#mainframemonday — Public Fediverse posts

the saga of moving the #univac 418 continues...

#retrocomputing #mainframemonday #retrocomputer #mainframes #forklift #museum #computers #computing #technology #tech

You’ll (perhaps) be glad to know that after hitting some mysterious key-combo on the keyboard at work, when this heretofore undiscovered & unimagined window popped up on my computer screen, I did not hit “Cmd6.”

Be thankful? Maybe?

Who knows, you might have woken up this morning in a very different world. And I may have suddenly found myself sitting in a barnyard with a cow licking my cheek.

#Cmd6ChangeCentury #ChangeCentury #Cmd6 #Cmd12CANCEL #Computer #WorkLife #AS400 #DOS #MainframeMonday

#MainframeMonday Today's mainframe is the Lyons Electric Office (I) - first commercial computer ever built! Based on the Cambridge/Wilkes EDSAC design. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LEO_(computer) #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday The IBM 9020 was a "clustered" system for FAA air traffic control consisting of multiple IBM 360s - for redundancy and parallelism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_9020 #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday Since I'm just back from Princeton reunions, today's mainframe is the IBM 360/91 - first "super" class computer in the IBM 360 family. Princeton got theirs in 1969 and ran it for about 10 years. I worked 4 years on the beast at the PUCC - but I never got to touch it! Also pictured is the console that was saved and lit up at the LCM in Seattle - along with photos of Lee Varian, Pete Olenick, and Melinda Varian - systems programmers for the PUCC.

#MainframeMonday The BESM-6 (БЭСМ-6) was the most successful Soviet supercomputer, starting production in 1968, and about half the speed of a CDC-6600. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BESM-6 #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday Bryant Computer Products, a division of Ex-Cello Corp., made these gigantic hard drives in the early sixties - resold by larger companies, most notably as the CDC 6603 with the CDC 6600. I possess one of the 39 inch(!) platters. [Not one meter, this is 'Merica after all] #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday The #MANIAC I was a very early computer built at Los Alamos; and also a very early #backronym - ***M****athematical ****A****nalyzer ****N****umerical ****I****ntegrator and ****A****utomatic ****C****omputer Model. *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MANIAC_I

#MainframeMonday OTD 1989, CDC shuts down their ETA Systems subsidiary - the last hurrah of Control Data supercomputing. The ETA Saga: https://yarchive.net/comp/eta_peglar.html #ComputerHistory #ETA #ControlData

#MainframeMonday 59 years ago this week, IBM announced the System/360 family of computers. Enormous impact on computing. And those colors! #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday LARC - The Livermore Advanced Research Computer from UNIVAC - was the fastest supercomputer in 1960&61. But only 2 were ever built. Oddly for a scientific machine, it had decimal arithmetic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_LARC #ComputerHistory #UNIVAC

#MainframeMonday The CDC-3100 was the low end of CDC's offerings in the late '60s, and my *first* mainframe! I had access to the 3100 at UTEP starting in 1967 because my aunt was a prof there. 2 memorable features: a speaker wired to the accumulator so you could hear what it was doing, and the CDC 405 card reader which could inhale 2000 cards per minute! #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday The IBM 7070, introduced in 1958, was one of the first transistorized computers. It was decimal arithmetic architecture, and meant to replace IBM's earlier commercial computer, the 705. But it was not at all compatible and failed miserably. Sales brochure here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R3ndeiOPF2h6WCtCxGYhbaMngNqKdxkc/view?usp=share_link More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7070 #ComputerHistory

#MainframeMonday The CDC-1604 was a Seymour Cray design first delivered in 1960. With 32K * 48 bit words, it was popular as a large-memory scientific computer. The Institute for Defense Analyses in Princeton (a spook house) had one for cryptography research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDC_1604

#MainframeMonday The IBM 704, introduced in 1954, was the first reasonably reliable computer from IBM, and the first with hardware floating point. Both FORTRAN and LISP were originally developed on the 704. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_704