This page features artifacts in The Computer Garage which are not computers themselves, but have a strong historical relationship to the items in the collection or to the period in the computer industry that we try to represent in the collection.
All images and video clips herein are Copyright © 1996,1997,1998,1999 James Willing except where superceded by previous existing copyright.
Click on any picture to view/download a larger image (apx. 640x480)
'IBM' 80 Column Punch Card
What other choice could there be for the first item on this page?
The once ubiquitous 'IBM' card. Also known as 'Hollerith cards', 'punch cards', 'unit-record cards', and a host of other names. This most familiar of the various cards holds 80 characters of data, and can trace it's history back to the earliest days of programmed machine control.
Many examples of punch cards displayed the logo of the company that manufactured them and the equipment they were used in. This example displays an early IBM logo.
While many may consider the punch card to be truly one of the most obsolete items in the collection, I should point out that I am personally aware of some applications that continued to use the 80 column punch cards as recently as 1995!
Even today you can still find various forms of punch cards in use. Have you taken a close look at a voting ballot recently??? Here are some additional examples:
IBM 96 Column Punch Card
Introduced as the new card format for the IBM System 3 computer system, and also appeared in IBM built ATM machines as the receipts!
The first image shows a card with the standard character set punched into it, while the second shows two of the cards next to a standard 80 column card for comparison.
This card was also referred to as the "Crackerbox" card by some due to it's size and shape.
Core Memory
The first non-volitile random access storage medium. Shown are two examples of different core configurations.
Core memory was commonly manufactured by hand due to the extremely small size of the individual cores. Core memory was still in fairly common use until the mid-1970s.
8 inch floppy disk(ette)
The 8 inch floppy disk(ette). 241kb of storage in the 'Single Density Single Sided' configuration, upto about 1.6Mb in the 'Extended Density Double Sided' configuration.
While this became the most common storage medium in the early days of the minicomputer and microcomputer, it was not originally designed as a general-purpose storage medium. Originally, it was designed for loading of microcode in the IBM 370 mainframe computer, could not be written to by the user, and only held about 91kb of data.
8 level paper tape
Another common storage medium from the early days. Pretty much unlimited storage at least until you hit the end of the roll. Apx. 10 bytes per inch in density. If you purchased an early copy of MITS (Microsoft) BASIC for the Altair microcomputer, this is the media that you received! Software was commonly distributed on paper tape.
Many people got their first introduction to using computers by preparing their programs 'offline' by punching them into paper tape with a teletype in order to reduce the amount of time that you actually spent connected to the host computer. Important since at that time (prior to the appearance of the microcomputer) computer time was billed by the minute! (in most cases... other billing methods existed as well)
This particular example is a memory diagnostic for the PDP-8/i minicomputer in the collection.
A Grace Hopper 'Nanosecond'
(pictures and details to follow)
Yep... really! Received from another collector who received it from then Captain Hopper during a lecture she was presenting on New Mexico.
Untold numbers of these were passed out over the years. Physically, a ten inch piece of telephone wire to illustrate the distance that electricity travels in one nano-second, but also an indelible symbol of the woman who gave so much to modern computing.
Apple Computer "Twiggy" disk for the Lisa Computer
Yet another early innovative(?) idea from the folks at Apple...
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission book: Computers
Who says you never get anything worthwhile from the government? This 1966 publication of the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) was available at no charge, and contains a brief history of computers, as well as a look at the design and workings of contemporary (for the time) computers, as well as some ideas on what the future might bring in computing.
Questions could also be found throughout the book, useful for self-study or in the classroom, and an answer key was found in the back. Also included was a list of recommended books and motion pictures for further study.
The picture on the cover depicted an IBM computer engaged in a chess match with an unidentified person. The book goes on to note that the picture was from the 1960 motion picture "Thinking Machines", and that the computer eventually lost the match.
Curiously, this book was part of a series of publications entitled 'Understanding the Atom', and other books in the series addressed such topics as Cyrogenics, Lasers, and Nuclear Clocks.
Bell Labs 'CARDIAC' Computer Trainer
(pictures and details to follow)
An educational trainer from Bell Labs.
'CALCULO' Analog Computer Kit
Introduced: 1959
Price at Introduction: $??.00
An educational trainer from 'The Science Materials Center', which is identified as a 'division of the Library of Science' in New York. Copyrighted in 1959.
CMI Model 6426-S Hard Disk Drive
Introduced: 19??
Price at Introduction: $????.00
So... what is so significant about this particular drive?
This is the item that almost single-handedly ruined IBM early in the Personal Computer age.
CMI was the only company at the time that could produce a drive that would meet the then almost unimaginable specifications for seek time that IBM had required for a hard drive for their new (at the time) IBM 'AT' computer.
The drive was fast alright, but had a hidden flaw... The drive gained its speed by using a rotary actuator to move the heads rather than the more traditional stepper motor. This required that a 'servo' track be written on one of the disk platters to provide the information that the drive logic used to center the heads on the selected track.
