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Three geeks rescue a 50-year-old IBM 360 mainframe from an abandoned building
- dang 7y agoThe rest of the series: https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=64 https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=64 https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=85 https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=85 https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=185 https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=185 The submitted url above was https://slashdot.org/story/19/05/19/2336249/three-geeks-rescue-a-50-year-old-ibm-360-mainframe-from-an-abandoned-building https://slashdot.org/story/19/05/19/2336249/three-geeks-resc.... We changed it to point to the original source.
- mirimir 7y agoThese all give "Error establishing a database connection". HN hug of death?
- karambahh 7y agoMost likely yes, it was working fine about 20min ago (0700GMT)
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y agoSo it got a second Slashdotting :-)
- innocentoldguy 7y agoWhile not nearly as cool, I spent the entirety of April cleaning out the house of a hoarder. Buried beneath 40 years of garbage, I found an Apple II computer, still it its original box, complete with stickers and an integer ROM card (also still in the original box). It was interesting to see one of the first computers I ever touched after all these years.
- karambahh 7y agoI'm glad some people take upon themselves to salvage important pieces of our past. As the technology evolves extremely fast, it seems that traditional preservation & archeology institutions can't deal with these fast enough. Salvaging IBM360s will probably have the same historical importance in only a few dozens of years.as 16-17th centuries artefacts today. I know of several private initiative to save items of first era of home computing but salvaging industrial sized computers comes with severe logistics challenges, as these gentlemen demonstrated
- amelius 7y agoFunny thing is that it seems that future archaeologists need to have a STEM background.
- karambahh 7y agoWell, current archeologists need to have a vast range of expertise (water management, cooking techniques, building & more) I've watched a few days ago a documentary about ScanPyramids, a team of nuclear physicists that used their knowledge to perform non destructive exploration of Kheops Pyramid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanpyramids https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanpyramids It could be argued that they're top of the line physicists AND archeologists at the same time :)
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoNot many antiques need a room the size of a small barn, air conditioning (or is it water cooling on this model?), and an industrial three-phase power supply.
- myself248 7y agoYou clearly don't spend much time around the Henry Ford Museum...
- RickSanchez2600 7y agoI hope they have the DOS/VSE or whatever operating system that ran on them on backup or installed on the hard drive. I remember 360's had a level you pulled called the IPL button. Initial Program Load.
- taborj 7y agoIt's been over a decade since I was responsible for an IBM 400/iSeries, but we still used the term "IPL" for firing up the machine. I bet it's still in use.
- Animats 7y agoThe IBM 360/20 is very limited. It's punched cards in and out. But the IBM 360/125 has disks and communications. Getting it working, though. Huge job. It's taken years to get the IBM 1401 machines at the Computer Museum in Mountain View running, and they have help from some of the designers and maintenance people.
- philpem 7y agoGiven sufficient motivation, I expect it would be possible to replace the card reader and punch with something a little more modern. It wouldn't be period-correct, but it would provide a more convenient way to get data into and out of the machine. Frankly while the machine itself is interesting, what I'm really interested in is what they find on those tapes and disk packs! I wonder if they have a Twitter feed or mailing list to keep updated on their progress. This is a really cool "barn find".
- sdrothrock 7y ago> I expect it would be possible to replace the card reader and punch with something a little more modern. The card reader/punch are part of the charm of something like this, though -- that immediate physicality is a real "oh, wow, so THIS is how it works" kind of moment that you can sort of follow up to records, floppy disks, and CDs. Plus, I imagine if people could make their own little programs through a more modern interface that made the cards, those would make cool souvenirs that might help finance the museum a bit.
- hollander 7y ago"Something a little more modern" - I think a simple interface would be real useful to get the processor working without the cards and printer. It could be the first phase of the project. In the end you want the whole thing to work, if that is at all possible of course.
- hhyndman 7y agoWhile studying Comp Sci at University of Toronto in the early 70s, I recall the 360/20 was used as a node to connect suburban colleges (Erindale and Scarborough) to the "mainframe", which was a 360/65 (I believe). We would iterate from the keypunch room, to the 360/20's card reader, and wait for the mainframe to process our code and transmit the code output to the local printer, for review at tables large enough to page through fan-fold paper, to check and mark-up the code. Back then, we didn't need watches to remind us to stand up and walk around every 30 minutes -- the coding workflow forced us to! Reading the Principles of Operations for the 360/20, the processor was supported half-word (16 bit), and had no floating point, but support packed decimal numbers. Our machine had 16K. It was great to see the article -- made me reminisce about the days of me carrying boxes of punch cards and inches of output back and forth to my residence.
