Just from the online pictures, the IBM 403 control board was definitely
smaller (looks like maybe 66 vs. 80 columns of holes and about 33 rows)
and was subdivided into 3 columns vs the 4 quadrants for the 407. The
printing on the front side of the board to identify and label the holes
on the board were obviously different as well.
The most common failure mode (that didn't require a CE to fix) for a
previously functional 407 board was improper "user" handling of the
board when the board was out of the machine. If the back side of the
board was hit against something hard enough to either knock one of the
plugs back into the board so it wouldn't make contact, or possibly even
bend the plug so the entire jumper wire needed to be replaced, then
knowing which column(s) weren't printing combined with a tilt of the
board out of the machine with the door open was sometimes sufficient to
quickly spot the offending jumper wire and effect a quick fix without
completely removing the board from the 407; but any significant rewiring
of a board was always done with the board out of the machine -- easier
to see what you were doing, more efficient to work near the storage bins
for the jumper wires, and others could use the 407 with their board
while you were preparing yours.
Joel C Ewing
On 5/30/22 05:33, Seymour J Metz wrote:
I've only seen a 407; did the boards for the other 40x machines have the same
form factor?
You could open the door an wire the board without removing it; I can't imagine
wanting to do so.
While 80-80 listing was certainly a standard board at every shop I heard of,
AFAIK the most common task for the 507 was printing reports with control breaks
and sub-totals.
As a side note, Richard Feynman described using a room for of EAM equipment to
do calculation for the Manhattan Project.
Have you sent that scan to bitsavers?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of
Joel C. Ewing [[email protected]]
Sent: Monday, May 30, 2022 1:13 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Tabulating Machines (was "... z114")
An IBM 407 control board was the largest of that on any of the plug
board machines I ever used, probably at least 24" x 24" (columns
numbered 1 -80 and rows numbered A - BL). A Google search for "407
plug board" will find several pictures (but not all for 407s). One
picture shows that the panel pretty much took up the entire right end of
the IBM 407. Raising the door handle on the right end of the 407 moved
the control panel into the machine and brought the metal end of each
plug that was sticking out the back of the board into contact with a
flexible metal contact inside the 407, and at the same time the panel
door covered the control board completely -- definitely could not change
any wires while it was installed and active in the machine.
The jumper wires were single conductor, color-coded for length, and
completely insulated except for the part of the plugs that went through
the non-conducting control board. It required some amount of force to
push the plugs into the board and a similar force to remove them; but it
was easily done by hand, no special tools required. An installation
would have a number of control boards, so you could have a separate
board for each "standard" application for the IBM 407, plus some
available that could be wired or modified for custom one-time uses. You
could conceivably put a metal cover over the top of a control board to
make it more difficult for someone to change a standard board, but it
was not functionally required and made it more difficult to replace a
jumper wire that got damaged, which did occasionally happen.
I believe all logic was implemented with mechanical relays. Although it
had the ability to add/subtract numeric values from selected columns in
a deck of cards and some very primitive logic functions based on
comparing punches in the cards, calling the IBM 407 a computer would be
a big stretch. It was mostly used for listing data from cards with some
simple summation of numeric values, possibly with some customized
repositioning of data columns to fit pre-printed forms.
I find I still have a copy of A24-1011-1, Reference Manual, IBM 407
Accounting machine (Sep 1960), 223 pages. Searching by the manual
number, I located a copy online at
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1B6loAvZArMtLqUnJeYqhroecCU8E_hMEC2Ac_meCqG9tv6_Fn1lQl3U3bzO6h0SseQ39CnCyxwrOu3_DpRbGSWymcWDsQz882I7_N03vYirt-e_1xNvYd-aAXNrtk0pHYPFRHjvRYWLIm0wJPkQlTEOTws8L-77ql2x1dbe-wm20OxC5s-IfHyuQfTJVDepZMqUzpJpUV4XPvLuRgxGjxegALeWCNGXBJBZWBO7rsZ7vcJNX-Lx-XP4mEcrDRuNCZYGJNak1A8nwQ7UpUFZDbQBaWyyJLOh67kKSKH9y-cA11jKoMQ-X23amCwvJdYWRsLF7iEwwduMUZ5zNN1p6keNnGW3pXoLo7mEYOwKTu4gUsh203X1QGEnDpuqSe_i8PWkBX6wRfaQbKsPbM_xznYShGxP8PIuNKrfJeVwVGpZuWYytX3IUzwQaVuNLudiT/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.piercefuller.com%2Flibrary%2Fibm-a24-1011-1.html
My recollection is that most frustrating part of IBM 407 board wiring
was figuring out a clever way to do something, only to find out it
didn't work because you used a section of the control board that
required an optional feature not installed on your specific machine.
