25 May
2016
25 May
'16
6:14 p.m.
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
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?