Silly toys?
In trying to turn this tide of the list lately a little more to the heavy
side, I would like announce my new machine, an IBM 5340 System/34.
I got a full set of diagnostics and manuals, so I can get a real idea of
how the thing works. Very interesting, to say the least. S/34s are dual
processored 16 bit minis, with one processor running the OS and the other
running user tasks. There is a great deal of fault tolerance built in, all
the way to checking the results on the ALUs against predicting
circuits. Apparently IBM tried to aim at more than just the RPG and COBOL
markets, as BASIC and FORTRAN were also available.
This should be a plug and play machine - no three phase needed, and the
thing is in pretty darn nice condition. I hope it does not need work, as I
have other machines that have been in storage too long.
So send me all of your palms and other PDAs, so I can study how fast I
need to get the S/34 rolling to completely crush each model under the
casters.
William Donzelli
aw288 at
osfn.org