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From: mo@seismo.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Young whipper-snappers and 1130's
Message-ID: <43116@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>
Date: Sun, 1-Mar-87 14:11:04 EST
Article-I.D.: beno.43116
Posted: Sun Mar  1 14:11:04 1987
Date-Received: Mon, 2-Mar-87 20:46:05 EST
Sender: news@seismo.CSS.GOV
Organization: Center for Seismic Studies, Arlington, VA
Lines: 34

I must admit being rather amused by all the people who think 1130's
are "ol' time stuff".  Yes, I used an 1130 in college, but long
before that, I use an IBM 1620, the precursor to the 1130, and
in many ways, one of the most interesting machines ever built.
It was the numerical analyst's dream because it did decimal arithmetic
in arbitrarily-large precision.  It was also a great machine for
business computing, again because of the decimal arithmetic.
It wasn't fast, but the machine I got to use was a Cadillac:

	1620 Model I (or "Cadet", if you are of that era)
	40K digits of storage!
	1622 read/punch
	1443 120-column bufferd line printer
	2 1311 disk drives
	running Monitor IID

Talk about the Cat's Pajamas!!  It originally had a plotter on it,
but when the machine was given to the local VoTech school by its previous
owner, the Tech school didn't see any need for a plotter (Blast!).
The 1620 was replaced with a 360/50, just to equal the throughput!

The 1620 did have a sibling - the 1710 process control machine, which
had interrupts and wonderful stuff like that.  I/O on the 1620 was
buffered but synchronous (disk stuff could be started and then later
tested for completion, if memory serves me right).

These days, I suspect a half-witted 68K could emulate a 1620 at
about 10 times its old speed, but it wouldn't keep you warm in winter
like the 20,000 BTUs/hour pouring out of the 1620 could.

So, where are all the 709 hackers out there? Bendix G15's running the
precursor to BASIC?  Maybe we need comp.nostalga.

	-Mike O'Dell