I forgot now how I found this site, but I got some good laughs out of a blog called awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com
It’s mostly a tribute to books the blog’s authors and contributors found in libraries that are extremely outdated. I got a big kick out of this gem:
Ok, computer dorks um, experts – who can tell me what some of those little doo-hickeys are on that IBM 370? I’ve already done some simple research and found that this computer is circa 1970. Has anyone played around on something like this?
It’s the IRAC! Or… Information Retrieval Associative Computer.
Hey, I think I had an interview to work on one of those once… Does that make me OLD?
A little bit before my time, I think. 😮
But no, that doesn’t necessarily make you old, JustJ. As we know businesses tend to hang on to old systems for as long as they are useful even when they are severely outdated.
Exactly… even given it’s 1970 birthdate, I was thinking that it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for my peers to have had experience with it. Not saying anyone is old or anything… sometimes these things hang around. Nowadays, in 2010, the thing is truly a dinosaur 🙂
Hmm. In looking at the picture, I see the display lights in the upper right hand of the machine. Reading these was fun, and they would display the status of the machine. A teletype was sometimes added to allow the messages to be read in “English”
Dials and buttons at the bottom would allow you to program in APL or Assembler. Also controlled certain functions of the computer (read cards, tapes, ect. ) I’m not sure what is installed in the upper left. Can’t make it out from the picture. Other pictures on the web looked like it was something that wasn’t on all the machines..