🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <10...@milton.acs.washington.edu> fet...@milton.acs.washington.edu (David Fetrow) writes:
>
>  In 1978 I was nearing graduation from High School and my Dad was trying to talk
>me into the Air Force (BOTH my parents were Air Force).
>
> Anyway; he knew I was computer crazy so he wrangled permission to let me see the
>big computer that did the air traffic in the Pacific NorthWest, in the hopes that
>I'd be more interested in the Air Force afterwards.

Oh God, was that the machine at McChord Air Force Base?  I took a tour of it,
yes a tour of it in '80.  It was truly remarkable.  There was a real
blinkinlights panel, and miles upon miles of corridors full of tubes.

The sergeant who showed me around claimed (proudly) that they were going
solid state.  With tube emulators.  The storage devices were drums slightly
smaller than the 55 gal. oil ones ("travel at 90 miles an hour"). The amazing
thing was the speed.  They claimed that the computer was so fast it could do
an addition in less than 1/1000th of a second and find a number in memory in
less than 1/800th. 

I aksed about cooling and was told that the big building next to the computer
building, the one about the same size, was the air conditioner.  If it and its
backups failed there was approximately a 10 minute grace period before the
machine melted.  I can believe that they paid for the replacement with a 
year's worth of air conditioning.  I think they could have done it just
selling the gold and copper at scrap prices.