Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mit-eddie!husc6!seismo!mimsy!aplcen!osiris!phil
From: phil@osiris.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: More 1130/1403 stuff
Message-ID: <984@osiris.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Feb-87 14:35:23 EST
Article-I.D.: osiris.984
Posted: Mon Feb 16 14:35:23 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Feb-87 06:18:53 EST
References: <2319@sunybcs.UUCP> <1596@kitty.UUCP>
Organization: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Lines: 40
Keywords: early computers, trivia, humor
Summary: card saws and early computer music


Yes, I remember card saws.  Had to use 'em all the time on the card
reader on a 370/135 RJE station (I'm just a couple of seasons later
than most of these computer paleontologists) and the 029 keypunches,
particularly when I (or one of my friends) put a "dup all" card on
the keypunch drum and left an "all-punched" card in the bottom of the
hopper as a booby trap.  The card saws made great picks for getting
into the file cabinets, too.

In article <1596@kitty.UUCP>, larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
> In article <2319@sunybcs.UUCP>, kumard@sunybcs.UUCP (Deepak Kumar) writes:
> > 	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!

A DEC CE who (until about 1978) worked on a PDP-8 I used to use had an
RX01 floppy full of programs which would play music on the beast.  You
listened to the music by putting an AM radio near the backplane and
tuning it to somewhere in the upper third (I believe) of the dial...


                              ...!decvax!decuac -
Phil Kos                                          \
The Johns Hopkins Hospital    ...!seismo!mimsy  - -> !aplcen!osiris!phil
Baltimore, MD                                     /
                              ...!allegra!mimsy -

"We're going to Greece!"
"And swim the English Channel?"
"No, to ancient Greece, where burning Sappho loved and sang and stroked
the wine-dark sea in the temple by the moonlight wah-da-do-dah."
"What?"
	- F. Theater