1 Apr
2009
1 Apr
'09
2:09 p.m.
>>>> "Sridhar" == Sridhar Ayengar
<ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
Sridhar> Paul Koning wrote:
> I don't know. I used a Siemens minicomputer
around 1972. It was
> driving an ultra-accurate flatbed plotter (with servo motors, not
> steppers).
Sridhar> Was that a Nixdorf at that point?
I remember the name Nixdorf, but I don't remember it being attached to
that machine.
One interesting bit of trivia: it was used to draw designs for postage
stamps in Holland, circa 1972 or so. The person who took credit for
that (who is not the person who did the work) later went on to design
much of the paper money for Holland, back when they had real design
instead of the fakery you now see on the Euro.
It lived in the TU Eindhoven Mech.Eng. department. The main use of
the machine was to draw shapes for objects that would then be machined
on a milling machine that had a line-following optical system on it.
Sort of like CAD but older: a computer controlling a drawing machine,
and then the resulting drawing in turn controls the machine tool.
paul