Fairly Extensive Singer/Friden "System Ten" Computer System for Rescue

[Pontus Pihlgren]

I've made a temporary mirror here:

http://www.update.uu.se/~pontus/slask/Singer10/

I even tried to rotate some of the photos.

I believe this is the system that Singer sued DEC over the name 
DECsystem-10.

Perhaps LCM wants it for that reason :)

/P

On Wed, Aug 08, 2018 at 07:13:31PM -0700, Rick Bensene via cctalk wrote:
> Through my Old Calculator Museum website, I have been contacted by a
> gentleman that has a fairly substantial Singer/Friden
> System 10 that is located in a building that the business wants to clear
> out.
> 
> The computer system is slated to end up in a dumpster if it isn't
> rescued.
> 
> The place the machine was stored is indoors, in an office-like space in
> a larger warehouse style building.  The space was not temperature
> controlled, but there are no signs of water damage or serious corrosion.
> Some critters (probably mice) have been inside the cabinets of the
> system, but the contact said that there were no obvious signs that they
> chewed anything up.  The system is very dusty (it was not covered), and
> it appears that some panels on the cabinets may have been removed, but
> are probably with the system.
> Some stuff appears to be partly disassembled.  There also might be some
> spare parts, e.g., circuit boards.
> 
> The system consists of a CPU, probably a Model 20, two Model 80 Display
> Terminals, a line printer of some sort, and two Mode 40 disk-pack (aka
> dishwasher-sized) disk drives.   There are quite a few Model 41 disk
> packs there..   There also appears to be some documentation.  There may
> also be some kind of magtape drive with the system, as there is a rack
> full of 7 or 9-track tapes hanging in it.  Not sure if these are
> included with the system, though. 
> 
> Here is a link to some photos of the system:
> 
> http://pail.bensene.com/Singer10
> 
> Beware that the web host does not have much upstream bandwidth, and the
> photos are pretty high resolution, so downloading them may take some
> time.  Most of the photos are between 1.8 and 2.5 megabytes in size.
> 
> there is some documentation on the Singer System Ten up on Bitsavers at
> http://bitsavers.org/pdf/singer/systemTen .  Some of the documentation
> there is for the equipment that is available.
> 
> These systems aren't very common, and there likely aren't all that many
> of them left in existence.  Singer sold a lot of these systems into
> retail outlets as part of one of the first online Point-of-Sale systems.
> One notable account was Sears and Roebuck, who installed a huge
> networked (via Modem) environment using System Ten machines in stores to
> run Point-of-Sale systems, with modem links to larger systems that
> collected the information, and usually fed it to even larger systems
> (e.g., IBM mainframe) for inventory management, bookkeeping, and other
> large corporate-level reporting/management systems.      However, the
> system aged quickly, as other competitors came onto the Point-of-Sale
> scene very quickly, with systems that were less expensive, more
> reliable, and more easily maintained.  Many of the Singer systems in
> large retailers were replaced within a few years of being put into
> service.  There was little market for "used" systems, so most all of
> them taken out of service went for scrap.
> 
> The System 10 CPU was pretty unique in that it had "hardware"-based
> timesharing.   The system managed time-slicing between "partitions" in
> main memory (magnetic core) with hardware that provided a fixed
> timeslice to each partition, switching to the next either when the
> time-slice  ran out, or certain instructions (e.g., I/O) were executed
> that would trigger an immediate context switch. The system had hardware
> protection for the partitions to isolate the partitions from each other,
> allowing them to run independently.  There was a shared and a read-only
> system partition which could facilitate inter-partition communications
> and management functions.
> Pretty cool for a design done in the late '60's.   
> 
> It'd be a real shame for this system to end up in the trash, which is
> exactly where it will go if a home can't be found for it relatively soon
> (e.g., next couple of weeks).
> 
> The system is located in West Chicago, IL.   
> 
> It's all pretty sizable, so, you'd probably need a small
> commercial-style moving van with a lift-gate (the stuff is likely quite
> heavy, especially the disk drives) to haul it.  You would also probably
> need a heavy-duty hand-truck or two, and some strong straps.   You'd
> need some muscle, too.  I suspect it'd be more than a 1-man job.
> 
> My  contact wants it out of there.  You just have to come get it and
> haul it away.   
> 
> If you have any serious interest in rescuing this system, drop me an
> Email, and I'll put you in touch with my contact.
> 
> Hopefully someone out there can give this machine a new home.
> Email:  rickb .at. bensene .dot. com
> 
> 
> Rick Bensene
> The Old Calculator Museum
> http://oldcalculatormuseum.com
> 
> 
>