When I worked at a bank, we had Ollivetti teller terminals that punched paper
tape transactions as well as them being entered into the system. If the
computer systems were down, the tellers could still record transactions on to
the paper tape. When the systems came back up, they had a paper tape reader
that they could feed the paper tape into (I don't remember the model number) to
enter that transactions.
--- On Fri, 5/29/09, Mike Walter <mike.wal...@hewitt.com> wrote:
> From: Mike Walter <mike.wal...@hewitt.com>
> Subject: Re: IBM 1401
> To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
> Date: Friday, May 29, 2009, 1:35 PM
> Paper tape is immune from magnetic
> interference (of course, back then
> there was no public documentation of EMF weapons, right?).
>
> Another paper tape story... when I was in the US Marines
> (1971-1977)
> working in the Tactical Air Command Center at MCAS Cherry
> Point, North
> Carolina one summer, an important computer kept failing at
> random
> intervals. That computer translated radar "screen
> paints" (bright blobs)
> into symbols that we could interpret on large displays
> (i.e. different
> symbols for different aircraft; and different symbols
> between friendlies
> and bogies).
>
> When examined after each failure, the core (yes, real core)
> memory was
> always wiped clean. That computer (and its tech) was
> housed in a metal
> box (IIRC, about 6'x10', 8' high) which was transportable
> on the back of a
> 2 1/2 ton ("6-by") truck, or by helicopter> It was
> located about 15 feet
> from another similar box with all the radar gear inside,
> and large radar
> dish on the top. After a few days of random core
> wipes, someone noticed
> that the core wipe only happened when the door to the
> computer hut was
> momentarily opened as the radar dish swept past.
> While aimed much higher,
> there was enough residual power from the dish to wipe the
> computer's core
> memory clean. Memory was reloaded (back on track now)
> from dependable
> paper tape.
>
> Someone was stationed outside the computer hut for the rest
> of that day
> until it could be turned around with the door faced AWAY
> from the radar
> dish sweep.
>
> Mike Walter
> Hewitt Associates
> Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do not
> necessarily
> represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt Associates.
> USMCR Sergeant, 1971-1977
>
>
>
>
> "Huegel, Thomas" <thue...@kable.com>
>
>
> Sent by: "The IBM z/VM Operating System" <IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU>
> 05/29/2009 11:49 AM
> Please respond to
> "The IBM z/VM Operating System" <IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU>
>
>
>
> To
> IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
> cc
>
> Subject
> Re: IBM 1401
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Trivia.. Recently I went to the Titan-II ICBM silo (now a
> museum) just
> outside Tucson, AZ ..
> Interesting fact, they loaded the program for the nucleaur
> tipped
> ballistic missiles guidence system from a paper tape..
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: The IBM z/VM Operating System [mailto:ib...@listserv.uark.edu]
> On
> Behalf Of Jim Bohnsack
> Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 10:40 AM
> To: IBMVM@LISTSERV.UARK.EDU
> Subject: Re: IBM 1401
>
> No, the IBM 2671 paper tape device was a reader only.
> The paper tape
> punches were from older systems. I guess paper tape
> got punched on
> teletype machines in S/360 days. I had a customer
> with a 2671.
>
> I started keeping IBM sales manual pages that were "discard
> this page"
> when updates came out in about the 1970 time frame. I
> realized that I
> was throwing out history, so I kept some that I thought
> were important.
>
> Also I hung on to old IBM Blue Letters as product
> announcements were
> called. When I moved last summer, I shipped about a
> 6" tall stack of
> them to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_History_Museum
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> Mike Walter wrote:
> > And just this morning I had been wondering about those
> who have
> > contributed to this thread, wondering how they could
> remember so much
> > detail (even if some memory had a few parity
> checks). Thus, how much
> > truly important personal information had been paged
> out of their real
> > memory (perhaps to paper tape?), being forever lost to
> permit these
> > technical details to remain? :-)
> >
> > Obviously, over the years Lynn has kept more records
> than a radio
> > station
> > (oops: wrong media -- and now: wrong era).
> >
> > Mike Walter
> > Hewitt Associates
> > Any opinions expressed herein are mine alone and do
> not necessarily
> > represent the opinions or policies of Hewitt
> Associates.
> >
> >
>
> --
> Jim Bohnsack
> Cornell University
> (972) 596-6377 home/office
> (972) 342-5823 cell
> jab...@cornell.edu
>
>
>
>
>
>
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