[OFF-TOPIC] Hardware history

[Jim Byrnes]

On 11/25/25 9:32 AM, Robert Moskowitz via ubuntu-users wrote:
> 
> 
> On 11/25/25 9:56 AM, Bret Busby wrote:
>> 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),
> 
> still have a couple of keyboards around.  And one working HP SFF running 
> Win10!
> 
>> 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").
> 
> In 'summer 64', the family went to the New York World fair and saw the 
> IBM 360 in their pavilion.  A bit after Glenn's flight.  Though my older 
> cousins worked on older systems.  (one was a key developer of DB2, 
> another of GECOS)
> 
>>
>> 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.
> 
> In '66, our HS science club (Euclid Oh) went to TRW for a tour that 
> included a challenge to beat their IBM playing 3D tic-tack-toe.  I 
> handlely won.  Even when I let it go first.  Of, that year we had a 
> 55baud teletype (later upgraded to 110baud) connected to the GE Mark IV 
> downtown Cleveland, that was running Multics (that my cousin was one of 
> the programmers for; pre-GECOS days).  Best I can tell, we were the 
> first HS to have in-school computer access.
> 
> And I can share stories of trays of computer cards. And what happens 
> when the reader jams and the operator spills 4 full trays on the floor. 
> Or when the high-speed paper tape reader on a PDP-8 decided to shred the 
> paper tape...
> 
> Or...  Well you get it.  Things happened.  Make sure to duck when the 9" 
> tape reader broke and the tape would go screaming across the computer room.
> 
> Fun days and a marvel every time I pick up a USB stick with 128GB 
> storage and compare it to 2K of core memory in that PDP-8.
> 
> 
> 
>>
>> ..
>> Bret Busby
>> Armadale
>> West Australia
>> (UTC+0800)
>> ..............
>>
>>
> 
> 
Back in the 70's when I was in the Army, I worked in what was called a 
torn tape relay. Teletype machines would spit out messages on punched 
paper tape and then would get sent out on our tape readers. They 
upgraded to a Univac 1004 that spit out punched tape way faster then the 
teletype machines, only problem was it was so fast that nothing could be 
printed on them. We had to memorize the hole patterns to be able to 
route them correctly.

Regards,  Jim