What quickly became apparent soon after the computer went in to production, was that the drives had a operational life of about three months! A flaw in the drive circuitry gradually erased the servo track, causing the drive to be unable to position the heads accurately which either began to corrupt data, or one day the drive would just refuse to function.
Frantic (and very expensive) efforts were made to do 'damage control' on the situation, and IBM replaced thousands of these drives only to see the replacements start to fail as well. This whole fiasco severly damaged the reputation of both IBM and the 'AT' computer, and it was some time before either fully recovered.
Nearly all of the CMI drives were eventually recalled and replaced, (with drives from a different manufacturer and somewhat relaxed specifications) and the entire lot of drives were eventually thrown on a barge and dumped in the ocean off of the Florida coast in order to create a foundation for a new submerged reef.
Commodore Adding Machine
For those who thought Commodore just appeared one day and invented the 'PET'. We should recall that the full name of the company was "Commodore Business Machines", and they made many other things, this included.
CompuTron
Introduced: 1988
Price at Introduction: $??.00
Details to follow... (I don't know what it does yet)
Cromemco Products I/O Map
All of those I/O addresses available, and people always managed to pick the same few...
So... Cromemco published this map of I/O addresses used by their products. A comparative stroke of genius for the time!
Cromemco Fortran Programmers Template
A must have for all true Fortran heads!
Digital Equipment Corp. DECtapes
The original magnetic storage medium for the PDP series of minicomputer.
Each reel of 1 inch wide tape stored about 256k of information in a file structured format. These were often the primary (or only) mass storage device on many of the early DEC systems.
The first three on the top row show the changes in the labeling over the years, while the reel with the green label is a 'LINCtape'. Identical in nearly all respects to the DECtapes, the 'LINCtape' was used on the LINC variants of the PDP line and the LINCtape drives ran in the opposite direction from the DECtape drives.
On the lower row is a tape from a PDP based typesetting system, and the other tape is a 'Scotch' (3M) branded tape. At one time, DECtape compatable products were avilable from most of the major manufacturers of magnetic media.
"Elexi" chip wafer
An artifact from the last of Gene Amdahl's computer projects, the "Elexi".
The exact function of the dies on this wafer is not known, but I suspect due to the symmetrical shape of the dies it was a memory chip of some sort.
Explorer Post 876 badge
Explorer post badge from the early 1970's. This 'hi-tech' post was sponsored by Tektronix
E.S.R. Inc. Digi-Comp 1 Digital Computer
Introduced: ??? 1963
Price at Introduction: $6.00
Standard Memory: 3 bits
The "First Real Operating Digital Computer in Plastic" - slogan found on the box, manuals, and advertising literature.
I had one of these once upon a time, lost it, and it has taken years to get one again. This time around however it ended up costing a good deal more than the original price of $6.00
Plus, the dilemma... This unit has never been assembled. To build, or not to build?
The additional images are from the advertising literature included with the unit. Shown in addition to the Digi-Comp 1, are the Digi-Comp 2, Dr. Nim, and Think-A-Dot.
E.S.R. Inc. 'Dr. Nim'
Introduced: ??? 1963
Price at Introduction: $3.50
Standard Memory: 4 bits (kind of)
From the people that brought up the Digi-Comp 1. Dr. Nim plays the game of NIM.
A classic game played commonly with 15 sticks. Two players have the choice of taking one, two, or three sticks from the pile at each turn. The player who gets the last stick loses.
Dr. Nim plays the same game, only with marbles. Either player can start, and Dr. Nim rarely loses!
Another example of computer programming logic realized in plastic. Dr. Nim is also capable of playing a number of variations on the game, and is equally difficult to beat in all of them.
Friden 'Automatic Calculator'
From the folks who eventually brought us the 'FlexiWriter'...
General Electric Computer Systems 10 year Medallion
(pictures and details to follow)
Yes, at one time or another almost every major corporation that dealt with electronics took a shot at the computer business... This medallion was issued for the 10th anniversary (in 1967) of the General Electronics Infomation Systems Division manufacturing facillity in Phoenix Arizona.
General Robotics RB5X Bumper Sticker
Many a computer has come and gone in the nearly 20 years since this was printed, but the RB5X robot is still manufactured and sold today!
Hasbro 'Think-A-Tron' toy computer
This is a cute one. Decks of minature punch cards with yes/no and multiple choice questions. To play, you read the question printed on the card, try to determine the answer, and then place the card in the computer which will then display the correct answer on the light grid in the center of the unit.
(I'll have to get some pictures of it in action)
Heathkit HERO-1 'License Plate'
Circa 1982
A creation of the Heath User's Group, this artifact shows a line drawing of the Heath HERO-1 robot.
IBM Carriage Control Tape Punch
In the days of the electronic tabluating machine and early computers, form control on the printers and output devices were provided by loops of punched tape. This example is an IBM punch for printers and tabulators.
