And the owner of the last blank punch card supplied died and the
company closed up.
So of course, I bought 100,000 cards, just in case.
Actually, I have been helping the widow a little to close up shop for good.
Anyone need an 083, cheap? She has two. Great for the family room or office.
--
I find myself in possession of some old IBM tapes.
Of no use to me, but maybe someone has reel tape drives
(ie, not cart). All have labels of 9T, 1600bpi density.
1) Scientific Subroutine Package, V3M0, dated 9-19-74.
2) OS360, Rel 21.8, dated 10-08-74.
3) OS360, Rel 21.8, dated
I find myself in possession of some old IBM tapes.
OK, I heard back from Al Kossow at CHM.
He absolutely wants to read them for the bitsavers archive.
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I have not been following much of the IBM 3745 discussions but I know I
looked into it back in the early 21st Century. I looked at the Visara
offering and it was interesting. At that point I learned there is a firm in
Bethesda, MD which has been buying up every surplus 3745 they can get
To make a long story short, a friend is thinking about bidding on a
*big* 3745 comm controller for me, and being that this thing is
located in Texas - well, I am not so sure I want to pay the freight.
So, I will ask:
Does anyone know of any 3745s coming out of service, or even dead in
the data
I love it, we gave away 2 baby 3745-170's last year to scrap metal, but in
North East ... Australia!! We bought the pair for $5000 in 2008.
I know where one of those small units is out my way.
But, no, I do not think I would go down to Australia just to get a
3745. There are bigger fish to
A real 3390 (do they still exist?
I would certainly like to know if any real 3390s are left. I missed the
boat with saving a 3380/3880, and I fear I have also missed this boat.
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To follow up - yes, Cardamation has shut down. The Computer History
Museum and I are working on saving interested bits that remain.
Nope, no more IBM machines there...well, maybe an 029.
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There is a bit of a buzz that Cardamation, the last place that dealt
with punch cards, has finally closed up shop.
While I do not expect any listmembers to still be using cards, I am
wondering if anyone here has a way to contact whatever remains of the
company, or its leader, Mr. Robert Swartz.
well...610-935-9700 and 800-848-1718 seem worth a try. Or postal mail
to 1041 W Bridge St, Phoenixville, PA 19460
Another computer historian said the line was disconnected (as well as
a dead website) - but maybe I should try on Monday.
--
Will
Anyone remember the 96-column cards? I'd like to find a box of them.
Sure. Send your address offlist and I will send a few. Sorry, they are
punched already!
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I happen to have a GX20-1878-3 (October 1978) 3270 Information Display
System Reference Summary in the top drawer of my desk. It shows the screen
size of a Mod 1 as 12x40, although I never worked with a Mod 1 or ever even
saw one, to my knowledge.
Just about the only place you would be
I woulkdn't mind finding a 96-column keypunch. Gotta be a real rarity. :-)
Yes, very rare. I only know of a handful of them. The 96 column card
sorter is beyond rare.
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Wondering when the last card reader died. We had one at University of
Waterloo until 1984 or 1985; we had a full professor who insisted on using
cards. We finally told him he'd have to pay the maintenance-that convinced
him (or, more likely, his Dean) that it was time to use terminals.
Related: when did IBM create the last IBM cards?
I believe that the plant in Greencastle, Ind was
supposed to be the creator of all (USA?) card blanks.
IBM still gets cards, but for use by executives. They are made in a
little print shop in Armonk. Available in about 12 colors.
--
Will
Just for fun, I still have an 029 control card drum. It still has a card on
it for punching assembler. A little piece of history. Does any computer
museum need one?
Likely not, but I can ask.
I actually have a box full of them. If anyone here wants one, let me know.
--
Will
http://www.bitsavers.org/ could be the best place to find them. And
if you have any, they would like to receive lossless scans 400 DPI or
higher of manuals that they do not have. There are volunteers who
would receive and scan manuals for bitsavers.
Yes, I am one of those volunteers that
I have a couple of requests for some bus and tag cables - one request
from the Computer History Museum - as well as a request for some old
IBM 3270 family terminals (any vintage).
Does anyone know of any in the New York/New England area I could go fetch?
--
Will
Hardware manuals were provided when you installed the hardware, regardless
of any prefix value. IIRC,
most of the S/360-related hardware books were G prefixed.
Thanks so far, the pair of you.
So when filing these things away on the shelf, would it be safe to
assume that the initial S or G or
The values I know of, with their old definitions are:
This is exactly the information I am looking for - many thanks!
