14 Apr
2024
14 Apr
'24
7:11 p.m.
On Apr 14, 2024, at 2:50 PM, Van Snyder via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On Sun, 2024-04-14 at 13:15 -0400, Paul Koning via cctalk wrote:
I remember a Varian computer sitting in a corner of a lab at U of Illinois (computer
science department). It looks similar to the ones shown in Bitsavers but not quite the
same -- it had a front panel that had mostly brown coloring, and the panel was totally
flat. It used membrane pushbuttons for operation, with the button positions marked by
circles on the flat plastic front panel.
Does that ring any bells? I remember being told it had user programmable microcode, but I
never used it, in fact I never heard of anyone using it.
paul
The printer I was describing sounds a lot like
the Versatec ones you
mentioned, including the funny paper and smelly toner. But it was
actually made by Varian, and the driver tells me it had 1408 pixels
across the width of the paper, so at 11 inches wide that would make
it 128 PPI. I wonder if I still have a sample page or two from that
printer.
American Geophysical had a fleet of trucks fitted with hydraulic
"thumpers." They would go out to a potential oil or gas field, lay out
a few thousand feet of cables with geophones on them, and drive around
thumping the ground. Within the truck, they had Varian V70 computers
with microcode to do Fast Fourier Transforms.