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

From Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid>
Newsgroups alt.folklore.computers
Subject Re: IBM's 96 column punch card (was System/3)?
Date 2016-04-27 00:42 +0200
Organization Me, Myself and I
Message-ID <tf75vc-kc3.ln1@sambook.reistad.name> (permalink)
References <PM00053161ACFBFD0A@aca405eb.ipt.aol.com> <I4udnfRhIayzXoLKnZ2dnUU7-UXNnZ2d@giganews.com>

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In article <I4udnfRhIayzXoLKnZ2dnUU7-UXNnZ2d@giganews.com>,
Jon Elson  <jmelson@wustl.edu> wrote:
>jmfbahciv wrote:
>
>
>> The guy who wrote the software for the TU78 had to resort to using
>> iron filing fluid debug the hard/software for a while.  I hated that
>> controller.
>You could view an 800 BPI tape very easily with magna-see, and even read the 
>data out.
>
>1600 BPI was a lot harder to see, as the data was encoded in the location of 
>the flux changes, and there was a flux change every bit time in the track.
>
>6250 BPI would be impossible to actually read anything.  You could verify 
>the size of the data blocks and the gaps, but not much else.  Most GCR 
>formatters did not allow you to see much of what was in the raw data, 
>either, so they either read the data with some errors, or they gave you 
>nothing at all.  So, if the format was more than a little off, it could be 
>quite hard to tell what was wrong.  I suppose you could hook a logic 
>analyzer to the read amps and then you'd be able to pick it apart.
>
>
>Our first 780 had a TU77, and it had a LOT of problems, mostly related to 
>heat buildup almost melting the tape.  There were several phases of mod kits 
>put on, the last one was a huge radiator for the bearing air and a row of 
>boxer fans to cool it.  I always WISHED we had a TU78 as the backups took 13 
>tapes per drive at 1600.

When it came to 9" tapes there were IBM, Kennedy and everyone else. Many
BUNCH drives were Kennedy OEMs, as were the top end ND, Siemens and Prime.
But only on the larger, more expensive, commercial models.

They had impressive reliability. And they had a unique, quite violent feel.
The condenser bank for the vacuum and servos were 6F @ 120V. Yep. 6 Farads.
No prefix. They went from standstill to streaming in ~20 ms with a 10kg++
moving moment.

My PPOE got hold of 6 of these. 3 connected to a Tandem and 3 to Primes.

We used to scare newbies by loading a tape without the protective cover
on, holding a finger over the sensor. It made an impressive "chooff" sound
as the air was sucked out in a few hundred ms.

>Our 2nd 780 had Storage Tek 6250 drives.  They were very reliable, but the 
>formatter was bigger than a PDP-11/44.

The Kennedys each took 22U in a 19" rack.

-- mrr

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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

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