🚀 go-pugleaf

> The successor to the data cell was the 3850 Mass Storage System (MSS).
> The MSS contained a honeycomb structure filled with spools of tape
> in containers that look for all the world like beer cans. A "truck"
> would run around over the honeycomb, pick the right spool and mount it 
> on a read/write mechanism, which "staged" the data onto a 3330 disk.
> These suckers aren't sold anymore, but I'll bet someone still has one
> in service.

In 1979, when I was an Explorer Sprout at the Gaithersbug IBM Federal
Systems Division, we saw (and used) one of these things.  The systems guy
who was our chaperone said that the MSS was prone to dropping spools on the
floor of the unit, and CEs would draw straws to determine who got to fetch
them.  (Surely they had an "off-line" switch?)

The MSS had two arms.  In its early days, bugs in the controller software
reportedly would allow the arms to collide.


[SPF -- feh!]

-- 
Landon Dyer (lan...@apple.com)  :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: making the merry-go-round SPIN FASTER
Apple Computer, Inc.            :: so that everyone has to HOLD ON TIGHTER
NOT THE VIEWS OF APPLE COMPUTER :: just to keep from being THROWN TO THE WOLVES