I've made a temporary mirror here: http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/Singer10/
I even tried to rotate some of the photos. I believe this is the system that Singer sued DEC over the name DECsystem-10. Perhaps LCM wants it for that reason :) /P On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 07:13:31PM -0700, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote: > Through my Old Calculator Museum website, I have been contacted by a > gentleman that has a fairly substantial Singer/Friden > System 10 that is located in a building that the business wants to clear > out. > > The computer system is slated to end up in a dumpster if it isn't > rescued. > > The place the machine was stored is indoors, in an office-like space in > a larger warehouse style building. The space was not temperature > controlled, but there are no signs of water damage or serious corrosion. > Some critters (probably mice) have been inside the cabinets of the > system, but the contact said that there were no obvious signs that they > chewed anything up. The system is very dusty (it was not covered), and > it appears that some panels on the cabinets may have been removed, but > are probably with the system. > Some stuff appears to be partly disassembled. There also might be some > spare parts, e.g., circuit boards. > > The system consists of a CPU, probably a Model 20, two Model 80 Display > Terminals, a line printer of some sort, and two Mode 40 disk-pack (aka > dishwasher-sized) disk drives. There are quite a few Model 41 disk > packs there.. There also appears to be some documentation. There may > also be some kind of magtape drive with the system, as there is a rack > full of 7 or 9-track tapes hanging in it. Not sure if these are > included with the system, though. > > Here is a link to some photos of the system: > > http://pail.bensene.com/Singer10 > > Beware that the web host does not have much upstream bandwidth, and the > photos are pretty high resolution, so downloading them may take some > time. Most of the photos are between 1.8 and 2.5 megabytes in size. > > there is some documentation on the Singer System Ten up on Bitsavers at > http://bitsavers.org/pdf/singer/systemTen . Some of the documentation > there is for the equipment that is available. > > These systems aren't very common, and there likely aren't all that many > of them left in existence. Singer sold a lot of these systems into > retail outlets as part of one of the first online Point-of-Sale systems. > One notable account was Sears and Roebuck, who installed a huge > networked (via Modem) environment using System Ten machines in stores to > run Point-of-Sale systems, with modem links to larger systems that > collected the information, and usually fed it to even larger systems > (e.g., IBM mainframe) for inventory management, bookkeeping, and other > large corporate-level reporting/management systems. However, the > system aged quickly, as other competitors came onto the Point-of-Sale > scene very quickly, with systems that were less expensive, more > reliable, and more easily maintained. Many of the Singer systems in > large retailers were replaced within a few years of being put into > service. There was little market for "used" systems, so most all of > them taken out of service went for scrap. > > The System 10 CPU was pretty unique in that it had "hardware"-based > timesharing. The system managed time-slicing between "partitions" in > main memory (magnetic core) with hardware that provided a fixed > timeslice to each partition, switching to the next either when the > time-slice ran out, or certain instructions (e.g., I/O) were executed > that would trigger an immediate context switch. The system had hardware > protection for the partitions to isolate the partitions from each other, > allowing them to run independently. There was a shared and a read-only > system partition which could facilitate inter-partition communications > and management functions. > Pretty cool for a design done in the late '60's. > > It'd be a real shame for this system to end up in the trash, which is > exactly where it will go if a home can't be found for it relatively soon > (e.g., next couple of weeks). > > The system is located in West Chicago, IL. > > It's all pretty sizable, so, you'd probably need a small > commercial-style moving van with a lift-gate (the stuff is likely quite > heavy, especially the disk drives) to haul it. You would also probably > need a heavy-duty hand-truck or two, and some strong straps. You'd > need some muscle, too. I suspect it'd be more than a 1-man job. > > My contact wants it out of there. You just have to come get it and > haul it away. > > If you have any serious interest in rescuing this system, drop me an > Email, and I'll put you in touch with my contact. > > Hopefully someone out there can give this machine a new home. > Email: rickb .at. bensene .dot. com > > > Rick Bensene > The Old Calculator Museum > http://oldcalculatormuseum.com > > >
