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Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer

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On 7/5/25 06:30, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2025-07-05, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
> 
>>     I remember those old 'data centers' - COLD COLD !
>>     Everyone wore jackets and fuzzy (wool, not synth)
>>     socks.
> 
> There was a belief that computer rooms had to be ice-cold
> for computers to operate properly.  Most people took this
> to extremes, hence the need for heavy sweaters even on hot
> summer days.
> 
> In actual fact, it was usually possible to find a happy medium
> where both the people and the computers were comfortable - but
> a lot of people couldn't handle the concept.  I remember getting
> into "thermostat wars" when visiting customer sites.  I would
> sneak the thermostat up into the comfortable zone, and when
> the customer staff walked in they'd crank it right back down.
> 
> Within a certain range, it was not the partitular temperature
> that caused problems, but variations in temperature.  I once
> worked in a small room where the air conditioner was as big
> as the computer.  You couldn't leave papers lying around
> because the fans in the air conditioner would blow them
> all over the place.  The customer would shut down everything
> at the end of the day, and start things back up the next
> morning.  The machine was quite flaky.  When the CE came
> in to investigate, he pulled one of the main circuit boards
> and a VLSI chip fell off it.  The thermal cycling had caused
> the chips to literally walk right out of their sockets.
> Once the customer left everything on 24/7, the problems
> went away.
> 

	Curiousle enought the change in temperature persisted into
the Personal Computer era when we had to be sure that the chips
were all seated and that was in a cool running Amiga 68000 machine.

bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2025.07- Linux 6.12.35- Plasma 5.27.11

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Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-07-02 23:30 -0400
  Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer Allodoxaphobia <trepidation@example.net> - 2025-07-03 12:03 +0000
    Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-07-03 18:43 +0000
      Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-07-05 02:14 -0400
        Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2025-07-05 13:30 +0000
          Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-07-05 18:05 +0000
          Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer Bobbie Sellers <bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> - 2025-07-05 13:25 -0700
          Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2025-07-06 00:20 +0000
            Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-07-06 03:38 +0000
          Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> - 2025-07-07 09:09 -0700
            Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-07-07 17:52 -0400
              Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer rbowman <bowman@montana.com> - 2025-07-08 03:30 +0000
                Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-07-08 01:55 -0400
                Re: Blast From Past - IBM 670 Mag Drum Computer c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> - 2025-07-08 22:36 -0400

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