Another paper tape story, actually more like a tale... When the motor burned
out on a paper tape reader in a third-story lab, they just moved the reader
near an open window, attached a weight to the paper tape loaded in the reade r,
and dropped the weight out the window. The tape shot out the window and
was read without a problem. Is this possible?
A 1401 story, also perhaps a tale... This was told about an actual 1401. Every
so often the core (yes, real core) memory would be inexplicably wiped.
It couldn't be traced to a particular running program. The CEs duly examined
everything, did whatever diagnostics they did on 1401s, but came up with the
nothing. The problem continued occurring unpredictably and irreproducibly
until one afternoon a CE was in sixth-floor machine room looking in an
open door of the 1401 when he witnessed it happen. He happened to look over his
shoulder, out one of the floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding two sides of the
data center, and spied a girder attached to a large electromagnet skimming past
the window being pulled up by a construction crane from the building being
built next door. It turned out that was the culprit. Is this possible? (I once
heard that the way to protect a magnetic tape from being accidentally wiped by
a magnet was to pack it surrounded by a foot of packing material.)
A tape drive story, thrown in for free... A photographer had been brought into
the insurance company's large data center to take pictures of it to show off
it in the company's house organ (does anyone besides me use that term
anymore?). He attached his large flash unit to his camera and took what he
assumed would a series of photos. When his flash fired that first time every
running tape drive in its direction sensed end of tape and rewound. When the
operators realized what had happened, he was swiftly led out of the data
center. No photographer was ever allowed in again.
Fred Ballard
Ex-1401, 1410, 360, and 370 programmer
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Walter" <mike. walter @ hewitt .com>
To: IBMVM @ LISTSERV . UARK . EDU
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 12:35:19 PM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: Re: IBM 1401
Paper tape is immune from magnetic interference (of course, back then
there was no public documentation of EMF weapons, right?).
Another paper tape story... when I was in the US Marines (1971-1977)
working in the Tactical Air Command Center at MCAS Cherry Point, North
Carolina one summer, an important computer kept failing at random
intervals. That computer translated radar "screen paints" (bright blobs)
into symbols that we could interpret on large displays (i.e. different
symbols for different aircraft; and different symbols between friendlies
and bogies ).
When examined after each failure, the core (yes, real core) memory was
always wiped clean. That computer (and its tech) was housed in a metal
box ( IIRC , about 6'x10', 8' high) which was transportable on the back of a
2 1/2 ton ("6-by") truck, or by helicopter> It was located about 15 feet
from another similar box with all the radar gear inside, and large radar
dish on the top. After a few days of random core wipes, someone noticed
that the core wipe only happened when the door to the computer hut was
momentarily opened as the radar dish swept past. While aimed much higher,
there was enough residual power from the dish to wipe the computer's core
memory clean. Memory was reloaded (back on track now) from dependable
paper tape.
Someone was stationed outside the computer hut for the rest of that day
until it could be turned around with the door faced AWAY from the radar
dish sweep.
Mike Walter
Hewitt Associates
Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily
represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates.
USMCR Sergeant, 1971-1977
" Huegel , Thomas" < THuegel @ Kable .com>
Sent by: "The IBM z/ VM Operating System" < IBMVM @ LISTSERV . UARK . EDU >
05/29/2009 11:49 AM
Please respond to
"The IBM z/ VM Operating System" < IBMVM @ LISTSERV . UARK . EDU >
To
IBMVM @ LISTSERV . UARK . EDU
cc
Subject
Re: IBM 1401
Trivia.. Recently I went to the Titan-II ICBM silo (now a museum) just
outside Tucson, AZ ..
Interesting fact, they loaded the program for the nucleaur tipped
ballistic missiles guidence system from a paper tape..
-----Original Message-----
From: The IBM z/ VM Operating System [ mailto : IBMVM @ LISTSERV . UARK . EDU ]
On
Behalf Of Jim Bohnsack
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 10:40 AM
To: IBMVM @ LISTSERV . UARK . EDU
Subject: Re: IBM 1401
No, the IBM 2671 paper tape device was a reader only. The paper tape
punches were from older systems. I guess paper tape got punched on
teletype machines in S/360 days. I had a customer with a 2671.
I started keeping IBM sales manual pages that were "discard this page"
when updates came out in about the 1970 time frame. I realized that I
was throwing out history, so I kept some that I thought were important.
Also I hung on to old IBM Blue Letters as product announcements were
called. When I moved last summer, I shipped about a 6" tall stack of
them to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
http ://en. wikipedia .org/ wiki / Computer_History_Museum
Jim
Mike Walter wrote:
> And just this morning I had been wondering about those who have
> contributed to this thread, wondering how they could remember so much
> detail (even if some memory had a few parity checks). Thus, how much
> truly important personal information had been paged out of their real
> memory (perhaps to paper tape?), being forever lost to permit these
> technical details to remain? :-)
>
> Obviously, over the years Lynn has kept more records than a radio
> station
> (oops: wrong media -- and now: wrong era).
>
> Mike Walter
> Hewitt Associates
> Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not necessarily
> represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates.
>
>
--
Jim Bohnsack
Cornell University
(972) 596-6377 home/office
(972) 342-5823 cell
jab282@ cornell . edu
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