JWColby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Mar 21 11:39:35 CDT 2007
Yea, not those. Remember though that these were US Navy machines. They might have been custom developed for all I know. John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gary Kjos Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 12:08 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: But only Partly Sure it was 3? The 2314 I first mentioned had TWO drawers.. http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/roger.broughton/DASD/images/200426.jpg GK On 3/21/07, JWColby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote: > Definitely not the ones. These had 3 drives in drawers, the cabinet > was head high and about as long as a couch. All to contain (3) 80 > megabyte drives. > > > John W. Colby > Colby Consulting > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gary Kjos > Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 11:44 AM > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving > Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: But only Partly > > Oops, they were actually 2311's. Only 7.25 MB each drive. Found a > picture > > http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/2311.html > > GK > > On 3/21/07, Gary Kjos <garykjos at gmail.com> wrote: > > Close John. These were IBM 2314's 29Mb per drive.11 platters, 20 > > heads. We had four drives but all of our stuff was set up to use > > only > > 3 because one was often broken ;-) They had a plug thing in the > > front as I recall that you could change which was which by changing > > the plug from one to another. One drive was for the Operating system > > and our programs, the other two had the data files and workspaces > > for sorting etc. > > > > Wikipedia has a nice description of them here > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_IBM_disk_storage#IBM_2314 > > > > We got to know our Field Engineers very well. They were there every > > week to do preventive maintenance and there were many weeks when > > they were there almost every day for something or another. I > > remember one time when we had been down for a while and there were > > about 4 FE's there working on the drives, our company president came > > in and was trying to pressure them to get it fixed faster and asked > > "so how long is it going to be down?" and the senior FE replied that > > "if we knew what was the matter it would already be fixed" The > > president went off in a huff and they had it fixed an hour or so > > later and we were off and running. Everybody in the room was happy to see the president > > storm off in a rage as we all thought him a blow-hard. Ah, the good > > old days. ;-) > > > > GK > > > > On 3/21/07, JWColby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote: > > > >In those days, disks on mainframes were removable from the drives > > > themselves which were about the size of a washing machine. The > > > disk packs were about the diameter of a LP record and the ones we > > > used were about 8 inches tall. > > > > > > Must have been one of the old IBM hard disk cabinets. It had > > > drawers that you could pull out and then unlock and remove the > > > disk packs. Those were 80 mb packs if memory serves me. > > > Something like > > > 8 platters, heads on each side, hydraulically actuated heads. > > > > > > In 1972/73 I was trained by the USN to fix that disk drive system. > > > > > > John W. Colby > > > Colby Consulting > > > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > > > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Gary > > > Kjos > > > Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2007 10:37 AM > > > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving > > > Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: But only Partly > > > > > > Ouch. We used to do Disaster Recovery Firedrills back in my early > > > mainframe days when I was a computer operator. We had an > > > arrangement with another local company that had a similar hardware > > > configuration to ours that we were backup sites for each other. In > > > those days, disks on mainframes were removable from the drives > > > themselves which were about the size of a washing machine. The > > > disk packs were about the diameter of a LP record and the ones we > > > used were about 8 inches > tall. > > > We would take our disks or maybe it was just backup tapes over to > > > this other company and they would let us use their system over > > > night and we would attempt to run our orders and print the picking > > > documents. Since the hardware configuration was slightly different > > > we had different execution job control that referenced the > > > hardware they had there. I was mostly just along to carry stuff in > > > the early days but later on I was called on to run the stuff too. > > > When fixed hard drives and online terminals came along in about > > > 1980 that ceased to be an option anymore as we would have had to > > > actually overwrite their files on the disk or they would have > > > needed enough empty space for us to load our stuff on and as disk > > > was failrly expensive in those days that wasn't a viable option. > > > So instead we concentrated on getting better covereage from our > > > hardware maintenance group. And we used our backup tapes pretty > > > often when stuff got corrupted and had daily, weekly and monthly > > > full backups for an entire year of generations, so we were really > > > quite secure and fully tested backup wise. Noplace I have worked > > > since has had anywhere near that level of backup. But hardware > > > failed a lot more then than it does now too, so we get lulled into > > > a sense of security > that drives don't fail. But in this case it wasn't even a drive > failure that caused it, it was a human mistake. > > > > > > We had an occurance of the "can't read the backups" here a while back. > > > It was a very bad thing. There had been a change to the backup > > > software itself and maybe the hardware too. I don't remember > > > exactly what the end result was as far as data loss - don't think > > > we lost anything - but we were down for an entire day - no sales entered. > > > Order takers had to write orders down on paper to be entered later. > > > I think our website still took orders as it's seperate but there > > > were no confirmations etc. It wasn't a total loss as some of that > > > business came to us in the following days, but some of those > > > orders went to other sellers instead of us and perhaps some of > > > those customers > went away disgruntled too. > > > > > > GK > > > > > > -- > > > AccessD mailing list > > > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > > > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > > > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > > > > > > > > -- > > Gary Kjos > > garykjos at gmail.com > > > > > -- > Gary Kjos > garykjos at gmail.com > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > > -- > AccessD mailing list > AccessD at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- Gary Kjos garykjos at gmail.com -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com