- DonHopkins 7y agoReminds me of Planet of the Apes! http://q7.neurotica.com/Q7/scifi/ApesTV/ http://q7.neurotica.com/Q7/scifi/ApesTV/ http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=164 http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=164 http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=732 http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=732
- emily2749 7y agoEven you can't believe there is a hen in world's biggest animals See the video how they looks and what they do https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q https://cutt.ly/1rOU7Q Very funny dog using toilet Try to control your laugh http://bit.ly/2LVSNSG http://bit.ly/2LVSNSG Cute dog doing exercise like humans http://bit.ly/2Jq3rz1 http://bit.ly/2Jq3rz1 Funny gorilla acting like humans see his video on link below http://bit.ly/2JmTNxr http://bit.ly/2JmTNxr Best way to get rid from dark spots on face just follow this https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/05/Dark-spots.html https://zoomtips.blogspot.com/2019/05/Dark-spots.html Funny panda is playing with friends they are sho cute http://bit.ly/2JvDQF4 http://bit.ly/2JvDQF4
- rmason 7y agoMy late father started collecting antique cars in the forties. I used to read his car collector magazines as a kid. They would have detailed stories about 'barn finds' of rare autos and this story reads like the best of them. I well remember Michigan State's IBM 360 in the computer center back in the seventies. You could see it through glass windows from the hall, they were so proud of that machine.
- jacquesm 7y agoWhat happened to your fathers collection? What cars were in it?
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoAssuming it was a few restored (maybe not show quality but complete and driveable) cars and probably ten more in parts and parts cars (most "collections" are like this) I'm betting kids sold it for pennies on the dollar when he croaked (regardless of whether they all wanted to or not). Unless you are active in that kind of hobby it's hard to find someone who wants it. As unfortunate as it may be that's what usually happens when there isn't a particular kid that's got the same hobby AND has the means to take over the collection (which is the case the majority of the time). Hobbies that don't require lots of equipment and space to house one's collection (basically anything where the flagship if your collection could be displayed in the living room) tend to fare better. Edit: Why is this flagged? Apparently reality is too inconvenient for some people. I guess we are incapable of having discussion about what happens to people's possessions after they die.
- reaperducer 7y agoApparently reality is too inconvenient for some people. Apparently tact is too inconvenient for some people.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoHow do you want me to sugar coat it? This is what happens. I'm not going to dance around it because people find it uncomfortable. When people amass collections of stuff that not everyone values as much as they do and do not include plans for how their heirs should liquidate it the heirs are flying by the seat of their pants and depending on the nature of the collection that often means it doesn't find a home with someone who will appreciate it. If it's something like restored classic cars of exotic firearms you can just send it to auction and it will find a good home with another collector but there's tons and tons of things that get thrown out because nobody knows how to connect with someone who wants them.
- fit2rule 7y agoI own and maintain a small retro computing collection, which I've recently put on display in a museum setting in a popular city here in Europe, and one of the most common questions I get from folks paying a visit is: "Why?" The best answer I can give is, "do you throw old books away when you're done reading them?" .. this always makes people think about it a little, and then I follow up with ".. well throwing away computers is like throwing away old books. Exept it took 10,000 barrels of oil to build the computer, another few thousand barrels of oil to get it to you, probably a few thousand while you used it, and it'll take another few thousand barrels to get rid of it while it rots". Better to just keep it running and find a user. For every old, archaic, 'outdated' computer that people chuck into the land-fill for the sake of consumerist satisfaction, there are a thousand users who you don't know about who will put that thing to valid use. Find those users, don't throw away the computer. Old computers never die - their users do!
- nullc 7y agoTo be fair, plenty of sufficiently old computers are so power hungry that they can be replaced with a modern device that pays its cost (even including many externalities) after only a brief period of operation.
- fit2rule 7y agoThe ones that are sufficiently different from modern platforms still need to be preserved.
- PorterDuff 7y agoYou can argue that the real serious time is spent on the peripherals in order to read old media. I haven't seen a full list of formats for both computers and video tape (plus cards, paper tape, etc) but it has to be pretty big.
- sean-duffy 7y agoFantastic set of posts, its good to see this system being rescued for future generations! The National Museum of Computing for which these gentlemen volunteer is a great place, when I visited it the passion of the volunteers there was really evident, and seeing the likes of the Colossus and WITCH in working order and being demonstrated really is amazing.
- pushpop 7y agoI second that. It’s a fantastic day out
- MarcE__ 7y agoI've noticed looking through the site they have a gofundme to fund the return trip of the machine back to the UK. https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=384 https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=384 .
- option_greek 7y agoPasting the direct link: https://www.gofundme.com/bring-the-ibm-360-from-germany-to-the-uk https://www.gofundme.com/bring-the-ibm-360-from-germany-to-t...
- maxnoe 7y ago"Seltene Anlage" in this context does not translate to plant. System or machine would be much better fits.
- tapland 7y agoWow. I'm a mainframe dev who just turned 30 and this is the dream. Sometimes I see old VAX or IBM machines given away in Europe but getting it transported to Sweden is an even bigger project than finding something that can be made working.
- blattimwind 7y agoIf you can strap them to a couple euro pallets it shouldn't be too expensive to ship.
- tapland 7y agoI plan on looking into that if I get a permanent contract (which comes with a pay raise) in a few weeks. Would love to tinker with that, emulating OpenVMS, z/os etc on x86 gets boring after a while :D
- Fnoord 7y agoHey, I know that in the begin of '00s, CCC (and/or CCCC) were running a VMS cluster on VAX and Alpha machines for fun. You could even peer with them. I don't know if they still do, but you might wanna look into such project(s). As for getting it shipped, old computers get sold regularly on eBay Germany ever since I been doing business there (the last 20 years or so). From Germany to Sweden shouldn't be too difficult.
