29 Mar
2004
29 Mar
'04
5:39 a.m.
On Sun, 2004-03-28 at 22:02, Marvin Johnston wrote:
At the TRW swap meet yesterday, I ran across this
box:
http://www.rain.org/~marvin/box.jpg. The reason I bought it was that the
overlays had some words that rang of old mainframe computers. There are
three double sided overlays to define what the LEDs mean with
designations such as "Print Scan Counter", "Print Character
Generator",
etc. Another overlay has the heading "2314/2841 TROS SAL BITS". There
are two rectangular connectors with cables to connect to whatever this
thing is doing something with:). The only label on the box says
"Infinite Computer". Anyone have any idea what this thing is and is used
for?
The 2314 is an IBM disk drive (28MB) which has an integrated controller
(the CHM has one next to their 360/30). The 2841 is a standalone
controller for the 2311 drives (7MB) and other DASD units.
TROS (Transformer Read Only Storage) is the microcode storage used in
these units, so what you have is a (presumably multipurpose) Field
Engineering unit. See http://www.punch-card.co.uk/storage.htm
The other overlays are almost certainly for a line printer.
The 2841 had a small internal diagnostic panel, but presumably not
enough lights to display the entire microcode word.
I'm not sure when the 2314 was introduced, maybe 1966/7 or so.
LJW
--
Lawrence Wilkinson lawrence(a)ljw.me.uk
Ph +44(0)1869-811059 http://www.ljw.me.uk
