~mentifex/mind4th.html Robot AI Mind
>to fault-tolerant, built-to-last supercomputers.

This may be Arden Hills legend but Bill Norris when trying to get
Federal approval to sell a 205 to the USSR supposedly said that if
they stop sending the Soviets spare parts it would stop running in a
month.

*****************************************************

"As for the training courses, the main objective
should still be to raise the level of technique
in marksmanship, bayoneting grenade-throwing and
the like and the secondary objective should be to
raise the level of tactics, while special emphasis
should be laid on night operations."

"Policy for Work in the Liberated Areas
for 1946" (December 15, 1945),
Selected Works, Vol. IV, p.76.
Chairman Mao Tse-tung

Kelsey Bjarnason

unread,

Mar 5, 2002, 11:43:10 PM3/5/02

to

On Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:36:09 -0800, Neil Barnes wrote:

> jmfb...@aol.com wrote in <a62tn7$atl$7...@bob.news.rcn.net>:
>
>> [snip strange newsgroups]
>>
>> In article <20020305081716....@eircom.net>,
>> Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>>> I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
>>> that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies tongue not an
>>> executive).
>>>
>> When I was little, I was taught not to use my tongue nor a wet finger
>> to determine if the fence was hot. Instead I was told to pick a blade
>> of a maximum length of certain kind of grass.
>>
>>
> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that
> one the hard way :(
>

You know, you'd think that most people wouldn't do this in the first
place... that they'd stop and think "Hmm, electricity, pee. Nasty
combination" and not do it. However...

I was travelling around with a fellow a few years back who did exactly
this. He announced he had to go visit a bush, wandered off and, well, it
got kinda interesting shortly thereafter. You'd think that would be
enough, but no, not five minutes later, he decides to relax a bit, leans
over on the fence, and... :)

Dowe Keller

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 12:55:58 AM3/6/02

to

Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> writes:

> On Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:30:18 -0800
> Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> wrote:
>
> JS> And did they have a calibrated test tongue to use in the certification
> JS> lab?
>
> That would be an ISO standard worth reading :)
>
> JS> I recall a British Telecomm safety standard that required you to probe
> JS> enclosure openings with a defined "test finger"
>
> I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
> that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies tongue not an executive).

Yea, but noone would wish to harm a baby like that. However an
executive is QUITE another matter ;->

--
do...@sierratel.com <http://www.sierratel.com/dowe>

The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
-- Harlan Ellison

Charles Richmond

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Mar 6, 2002, 1:03:05 AM3/6/02

to

glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:
>
> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>
> See: http://www.slac.stanford.edu/pubs/slacpubs/1000/slac-pub-1715.html
>
I downloaded the document above, and noticed that one of the
authors was Leonard Shustek. IIRC, he is the author of the
MORTRAN preprocessor documentation and description of the
MORTRAN macro system...the docs that I have copies of. Do
you know anything about the development of MORTRAN, which
was a structured preprocessor to FORTRAN IV???

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+

jmfb...@aol.com

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Mar 6, 2002, 5:34:59 AM3/6/02

to

In article <a63h8o$birq2$2...@ID-123172.news.dfncis.de>,

nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:
>jmfb...@aol.com wrote in <a62tn7$atl$7...@bob.news.rcn.net>:
>
>> [snip strange newsgroups]
>>
>> In article <20020305081716....@eircom.net>,
>> Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>>> I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
>>> that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies
>>> tongue not an executive).
>>>
>> When I was little, I was taught not to use my tongue nor a wet
>> finger to determine if the fence was hot. Instead I was told
>> to pick a blade of a maximum length of certain kind of grass.
>>
>
>Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that one
>the hard way :(
>

Fortunately, my configuration precluded that test.

I've been thinking about what the difference betweeen a tongue,
finger, and blade of grass was. I suspect that a tongue
would be used to detect voltages that couldn't be detected by
fingers. That's why the guy used his tongue...he was used to
playing with millivolts not megavolts. How's that for a
hypothsesis?

jmfb...@aol.com

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 5:38:47 AM3/6/02

to

In article <pan.2002.03.05.20....@xxspamxx.telus.net>,

Kelsey Bjarnason <kel...@xxspamxx.telus.net> wrote:
>On Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:36:09 -0800, Neil Barnes wrote:
>
>> jmfb...@aol.com wrote in <a62tn7$atl$7...@bob.news.rcn.net>:
>>
>>> [snip strange newsgroups]
>>>
>>> In article <20020305081716....@eircom.net>,
>>> Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>
>>>> I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
>>>> that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies tongue not an
>>>> executive).
>>>>
>>> When I was little, I was taught not to use my tongue nor a wet finger
>>> to determine if the fence was hot. Instead I was told to pick a blade
>>> of a maximum length of certain kind of grass.
>>>
>>>
>> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that
>> one the hard way :(
>>
>
>You know, you'd think that most people wouldn't do this in the first
>place... that they'd stop and think "Hmm, electricity, pee. Nasty
>combination" and not do it. However...
>
>I was travelling around with a fellow a few years back who did exactly
>this. He announced he had to go visit a bush, wandered off and, well, it
>got kinda interesting shortly thereafter.

