IP: more on -- a wake up after many many years

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> To: farber@cis.upenn.edu
> From: "Peter G Capek" <capek@us.ibm.com>
> Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2002 02:51:25 -0500
>
> IBM bought back the NSA Stretch with Harvest when it was decomissioned in
> 1976, by slightly overbidding a scrap metalt
> dealer.   It was kept as part of the historical collection until a just a
> few years ago, when most of it was finally scrapped.   A
> few pieces remain, including pieces of the mechanical tape library, which
> was arranged so that the system could read two tapes
> and write a third, with no human intervention, basically forever.   This
> involved a mechanical load/unload system which was fast
> enough to always have the next tape ready, in a drive, before it was
> needed.
>
> The only published example (in an appendix to Buchholz's book Project
> Stretch: Planning a Computer System, long out of print) of
> so-called set-up mode involves configuring (I hesitate to say programming)
> the streaming unit to convert Roman numerals in memory separated
> by a blank to binary, automatically stopping when a double-blank is
> reached.   Truly an amazing beast.
>
> Rumor has it that at the time of decomissioning, it was still the most
> productive machine in house, and that a key reason for decomissioning was
> that
> some of the mechanical parts of the tape system were simply worn out.   I
> imagine the almost-20-year old discrete transistor circuitry might have
> been getting difficult to maintain, as well.
>
>
> Peter G. Capek
> IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
> Yorktown Heights, NY   10598-0218
> (+1 914) 945-1250       IBM Tieline: 8-862-1250            Fax:  X 4426
>
> The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
> But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

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