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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!brl-adm!seismo!kitty!larry
From: larry@kitty.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: More 1130/1403 stuff
Message-ID: <1596@kitty.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Feb-87 14:12:30 EST
Article-I.D.: kitty.1596
Posted: Thu Feb 12 14:12:30 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Feb-87 23:17:36 EST
References: <2319@sunybcs.UUCP>
Organization: Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, NY
Lines: 60
Keywords: early computers, trivia, humor
Summary: More early computer experiences...

In article <2319@sunybcs.UUCP>, kumard@sunybcs.UUCP (Deepak Kumar) writes:
> ...
> 	1. One wonderd what would happen if you forced read a card
> 	   with a giant hole punched in it. It was tried and the
> 	   card reader jammed.

	At my college a favorite stunt was to punch cards with all rows
and columns punched - leaving a Swiss cheese card with little mechanical
strength - but undetectable when viewed from the outside of a deck.  (It
was also neat to hear the sound of a 513 reproducer when duplicating these
"cards".)
	There is no way that a card like this could pass through any 1402 or
unit record equipment reader without causing a nasty jam.  A "fun" thing to do
was to place some cards punched like this in some unsuspecting person's
program deck.  This kind of jam was _worse_ that the traditional "accordian"
card jam; it was usually Card Saw Time.  Anyone remember the little card saws
for use in severe card jams?

> 	2. One used to sneak into the computer room at night to play
> 	   with it. However, the operators kept a log of system usage
> 	   by recording the meter-readings on all devices.
> 	   A technique for resetting the meters back was figured out.

	While my first hands-on computer experience was with a 1401 used
by a particular department, my college had a 7094 as the computing center
mainframe.  This beast ran a tape operating system called IBSYS.  All
students, staff and faculty authorized to submit jobs were issued a supply
of job cards having prepunched fields for job number, user id and department,
and time limit.  Students obviously wanted more than their allocated cpu time,
but the administration thought it had licked the problem of job card
counterfeiting (i.e., with a longer cpu time limit) by using cards that were
on a special colored and striped stock; needless to say, this blank card
stock was well "guarded".
	However, for enterprising students there was a way around this
situation: Since the stripes never covered the columns where the time limit
was punched, conventional colored card chad could be carefully glued to
cover the zero punches in the tens and hundred minutes columns - thereby
permitting the card to be repunched with a higher time limit!  A good job
of covering the zero punches was difficult to detect.

	Another "fun" thing to do was plant a card in some victim's program
deck which was punched as ``$STOP'' - the IBSYS JCL command that halted the
the system.  After this became a chronic "problem", IBSYS was patched to
change this command to something else.

> 	4. Someone got hold of this FORTRAN program that printed a lot
> 	   of garbage for a minute. The sounds the printer made were
> 	   the exact notes of the Indian National Anthem! After the
> 	   third run, the printer chain gave up.

	An IBM CE gave me an Autocoder program that ran on the 1401 and
played the U.S. national anthem.  It always amazed me how someone had
the _time_ to determine the character sequences required to generate
specific musical notes, and then put it all together in the proper
rhythm for a song!

<>  Larry Lippman @ Recognition Research Corp., Clarence, New York
<>  UUCP:  {allegra|boulder|decvax|nike|rocksanne|watmath}!sunybcs!kitty!larry
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