The inch and a half wide tape loops had 12 'channels' where a punched location indicated the position for the paper feed to stop. A printer command known as a 'channel skip' was used to select the tape channel to slew to. This method did have the disadvantage that if you were to issue a 'channel skip' on a channel that had no punch in it, you could quickly find that you had emptyed an entire case of printer paper onto the floor!
IBM Programmers Flowcharting Template
Everyone had one of these! (once upon a time)
Kilobaud Magazine Window Sticker
MITS 'Altair' Store photos
Photos from the Seattle, Washington MITS 'Altair' Computer Store
O.M.S.I. 1st Annual Computer Fair Flyer
From around 1979 I believe... When there was still more interest there in education than in 'infotainment'...
Paper Tape splicing block and alignment check unit
After all... Paper tape will tear if you abuse it!
This unit will handle 5, 6, 7, and 8 level tapes. The second and third images are the instruction sheet that came with the unit.
Remco 'Robot Commando'
Introduced: ???
Price at Introduction: $??.00
Ok, while not really a 'computer', he's cool! Robotics have always been closely aligned with the concept of the computer both in real-life and science fiction, and the 'Robot Commando' falls into the 'military fighting robot' toy catagory.
Operated from a tethered remote, the 'Robot Commando' can move in forward and reverse, turn, throw plastic balls from each arm, and fire a missle from a launcher under the hatch atop the head. And his eyes spin whend he's running.
This example is missing the remote and some other various parts, but is another example of an item that I had once upon a time and lost. This unit was the first one I came across that I could afford. Robot toys have become quite collectable.
TAB Products Plug Board for IBM model 85 Collator
In the days of 'Unit Record' equipment, you 'plugged up' your programs, and the card just contained data. Various machines were available for various functions, and the plug boards varied in size and complexity depending on the application
Tektronix 'Bug' and Wizard images
Hard copies of some familiar images from early Tektronix vector terminal demo tapes...
Tektronix Model 230 'Digital Unit'
Introduced: 1967
Price at Introduction: $2,850.00
While not specifically a computer item in itself, it has some significance to me due to it's appearance in one of the seminal computer cinema features from early in my life: "Colossus: The Forbin Project". (Released in 1969 - for details on the movie, see the "Computers in the media" section)
The 230 'Digital Unit' (so I am told) worked in conjunction with a Tektronix Type 568 oscilloscope, and generated digitized measurement data from the 'scope in BCD format which could be fed to an attached data logger or similar peripherals.
The unit was apparently still in production in 1971 as it appeared in the Tek catalog for that year, but I'm unsure beyond that.
Teletype Corp. ASCII Reference Card and Paper Tape Decoder
With handy phone numbers and addresses on the front side as well...
Technical Design Labs (TDL) ASCII and S-100/Altair bus Reference Card
(pictures and details to follow)
Or as they preferred to phrase it, "ZPU Card Bus Signal List"...
Tomy 'Armatron'
Introduced: ???
Price at Introduction: $??.00
Ok, while not really a 'computer', and originally presented as a game more than a robotics toy, robotics have always been closely aligned with the concept of the computer both in real-life and science fiction. So, the Armatron gets a place in the collection.
Actually quite an impressive gadget when you look at it. Operated from a pair of joysticks, you have variable speed control over many functions. Arm pivot and tilt, Wrist roll and tilt, and Gripper open/close.
UNIVAC Core Memory Plane
I only wish someone had managed to save the machine that this artifact once resided in...
This particular piece was found in a bin in a local electronics surplus store. There was no sign of any other identifiable parts of the system that it came from.
Various BBS reference and "business" cards
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"? Well, for some of these, we'll let you be the judge. Let's just say that amazingly soon after we started giving out our cards at the early computer faires, there seemed to be a curious run on print shops all over the place...
Look closely, and you will find the card from the man that started it all in the BBS revolution!
Wang 'LOCI 2' Program Card
(pictures and details to follow)
West Coast Computer Faire Admission Badges
Jim Warren's annual event in San Francisco became the required pilgrimage for all serious hackers of the day! More important things were announced or introduced there (the Apple II for example) than almost anywhere else in its day...
I made it to the first eight of them before finally missing one... I think it was along the same time that the event was sold off to some corporation that went forward with it. Was never quite the same...
And Mr. Warren was always easy to find (at least as the first few). He was the only person on the show floor zipping around on roller skates!
...And then there was the time that he banished no less a company than IBM into the catacombs under the arena for submitting their application late, and then kvetching (trying to be polite here) when they did not get the 'prime location' that they were convinced that they deserved... Boy, did they live to regret that one!
1st West Coast Computer Faire Show Program
(details to follow)
Westinghouse 'Mr. Robot' Pin
From the Westinghouse booth at the 1939 World's Fair, a pin commemorating the "Houseservant of the Future"! Or at least Westinghouse's vision of it.
So... we're still waiting!