Don't drop the cards!!

I WAS A PARTNER IN A COMPUTER LEASING CO IN NYC(1970'S). I HAD 2 1440'S THAT I USED TO DO BILLING AND PAYROLL FOR CUSTOMERS. I ALSO HAD A 1410 COMPUTER REPAIR CUSTOMER. THE 1440'S WERE EASY TO REPAIR, THE PRINTERS WERE TERRIBLE(LATER I REPLACED THEM WITH IBM SYSTEN 3'S). IN THE WAREHOUSE WE HAD A 1401 THAT OUR SISTER COMPANY HAD PAID $10,000, FOR IT, WITHOUT A PRINTER!!!! (WITHOUT A PRINTER IT IS USELESS). TO LEASE IT OUT OR SELL THE 1401 WE NEEDED AN INSPECTION LETTER(FROM IBM) SAYING IT WAS WORKING!!! THE FEMALE PRESIDENT OF THE COMPANY ORDERED AN IBM INSPECTION, WITHOUT RENTING A PRINTER TO TEST THE MACHINE!!!!( I TOLD HER IT COULD NOT PASS INSPECTION WITHOUT A PRINTER TO RUN TEST PROGRAMS). SHE SAID GO AHEAD "MAYBE THEY WILL PASS IT". IBM CAME AND ASKED ME "DO YOU REALLY WANT A TURN DOWN LETTER OR DO YOU WANT US TO COME BACK WHEN YOU HAVE A PRINTER?????" I CALLED THE PRESIDENT AND TOLD HER WHAT THE IBM MANAGER SAID, SHE SAID GO AHEAD SEND THE LETTER!!! AFTER SHE GOT THE TURN DOWN LETTER SHE WAS" ASTOUNDED AND SURPRISED", THEY LATER HAD TO PAY A SCRAP DEALER TO HAUL AWAY THE 1401.

But will it run Wolfenstein3d?

14:31 - there's nothing like a sneering cackle when interfacing with the public.

loved it, tks !

When I started out in data processing in 1968 we had the 1403 printer and yes it was loud. When you got used to how the printer sounded when printing you could sometimes detect when there was a problem with the printout just by the change in sound quality. This ability was especially important when printing payroll or in my case city tax bills. The tax bill was a large document approximately 14x22 inches in size. At that size you didn't want to ruin many since the computer room manager would only order a couple of cases more then you really needed. Those were the days!

Two observations: 1) Aging, having had your best years behind you and being replaced is so sad, for both machines and people alike! Glad these guys are spending their time continuing to do useful work! 2) The processing power of thousands of Cray supercomputers in our iPhones and most of what we do is TikTok, Facebook, and/or distribute/read fake news! How sad!!

Wow this was a great overview! I need to visit this museum.

Lol I wish I could go back and speed things up a bit 😂

My better half is in the process of making his own version of the IBM 1401 tape storage drive. Most obvious that it will involve TTL logic chips. The only reason why he's not going to do the old DTL circuits is because, it would require many boards to make, for one and two he can't find many of the original schematics to build many of the circuits he needs. The only question is, what color of blue was used on the unit? Anybody with an answer would be helpful.

Excellent

The 1401 was the first computer I learned to program. Watching this video takes me back to the '70s when they were being phased out by my company for system 360. The 1401 used decimal addresses for its storage; the 360 used binary, and addresses were expressed in hexadecimal. They still are and modern computers still use this mathematical base.

These guys are absolute legends!

Jesus this is a couple of cantankerous old codgers.

When I went to college in L.A. in 1967 we had an IBM 1420. The output of it was an IBM Selectric typewriter.

Those computer may sound basic but they still are incredibly complexe, and also am i the only one thinking they still look modern

Amazing performance. So glad KZbin brought this to my attention.

Lo mismo pero a base de memorias de cromo

In my early career the 1401 was our input/output device. We used it to load punched cards to tape and print output stored on tape. Main computer was an IBM 7080. BTW, it was a Navy installation and we had a card deck for the 1401 that would drive the print head of the 1403 at various speeds so that we could get it to play “Anchors Away” when the Brass visited.

This is awesome

This is the most informative and interesting video I've seen for ages! 🙂🙂

Funny getting a power black out during high speed rewind! Been there, done that!

The IBM 370 was the “king” back in my days in college!

Wish that I could visit this place! AMAZING!

Play Daisy Bell on this

yup. I was an organic robot.

