Quoting Jay West <west_at_tseinc.com>:
> There there was some huge texas intruments thingy, she said it was
> a minicomputer??
She may be correct, you never know. My parents have tought high
school math and science for years, and when I was in grade school,
I ended up hanging around at the high school nearly every day after
school for several years. The following story is from, roughly, my
fifth and sixth grade years (1989-1991 or so).
At the time, the school had a bunch of Apple IIe and IIc machines
(I have one of the IIes) and some TI-99/4As. Now, the TIs were the
cooler machines to me, at least because they were the most
mysterious. The elderly computer teacher didn't know how to use
them, so they just sat there, and no one was ever taught how to use
them. I figured out where the cartridges were and how to play some
games on them (I liked this skiing game I believe), but not even I
investigated what lay beyond. For that mistake, I paid dearly.
What lay beyond was, I suspect, a TI minicomputer. On the floor at
the right end of the table that had the 99/4As was a single tall
cabinet, just the right size and proportions to have been a
six-foot rack cabinet. The cabinet was black, and it had a black
metal door (I believe) over the entire front that kept whatever was
inside safe from meddling students. I don't know what was on the
back, as it was pushed up against a wall. The following evidence
supports the theory that it was a minicomputer:
(1) The teacher told me it was a big, old computer that the 99/4As
connected to in some way (terminals?). She *may* have used the
word 'mainframe'.
(2) On the day it was removed (see below), I saw a disk pack. The
teacher told me it was a hard disk platter, and that's how hard
disks used to work -- with removable platters. I held the pack,
ooed and ahhed over it for a few seconds, and gave it back to the
teacher. My PC at home had a full-height 5.25" 10MB IBM hard
drive, and I was amazed at how big the pack was (probably 14").
(3) Some of the 5.25" floppies that were used in the Apple IIs had
"AT&T UNIX System V" labels on them. The labels were frequently
covered over by a white paper label with the disk's real contents
scribbled in the teacher's chaotic hand.
Now for the sad part. One day when school was out after the sixth
grade, I happened to be hanging out at the high school while my
parents did their yearly inventory. Naturally, I headed over to
the computer lab to play some Mystery Museum or some game like
that. When I got there, they were in the process of removing
every computer in the room. I was dismayed, but my fears were
relieved when I was told that they were putting in a pile of new
Macintoshes (whatever they were) and that they would be cooler
and more fun than the Apples and TIs. It was at this time that I
was given the disk pack to inspect. If I could have only seen the
future for a split second, I would have offered them money for the
machine and snatched it right up. Alas, no revelation came, and
I watched them as they carted the cabinet down the hall. I never
saw the machine again. Actually, I never saw the machine at all.
Its door was always shut, and the teacher always referred to it
fearfully ("Oh, you don't want to mess with that..."). It sat
there and was never used, and then one day it left forever.
A year or so ago, I went back there and searched the entire
school for it, but it was nowhere to be found. One maintainence
worker told me that it had been in his building for several years,
and he had recently taken it in his truck and dumped it into some
farmer's ravine a few miles out of town.
What the heck was that thing? Was there ever a TI minicomputer
that used 99/4As as terminals?
--
Jeffrey S. Sharp
jss_at_ou.edu
Received on Wed Apr 11 2001 - 19:40:48 BST