I never heard about the plug boards. What were they, and what specifically
might one use one for?
--
Mark
** Registered Linux user # 182496 **
On 25 Jul 2000, Greg Stewart wrote:
> Nope, hadn't that particular thrill...but I do remeber the card readers and tape..
>
> And, only heard about the plug boards when I was first learning programming.
>
> I remember my first internet experience was playing Star Trek on a DEC terminal
>through a telephone coupler as a modem link. I *did* like the hundreds of lights on
>those modems, though... looked real cool when I was 12 years old!
>
>
> > No one remembers the Diablo drives, 5M fixed & 5M removable (soft sectored
> > cartridges made for some fun when mounted on a hard sector drive :)
> >
> > But that was "high tech" compared to storage which consisted of paper tape,
> > punch cards, mag tape... Of course, even these were great when compared to
> > programs "written" on 30"x30" (if I remember the size correctly) plug boards
> > with loads of wires and the odd diode to prevent backflow. That was about the
> > time it took an entire weekend to sort a few thousand "records" (cards, one
> > column at a time) if not too many cards were "eaten" by the sorter which
> > required a trip to the 026/029 machines... Then VM appeared on the
> > IBM360/67... Ahhhhhh!!! :^)
> >
> > Retired (not yet 55),
> > Pierre
> >
> > PS: The best "flashback" was watching a co-worker go airborne... he was
> > sitting on a chair which he rolled over bubble wrap while pulling out a DEC
> > power supply drawer... :^) :^)
> >
> > Greg Stewart wrote:
> > >
> > > I remember when a 10MB hard drive was the size of pizza, fit into a
>refridgerator-sized beast ofa cabinet, and PCs had 8 & 1/2 inch floppy diskettes!
>
>
> *********************************************
> Want free email? Sign up at http://www.freeze.com !
>
>