- aap_ 7y agoOh great that this found a new home. I was concerned that it would be scrapped when I saw the ebay listing.
- JdeBP 7y agoThis is reminiscent of Connor Krukosky, who had the IBM z890 in xyr parents' basement.
- tx-0 7y agoxyr is a preferred pronoun, typo, or line noise?
- mkreis 7y agoIt's not mentioned in the article (too obvious?), but for wondering: Seems like those computers where used by the sports manufacturer Puma (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_(brand) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_(brand))
- iforgotpassword 7y agoWas wondering. But it still looks so weird, this little shop in the midst of all those apartment buildings. Shouldn't puma have been a little larger by that time? And why not Adidas?
- LeonM 7y agoIt could very well be that the previous owner was a collector who bought the machine from Puma, and set it up in that building to tinker with.
- jandrese 7y agoThat seemed like a very permanent installation for someone who is just tinkering with the machine. Running all of the cables under false floor is a huge hassle and makes fixing problems harder.
- LeonM 7y agoDon't underestimate the amount of work a true tinkerer is willing to perform to get the system running 'as it should have been'. But looking at the pictures of part 3 I have to conclude that the electrical installation was certainly not done professionally. In fact: the mains wiring wouldn't even pass inspection by German law. So tinkerer or not, I doubt this was the place where this multi-million machine (in Deutsche Marks, that is) would have been installed originally.
- oaiey 7y agoAt the 80s.. computer put into a otherwise useless room. Sounds smart and realistic even for a big manufacturer. They probably used it for some administrative stuff :)
- deytempo 7y agoI am picturing the lone gunmen from the xfiles trying to haul it up stairs now in some abandoned warehouse
- sjakobi 7y agoThis appears to be the building that contained the machines: https://www.google.de/maps/@49.4431182,11.0857279,3a,75y,31.62h,74.19t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slAp7lPch6UGg8xVIS8JlSg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlAp7lPch6UGg8xVIS8JlSg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.132416%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656 https://www.google.de/maps/@49.4431182,11.0857279,3a,75y,31.... I found it via the "GlaserExpress" trailer that appears in a few pictures. I used to live nearby a decade ago.
- dirktheman 7y agoReminds me of the kid that bought an IBM z890 mainframe and brought it to his basement. And got it to work! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk
- thunderbong 7y agoHis presentation was seriously awesome! Thanks a lot.
- GnarfGnarf 7y agoTheir main problem will be finding card stock. When compiling, the binary object is output on punched cards. They will need lots of blank Hollerith cards for compiling and testing. Not a lot of places make punched cards anymore. Also, need card punches for input: IBM 029, Univac 1701. Will also need ribbon for printing readable characters at top of card. Card readers are high-maintenance equipment. The cards are fed at high speed with a picker knife that needs precise adjustment. The card stock is sensitive to humidity. If it swells, it doesn't go through the card reader. I wrote Assembler in the 70's on Univac 9300 and 9400's, 360 clones. I see small lots of cards on eBay for astronomical prices. They probably wouldn't even work because of swelling.
- eigenstuff 7y agoCould you not cut your own cards with a hobby die-cutting machine? I have some old punch cards and a Sillohouette Curio, I don't see why it couldn't work given a good sharp blade and a fresh cutting mat. That kind of cardstock cuts like butter, too.
- PaulHoule 7y agoCouldn't you make something that emulates the punched card reader but just reads and writes them to files?
- HeyLaughingBoy 7y agoThese actually exist (or used to) for paper tape. Until the early 80's a lot of CNC (Computer Numerically Controlled) machine tools (e.g., milling machines, lathes, planers, etc.) were programmed using paper tape. Large machine tools are built with literally tons of cast iron (cast iron has excellent vibration-damping characteristics and is a fairly good bearing material) and run for decades: there are still WW2-vintage machines labelled "PROPERTY OF WAR DEPARTMENT" humming along in small machine shops. Not surprisingly, the owners of expensive capital equipment didn't want to just up and buy new ones that were programmed by floppies or over RS232, etc. So an industry sprang up to convert the paper tape readers to take electronic inputs and emulate paper tape. I remember at my first job, being approached by our PCB vendor who had a CNC drill that read paper tape. He was looking for a way to bypass the tape reader and input RS-274 drill data from a floppy drive. Would have been a fun project, but my boss passed on it. In fact, there are a couple of small companies selling thumb drives with IDE interfaces that plug into the floppy drive port so you can load code on a thumb drive, but the machine thinks it's reading a floppy.
- nebulous1 7y agoI'll be honest, this was a much larger job than I had expected
- turk73 7y agoIf you find a DEC Alpha do the world a favor and just set it on fire.
- beezlebubba 7y agoBack in the 80's I "rescued" most of a PDP 8 from an abandoned building. Duffel bags full of flip chips... Unfortunately it was in poor condition and being a young teenager, I had no idea what to do with it.
- martin1b 7y agoLove all of the pictures. Great work!