The Use Keys came into use somewhere in the late 1960s.
That would explain why my original example for the 2540 had no S, but
the equivalent manuals for other S/360 era
So I am working at cataloging my collection of older IBM documents,
and came across:
2540 Card Read Punch Parts Catalog (121-0545-3)
Picky question - can I assume that there should be an S prefixing the
document number, as in S121-0545-3? I have noticed that my other S/360
(and later) Parts
I thoroughly enjoyed this, despite a few misleading statements
Yes, very nice article - but I think S/360s could be ordered in yellow
without a special request from the beginning.
Blue, red, yellow, gray, and white...and green and brown with an RPQ.
OK, a really minor nitpick.
--
Will
Perhaps, but I would still encourage anybody planning to discard or
scan old manuals to check whether bitsavers can use them.
Yes, just like old software - save it for the archive, even if it has
to stay hidden until possible legal problems are sorted out.
--
Will
Bitsavers might already have some of your manuals,
There are significant gaps in their collection, e.g., I couldn't find
either Utilities or XA PoOps there.
Yes, there are gaps - lots of gaps - but some of those gaps are simply
docs that Al has scanned but not made available for a variety of
I believe you once posted / answered a post about digitizing old hardcopy
manuals. I have some 30 volumes 1980..1995 vintage, about 8'000 BW pages to
convert to PDF.
I'd appreciate advice you may have.
Are these old IBM manuals? Are these manuals you want scanned for
yourself, or for an
I used to know where to find a working 2841 controller and 2 2821 Data Cell
Drives (Noodle Pickers).Those, plus a full string of 2319 drives, went to
a scrap metal dealer back in November, when the last guy who could fix them
couldn't find repair parts.
Well...more the reason why I need to
http://www.macworld.com/article/156758/2010/12/harddriveevolution.html?lsrc=nl_mwnws_h_crawl
first commercial computer, IBM 305 system,
FSVO first that I'm not familiar with.
The whole article stinks of something given to a bored intern to
complete, and he punted after 5 minutes of research.
So you prefer 2260s? G
Hey, if anyone still has a 2260 kicking around, I want to here from you!
And I think Computer History Museum is looking for 2260 docs (and
whatever the controller was called).
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I received this email and I am forwarding this onto the list.
Please contact Richard if you are interested.
Thanks for posting this - I contacted Mr. Sheeler about the manuals
and fiche, and hopefully we can add these to the bitsavers.org archive
for use in the future.
Keep those old manuals
I've been asked to locate a 7 track tape drive in the DC area.
Would anyone know of one?
Can we ask why someone needs a 7-track?
If it is to read some old, forgotten tapes with important data, I
suggest strongly that you contract with one of the companies that
specialize in reading obsolete
In one sense, we need to be careful about what we ask for. Do we want
z/OS to be easily available to those who want to find vulnerabilities
and crack the system? For security purposes are we better off with
some kind of regulated hobbyist access to z/OS running under z/VM at
data centers?
On Sun, 6 Jun 2010 14:29:32 -0400, William Donzelli wrote:
In one sense, we need to be careful about what we ask for. Do we want
z/OS to be easily available to those who want to find vulnerabilities
and crack the system?
Quoted improperly
Well I hate to look like a solicitor, but, if there is anyone out there,
particularly in the Houston area, with a multiprise (actually, any mainframe
for that matter, I mean it depends, but if you have ANYTHING talk to me)
that is just going to waste that'll be trashed anyway, it would be
There are actually sites still running
4381's and MVS/XA. I converted two of them (MVS/XA and MVS/ESA) over to a
z/9 and z/10 just last year and we have been contacted by sites still
running 967x's and Multiprise systems that have yet to convert.
I would be interested in getting some of this
360/30s with 256K. Full 2314 = 8 x 800K. I am not sure how many tape
drives, but they were the old 7-track probably 800 BPI.
One or two of them might have been 360/40s. But all of the ones that I saw
in trailers were mod 30s. As far as I know, they all ran DOS: the first
DOS not
Is that even possible for 1980 era hardware? How long has it been since the
last spare parts were made?
Do we even know that it is one of the water machines? Maybe it is a
4381 - those things might run forever.
In any case, I would *really* like to know where this machine ends up.
The old
and I love this part:
The last mainframe was an IBM model in place since 1997
1997, let's see, so we're talking either the 9021 family or the early
generation cmos.
If it was a 9021 (or 9121), I would sure like to know about it. Or any
others still hanging around, for that matter.
