Do you use any computer based tool for doing project layout?

[keithw86]

Lots of Beamers around these parts. I feel like the kid listening to the old war stories (started in P'ok in '74, moved to BTV in '93, and retired in '06). ;-)

[Morris Dovey]

Y'know, there may be more truth to that than anyone suspects. :)

[Morris Dovey]

You're right - I went digging and found that there had been a /Minnow/ R/O floppy drive with diminished capacity released in 1972. I'm guessing it was an early /Igar/ prototype.

Yuppers on the oddness - my impression was that the CDC management team had never quite been able to decide what they wanted to do when they grew up. At one point they were even in the windmill business. :)

[Bill]

little more about how to use it?

Bill

[Larry Blanchard]

Another operator and I once wired a 407 plugboard to list missing checks for payroll reconciliation. The checks were punched cards so we were running them through and listing the ones that weren't there! IBM said it couldn't be done. There were so many wires (including quite a few one way wires) we had to pull some and put in the "permanent" wires so we could get a cover on the board.

It worked fine for several months and suddenly stopped working. We accosted the IBM CE and he confessed he'd done a "tuneup" and found the timing was a little off so he fixed it. We convinced him to put it back the way it was. Thereafter, for at least as long as I worked there, there was a sign on the 407 that threatened immediate beheading for anyone who touched it!

BTW, the first payroll system written for the Univac took 8-9 days to run. For a weekly payroll! Seems table lookups on mag tape were just a mite too slow :-).

[keithw86]

It was R/O (forgotten that detail). The floppy writers were a desk- sized contraption that connected to an internal use only computer (RSTS?) from Rochester, IIRC. It was IUO because it would put shame to the S/7 and there were a *lot* of S/7s, unsold, in the warehouse.

It was obviously run by a bunch of MBA kids, still wet behind the ears. The treated candidates like grade school kids. Just amazing.

[Larry Blanchard]

Might have been an 1130 or maybe a 360/20 which came out about the same time. But '64 does seem a little early - IIRC, both came out in '65 or '66.

[Larry Blanchard]

I'm beginning to wonder how many old computer jocks and card pushers there are in this group :-). Is there some mystical connection between computers and woodworking?

BTW, to see the 1st computer I programmed (and helped assemble) go to:

click on Readix. I worked on one at Science Research Associates in the late '50s.

[Morris Dovey]

Good call! I've been convinced for a very long time that systems design and woodworking use the same circuits. People who're good at one seem to have a shot at being good at the other.

I like that you don't even have to open the covers to see which board is on fire. :)

I started programming in '59 on a Bendix G-15, but it was definitely _not_ as impressive looking as the one in the BRL Report - and it did require opening the covers to see what was roasting...

[keithw86]

Not so much computers and woodworking, I think, rather electronics and woodworking. I noticed a correlation some time back (maybe it's just that design is design - doesn't matter much what). Computers, to me, were just a way to get paid to design circuits. ;-)

[Doug Winterburn]

I was in the computer software development/support side, but I did design & build most of my ham radio gear - vacuum tubes no less.

[Bill]

I guess I qualify except I don't consider myself "old"!!! :)

I actually used paper-tape (over a dumb-terminal) before I "graduated" to punch cards.

I fully expect that my post-HS woodworking projects will be better my HS projects of about 30 years ago, but it's hard to explain "why" in words. I'm the same person, but somehow I'm a more learned person--that's one of great things about staying young is you get to keep on learning! :)

Bill

[Bill]

I've been reading James Krenov's book, "A Cabinet Makers Notebook". I just finished the first chapter on "Wood". He gives the reader plenty of opportunity to "learn something"! : )

During my own reflection I observed that the beauty of using tools is in using them well. They sing their own song (but please don't tell anyone I said that)!

I can solder a good joint too (ya gotta make it flow, baby flow!--my shop teacher sang that alot).

Lew always says to "have fun"...I think I'm right on track!

Bill

[Robert Bonomi]

And they built computers that couldn't add!

They faked addition by 'complement and subtract'. (true!!)

That said, they were some of my favorite hardware to work on.

The high-level architecture was positively elegant in it's simplicity and regularity.

the closer to the hardware they got, the *stranger* things got.

[Robert Bonomi]

a 7090? mebbie it's predecessor, a 709?

[Morris Dovey]

Was it the IBM-650 that was nicknamed the "CADET" for Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try?

The only CDC machine I ever used was the 6500 at Purdue and it seemed to do crank right along fair reliably.

Speaking of Burroughs... :o)

[Larry Blanchard]

There was a saying back in those days that the perfect computer would have CPU by CDC, peripherals by IBM, and software by GE.

[krw]

That's not unusual at all. Subtraction *is* adding the negative (complement).

OTOH, the IBM 1620 was known as the CADET (Can't Add, Didn't Even Try). It had no ADD (or subtract) instruction at all, rather used an index into a lookup table in memory to add. Want a different operator? Overwrite the "ADD" lookup table, sometimes on purpose, even.

[Puckdropper]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

In one of my CS classes, it was pointed out that ADD circuits are usually smaller and easier than SUBtract circuits, so they're used more often. That's what was so weird about the subtractor being used to emulate addition.

Puckdropper

[LDosser]

Did some work with SRA in the early 80s ... Right after I spent an inspiring year at CACI :(