We were always taught to test a fence before touching. Farmers
did not display "hot fence" signs. Also, even if a fence
had been disconnected yesterday did not guarantee it was still
dead today. It was kinda like the loaded gun rule.

> .. You'd think that would be

>enough, but no, not five minutes later, he decides to relax a bit, leans
>over on the fence, and... :)

Well...some do suffer from addled brain syndrome.

Steve O'Hara-Smith

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 12:04:29 PM3/6/02

to

On 5 Mar 2002 22:36:09 GMT
nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:

NB> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that one
NB> the hard way :(

Didn't we have this thread just a couple of months ago ?

Steve O'Hara-Smith

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 12:07:09 PM3/6/02

to

On 05 Mar 2002 21:55:58 -0800
Dowe Keller <do...@krikkit.127.0.0.1> wrote:

DK> Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> writes:
DK>
DK> > On Mon, 04 Mar 2002 22:30:18 -0800
DK> > Jim Stewart <jste...@jkmicro.com> wrote:
DK> >
DK> > JS> And did they have a calibrated test tongue to use in the certification
DK> > JS> lab?
...
DK> > that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies tongue not an executive).
DK>
DK> Yea, but noone would wish to harm a baby like that. However an
DK> executive is QUITE another matter ;->

I was thinking of a *model* tongue - now I can think of a few
executives whose tongues should be used to test the national grid.

Neil Barnes

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 1:49:27 PM3/6/02

to

jmfb...@aol.com wrote in <a653l0$ltp$4...@bob.news.rcn.net>:

> In article <pan.2002.03.05.20....@xxspamxx.telus.net>,
> Kelsey Bjarnason <kel...@xxspamxx.telus.net> wrote:
>> On Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:36:09 -0800, Neil Barnes wrote:
>>

>>> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt
>>> that one the hard way :(
>>>
>>
>> You know, you'd think that most people wouldn't do this in the first
>> place... that they'd stop and think "Hmm, electricity, pee. Nasty
>> combination" and not do it. However...
>>
>> I was travelling around with a fellow a few years back who did exactly
>> this. He announced he had to go visit a bush, wandered off and, well,
>> it got kinda interesting shortly thereafter.
>
> We were always taught to test a fence before touching. Farmers
> did not display "hot fence" signs. Also, even if a fence
> had been disconnected yesterday did not guarantee it was still
> dead today. It was kinda like the loaded gun rule.
>

Electric fences for livestock used to be (maybe still are) a nylon twisted
thread with bits of fine wire in the mix. The charge comes from a power box
which throws a voltage pulse every couple of seconds.

In my youth, I failed to observe the wire, and the fence post was an obvious
target...

Neil Barnes

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Mar 6, 2002, 1:50:57 PM3/6/02

to

Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote in
<20020306180429....@eircom.net>:

> On 5 Mar 2002 22:36:09 GMT
> nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:
>
> NB> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt
> that one NB> the hard way :(
>
> Didn't we have this thread just a couple of months ago ?
>

<grin> not from me - I was having a nice bout of dengue fever in brasil :(

Steve O'Hara-Smith

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Mar 6, 2002, 1:50:47 PM3/6/02

to

On Wed, 06 Mar 02 10:34:59 GMT
jmfb...@aol.com wrote:

JC> I've been thinking about what the difference betweeen a tongue,
JC> finger, and blade of grass was. I suspect that a tongue
JC> would be used to detect voltages that couldn't be detected by
JC> fingers. That's why the guy used his tongue...he was used to

Correct, I learned to use my tongue as a handy battery tester very
early on (probably about 7). I would never have used it to check mains,
electric fences or even 90 volt valve radio batteries.

JC> playing with millivolts not megavolts. How's that for a
JC> hypothsesis?

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 8:01:01 PM3/6/02

to

gray...@walrus.com wrote:
>
> In article <a63h8o$birq2$2...@ID-123172.news.dfncis.de>, Neil Barnes wrote:
> >

... snip ...

> >
> > Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that one
> > the hard way :(
>
> That was a trick back in the 50's before people got educated . Get
> someone to pee OVER the wire...
>
> The real bummer there was , how did you put off the supply without
> falling volume hitting the wire..