--
Will
But, what good are they? If you are a hobbiest, to legally run z/OS you
would have to pay several thousand dollars a month to IBM. It would be very
hard to even get IBM to lease the software, as the last release of z/OS that
will run on a MP3000 is z/OS V1.5.
All the more reason to hold on
Or not. How long has it been since MVS/XA went to the museum? Or
CICS/OS/VS? Or ??
To be above board, I doubt you'd be able to run anything as a new
installation on the MP3000 that you can't run on Hercules legally.
Like many large bureaucracies, IBM probably has a cadre of attic
(and yes, I'm as much a believer in planting acorns as you are,
but we know IBM isn't).
Tell that to the IBM head archivist.
There is not a trace of the old 1950s and 60s software anywhere to be
found at IBM - they have looked. Even the 1970s era software is very
thin within the company.
And
Something ate the last half of your post.
Cookie monster.
(5 points to anyone that understands that reference).
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Sesame Street?
One of Cookie Monster's early appearances, before Sesame Street, was
in an IBM training film, called Coffee Break Machine. Here is a 1967
performance of the same skit, on the Ed Sullivan show:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1tmko_coffee-break-machine_business
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Will
I do not think there was a sorter for the 96 column family - I never
saw anything like that in the directories, let alone real life. As far
as I know, there was the MFCU and a standalone keypunch, and nothing
else.
Sorry to open up this thread again, but I just learned that the
offline 96
Those old keypunch machines had a limitation: they weren't supposed to be
used to duplicate more than 6 punches in any column, else the knives would
jame and cause serious problems. IIRC it was somethng to do with the power
supplies to the knives.
On some of the punching equipment, it had to
It's interesting to me that I am seeing a couple of references to the
80's (albeit early 80's) in some of these posts related to punched
cards. I started in 1984 at ATT in Orlando (in I/O Distribution)
and saw nary a punched card. I guess it depends on where you were.
I can think of only
We still had our reader/punch until the end of 1995. I don't think we used
it at all the last year. It finally took moving the datacenter to get rid
of it.
One of the independent tax accountants in Connecticut was still using
a Univac 9300 (sort of a 360/20 clone, after a few beers) to run
Regarding dropped decks, I don't remember if there was a high
speed sorter for the 96 column cards. (There probably was one,
but I don't think I ever saw it.) There was a card sort/merge
program for the MOd 20 + MFCM so I assume there was also one
for the S/3 + MFCU.
I do not think there
I have several to include manuals headed for the dumpster. Pay shipping and
one or more can be yours. Please contact me offline.
Bitsavers.org might be interested.
Blatant bitsavers plug follows...
Yes, I am interested in the 3745 docs (Big Blue Binders, I assume?),
and as with all my docs,
Anyone know how to contact them? :-)
I wonder if they ever actually asked NASA?
Folks, EVERY BIT OF EVERY MISSION is available for the archive. Some
of it is online, the rest you must ask for, and they will make a tape
or CD-ROM. The data - all the data - keeps moving from one format to
the
Do they have any value? Museum!?!? ;-)
Every computer museum or retrocomputing group I know of either has a
few, or does not want any.
Or, should I just send them with our old PC scrap to an IT scrap recycler?
Probably best to send the to the recycler. They will likely go to
China to be
No, the writer is quite technically astute and meant that the vacuum
tube circuits with their chokes, coils, etc. were ELECTRICALLY noisy.
But knowing that their audience wouldn't have a clue (as the editor
didn't either) and so cut all that out so that it just said that the
vacuum tubes were
Now you're making a connection back to the original article. That
high-pitched whine was from high frequency magnetic fields causing the
internal ferrous parts of the tube to vibrate. This would sometimes be
at harmonic frequencies that would cause the external tube or even the
mounting
Last post of mine on this subject, hopefully...
But the big difference is, lots of voltage = large electromagnetic
field. Low voltage with low amperage = small electromagnetic field.
Tubes use large voltage differences, solid state uses small differences.
It all boils down to noise margins.
When I went to the University of Waterloo, in the mid 1970's, I had a
professor who did his masters at MIT.
They had a vacuum tube computer that had all its tubes mounted on both walls
of what was basically a 6-metre corridor.
Somebody would have to go in everyday and run the erasor end of
It took four of us to push our new minimum sized z9 into the freight
elevator. Anyone strong enough to steal it solo could probably make
more money playing American football a dozen weekends a year.
