On 2024-04-12 2:45 p.m., Christian Kennedy via cctalk wrote:
On 4/12/24 10:28, Chuck Guzis via cctalk wrote:
Isn't that the IBM 2321 Data Cell drive?
Same idea, but I recall the cabinets being lower to the floor and the
media being more rigid than the 2321 noodles. Then again, it's been
the better part of 50 years, and it could well have been a 2321.
Memory rot sucks.
Having one's files "photostored" at LLL was a chancy proposition. There
were bootleg programs to access every file for a user, just to keep them
from being consigned to the photostore.
It was chancy at LBL as well. The mechanical handling of the 1360
photostore cells was something that would have defied the imagination
of Rube Goldberg, and chips routinely ended up in places where they
didn't belong (although they did make pretty cool bookmarks for my
teenage self).
The problem with a lot of these old machines was they relied on a lot of
electro-mechanical devices that would today be replaced by electronics
and a few simple actuators. These mechanical devices need to be
adjusted and maintained and have lots of parts to wear out. While I
only started with IBM in 1979 I still got to work on machines that would
now be considered electro-mechanical nightmares.
The development of the 2321 (announced 1967?) was long and apparently
had to overcome a lot of problems, but they apparently soldiered on with
it as it was considered a strategic product all for 400,000,000
characters of storage. The later 3850 (announce 1974) MSS had much
simpler cartridge retrieval system and had storage capacity up to 472
GB. The capacity of these seems tiny these days but given disk storage
at the time, it would take a lot of DASD devices to equal that and the
expense would be enormous if you could even fit that many within the
reach of channel cables from the system. Late in the days of copper
channels one data center I knew of was spread over three floors, with
the CPU on the middle floor and channel attached devices surrounding it
and as far a channel cables could reach on the floors above and below.
The 1360 was apparently developed at the request to Atomic Energy
Commission (AEC), I would guess a forerunner of the DOE. There where
apparently only 5 built 3 for the AEC and 2 for the NSA.
Paul.
