Return to Main Page, General PicturesA "typical" demo report
A note:
The demo crew (about 9 people) is separate, but friendly with ;-)
the restoration/maintenance (maybe about 10 now active) crew.
see Team Bios
Subject: 1401 Demo Sat 10/12
From: jghiselli < jghiselli@sbcglobal.net >
Date: Sat, Oct 12, 2019 4:30 pm
To: 1401 Demonstrations <1401_Demonstrations@ComputerHistory.org>, <1401_Restoration@computerhistory.org>Steve Madsen and I gave the 1401 demo to a full house of 73 people. Another 16 people came by after the demo was over.
We demo’d on CT. All CT hardware, 029 Keypunches, and 083 Sorter ran well. Hooray for our excellent Restoration Team! As previously noted, CT 729 Tape Drive #4 is still out of service, but this did not detract from the demo. In fact, leaving #4 unloaded allows us to show the Read/Write heads more clearly.
When we arrived, we found the tape media on CT drive #3 was broken about 20 feet into the tape, and on the feed reel a 4-inch fragment of broken tape was jammed between the spooled tape and the front surface of the feed reel. We unloaded the tape, trimmed the end, and Steve put on a new Beginning-of-Tape reflective marker. Then we reloaded it, ran the tape forward almost to its end, and were then able to remove the jammed tape fragment using needle nose pliers. Tape #3 seems to operate OK now, at least using the TAU. We cut up the wasted tape from the take-up reel to create more handout strips for the demo.
While running BigPrint, we had one Validity Check on the CT 1402 Reader. On the bad card, the punched holes appeared to be slightly misaligned, so we duplicated that card on the 029 and were able to resume OK. Not sure if this was a keypunch glitch or misprinted card or what, and we had so many visitors punching on all 3 keypunches we’re not sure which keypunch created that particular card. Not a serious problem, but something to watch.
We had several visitors from Germany, and they seemed to enjoy seeing the German-language placards inside the DE 1403. Some visitors from India enjoyed seeing the photo (from the demo photo stack) of the non-operational 1401 displayed in a Bangalore museum. I think this kind of stuff helps visitors connect with the demo.
I do have one question for the assembled wisdom. The demo closet was empty of blank cards, so I refilled that box from the top cabinet drawer of blank cards in the locked room. Is this the correct place to get new cards? Are there differences – Use these cards, Don’t use these, etc?
Jack Ghiselli, Consultant
Email: jghiselli@sbcglobal.net
Cell: 1-408-839-1051