[Info-vax] OT: Halt and Catch Fire

[terry+googleblog at tmk.com]

On Thursday, June 4, 2015 at 11:45:09 PM UTC-4, Alan Frisbie wrote:
> Our local euphemism for it was "Mother Fletcher's Card Mulcher."
> I don't think I ever saw one that wasn't attached to a S/360-20.
> They were a great match for each other (said in a very disparaging
> tone).

We got ours as part of an "upgrade" from a 370/115 to a /125. These are essentially the same hardware, just one of the 7 or so identical processors in the 125 (the one that handles the 370 instruction set) is clocked faster than the rest, while all are the same on the 115.

I've described our 125 as being "born under a bad sign" before - in addition to the flaky add-on memory and the MFCM, it was the only 370 we had which used a golfball (Selectric-ish, but not based on the typewriter) printing console instead of a CRT console. The continuous form paper would frequently jam in the console printer, and opening the top to clear the jam had about a 50/50 chance of crashing the system and requiring a do-over from scratch.

After that experience, all subsequent 370 systems up until we abandoned cards had a 2501 reader and 1442 punch, both of which were very reliable.

The 125 was replaced at the earliest time we could get out of the 3rd-party lease with a 138. Despite an unexpected excursion of the CPU cabinet down the street and into a cemetery where it crashed into a mausoleum and fell over during a site relocation, it performed very well and the only reason we let it go was because we needed more CPU.

The 138 was traded for a 4331. Nothing much to say about that except that I bought some extra memory cards for it, installed them, and called IBM to have them certified in the system so the system would remain on contract. This was Simply Not Done in that era and was Most Confusing to my IBM CE (who was himself an antique who had been trained on the Stretch and had a habit of smoking in the computer room and stubbing out his cigarettes in the disk drive cabinets).

A brief fling with a 4381 was followed by a 9375, which was the system that caused IBM to lose us as a customer. It never worked right, having a bunch of hardware and software problems. Example hardware problem: Flipping the "test" switch rapidly back and forth on any attached 3278 terminal would cause the processor microcode to crash and require a power cycle. Endicott spent most nights dialed into the system trying to fix it, as the proposed solution - tape signs saying "please don't rapidly flip the test switch as it will crash the system" was a non-starter in a school environment. Example software problem: The "service" (patch) tape for the VM/SP COBOL compiler wouldn't apply. IBM insisted I didn't know what I was doing and said they would send someone to install it for me, as long as we agreed to pay for it if he was successful. I agreed, with the caveat that he would remain on-site until he succeeded. IBM foolishly agreed. I arrived with my sleeping bag (I made the IBM guy sleep on the raised floor without a blanket). 3 days later he had erased the operating system by accident, gave up, and left.

I repeatedly told IBM to take it back (we had never signed the acceptance letter) but they refused. IBM had a big booth at DEXPO (remember DEXPO?) and I happened to run into a senior IBM person there and gave him the whole tale of woe, including the "27 8×10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one". By the time DEXPO ended, I had an agreement where IBM took the system back, did not admit fault, and refunded all of our money as long as neither of us mentioned it for 5 years (long since passed).

Epilogue: I was unsuccessful in getting IBM to stop sending me service tapes (9-track) for a system I no longer had. I'd just peel the labels off and throw the tapes in my spare tape bins (giant ex-USPS hampers on wheels). One month a year or so later, IBM goofed and sent everybody service on 3480 tapes (IBM's little square tape, similar to the DEC TK70) regardless of the format listed in their customer profile. I called up the contact number on the cover letter and acted all outraged that I got the service on the wrong format, and that I needed the 9-track version RIGHT NOW. They apologized (I think they got a lot of those calls), made the tape and 4-hour messengered it to me the same day (IBM was still responsive to customers back then). The messenger showed up and as I signed for the tape, I said "you probably want to stay and watch this" as I took the tape out of the package, peeled the labels off it, and threw it into the scratch tape hamper with the other recycled tapes. We stopped receiving further service tapes after that. 8-}