22 Apr
2012
22 Apr
'12
12:38 a.m.
From: allison <ajp166 at verizon.net> To: General Discussion: On-Topic
Posts Only <cctech at classiccmp.org> Subject: Re: VAX on Reddit
Message-ID: <4F933A05.3030205 at verizon.net> Content-Type: text/plain;
CHARSET=US-ASCII; format=flowed On 04/21/2012 08:59 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
> Shocking headline: "23 year old computer
still in daily use at a
> silver mine. MicroVAX 3100 running openVMS on 12mb memory."
>
A number of years ago I went out to a plastic molding company to look
at a Microvax installation that had been hit by lightning and advise how
to rewire the place to avoid similar damage in the future. They took me
into their compute room and I was stunned at the contraption they had
running there. I stood there gasping and asking "What the HECK is THAT?"
Turns out they had this thing that was an off-brand clone of an
IBM 1800 running all their presses. I gathered it was a TTL
re-implementation of the 1800, but a very old machine at least.
(The microvax ran their accounting system.)
Jon
Jon