Quite a story! Could Gotyes "State of the Art" video (although there's the focus on an old musical instrument-computer) be related to this in any way? :-) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWIKQMBBTtk)
> Somewhere in the early 1970's I did a lot of software development on rented > time. One place I rented time from -- cannot place anything about it other > than this part -- they had two machines and as I recall four banks of eight > 2401's each. Two of the banks were switchable to either machine. I bought > time third shift (because it was cheaper). When I got there they would be > running these HUGE tape sorts. Tape sorts are a real thing of beauty, with > half of the tape drives running backwards at any given time. > The third shift operators -- and anyone who has known third shift operators > will understand this story -- would go out on the fire escape and light up a > little illegal substance and then come back and turn off all the machine >room lights* and then sit there and groove on all the blinking lights of 24 > tape drives running a tape sort. > I didn't participate in the illegal substances -- I did partake in those > days but can't work in that state -- but the 2401's in the darkened machine > room WERE amazing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