It is not all that hard to move this big iron around* solo, I do it
all the time. Just two
OK ... Here is a real long shot ... I expect that I will be jumped
all over (But what the heck - live dangerously) as to why this is not
possible ... How about picking up an old Radio Shack TRS-80 on E-bay to
do the copying (TRS-80 used 8-inch drives).
.
The only reason I mention this is
Sorry, but I really doubt it. Even with a writer, the infrastructure
needed to hook it up and use it is almost certainly history. What's
more, the people who once knew how to operate a 23FD (minnow file)
writer probably retired years ago, and the code that got loaded to them
might or might
Not that I can help, I'm sure I can't. But this truly amazing. Please tell us
more. Where did you get a 4331?
From a midwest service bureau that finally decided to call it quits.
The guy started with a 1410, then went to a 2030, then the 4331. He
traded in the model 30 make in 1980 for this
As I recall, the 3830 disks could be interchanged if the features and
non-microcode EC levels on the boxes were the same. Doing so was not
supported but there was little to lose and when an appropriate disk
could be found it beat telling a customer the machine would stay down
until a new
What do ou run on it? MVS/SP 2.2 perhaps?
OK, found it. DOS/VSE.
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Didn't the 4331's have a file/tape adapter? That might have been for
FBA devices only.
The 4331 could take 8809 tape and 3370 DASD directly. I do not know
why this one has the 3830 and 3350s.
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Because the FBA's and 8809's were boat anchors. And the 3350's and 3420
gave interchangeability with MVS.
With things connected to normal channels the sky was the limit with what
could be done with the 4331. Using the ICA severely limited your devices.
The 3350 and 3420 tapes could run
If I've got anything you might be able to use, don't hesitate to contact
me. Even if it's only a reference card. G
Check that CE bag! Go to the back of the bottom drawer!
Clearly, OLD software is of prime importance - ask the Computer
History Museum (CHM) about that. An amazing amount of
I have just started to fool around with a 4331-2 (and 3830), and the
IPL floppy is just plain tired. Not the drive, but the floppy media
itself! But then, what can one expect from a 30 year old disk.
Anyway, is there anyone out in IBM land that can write a 23FD 8 inch
floppy anymore? It is an odd
And Ivan Sutherland maintained in an article published in Scientific
American a few years ago that the clock is superfluous and detrimental.
In the ideal world, yes, they are.
In the real world, however, clock signals are an extremely effective
way of maintaining stability in a digital system,
There is probably something here I am missing, but this sounds like
pure and (not so) simple fun to me. Hobby work. It reminds me of
the GlowWorms** groups where people work with vacuum tube
radios.
Yes, pure and simple fun is correct. There are now more than a few of
us that enjoy fiddling
Will, about 15 years ago I saw one in the (then) new Civilization Museum in
Ottawa (Canada). Not sure if after 40 years any of these real machines would
still work reliably enough to run a demo program...
There are a few machines from circa 1960 still in working condition,
including CHM's 1401
That doesn't make sense.
How would you manage time-outs and other events sensitive to the passage of
time?
Programmable one-shots would work, but that would be disgusting.
I think Sutherland meant the internal clock for pulsing the logic
circuits, rather than a TOD clock.
--
Will
Unless that means read the tape and copy the contents to something newer,
the museum is the second place it should go. Someone with a drive that can
read it should be the first.
CHM can read many many many formats, and can farm out to places that
can do formats it can not.
Remember that with
It's been a while since I posted here. While cleaning out my office
I ran across a 15 inch tape reel. The label says The Control
Program of IBM Operating System / 360. It's dated 1964 and it says
it's 60 minutes long. If anyone would like it I'll be glad to send
it, if you're willing to
Any oldtimers out these have the Physical Planning guide that covers
the 4300 processors? I need to know the weight of a 4331-2, and my
guide skips that model.
Thanks!
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Poll question of the day: How one goes about determining a good distance
between 2 data centers. One which is primary and one which could be used as
a DR site.
In the good old days, at least 50 megatons away.
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Will
--
And of course, now the spammer has seen his tradename flashed in front
of all our eyes many, many, many times over the past 24 hours.
There ain't no such thing as bad publicity.
At least I know that his spam was completely wasted with me, unless he
whats to help me find either a 3830 or 3880.
Yes, they were kludgy way back then and absurd now, but it seems he wants to
get one or more working and attached to a mainframe for reason(s) he has not
divulged.
