In the “Original Series” chapter this very interesting Wikipedia article talks about the “hearing aid computer” that used the OC-71 germanium transistors which were used in hearing aids and could go only up to 25kHz clock rate. That was quite slow – tube computers could clock at 500kHz. Later models used faster transistors and could
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We used similar “homemade” outlets on extension cords – we must’ve had more than a hundred around campus. But the fire inspectors wrote us up for using them in permanent locations under desks. We had to change them to commercial power strips. But I set up a temporary registration and add/drop classes area every semester,
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During my mainframe computer days, someone made a foot or so long rod with a metal base. We would grab a handful of write rings and have a write ring tossing contest. During the daytime the day shift would run dozens of batch jobs on the computer, and they would queue up in the printer
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Honeywell Level 66, model 66/07. Had 384k words of memory. One word = 36 bits, so it was 1.25 megabytes. Five disk packs (removable). Three tape drives. Line printer in foreground. The video screen sitting on the mustard colored cabinet displayed all the jobs running along with their priority. Sometimes the students would be on
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