IBM 1401 Team at CHM: October 2013

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Second straight non-Wednesday workday Monday October 28, 2103

Last week the electricians connected both 1401 computers to the building power.

Our team came in Saturday and connected the equipment together.
The Connecticut machine came up with only having to reverse two legs of the three phase power.
This is normal as the electricians have no way of knowing the rotational phase of the three phase power.
When we see one of our three phase motors going backwards, we fix the problem at the power connection.

While the 60/50 power converter came up and appeared to be OK, the German 1401 was not happy.
It would not start.

A number of techies all figured that the connection between the German machine and the 60/50 cycle converter was the possible problem.
There was only one thing to do; Call in Ron Crane who is the expert.

After Ron fixed the wiring to the output of the 60/50 cycle power converter, the German responded to the power on button.

Power came (and stayed) up - but the lower 4,000 characters of memory does not work. No bits, no apparent response.

Here is Ron Williams, in his customary prayerful position?? trouble shooting.

Meanwhile, Carl Claunch and Frank King are starting to cable the CT magnetic tape drives. Carl stated that after the enthusiastic activities of Saturday, he was a major buyer of over-the-counter pain killers.

Here is Stan, either pulling cable for the mag tape of the DE machine, praying, or collapsing.

Carl and Stan trying to get the mag tape cables into the cut-out floor tile. I thought that computer people were white collar workers !! ?? !! ;-))

Dave Lion was mostly in the warehouse "Cyclops" hauling cables, printer paper, IBM cards, etc. and wondering where to put the rest of the office cubical of material to be removed "before the 1st".

Next Wednesday, we will attempt to wire up tape drives with existing floor tiles or mark floor tiles
for cutting cable access.

Monday, October 21, 2013

Status for Oct 16, 2013

When the Computer History Museum was built, it had HALON fire suppression installed in the computer room.

At some point, the system was removed.

However some of the under-the-floor plumbing was left behind.

With the current addition to under-the-floor fire sprinklers, the two under-the-floor plumbing systems were close to each other making the placement of the IBM 1401 cables difficult.

Frank King, Dave Lion and Stan Paddock went into the depths and removed the HALON plumbing and the brackets that supported that plumbing

.
On Monday, October 21, the movers and Dave Lion will be returning to move the German 1401 system back into the 1401 room.

On Wednesday, October 23, the 1401 team will move all equipment in the 1401 room to the final display locations.

Add power and a bunch of cables, we will be ready to go!

(Sounds Simple doesn't it?)

Monday, October 7, 2013

This has nothing to do with the 1401 but it was fun to watch

The Computer History Museum bought the current building back in the early 1990s.
The building came complete with an electrical system that could provide backup power to the servers SGI had in what is now the 1401 room.

Withe the remodel, all of the controls of the backup power were removed and stored on the loading dock.

A buyer was found to buy the control equipment and the 7,000 pound diesel generator located in the back parking lot.

A representave from the company and a crane showed up this afternoon to collect all of the items.

John showed up with his heavy duty trailer

Paul showed up with his do anything crane

Dennis Vassar showed up to help lift the generator off the ground

Go Dennis, go!

She is down on the trailer

Dennis added the 2,000 pound power conditioner to the load.

The generator is going to Petaluma to be cleaned up and checked out by the company that bought it.
Then it will be installed at a winery who will use it for backup power.