USB Memory sticks

[D.M.Chapman]

Ah yes, I'd forgotten that. The included keyring is crap, I'll give you that.

My wife has been using a couple for many years in school, as have many of her colleages. Admittedly, they all have them hanging around their necks with a whiste on a lanyard (not relying on the crap keyring)

The kingston one I mentioned (

) is pretty good in that respect. Decent metal hole, and it's tiny so less likely to get levered against keys in your pocket :-) The whole thing is the size of the USB plug on most.

It is dog slow to write to though...

Darren

[geoff]

In message , Doctor Drivel writes

WTF are you on about?

I copy the back end of my Co database to USB sticks and to a HD which is dated

[Murmansk]

I saw this at the old Tetley Brewery in Leeds the other day

anyone tell me anything about it and a date?

[Bob Eager]

It used both. At least, the tape reader that we had did...it was actually identical to the one on the 1902S. You can see one working at NMoC.

[Bob Eager]

I was talking about the diagram a little way down, rather than the photo at the top. As you say, that shows eight.

[Bob Eager]

Certain about the years. Summer and Christmas 1973. I'd just graduated.

I was surprised to see them using paper tape, but it suited them for the data transmission. Their machine room wasn't that big, and card readers/ punches were expensive. They had little data entry.

[Dave Liquorice]

Looking at the keyboard I'd say it's an =A3SD calculating machine. Bung =

"ncr live keyboard" into google or eBay.

[Phil Addison]

OK, got it now, the one that spells out "Wikipedia".

Phil

[michael adams]

It's a comptometer, or glorified adding machine.

In the days before computers many large organisations had rooms full of the things, usually operated by women.

For most female clerical workers there were usually two main career options, working in the typing pool or as a comptometer operator.

They remained in use right up until the use of computers well into the 70's as did the smaller desktop manual adding machines where you had to pull a lever after each operation and the result showed in a window which you then had to write down. By the end of the 70's electronic calculators both pocket sized and desktop were already fairly cheap.

The "Live Keyboard" feature probably denotes the keyboard was electrically powered - from films etc. ISTR a roomful of the manual models made quite a racket. Also there's no lever to be pulled.

ISTR in the film "The Rebel" Tony Hancock and all his fellow workers were using comptometers or at least manual adding machines.

michael adams

...

[djc]

There was also a larger, more complex version that could keep track of transactions by adding them to record cards. Some also had a punched tape output. When I worked at NCR (1973-4) most of the punched tape originated from such machines, it was then fed into the NCR315 for processing.

[chris French]

In message , Weatherlawyer writes

A quick web search for Samsung microsd shows plenty about, eg:

[Jim Hawkins]

You mean toobs ?

[Bob Martin]

Ah - that was a 7090 when I was there (got called out to it during the England-Argentina match in 1966 World Cup). Probably got replaced by the CEGB machine.

[Tim Streater]

Ah righto - my mistake. OK - so while you were slaving over a (hot) computer, I was across the road in the student lounge watching the match on the telly.

[Nightjar]

There is a 1956 advert for the US version on eBay

can just about make out the text on an enlarged view.

The one you saw has keys for 10, 11, 12 and 1/2, which suggests it was modified to calculate in pounds, shillings and pence for the UK market.

Colin Bignell

[Reentrant]

My very first job in 1974 was a "programmer" for Sumlock Anita (formerly Sumlock Comptometer") in Farringdon. I still have some comptometer counters* c/o the repair centre, and also an LED calculator with their Unique Selling Point - a square-root key. It sold for around £80 - one month's salary.

I was programming a kind of desk printer/calculator with four function keys, which ran an octal machine-code macro when pressed.

My colleage worked on some kind of solicitor's accounting system that was programmed by cutting diodes off a circuit board.

• I'm sure we called them decatrons but not like I have are valve-like bulbs with loads of filaments that display the numbers 0 to 9.

[Huge]

'd rather like a Nixie tube clock;

[Steve Firth]

Still in use at universities in 1983 as were punched cards. My thesis was formatted using ROFF and carted across to the only department with a Sanders printer on a spool of tape so that I could get a decent print out.

[Bob Eager]

[Nightjar]

>> You can just about make out the text on an enlarged view.

I forgot to add - the lack of a farthing key suggests that machine dates from the 1960s.

Colin Bignell