Stats on the first known HP Computer at the South Pole

Jay, other HP fans, I finally got a chance to re-examine the article on the wall down here. Someone hung up excerpts from "The Antarctic Journal", December 1976, page 286 (and parts of some presumably nearby pages). The article describes the "first" computer system at the Pole, which might possibly be true. During the 1974/1975 Austral Summer, UC Davis sent down a pair of HP 2100S machines to Pole. They were both equipped with 32K of memory, and sported paper tape, at least one line printer, and a pair of 45 ips, 800 bpi magtapes. Other I/O equipment mentioned in the article include an HP 12930A "universal interface", at least one HP 2570A "coupler controller", and at least one HP 12770A serial interface. If I run across the original journal, I can see about making scans. Right now, there is a hodgepodge of xeroxed page fragments taped to the wall. Before anyone starts drooling, this gear was all long-gone 20 years after it was installed. Even the microVAX that was here 10 years ago was packed up and removed years ago. Closest thing I've seen to a "classic" computer I've seen in use here lately was a Dell 386SX/16 as the head-end for the PBX we tore out in 2004, and the Compaq 386N we used for RTTY (last fired up in 2004 as well). It's all modern, boring stuff here now. :-( (except for the classic goodies I pack in my luggage ;-) -ethan -- Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 6-Nov-2007 at 09:30 Z South Pole Station PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -24.5 F (-31.4 C) Windchill -53.8 F (-47.6 C) APO AP 96598 Wind 16.8 kts Grid 10 Barometer 684.4 mb (10463 ft) Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html