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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment. |
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22nd May 2019, 3:10 pm | #1 |
Nonode
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Warsaw, Poland and Cambridge, UK
Posts: 2,669
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Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
This story is still unfolding. I have no connection with the places or people but stumbled across a link to it.
Basically, it seems that these guys more-or-less accidentally bid on an IBM mainframe on eBay after a pub conversation. The offending computer was holed up in an abandoned factory in Nuremberg, Germany. They are currently recovering it to the UK! The sheer scale of the task is quite something. That's what I call technology preservation. There's a blog at: https://ibms360.co.uk/ Chris
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22nd May 2019, 4:45 pm | #2 |
Nonode
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Preston, Lancashire, UK.
Posts: 2,510
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
What an amazing story!
Andy |
22nd May 2019, 4:55 pm | #3 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 13,951
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
As someone who had a lot of night-shift-experience 'driving' the operator- and tape-ape consoles of the 3032/3033 (the ultimate evolution of the IBM360-series mainframes) I'm deeply-fascinated by this.
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22nd May 2019, 5:40 pm | #4 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Lynton, N. Devon, UK.
Posts: 7,059
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
Just to clarify, the Peter Vaughan on the link in the original post, is NOT me!!
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22nd May 2019, 7:33 pm | #5 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: West Cumbria (CA13), UK
Posts: 6,118
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
They don't seem to say what their eventual plans are, but I hope they succeed in getting it up and running.
I have to admit that, as well as being a facinating story, this was something of a nostalgia trip for me, as I started my professional life progamming first 360s then 370s.
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22nd May 2019, 8:44 pm | #6 |
Hexode
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
Posts: 378
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
I only wish that my memories of System 360 machines were pleasant! For scientific work it was powerful but obscure and clumsy. Error codes were incomprehensible except for the closing phrase which always said ' probable user error'. IBM JCL made vi editor commands look like nursery rhymes and the floating point exponent range was so limited that you were forever chasing underflow / overflow errors.. It did however have a mind boggling 256kB of memory and ran at 1MIP (360/195).
Roger |
22nd May 2019, 8:48 pm | #7 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: West Cumbria (CA13), UK
Posts: 6,118
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
It was probably better suited to the commercial environment - which was my involvement.
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Mending is better than Ending (cf Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) |
22nd May 2019, 8:54 pm | #8 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2016
Location: London, UK.
Posts: 3,687
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
Yes horrid things. My first proper IT job was replacing a global payroll system written on a 360 and dragged along for about 25 years filling IBM’s pockets up with gold penance. Not sure what hardware platform it was on as I was working from the specifications.
It was replaced with a £600 4U rackmounted pentium 3 running an 8000 line long perl script from a cron job. Took four weeks and gained an automated test suite that didn’t require 12 people to run it from a binder of notes. Processing time? 1 hour down to 22 seconds. And that’s how the mainframe died. Commodity hardware saving about £2 million a year. |
26th May 2019, 3:28 pm | #9 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: East Lothian, UK.
Posts: 82
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
Ah what memories! I started my first proper IT (DP in those days) job as a trainer operator on one such system. One of my tasks was to run bank giro forms through a 1287 optical reader which used to scare the life out of me.The thing had a life of its own when in full flow and I could never quite steal myself to stick a hand into the scanner compartment to retrieve a jammed slip!
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26th May 2019, 4:08 pm | #10 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: East Lothian, UK.
Posts: 82
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
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26th May 2019, 5:06 pm | #11 | |
Heptode
Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Duffort, Gers, France
Posts: 713
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
Quote:
Then there were the spoof assembler instructions such as WWLR (write wrong length record), PED (punch and eject disk) and CFS (catch fire and stop).
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Stuart The golden age is always yesterday - Asa Briggs Last edited by bluepilot; 26th May 2019 at 5:16 pm. Reason: Added last sentence. |
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26th May 2019, 7:47 pm | #12 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: St.Ippolyts, Hitchin, Hertfordshire QRA IO91UW
Posts: 3,517
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Re: Amazing story: the preservation of an IBM 360 mainframe computer
Why do I find this strangely fascinating? - Possibly because it is the sort of stupid thing I would go and do
Really hope they can find a sensible way of getting this lot back - Would think that they could hire a single 7.5T wagon and move it all in one go, may even be able to blag some sponsorship to do so. Amazing recovery story so far though.
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