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From: howard@COS.COM (Howard C. Berkowitz)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,comp.misc
Subject: Re: What the world needs now...IBM 1130 nostalgia
Message-ID: <345@cos.COM>
Date: Fri, 26-Jun-87 10:05:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: cos.345
Posted: Fri Jun 26 10:05:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 27-Jun-87 09:12:13 EDT
References: <1240@ssc-vax.UUCP> <631@mapper.UUCP> <3268@bigburd.PRC.Unisys.COM> <1088@knopfler.munsell.UUCP>
Organization: Corporation for Open Systems, McLean, VA
Lines: 39
Keywords: Talking IBM 1130s
Summary: Neither fireproof nor milkshakeproof
Xref: mnetor talk.bizarre:2166 comp.misc:749

> In article <340@cos.COM> howard@COS.COM (Howard C. Berkowitz) writes:
> >
> >Nostalgia again.  The 1130 was my first computer as well, at
> >American University.  To use it, one passed a basic operation
> >and a basic FORTRAN programmed instruction course, and then
> >signed up for machine time.
> One of my first two computers was the IBM 1130 as well...  
> Nostalgia?  Yes.  Useful?  Not any more.  I'm not even sure the 1130
> was useful back in the early '70s when I first got my hands on it.
> Gawd what a beast.  and 8K memory too!  (snicker, snort :-)

    I can feel superior; we had the BIG 16K version.

    When I was introduced to the machine, I was told not to worry
about storage:  "you have a disk with a WHOLE HALF MILLION
characters -- do you think you can fill that up?"

 
> 
> What I really liked about the 1130 was the revolutionary non-volatile
> data archive format that it employed.  Your data could not be erased, and
> was safe from almost everything except fire.  I hear that IBM even obtained
> a patent for this wonderful media. :-) :-) :-)
> They called it the Controlled Advance Reader Data System, or C.A.R.D.S.

Yes, we had C.A.R.D.S implemented on the 1442 (3?) Card Read Punch.
On one memorable occasion, a grad student spilled a chocolate
milkshake into the hopper.

The results were interesting...the cards came out at first sticky,
then caramelized, then smoking, then the machine quit.

The customer engineer came out, opened the cabinet, took a long
look, and went out for a beer.
-- 
-- howard(Howard C. Berkowitz) @cos.com
 {seismo!sundc, hadron, hqda-ai}!cos!howard
(703) 883-2812 [ofc] (703) 998-5017 [home]
DISCLAIMER:  I explicitly identify COS official positions.