On 12/20/24 16:36, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: I recall only learning once not to leave a cup of coffee atop a running 1403. I think the lozenge-character print train was mostly used on the BCD machines like the 1401, but I could be mistaken. I recall one of the old timers at CDC relating that try as they might, they couldn't get a train printer of their own design without the print train disintegrating. I believe that CDC quietly purchased a 1403 on the gray market and took it to pieces. The result was the CDC 512. Up until this time, the standard high-speed printer at CDC was the 501--a drum printer. It was interesting to note that hammer firing differences on a drum printer resulted in characters being vertically displaced, which was very annoying to the eye. Whereas the train printers could displace characters horizontally and was not nearly as unsightly. --Chuck

As a field engineer for Honeywell, I always dreaded the holidays because so many people would launch print jobs which used repeated overstrikes to create pictures. Those jobs sometimes fired the maximum number of hammers at a time to speed up the picture creation which would sometimes cause multiple hammer actuator fuses to blow. More than once I had to buy all the 2 amp fuses from multiple Radio Shacks to get the printer operational again. Those overstrikes also caused the paper to become more saturated with ink which resulted in more paper/ink residue getting deposited in the print chain, which required heavier than normal cleanings during the next preventative maintenance window. Another thing which caused more work for field engineers around the holidays were jobs sent to the card punches to play Jingle Bells by punching fully laced cards in time to the music. It was entertaining unless they caused card jams too bad for the operators to be able to clear by themselves. Fully laced punch cards are too flexible to pass through the punch path cleanly. - Rod

That's it. As far as I know, fully laced cards were only useful for producing a deep percussive sound while punching the card. Trying to push cards rendered flexible by so many holes at 300 cards per minute caused some spectacular card jams which occasionally required partial disassembly to fully clear.

The chain with box drawing characters mention in the original post where used to print the ALD.  The 1403 had logic that limited the number of hammers that could fire at once, there was a test routine that would repeatedly fire the maximum number of hammers it was called the "Chain Breaker Routine".  The only drum printer I ever saw operating I think it was a Honeywell printer and the person demoing it printed out some pictures, the printer could fire most if not all hammers at once which made quite a racket. Paul.

On Dec 21, 2024, at 12:41 PM, CAREY SCHUG via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: my recollection from being a computer operator at the time was the the earlier 1403s did NOT have an interchangeable chain.

Also curious if any 1404 printers still exist. They were wider and you could shift the print mechanism to the side where there was a mechanisms to print on tabulating cards, one or two at a time.

On 12/20/24 18:36, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: My understanding is that the 1403 N1 used a "train" and the 1403 N3 used a chain.  I have seen a 1403 N1 train up close, and there was no chain that connected the type blocks, 2 characters to a block.

Jon

The carriage control tapes had the sprocket holes dead center which lead to people putting them on backwards by accident  and since most people only used a couple channels for any given form, this would lead to paper runaways, as would neglecting to lower the brush block after mounting the carriage control tape. I once saw one of the large system CEs repairing a print train that the customer had neglected to fill the oiler and the train seized.  The filling the oiler was the customer's responsibility so the repair of the train was billable.  The type slugs I saw where not coupled together and had helical gear teeth on the bottom that coupled with a gear in the train that was driven by the motor.  I am not sure what model of 1403 this came from but it was one of the models that had covers that went all the way to the floor.  The print trains had a separate machine type and I seem to recall that the customer was obliged to purchase them even if the 1403 was leased.  The 3203 printer used the same print trains as 1403. Paul.

I thought the whole idea of the middle pocket on the 2540 was to allow a master deck to be read in and fed to the middle pocket. A total card in the deck could be selected into read pocket 1 and a new total card punched and fed to the middle pocket merging it into the master deck in the right place.

A fun reader was the 2501. The card read in 9 edge first then changed direction and passed by the light based reader column 1 first and then shot up into the stacker. The card was stopped by 2 fingers hanging down. Tape the fingers up out of the way, run a program that read cards and you could have a game of 2000 card pickup in 2 minutes. Cleanup was a pain. 😊 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_2501

When I was an operator, we once had a visit from a CE who had to repair the carriage control mechanism. In order to do that, he had to use a big screwdriver, and of course he lost it. It hit the 1403 N1's power supply, blew all fuses. This was not enough; the screwdrive hit obviously the plus and minus pole of the main capacitor (it's about 55 years ago), so the current was so large that, after the things had cooled down, he could lift the capactor out of the printer just by lifting the screwdriver It was by the way the same CE that got his tie wrapped up in the print chain.... The same company once had a bunch of visitors who were allowed to visit the machine room, which normally was a bit nono. One of the guests took his coffeecup with him, put it on top of the 1403, and while things were explained to the crowd, the cover lifted and .... well you can guess the rest. He was quite pisssed off, but it was his own fault Another thing I'll never forget, was the 2540. It had 5 bins, and the middle one could be used for accepting read cards and punched cards. Once an operated started to read cards while cards were being punched, and both routines used the middle bin. That is not to be recommended ! /Nico

For the people who worked at IBM, what was the difference between an “FE” and “CE” ?

