9 Oct
2008
9 Oct
'08
12:59 a.m.
On 9 Oct 2008 at 0:24, Dennis Boone wrote:
MSU's SCOPE/HUSTLER installation assigned some
channel, I don't recall
which, to land just above the end of the page. They then used this to
set up the lines of *** that were characteristic of banner pages, so
that they spanned across the perf, making it easier for Ops to burst the
listings. For some reason, the ** characters on their print chains were
always mushy. :)
Standard for SCOPE (at least at CDC) was usually "M" or "=" (may have
been channel 9 on the tape, but I'm not certain), but I'm sure it
could be changed by the installation. Better to use an alpha
character, though--there were more of them on the print train than
the special characters. On the CDC in-house systems, it was the "0"
that got fuzzy fastest, but then we were always printing dumps. You
got so you could hear the distinctive pattern of the burst pages
almost subconsciously--the job ahead of you could be printing a box-
length job and you could be on the other side of the room talking to
someone and still know that a new output job had started--even with
the printer cover closed. The 512 train printer sounded like a
screaming mimi; the 501 drum printers sounded like a muffled machine
gun.
Computer rooms could be very noisy places.
Some funny words just came into my head in connection with printers:
SPIM, SKIP, SKAP, SPAP. Can't remember the system or language they
were associated with--although I'm certain it wasn't CDC.
Cheers,
Chuck