[GreenKeys] Fw: Re: Teletype and electronics........

[COURYHOUSE at aol.com]

ok that would have been a pdp-8 A  actually..     it  would have  either a 
keypad or  just a  power and  boot  switch
 
the  8m  was like the 8s  except only one omnibuss plane  making it a  
shorter case  and the   front panel  lights  were leds  instead of the   light 
bulbs the 8e   used!
 
Yes the 8A  was the last  gasp...  and  OS8  supported  hard  drives!
 
ed#  _www.smecc.org_ (http://www.smecc.org)  
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 4/11/2013 9:42:08 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
rokumoncat at yahoo.com writes:


It was a PDP-8 M, if I remember right. It did not have the  individual 
front panel "bit switches" as the PDP-8E did. It also had the  larger boards... 
larger than the "quad" boards of the PDP-8E.
 
Joe
 

--- On Thu, 4/11/13, COURYHOUSE at aol.com  <COURYHOUSE at aol.com> wrote:



From:  COURYHOUSE at aol.com <COURYHOUSE at aol.com>
Subject: Re:  [GreenKeys] Fw: Re: Teletype and  electronics........
To: rokumoncat at yahoo.com,  GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net
Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 9:26  AM


 
YES Drive sequencers!
the old  days!
 
what model pdp-8?  or  perhaps  a PDP-11?
 
In my  young days  our HP 2000 had 2 of the washing  machine drives and the 
heat  just poured off  them!
 
see photo of gaint  disc pack and yours truly
 
http://www.smecc.org/ed_sharpe/index-2883-1.10.gif
 
 
 
below  is whole system   with  2 hard  drives
 
http://www.smecc.org/hp2000_1.jpg
 
 
 
 
ed#
 
 
 
In a message dated 4/11/2013 6:16:06 A.M. Mountain Standard Time,  
rokumoncat at yahoo.com writes:



--- On Thu, 4/11/13, Rokumon Cat  <rokumoncat at yahoo.com> wrote:


From:  Rokumon Cat <rokumoncat at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re:  [GreenKeys] Teletype and electronics........
To:  COURYHOUSE at aol.com
Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 6:06  AM

    
Good lord...
 
I had a PDP-8 once. Won it in a GSA sealed bid  auction... for five 
dollars. I did not realize it at  the time, but the 5 foot rack that held the PDP-8 
and  "floppy drives (8 inch) was not the only thing that I  won. Seems the 
GSA in their generosity failed to  advise the bidders (me) that there were 
ten of these  things that looked like washing machines in size and  weight 
came with the PDP-8. They were hard drives...  along with a multi-hundred 
pound box called the "hard  drive starting sequencer" that would start the hard  
drives one by one, so that the starting current of the  motors would not 
blow the mains. They (the GSA)  advised me that I had 48 hours to remove these 
 treasures or that I would be fined 25 dollars a day  for storage.
 
To make a long story short, I rented a flatbed  truck with a tommy lift, 
got the (deleted) things home  and stashed them in my basement. I actually 
started  several of the hard drives. Though I never was a line  boy at a 
passenger airport, I suspect that the sound  of a 747's engines spooling up was 
quite similar to  that of the hard drives both in tone and SPL. The heat  that 
came out of those things was also similar to the  jet's engines.
 
With my basement stuffed with antiquated computer  junque, I decided that I 
needed to use this stuff for  something. That was in January of one of the 
coldest  winters of the 90's. Then on one of the coldest nights  of that 
cold winter, my furnace naturally suffered  from a burned out blower motor. 
Fearing the specter of  frozen pipes and catcicles, I turned on three of the  
drives. Kept my basement uncomfortably hot,  and my first floor nice and 
toasty, and the second  floor bearable.
 
That was the only and best use that I ever came  up for the thing. That 
spring, I gave it to a kid for  the hauling it away.
 
 
Best,
 
Joe







 
...had it hooked to my  PDP-8  








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