In article ,
Bob Eager wrote:

Late '70s to early '80s.

Ah, ok. I suspected that might be the case

The predecessor to Darren's UPS and genset was a massive MA, which was
kept for quite a while after the ICL mainframe was retired in 1986. I
wouldn't be surprised to see that either batteries or genset are housed
in the same place (I don't know, I stopped working for that cost centre i
1992).

When I started working here we still had the MA. Must have been around
1995 that it was retired? Something like that.

Neither the gen set or the batteries are in the same place - that is
now full of switch gear. Bob actually parks his car very close to the
genset, so our attempts at hiding it must work. Listen carefully on the
first tuesday of each month from 8:15 - 8:45 and you'll hear it :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dmchapman/2386361985/

Batteries are in the machine room with ducted air to keep them cool.

Bob might remember commisioning day of the current UPS - the build was
almost evacuated as the wrong charger PCB had been fitted so all the
batteries cooked.

Took bloke with acid proof gloves and a chisel a couple of days to remove
them :-)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bcc/2379690867/ has a few pics. They weren't
keen on us taking too many photos ;-)

The MA was incredibly reliable, although we paid ICL maintenance for
about 6 years before we realised they'd never actually touched it (or
rather, the contractors, who'd never been informed)! At one point they
came out, dismantled it and replaced the bearings - all within 6 hours;
amazing.


I remember watching it spin down. Took a fair while with no load. Once the
load was removed it was amazingly easy to spin by hand as well. Impressive
bit of kit

Darren