end of an era

[von-mil]

With all of the remembering of computers any one still have a roll of 13/16th paper tape for a Teletype KSR machine. Model 14

I saved a few rolls of teletype punched paper tape from my very first computer class - approximately 1975. The tape is 1 inch, not 13/16.

I have no idea what I stored on them or if it's even possible to find out. I guess I just hang on to them for good luck.

Somewhere, I still have a collection of IBM keypunch cards that were used by the IBM 029 keying machine. I still recall the series of sounds the machine made as it fed in a card, punched it, and passed it down the line. And repeated, over and over and over. A fascinating machine, I thought.

 

[jinman]

A couple of mentions of "slydrools", Luxury! But what about what about logarithms? :thumbdown:

I have books stashed away with logarithm tables and trig functions. How long has it been since we didn't need either of those?

One thing I certainly don't miss is the old fanfold multi-copy green-ruled paper with carbons in between. I think the most carbons I ever worked with was 3 (original and 3 copies). If there were more, I don't remember. To get the carbon out and separate the copies, you had a machine called a decollator. You separated each copy and attached them to sprockets that fed and refolded individual copies. The carbons rolled up on a roller made of two rods. In theory, you just dropped the carbon in and it rolled up as the copies decollated. In actuality, the darn machine would jam and you'd have a huge mess if you didn't instantly shut it down. Of course your hands were black from the carbon paper, but the financial folks who got the reports didn't want to see black smudges all over their papers. You just had to be clean while getting dirty. There's no other way to describe it.

After the copies were separated and the carbons removed, you fed each individual copy into a burster. The burster had a slow roller and a fast roller situated exactly one page apart. As the paper fed through the 2nd roller snatch (bursted) the perforations and made individual pages. Now, it was time to pull off the tractor feed tapes along the side and use a vibrator table to get all the sheets to align into a nice big perfectly aligned stack. When that was done, you still weren't through with your job. That big stack of paper probably went to 25 different people. So, you had to separate out the reports and put them in the mail boxes for pickup. The daily reports weren't bad, but the weeklies were a bit more work. Monthly reports always required at least one overtime Saturday to produce and Quarterly reports required an extra weekend. Woohoo! Time-and-a-half and double-time! Semi-annual and annual reports were a zoo. It was a whole week of overtime.

Of course, all these boxes of paper were probably responsible for the loss of acres and acres of forest. Ahh. . . the good ol' days.

 

[rekees4300]

The old Honeywell 716 series used core memory boards. There was a bootstrap routine that you loaded into memory by using a row of flipper switches on the front panel to put in octal (IIRC) values. Those core memory boards could be loaded in one machine, removed and plugged into another machine to boot it.

I worked for Honeywell as a Systems Rep. in the 70's. They had some great computers and operating systems (OS/2000). Unfortunately their top management didn't have the foresight to take advantage so today they are back in their comfort zone producing thermostats.

View attachment 337655

 

[dave1949]

Ha! I had forgotten those component critters. I have a few Honeywell pimentos somewhere.

I worked in Honeywell's Field Service Div. 1979-1985, then went to Germany on a NATO contract under the Fed. Systems Div. Boy was that a good move. I could see the curtains coming down, losing market segment share, etc. in the early 80's.

By the time I left Germany in '94, there was basically nothing to come back to. And, the federal division had been sold a couple of times during that too. My sorry retirement, which was frozen and capped around 1990-1, is from Wang. :laughing:

 

[Ken]

I saved a few rolls of teletype punched paper tape from my very first computer class - approximately 1975. The tape is 1 inch, not 13/16.

View attachment 337639 I have no idea what I stored on them or if it's even possible to find out. I guess I just hang on to them for good luck.

Somewhere, I still have a collection of IBM keypunch cards that were used by the IBM 029 keying machine. I still recall the series of sounds the machine made as it fed in a card, punched it, and passed it down the line. And repeated, over and over and over. A fascinating machine, I thought.

Von-mil Your paper tape was maybe punched by a IBM type tape punch to be fed directly into the computer.
This teletype paper tape a little less than 3/4 inch came in a white or yellow roll or folded in a box to be fed into a guide and the printer keys hit a carbon printing the letters. Used by Western Union for Telegrams. Years and Years ago.
Also the Stock market listing came in what today is called a crawler on the computer screens.
Just clatter that no one heard in the back ground of working.
Used to punch a garbage sack full of the IBM punch tape chad. then sit down and on table check for missing chad holes because the computer allowed no errors or messed up chad punches.
into the 12 Kbit memory of the computer.
k

 

[jinman]

Unfortunately their top management didn't have the foresight to take advantage so today they are back in their comfort zone producing thermostats.

Well, they do produce some fine avionics suites for aircraft as well as flight management systems. They've been a leader in "glass cockpits."

 

[rekees4300]

Well, they do produce some fine avionics suites for aircraft as well as flight management systems. They've been a leader in "glass cockpits."

Oh yes Honeywell has a reputation for quality products. The only point I was trying to make is that they could have been a leader in the computer industry today had they taken advantage of their early start in the 70's. Instead of buying iPhones we would be buying hPhones.

 

[farmgirl19]

jinman; I too am VERY thankful to not have to handle carbon paper! I was one of those that could be in the same room as a sheet of carbon paper, and end up with it all over me! I think I stayed cleaner doing vehicle maintenance/repairs, than trying to dispose of a sheet of carbon paper! You just can't take some of us out in public! :laughing:

 

[/pine]

I still use a lot of older systems mainly because they have parallel ports...

I have a stock of 8 channel (10A) relay switch boards that interface via a parallel port...
I use them for controlling anything from choreographed Christmas light displays to just about anything else that uses electricity...

I run Linux on most of the systems and either control the devices manually (remote) using SSH or telnet or automated with shell scripts and CRON tabs...

 

[aczlan]

I still use a lot of older systems mainly because they have parallel ports...
I have a stock of 8 channel (10A) relay switch boards that interface via a parallel port...
I use them for controlling anything from choreographed Christmas light displays to just about anything else that uses electricity...
I run Linux on most of the systems and either control the devices manually (remote) using SSH or telnet or automated with shell scripts and CRON tabs...

I have one of those (made by Black Box IIRC) that I got with such a purpose in mind... Sitting in the attic right now.

Aaron Z