FS : IBM Magnetic cards for IBM selectric "compocarte" (?)

[Guy Dunphy]

Huh, that's a coincidence. Going through a recent bequeathment to the Australian Computer Museum Society,
I'd just yesterday opened a box with manuals, some cards, and other bits for the same system. 
See pic, with manual cover illustration of the system.

It was IBM trying to produce a word processor and email, before the technology was really up to it.
You typed onto paper, with backspacing and overtyping to get it right, then saved to the mag card.
That could be read back and printed out, to get a clean copy. Then you could snail mail the mag card
to someone with another machine. Or just post the printed letter I suppose, but how old fashioned!
A lease document with the set shows that in 1981 the price was $5000 (AU). Or leased over 48 months,
total rent of $6682.

My job now is to find out what happened to the actual machine, since the contents list says it's
present, but it isn't.

Fun fact: according to the listing the modified selectric typewriter (heavy) and the magcard 82 processor
(cabinet in the photo, supposedly about 50 Kg) are linked by a "non-plugged cable". Brilliant.

Guy



At 10:46 AM 3/01/2020 +0100, you wrote:
>A guy, in Europ, sells a box of IBM magnetic cards, used on IBM 
>"Compcarte" ( sorry, french "name" )
>
>They seems in medium state, at least,  but I think these are pretty 
>rare. So, if somebody is interested .....
>
>https://www.ebay.fr/itm/gro%C3%9Frechner-wechseldatentr%C3%A4ger-magnetkarten/184107517064?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649