Full immersion emulation

Chuck Guzis cclist at sydex.com
Wed Mar 1 22:36:11 CST 2017


On 03/01/2017 07:21 PM, Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:

> Well, we still had a Selectric (1050) on our 360/65 at Washington 
> University up until the end.  I'm pretty sure it was the most
> unreliable part of the machine.  It seems about every two weeks it
> would break the timing belt, which meant the clutch had to be
> rebuilt.  IBM had two 1050's there, and would swap them every time
> one broke.  They really did run the 1050 hard on that system, it was
> printing a line about every 10 seconds for about 14 hours straight
> every week day.


That's one area where CRTs are sooo much better.  The S/360 machines
just pounded the hell out of the SYSLOG device.  I guess the Selectrics
were better than the Model B-based console typewriters, which always
seemed as if they were going to fly apart.

As a typewriter, the  Selectric is pretty good.   I still have a
correcting Selectri III with a broken drive belt (I have a new belt
waiting to be installed), but I haven't gotten up the courage to repair
it myself yet--it's not a simple job.

--Chuck



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