On 2025-10-18 14:31, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote:
On Sat, 18 Oct 2025, Adrian Godwin via cctalk wrote:
Surely those spinning mechanisms in Colossus rely somewhat on oil.
Though I
haven't noticed it spraying a skidmark across the walls.
The 1401 room at the college (55+ years ago) always seemed to have a
"burnt oil" smell. But, that might have been mostly unskilled
maintenance of the EAM equipment. That smell is absent from the
[working!] 1401 at CHM
Was there a 1403 attached? The 1403 used a hydraulic motor to move the
paper, and yes they did leak sometimes, plus they had a pump that oiled
the print train. Some of the early IBM disk units also had hydraulic
actuators.
Paul
