--- Martin Marshall <martinm_at_allwest.net> wrote:
> I've run into an IBM Series/1 computer available for the hauling. I
> need advice as to whether it is worth saving. Space is somewhat tight
> and it is a large rack (requiring 220 VAC), printer and, supposedly, a
> console terminal. Relevant part numbers are:
>
> 4955 IBM Processor, Series/1
> 4963 IBM Disk Subsystem
> 4965 IBM Diskette Drive and I/O Expansion Unit
> 4975 Printer
>
> The computer was released around 1976...
>
> Anybody have... war stories, links or other information on this old
> beast?
Not directly, but indirectly...
I used to make/sell bisync communiations boards. Our last product
was for the VAXBI. One of the few customers in the late 1980s who
*wanted* such a product was a auto parts mfgr in WI that needed to
submit purchase orders to WalMart, K-Mart and the DoD electronically
over EDI (Electronic Document Interchange). As it turned out at the
time, the standard underlying protocol for exchanging these 80-col
strictly-formatted text files was the IBM 3780 protocol. It breathed
one last puff of new life into the place I worked. The customer
bought a brand new, expensive VAXBI serial board, software, license
*and* installation. It was my week in the barrel.
I go up to Fond-du-Lac, WI, at the southern tip of Lake Winnebago
(no kidding) and install our product. It rolls over and dies. We
had been selling 3780 products since I was in grade school, long
before I ever worked there. It's not a difficult protocol to get
right, unlike HASP, which has some subtleties. You have one input
stream, one output stream, and that's it (HASP supports 4 printers,
4 readers, console, etc., etc.). We were very surprised that our
product could not establish a session with the host on the other
end of the modem, an EDI service run by IBM itself, kinda of a
private dial-up WAN for purchase orders.
You are probably wondering why this is relevant... the central "host"
was a Series/1. IBM had managed to violate its' own 40-year-old
protocol when some engineering group ported the 3780 protocol to it.
We had the IBM docs for a *real* workstation, IBM part number 3780
(I still have them!) and we were doing exactly the right thing. We,
of course, to keep the customer, modified our product with a config
parameter to talk to a "broken" central host. I don't think I got
one support call per month from those guys. They were very happy
with our stuff. Ran like a top. I think they only ever called when
they upgraded VMS and needed new programs linked against the latest
VMS Kernel (every major version IIRC)
So... I've done battle with a Series/1, regrouped and won. Never saw
the enemy, though. Just heard it whistle...
-ethan
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Received on Wed May 15 2002 - 15:03:00 BST