On 02/06/2016 04:04 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:

So no one worked on a system made of vacuum tubes? Machine code
programmed punching holes on preindented blank cards with tip of pen or
pencil? Handled tape reels as big as small car wheels? Those were the
days. Memory was magnetic core bits with write wire, read wire, inhibit
wire(erasing bit) going thru the dunut holds. Stack of 4K memory was
bigger than a all in one mini PC box. Tube system needed tons of a/c
unit to keep the room cool..... Nowadays most field changes come down in
the form of software update/change. Rarely they do wiring change.


I never worked on a vacuum tube computer but am quite familiar with them
from my radio work.

The guy we hired at work to be our administrator was a veteran of the
vacuum tube computer days though and he did tell a number of stories