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Computer Conservation Society Issue Number 76 Winter 2016/7 Computer Conservation Society Aims and objectives The Computer Conservation Society (CCS) is a co-operative venture between BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT; the Science Museum of London; and the Museum of Science and Industry (MSI) in Manchester. The CCS was constituted in September 1989 as a Specialist Group of the British Computer Society. It is thus covered by the Royal Charter and charitable status of BCS. The aims of the CCS are: To promote the conservation of historic computers and to identify existing computers which may need to be archived in the future, To develop awareness of the importance of historic computers, To develop expertise in the conservation and restoration of historic computers, To represent the interests of Computer Conservation Society members with other bodies, To promote the study of historic computers, their use and the history of the computer industry, To publish information of relevance to these objectives for the information of Computer Conservation Society members and the wider public. Membership is open to anyone interested in computer conservation and the history of computing. The CCS is funded and supported by voluntary subscriptions from members, a grant from BCS, fees from corporate membership, donations and by the free use of the facilities of our founding museums. Some charges may be made for publications and attendance at seminars and conferences. There are a number of active projects on specific computer restorations and early computer technologies and software. Younger people are especially encouraged to take part in order to achieve skills transfer. The CCS also enjoys a close relationship with the National Museum of Computing. Resurrection The Journal of the Computer Conservation Society ISSN 0958-7403 Number 76 Winter 2016/7 Contents Society Activity 2 News Round-Up 9 God Save the King 11 An Early Musical Program on the Ferranti Mark 1 David Link Cleaning the Elliott 401 Computer 17 Dominique Russell Dennis Blackwell — a Life 20 Susan Colley A Chilton Atlas Ghost Story 22 Chrissy Norris Tony Sale Award 2016 23 Martin Campbell-Kelly and others Book Review : Archaeology of Algorithmic Artefacts 25 Doron Swade 50 Years Ago …. From the Pages of Computer Weekly 27 Brian Aldous Forthcoming Events 32 Society Activity EDSAC Replica — Andrew Herbert We continue to progress step-by-step through systems integration. We have demonstrated main control successfully going through the order fetch / decode / execute cycle with the arithmetic unit. The coincidence and store access circuits remain in place and commissioned: they will be integrated with main control once it has been shown to be fully functional. The arithmetic unit is in Cambridge ready for transfer for TNMoC. It is substantially complete, undergoing final testing of the corner cases of the multiplication circuits. After a long period of experimentation we have arrived at a solution for driving the nickel delay line stores from the storage recirculation units that would seem to give us reasonable operating characteristics — the main issue has been improving the signal to noise ratio on the output from the delay line back to the regeneration unit to minimise breakthrough from the input side. We have some suspicion our decision to put an isolated 0V rail on every chassis may well be exacerbating our problems, and of course our EDSAC lives in an electrically noisier environment than its predecessor. Ducting and 1.5km of cabling has been installed to connect the delay lines to the recirculation units. Next steps are to continue with the systems integration, design and build the the initial orders loading system, complete the input-output system and devices, build an operator’s desk and design and build a clock monitor. David Allen, David Hartley and I have visited another lady EDSAC operator to gather more information on what it was like to work with EDSAC in the early days and some of the associated personalities. ICL 2966 — Delwyn Holroyd The system continues to operate reliably. The only problems worth noting have been ongoing issues with the EHT power supplies of the two 7181 VDUs, which are caused by the crimped internal connections. Whilst the terminals are both still serviceable, some more work will be required in the near future. 