Tom Lyon ✅
Basement floor plan for the Computer Center built in 1969 to house Princeton's IBM 360/91. I worked in the room labeled "clinic". Despite my 4 years in the Computer Center, I never entered the main computer room. #ClosedShop The building at 87 Prospect was recently demolished to make way for huge new engineering buildings. #ComputerHistory
Feb 25, 2024 at 8:11pmWeb
Show threadPaolo AmorosoFeb 25, 2024
@aka_pugs It looks like the "clinic" room was conveniently close to the vending machines.
Show threadTom Lyon ✅Feb 25, 2024
@amoroso "TastyKake Butterscotch Krimpets" - late night fuel.
Show threadKarl AuerbachFeb 25, 2024

@aka_pugs The UCLA 360/91 was in a glass enclosed room - it was quite visible from several sides.

Did your 91 have one of those infamous "data cell" devices that had "strip crashes"?

(I worked and learned programming on our IBM 7094 a few steps - across the UCLA reacto - away.)

Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 25, 2024
@karlauerbach @aka_pugs I don't recall that during my time dealing with CCN. The 91 machine room was blocked off by the card reader area for submitting jobs and the bins for output. There was a door around the back (always sealed) that had a little window in it, but other than that the only times I recall the machine room being visible (other than when I was actually in it) was watching activity in and out of the main door.
Show threadKarl AuerbachFeb 25, 2024

@lauren @aka_pugs My memory is that the largest windows for the UCLA 91 were the ones facing outside - many of the peripherals, including the data cell, were right along those windows.

I was in the '91 room a few times - but I can not remember why.

Our 7094 was buried deep in the building - next door to the Sigma 7 and IMP #1.

(The most intriguing computer room I was ever in was our collection of Crays and the aging CDC 7600 for the Magnetic Confinement Fusion project I worked on at the Livermore Labs. I really loved watching the robotic tape library. For some reason they didn't stop people from getting stuck in the center of the Cray 2 - there really was space only for very thin people.) It was spooky, however, to realize that only a few dozen yards away was giant ball of super hot plasma the size of a truck, bouncing back-and-forth.

Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 25, 2024
@karlauerbach @aka_pugs Oh yeah, I thought you meant inside windows. There was a row facing outside but as I recall that was an empty area above ground level and there was no easy way to just walk by and look in. The UCLA-SECURITY 11/70, peripherals including the Votrax and the touch tone modem that I used for my "Touch Tone UNIX" project, etc. all came from LLL, from the decommissioned RATS project as I recall.
Show threadLauren WeinsteinFeb 25, 2024
@karlauerbach @aka_pugs I'm pretty sure that next door room (that is, next to ARPA 3514(?), became the DOE Brain Computer Interface Project while I was around, separated by a plastic folding partition door from the ARPA room, a partition that I think I only saw opened once.
Show threadTom Lyon ✅Feb 25, 2024
@karlauerbach I think Princeton avoided the data cells.
Show threadSteve BellovinFeb 25, 2024
@karlauerbach @aka_pugs Ours did! (The Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_cell, doesn't do it peculiarities justice. Maybe I'll write a longer post.)
IBM 2321 Data Cell - Wikipedia

Show threadTimFeb 26, 2024

@aka_pugs @brouhaha Coooooool. I never went in that building while I was there. 99% of my time was at Forrestal campus.

Always neat to hear about history like this.