[Boatanchors] IBM Selectric

[James Liles]

Carl,  all of this was antitrust, not patent infringement litigation.  A 
very interesting twenty years in the technology revolution.  Yes, they were 
fun days!

Have to let the Selectric die here, wrong reflector for non-boat anchor 
anachronisms.
Thanks for the reply and Kindest regards Jim K9AXN

-----Original Message----- 
From: Carl
Sent: Monday, December 27, 2010 2:35 PM
To: James Liles ; boatanchors at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [Boatanchors] IBM Selectric

Come to think about it and it was the earlier 700 series that had the delay
line, the 800 was advanced to the point of using 1K Mostek IC's and was in
the early 70's.

Ive no idea when Sanders started R&D on the 700 family, I joined in 69 and
it was already out around the world.

As far as patents, SDS was enroaching on IBM's peripheal business and as
small as we were it was giving them fits as we seemed to be far ahead in new
technology and creativity; SA always was a leading edge outfit in the
defense biz. I worked directly with an Indian PhD who was so smart it was
scary and at the same time totally laid back with minimum ego. He was a
great teacher and mentor.

The IBM 3270 and controller system was a Sanders design in all or part, I
dont remember the details and IBM did a brazen outright copy of many
patented features.  SA also had a 360/370 channel interface that was a
fraction the size, faster and did more and we were selling loads of them to
storage and other companies. IBM got spanked for copying those patents also;
Royden Sanders had powerful contacts in DC and wasnt afraid to take on Big
Blue. I remember we got a lot of $$ plus our 3270 clone systems were
installed in many of IBM's own facilities where their customers couldnt see
them as part of the settlement. That really frosted lots of IBM people as
SDS techs had to do the service also.

We were actually doing some joint work after that and I remember being at
one of their R&D facilities over in NY when a SDS tech was on site. The
management guy I was dealing with made sarcastic comments about our
controller crashing a 370 and the tech wasnt trained well enough to fix it.
Well, being the easygoing guy I am I asked to see what was happening. After
an hour of reading crash dumps I told the guy I was with they had a software
bug. This escalated, I stayed overnight at a motel and the next morning they
admitted they spent the night and found it exactly where I said it would be,
made a patch and everything worked.. Channel interface protocol was my
speciality and they had violated a sequence(-;  my being there was a fluke.
Remember, this was their R&D place, not a customers so bugs happen.

Shortly after that SDS was sold to Harris and SA concentrated on their core
defense biz where they made lots of money with less hassles. I had zero
interest in moving to Dallas...YUK....and went to SA and later Wang.when
they started throwing big money around for R&D people.

Fun days!

Carl
KM1H