Schedule September 2007

Wed September 05 - general

• Present were - Ron Williams, Joe Preston, Frank King, Robert Garner, Grant Saviers, Stan Paddock, Ed Thelen.

• Stan Paddock started to rewire the RPQ (request for price quote) installed in the Werner 026 key punch. This RFQ enabled the 026 to punch cards under control of a Burroughs computer. Unfortunately, the plugs are really strange, and apparently unavailable, so Stan is embarking on replacing them with modern 25 pin "D" plugs and his own relay box driven by a PC :-))

• The above was the good news - and now the bad -
  There is something desperately wrong with the 1402 card reader. About every 4th or 5th card is wildly misread. Often most of the holes in a row (say the 11 row) are not read. Or some other row. Spent the day groping with this problem. We did not even get to find if the NOP instruction was still not executing correctly. (Last week, the processor would stop with an error if a NOP instruction was decoded.

Sat September 8 - general

Report by Ron Williams
• Present Ron Williams, Matthias Goerner , Judith Haemmerle, Stan Paddock.

• Bob Erickson brought son and friends for a special visit.

• Stan continues working to connect his relay box to the Werner key punch, so that we can keypunch from a PC.
  - three keypunches work, one closest to door doesn't work any more.

• Judith worked on the 513, then helped organize volunteers for Allison

• Randy Neff visited :-)), Harlan Snyder came by, he just had surgery for skin cancer by his left ear.

• Dan McInnis keypunched a program.

• Ron Williams helped Matthias with a program to double numbers for printing, Matthias got it down to one card by using a one address add :-))

• Ron Williams has asked for Bill Flora to help with a 1402 card read problem. Apparently the reader works well until the clutch works on single card reads, then whole rows do not read well.

• Some pictures by Judith of Stan and Matthias.

Wed September 12 - general

• Present were: Ron Williams, Bob Erickson, Bill Flora, Glenn Lea, Joe Preston, Stan Paddock, Ed Thelen. Judith came by for an hour on her way to college in San Francisco.

• Bill Flora found a roller in the reader check station that was slipping from its drive gear. Apparently two Bristol set screws had not been properly tightened. After they were properly tightened and the roller revolving properly, the card reader performed admirably. Bill Flora and Ron Williams spent another hour locating mis punched text cards in the BigPrint Deck that were causing legitimate verify problems - extra punches in some alpha characters. Big mystery how the extra holes got generated - the deck ( about two hundred cards) had been reproduced a month previously - or was there a sick keypunch?

• Glenn Lea worked on re-assembling one of the tape drives.

• Bob Erickson worked on relays on the 513 reproducing punch.

• Joe Preston and Stan Paddock worked on sick keypunches - it turns out that the read stations on our keypunches needed cleaning and lubricating - now all better.

• John Toole brought friends Thomas Ruwart and ???. Thomas Ruwart has one or more 1403 printer cartridges and chains. I explained that Frank King really wished more spares of these than we have (one ). Thomas even knew that the CDC 405 was an excellent card reader :-))

• Stan Paddock was explaining to Bill Worthington about his scheme for using a key punch to punch cards under control of his PC. All of a sudden Stan paused - for a little too long - It wasn't going to work as he had originally planned - Ah - the value of design reviews ;-)) But Stan quickly figured a work-around and continued the explanation. :-))

• At 3:00 Bill Worthington - senior docent involved with planning the demoing of the 1401 related gear, Mike Cheponis, Stan Paddock, Jim Somers, and Ed Thelen had a very productive meeting discussing the challenges and opportunities of giving a memorable, enlightening, interesting demonstration. The goal is to make it a/the high light of a visit to CHM. Visitors will have an introduction to 1940 and 1960 business data processing - like how your electric bill was generated - first with "unit record" equipment - sorter, collator, accounting machine, then 1401. Visitors will be able to key punch their name onto a card and see the printer print their name in BigPrint - then take the punched card and printout home with them as souvenirs :-))

  A good Alpha or Beta test of the plan/script can be the Vintage Computer Faire first weekend in December. Mike Cheponis - who demonstrates the PDP-1, and Bill Worthington who used to demonstrate IBM equipment 40 years ago, will team up to make a script based on Stan Paddocks PowerPoint images and further details. Further meeting notes detailing the meeting will be coming from Jim Somers and Ed Thelen.

Wed September 19 - general

Sat September 22 - 4th Sat

Wed September 26 - general

Just for fun - Sept 24, 2007, Pictures of the warehouse CHM purchased in Milpitas. It was empty and uninsulated, much insulation, work and shelving has already been added.
I photographed about 1/3 of the people present. Lots of box top removal, fork lifting, floor dusting, and window papering accomplished today.

Judith Haemmerle and Jay McCauley	towards south west	towards west	towards north west	communications
Tim Robinson	1st unwrap of SAP shipment	detail	clever packaging or disaster?	all's well !! :-))

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Back to 1401 restoration, September 26, 2007

• Present were Ron Williams, Allen Palmer, Frank King, Glenn Lea, Joe Preston, Stan Paddock, Robert Garner, Ed Thelen.

• Stan suggested that we should get
  - white board for equipment status
  - 4 drawer file cabinet for paperwork
  We are very short of table space, and space in general.
  Can someone sell the extra Libert air conditioner to give us more space??

• Allen Palmer, Glenn Lea, worked on and re-assembled mag tape drives

• Joe Preston, Stan Paddock, worked on keypunches. A keypunch that Stan negotiated from Lockheed arrived :-)) We may offer to return Sellem's key punch.

• Ed found that the ADD instruction to an index register wraps at 3,999 - a person should use the Modify Address instruction.

• Two big tours after 6:30, BIGPRINT and returned punched cards with their names made 'em very happy :-))