Shake violently.

Lars Poulsen

unread,

Mar 6, 2002, 11:49:42 PM3/6/02

to Neil Barnes

Neil Barnes wrote:

> Electric fences for livestock used to be (maybe still are) a nylon twisted
> thread with bits of fine wire in the mix. The charge comes from a power box
> which throws a voltage pulse every couple of seconds.

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 5:20:19 AM3/7/02

to

In article <20020306180429....@eircom.net>,

Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:

>On 5 Mar 2002 22:36:09 GMT
>nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:
>
>NB> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that
one
>NB> the hard way :(
>
> Didn't we have this thread just a couple of months ago ?
>

No, the critters back then were dogs causing telephone bells to ring.

jmfb...@aol.com

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Mar 7, 2002, 5:25:42 AM3/7/02

to

In article <uk7so5...@earthlink.net>,

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>Lars Poulsen <la...@beagle-ears.com> writes:
>>
>> I'm sure there were regional differences to this. In Texas, I'm
>> told, it is traditional to used barbed wire. In my native Denmark,
>> it was a 16-gauge galvanized steel wire. The pulse generator would
>> send a 3 KV pulse about once a second. We'd walk the fence periodically
>> and trim any weeds that reached up near the wire. Often you could hear
>> them buzz as you approached.
>
>in montana as a kid i strung both barb wire and 16-gauge(?, seems
>about right, but it has been a long time) galv. steel wire for
>electric fences (course, strung barb wire for non-electric also).
>
>remember fence pliers? how 'bout fence stretcher?

Oh, yeah. Now I do.

> ..The one thing I

>remember about was being very careful not to get a kink in the wire
>when laying it out. If there was knick or kink in the wire when you
>were streching it, it could break under the tension of pulling it
>really tight ... and then you better look out.

I never did the work but I got to watch the male adults do a lot
of it. I got to dig the postholes. Remember posthole diggers?
There was one style that even a little kid could use.

>
>simple repairs on barb wire ... typically just grabed it with the
>fence pliers and sort of leaveraged it around corner post to pull it
>tight ... didn't use the fence stretcher (kind I used looked a little
>like a pully with a rachet handle).

Since you were in Montana, your tools must have been heavy duty.
The farms where I grew up weren't near the size as those in Montana.
Crop land wasn't fenced with wire..usually.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 11:09:51 AM3/7/02

to

jmfb...@aol.com writes:
> I never did the work but I got to watch the male adults do a lot
> of it. I got to dig the postholes. Remember posthole diggers?
> There was one style that even a little kid could use.

corner posts you dig, steel posts you use a pile driver, basically a
heavy 2in or so diameter pipe about 4 feet long that is welded shut at
one end and extended with a 2 foot or so handle. The weld at the end
has maybe a plate welded to add some weight. You stand up the steel
posts and place the pile driver over the end and proceed to ram the
post into the ground. For electric fence, you use insulator to attach
the wire to the post.

when i was 11, my parents buddled me off to spend the summer with my
grandmother and uncles on small farm in eastern montana (I had done
this a couple times before).

they also had a couple trucks, a couple telephone poles for timbers,
surplus jacks from the railroad and misc other stuff and moved houses
as a side-line.

typical might be picking up a farm house way out in nowhere and moving
it into town. you have a house driving down some back road and comes
to a line of telephone wires. this is eastern montana and the roofs
are pretty steep because of the heavy winter snows ... and the peak of
the roof is higher than the wires. So my uncles send the kid up to the
peak, he lays over the edge of the house and collects the wires in his
bare hands as the house edges forward and lifts them above the peak.
When he has all the wires (possibly dozen or so) in his hand, he walks
the wires across the peak as the house moves under the wires and then
drops them when he gets to the back of the house. this can be
dangerous (and not just because one of the lines getting a ring);
several years later one of my uncles fell off a peak of a house he was
moving and was killed.

bailing and other things, your hands get pretty insensitive. come 4th
of july (kids don't try this at home, it is only for professional
nuts) one test is hold "lady fingers" (the smaller firecrackers) in
your hand and light them (and you don't let go).

--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/

George R. Gonzalez

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 11:31:20 AM3/7/02

to

Ahh, 2102's, the memories....

Back around 197x I bought a "TV Typewriter 2" kit.
This was a minimal CRT terminal, designed by Don Lancaster,an amazing
hardware guru of the minimalist persuasion. The basic TVT gave you 16 lines
of 32 characters,
upper case, no scrolling, no eol clearing. The character memory was six
2102's.

