Discussion of large systems - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

30 Oct 2006

...
  Al Kossow said:
There are VERY VERY few people that have such systems. I only know of at
most a dozen in the US, and most of them do not participate in on-line
discussions. A few rarely use email. ....
...
 Surviving systems from before 1975 are very rare
animals, esp mainframes,
since so many of them have been scrapped for precious metals. Sadly, there
is even less software that has survived. CHM didn't start seriously
collecting documentation nor software prior to the move to the West Coast in
the 90's. While they have an impressive collection of hardware, and a pretty
decent collection of US computer documentation now, the software holdings
pre 1975 are minimal.

I will be giving a talk at VCF this Saturday on the CHM software collection.

Al, can you get someone to record your talk and put it on DVD or somewhere
that I can see it?  As much as I would love to attend the VCF, I am on the 
other side of the country and busy as hell right now with my job and other 
things.  I own a number of fully functional early-to-mid 1970s blinking light 
PDP-11 systems and have an 11/40 set up with a replica of my college's 
1977-79 era academic computer center, running a timesharing operating
system and software of the period, and complete with ASR-33, LA36, LA120, 
VT52, and VT05 teminals, all fully functional.  Other than the operating 
system, much of the software came from an RK05 disk pack that I had 
saved since 1978, and from printouts of every program on our system 
in 1977-78.  It has RK05, RL01, RL02, RX01, and RX02 drives.

I would very much like to see and hear your presentation.  If it is recorded,
I would like to get a copy.  Hopefully I can make it out to the west coast
next year.

Ashley Carder
Leesville, SC