There is no secret to why I want 3350s - it is to save, assemble, and
restore old mainframe systems. There are a small number of
IBM 3880 - 1 or 2 (IBM DASD and Control Units Facts Folder G520-3075-2)
OK, thanks.
I need to find a 3880 anyway, so now this doubles the reason.
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It has been some time since I worked on 3350s, but I believe the
described fault which lead to head crashes was an air filter somewhere
in the HDA assembly which eventually deteriorated and got onto the
platters.
OK, thanks for the info. I suppose by now one can assume that just
about all the
Since it is for a museum environment, you should ask your local IBM office
to donate some maintenance expertise. You might have to supply multiple
3350's as source parts for repairs.
Yes, this is the case with all old 14 drives, IBM or otherwise.
Unfortunately those made by IBM seem not to have
I have a lead on a few 3350s - obsolete, but that is the point - and
the owner mentioned that the typical failure mode is the breakdown and
failure of the seals, letting crud get on the platters. Can any of the
oldtimers here elaborate? Does anyone still service 3350s?
Also, does anyone know the
I have a lead on a few 3350s - obsolete, but that is the point
What point its that? By today's standards they are very slow. And at 635 MB
per unit, you can get the capacity of several strings for a couple of hundred
dollars and carry it in your pocket.
The point is not to put these in
I can't help with the rest of your question, but IIRC 3336's had
ten magnetic disks (19 data and one servo) and did not have a
double platter on the top.
Thanks for the info.
I found some pictures on the web, and these packs I have look more
like those for 2314s. At first I did not think so,
It was never used on AWACS.
My information on what an RD-281/ is is very sketchy, so any help
appreciated. Is this simply what they called a 2314 under JETDS?
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I recently purchased a number of unused disk packs for the RD-281/
drive. These contain 11 14 platters, with the top platter being
double layer (two platters stuck together). The bottom shield has 20
notches along the perimeter, with one being a double notch. The IBM
p/n is 3904903, and they are
Many of us, who were hoarding old tapes, not knowing what would be
done with them, of course never anticipated that you can run MVS on a
PC. (And you LEGALLY can run 1975-vintage MVS 3.8 at home.)
So even if you think your old tapes aren't useful, you can make them
useful to SOMEBODY,
A few years ago someone working on Hercules got a copy of
TOS/360 on 7 track tape. (With the translation feature to
write 8 bit data.) First problem was finding a drive to read
it, second was to undo the translation back to 8 bits.
Al Kossow at the Computer History Museum is the one to talk
an aging mainframe, yea okay, so what were they running? a 9021 with 128 meg
of central storage running OS/390 2.4 ?
Hey, I want a 9021. But I guess I would settle on a 9121.
There actually is a guy in Poughkeepsie with a 9021 in his basement.
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Will
I'm looking for the end of service for 3480 A22 and B22's
Put those 3480s back in service!
The Computer History Museum is still looking for 3480s - specifically
the head assemblies - as they are extremely useful for pulling data
off ancient tape. If anyone out there is about to kill off their
to documentation or hardware,
providing that the ownership can be transferred (IBM internal docs
officially still belong to IBM, for example).
William Donzelli
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know there are a
few of us on this list that would be interested. The museums may also be
interested, such as the excellent Computer History Museum in the Bay Area.
You may be surprised to know that much of this stuff is wanted.
Thank you for listening to me...
William Donzelli
[EMAIL PROTECTED
I know it is insane, but I still would like to get a 3380/3880 before they
are gone. I have stopped seeing them in the junkyards (bad sign). Anyone
know of any of this old junk about to get the axe?
William kVA Donzelli
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Does anyone know when the IBM 2914 finally went out of production? I am
starting to see the things more, and although the design is from the S/360
days, the ones I am seeing were built well past then.
William Donzelli
[EMAIL PROTECTED
I am looking to find the weight of the old Disk Storage Control box
(the head of string of 3330s). Anyone have and old site planning guide
with the data handy?
Thanks!
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I wonder what my working 026 keypunch is worth. It's hard to find
replacement tubes.
My guess would be a couple hundred, maybe a little more.
The tubes are actually fairly easy to find, if you know where to look. In
fact, most of the tube dealers treat them as junk.
William Donzelli
[EMAIL
What good are the holes without their corresponding chad?
I have plenty of chad. 1s 2s 3s...collect them all!
William Donzelli
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Would that be the Enterprise?
Yes, for the 3340. I need even crashed ones (to fix the load mechanism).
William Donzelli
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would
appreciate it.
I will contact you offlist.
William Donzelli
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