But soon people figured out you could piggyback on
some more memory chips, a lower-case character generator ROM, double-time
the counters, and insert an adder chip. With these mods you ended up with
16-lines, 64 characters, upper/lower case, and scrolling. It just barely
worked at this 2x speed-- if you tried to squeeze the characters any closer
together, (by turning up the analog dot-clock) they turned to random
snowflakes.

Anyway I recall STARING at this 2102 chip. It was the first memory chip
bigger than 64 bits that I'd ever seen. I couldnt BELIEVE there were a
whopping 1,024 bits in there! And for only $6 a chip!

( Now we grumble when memory prices go above $1/ megabyte )

Steve O'Hara-Smith

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 2:39:48 AM3/7/02

to

On 6 Mar 2002 19:05:26 GMT
ab...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Heinz W. Wiggeshoff) wrote:

HWW> Steve O'Hara-Smith (ste...@eircom.net) writes:
HWW> > On 5 Mar 2002 22:36:09 GMT
HWW> > nailed_...@hotmail.com (Neil Barnes) wrote:
HWW> >
HWW> > NB> Peeing on electric fences isn't a brilliant idea either. I learnt that one
HWW> > NB> the hard way :(
HWW> >
HWW> > Didn't we have this thread just a couple of months ago ?
HWW> ------
HWW> Stream.

to Steam.

Anne & Lynn Wheeler

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 2:21:02 PM3/7/02

to

Anne & Lynn Wheeler <ly...@garlic.com> writes:
> corner posts you dig, steel posts you use a pile driver, basically a
> heavy 2in or so diameter pipe about 4 feet long that is welded shut at
> one end and extended with a 2 foot or so handle. The weld at the end
> has maybe a plate welded to add some weight. You stand up the steel
> posts and place the pile driver over the end and proceed to ram the
> post into the ground. For electric fence, you use insulator to attach
> the wire to the post.

the other pierce of hardware was a wrecking bar ... 1.5in to 2in diameter,
6foot long steel round steel bar, was pointed at one end and the other end
had a 4in round disk wielded to the end.

for post hole digging ... you could use the pointed end for breaking up
really hard ground ... and after the post was in, you used the disk end
for tamping the dirt.

we also used it for jack handle. back when i was 11, i weighed less
than half of what my uncles weighed ... so with three jacks on one
side of the house ... I typically had to hang out on the end of the
(wrecking bar) jack handle to get my jack to lift and keep up with my
uncles.

Bevis

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 2:36:26 PM3/7/02

to

"George R. Gonzalez" <gr...@flash.net> wrote in message
news:a684vp$bod$1...@laurel.tc.umn.edu...

> Ahh, 2102's, the memories....
>
> Back around 197x I bought a "TV Typewriter 2" kit.
> This was a minimal CRT terminal, designed by Don Lancaster,an amazing
> hardware guru of the minimalist persuasion. The basic TVT gave you 16
lines
> of 32 characters,
> upper case, no scrolling, no eol clearing. The character memory was six
> 2102's.
>

Hate to disappoint you, but Don did NOT have anything to do with the TVT-II.
At least he made that PERFECTLY clear to me once when I asked him about it.
He did design the TVT-I, but it was completely different from the TVT-II.

Yes, I once had a TVT-II and did all the mods you mentioned to it. Also a
bunch of other SWTPc hardware. I still have a couple of [working] SWTPc
computers...a 6800 and a 6809.

I was saddened to hear that Dan Meyer died not long ago. [Dan was the
founder of SWTPc.]

Incidentally, there is a bunch of documentation for sale on eBay at the
moment for "only" $250 !!! Poor guy, all anyone has to do is go to
http://www.swtpc.com to download almost all documentation for anything SWTPc
for free. :)

Michael Holley [the guy behind swtpc.com] has almost completed the section
on the TVT-II, better known as the CT-1024. Have a look. :)

Bevis

unread,

Mar 7, 2002, 12:28:18 PM3/7/02

to

In article <ug03c4...@earthlink.net> ly...@garlic.com

(Anne & Lynn Wheeler) writes:

>bailing and other things, your hands get pretty insensitive. come 4th
>of july (kids don't try this at home, it is only for professional
>nuts) one test is hold "lady fingers" (the smaller firecrackers) in
>your hand and light them (and you don't let go).

You pinch them at the end opposite the fuse so they don't shoot
flames into your hand if the end lets go.

A friend had a few regular-sized firecrackers whose fuses didn't
fizz when you lit them. I lit one and was holding it waiting for
the fuse to go and it went off in my hand. Argh.

Halloween was our time for firecrackers. Remember 6-inch "bombs"?