Joel C Ewing
On 5/29/22 13:26, Seymour J Metz wrote:
You could theoretically add wires without removing the board. I've never seen
it done and I suspect that it's not safe.
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3
________________________________________
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [[email protected]] on behalf of Joe
Monk [[email protected]]
Sent: Sunday, May 29, 2022 2:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: my new z114
"I've never seen a picture of one of
those wire boards being worked on and always assumed you did the work
while it was in the machine. "
Ummm ... not possible. To reprogram a board, you had to take a special IBM
tool and push the wire up thru the bottom of the board! Kinda hard to do
when the board is in the machine :)
Growing up, my dad had a job as an IBM CE. One of his product lines was the
6400 accounting machine. Great fun for a kid on the weekend to play with a
plugboard and wires!
https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerhistory.org%2Fcollections%2Fcatalog%2F102732361&data=05%7C01%7Csmetz3%40gmu.edu%7Ca2799b02cf5c4dbecd4208da41fb2e51%7C9e857255df574c47a0c00546460380cb%7C0%7C0%7C637894844615983446%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=41iEHD5Ho5nil8Xe4wjqvuAEtg7a84XylwtUNGkOHAs%3D&reserved=0
https://nam11.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.computerhistory.org%2Fcollections%2Fcatalog%2F102645466&data=05%7C01%7Csmetz3%40gmu.edu%7Ca2799b02cf5c4dbecd4208da41fb2e51%7C9e857255df574c47a0c00546460380cb%7C0%7C0%7C637894844615983446%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gFC6O3dDsvvvz3xII6eBQkrJM1ko7x%2BAgijSpMfvINE%3D&reserved=0
Joe
On Sun, May 29, 2022 at 12:00 PM Tom Brennan <[email protected]>
wrote:
Enzo mentioned he has a couple of ESCON cards, so he's still in the
running. Great pic of your dad - I've never seen a picture of one of
those wire boards being worked on and always assumed you did the work
while it was in the machine. On a table looks a whole lot easier.
On 5/29/2022 7:42 AM, Gary Eheman wrote:
Harry:
To try and squelch a bit of misinformation here since the Internet never
forgets, Funsoft was *not* spun off from IBM. It was founded independently
and the software and hardware engineering roots were definitely not IBM.
Enzo can contact me concerning a FLEXCUB. No need if his z114 has no
ESCON channels which would be a pre-req.
A second unrelated intersection to your post relative to Columbia is a
pic of my father:
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1gwDFZ0VlqoCEukSVnTPS9NrhjazJmj-3U1dBfEt5gk4BwjjxsNtFHIDEnYfbCzWq4Q6OKfisop3TmqYJAumPycsMTHL2v7-SzSC7MwNo-QvgScZxaXN7LYEiwN6vOmtQhyB9H-31LaxJ92ZdqRw3cCrNpzOegAplxOKzc2Ull6eTDQqz32iNU7_wmW8fALJ1dz-v8CnI1kcg3CHw1Yw7A7Ai611_X7znJqzpmV8oQZOmEPMVW7Wd2WYiCalCX7PQ-UMRIN_YSR2sMAad2aT-tbOKLc49kHsN9u0B5TnGEsGtC_Dshi_ddxNHPG8JZQwBn8Jn0BI1FEOXsYnMVBXU9aIyktJZeaqAfsiweuGZyh5zSCsOSedzWUOLuKeW7Vcp7WgGba0y7G0_BXgI5i_l5nKJMQZlv59_Dse0xZ1SADzdKzhOgauJPt1RhE2Sr-NR/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.columbia.edu%2Fcu%2Fcomputinghistory%2F407.html
We used the same pic when my family endowed a perpetual scholarship at
armyscholarshipfoundation.org
On Sat, 28 May 2022 16:50:07 +0000, Harry Wahl <[email protected]>
wrote:
Enzo,
You may want to see if you can get a FlexCub which, with its PC Escon
card, will connect your z114 to a PC based platform and emulate every type
of z114 peripheral you could possibly use.
