Sparkler Filters' IBM 402,Posted on 02/20/2012 7:27:49 AM PST by ShadowAce
It’s easy to wax nostalgic about old technology--to remember fondly our first Apple IIe or marvel at the old mainframes that ran on punched cards. But no one in their right mind would use those outdated, underpowered dinosaurs to run a contemporary business, let alone a modern weapons system, right?
Wrong!
While much of the tech world views a two-year-old smartphone as hopelessly obsolete, large swaths of our transportation and military infrastructure, some modern businesses, and even a few computer programmers rely daily on technology that hasn’t been updated for decades.
If you’ve recently bought a MetroCard for the New York City Subway or taken money from certain older ATMs, for instance, your transaction was made possible by IBM’s OS/2, an operating system that debuted 25 years ago and faded out soon after.
A recent federal review found that the U.S. Secret Service uses a mainframe computer system from the 1980s. That system apparently works only 60 percent of the time. Here’s hoping that uptime statistics are better for the ancient minicomputers used by the U.S. Department of Defense for the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system, Navy submarines, fighter jets, and other weapons programs. Those systems, according to the consultants who help keep them going, will likely be used until at least the middle of this century.
Here are a few stories of the computers that time forgot, and the people and institutions that stubbornly hold on to them.
Sparkler Filters of Conroe, Texas, prides itself on being a leader in the world of chemical process filtration. If you buy an automatic nutsche filter from them, though, they’ll enter your transaction on a “computer” that dates from 1948.
Sparkler Filters' IBM 402,
(Excerpt) Read more at pcworld.com ...
:’) I thought it was going to work as a GGG topic. Dang.
“Sparkler Filters’ IBM 402”
Hard skill to find! I started at IBM computer operations in 1967. Those machines were still around; but being phased out. I wired those 402 boards along with 548, 514, and the 85 sorter. They started me on the 1401 then advanced me to the 7010 computer. Hot stuff for the time.
without the antikythera (sp) device, this study is incomplete
Up to 2003, I used a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8A from the late 1960’s to perform and calculate results for spectrochemical analysis on metal samples.
The computer was programmed using “Octal” numbers. The program was loaded using punch tape.
That computer ran nearly continuously from 1979 until 2003. It had, as I remember, 16K of memory and had been upgraded to 32K. It filled a cabinet about 2 feet square and 4 feet high.
Yeah, like down at the Bankruptcy court clerk's office, where I saw credit card company "runners" using those things to input all the new case filing information. < |:)~
I worked at DEC for almost ten years. We were WAY ahead of our time both in hardware and especially software.
I just unearthed a circa 1983 AT&T PC from my basement. It has been through a major fire and a burst water pipe, and has been sitting down there, lonely and unloved, for 20 years. IT STILL WORKS. I have no earthly use for it but can’t bear to take it to the dump. It deserves to live! Maybe I’ll clean the data off it and sell it to a collector.
Neat. Imagine investing in a basket of then niche tech stocks back then like that, getting the whole family tied into it, that would be lot’s of money and a big family today.
“Neat....”
Neat not. When I started at IBM in ‘67 stock was at $710.00 a share! Too rich for a comp operator.
I started out programming on an NCR 315 when it was in competiton with the just released IBM 360s in the mid 60’s. We had punch card and paper tape readers, mag tape drives, mechanical line printers and a whopping 10-20K of RAM. Filled up a good size room which had to be temp and humidity controlled with a raised floor for all the cabling.
Ah, they had not split the stock yet.... hmm... interesting.
I have a wind-up wall clock I am hoping to revive...but it has serious problems....
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By the way ....how about ANCIENT software.....like for the Commodore....
See this:
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| DistroWatch.com: Commodore OS Vision |
|---|
 Commodore OS VisionLast Update: Saturday 12 November 2011 22:44 GMT
Commodore OS Vision is a 64-bit Linux distribution, based on Linux Mint, created for Commodore enthusiasts purchasing Commodore USA hardware, such as Commodore 64, VIC series and the upcoming high-performance line of Amiga computers. These are essentially restore disks for pre-installed Commodore systems. Commodore OS Vision uses the classic GNOME 2 interface and features extensive Compiz/Emerald desktop effects. It includes dozens of games of all genres (FPS, Racing, Retro etc), the Firefox and Chromium web browsers, LibreOffice, Scribus, GIMP, Blender, OpenShot and Cinellera, advanced software development tools and languages, sound editing through Ardour and Audacity, and music composition programs such as the Linux MultiMedia Studio. It has a classic Commodore slant with a selection of applications reminiscent of their classic Amiga counterparts. |
| Commodore Summary | |
|---|---|
| Distribution | Commodore OS Vision |
| Home Page | http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_OS_Vision.aspx |
| Mailing Lists | -- |
| User Forums | http://www.commodore-amiga.org/en/forum |
| Documentation | -- |
| Screenshots | -- |
| Download Mirrors | http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_OS_Vision_Download.aspx |
| Bug Tracker | -- |
| Related Web Sites | Commodore-Amiga • Amigaworld • Wikipedia |
| Reviews | Beta: Commodore Computer Blog (Italian) |
| Where To Buy | LinuxCD.org • OSDisc.com (sponsored links) |
|
"I'm sorry sir, we can't replace your Antikythera 1.0. The water damage detector has been set off."
We currently use the OpenVMS OS on ALPHA/AXP hardware for a lot of our engineering calculations (highly automated batch mode jobs). VMS is great for this type of work. The problem is the parts are obsolete.
This antique here (Dell 2005 w/the Windows XP it came with) still works great.
“Maybe I’ll clean the data off it and sell it to a collector.”
I had an original Osborne “portable” computer (weighing probably 25 lbs.!) from about 1980 sitting in my attic, still operational. An E-bay seller just sold it for $55 minus nearly $30 in fees/shipping etc. Made me wonder why I’d held onto it for so long.
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