Old Control Data Drives

[Rod Smallwood]

Back in the 1970's there was a large Bank in London who had a big 
machine room  full of line printers knocking out statements.
It was staffed by deaf people who 'talked' with hand signs.

Rod


On 16/05/2015 23:27, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 05/16/2015 02:50 PM, Billy Pettit wrote:
>
>> Chuck,  I'll swap you for the time I was at CERN working on 627 (one
>> inch) tape drives and some idiot rewound 24 of them at the same time.
>> It was a gag they pulled on new operators.  It could take an hour
>> before you could hear people talk again.
>
> Running the Navy Audit tests for COBOL had a "short record" test that 
> could get pretty loud, but I thought it was pretty cool, particularly 
> if you left the door down.
>
> Shades of "Anchors Aweigh".... :)
>
> What really got on my nerves, though, was the machine floor at SVLOPS. 
> You could have 6 or more machines on the same floor, high ceilings, 
> and cinderblock walls with no sound absorbing anywhere. Lots of white 
> noise, I think, mostly from the tape drive vacuum pumps.  After about 
> 4 or 5 hours, you could find yourself shaking.  Eventually management 
> started distributing earplugs (the Sorbothane yellow spongy ones).  
> That helped a lot.  You really did have to raise your voice quite a 
> bit to be heard by a the guy standing 3 feet away.
>
> --Chuck
>