On 3/8/23 22:23, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
On 3/8/23 19:23, Chris Elmquist wrote:
Who can read them now? ;-)
I suppose that you could rig something up as a streaming rig, but the
metal was murder on heads; the Univservo I interposed a thin plastic
tape between the metal and the head. Fortunately, the density was
pretty low.
Not easy--the contents would have to be special. But not gone forever.
--Chuck
The Univac 3 had nothing but Uniservo 3 tape drives, and continually did
things between drives in most installations. I read that most job steps
consisted of putting the OS and other stuff on a tape prior to doing
something, then preparing another drive with the next step and a copy of
the OS.
So any Uniservo U3 tape could have the OS and the job data on it. None
should be taken to have only data.
And most operations programmed variants, so different installations
tapes would have differ flavors of the OS to suit their styles and needs.
Not many had disk drives from what I saw, certainly none had Disk OS.
Some probably didn't run the software from the tape drives, but the tape
was the reason for the movies both fiction, bad TV and real machine
rooms in that era having so many drives.
I don't think the U3 had metalic tape, but won't swear. Didn't really
get a chance to look at the tape when i had access to the Univac 3.
My web page archived, and referenced by Wikipedia. Photos taken when we
had a Univac 3.
Bill Donzelli may have tapes and residue from the system.
Thanks
Jim
https://web.archive.org/web/20050901062918/http://jwstephens.com/univac3/page_01.htm
