25 May
2016
25 May
'16
6:26 p.m.
On 2016-05-25 10:14 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 05/25/2016 05:31 PM, Noel Chiappa wrote:
I believe IBM recycled them from retired machines for an amazing
length of time. Certainly, a number of 1403s were in use on 370 and
even later systems. I was recently surprised while digging at
bitsavers to find out how ancient the 2821 controller was - all SMS
cards and some very ingenious magnetic transformer tricks to do the
address selection of the core stack with as few transistors as
possible. (The 2821 was the controller for the card read/punch as
well as the 1403 printer family.)
Jon
The 360/25 came with a built in attachment for a 1403 and the whole CPU
was not much larger than a 2821. When I first came to Halifax in 1979
one of the banks was still running 360s in their paper processing
center, they had a 22 and a 25, each one with a 1403 printer, 2501 card
reader, 3411 tape drive, and a 1419 cheque sorter. By that time all the
other banks had 370 systems and 3890 cheque sorters, another long lived
machine, announced in 1973 and still in use today. The original
machines had a 360 CPU bolted onto the end as a control unit. One bank
had a 370/115 CPU and when they got a 3890 they had to replace it with a
faster CPU because the 3890 would overrun the channels.
Paul.
From: Jon
Elson
> I interned at IBM Bermuda, and they had a
360/20 as their
main service
> bureau machine; it had (IIRC) ... a 4301
printer.
I'm guessing, maybe, that would be a 1403
printer?
Ah, right you are! The old grey cells are, well, old! ;-)
Those printers had an amazingly long life! They were first introduced
in 1959
with the 1401 computer, and, like I said, the brand spanking new
System 3
they got in ca. 1976 came with one! I wonder when IBM stopped producing
them?