Storage

Dinosaur sighting: The days of Big Iron

By · December 14, 2010, 4:19 AM PST

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  • Model 360/30

    In the early 1970s, I worked in operations at Montgomery Ward's computer center in Chicago. It was the era of Big Iron, dominated by IBM, whose System/360 line of mainframe computers was used by government, larger corporations, and big universities. If you were part of this era, the images in this gallery may bring back a lot of memories. For an additional nostalgia fix, check out the article 10 things I miss about Big Iron.

    The picture above shows the Model 360/30 CPU and operator's console (left), tape drives, card reader/punch, and disk drives (right, back to front). We had several of these systems. One handled all the daily shoe orders nationwide, in 32K (yes, that's K) of RAM.

    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

  • Model 360/50

    This is the Model 360/50, with tape drives, card reader/punch, and operator's console. No screens here, all control was by way of the Selectric typewriter -- short, cryptic commands and equally short responses. Note also the ubiquitous magnetic tapes. One nice thing about tapes was the feedback. If they spun too long, or unmounted immediately, you knew you had a problem.

    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

  • IBM System/360 Model 65

    Here's the CPU of an IBM System/360 Model 65 -- complete with lights, rollers, toggles, buttons (note the IPL button in the bottom right by the postcard), and Emergency Pull (top right).

    Photo courtesy of Mike Ross, The Corestore. (Mike's looking for more "360/370 era mainframes and peripherals," if you happen to have any.)

  • Model 370/155

    This is the Model 370/155 with the usual peripherals, including later model disk drives (right) and printers (front). Obviously not a working shop -- where are the carts overflowing with tapes, disk packs, and card decks? IBM seems to like putting women in these pictures. Personally, I never saw female employees in Operations.

    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

  • Model 370/165 and peripherals

    This was the biggest system we had, costing several million (1970) dollars. It had one Megabyte of RAM -- enough, as I said to someone at the time, for me to move in and live. We actually couldn't find enough programs to run to fill it up at first.

    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

  • Model 2401 tape drives

    Tapes spun in a partial vacuum, I think. The window would close automatically as the tape fed to the take-up reel, and slack loops of tape bobbed up and down in the vertical tubes at the bottom. Very cool to watch in action.
    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

  • Model 1311 disk drive

    That's the Model 1311 disk drive beside the guy holding what looks like a stack of pancakes with a handle. Actually, that's the disk pack, "containing six 14-inch-diameter disks in a four-inch stack, weighing 10 pounds." To remove it from the drive, you screwed on the cover/handle and lifted.

    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

  • Model 360/91

    We never had one of these; this was NASA's. But check out the Cathode Ray Tube display (Oooo!).
    Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

Model 360/30

In the early 1970s, I worked in operations at Montgomery Ward's computer center in Chicago. It was the era of Big Iron, dominated by IBM, whose System/360 line of mainframe computers was used by government, larger corporations, and big universities. If you were part of this era, the images in this gallery may bring back a lot of memories. For an additional nostalgia fix, check out the article 10 things I miss about Big Iron.

The picture above shows the Model 360/30 CPU and operator's console (left), tape drives, card reader/punch, and disk drives (right, back to front). We had several of these systems. One handled all the daily shoe orders nationwide, in 32K (yes, that's K) of RAM.

Courtesy of International Business Machines Corporation, © International Business Machines Corporation.

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