[GreenKeys] Fw: Re: Teletype and electronics........

[Peter Gottlieb]

Never had a working PDP-8 but did have a fully functional PDP-11/05 and later 
11/23 system which initially had a current loop ASR-33 as the main terminal 
device.  The ASR-33 didn't come with it, I had that already, acquired from 
Western Union.  The 33, despite being a lot cheaper in construction than the 28 
or even the 35, still gave me probably into the thousands of hours of service 
with only minimal maintenance.  I did tons of coding on it, ran through carton 
after carton of paper and ribbons, and when I finally retired it to go to a 
"modern" VT-52 terminal it was mainly to get lower case and quiet operation to 
allow my girlfriend to get to sleep while I was still working.

Peter



On 4/11/2013 9:08 AM, Rokumon Cat wrote:
>
>
> --- On *Thu, 4/11/13, Rokumon Cat /<rokumoncat at yahoo.com>/* wrote:
>
>
>     From: Rokumon Cat <rokumoncat at yahoo.com>
>     Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] Teletype and electronics........
>     To: COURYHOUSE at aol.com
>     Date: Thursday, April 11, 2013, 6:06 AM
>
>     Good lord...
>     I had a PDP-8 once. Won it in a GSA sealed bid auction... for five
>     dollars. I did not realize it at the time, but the 5 foot rack that held
>     the PDP-8 and "floppy drives (8 inch) was not the only thing that I won.
>     Seems the GSA in their generosity failed to advise the bidders (me) that
>     there were ten of these things that looked like washing machines in size
>     and weight came with the PDP-8. They were hard drives... along with a
>     multi-hundred pound box called the "hard drive starting sequencer" that
>     would start the hard drives one by one, so that the starting current of
>     the motors would not blow the mains. They (the GSA) advised me that I had
>     48 hours to remove these treasures or that I would be fined 25 dollars a
>     day for storage.
>     To make a long story short, I rented a flatbed truck with a tommy lift,
>     got the (deleted) things home and stashed them in my basement. I actually
>     started several of the hard drives. Though I never was a line boy at a
>     passenger airport, I suspect that the sound of a 747's engines spooling up
>     was quite similar to that of the hard drives both in tone and SPL. The
>     heat that came out of those things was also similar to the jet's engines.
>     With my basement stuffed with antiquated computer junque, I decided that I
>     needed to use this stuff for something. That was in January of one of the
>     coldest winters of the 90's. Then on one of the coldest nights of that
>     cold winter, my furnace naturally suffered from a burned out blower motor.
>     Fearing the specter of frozen pipes and catcicles, I turned on three of
>     the drives. Kept my basement uncomfortably /hot,/ and my first floor nice
>     and toasty, and the second floor bearable.
>     That was the only and best use that I ever came up for the thing. That
>     spring, I gave it to a kid for the hauling it away.
>     Best,
>     Joe
>
>
>
>
>         ...had it hooked to my PDP-8
>
>
>
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