Ottawa (storing stuff) was: Re: PDP 11/34

From: Merle K. Peirce <at258_at_osfn.org>
Date: Sun Jul 1 16:49:21 2001

I think GE and RCA belong on the list, I don't think Wang does.

On Sun, 1 Jul 2001, Jerome Fine wrote:

> aaaaa
> >jpero_at_sympatico.ca wrote:
>
> > If I ever live in Ottawa for the Algonquin as a student, where is the
> > best spots for old, cheap computer stuff especially Macs? Also what
> > about electronics component stores to visit for parts?
>
> Jerome Fine replies:
>
> I have not been back to Ottawa very often and there were no such
> stores when I lived there.
>
> I lived in Ottawa for about 18 months in 1967 when I started my third
> job. I moved there on New Year's day and by the end of the week the
> temperature had dropped to minus 40. Fortunately I had been warned
> and with a block heater, oil dipstick heater and car warmer, the old 1965
> full size Chevy (they sure did make them big back then) started without
> a problem.
>
> The company had an old CDC 3500 (hey - back then it was new) with
> a wonderful operating system that allowed many users to edit their files
> on-line and then submit the files as batch jobs to be executed almost
> immediately depending on the queue length.
>
> Now this may seem like a very limited system, but in 1967, even interactive
> editing was brand new. And batch jobs were normally submitted via a
> card deck - yep - punched cards.
>
> My initial job was to help upgrade the file structure code from a linear search
> of over 3000 files to a hash search of 6000 files. I wrote some code to monitor
> how the upgrade was being used and sure enough I predicted a system crash
> about an hour before it occurred - the hash algorithm was not re-using vacated
> file descriptors - wonderful method, inadequate implementation and checking.
>
> Next I wrote a system job to use the primitive program that copied one file
> at a time from/to disk/tape. The super job read all the file headers and copied
> all the specified files from disk to tape and attached a backup number to each
> file. That was the nightly backup run. During the noon lull, a five minute job
> backed up all the changed or new files for the morning at the next higher backup
> level so that any new files could also be recovered without having to backup all
> the files.
>
> Hey - I was asked a question about all those old companies and I mentioned
> Snow White (no not the virus - IBM) and the Seven Dwarfs. I remembered six
> and want to check if these were the correct seven?
> Burroughs
> Control Data
> DEC
> Honeywell
> NCR
> Univac
> Wang
>
> I don't think Xerox was one at that point in time?
>
> Sincerely yours,
>
> Jerome Fine
>
>

M. K. Peirce

Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
Shady Lea, Rhode Island

"Casta est quam nemo rogavit."
              
              - Ovid
Received on Sun Jul 01 2001 - 16:49:21 BST