Have you ever heard of IBM Reflection software? I think I am remembering correctly. To login, the command was "Hello" then your username.

What if we input a 2?

Still clearly remember the bootstrap instructions on the first card like set wordmark 008 015…

But can it run DOOM ?

Wow, what a trip down memory lane. I joined IBM in 1970 and we were converting a lot of customers from 1401s to 360s. A 360 30 or 40 could run 1400 programs in an emulator mode. My first experience in a machine room was just a couple of weeks after I joined IBM. It was a 1401 to 360 conversion for a customer. I had taken typing in high school, which turned out to be a very useful skill when I had to use a keypunch.

なつかしいです、私は日本人ですが、IBM1４０１システムの保守業務をしていました、よくカードリダーが故障して、日本全土をまわり、修理したのを、覚えています、大変良い動画を、見せて、なつかしく、思い出しました。

Hey a Tek 100MHZ 465 scope

Such a blast from the past! My Navy outfit had 2 1401's in 1962. We used "Autocoder" programing language. My whole outfit were complete geeks. Thanks for the memories.

Where one punch card has 1 byte of data. ( max 12 bits ) and machine has 4 kb of ram memory that costed 100k$. Well 'hard drive' has 100 mega bytes and costed 2 millions of of dollars.

"Back then, only women were typists. I need a beautiful volunteer. You, ma'am. Okay, hit the feed key to load the punch card. Now hit the register key. Now type your first and last name. Now type your phone number. I'll be in touch ;)"

These guys think they are SOOOOOO funny

What a cool demo!. I spent several years programming the 1401 and its big brother the 1410 (which had I/O channels that could generate interrupts). One footnote to the 1401 demo -- IBM had a program called the "1401 report program generator" that facilitated the conversion of the wired control panel "programs" for punch-card accounting machines shown in the demo to 1401 programs. You described the inputs, outputs, totals, subtotals, etc. and it generated the 1401 program automatically. Another footnote -- there was a machine that looked like a keypunch called a "verifier." After a program or some data was keypunched, the deck was was fed into a verifier, and the operator rekeyed it. The verifier caught discrepancies between the punched cards and the rekeying. Verifying doubled data entry time, but saved computer time which was valuable in those days. It was also kind of a status symbol if you were important enough to have your programs verified :-).

These Two Guys Awesome...

I worked at IBM in 1970 as a customer engineer. Once I was called out to fix an 029 card punch machine with a very sticky keyboard. Turns out the punchroom supervisor had spilled his brandy and coke all over it. Got chatting to the very nice young operator. After that fateful day I was called out there regularly. That only stopped when I married that nice operator. We are in our seventies now and still talk about those good old days.

are those tape drives writing NRZI. Phase Encoded or GCR?

I started working at IBM in 1964 and worked on dozens of 1401 systems. I never imagined seeing my old work place represented in a museum! I joined the Computer History Museum and attended numerous events, and halped with the Memorex at 50 celebration. A great place to visit if you ever worked around computers.

During my college years I took Fortran classes that used an IBM System/3, somewhat newer than the 1401 but very much in the same configuration demoed here. There was a card reader, the computer and a printer. You punched your program at dedicated card punch stations onto these "new" 96-column cards, which were considerably smaller than the old 80-column cards, but just as much a hassle if you dropped them. To compile and run your program, you'd present your card deck to the operator, who would add control card(s) and put your little stack (Fortran programs are typically short, less than 50 cards) on the card reader, often in the middle of a much longer program that was being processed (kind of like an interrupt). When your cards were processed, the printer would spit out your results and you were on your way. It was a marvel of late 1960s technology!

Nasal skinny boy is an attention hog and does not like it when his partner talks it's really annoying me just tries to bark orders hold this for me cry cry cry

Like Grumpier Old Men they pretend to be all kind but you can tell they bump heads on who's smarter it's the two who talk over each other and argue but been best friends for 50 years

Bless ! A touch if comedy ! This process intensive method must have induced a discipline which would discourage bad coding ? Presumably, a programmer that frequently got it wrong would be invited by the computerl room staff to a game of "Finger mouse" with the motorised lid of the tape drives.

Great presentation but would be better if the audio didn't keep muting

I wonder if that's were the tweet length actually came from. Very cool!

My first official computer class was Fall 1987. We had 5.5" x 8" floppy discs with green screen and basic programming.

I thought He was James Randi for a second