On 8/26/21 5:14 PM, Ray Jewhurst via cctalk wrote: > Hello all, > Long time lurker, extremely rare poster, I was reading the Wikipedia > article on the IBM 1620 and became quite intrigued. I know that there is a > simulator for it on SimH but I have never ran or simulated any card-driven > machines before. I have all the documentation and the ibm1620.zip file > from bitsavers but I am not sure what to do next. I know I would like to > try Monitor, Fortran-II and possibly GOTRAN but I have so many questions. > I read the SimH documentation which gave me some understanding but I don't > know exactly how the card decks work, how to install Monitor or how to boot > Monitor once it is installed since I know you have to boot off a deck. My > final question is, is there an easy to use card-driven machine to cut my > teeth on? Also, any anecdotes on any of the old IBM computers would be > both welcome and greatly appreciated. >
Cards are just ASCII lines separated by newlines> For more information, see: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/3610586/ibm-1620-simulator-usage-01-dec-2008-simh It's been years since I used the SIMH 1620 simulator, so I can't even claim to be remotely current. I used it to check out some sample code back then. My reaction: It's just not the same. I guess you had to be there. Did anyone manage to snag a copy of Monitor IID? Or is the only extant version Monitor I? The differences were significant. Also, don't forget SPS! If you're new to the 1620, I recommend the following book: http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/1620/Basic_Programming_Concepts_and_the_IBM_1620_Computer_1962.pdf If you want to use a totally (i.e. no disk) card-driven version of the 1620, I'd recommend that you start with simple machine language programs. I (dimly) recall that using the card-only FORTRAN compiler was a bit of a chore: read pass 1, read your program, while punching an intermediate deck, read pass 2 and the intermediate deck, read the subroutine library and wind up with an executable deck. --Chuck