Full immersion emulation

[dave.g4ugm at gmail.com]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Jon Elson
> via cctalk
> Sent: 02 March 2017 03:21
> To: Paul Berger <phb.hfx at gmail.com>; General at classiccmp.org;
> Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: Full immersion emulation
> 
> On 03/01/2017 02:54 PM, Paul Berger via cctalk wrote:
> >
> >
> > On 2017-03-01 3:14 PM, Charles Anthony via cctalk wrote:
> >> Part of the iconic mainframe experience is the cold room sounds; for
> >> early Multics installations (and other systems) the sound of the
> >> Selectric operator's console.
> >>
> >> I/O Selectrics are rare, expensive and unreliable.
> > They are all mechanical and stood up remarkably well to hammering away
> > day and night printing out the console log, considering what they are,
> > I would hardly think unreliable fits.
> Well, we still had a Selectric (1050) on our 360/65 at Washington University up
> until the end.  I'm pretty sure it was the most unreliable part of the machine.
> It seems about every two weeks it would break the timing belt, which meant
> the clutch had to be rebuilt.  IBM had two 1050's there, and would swap
> them every time one broke.  They really did run the 1050 hard on that
> system, it was printing a line about every 10 seconds for about 14 hours
> straight every week day.
> 
> Jon

I am a bit surprised you go that many belt breakages. The one on the 360/67 at Newcastle was utterly reliable, as was the 2741 we had on our remote connection, and also the same unit in the 1130 console. The usual reason for belt breakages is contamination with oil which attacks the rubber so perhaps there was some over enthusiasm going on here. On the other hand I do remember that the CE who came into the IBM Manchester (UK) office to fix the IBM 1800 based PABX 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1750,_2750_and_3750_Switching_Systems

used to curse, as the 2741 console on that was usually switched off, so got gummed up, and required a clean and lube before he could start work on the PABX....

Dave