On Tuesday, Oct 7, 2003, at 18:02 America/New_York, Dan Minette wrote:
<snippage>
OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest
computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned
before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-)
Dan M.
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A Litton Industries GPC (general purpose computer) circa 1977.
john
Just to flesh out the answer above:
That computer was installed in an E-2C Hawkeye AEW carrier aircraft. It had been 'hardened' to survive carrier traps and EMP bursts. The processor was called the 'Arithmetic and Control Unit'. It had 80K of RAM that was housed in modules that looked like Britannica volumes (we set the memory addresses with binary switches on the front of the modules.) It was used to process the signals received from both active and passive detection devices the Hawkeye carried. All maintenance readouts were in binary. Now the first PC I ever worked on was an IBM PC. The first 'luggable' PC I worked on was a Zenith Z-171 (it looked like a lunch box.) I've also worked on an IBM System 360 running MVS, and in high school we had the teletype machine connected to NYU's mainframe that we had time sharing on. Does anyone else remember making pictures on greenbar paper of ships, people, etc?
john
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