Barry Merrill wrote: >At the Czech Tax Bureau in Brno in 1980 I saw what was described >as a Ryad clone of an IBM 145 running DOS.
>They had 3420-ish 8 tape drives, and about 100 tapes in their tape library; >I think this handled only international transactions. >Two lab techs in white coats had two of the tape units open with an >oscilloscope on a rolling cart, and I was told the problem was that >they were forced to get Bulgarian tape drives, and everyone knew you >need twice as many drives - one to work and one for spare parts. Hah! A Russian expat VM guy I knew once told me much the same-read the following in a heavy Russian accent: "Vee try to run wee-em, but dese Bulgarian tape drives are s**t." When he said it, I couldn't help but picture Flintstones-style drives, with reels that aren't even round... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
