In the 1980s my job at the college was installing, maintaining and repairing the datacom infrastructure not yet known as a network, consisting of hundreds of terminals connected to the mainframe and mini computers. We had a Honeywell Bull mainframe mostly for admin – student and class IT, and mini computers for student training, one of which was Hewie, a HP 21MX for teaching BASIC. We also had Honeywell Level 6 minis for teaching and programming. Later we got an IBM 4361 used for programming. It was connected to a few classrooms via RG-62 coax to dozens of IBM 3278 XTs which had the custom keyboard and 3278 terminal adapter card for the coax. But we needed to be able to connect the 4361 to our RS-232 system so it was connected to an IBM 7171 converter which had 128 RS-232 ports. We received over a hundred heavy cables with 25 pin male connectors which were supposed to connect to the 7171, but it also had male connectors. So we needed over a hundred gender menders. We looked at the Black Box catalog but they wanted an arm and a leg for each gender mender, so we were going to have to pay thousands of dollars. Instead, the cheap bosses decided that we can make our own using hundreds of Amphenol 25 pin solder type female connectors. Another programmer and I took them home and over a few weeks soldered 2 female connectors together with 30mm of stiff wire so they were strong enough to hold the heavy cables.
2026-07-19 John’s Bio
