return to main page

1401 Demo Meeting Feb 3



Who -	Ed Thelen
	"Works" on 1401 Restoration at CHM

What -	Presentation to Senior Docents
	about opportunities presenting 
	- some IBM Tabulating Room equipment
	- and the IBM 1401 system that replaced the above

Why -	Prepare for turn-over of equipment, software, materials
	for presentation to the general public

How -	Prepare plans and further needs 
		(documents?, communications?)

	I plan to make a "trip report" of this meeting 
		to aid memories and further dialogs.

How soon available?
	Light at the end of the tunnel  :-))
		? months?

	We are working on:
		- stability (it breaks too much)
		- finishing more tape drives

Contact
	- web site - 
		http://ibm-1401.info/index.html	
	   or Google - 1401 restoration
	- e-mail addresses near top

Greetings:
	Robert Garner was also going to be here today -
		but he has a life -

	Robert and 3 others purchased this 1401 system 
		and  gave it to CHM
		
	Here is a current status report from Robert.

-----------------------------------------

Outline of this presentation

	- physical resources for display
 
        - demonstrations we have available
                and/or thought of

	- ask about docent plans and time constraints

	-  solicit comments, questions, suggestions, ...

	- schedule more dialogs?
 
-------------------------------------------

A) The existing facility has  
   Floor space (standing) for about 10 guests to hear and see

       - 2 concurrent demos during Vintage Computer Faire

       - ?proposal move ?1401 and floor to store area?
 
B) Inventory of material present  - some with plastic covers
 

   Lovely room with period raised floor and access ramp
 
   1400 data processing system  (plastic ends)
       1401 processor (4,000 characters/bytes)
       1402 reader/punch  (tough to do covers?)
       1403 printer  "line printer" (open the lid - no covers)
       1406 extended memory (12,000 characters/bytes)
        729 tape drives (five of three different models) 
		(plastic sides soon)
       
       A wall chart describing the data processing equipment
		(real soon now)
 
   Tab room equipment
       026 key punches (two)
       083 card sorter (?1,000/min?)
       077 collator   (plastic covers)  (250/min)
     future dream
       403 Accounting machine
 
   Various scopes, tool kits, spares, work benches, ...
 
   Various static exhibits of 
        core memory, stretched mag tape, SMS card,  vacuum tube
		punched "IBM card", print out of line printer,

   A variety of movies on DVDs showing the insides of 
	Tab equipment at work
      - these are much too long, but could be edited into
            something a techie mechanical engineer
            could appreciate  ;-))  - copies of CHM property
          - IBM 026 KeyPunch 
          - IBM 402 - Accounting Machine 
          - IBM 557 Interpreter
        
   50 Hz power supply, air conditioner (noisy!!)
 
   ?A Public Address system - over the noise?
 
--------------------------------------------
 
C) Inventory of actions available
 
   Guests may 
      - key punch their names into IBM cards
            we have two (three?) key punches
            it takes a little getting used to:
                feed, register, punch, release
                      register, release -
 
   Presenters may present Tabulating room functions
      - provide key punch familiarization
           feed, register, punch
         probably best manual operations
 
      - show sorter in operation
           either TV (one column)
           or actual multicolumn (say two column)
 
      - show collator operations
           Merge two sorted decks  - 
                - one color master cards 
		- another color for detail cards
              master and detail cards
 
      - explain a payroll or billing operation
           ideas almost identical
             two sorted inputs - Master cards, Detail cards
             merged into customer oriented stream
             calculate and print customer oriented stream 
                   (no machine - have to use imagination)
             separate out the Master and Detail cards
 
    
     1400 system operations
 
      - card read demo  - fast reader 800 cards/minute
              three color deck into three different pockets

      - print demo  - faster printer 600 lines/minute
                powers of 2 or something

      - Ripple read deck
            optional print everything, 
       
		ripple demo - read & print
      - faster thinking, can multiply, divide  :-))

      - 729 tape
            read card, write to tape, back space, reead, 
                 compare write/read, print both fields

      - combo demo with guest names read into machine
            and printed out
          (hand out to docents - same hand out to guests)

      - rattle tapes  - pseudo sort?
           - a short sort operation 
               - read say 500 pseudo "random" cards in
                     outputting in strings to tapes
               - succession of merges and sorts
               - print final sorted "random" cards
 
------------------------------------
 
D) I think we have way more available than 90 %
   of guests have time and inclination for.
 
   Now comes the social engineering 
        What makes a good tour for who?

   We dream of:
       - attraction new maintenance people
       - holding software classes
 

------------------------------------------------
 
E) Plans by docents to present the 
     scope and sequence
         
         - we hear a special tour is envisioned
              similar to PDP-1

     how much of which to show
         - tab room
         - 1400 system
       separate tours?
 
  - time constraints
 
  - range of guest interests
 
Other comments?
 
F) Follow on discussions,  e-mail, ...
  -