Rogan Meadows has contributed elsewhere on this site about the Swindon LIne Monitoring system (see link) but has also added this "I was There" memory
I joined Morris Motors Systems Department, Cowley, Oxford, in January 1969 as a computer operator. The computer was an ICL1500, used to plan the assembly of customers car orders and produce a document set for each planned order.
In reality the computer was made by RCA in America and marketed by ICL in the UK. It was a batch processing machine with fixed discs and magnetic tape for all storage. There was a large tape library managed by a librarian. Occasionally a reel of tape was declared redundant because of the number of parts that were unreadable.
We operators were always on the lookout for some way of enlivening our existence in this air conditioned environment with its tedious periods of batch processing. Cricket and clock golf using "balls" of sticky labels and the paddles used to clean the discs, a slalom in the wheelie bin down the slope of the raised floor etc.
At some point we experimented with some redundant tape and discovered that, cut to size, it could be used as tape recorder tape on a reel to reel tape recorder/player. Great. The plant apprentice school made a jig that could be fitted onto the paper tape reader and used to split the redundant tape into three This fitted tape recorders of the day. We sold the resultant reels, including to our own manager.
Business was proceeding well until, investigating one of our periodic computer failures, our resident engineer reported to us that the failure was because the computer had overheated and switched itself off. Why? Mysteriously a piece of magnetic tape had become entangled around the processors fan. Oops - end of business.
In reality the computer was made by RCA in America and marketed by ICL in the UK. It was a batch processing machine with fixed discs and magnetic tape for all storage. There was a large tape library managed by a librarian. Occasionally a reel of tape was declared redundant because of the number of parts that were unreadable.
We operators were always on the lookout for some way of enlivening our existence in this air conditioned environment with its tedious periods of batch processing. Cricket and clock golf using "balls" of sticky labels and the paddles used to clean the discs, a slalom in the wheelie bin down the slope of the raised floor etc.
At some point we experimented with some redundant tape and discovered that, cut to size, it could be used as tape recorder tape on a reel to reel tape recorder/player. Great. The plant apprentice school made a jig that could be fitted onto the paper tape reader and used to split the redundant tape into three This fitted tape recorders of the day. We sold the resultant reels, including to our own manager.
Business was proceeding well until, investigating one of our periodic computer failures, our resident engineer reported to us that the failure was because the computer had overheated and switched itself off. Why? Mysteriously a piece of magnetic tape had become entangled around the processors fan. Oops - end of business.
I Was There - Rogan Meadows and the Early Days as a Computer Operator
