ICL 2988 Super Dual

[Andy_Pagin]

I used to operate one of those monsters back in the 1980s, absolutely loved them, the roar of the air-com, the hiss of vacuum operated tape drives and the rattle of OCPs running at 100% was utterly exhilerating, combine that with a print factory where you had to wear ear defenders to survive the noise from the line printers and you had a sensory experience you just can't match with todays hardware.

Anyone else feel nostalgic for the big iron days when computers where beasts and men were men?
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[Kickstart]

Hi

I do. Had the (mis)pleasure of using an ICL2960 many years ago, but used various IBM mainframes for a couple of decades.

All the best

Keith
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[nowhere.elysium]

Nope, I like the fact that I can 3D print a case for my minecraft server, and that it runs on 5v at ~500mA.
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[Howling TerrorOutOfOffice]

The ICLs were getting dropped when I dabbled in computers.
It was VAX 11/750 11/780 HP3000 and the Burroughs 7900, which was shortly joined by the new IBM 3081 system. Those few years in the 80s were a blurr. I was never the same again.
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[m3-paul]

ICL 3960 and dicking about with that clunky JCL. VAX 6000s, micro-vax's. Ah, the good old days. Those vacuum tape drives were great.

I still go back to where I first ever worked as an operator as they have some old Sun kit there and up until maybe four years ago there was still the ICL and a couple of eagle disk drives there, albeit switched off. They still have a shit load of old micro-vax's chugging along, some of which I worked on back in the early to mid 90s.

Now I play around with Sun (Oracle) M, T and X servers as I worked for Sun and now Oracle.

Our Sun/Oracle M8000 and M9000 servers get pretty close to the noise of the old kit as they are so loaded with PSUs and fans, particularly when the M9000 has an expansion cab bolted on to it.

For some odd reason I "think" i can still remember the command to tell the line printer to change its paper type. From memory, on the console you had to press reset ctrl/1 to get the command prompt and then type something like T OPS,CM,LP06&<paper type>
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[panrider_uk]

The joys of dropping a deck of cards

The 2903 was just being replaced when I started.
Had a couple of ME29's too.

Replaced them with HP3000 minis.

The original aircon unit, taking up a full side of the computer room, is still being used to cool the computer room.

With only a dozen Proliant servers in there now it's a tad overkill - and bloody noisy and draughty.

Mark
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[Andy_Pagin]

Was always a laugh when the air-con failed, ten seconds of shock from the sudden silence, then sheer organized chaos as we shut down the 2988 which took about twenty minutes, knowing we had twenty five minutes at best before the temperature went critical.

Then there were the things we did to pass the time on boring weekend day shifts..

Write-permit ring hoopla.

Kiss-chase.

EDU weight training.

Licking up 200 metre paper chains for Christmas.

Under-sealing a car!

Pissing ourselves laughing as we read through the previous shifts' console logs, it's amazing just how many cock-ups they made.

And of course thinking up ever more daring practical jokes to play on the installation manager.
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They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa, hey-hey,
the men in white coats are coming to take me away.
Yamaha Vity -> YBR125 -> FZS600 Fazer -> FZ1-S Fazer

[Nope.]

At the museum we frequently run our 2966 Mainframe:

https://www.tnmoc.org/sites/default/files/styles/news-page/public/JR-computers13_0.jpg?itok=6WSVznGs

Although we generally emulate some things such as disk drives. Running the real things risks head crashes etc. although they do get run occasionally.

Personally I prefer our WITCH computer (the worlds oldest working computer, which can be seen working nearly every weekend):

https://samathieson.com/sa-mathieson/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Harwell-Dekatron-aka-Wolverhampton-Instrument-for-Teaching-Computer-from-Harwell-Witch-at-the-National-Museum-of-Computing1-1024x768.jpg

Although my Cray Y-MP EL 98 is of course my favourite (which also works and runs most weekends by the way):

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1408/4728138728_7358d5b58b_b.jpg

If you feel like reminiscing about the classic days of computing, why not come and see us? You don't have to pay Bletchley parks entrance fee, just ours (£5 for adults, £2.50 for concessions and students). If you want more information check out our website or drop me a PM. As I've said before if there is enough interest I'm more then happy to organise a BCF visit and tour.
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[Andy_Pagin]

Omg you work at the holy Mecca of computing. I've been meaning to make the pilgrimage for a while now. I'll try and get down there soon.

Can I slap a tape up on one of those 2966 mag tape drives? Pleeease!

I'd love to hear that OCP rattler one more time.

Lol my oper has just gone into kernel mode at the thought.
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the men in white coats are coming to take me away.
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[m3-paul]

[Nope.]

[panrider_uk]

Did anybody else put newbies under the raised flooring before the days of h&s nazis?
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Current bikes: Honda ST1100 Pan European. Moto Guzzi V85 TT Travel

[Andy_Pagin]

[Andy_Pagin]

[The Shaggy D.A.]

I first started on a Burroughs system, which was replaced by an ADDS Mentor and subsequently a Honeywell/Ultimate DPS 6 before switching to a large Memorex jobby, which was a rebranded IBM4341.

Working for a mailing house, with banks of 1200lpm printers on full chat was fucking noisy
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[Hetzer]

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[Andy_Pagin]

Ours must have been one of the biggest and most complex installations in Europe. Apart from the 2988 we had:

An eight cluster Vax mainframe.
Two ITL Momentum 8000s.
A dual Momentum 10000.
A Unisys super mini.
A Siemens dual non impact printer that was so cutting edge that it still had a German keyboard and the commands were entered in German!
We also had a Windows 3.1 pc for some unknown reason, we only used it for playing Tetris.


I'm so glad I lived through that crazy era, IT today is mind numbingly boring in comparison.
____________________
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa, hey-hey,
the men in white coats are coming to take me away.
Yamaha Vity -> YBR125 -> FZS600 Fazer -> FZ1-S Fazer