Mike Swaim

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Mar 7, 2002, 4:25:42 PM3/7/02

to

"Kent Olsen" <ke...@nettally.com> wrote in message
news:a46c04a2.02030...@posting.google.com...
> One of the boards in the memory cabinet had a dead-short, which had
> caused the breaker to pop in the first place. Holding the breaker
> closed allowed the full 200 amp service to turn the board into burned
> toast.

At a PPoE, we had an IBM technician down to work on an RS6000. While he
was working on the machine, he tripped on the SCSI cable to the RAID array,
pulling the SCSI board out of the computer. They had to fly in a new
motherboard from the Northeast.

(We also had a Cornerstone video card that committed hari-kari. One of the
chips exploded, with a large portion of it hanging on by a piece of the
paper label that had been put on it.)

--
Mike Swaim
Michae...@UBSWenergy.com
Disclaimer: Yeah, like I speak for <employer>.

Jeff Jonas

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Mar 7, 2002, 7:47:13 PM3/7/02

to

>in montana as a kid i strung both barb wire and 16-gauge(?, seems
>about right, but it has been a long time) galv. steel wire for
>electric fences (course, strung barb wire for non-electric also).
>
> remember fence pliers?

They were sold in catalogues as multi-tools,
'till the Leatherman and Multipliers were common.

> how 'bout fence stretcher?
Sounds similar to the tool used to put strapping tape on BIG things,
such as metal bands that crimp together.
--
Jeffrey Jonas
jeffj@panix(dot)com
The original Dr. JCL and Mr .hide

clu...@lycos.com

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Mar 7, 2002, 8:40:00 PM3/7/02

to

Back in 1962 or so when I was 5 years old, My adoptive dad was fixing
an electric iron. This had a good old screw terminated plug with
screws in the bottom.

I stuck my finger in, I stuck the plug into a wall receptical, I
learned about electricity and that burns hurt. Btw, it was a child
proof socket where you had to rotate plug 90 degrees to rotate spring
loaded cover to make the connection.

I guess we need an IQ rating on safety devices to protect both idiots
and the somewhat clever.

Wes

Steve O'Hara-Smith <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:

> I do hope that test finger was modeled on a two year old (come to
>that the tongue should have been a 6 month babies tongue not an executive).

--
Reply to:
Whiskey Echo Sierra Sierra AT Gee Tee EYE EYE dot COM
Lycos address is a spam trap.

Jay Maynard

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Mar 7, 2002, 10:04:40 PM3/7/02

to

On Wed, 6 Mar 2002 16:13:15 -0800, Jack Peacock <pea...@simconv.com> wrote:
>And if "iron" ever was a literal fit it was with the IMSAIs...a whole lot of
>iron in the transformer compared to total system weight. Altairs shipped
>with, hhmmm, I think about a 6 amp 8v supply until the retrofits and the B
>model came out. IMSAIs came with a monster supply that really could run 20
>cards, the deciding factor when I blew 2 months salary on a computer way
>back in '77. These days it only has 6 cards total and runs much cooler with
>the 2102s replaced by 256k DRAMs.

I still have my S-100 box...built on an IMSAI frame (but with a blank front
panel; at the time, I hated the IMSAI front panel...now I wish I had one,
even if you did have to keep feeding it 7407(?)s), with an Ithaca Audio 2
MHz Z-80, a Tarbell SD disk controller, a TEI I/O board, a Hayes Smartmodem
100, and 11 memory boards (4 8K, and 7 4K, all 2102s; I think I have the
largest running collection of 2102 RAM in captivity (480 of them!)). Oh, and
a homebrew 2716 ROM board to hold the Zapple monitor, hacked to make the K
command do a boot from the Tarbell. The two SA801Rs are in a separate
chassis, also by TEI.

I tried replacing the RAM with a single board with whatever those
2716-compatible static RAMs were, but I couldn't ever get it to run right
with the Ithaca Audio processor.

Charles Richmond

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Mar 7, 2002, 11:34:03 PM3/7/02

to

Jeff Jonas wrote:
>
> >in montana as a kid i strung both barb wire and 16-gauge(?, seems
> >about right, but it has been a long time) galv. steel wire for
> >electric fences (course, strung barb wire for non-electric also).
> >
> > remember fence pliers?
>
> They were sold in catalogues as multi-tools,
> 'till the Leatherman and Multipliers were common.
>
> > how 'bout fence stretcher?
> Sounds similar to the tool used to put strapping tape on BIG things,
> such as metal bands that crimp together.
>

Is this related to the aphorism:

"If it won't fit, force it. If it breaks,
it needed replacing anyway..."

--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+