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On alternating Sundays, we
would either go to Hollywood High School for theory, or the University of Western
Australia, Physics Department to use the IBM
1620.
Ever since then I have been hooked. Even the smell of an old punched card
is very evocative - the subtle smell of warm oil and the sweet aroma of
blank card stock.
At any one time there would be up to 30 people queuing at various stations
in the small machine room
 Queue for the card punch station - punch a few cards
with 10 impatient people breathing down your neck.
Queue for the card reader/punch (the line of people
snaked around the back of the core memory stack)
Instant Stop, Reset, Insert - read the cards in - watch
the magical dancing patterns on the console
Watch the card reader/punch push out a few cards
Put the output cards through the tabulator machine to
get a listing - kerchunk, kerchunk, kerchunk
Curse and swear when you saw that a program bug caused
the program to abort
Get back on the end of the queue to use the card punch
station.
And so On
In 1973 I started on my Physics degree at UWA.
Many a lunch time was spent punching FORGO programs and running them
through the 1620.
I guess if the term had been invented then - we would have been called
nerds
One of the more vivid characters I recall was Andrew Marriot, in his bright
green felt "gaussian hat" - later going to lecture in the Maths
and Computing Department at Curtin (and probably doing something amazing
even today).
I remember watching in awe as a transistor radio, perched on top of the
console, played melodies using machine code routines written by the
engineering students.
The card reader would often fail. A service call to IBM would take several
days to rectify the problem.
Engineering students would take matters in to their own hands and affect a
repair themselves.
On one occasion as I watched a student, elbow deep in the internals of the
card reader, the duty programmer walked in and caught him at it.
He gave us both a good bawling out. Years later I used to work at WARCC
(well actually Health Computing) and would sometimes come face to face with
the same gentleman.
I doubt that he remembered me - but I always had an urge to dive down the
nearest corridor and hide.
PDP 6
In the next room sat the PDP 6. We used to gaze at it in awe. You had to be
God to get on to that machine!
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PDP 6 pre assembled at DEC factory in Maynard.
Photo courtesy Alex Reid. (www.alex-reid.com)
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Here is the System 340
Display unit sitting in my barn!
I rescued it out of the rain from a scrap metal yard.
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PDP 6 as first installed at UWA.
Photo courtesy Alex Reid. (www.alex-reid.com)
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 PDP 6 shortly
before decommissioning.
Photo courtesy Alex Reid. (www.alex-reid.com)
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Educ-8
In 1974 a series of article by Jamieson Rowe appeared in Electronics
Australia.
The first article was titled "Build Your Own Computer"
Over a thirteen month period it set out a series of article describing how
to build your own computer out of mainly 7400 logic and a handful of
Fairchild chips.
The machine was modelled on the PDP 8 but reduced to an 8 bit bus and
initially boasted a total memory of 32 bytes. The machine was called the Educ-8 (pronounced 'Educate'
not 'Educk eight')
Although thought to be the first project of its kind in the world - it was
eventually pipped at the post by the Mark-8 published in Radio-Electronics
two weeks earlier.
I was fascinated by this project, but being an impoverished student, had no
way of building it.
I spent hours pouring over the circuit diagrams and pcb layouts. A lot of
time was also spent in the "Phys" library reading up on the
design of discrete component flip flops and attempting to breadboard them
from theory.
Old Calculators
One day, a couple of electronic engineering students showed me what they
had bought from Edwards Business Machines.
It was some circuit boards from a superannuated
calculator. For $10 they sold me a shift register board, display driver
board and four displays.
Sharp CS-30A
Emboldened by this purchase - I visited Edwards Business Machines and
bought a Sharp CS-30A
electronic calculator. The very nice people at Edwards also gave me
photocopies of all the schematic diagrams.
Again I poured over the schematics and PCB's. In theory, for $15, I had
enough discrete components to build something along the lines of the
Educ-8.
On the face of it, this seems like a very strange way to go - but you have
to remember that back then, all the components for the project would have
cost $400 - way beyond the means of a lowly student.
Of course - the project never got started, and when I went to Europe in 1983 I sold the calculator in a garage
sale. Years later I regretted getting rid of it..
This may seem like a rather pointless little side story - but it was the
memory of that calculator that later spurred me to start creating a
computer collection.
<This page last updated 8th Dec 2002 - this
page will evolve significantly in the next month>
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