BoatBanter.com

BoatBanter.com (https://www.boatbanter.com/)
-   General (https://www.boatbanter.com/general/)
-   -   1956 IBM hard drive (https://www.boatbanter.com/general/88637-1956-ibm-hard-drive.html)

Wayne.B December 5th 07 11:34 PM

1956 IBM hard drive
 
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 10:04:05 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

For such a mechanical contraption, they were amazing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...544&q=mod-tage


That certainly brings back some memories. You can almost smell that
oil they all used. It had a peculiar pungent odor.

I think they were amazing *because* they were a mechanical
contraption, somewhere near the apex of the complex electro-mechanical
era. You could actually look at them and get a sense of how they
worked (or not), and the number of precisely synchronized moving parts
was astounding.


Del Cecchi December 6th 07 04:58 AM

1956 IBM hard drive
 

"Calif Bill" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
...
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 08:29:22 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

http://www.neatorama.com/images/2006...puter-1956.jpg

In September 1956 IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with
a hard
disk drive(HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored 5MB of data.

That's not a typo ..... 5MB of data.

Eisboch


We still had a 305 running at the Bureau of Standards in Germantown Md
when I started with IBM in 1966.


I remember at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco in
1966 where they added another disk to the IBM drum memory each day.
Difference from the modern disk drive is they had fixed heads, not a
moving arm.

no disks on a drum. bada boom.

there were fixed head disks, moving head disks, drums.

And data cells and tapes



Calif Bill December 6th 07 07:19 AM

1956 IBM hard drive
 

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 22:58:48 -0600, "Del Cecchi"
wrote:

I remember at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco in
1966 where they added another disk to the IBM drum memory each day.
Difference from the modern disk drive is they had fixed heads, not a
moving arm.

no disks on a drum. bada boom.

there were fixed head disks, moving head disks, drums.

And data cells and tapes


He is probably talking about a 2305. Everyone called it a drum but it
was really a fixed head disk drive


yup.



Calif Bill December 6th 07 07:21 AM

1956 IBM hard drive
 

wrote in message
...
On Wed, 5 Dec 2007 22:58:48 -0600, "Del Cecchi"
wrote:

I remember at the Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco in
1966 where they added another disk to the IBM drum memory each day.
Difference from the modern disk drive is they had fixed heads, not a
moving arm.

no disks on a drum. bada boom.

there were fixed head disks, moving head disks, drums.

And data cells and tapes


He is probably talking about a 2305. Everyone called it a drum but it
was really a fixed head disk drive


Highschool buddy retired as a regional specialist for IBM. He said they
went to the Smithsonian Tech Museum and almost all the machines there he
worked on. Figured out he was old. From the O24/026 on up.



Wayne.B December 6th 07 10:35 AM

1956 IBM hard drive
 
On Wed, 05 Dec 2007 23:33:52 -0500, wrote:

I guess you never saw a 407 accounting machine with the covers off.
That was some moving parts

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/407.html

We had 5 of them at NIH and a whole lot more scattered around
Montgomery County that I got to work on.


You're right, the EAMs and their wiring boards were a little ahead of
my time.


Eisboch December 7th 07 07:36 AM

1956 IBM hard drive
 

wrote in message
...
On Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:35:26 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:


I finally
nailed it in Decatur Alabama. It was software. Bug in the print
spooler. A 167 year old girl who worked there gave me the clue I
needed


Who gave her the clue, Ben Franklin? :-)

Eisboch



Wayne.B December 7th 07 11:01 AM

1956 IBM hard drive
 
On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:01:34 -0500, wrote:

I really liked the cash register business the best, just
because it got me out and around dealing with real people (not the
dweebs you deal with in glass house computer rooms).


Careful now. :-)


Wayne.B December 7th 07 05:35 PM

1956 IBM hard drive
 
On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:31:04 -0500, wrote:

My favorite box was a 3800 laser printer. We only had 3 in Ft Myers
but in DC there were almost 100.


It is pretty amazing to watch them spin through a big roll of paper.

In terms of "coolness" for it's day, the 1403 was pretty amazing,
with those solenoid hammers smacking the spinning print chain at just
the right time.

Are there any big mainframe shops in Ft Myers today?


Eisboch December 7th 07 05:45 PM

1956 IBM hard drive
 

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 02:36:12 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:

spooler. A 167 year old girl who worked there gave me the clue I
needed


Who gave her the clue, Ben Franklin? :-)



Sorry that was supposed to be 16-17.


I figured that. I was just trying to be funny.

Eisboch



Calif Bill December 7th 07 08:13 PM

1956 IBM hard drive
 

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 06:01:46 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:01:34 -0500, wrote:

I really liked the cash register business the best, just
because it got me out and around dealing with real people (not the
dweebs you deal with in glass house computer rooms).


Careful now. :-)


I know, I used to be one of those dweebs. ;-)
I always had the argument with the other "big system" CEs who thought
cash registers were beneath them. I had to point out that when they
were at a Wendys they should look around. There is nobody there
working less than them and they are all working for a lot less money.
"Just to your damn job and be happy about it". They didn't have to
work in a resident territory. They could move to Tampa and be in the
computer room all day.
I was also happy to point out that if this stuff is so far beneath
them, why is it kicking their ass? Spend a weekend in an ATM vault
with a security guard, the bank rep, 10 pieces of test equipmemt and
the Telco guy, trying to fix a communication problem and you figure
out this little stuff isn't that easy after all.

BTW I think the most impressive mechanical machine is a 3890 check
sorter. We had 3 of them at C&S (and the other three or four names the
place had) That was where the sheriff is now on 6 mile.
That sucker ran about 2600 six inch checks a minute, sorted into one
of 30 (up to 36) poclets and along the way it rolled an endorsement on
the back, took pictures of both sides and ****ed a number on the back
with an ink jet printer. They used a 360 model 25 for the controller
(later replaced with a PS/2 mod 80)
My favorite box was a 3800 laser printer. We only had 3 in Ft Myers
but in DC there were almost 100.


the better sorter for handling the checks was the NCR 407. The better
reader was the IBM. B of A used the IBM's for the online reading and the
NCR sorters for the offline reading. Loved the 3800 style printer. First
engineering job after I finished college was with Itel, and were were
building an interface to a Siemens ND2 printer to make it look like the
3800. I did the disassembly of the IBM channel diagnostics to figure what
we needed to send back to the mainframe when diags were run. Lots of
undocumented channel commands. We used a DEC PDP-34 as the channel
controller. Fun job. Just before they laid of 2300 of us when the residual
values of the 360 crashed with the release of the H series systems, I was
about 50% through writing a program to take a plotter input tape and convert
it to print on the 3800. The plotter table took 2 days to draw a plot that
I could print in about 30 seconds.




All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:36 AM.

Powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004 - 2014 BoatBanter.com