IBM 1401 howto: sort7 tapesort - R12

[@lwilton]

That is one amazing 1401 simulator! Fun times. I remember compiling lots of COBOL and FORTRAN-2 (McBady Fortran compiler) on the 1401, long ago.

[@rhymereason3449]

As someone who was designing these processes and writing programs to accomplish them in the 70's on IBM Mainframes (although I started with the 360 series), this simulation is absolutely amazing!

[@KenShirriff]

It's interesting to consider how data records were sorted before they had tape drives. A machine such as the IBM Type 82 card sorter could sort punch cards into bins based on one column. By running the punch cards through the card sorter multiple times, from lowest digit to highest digit, you could completely sort your data. (I.e. a radix sort.) In this way, punch cards could be sorted, even decades before digital computers. Even with digital computers, card sorters were often used because they could be run "offline", without using the expensive computer. FORTRAN programs didn't use columns 73-80 of the punch card, so you could put a sequence number there. If you dropped your card deck and scrambled the cards, no big deal because the card sorter could put them back in order.

[@huntabadday2663]

That is some amazing technology, even in modern times

[@palmercolson7037]

On the periscope KZbin channel there is a video from the 1960s that featured the Roper Corp. and their use of the a 1401. The man in the black suit that appears in the middle of the video talks about how the company used IBM unit record equipment in 1958 and then switched to the 1401. They kept everything except two machines (the calculator and tabulator) and continued to use everything else. That included multiple card sorters and collators.

[@mr.mcnuggets8264]

I'm currently learning how to program the 1401, and I love your software. It's really well made and it's fascinating to use it and watch your videos!

[@andressepter]

Incredible, absolutely amasing simulation!

[@moshixmainframechannel]

Simply amazing. Great job. I will point to you in my videos

[@billb6283]

Very cool simulation. Hope you make it available on Linux...someday. I remember sorting hundreds of thousands of records on a PDP-11/70 in the early 80s and it took hours. I may have some small record count, sort listings on a IBM 360 somewhere.

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

Thx. In the windows download folder on rolffson.de there's a sub folder 'LinuxTest'. It's a very old version, but you may give it a try. Unfortunately it's too time consuming for me to keep the Linux and Mac versions up-to-date, at least for now, but I will keep it in mind.

[@SergioAranda]

interesting video ! thanks my friend just join your Channel xxx

[@programorprogrammed]

This is such a fantastic piece of software, the 1401 simulator not the sort 7 program....though it too might be quite nice.

[@flyzone100]

This is amazing animation. I used to use the Sort7 program for 1311 discs back in the 60s. It was "boring". The tape drives (and printer) were the excitement of this machine and most often spun much faster than illustrated. Even on a 4-drive systems at times all tapes appeared to be moving simultaneously. Rewinds were particularly wind breaking. I couldn't even get the Sort7 to work in the simulator so this is jaw-dropping. I am curious to know how and if alphabetic sorting was done given the 1401 had a funky and even illogical collating sequence. Nice work and great history.

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

I agree, it (rolffson.de/pinboard.html#acollating ) wasn't very plausible; fortunately most text didn't contain many record_marks and minus_zeroes 😁. At least they were able to leave the digits in a row 😎 I find it interesting that in ASCII the digits come ahead, and in BCD/EBCDIC they follow the letters..

[@flyzone100]

@@rolffsonsIBM1401channel Could you do an alpha sort with Sort7?

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

yes. sort7 uses the standard collating sequence, which provides an A..Z, 0..9 sequence. The A..Z sequence is interrupted by two non-alpha characters, but that normally doesn't matter. In this video, I've sorted by the personnel_number in col 1..6, but I could also have sorted it by e.g. last_name by defining "start col. 7 / length 18" It's also possible to e.g. sort by first_name and then last_name by defining two sorting areas.

[@flyzone100]

Back for another visit. It still tickles me pink (an expression back from the 1401 days :) )

[@demtron]

I love the simulation, but I remember using a card sorter to sort cards, and not writing sorting code just to sort cards!

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

I agree! In fact, I've been thinking about adding an IBM 084 sorter to the simulation for some time now; That would be a nice enhancement which would give the user better insight into this type of activity

[@nodnodwinkwinkV]

Wow, this is amazing. I'm sure there are plenty of people who used 1401s or similar that would be interested in this but there's real value in keeping this for posterity. How long did it take to create this?

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

that's difficult to tell in hours, because in the beginning it was only a spare time project, mainly to learn UnrealEngine programming, whith some activity now and then. But the time span from taking first steps to the current status was like 2.5 .. 3 years.

[@mstram]

@@rolffsonsIBM1401channel If you publish the source in the Unreal Store, I'd be willing to pay ... $50.00 ? I'm a newbie with Unreal, but would love to see something like this as an example. Maybe a few hundred other people would too ? :)

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

@@mstram you are right, this question pops up regularly. Nevertheless I currently won't publish it. it was originally just a training object to learn UnrealEngine programming, and the result was only a byproduct, but I thought it would be too sad to let it rot in a folder. So from that time it contains many anti patterns, spaghetti code and other dumb things, is more or less unreadable, and would harm my reputation 🙃

[@johnrichardson1949]

what is your groovy theme music?

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

thats "69 Bronco" by DJ Williams, just search for it on youtube. I've downoaded it via the KZbin Studio Audio Library where it's officially announced as free for YT use, so it seems to be safe for use in videos at least on YT. In the library, just filter by "mood:dramatic" and sort by title. If you like this kind of cinematic style music, I may suggest the group "Calibro 35", espescially the album "Ogni Riferimento..."

[@johnrichardson1949]

@@rolffsonsIBM1401channel thanks! i'm trying to understand the 30,000ft understanding of your channel... this simulation is amazing, but is it just animation done by hand or is there actually code behind it that simulates the actual operation of the 1401? Your channel does not have much background on this, but it seems amazin.

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

that simulation executes real 1401 CPU code (except that it's currently 10x slower than the original), and the animations are triggerd by the code. Most buttons and switches on the 1401 and tapes and other equipment are functional. E.g. a tape-read-command causes the tape drive to spin, and you can punch cards in the 026 station, carry them to the 1402 station and issue a card read command in the 1401 to process the data. The original IBM sort7 software shown in this video thinks it's running on a real IBM 1401, reading from real 729 tapes. The KZbin channel does not provde much background, but is more an extension of the website and the related discord. You can try it yourself, it requires a graphics card and some studying of the original IBM documentation. See rolffson.de for more details.

[@rushank]

Why is KZbin recommending me this? 😂

[@rolffsonsIBM1401channel]

youtube knows everything: deep inside you can feel that you are a reincarnated IBM customer engineer, just waiting to fulfill your destiny ..