[OFF-TOPIC] Hardware history

[Bret Busby]

On 25/11/25 21:08, Karl Auer wrote:
> On Tue, 2025-11-25 at 20:56 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
>>> I found my old IBM Thinkpad T42 under a pile of papers
>>> yesterday. I
> 
>> I understand that a 36 ton T42 existed
> 
> Very hard to justify the purchase of a 32-ton laptop. Probably not 
> built by IBM. Did it have a PS/2 mouse port?
> 
> Regards, K.
> 

No, no PS/2 port (that sounds like a Linux port to the IBM PS/2 series
of computers - https://www.ibm.com/history/ps-2 - I do not know whether 
you encountered them, but, they were quite pioneering - real "plug and 
play" - to change internal components, so screws - simply slot out and 
slot in new component),
but, the USA 36 ton T42 did have a 90mm gun, and, "Continental AOS-895
gasoline engine (AOS: Air-cooled, Opposed, Supercharged) rated at 500
horsepower, and the General Motors CD-500 cross-drive transmission.". 
(amazing what they put in Holdens...)

The Russian 100 ton T42 had a somewhat more powerful powerplant -
"Engine	
2x Diesel
2,000 hp (1,500 kW) total"
and, a "107 mm M1910/30 field gun"

Regarding the "Very hard to justify the purchase of a 32-ton laptop. 
Probably not built by IBM.", did you see the computer in the movie 
"Hidden figures, that was an IBM (that the techies did not know how to 
get it going)? That was a rather large computer, and, I believe that 
modern cellphones have more computing power (and, I have recently 
received a marketing email, promoting "smart rings", so these devices 
that can be worn on a finger, probably have more computing power than 
the big IBM computer in "Hidden Figures").

The first IBM computer, with which, I came into contact, was an IBM 1130 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1130), upon which, I played the first 
computer game that I encountered, which had to be loaded, each time it 
was run - I think the stack of program instructions computer cards, was 
about 2-3 feet high. The game was Star Trek, and, the Klingon 
spaceships, were 'X's on the monochrome text screen. I believe that the 
computer was (primarily) used for mathematics and statistics teaching 
units, at a university.

..
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
(UTC+0800)
..............