Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #163028

Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)?

From jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com>
Newsgroups alt.folklore.computers
Subject Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)?
Date 2016-04-28 12:06 +0000
Organization "Have EDDT, will travel"
Message-ID <PM0005318A62FF5FAD@aca41083.ipt.aol.com> (permalink)
References (14 earlier) <PM00053161ACFBFD0A@aca405eb.ipt.aol.com> <I4udnfRhIayzXoLKnZ2dnUU7-UXNnZ2d@giganews.com> <PM00053176BCF5B066@aca4129f.ipt.aol.com> <dobuemF133rU1@mid.individual.net> <INOdnSUYD-mSHrzKnZ2dnUU7-K_NnZ2d@giganews.com>

Show all headers | View raw

Jon Elson wrote:
> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> jmfbahciv wrote:
>>
>>> DEC never managed to manufacture a good tape drive.  My favorite was the
>>> TU70s followed by TU40s.
>>
>> We had a table-top Cipher F880 that had been retrofitted with a SCSI
>> interface and hung off a uVAX 3100 to send updates out to customers who
>> couldn't take TK50s.  The number of times I had to prop the "bonnet"
>> open on it and persuade the tape leader to go in because the vacuum
>> wasn't strong enough to suck it in ... weighed a ton too.
> Yes, the stuff a half-inch tape in a slot and push a button streamer drives
> had all sorts of Rube Goldberg schemes for autothreading, I never saw one
> that worked very reliably.
>
> We bought a SCSI-adapted Cipher 990 (same mechanism, but 1600/6250) and it
> was a complete pile of junk.  It had to stay on all the time or it would
> crash the SCSI bus.  And, if you left it on all the time, about once a
> month, one of the read channel chips would die.  These cost something like
> $60.  I kept it running for about half a year, and then just gave up.
>
> I bought some used CDC Keystone drives (92185 - 1600/6250 density) with
> Pertec formatted interface.  One of them still runs, and I read in a tape
> every once in a while.  These things must be 30 years old for sure!

I never understood why it was so difficult to design a magtape drive
but I didn't investigate the problems.  It just seemed like the
latest device was based on NIH mentalities, never using the aspects
which worked.  Of course, none of the hardware developers ever
had to work 8 hours/day using the drives they designed.  I always
wanted them to be operators for at least a month; the same was true
for the disk drive designers.

/BAH

Back to alt.folklore.computers | Previous | Next — Previous in thread | Next in thread | Find similar | Unroll thread

Thread

Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-04-26 11:42 +0000
  Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2016-04-26 14:36 -0500
    Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-04-27 00:42 +0200
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-04-27 13:48 +0000
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-04-28 08:41 +0200
    Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-04-27 12:40 +0000
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Andy Burns <feb2017-usenet@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2016-04-27 14:51 +0100
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-04-27 22:27 -0500
          Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-04-28 12:06 +0000
            Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-04-28 07:49 -0700
              Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-04-28 17:03 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2016-04-28 12:18 -0500
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-04-28 11:19 -0700
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-04-28 14:19 -0700
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-04-29 16:47 -0500
              Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-04-29 12:18 +0000
            Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-04-28 17:03 +0000
              Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-04-29 12:18 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-04-29 15:14 +0200
            Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-03 14:09 +0000
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-04-27 22:19 -0500
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-03 14:21 +0000
      Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-03 14:03 +0000
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2016-05-03 13:58 -0500
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2016-05-03 14:22 -0500
          Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-04 20:21 +0000
        tape drives [was Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)?] Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2016-05-03 15:39 -0400
        Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-04 13:02 +0000
          Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-05-04 11:45 -0500
            Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-05-05 01:13 +0200
              Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2016-05-05 14:25 -0500
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-05 19:34 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-06 13:28 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-06 14:39 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-06 14:41 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-07 13:14 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-05-07 16:47 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btopenworld.com> - 2016-05-07 23:30 +0100
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-08 13:08 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2016-05-07 16:07 -0500
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-07 21:23 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-08 13:08 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-09 15:13 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-05-09 17:05 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? pechter@pechter.net (William Pechter) - 2016-05-09 22:41 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-05-10 12:01 +0200
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-05-10 06:42 -0400
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-10 12:34 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-10 13:05 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-11 12:18 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2016-05-11 13:27 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-05-10 15:53 +0200
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-05-11 12:18 +0000
                Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)? "Simo" <dhy287@gmail.com> - 2016-05-10 04:56 +1000

csiph-web