Some Computer Porn for Carl....

Non-fashion, non-skirt, non-gender discussions. If your post is related to fashion, skirts or gender, please choose one of the forums above for it.
Post Reply
FranTastic444
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 569
Joined: Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:47 am
Location: Boston, MA

Some Computer Porn for Carl....

Post by FranTastic444 »

Here :-)

You do not need to have an account / login to view.
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Some Computer Porn for Carl....

Post by crfriend »

OK, good. The cat is finally out of the bag. I've known about this since October, 2018 but -- like I had to do with LCM's KI-10 [0] -- had to keep it under my hat as the thing hadn't been announced.

It's nice to see that they're publicising this one better than they did the KI.

Few things of this magnitude go undetected by me, and I knew of the presence of a couple of surviving KAs across the Pond. LCM did too; it just took a few years to make the deal work.

I know the chap in the video, as we're on happy speaking terms; I served as a second set of eyes and a source of information and ideas during the restoration of the KI and just recently did the same thing for that august machine when it was recently having problems talking to its disks. The last time I saw a KA "in the flesh" was in 1983 when I departed my first professional gig doing hardware engineering -- and now Bruce has the same privilege as I do of having worked on every single type of PDP-10 ever built by DEC (save the Jupiter, but that was stillborn).

Based on private communication, I believe the KA is vastly farther along than the video alludes to.

Thanks for the "pr0n"!


[0] Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret like that from one's beloved wife who was also a devotee of the architecture? I tell you, keeping that one quiet was tough. Her: "How did you just get down the stairs without touching a single one?" Me: "What?" Her: "You floated down those." Me: "I did?" Her: "What gives?" Me: "Can't say. I've been sworn to secrecy about it, but it does have to do with -10s." She found out about the matter later on when I was released from my vow and told her, and her reaction was one of joy and astonishment that I hadn't spilt the beans.
One of my favourite photographs I have was taken in 2013 out at LCM with me at the console of the KI before the machine was restored to running status and access to it made available on the Internet. Back then I was a bit of an unknown quantity to those in the LCM hierarchy, but was very well versed in the ways of -10s thanks to my earlier gig in the early '80s. I showed up there, somewhat expected, but decided to play it quiet for a bit, paid my admission, and wandered around the exhibit halls for a bit before asking for the senior curator by name. Ears immediately perked up, and he came out to greet me -- and, I suspect, immediately perceived me as a charlatan. However, I was able to get some "hands in" time on the KI -- in the presence of the chap in the video -- and once I approached the magnificent front-panel all doubt vanished. There are a shed-load of funny anecdotes about that trip, and the work that later ensued, but the work I did as "a second pair of eyes" in late 2013 likely turned me from a very, very dark place into a much lighter one.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
Post Reply