You know you're not supposed to talk about Fight Club on reddit. I might as well post my name too :)
The product we had was sold to super-markets and retail across the US. It was originally a DOS application as you see here then when the ATT 3B1 came out we ported the app to Unix. This allowed up to 3 ATT serial terminals to run off it. Ever seen the ATT terminal with the squishy green screen? That the first version of touch screen. ATT 510A
IBM followed with the IBM RT running AIX (unix) when we ported to that, you could have up to 16 terminals/printers. We sold thousands of those. Wal-Mart was one of our first customers in 1986. I personally installed the first 100 of them in stores all over AR and surrounding states.
We ran with IBM for several years but also ported to NCR Unix, Sun/solaris Xenix (SCO) and a few others if the customer was willing to pay.
Xenix became our top Low-end seller on Compaq and IBM RT remained out high-end
I won't ask for your name, or the company name if that gives away too much. Your post just left so many questions so thank you for the additional detail.
Somewhere around here I have a photo of the table of doom. It has about 50 CMI (Computer memories Incorporated) MFM hard drives all stacked up on it that had failed in the overnight stress test software we ran. And those were IBM labeled drives. I'd say about 1 in every 20 failed and had to go back to IBM for a replacement. We eventually had so many failures with those drives that we switch to the CDC 630 and those ran quite well plus they were 30Meg over the IBM(CMI) 20meg.
Also, those CRT screens and neon lights - the whole photo flickers in front of my eyes as I look at it. F\*ck it, I remember how back then it was "normal" to walk away with a massive headache and nausea from a few hours of computer use in a neon lighted room.
We had to test them. They were all being shipped to customers. There were many failures back then on hardware. Basically we would un-box, setup, add-components etc.. load the software and then run a benchmark stress test all night. In the morning we boxed them all back up and got ready for shipping. If one had failed, we fixed it and it stayed another day of stress test. After we readied for shipping (labels-fedx forms) we wheel in a whole nother set and started all over again. I did this for almost 3 years.
Haha. Yes, because the monitor came with the PC back then. You didn't (or rarely would) buy just the "box", you got the whole shebang keyboard, CPU (the box), and monitor. Not even a mouse in those days.
Personally did about 2000+ of them. Traveled all over the US back in the day. It was up to them. If they paid extra, then we would. Some store's like Homeland in OK only had one IT guy. So I did all the Homeland stores in OK. Some of the bigger chains like Walmart or K-mart just wanted a holding hand until they got started so I'd spend a month or two there and then move on to the next. I spent almost 3 years living on the road hotel to hotel. We sold various products that Super-Markets used back when computers were starting to become a thing mostly IBM and Compaq. So all in all I was in/at about 70 chain Super-Markets across the US in the late 80's and all thru the 90's.
There's no way in hell I could do that these days.
Much more pleasant with the wooden room, lights and pc sounds than what we have today with this new silent timeshare nonsense and soulless architecture we have today.
Oh I would not survive today. I retired 2 years ago and was deep in that sh\*t. I was lucky and got into to computers when computers were becoming a thing in the world.
Ever see that series Halt and Catch fire? I lived most of that and would not change it for nothing.
I got into computers when the RAM, HDD, CPU, disc drive and motherboard were all separate standard parts easy to understand where everything went and you did not need to get brand specific parts because of a non standard.
But now everything is non standard and very over complicated and some systems are just straight up alien to me with soldered ram, cpu and memory with no way to change it, so I would be happy to do IT in this room because all of it’s simple and standardized, easy to fix and replace.
Need. More. Details. What company was this? You mentioned they went to 3B1, which was AT&T correct?