2 Resurrection Winter 2016/7 Our Computer Heritage — Simon Lavington OCH contains the beginnings of a write-up of the Modular One computer — see: www.ourcomputerheritage.org/Modular_One_Version_1.pdf. We now need a volunteer who is interested in adding material to this section about the Modular One’s register-level architecture, instruction set, etc. Anyone with fond memories of a Modular One and an interest in writing technical descriptions is asked to get in touch with Simon Lavington. Bombe Rebuild — John Harper We started the Bombe Rebuild Project over 20 years ago and have had it fully working and have regularly demonstrated it for almost ten years. It is now time to consider succession planning. Many of the original team are ‘not as young as they were’ and it is time to develop the team with younger blood. Therefore we are looking for new recruits. When we say younger; it might be unrealistic to consider, but not rule out, those in work with younger families and other personal commitments: so likely candidates would be in their mid to late 50s, retired with a personal income, with basic professional engineering background but also with a ‘hands on’ experience and a talent to make things work without a significant support network. Electro-mechanical skills would be most appropriate but this should not rule out other backgrounds. If you are interested please contact me using my details shown elsewhere in Resurrection. Appeal for Help The National Railway Museum is researching Total Operations Processing System (usually known as TOPS) the 1970s IBM 370 computer system for keeping track of British Railways’ rolling stock. Were you a TOPS developer or user? Did you write TOPSTRANS software for British Railways, or help implement the scheme on the ground? Do you have knowledge of the pre-history of TOPS in the USA and its origins in IBM and Southern Pacific Railroads? Are you familiar with the origins of the IBM software in the US defence sector (SAGE)? If so, [email protected] or [email protected] would be keen to hear from you. Further details at www.computerconservationsociety.org/news/tops.pdf. Resurrection Winter 2016/7 3 ICT/ICL 1900 – Delwyn Holroyd, Brian Spoor, Bill Gallagher MAXIMOP A new issue tape has been created for version 6A using source recovered over the last couple of years from the MGS binary system. A clean install, compiling from this tape, binary compares with the MGS binary. We know there are potential source errors still in the source (absolute addresses instead of labels, etc.) so that different configurations to MGS give problems. A lot of these errors have been cleared during the create process, but it would be unrealistic to hope that they have all been corrected. A lot of testing now required. PF56 Emulator The CPU module appears to be working, as does the EDS30/60 module. Disc DCPs and OLTs can be loaded and run. The DDE module (1900 interface) still has to be completed. Work has been paused in favour of the 7930 scanner implementation for the 1904S emulator, which will also be used for the PF56 communications module. It is easier to debug the 7930 against a 1900 Executive for which we have a compilation listing rather than the binary only EZ5A communications DCP. Some useful information was obtained at the Punch Card Reunion at Stevenage in October, where the main topic was the PF56. 1904S Emulator Running reliably, current work is to add a 7930 Scanner (see above). This is proving frustrating due to lack of documentation, but seems to work with teletypes and 7020 RJE terminals under E6RM, but fails miserably under GEORGE 3. 1905 Emulator The 1974 magnetic tape rewind/unload problem has been resolved. 1901A Emulator On long term hold, works with E1HS, but fails with E1DS fixed, overlays missing. GEORGE 2+ Further work is required on bug clearance, but a basic system is running. It is nowhere near release standard yet. E6RM We are running Executives created from the ‘cleaned’ source, but have identified further ELWRO updates which will need to be removed. 4 Resurrection Winter 2016/7 EWG3 Testing of the 7930 Scanner has led to the discovery of ELWRO amendments which need to be investigated and removed. Documentation Building of a database of available programs continues. We have also written several short manuals on various utilities for which no documentation appears to exist, having ascertained a way to drive them (correctly or not) out of necessity. We already have copies of the most common 1900 manuals, so it’s unusual to come across new ones. This month copies of Care and Handling of Recording Media and 1901 Console Operating (without Console Typewriter) were donated to TNMoC, the latter an ICT first edition from 1966. Argus 700/Bloodhound — Peter Harry We welcomed CCS members to RAF Cosford on September 24th for a visit that included a presentation on restoring our Argus 700 and to see the computer in use as part of the Bloodhound missile simulator. The simulator, part of the UK’s cold war heritage, is the focus of our restoration work, it just happens to use Ferranti’s Argus 700. CCS members could see at first hand the work undertaken to restore the Argus 700 in what can be described as basic facilities. During the presentation, a brief explanation was given regarding one of the main obstacles overcome, replacement of the Argus 700’s obsolete disc drives.
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