Front panel switches - what did they do?

On 05/25/2016 09:01 AM, jwsmobile wrote: According to WikiP, IBM leased over 7,000 of the 20s, so that would make it a contender for volume--I doubt that half as many 1130s were sold. Anecdote time. A Chicago-area manufacturer of fans and blowers used the usual (for the time), collection of unit-record equipment for their accounting and inventory needs. It worked well and the operation was pretty much a one-person setup. The president of the company was visited by an IBM marketing guy who made said president's eyes go all glassy with the prospect of having a real computer and detailed reports being delivered to his desk every morning. So he installed a 20 with its (censored) "Mother Fletcher's Card Mulcher) and associated gear, which, I believe, included a 2311 and a printer. He also would up hiring 2 more people. He got nice thick reports delivered to his desk every morning, as promised, but found that he could get more information by (shudder) visiting the manufacturing floor and talking with the managers there. So the stacks of green-bar paper piled up, unread. He was later invited to an IBM shindig set up by marketing. During which, he approached a systems engineer and described his operation, leaving out the fact that he already had the 20 setup. The response adequate for many years for an operation his size. He was on the phone to IBM the next day, canceling the lease of the 20 and associated gear. ------ My bad experience with the Model 20 was based on my wanting to syntax check a small deck of assembly. I knew where a rarely-used 20 was hiding out. So, with a bit of help, we got the assembler loaded and ran my deck in. I was greeted with the printer spewing out error after error. You know, you might start off a S/360 program with something like: BALR 15,0 USING *,15 URP! BALR? Reg 15? --Chuck