From: "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne@...>
Date: 2007-07-22T08:54:59+09:00
Subject: Re: Taking the bull by its horns [was background]

Morton Goldberg wrote:
> On Jul 21, 2007, at 12:45 AM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:
> 
>> When I worked in a 1620 shop, we had a 407 to generate the reports from
>> punched cards out of the 1620.
> 
> A 407? I used one of those to print punched card output from the 650. I 
> remember it as an early to mid 1950s accounting machine which was 
> programmed by means of huge patch panels. Wasn't a 407 a bit retro in 
> the 1620 era? I think IBM offered a some kind of real line printer for 
> the 1620, but since my company never got one, I don't remember any details.

It could attach a 1443, which had maintenance problems of its own.

Keeping the good ol' 407 made sense in the 1620 context, Even on decimal 
hardware, FORTRAN II was a kinda sucky language to do your 
accounts-payable in. And you could use a 407 as an 80/80 lister to 
desk-check your FORTRAN code before compiling--that was a very common 
practice in those days.
-- 
John W. Kennedy
"There are those who argue that everything breaks even in this old dump 
of a world of ours. I suppose these ginks who argue that way hold that 
because the rich man gets ice in the summer and the poor man gets it in 
the winter things are breaking even for both. Maybe so, but I'll swear I 
can't see it that way."
   -- The last words of Bat Masterson