"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 11 Apr 2010 17:29:27 -0700, LDosser wrote:

I'll put in a Univac and a Ramac :-).

I'll raise you punchboards ...

402,403,407,509,552,077?

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

407 - but only when forced to = tab shop manager out sick!

Another operator and I once wired a 407 plugboard to list missing checks
for payroll reconciliation. The checks were punched cards so we were
running them through and listing the ones that weren't there! IBM said
it couldn't be done. There were so many wires (including quite a few one
way wires) we had to pull some and put in the "permanent" wires so we
could get a cover on the board.

Used to Stand on the wires to flatten the mess out!! And, invariably, you'd
need one more wire and everything left was too short ...

It worked fine for several months and suddenly stopped working. We
accosted the IBM CE and he confessed he'd done a "tuneup" and found the
timing was a little off so he fixed it. We convinced him to put it back
the way it was. Thereafter, for at least as long as I worked there,
there was a sign on the 407 that threatened immediate beheading for
anyone who touched it!

The prototype RCA 501 would sometimes come up with a write memory error and
I complained to the tech. He wander back along the rows of cabinets with a
ball peen hammer banging on doors and yelling "That fix it?" Riffling boards
was another favorite for fixing glitches in those days.


BTW, the first payroll system written for the Univac took 8-9 days to
run. For a weekly payroll! Seems table lookups on mag tape were just a
mite too slow :-).

Our year end stuff used to Print for a week. Just Print. What a BORE.