[Novalug] [OT] holy hair dryer

Beartooth beartooth@Beartooth.Info
Fri Jun 26 11:44:32 EDT 2015


On Thu, 25 Jun 2015, James Ewing Cottrell III via Novalug wrote:

>>       Tubes?? There were PCs before the transistor??
>> 
>
> Computers running on Tubes aren't as old as you might think. I went to UMD 
> from 72 thru 76, and while I was there, we still had some IBMs (the model 
> number matched the regexp "70?9?4?" (or maybe not)) that still ran on tubes. 
> I never saw them; I ran on the "modern" Univac 1100 series, a one's 
> complement, 2**18 36-bit word with 6-bit FIELDATA (with a mod that allowed 4 
> x 9-bit ASCII (which was rarely used)) characters, fed by punched card batch 
> jobs on time shared with 110 baud (with TWO Stop Bits) ASR 33 Teletypes and 
> later, a few "glass TTYs" locked away in the Graduate Labs and the Systems 
> Staff, where I worked.
>
> Come to think of it...that WAS awhile back. Still, it wasn't the 40s, 50s, or 
> 60s.

 	When I was in college in the Fifties, there was a 
computer on campus -- and it filled a building, afaik, between 
Physics and Math.

-- 
Beartooth Implacable, Curmudgeon On Line
Heart shall be bolder, harder be purpose,
more proud the spirit as our power lessens!



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