Our lab had disk races! The massive disk drives, the size of a washing machine, were intentionally spun off-center (sped up differentially), causing them to scuttle across the floor. First disk across the room wins! Not a coincidence that folks who studied dynamic spin harmonics (a physics topic) usually won.
-g On Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 4:43 PM Rick DeNatale via TriEmbed < [email protected]> wrote: > Yet another happening at UConn in the 70s. > > The DEC machines were in a lab owned by the EE department. The university > computer center had two machines, an IBM 360 Model 65, and an IBM 1620. > The 1620 was the first computer I programmed. It originally had a paper > tape reader punch, which was removed to an IBM 1627 plotter, a version of a > Calcomp plotter. I remember that you could plot from Fortran using the > PUNCH PAPER TAPE instruction. We had a lunar orbiter game which used the > plotter and the four sense switches on the 1620 console to turn thrust on > and off and control it's direction. > > The EE grad stunts coopted the paper tape reader punch and attempts to > interface it to the PDP-8 with plans to use it for a paper tape OS. As I > recall they got it far enough to be able to start and stop the beast, but > gave up because they couldn't figure out how to slow it down so that the > data rate was slow enough for the PDP-8 to consume. > > On Wed, Mar 4, 2020 at 3:35 PM Pete Soper <[email protected]> wrote: > >> French to Googlish: "IT SEEMS THAT THE STRIPS OF PAPER ARE BLACK" >> >> The strangest paper tape episode I had was coming into a Uni lab after a >> weekend to find an ASR33 bolted to a wall below the ceiling. A giant loop >> of tape (ends taped together w overlapping sprocket holes) was fed through >> the reader. It was being used as a ROM with a computer that had no other >> memory apart from core. I swear it's true. About 1973. >> Pete >> >> -------- Original message -------- >> From: Rick DeNatale via TriEmbed <[email protected]> >> Date: 3/4/20 2:01 PM (GMT-05:00) >> To: Wft <[email protected]> >> Cc: Triembed <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: [TriEmbed] Need a PDP 11 of your own? >> >> Another anecdote from my college days in the early 1970s. >> >> One of the graduate students spent some time overseas in France. >> >> One day someone got a package from him containing a mysterious roll of >> paper tape which was black. I don’t think that any of us had seen such. >> >> So someone fed it into one of the teletypes and printed it, revealing the >> message: >> >> IL SEMBLE QICI LES BANDES DE PAPIER SOIENT NOIRES >> >> >> >> >> >> On Mar 3, 2020 at 9:23 PM, <Bill Trautman via TriEmbed >> <[email protected]>> wrote: >> >> I think I still have a Paper Tape for a PDP8 from a summer class I took >> at Lehigh University in 1978 as a rising Highschool Senior :-) >> >> On 3/2/2020 7:39 PM, Ken Boone via TriEmbed wrote: >> >> I think I have an original PDP 8 front panel at home. >> >> On Mon, Mar 2, 2020, 11:16 AM Rodney Radford via TriEmbed < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> I am strongly considering buying one of these though... >>> >>> >>> https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub/david-hansel/arduino-altair-8800-simulator-3594a6 >>> >>> >>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 10:46 AM Gregg Tracton via TriEmbed < >>> triembed@triembedorg <[email protected]>> wrote: >>> >>>> Everyone will want one of these! >>>> >>>> I used one of these computers in college. >>>> >>>> For those under the age of 50: to start up this gem, first introduced >>>> in the 1970's, you turn on the power and manually type in the 16 (or so) >>>> instructions that tell the machine to load the OS (operating system), using >>>> the toggle switches on the front. Yes, we were entering binary manually: it >>>> had no keyboard (or mouse) -- this part, plus a disk, is the whole machine >>>> [You could attach a terminal.] >>>> >>>> It took a few minutes to get that sequence right. Experienced users >>>> could do it in 20 seconds. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2020 at 10:24 AM Mauricio Tavares via TriEmbed < >>>> [email protected]> wrote: >>>> >>>>> https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11-get-one >>>>> >>>>> _______________________________________________ >>>>> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list >>>>> >>>>> To post message: [email protected] >>>>> List info: >>>>> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org >>>>> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org >>>>> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: >>>>> [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe >>>>> >>>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Gregg Tracton: tired, retired & inappropriately unattired (PJ's) >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list >>>> >>>> To post message: [email protected] >>>> List info: >>>> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org >>>> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org >>>> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: >>>> [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list >>> >>> To post message: [email protected] >>> List info: >>> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org >>> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org >>> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: >>> [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe >>> >>> >> _______________________________________________ >> Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list >> >> To post message: [email protected] >> List info: http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org >> TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org >> To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: >> mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe >> <[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ Triangle, NC Embedded >> Computing mailing list To post message: [email protected] List info: >> http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org TriEmbed >> web site: http://TriEmbed.org To unsubscribe, click link and send a >> blank message: mailto:[email protected]?subject=unsubscribe >> >> >> > > -- > Rick DeNatale > > Google+: +Rick DeNatale <https://plus.google.com/102541178931067955550> > Blog: http://talklikeaduck.denhaven2.com/ > Github: http://github.com/rubyredrick > Twitter: @RickDeNatale > WWR: http://www.workingwithrails.com/person/9021-rick-denatale > LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/rickdenatale > _______________________________________________ > Triangle, NC Embedded Computing mailing list > > To post message: [email protected] > List info: http://mail.triembed.org/mailman/listinfo/triembed_triembed.org > TriEmbed web site: http://TriEmbed.org > To unsubscribe, click link and send a blank message: mailto: > [email protected]?subject=unsubscribe > > -- Gregg Tracton: tired, retired & inappropriately unattired (PJ's)
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