IBM 1620

[Fred Cisin]

On Thu, 27 Aug 2015, Kevin Tikker wrote:
> I went to both Laney and Berkeley City College so you may have a clue.
> Thank you

If you actually want to follow-up on such tenuous leads, . . .
Wil Price would know what happened to the 1620 and 1401.  So would Ben 
Micallef and Jack Olson, but they're dead.

I guess that it may have been in the move up onto the hill in 1972? that 
Merritt switched to DEC.  Reliability of the PDP suffered from a bad disk 
drive, so it was replaced in 1983 with a few RJE terminals and a lot of 
5150s.

In 1983, the PDP with drive that never worked reliably, was sold to 
Richmond schools (to pay for 5150s).  PG&E didn't fully understand the 
difference between Delta and Y three-phase.  But, in exchange for going 
along with lie that it "was struck by lightning during installation" (no 
other lightning strikes within miles for 100 years), PG&E magnanimously 
(with tax break) bought Richmond schools a new one.

Some of the 026 punches and EAM equipment was in the back hallways of 
Merritt until 1980s.  I did not have storage space to save anything, and 
they tried to fire the guy who pulled the other PDP from the dumpster.

I don't know what Laney was using.  Berkeley City College didn't exist at 
that time; it was established later and was known as Vista College until 
2006, when it finally got its own building (on Center Street, instead of 
Milvia).

We suggested a delay in the name change from Vista to BCC with both names 
in use:
1) like a restaurant or retail establishment, a name change simultaneous 
with a move might save on stationery (which as expected, they didn't 
replace right away anyway) , but in terms of public, it is more 
like closing down and a new one opening.  THAT was borne out by 
enrollments.
2) release of Windoze Vista.  Our most heavily populated classes were job 
training for the digital sweatshop, and we could have advertised, "Vista 
is the best place to learn Vista!"

I taught programming in all campuses of Peralta (Merritt, Laney, College 
Of Alameda, Vista/BCC) from 1981 - 2013.  My pension is handled by the 
state (secure unless Mew Whitman gets elected), but my health benefits are 
run by Peralta, so kinda risky.

--
Grumpy Ol' Fred     		cisin at xenosoft.com