IBM 7074 and then some: "Systems we love" conference

[Chuck Guzis]

On 01/23/2017 05:45 PM, Jon Elson wrote:

> WOW!!!!  That is QUITE amazing!  And, I can't possibly imagine why 
> anyone in their right mind would do this! Seems an emulator on a PC
> would be faster, and way more reliable, not to mention taking up MUCH
> less space, power and cooling.  How reliable can a 60 year old
> machine possibly be? Where do you get parts?  There have to be a
> whole lot of special parts that are deteriorating, like the plastic
> parts on the console.  Even the PC boards (IBM SMS cards) are pretty
> fragile, easily damaged during rework, and some of them dissipate a
> lot of power, causing slow thermal degradation.
> 
> Are we SURE this isn't a preview of the April 1st edition?

I wondered about this too.  Even the USAF eventually replaced the 7080s
with S/370 running emulation.  Keeping a 7074 running (if my memories of
keeping a 7094 going are accureate) would be quite some task.

--Chuck