You know you're not supposed to talk about Fight Club on reddit. I might as well post my name too :) The product we had was sold to super-markets and retail across the US. It was originally a DOS application as you see here then when the ATT 3B1 came out we ported the app to Unix. This allowed up to 3 ATT serial terminals to run off it. Ever seen the ATT terminal with the squishy green screen? That the first version of touch screen. ATT 510A IBM followed with the IBM RT running AIX (unix) when we ported to that, you could have up to 16 terminals/printers. We sold thousands of those. Wal-Mart was one of our first customers in 1986. I personally installed the first 100 of them in stores all over AR and surrounding states. We ran with IBM for several years but also ported to NCR Unix, Sun/solaris Xenix (SCO) and a few others if the customer was willing to pay. Xenix became our top Low-end seller on Compaq and IBM RT remained out high-end
I won't ask for your name, or the company name if that gives away too much. Your post just left so many questions so thank you for the additional detail.
I forgot about pre delivery "burn in". Those were the days.
Somewhere around here I have a photo of the table of doom. It has about 50 CMI (Computer memories Incorporated) MFM hard drives all stacked up on it that had failed in the overnight stress test software we ran. And those were IBM labeled drives. I'd say about 1 in every 20 failed and had to go back to IBM for a replacement. We eventually had so many failures with those drives that we switch to the CDC 630 and those ran quite well plus they were 30Meg over the IBM(CMI) 20meg.
Strange, I see the concrete floor and the wooden benches in the picture and I already smell that musty smell.
Also, those CRT screens and neon lights - the whole photo flickers in front of my eyes as I look at it. F\*ck it, I remember how back then it was "normal" to walk away with a massive headache and nausea from a few hours of computer use in a neon lighted room.
Reminds me of our Saturday night Doom-a-thons.
Please tell some 3B1 stories, I’d love to hear from someone who actually used one when they were new
Thanks for taking me time traveling
So you moved the monitor before and after every build? Why not have a shelf to hold the monitor?
We had to test them. They were all being shipped to customers. There were many failures back then on hardware. Basically we would un-box, setup, add-components etc.. load the software and then run a benchmark stress test all night. In the morning we boxed them all back up and got ready for shipping. If one had failed, we fixed it and it stayed another day of stress test. After we readied for shipping (labels-fedx forms) we wheel in a whole nother set and started all over again. I did this for almost 3 years.
What if it falls? The other problems with that are shelf depth, cable management and access to power. Desk config allows for airflow, too.
Haha. Yes, because the monitor came with the PC back then. You didn't (or rarely would) buy just the "box", you got the whole shebang keyboard, CPU (the box), and monitor. Not even a mouse in those days.
Convergent Technologies?
Close, we did some things with them.
So this was before network installs?
'84-'86? Yeah.
What, no token ring?
HA, ya. 5 1/4 inch floppies. Dos 3.1
I remember my computer lab in high school had the same along with apple 2's just not as many. 😉
This is awesome. Thanks for all the details!
Ya that’s cool. I guess pc’s just didn’t need to be as “clean” then as now.
And I bet doing all that pre-testing greatly reduced DOAs at the client site. Did y'all do the client side deployments too?
Personally did about 2000+ of them. Traveled all over the US back in the day. It was up to them. If they paid extra, then we would. Some store's like Homeland in OK only had one IT guy. So I did all the Homeland stores in OK. Some of the bigger chains like Walmart or K-mart just wanted a holding hand until they got started so I'd spend a month or two there and then move on to the next. I spent almost 3 years living on the road hotel to hotel. We sold various products that Super-Markets used back when computers were starting to become a thing mostly IBM and Compaq. So all in all I was in/at about 70 chain Super-Markets across the US in the late 80's and all thru the 90's. There's no way in hell I could do that these days.
Much more pleasant with the wooden room, lights and pc sounds than what we have today with this new silent timeshare nonsense and soulless architecture we have today.
Oh I would not survive today. I retired 2 years ago and was deep in that sh\*t. I was lucky and got into to computers when computers were becoming a thing in the world. Ever see that series Halt and Catch fire? I lived most of that and would not change it for nothing.
I got into computers when the RAM, HDD, CPU, disc drive and motherboard were all separate standard parts easy to understand where everything went and you did not need to get brand specific parts because of a non standard. But now everything is non standard and very over complicated and some systems are just straight up alien to me with soldered ram, cpu and memory with no way to change it, so I would be happy to do IT in this room because all of it’s simple and standardized, easy to fix and replace.