🚀 go-pugleaf

In the past few weeks there have been a number of articles
with information about the early IBM computers. I get the 
impression that some  of the people who have posted these
articles are not aware of a very interesting book entitled
"IBM's Early Computers" by Basche, Johnson, Palmer, and Pugh.
It is published by the MIT Press.  When it was published in
1986 I stated that it was the best book that I had seen in
the area of the History of Computing.  It answers many, though
certainly not all, of the questions raised about the early
IBM computers in this newsgroup.

On another topic, I too had a number of interesting expereiences
with the IBM 650.  I was alone with the machine on Friday night
and wanted to shut it down for the weekend.  There was a stuck relay
that kept the automatic shutdown sequence from functioning.  It
would not shut itself off gracefully, and I did not want to leave
it on by itself  all weekend.  I finally gave up and hit the 
emergency off button.  It certainly went off with a bang.  I
don't remember if we needed a new drum.  I do remember that it was
a belt-driven drum, and the sudden stop broke the belt which went
flailing around the innards of the machine and destroyed a number
of vacuum tubes before it came to rest.  I didn't know any of this
when I left, but needless to say the machine did not work on Monday,
nor on Tuesday either if I remember correctly.

Saul Rosen (s...@babbage.cs.purdue.edu)