Text 14473, 82 rader
Skriven 2014-04-15 18:33:25 av Roy Witt (1:387/22)
  Kommentar till text 14465 av TIM RICHARDSON (1:123/140)
Ärende: Main Frame Computers
============================
Greetings TIM!


 RW>> What is amazing to me is the one in use at San Diego today (and many
 RW>> others) has 8 processors.

 TR> Back in the early `1970's (1970-71) I was a carpet and tile installer
 TR> for a time, working for a private contracter back east.

 TR> We once did a carpet job in the General Dynamics plant in their
 TR> `computer' room. The plant had at one time been the Strmberg Carlson
 TR> plant, and became General Dynamics.

Stromberg Carlson the TV manufacturer? They made excellent equipment.

 TR> The room was almost 40 feet long, and about 25 feet wide. Except for
 TR> the entry portion ofthe room, there was very little actual floor
 TR> space. The whole room almost, consisted of `the computer'.

 TR> It had about three feet on each side and along the rear wall, one
 TR> aisle around the same size right down the middle, and along the back
 TR> wall.

A 'clean room' for the computer.

 TR> It went from the floor almost to the ceiling, and there were huge
 TR> reels of recording tape on various parts of its front surface. Lights
 TR> and `tubes' all over it. It made odd whirring, clicking noises.
 TR> ...weird!

Sounds a lot like the IBMs where I worked at Cubic.

 TR> And the room was air conditioned, kept at a constant temperature in
 TR> order to preserve the `operating' temperature of the vast equipment.
 TR> Also, there was a `double' entrance into the room; the first door led
 TR> into a glass-enclosed room where a technician was on duty at all
 TR> times, both to monitor the working of the computer, and to supervise
 TR> compliance with the comings and goings of those who entered and
 TR> exited (the first main-entrance door had to be completely `closed'
 TR> before opening the secondary door which led into the actual room
 TR> containing the `computer' itself, for the purpose of maintaining the
 TR> temperature level of the computer),

When I started out in my own shop in Scripp's Ranch, there was an IBM
mainframe refurbishing company that had a set up like that. The HDs were 7
or 8, 12" disks that I used to replace bearings in. The HDs held only 512k
of data. Those made very nice wall decorations and picture frames though.

 TR> Strange to think that, now-a-days, the laptop I can carry around in
 TR> my briefcase, is light as a feather, has more `computing' power, and
 TR> performs operations in mere milliseconds...that took that huge
 TR> computer DAYS or even WEEKS, to perform!

Mine too.

 TR> Hell...if I'd told one of my grandfathers back then, that, one day,
 TR> I'd be carrying a telephone around in my shirt pocket...they'd have
 TR> thought I was crazy! Funny how science marches on.

When asked by the young waitress what kind of tablet I had at lunch today,
I told her it was a Kindle Fire that I had adapted Android to, removing
the Amazon locked (POS) OS system.

She was impressed, then told me that she had a Kindle Fire HD, which is
about the same size as the Fire, but has a much nicer display. I then
showed her all of the apps that I had that you can't get from Amazon. She
was further impressed. Then she told me that she had a Samsung S5 and I
was impressed. But then she said that she didn't know how to use it. 8^(


    Have a day!

         R\%/itt - K5RXT






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