fredag den 29. august 2014

Something else entirely

This is NOT Z80 stuff! This is an artifact of early computing, something i found at a flea market for next to free:

This is a program! It may be hard to recognize, but this is a plugboard from an IBM tabulating machine. You actually connect the processor structure to do different stuff, no microinstructions! - I've yet to understand completely how this works, but nevertheless, this is almost a work of art! It is not made by IBM, but a company called MAC PANEL in Belgium. There was a label on it stating that it is from 1970, so even at that time, it would've been obsolete, these were popular in the late 40's to the 60's. Presumably for the IBM 421 tabulating machine. The little grey plastic boxes are IBM branded hubs, interconnecting up to 3 of the plugs, which by the way, are 4mm banana plugs, though longer and "pointy". The program seems intact, no wires looks to have been tampered with (there's no dust on the edge of holes where plugs has been seated), so perhaps it's still executable!

Definitely a keeper.

1 kommentar:

  1. Can I borrow this picture for my dax2.wordpress (nobody reads it but I have fun making it) ???
    This picture is good - an illustrative. And I am sure there will be many who need to learn the history of computing in overview-style in order to understand how microprocessors and supermicros came about.

    SvarSlet