Re: University credentials used by third parties

["Flynn, Gary - flynngn" <flynngn () JMU EDU>]

My first duty station had just cleared out a  15' x 15' room that I was told
had been full of triodes making up all of 4k of memory. Preventive
maintenance consisted of swapping out a third of the tubes per month. Or so
I was told. But seeing as we still had:

- Disk drives as big as refrigerators with 20 platters as big as extra large
pizzas with hydraulic actuator arms whose oil change was part of preventive
maintenance

- Transistor testers as big as washing machines on which we had to match
transistors for gain characteristics so we could install a pair of them on a
1.5" x 1.5" circuit board which was the driver for one X or Y line on a row
of core memory contained in a box as big as a couch holding 4k of memory

- major computer systems whose boot routines had to be keyed in with toggle
switches so paper or mylar tape could be read in containing the boot
routines for the mass storage

I tend to believe the stories. :)

Anyone remember X.25?



 On 8/18/10 7:42 PM, "Bob Kalal" <kalal.1 () OSU EDU> wrote:

> Well, my first boss in this business told us of how he started on a government
> vacuum tube machine whose MTF (Mean Time to Failure) was shorter than the boot
> time. 
>
> Bob Kalal
> Director (Retired), Information Technology Policy
> THE Ohio State University
>
> On Aug 18, 2010, at 7:09 PM, Pete Hickey wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 03:43:45PM -0700, Pollock, Joseph wrote:
> >
> > > Anyone remember when an 8KB core memory board for a PDP-8 was nearly
> > > $10,000?  For me, that really puts things in perspective.
> >
> > Yeah, but that was 8K of 12 bit words.  50% more!!!!  You got more for
> > your money in those days.
> >
> > -- 
> > Pete Hickey     
> > The University of Ottawa           Send $50 and I'll double your IQ
> > Ottawa, Ontario                          or no money back!
> > Canada