Using standard Escon fiber cable, the z114 Escon connects directly to a
PC Card that is a mainframe channel adapter. Between the card's firmware
and specific PC programs in the one PC box you will be able to emulate all
the peripherals you will need.
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1VwG2tbYb1jAjg201pQkV_T2Xk4RWdRqHdSu4I5T1gmotr_54qG7oYif6WOeAFKDwfuDwo2ld5tPxHUl54b5qbjcDUnumLjKF-VB4wavk7zzYSXCUVQ9teLqJ8QsKpJjSYDS1VemU444xopkuo1o2L0vSXIDMWMzYBPkSO0ADwzsRfjl26btiGLyiTfmKdBtE9enuYYdrz2cJdiD5rQM0iEuBMgJ2atTeLlFbKOBMoUlrFBSMDGDZBrJ0cLb0seDlqaooHhB5oinuNR2XvNf7mxySklYrQAWkUvwHBpdyvIrJMNQCRPHE4GWYGTmgnmIxEkza9GU-11HlQIqRaGqty9xU7bv2asl1Q89dLdLwBt6g6JOdQti781ycKR7pTO4ezSBmSiOZgsCoDGKmCrheAZjxpahepAymhjU8ahSEadCKfPctiD14RerSHG-vFJ9f/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.funsoft.com
go to FlexCub white paper.
Fundamental Software, a.k.a. Funsoft, was spun off from IBM,
specifically from their P/390 group.
There are several other, similar vendors out there too.
(snippage)
P.S.S. Also, as a professor at Columbia University in NYC, I may be
able to get you access to Columbia's museum of IBM history, including the
parts not open to the public.
Fundamental Software,
Inc.<http://secure-web.cisco.com/1Wy2triybBL1OvjBx384LVSLUl_pYxF5Dnime12fZbZaQ6grGntJz7-JXAnKHTlwgAURSTIc1DyOoxtloScfekiL2psux3CPIB7ipr2v6Out5CHnskvdkThwJr5GBlD-0xGpe_AHrppdvzDlN2nDC5FFE0I7IEFCaYIn09Wj6td0hrOH9X6E4dU9PwrSZoieQitTx3-7mElLsQYD98YPxAsHu79L5zy0Rj0Vpg2QP8TJGAiRaRjuSjkZ7qhPcyj52bU2274yC8izy3vgaPGzSriCgDnTgHPTlIrAGlvtwHNNsNI22h66FtCayg0stbEBeTel6fA6W3-7FixPinGDXZ4wQXxjQUryytnw3cS-wSrqeQyb2EP4PoIlYV5Q3AYJ-X2d1xB_yAVfLcEp1RPnGlKP8mvw9Aqt6aT5M-ou0K0ATlVu1uhMWntaTk_srmPz_/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.funsoft.com%2F>
System/390 on Intel-Based Servers
http://secure-web.cisco.com/1VwG2tbYb1jAjg201pQkV_T2Xk4RWdRqHdSu4I5T1gmotr_54qG7oYif6WOeAFKDwfuDwo2ld5tPxHUl54b5qbjcDUnumLjKF-VB4wavk7zzYSXCUVQ9teLqJ8QsKpJjSYDS1VemU444xopkuo1o2L0vSXIDMWMzYBPkSO0ADwzsRfjl26btiGLyiTfmKdBtE9enuYYdrz2cJdiD5rQM0iEuBMgJ2atTeLlFbKOBMoUlrFBSMDGDZBrJ0cLb0seDlqaooHhB5oinuNR2XvNf7mxySklYrQAWkUvwHBpdyvIrJMNQCRPHE4GWYGTmgnmIxEkza9GU-11HlQIqRaGqty9xU7bv2asl1Q89dLdLwBt6g6JOdQti781ycKR7pTO4ezSBmSiOZgsCoDGKmCrheAZjxpahepAymhjU8ahSEadCKfPctiD14RerSHG-vFJ9f/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.funsoft.com
...
--
Joel C. Ewing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
--
Joel C. Ewing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions,
send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
