360/50 microcode listing

[COURYHOUSE at aol.com]

Comments on where the 360s  went...
When I was in the used  computer business in the  early
80s when  gold and silver did the big  climb there arose a  large
group of people aside  from the usual scrappers, that were going
about the nation specifically targeting old  360s  and  earlier  for  scrap.
 
Even the scrappers that  did not  break the entire  computers down and 
process them would 
sell countess containers of  early computers to the Taiwanese  metal 
brokers that
would come over here  to purchase  material.  yes.....  shiploads of  
containers...
 
The  younger  people here and those that were not in the  biz  back  then  
do not realize  how many truck load after  truck load  were scrapped. 
Knowing  some of the scrappers was  a  good  deal for  me as a Computer  dealer 
though as a small   PDP-8 or  the likes did  not have enough tonnage to 
interest them and  sometimes  they would just let me have them  gratis.
 
Hate to say how may HP 2116, 2114, and 2115 hit  the process   especially 
in the  late 80s to early 90s where there was not  much  market   for them.
 
Even today,   you can go  down to one of the local Evil  Ironworks  and see 
 a wonderful old device on the scrap pile... there  are still things coming 
out of warehouses but....  in no ways like the  early 80s...
 
Ed Sharpe  Archivist  for SMECC  ( CEO of  Computer  Exchange Inc. <<long 
since retired>>
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 5/7/2015 10:33:33 A.M. US Mountain Standard Time,  
tmfdmike at gmail.com writes:

1. IBM  would very often lease rather than sell, and take back machines  
when
customers upgraded; it was obviously in their interests to control  or
eliminate where possible the market in used machines.

2. Gold. A  lot of gold in old IBM kit. I knew a scrap dealer in Chelmsford
UK that did  nothing but break old IBM mainframes (only ever big boring grey
boxes when  I was there in mid to late 1990s though!)

Mike
On 7 May 2015 13:16,  "Jon Elson" <elson at pico-systems.com> wrote:

> On 03/13/2015  01:32 PM, Al Kossow wrote:
>
>> CHM was able to obtain volumes  18-20 of the IBM 2050 drawings, which are
>> the microcode charts and  ROS dump. I got them scanned and uploaded
>> yesterday
>> to  http://bitsavers.org/pdf/ibm/360/fe/2050
>>
>> This was one  of the things that I had been trying to locate for a while
>>  now.
>>
>>
>>  Just a curious thing I've  noticed.  Given the historic significance, 
and
> the large number  of machines produced, I'm kind of amazed at the 
incredibly
> small  number of 360's that apparently exist.
>
> Yes, I know, any  would-be collector could drag home a PDP-8 and put it in
> his garage,  even a whole rack mount system with an RK02 (or 3), dectape 
and
> paper  tape reader, and still get his car in the garage.  And, the  system
> could be run off normal mains power.
>
> You can't  do that with a real 360 (some 360/20's were pretty small), even
> a  360/30 was a pretty big box.  And, you can't run a 360 off normal
>  residential power, either.  Many of the peripherals used 3-phase  motors,
> and hacking the converter/inverter to run off single phase  would not be a
> task for any but the most experienced  EE.
>
> But, it sure is a shame that there appear to be a tiny  number of machines
> in existence.  One list shows 15 or 16  machines, excluding the model 20.
> Probably there are a couple more  hidden somewhere, like the B1900 that 
came
> to light so  recently.
>
> As fas as I can tell, NONE of these systems is  complete enough to ever
> run, with the possible exception of the 360/30  at the CHM, which does 
seem
> to have a complement of peripherals, and  maybe control units, too.
>
> Given the number of DEC 10's that  are actually up and running, this seems
> a bit of a surprise.   there might be some emotional attachments that are
> behind this  disparity.
> Anybody have some comments?
>
>  Jon
>