Computer Related > Almost worth coming out of retirement...	Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Tooslow	Replies: 27

New Mon 18 Oct 10 16:57   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

tinyurl.com/33wz3p5 A proper computer. John moved to comp related at the request of Tooslow Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 18:51 Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 17:04   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - bathtub tom

Some visiting friends wanted to see Bletchley park. Whilst wandering around the Colossus area I remarked 'There's a mugsie, I haven't seen one for years'. Quick as a flash I was asked if I could adjust them. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 17:32   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - sherlock47

bt - what was a mugsie ? having not started as YiT I never got into Bank cleaning and other related tasks. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 20:43   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - bathtub tom

pmh Mugsie. Motor Uni Group selector It's like a big uniselector. IIRC used primarily in the trunk switching network (anyway, they were always adjacent to the register/translators). Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 22:06   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - sherlock47

bt thanks - had heard words like register translator since 1970! Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 17:30   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - sherlock47

I can still remember writing direct in Machine Code, for debugging hardware on Z80 hardware. And modifying printer drivers in mc for a 6502 machine (UK101) so that it would support a Canon dot matrix printer that used different non standard esc sequences for printing in 'NLQ'. We must be a dying breed or is memory leakage just setting in ? :) Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 17:44   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Zero

Colussus is the one to see at Bletchley. Its hot, it hums, it glows, its alive. In the computer museum, I can, depresingly, identify everything there from personal experience. Last edited by: Zero on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 17:44 Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:08   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Perky Penguin

My son started his computer life on a ZX80; my first computer was an Amstrad 8256 with Locoscript. 15+ years ago when I was working in Germany we found a brouchure for a Commodore 256, down the back of a filing cabinet. It was £1000 and the memory could be upgraded to 512 at an extra cost! Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:12   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - rtj70

I remember programming in Z80 machine code direct on the Spectrum and also reading it and decoding it directly in decimal. I used to use data statements and a for next loop poking the code into memory. Then did similar on the BBC in 6502 but that did have a built in assembler. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:16   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

I recall one of the guys I worked with coming back from a meeting with the engineering dept. He was a little down. "Don't tell me what a computer can do, I've got a Spectrum" one of them had said. I'll see you a degree and ten years experience and I'll raise you a Spectrum :-) John Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:14   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

" I can, depressingly, identify everything there from personal experience". Yes. If you visit the "Secret Bunker" near Middlewich(a nuclear bunker for use by our Lords & Masters in the event of a nuclear war), it has a good collection of English computer equipment from the 70s. I saw all of it when it was alive and well :-( John Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:21   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - RattleandSmoke

I remember Peak and Poke well but I didn't understand why I was using them, I just copied code out of a book. This was on a 6510 C64 and a 6502 C64. I did a little bit of Zilog Z80A assembly at college but don't really remember anything from it. I was far too young to really understand anything properly. I have never used punch cards in my life but I do remember saving programs onto a cassete tape on the C64. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:34   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Perky Penguin

When I was in the military our living quarters were about 400 yards from a 200+ miles range air defence radar. Those of us who were trying to load progs onto cassette tapes had to do it in a biscuit tin to kill the interference; another side effect is that I can still hear the voices! Last edited by: Perky Penguin on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 19:37 Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:27   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - henry k

All this modern stuff. I had to suffer having to fill in long reference numbers for the computerised stores back about 1960. The cost of computerising store items worth next to nothing was stupid but hey ho... Little did I know I would soon be in the computer world by 1965 working with a Univac 490 that in many ways was way in advance of the IBM 360s. As a real time programmer we were in another league compared with batch processors like ICL. They were exciting times. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:29   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

Ah. A man who knows who the BUNCH were. John Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:34   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - rtj70

Rattle reminds me one course module at Uni at us code a file transfer programme in 68000 assembly. It was on Atari ST's and used the MIDI port on them to transfer the files. Error correction etc included. I'd struggle doing that today ;-) Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:43   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - RattleandSmoke

Must have been quite tedius but quite good fun to get that low level too :). The ASM I did was nothing more than adding a few numbers together and outputing a few messages. E.g just strings and floats. I have forgotton more less everything about programminmg but it always comes back. We had to learn C in the second year, which I thought was quite pointless but I am so glad I did as I now can program in any langauge to a basic level. I am not a software engineer but I can code, I think there is a big difference. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:43   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Zero

Boroughs, Univac, CDC, Honeywell. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:54   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

NCR. Still making tills, sorry POS kit and cash machines. Honeywell - thermostats and no doubt some clever building climate stuff But Burroughs, Univac and CDC - gone. John Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:58   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - RattleandSmoke

I don't think they make the actual thermostats do they but the control units for them. Expensive they are too. All it is a simply timer with some relays in it. The ICL building is still there in Gorlton, Manchester, but its now offices for Fujitsu. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:00   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

ICL were taken over by Fujitsu. John Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:01   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - rtj70

>> The ICL building is still there in Gorlton, Manchester, but its now offices for Fujitsu. Nothing to do with Fujitsu anymore and hasn't been for years. There is a campus in north Manchester off Oldham Road now. The old ICL site is now a Manchester Council problem. It was where they once built mainframes in the 'factory' side of the site.... became offices long ago. Last edited by: rtj70 on Mon 18 Oct 10 at 19:02 Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:12   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - RattleandSmoke

Didn't know that, I still remember the old ICL logos on the building. The entire area is a bit of a problem really. Shame a bit of computing history now just another east Manchester no go area. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:32   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - rtj70

That was a no go area when there was a Fujitsu office there! Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:00   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - rtj70

Honywell Bull is still going. CDC did some very innovative stuff under the leadership of Seymour Cray (e.g. the 7600) and he went on the found Cray which is no more. Well in name it exists. It was about to branch out into massively parallel SPARC boxes and got into trouble and SUN bought the design which became the successful Sun Enterprise 1000E and its successors. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:01   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Tooslow

Which look as though they're about to die under Oracle's ownership. Ah well. John Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 19:38   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Zero

they were dying before oracle got their hands on them. Sun was offered to Big Blue but they turned it down. Reply to this message | Report message

New Mon 18 Oct 10 18:46   Almost worth coming out of retirement... - Zero

>> "Secret Bunker" near Middlewich(a nuclear bunker for use by our Lords & Masters in the >> event of a nuclear war), That was just local administration, The real bigwigs went to Corsham - via a secret train and branch line in the box tunnel wiltshire. Reply to this message | Report message