On Dec 23, 2024, at 3:42 PM, Wayne S via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: For the people who worked at IBM, what was the difference between an “FE” and “CE” ? Sent from my iPhone > On Dec 23, 2024, at 07:47, Paul Berger via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: > >  > On 2024-12-23 05:11, Nico de Jong via cctalk wrote: >>> >> When I was an operator, we once had a visit from a CE who had to repair the carriage control mechanism. In order to do that, he had to use a big screwdriver, and of course he lost it. It hit the 1403 N1's power supply, blew all fuses. This was not enough; the screwdrive hit obviously the plus and minus pole of the main capacitor (it's about 55 years ago), so the current was so large that, after the things had cooled down, he could lift the capactor out of the printer just by lifting the screwdriver >> >> It was by the way the same CE that got his tie wrapped up in the print chain.... >> >> The same company once had a bunch of visitors who were allowed to visit the machine room, which normally was a bit nono. One of the guests took his coffeecup with him, put it on top of the 1403, and while things were explained to the crowd, the cover lifted and .... well you can guess the rest. He was quite pisssed off, but it was his own fault >> >> Another thing I'll never forget, was the 2540. It had 5 bins, and the middle one could be used for accepting read cards and punched cards. Once an operated started to read cards while cards were being punched, and both routines used the middle bin. That is not to be recommended ! >> >> /Nico >> > My experience with a capacitor occurred early in my time as a CE. Before the days of switching regulators IBM used a lot of power supplied that where regulated by a resonant winding on the input transformer. If the capacitor on that winding goes short you get no output from the transformer. I was working on a banking terminal that had no power. Where I was working I was behind a row of machines and cabinets for things like signature cards, in a narrow isle against the windows, so no one in the branch could see me. I had already been caught once by a shorted resonant capacitor so first thing I did pop off one of the leads to the capacitor and sure enough it powered up, but I didn't leave it at that I started to second guess it so I turned off the machine and reattached the wire to the capacitor, and it powered up again. Then I started thinking that it probably went short due to heating up, so I thought it best to leave it disconnected until I could get a replacement, the machine would work fine without it for a day or two. It was then that I made the mistake, I thought I should discharge the capacitor, so I shorted the leads with the shank of a screwdriver and there was a load crack and a bright flash and next thing some of the banks staff where looking over the machine and asking if I was OK. I still have that screwdriver some 45 years later. > > You quickly learned to tuck in you tie and roll up your sleeves not just to keep them out of the mechanisms, but also to keep them out of the oil and grease. The worst things I worked on for getting dirty was proof machines. The endorsers used a purple indelible ink and they would get gummed up with a mixture of ink and paper dust and working with gloves was impossible so you would end up with your hands stained purple. Later someone stumbled on the idea of using a ultrasonic cleaner which we could use to clean everything except the endorsement plate, the ultrasonic cleaner would cause the endorsement plate to delaminate, but it was easy to clean by hand. > > Paul. >

On Mon, 2024-12-23 at 18:21 -0500, Rod Bartlett via cctalk wrote: Stuart Feldman, formerly of Bell Labs where he claimed credit for Make and the first (and slowest) FORTRAN 77 compiler, told me that Unix was developed by some MIT students who thought Multics was too big and too complicated, so they wanted to develop a small single-user system. They called it Unix. Now Unix (and Linux) are far bigger and more complicated than Multics.

I don't remember which of the Unix gurus said "Version 7 was an improvement on all of its successors," but I think maybe Multics was an improvement on all of its successors.

Has anybody gotten Multics to work on Intel?

Stop by and visit us over on FreeBSD sometime, we abhor systemd :-)

Well, I have proof IBM used the Field Engineer term. See the punch card used to report an Incident. https://www.ibmjunkman.com/cards/?Holder=774&Img=1

So, IBM referred to the individual as CE, and the organization as FE. To have full symmetry, did anybody else refer to the individual as FE, and the organization as CE?

On 12/23/2024 8:05 PM CST Nigel Johnson Ham via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: On 2024-12-23 20:57, Van Snyder via cctalk wrote: > On Mon, 2024-12-23 at 17:44 -0800, Fred Cisin via cctalk wrote: >> So, IBM referred to the individual as CE, and the organization as FE. >> To have full symmetry, did anybody else refer to the individual as >> FE, and >> the organization as CE? > I think Univac called the organization "Field Engineering" and the crew > "Field Engineers" or FE. >

On 12/23/2024 3:11 AM CST Nico de Jong via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote: When I was an operator, we once had a visit from a CE who had to repair the carriage control mechanism. In order to do that, he had to use a big screwdriver, and of course he lost it. It hit the 1403 N1's power supply, blew all fuses. This was not enough; the screwdrive hit obviously the plus and minus pole of the main capacitor (it's about 55 years ago), so the current was so large that, after the things had cooled down, he could lift the capactor out of the printer just by lifting the screwdriver It was by the way the same CE that got his tie wrapped up in the print chain.... The same company once had a bunch of visitors who were allowed to visit the machine room, which normally was a bit nono. One of the guests took his coffeecup with him, put it on top of the 1403, and while things were explained to the crowd, the cover lifted and .... well you can guess the rest. He was quite pisssed off, but it was his own fault Another thing I'll never forget, was the 2540. It had 5 bins, and the middle one could be used for accepting read cards and punched cards. Once an operated started to read cards while cards were being punched, and both routines used the middle bin. That is not to be recommended ! /Nico

One thing I found and fiddled with for instance was a utility exit in the tape subsystem library called SPIE.  Turned out I could submit a SPIE handler which could get control when a tape fault occurred in supervisor mode.  Wasn't hard to generate a fault on the tape and get the exit triggered. The system programmers added code to block that after I reported it to them.

He had the back up, (mentioned in other posts could  mess up your time if you had something sitting on the case.