On Fri, 29 Jun 2012 07:57:53 +0000, D.M.Chapman wrote:
In article , Bob Eager
wrote:
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/
Oh, it's that one! There are so many around...although that is bigger
than most! I remember having a power cut campus-wide in November 1970,
when Darwin College has just opened. Walked to the car park to get
torches from car, and was greeted by a tractor towing a genset towards
Darwin. They hadn't got round to a permanent installation at that point.
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 ;-)
I have seen the photos but I wasn't there. If it's summer, I tend to work
at home...apart from approx. August 15th-30th every year now.
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
We used to spin it down every night, and I quite often was the one to
fire it up in the morning. That was because ICL wanted more money for us
to run *our* mainframe overnight. We told them where to get off in the
end.
First genset I saw was summer 1973, at an ICL installation in Brighton. A
1902S (I worked as an operator over the summer) at Advance Linen in
Richmond Place. Had only been there a few days and had to start it all up
myself due to the other two staff being stuck on the way to work. That's
when I learned you pull the red knob OUT first...
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