Drum Computers

[Paul Berger]

On 2017-01-07 8:26 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 01/07/2017 08:44 AM, Paul Koning wrote:
>
>> Not a drum computer but another example of a company not known for
>> computers that nevertheless built one: Goodyear.  A supercomputer
>> called STARAN, a very odd architecture.  Actually based on an earlier
>> one built at Sanders Associates (a defense contractor) invented by a
>> friend of ours, William Shooman.
> I'm sure that Paul remembers the CDC 6603 disk drive, made by Bryant
> (the big horizontal spindle one with the hydraulic "leak collectors").
> Bryant Computer Products started out as the Bryant Chucking Grinder
> Company.  Later, it was acquired by Ex-cell-o, the people who made milk
> cartons.
>
> I've witnessed someone slip and fall in a pool of Pydraul from a leaking
> Bryant 4000.
>
> They don't build 'em like that, thank heavens.
>
> --Chuck
Some of the early IBM disk drives used hydraulic actuators as well, and 
the 1403 used hydraulics to move the paper.

I recall working on a high volume laser page printer that used an oil 
fuser, one of the rolls in the fuser dipped into a trough filled with 
silicon oil.  The oil was fed by a plastic bottle with a regulator valve 
in the cap that was inverted in the end of the trough.   Unfortunately 
the oil bottle was badly designed, and the cap would contact the body of 
the bottle before the threads bottomed out and you could pretty easily 
crack the neck where if joined the bottle if you where not careful.  
With the neck cracked all the oil would leak out and it made a huge mess 
inside the printer, but an even bigger problem was if it leaked out onto 
a raised floor it made the floor tiles extremely slick and it was very 
hard to clean off the tiles.

Paul.