The Strange Beauty of Historic Computers Brought Back From the Dead
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When you open the door and walk into the room, it even smells like the 1960s. It reminds you of the old garage where your grandfather kept his twin Chevrolet Corvairs. But those aren't cars you smell. Those are computers. This is the "1401 Room" on the first floor of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California — the room where Robert Garner and his motley crew of amateur technicians have spent the last decade reviving two of the massive IBM 1401 mainframe computers that littered the business world throughout the '60s and on into '70s.
This looks like the best job in the world.
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When you open the door and walk into the room, it even smells like the 1960s. It reminds you of the old garage where your grandfather kept his twin Chevrolet Corvairs. But those aren't cars you smell. Those are computers. This is the "1401 Room" on the first floor of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California — the room where Robert Garner and his motley crew of amateur technicians have spent the last decade reviving two of the massive IBM 1401 mainframe computers that littered the business world throughout the '60s and on into '70s.
This looks like the best job in the world.
I'm going to be in Mountain View early April - will have to visit the museum! Marc
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When you open the door and walk into the room, it even smells like the 1960s. It reminds you of the old garage where your grandfather kept his twin Chevrolet Corvairs. But those aren't cars you smell. Those are computers. This is the "1401 Room" on the first floor of the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California — the room where Robert Garner and his motley crew of amateur technicians have spent the last decade reviving two of the massive IBM 1401 mainframe computers that littered the business world throughout the '60s and on into '70s.
This looks like the best job in the world.
I've been to the Computer Museum three times. Once when it was in Massachusetts before it moved to California and twice in California. At the CHM, there are a bunch of old computers for which I developed software including the IBM 1401 that was mentioned in the Wired.com article. The first IBM 1401 I developed for had 4K of memory and no tape or disk. Later, we got a 16K IBM 1401 with four tape drives. Amazing what we could do with Autocoder assembly language, tape drives and 16K of memory. Admittedly, it was far less performance and productivity than today's programming tools or hardware but it was far better than wiring plugboards for the IBM 407.
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I've been to the Computer Museum three times. Once when it was in Massachusetts before it moved to California and twice in California. At the CHM, there are a bunch of old computers for which I developed software including the IBM 1401 that was mentioned in the Wired.com article. The first IBM 1401 I developed for had 4K of memory and no tape or disk. Later, we got a 16K IBM 1401 with four tape drives. Amazing what we could do with Autocoder assembly language, tape drives and 16K of memory. Admittedly, it was far less performance and productivity than today's programming tools or hardware but it was far better than wiring plugboards for the IBM 407.
Mike Meinz wrote:
but it was far better than wiring plugboards for the IBM 407.
Program in RPG, the language that replaced plugboard wiring!
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Mike Meinz wrote:
but it was far better than wiring plugboards for the IBM 407.
Program in RPG, the language that replaced plugboard wiring!
Did some of that, too.