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Path: utzoo!aesat!bmw
From: bmw@aesat.UUCP (Bruce Walker)
Newsgroups: net.arch
Subject: Re: Computer art
Message-ID: <582@aesat.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Mar-86 11:52:30 EST
Article-I.D.: aesat.582
Posted: Tue Mar 18 11:52:30 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Mar-86 12:13:53 EST
References: <187@anwar.UUCP> <1441@gitpyr.UUCP> <890@umn-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: bmw@aesat.UUCP (Bruce Walker)
Organization: AES Data Inc., Mississauga Ont., Canada
Lines: 18
Keywords: obsolete

In article <1204@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>If you're really looking for impressive pieces of obsolete computers, try
>to get a front panel for an IBM 1620.

I have a front panel for an IBM 650, which came out in 1956.  This was
a "bi-quinary" based decimal machine and displayed on hundreds of NE-51
neon bulbs.  I hooked up some of them to a random "blinky" circuit
(back when I was young and silly) and created a marvelous bit of "art".

BTW, for the CISC bashers out there, this machine has/had an instruction
to read the next column off of the card reader into a register.  I believe
it also could "boot from card(s)" in one instruction (this is not
confirmed).

Bruce Walker     {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!aesat!bmw

"I'd feel a lot worse if I wasn't so heavily sedated." -- Spinal Tap